Okay, so we've started a new campaign of 3v3 Rebellion in the Rim.

The problem is, I can't see any possible tactics that would allow Rebel players to actually win any of the engagements on a 3v3 reduced-size board.

All three Imperial players started with an ISD plus a scattering of fighters.

I recognize that all three of us Rebel players could utilize fighter balls and take down the ISD (a la freighters, etc) - but on a smaller playspace, I don't see any way for the traditional Rebel "gimmicks" - like the Ackbar side-arc shooting - to be viable.

An ISD just needs to sit at Speed 1 and slowly rotate to keep the Rebel player in his front arc. There's no way for a Rebel player to easily stay out of that front arc (and not also go off the table, because 3x3).

I assume we aren't the first to encounter this puzzling complication, but neither myself nor my Imperial opponent could figure out any moves (I used two Guppies) that don't result in an easy Imperial win.

No large ships in initial fleets.....gets variety.

An ISD without ECM is fishfood for mc30s. Granted I havent tried this and I dont know if you can stop them getting ECM forever

MC80 Assault Cruiser with ECM;

Transport with Comms Net;

Biggs plus 3 X-wings.

Spam Engineering commands, passing an extra repair token from the transport. Try to ensure yoy get a double-arc whilst preventing them from doing the same to you! Kill their ISDs.

Demonstrate this and also demonstrate how dull the games are, and then suggest that large ships be banned from initial fleets?

One thing to consider is that you can make back the points in the pivotal battles, especially if your fleets are designed to work well together.

MC30s and TRC90s tend do be the better Rebel ships until you start bringing MC75s or MC80s.

Biggs, Jan, 2 X-wings and a YT-1300 do wonders though.

A bit of a necro'd thread, but you don't NEED to kill an ISD if you can farm points off squadrons or objectives. It's not about winning big like tournaments, it's about merely WINNING.

Just figure out what points you need to get, and how to get them.

And if your opponent is playing lame, then play lame back, even harder.

As far as banning large ships from initial fleets goes, doesn’t that essentially ban them from the campaign?

Just now, Tayloraj100 said:

As far as banning large ships from initial fleets goes, doesn’t that essentially ban them from the campaign?

Pretty much, except for the final battle.

I have played 4 RitR campaigns (as Rebels) at this point, 3 six player and 1 four player. Only in one of them did one Imperial player not bring an ISD (he brought a gladiator that he earned the Decimator title for - now that was a powerful fleet on a 3x3 map). We played with all manner of house rules over time (including half points for all large ships). I think you underestimate the ability for nimble Rebel ships to get out of an ISD’s front arc. Moreover, if you take a speed three ship - like an MC75 or Assault Frigate - that can take ECM, you can survive a front shot from an ISD and hit back, get around it, and then finish off with something like a pair of CR90s with TRCs. 3x3 is not all that small really, considering most action in a 400 point game really is in that size play area, it just happens to be a 3x3 play area on a 3x6 map, Lol.

Anyway, my point is that if you play Rebels you can’t fight the same way as Imperials do (unless you bring a Starhawk). You need to maneuver out of the ISD front arc and set up strong double arcs. Go for activation advantage. Good luck!

Based on personal experience: as an Imp player, don't go ISD - it's just super boring. Play with lesser ships and squads and maybe have some fun.

I had a lot of success running AFII / MC30c against ISD fleets, for example.

13 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Based on personal experience: as an Imp player, don't go ISD - it's just super boring. Play with lesser ships and squads and maybe have some fun.

Alternatively, let one of the 3 players bring an ISD, and the others can build Medium / Small base fleets.

Large ships like the ISD probably aren't well balanced in 200pt games, especially on a smaller board where there's less opportunity to flank. In standard Armada, if you're up against an ISD and you decide you're going to try and kill it, you know you need to put a lot of pressure (attack dice) on it for multiple subsequent rounds, and you build your game plan accordingly. It can still be hard for a 400pt list to get and keep enough guns on an ISD to sink one in 6 Rounds, especially if it dials in some repair and/or uses its Speed 3 to flee. I can only imagine it's substantially harder trying to accomplish sinking an ISD with only half the guns you could bring to a 400pt game. The ISD can be just as tanky/slippery as it can in 400pts, but now it only has to worry about weathering half of the guns it normally would need to withstand.

Probably a similar issue with defensively built MC80s, Starhawks, etc. ... which I'm sure is why so many people have already suggested forgoing all large-based ships in 200pt games.

2 hours ago, EBerling said:

Large ships like the ISD probably aren't well balanced in 200pt games, especially on a smaller board where there's less opportunity to flank. In standard Armada, if you're up against an ISD and you decide you're going to try and kill it, you know you need to put a lot of pressure (attack dice) on it for multiple subsequent rounds, and you build your game plan accordingly. It can still be hard for a 400pt list to get and keep enough guns on an ISD to sink one in 6 Rounds, especially if it dials in some repair and/or uses its Speed 3 to flee. I can only imagine it's substantially harder trying to accomplish sinking an ISD with only half the guns you could bring to a 400pt game. The ISD can be just as tanky/slippery as it can in 400pts, but now it only has to worry about weathering half of the guns it normally would need to withstand.

Probably a similar issue with defensively built MC80s, Starhawks, etc. ... which I'm sure is why so many people have already suggested forgoing all large-based ships in 200pt games.

In 200 point games ISDs are hard targets. The upside (more or less) is that they are constrained in maneuver and will struggle to flee if they weren't set up to run from the get-go. I'm personally ambivalent but sympathetic to arguments small campaigns like RitR should be run with a ban on all Large base ships.

In 400 point games on the other hand, they are in fact relatively simple to kill, especially with some of the dedicated ship-killing builds that one can take in a tournament game that are somewhat harder to justify or fit in 200-250. I cite as an example my Game 6 at NOVA in 2019. Chimaera destroyed Avenger in a pair of activations, back to back, with some moderate supporting fire from the Arquitens.

In my 5th RitR campaign - Finally, no ISDs in this one. In each of the other 4 campaigns, there were at least one Imperial fleet with an ISD. 4 of these campaigns were 3v3 and 1 was 2v2. I have played Rebels in 3 of them.

I'm inclined to agree with @Aahz 1 that most of the 400 point action happens in a 3' x 3' area normally, and quick rebel ships (MC30s and CR90s) can do a lot of arc Dodging. I do believe there is a place for the AFM2 in this campaign. It seems to be able to take a beating (unless of course you are bombarded by squadrons).