Thursday, January 12, 2017

Armada: Ackbar's revenge

I actually have this as a shirt.

As we get closer to the SoCal Regionals here, I'm start to evaluate an oldie but goldie:  My MC80 Ackbar list.  I think in the current meta, the Home One is a very powerful additions that might be overlooked.  In fact, this iteration of my famous giant fishstick works really well for a number of reasons.

First, the list:

IT'S NOT A TRAP!
Author: HERO

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 388/400
Commander: Admiral Ackbar
Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona
Activations: 4
Deployments: 7

[ flagship ] MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Admiral Ackbar ( 38 points)
-  Home One ( 7 points)
-  Intel Officer ( 7 points)
-  Engine Techs ( 8 points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
-  Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 183 total ship cost

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
-  Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 93 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 20 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 20 total ship cost

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
1 Green Squadron ( 12 points)
4 A-Wing Squadrons ( 44 points)

I'll break them down here:

  • Home One allows you to spread accuracies throughout your list.  There's only one real target where this goes to, which is the MKII AF, but this is good enough if the MKII is equipped the right way.  Having Ackbar's additional reds, a free accuracy and XI7s guarantees that whatever damage you throw out will be accurate and hit hard.  The MKII is by far the best choice for a second ship here:  It benefits from Home One the most and its a very durable ship that has access to Gunnery Teams.  This allows you to throw more damage on a multiple of targets and you can possibly drop multiple floaters per turn.
  • The MC80C itself is also a pretty strong ship with a good amount of shields, solid defenses with ECMs, and 3 blues to throw out in addition to Ackbar's 5 reds.  This makes it on-par with the ISD-II in terms of damage, but with possibly larger swings in the damage compartment at the cost of fewer accuracy chances.  This is fine by me because with Intel Offier, Home One herself will hit extremely hard.  The other choice here was the MC80A, but it's a significantly more expensive ship if you also add Reinforced Blast Doors.  Sure, it gives you more a larger sample with 6 reds and 2 blues, but this also cuts down the chances you'll roll an accuracy against flotillas if you manage to slash multiple targets.  Having an entire volley from the MC80 going to waste because of Scatter is a huge letdown.
  • Multiple Comms Net floaters for me are used for various reasons.  The first one is being an extra deployment and ship activation, but the second reason is that they can be used to further increase the accuracy of my two big ships by throwing out Conc Fire tokens repeatedly.  Since their job is to strictly out-activate the opponent and drawing them ever closer to red range, having the token boats just flying around as additional blockers is never a bad thing.  For example, first round queue for CF or a single Squadron on Home One to throw 5 the next round, second round continue to CF or engineering.  Either way, the idea here is that you're working in conjunction with the activation order of your ships and what commands they'll be using.  If you're planning to Nav spam, you probably won't need Nav tokens, and instead will want damage or minor healing.  If you're planning to heal, queue up Engineering on both because 6 engineering is much better than 4.  Of course, Concentrate Fire + the token will give you much stronger results and more flexibility, especially with Leading Shots on the MC80 or Home One's accuracy modifier.
  • Lastly, my squadron selection.  I've tried a number of things here for the last couple of months, from A-Wings, to YTs, to a mix of the two, from smaller numbers (4), to larger numbers (8), and this is basically what that evolved to today:  Which is 6 A-Wings, one of which being Tycho.  The reason why Tycho stays is because of his disruption range of 5 and being able to catch any bombers straying away to make plays.  He doesn't even need to attack, all he needs to do is hold up the enemy while my bigger ships does work on the opposing fleet.  The speed-5 As really gives me that first strike advantage, although even with 5 of them being flung at the enemy from the MC80C, I'm still only throwing out 15 dice worth of blues.  It's good, but it's nowhere as good as an alpha from Imperial equivalents backed by Howl.  Either way, the thought process here is that against lower squadron counts I will win easier and my ships are already equipped for anti-ship action.  Against medium squadrons, I might do OK but I will look for a faster anti-ship solution in terms of Conc Fire or repair commands.  If fighting against a heavy bomber presence, I will go for the tie up and try to end their support ships ASAP.  Depending on the amount of bombers there are, I might need heavy repair commands while utilizing my heavier ships in ramming actions against the support floaters.

Anyways, this is my current Ackbar list that I'm fiddling around with and what I'll most likely bring to Regionals this year.  I was thinking about dropping an A-Wing for Intel Officer on the AF, but I don't think it's quite worth it.  I would rather have the additional support, but I am able to fit in both IO on the AF and bring Shara Bey instead of a generic.  My total squadron count will drop down to 5, and I'll lose a deployment because of it though.  What do you guys think?

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