Due to living in a part of Europe in which the supply of products from FFG is the stuff of fairy tales and legends I'm looking at doing a Rebel build that does not involve the Starhawk or Agate. I had in mind a double big ship build that uses Raddus to drop in a kitted out MC75 that in turn drops bombers after it has shot a target to **** and back.

To that end I have the following as a base. What are peoples' thoughts?

MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• Flight Commander (3)
• Weapons Battery Techs (5)
• Rapid Launch Bays (6)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Overload Pulse (8)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• Aspiration (3)
= 142 Points

MC80 Star Cruiser (96)
• Admiral Raddus (26)
• Ray Antilles (7)
• Weapons Battery Techs (5)
• Fighter Coordination Team (3)
• SW-7 Ion Batteries (5)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• XX-9 Turbolasers (5)
• Mon Karren (8)
= 161 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Leia Organa (3)
= 21 Points

Squadrons:
• 2 x B-wing Squadron (28)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Shara Bey (17)
• Gold Squadron (12)
= 73 Points

Total Points: 397

I'm not totally sold on the MC80 and can see reasoning for dropping it in favour of a faster MC30 and say a couple of YT-2400s to allow more options on the MC75 drop in turn 2 and also better handle enemy squadrons.

I can see a couple of issues. The first is Intel. There's a risk you will be dropping in and your B Wings will immediately be tied up by enemy fighters and so won't be able to go bombing. You really need a source of intel if you are relying on them doing any heavy lifting in your battle.

The other is your dice reroll options are limited to WBT. Leading shots is pretty much mandatory for larger ships who want to improve their damage potential.

I considered the 2 B wings and Gold to be a drop-in turn bonus on what the 75 does so was not overly worried about them getting tied up after their initial bombing run. I've not seen many rebel lists advocate the use of Jan Ors or basic HWKs so figured Intel was not really a thing for us.

As to Leading Shots. The MC75 does not have Leading shots because it was geared up to strip shields with the WBT and Overload Pulse and I left it off the MC80 because most of the dice I will roll will be blue which can be fixed with SW-7s and I figured Raymus and his free concentrated fire token could make up for a bad bit of red rolling. That said I can easily knock together an MC80 that leaverages Leading shots up close over SW-7s

Overload Pulse is the one that switches off tokens isn't it? Bear in mind that it doesn't affect the ship you're targetting with that attack until after the attack finishes so they still get to use tokens. See here:

https://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/05/ion-cannon-upgrades-she-blinded-me-with.html

10 hours ago, DDolan said:

I've not seen many rebel lists advocate the use of Jan Ors or basic HWKs so figured Intel was not really a thing for us.

This is pretty true for generic Hawks (although here is a reasonable case for them), but the support utility of Jan Ors makes her solidly one of the best squads in the game.

Intel is a thing whenever you have a group of squadrons who really want to bomb and aren't happy dogfighting a 134 point wing.

17 hours ago, flatpackhamster said:

Overload Pulse is the one that switches off tokens isn't it? Bear in mind that it doesn't affect the ship you're targetting with that attack until after the attack finishes so they still get to use tokens. See here:

https://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/05/ion-cannon-upgrades-she-blinded-me-with.html

Yep. The idea was drop the 75 down and have my first actiation be the transport. 2nd activation sees the 75 blast the tokens away with its first arc, then the 2nd arc and bombers ruin things followed by the MC80 if the target is still standing.

In following turns the MC75 will activate first and strip a target for the MC 80 to focus fire on.

8 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

This is pretty true for generic Hawks (although here is a reasonable case for them), but the support utility of Jan Ors makes her solidly one of the best squads in the game.

Intel is a thing whenever you have a group of squadrons who really want to bomb and aren't happy dogfighting a 134 point wing.

Its easy enough to drop Gold Squadron for Jan Ors with a bit of tinkering

21 hours ago, DDolan said:

MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• Flight Commander (3)
• Weapons Battery Techs (5)
• Rapid Launch Bays (6)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Overload Pulse (8)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• Aspiration (3)
= 142 Points

MC80 Star Cruiser (96)
• Admiral Raddus (26)
• Ray Antilles (7)
• Weapons Battery Techs (5)
• Fighter Coordination Team (3)
• SW-7 Ion Batteries (5)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• XX-9 Turbolasers (5)
• Mon Karren (8)
= 161 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Leia Organa (3)
= 21 Points

Squadrons:
• 2 x B-wing Squadron (28)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Shara Bey (17)
• Gold Squadron (12)
= 73 Points

Total Points: 397

I'm not totally sold on the MC80 and can see reasoning for dropping it in favour of a faster MC30 and say a couple of YT-2400s to allow more options on the MC75 drop in turn 2 and also better handle enemy squadrons.

