Had a different use of Sato that may fail horribly but I liked to share it! More ships than fleets.( I enjoy making fleets even more then flying them 🙂 ).

never played Sato, changing red seems like a great way to get those black crits at long range but seems hard to do. It is the dream of efficacy but i wanted to see if there could be some consistency instead. So getting squads either close to medium range from you is easier, so let's shoot for attacking ships in that range.

Goal: A haymaker hit with Sato.

haymaker idea:

Sato's Hammer

MC75 Ordnance Cruiser (100)
• Commander Sato (32)
• Lando Calrissian (4)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Rapid Launch Bays (6)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• External Racks (3)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
= 161 Points

Squadrons:
• 1 x Z-95 Headhunter Squadron (7)
= 7 Points

Ok so this is about the same as a Raddus MC75, so why use that point price with Sato? well RLB is to guarantee the squads are distance 1 of the ship you want to haymaker (z-95 is cheap that's why I choose it changeable). This is totally changeable to a more normal Sato list. This is also kinda hard to pull off tempo wise. But IF you do you could throw 6 black dice out the side. 2 start + 2 red's switched + 2 Ex racks roughly avg. 6-9 shot re-rolling only blank blacks. maybe this is just to much work for that 1 shot preferably in a double!

This next crazy one is:

Goal Choose a crit you want through:

MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• Commander Sato (32)
• Lando Calrissian (4)
• Caitken and Shollan (6)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
= 167 Points

Choose to change reds for either blues or blacks to go after the respective crit. with a Twin re-roll. (yes ice thin) squads positioning is a more normal Sato list.

Hopefully if I explained this right someone smarter could take this idea and run with it!

For now it is FUN! 🙂

Thanks for reading!

I think your Z-95 will be melted before it's of any real utility. Think of it as like a TIE fighter, but with worse weaponry and speed.

I ran a pretty successful Sato fleet last weekend, and my squads were Shara Bey, Tycho Celchu, and 4 A-Wings. They stayed alive for the turns needed to make Sato work. Using Sato well means a strong enough squad ball that you can keep turning blue and red dice in to black whenever you need to, and a strong enough fleet to take advantage of that. It's a tricky balance to achieve.

Your second ship really wants Fire Control team to allow it to trigger both critical effects, if that's how you want to run the ship.

16 hours ago, flatpackhamster said:

I think your Z-95 will be melted before it's of any real utility. Think of it as like a TIE fighter, but with worse weaponry and speed.

I ran a pretty successful Sato fleet last weekend, and my squads were Shara Bey, Tycho Celchu, and 4 A-Wings. They stayed alive for the turns needed to make Sato work. Using Sato well means a strong enough squad ball that you can keep turning blue and red dice in to black whenever you need to, and a strong enough fleet to take advantage of that. It's a tricky balance to achieve.

Your second ship really wants Fire Control team to allow it to trigger both critical effects, if that's how you want to run the ship.

The Z-95 is either meant to blowup after the one successful attack or can be changed for more utility. If The RLB idea doesn't work or needs more utility squadron in it that can be changed.

Yes! That squad ball was along the lines that I was thinking of. 🙂

I was thinking of putting fire controls on that ship but your either a) getting a long range shot with 1 die of each color or b) a medium range shot with 2 blue 2 black having a higher 1st roll chance of getting either or both crits.

My thinking was a) long range shot 2 blue + re-roll to get a a crit if none showed up or get a 2nd crit. B) Medium - close add the 2 black to go for crits that way. (die pool is 2 black 2 blue and a red) then the re-roll what needs done after that.

Both ways have their own merits like you said depends on "I" (or the person using this) wants to run it ! 🙂

I whipped up this around your Sato Core late last night, thoughts?

