Overview spoiled Upgrade Cards

[Overview spoiled Upgrade Cards]

It's still weird looking over the changes. I can understand them in as much as I can see what they were trying to address (even if some of the changes are to things that stopped being problems a few waves ago) it just feels like they are attempting to achieve addition by subtraction in a lot of cases hoping that people will use bad upgrades now that some of the good/historically good ones have been taken down a peg or two instead of people just using the resources they have to buy the good stuff that has been left alone or hardly changed.

Of course we can also go down the cynic's route and look at this as a last chance for FFG to make some money back on investment before they lose the chance to.

[Boba and the value of two modification slots]

So Boba got an update which as far as I can tell is there to stop everyone using Maul with him all the time in a bid to change things up a little which I think is reasonable enough (I will save grumbling about not being able to use the upgrade cards his kit comes with for a different time), but what exactly can be done with two modification slots that is interesting and opens up new uses of the model?

[You've been blitzed! New Seppie article]

Dooku looks like a great way to make your opponent not want to play the rest of the game

[Would you like to know about Armada 1.5!?!?]

3 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

They will be, depending on the player and the squadron composition.  Just as an example, I played a three-games series a few weeks ago using Ciena, Howlrunner, Saber, and 7 x TIE Interceptors (had 4 x Reserve Hanger Deck cards in my fleet too).  Absolutely shredded my opponents' squadrons, including an opponent squadron balls that included Hera/Dash/Ketsu/Nym/Luke and Hera/Lando/Shara/Tycho.  Just one example, but I definitely think heavy squadron lists will still have a place.

I kind of think Rebels going Squadron Heavy outside of the weird 8 YT-2400 lists is dead in the water because the concentration of aces is the only reason their death balls tend to work.

[Would you like to know about Armada 1.5!?!?]

I dont think the question to ask is if Aces are better than generics as I would suggest FFG outright introducing rules to limit Ace usage means they do consider them to be too much.

The question is whether squadron heavy fleets will still be any good with just 4 aces when going into the squadron light builds (the classic "I just brought Shara and Tycho to buy me time if you do have squadrons and not to be a tto great loss of points if you did not" style)?

I do wonder what will happen to the mid tear aces that usually only see table time because they are slightly better than their generic version and there is a couple of points to spare? Actually I dont, because the answer is they will not be seen any more.

[Would you like to know about Armada 1.5!?!?]

So the reasoning for the cap on aces is down to the fact that they have found that taking squadrons is an "All or nothing affair" and they want players to make harder choices in fleet building.

Not sure how the cap achieves this harder choice because to me it simply makes Squadron focused fleets just a nothing affair from now on because standard fighters generally do not have enough throughput in game to really be worth it.

[What can 10points get you?]

51 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Or her ability to not utilise tokens for commands will help her utilise these key force multipliers

You would then hit the either use the less than thrilling decision point of either using the commander ability you paid points for or ignore it and use an activation to generate a token to keep your upgrade working.

This is where you have to hope the token generation/transfer tricks dont get have their costs raised.

Of course it could also turn out that the upgrades that need tokens to be readied are not that major at which point Leia remains valuable.

[What can 10points get you?]

Leia is going down in points but we are also moving into a system where some upgrades need tokens spent on them to be readied which means if a lot of key force multiplier upgrades switch to the new system then her ability to get a token effect may not eve be worth 28pts.

[Double MC Raddus]

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

[Double MC Raddus]

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

[Double MC Raddus]

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

[Double MC Raddus]

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.

[What is the Starhawk good for?]

What role is the Starhawk meant to be filling in the Rebels?

It's got a decent amount of firepower but the limited upgrades means it cant do much beyond roll a couple of extra dice and for much less points you can have an MC75 or MC80 throwing out serious fire power.

It has a lot of hull but its tokens are a bit limited and there is no defensive retrofit to be able to protect the important tokens from accuracy which means that hull will be stripped away with ease. It feels like you can get more mileage out of an 9 hull MC75 Armoured Cruiser with Electronic counter measures protecting the brace which starts at 111pts before adding guns than the 140pts + 14 hull Starhawk.

A squadron value of just 3 means it does not better than most of the other big ships Rebels have for pushing fighters around, but still has that huge additional cost just to do the same work

And as an added bonus you have a command of 4 making it harder to use than the other big ships it is competing with

Oh and you can get an additional 10pts super weapon gimmick that is fiddly to set up, clearly telegraphed and hard to actually capitalise if you do pull it off because most you have fewer ships in your fleet due to the Starhawk's price tag.

As a complete package it just feels like a ship that is just ok at most things in a game system that rewards you for taking ships that skew heavily in one direction.