Caitken & Shollan (unique Weapons Team upgrade) are one of the best reroll options you can buy for the Alliance. WBTs are excellent for critical hit generation, but I’d be more worried about rolling completely flat on your big drop-in turn.

As has been pointed out, Overload Pulse is difficult to time correctly and get working, because it helps you on subsequent attacks, not on the attack in which it triggers. I would generally only use it on smaller ships which can get the effect going, but which weren’t really going to do a whole lot of damage on their own (Raider-II’s with WBTs and Overload Pulse, for example). That said, I almost never use it even then, because I prefer Heavy Ion Emplacements by far.

Jan Ors is practically a necessity. The combination of Intel and defense token support for your generic squads is awesome.

42 minutes ago, DDolan said:

Yep. The idea was drop the 75 down and have my first actiation be the transport. 2nd activation sees the 75 blast the tokens away with its first arc, then the 2nd arc and bombers ruin things followed by the MC80 if the target is still standing.

In following turns the MC75 will activate first and strip a target for the MC 80 to focus fire on.

Its easy enough to drop Gold Squadron for Jan Ors with a bit of tinkering

I wonder if you're relying on too much going the way you want it to. It's a plan, but what happens if your opponent doesn't play ball? Say you're facing a SSD with Reeva as officer, and Advanced Transponder Net.

Having a bad plan is better than no plan (not that yours is necessarily a bad plan), but sometimes an over-planned plan is inflexible.

Done some tinkering.

Instead of hoping for a magical christmas land bomber line up I've went for a more conventional MC75 that is there just to drop and unload a lot of dice into a target after the MC80 has softened it up.

There is enough room to drop the 3 YT-2400s for a TRC90 which is less overall damage soak and figher control than the 2400s but is a lot more reliable at putting some hurt on an enemy ship.

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Leia Organa (3)
= 21 Points

MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• Damage Control Officer (5)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• External Racks (3)
• Leading Shots (4)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• Aspiration (3)
= 132 Points

MC80 Star Cruiser (96)
• Admiral Raddus (26)
• Ray Antilles (7)
• Caitken and Shollan (6)
• SW-7 Ion Batteries (5)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• Spinal Armament (9)
• Mon Karren (8)
= 163 Points

Squadrons:
• 3 x YT-2400 (48)
• Shara Bey (17)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
= 81 Points

Total Points: 397

My regular opponent tried MC80 Raddus/MC75/ Rapid launch bays in our most recent game. It worked out badly for him. I was able to activate my fighter wing first and tie up his RLB attack, and then pound his MC75 with MY ISD2.

In retrospect he should have used the fleet you have just created which would have worked better for him.

I was playing with RLB and trying to find a ship that might work, and I have a couple of ideas.

1) Speed 4 rebel transport with BCC dropping a pair of B Wings in the face of an enemy ship away from the squad fight.

2) SSD with 4 TIE Bombers and a Firespray.

11 hours ago, flatpackhamster said:

My regular opponent tried MC80 Raddus/MC75/ Rapid launch bays in our most recent game. It worked out badly for him. I was able to activate my fighter wing first and tie up his RLB attack, and then pound his MC75 with MY ISD2.

In retrospect he should have used the fleet you have just created which would have worked better for him.

I was playing with RLB and trying to find a ship that might work, and I have a couple of ideas.

1) Speed 4 rebel transport with BCC dropping a pair of B Wings in the face of an enemy ship away from the squad fight.

2) SSD with 4 TIE Bombers and a Firespray.

Except, GR75 Transports top out at speed 3. 🙂

Unless of course you were referring to Quantum Storm. Either way, I’ve also occasionally wondered if maybe the best way to get slow bombers into position might be with RLBs on fast, evasive ships. Haven’t hit the answer on that yet.

3 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Except, GR75 Transports top out at speed 3. 🙂

Unless of course you were referring to Quantum Storm. Either way, I’ve also occasionally wondered if maybe the best way to get slow bombers into position might be with RLBs on fast, evasive ships. Haven’t hit the answer on that yet.

I was, obv, referring to Quantum Storm. I just couldn't remember the name.

I didn't mean Firespray either, I meant jumpmaster.