Name: Sato Slash
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Commander Sato

Assault:
Defense:
Navigation:

MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• Commander Sato (32)
• Lando Calrissian (4)
• Fire-Control Team (2)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
= 163 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Ahsoka Tano (2)
• Comms Net (2)
• Bright Hope (2)
= 24 Points

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
= 64 Points

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
= 64 Points

Squadrons:
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Shara Bey (17)
• 2 x A-wing Squadron (22)
• 2 x E-wing Squadron (30)
= 85 Points

Total Points: 400

You really need a mechanism to ensure rerolls on black dice which you can't do with trc nebulons. You could put Vanguard and Kaitken and Shollan or Ordnance Experts on there.

I would suggest trying Hera, Han, Shara, and Tycho with your Sato fleet as well (I have also seen Ketsu in place of Han). Allows your squadrons to operate independently, can defend against 134 points in squadrons fairly well, and Tycho can hop towards another enemy ship if needed to get Sato's effect. Also, if your opponent runs a squadronless fleet, this squadron ball is brutal against small ships. I've used this setup to great effect in Sato and non-Sato fleets.

5 minutes ago, flatpackhamster said:

You really need a mechanism to ensure rerolls on black dice which you can't do with trc nebulons. You could put Vanguard and Kaitken and Shollan or Ordnance Experts on there.

These two could work:

Nebulon-B Support Refit (51)
• Intel Officer (7)
• Salvation (7)
= 65 Points

Nebulon-B Support Refit (51)
• Vanguard (4)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
= 59 Points

re rolls like you said for vanguard.

slavation is swingy at 0 to 8 max damage but intel offi. Helps make 5+ a tough choice.

I'm sorry, I don't like any of these lists.

1st Problem is you will only get 1 shot with Sato, as that Z-Wing will die fast.

2nd Problem is to pull off the combo you are investing so much, including Sato himself, the Z, the RLB for your 1 "haymaker" strike.

3rd Problem is you will hit a brick wall with Brace, you have no accuracy generation and all of a sudden a one turn 10 damage roll looks pretty lame when halved and redirected.

4th Problem is you don't utilize any long range bonuses of Sato. The Z is just chilling in the RLB, and as soon as you send it out, it is dead. Plus MC75 has no long range dice in front arc (without Spinals).

5th Problem is the redundancy with 2 different expensive critical effects. Don't invest in both unless you have Fire Control Team, AND a way to ensure you roll the crits.

6th Problem is you don't really even need Sato for your "Haymaker" attack. You should have a good shot at rolling a crit without the extra black dice converted. And the damage boost from changing a red to black isn't as good as you'd think (0.75 expected damage to 1.25 with black dice reroll, times 2 equals expected 1 extra damage per attack => look at problem 2 to see how much you are investing for this..).

7th Problem with other's fleet ideas is TRC Nebulons (or CR90, or TRC anything) completely defeat the purpose of Sato. The TRC already fixes red dice and you will not see any benefit with average damage by changing 2 dice to black.

What about this fleet? Basically send a Foresight MC30 and four Hammerheads with Ex racks pointed at the enemy at a high speed. Use Sato and scatter aces and Hera to convert to black dice. Hammerheads could fire 6 black dice with a con fire dial and ex racks and have a reroll with ordnance experts. I'd leave one blue die on the foresight to lock the brace down with the H9.

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)

- Hondo Ohnaka (2)

- External Racks (3)

- Ordnance Experts (4)

= 45 points



Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)

- External Racks (3)

- Ordnance Experts (4)

= 43 points



Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)

- External Racks (3)

- Ordnance Experts (4)

= 43 points



Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)

- External Racks (3)

- Ordnance Experts (4)

= 43 points



[flagship] MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)

- Commander Sato (32)

- Foresight (8)

- Early Warning System (7)

- Lando Calrissian (4)

- External Racks (3)

- H9 Turbolasers (8)

- Ordnance Experts (4)

= 129 points



1 Shara Bey (17)

1 Tycho Celchu (16)

1 Ketsu Onyo (22)

1 Hera Syndulla (28)

= 83 points