Improving Boba Fett through Rapid Launch bays

Since the new FAQ declared that after you place a squadron with Rapid Launch Bays, you then officially begin their activation, I’ve been itching to try out my long-planned Raider with Boba Fett.  The general idea is that I take a fast ship like the raider, and allow it to drop Boba Fett after moving, turning a raider into a miniature Gladiator (Well for one move at least).  For reference here is a video where I talk about a build for this.

Well I finally got the chance to try it last night.   It wasn’t however, in a 400 point game, but rather at the spur of the moment by buddy and I decided to play a massive 800 point game!  I figured this would be a good time to try out some new things, and I did manage to use Boba Fett on board a raider in this build.  Granted the game was huge – it was also fun!

My opponent ended up having far more squadrons than I did and I was quickly overwhelmed by the darned things.  So I ended up using Boba against a squadron, rather than a ship.   It worked well enough, deploying and dealing a damage, followed up by an attack- but I would have rather used it against a ship.  And yes I realize that even against a ship the activation damage can STILL go to a shield, but it just fits into the whole idea of what I’m trying to do – damage damage damage!   Even so – using Boba’s ability against squadrons is solid and generally a pretty good thing too, as it can’t be impacted by most defensive abilities as it is not an attack.

After the match I began to think that I had missed an opportunity to maximize this ability.  Suppose I had multiple squadrons deploying and Boba was the LAST one.  His ability could finish off a weakened hero squadron, such as Howlrunner, Tycho, Jan Ors, or even an enemy Escort – and then allow for him to attack whomever he wanted.  I could easily get three squadrons loaded up onto a ship with Rapid Launch Bays and Flight Commander.  A Victory would work easily but is slow.  I could significantly increase my cost if I use an ISD – but the squadrons I would want to end up using would be expensive enough.  I could go with a gozanti for the cheaper option, but I’d end up having to use only 2 squadrons.

So my NEW plan is going to be a bit expensive but should be fun.  For now lets assume I’m using a victory.   Sure it’s slower, but I’ll deploy far forward and I probably won’t die before I get the opportunity to drop my squadrons. I’m going to load up Boba Fett, IG-88, and Colonel Jendon.   IG-88 drops first, (Who by the way, is more awesome now than ever before since crazy counterers like Shara Bey exist), then Colonel Jendon drops, and lets IG-88 shoot AGAIN.   Finally Boba Drops and does the last damage needed to finish off an enemy or two.  This may not be the ultimate combo, and it certainly is expensive, but I suspect it will be a powerful way to counter squadrons with Scatter, Rhymerballs, and Howrunner swarms.  And once the Quasar comes out…..

Once the Quasar comes out I believe this would be ideal for that ship in particular, as it will be able to shoot enemy squadrons at LONG RANGE first, soften them up… move in, and then commence shenanigans.  And we’ll be able to a 4th squadron to the mix.  Maybe we an escort like Vader, or change things up and add Zertik Strom and Bossk… the possibilities are endless!   As long as we finish with Boba Fett though!   That is key!

Again I realize that Armada’s version of a Boba Fett Pez Dispenser is an expensive way to launch fighters, but I have realized that the more fighters you add, the more fun can be had!

Destiny – Rolling blanks for a living

There is only one blank side on Darth Vader’s dice.   How is it that I roll that side nearly every time?

Playing some Destiny tonight it became clear to me that I need to come up with some custom alternate art for my Vader deck.   Here it is.

Honestly my first 3 games I only rolled damage on Vader one time.   Ended up having to use a No Mercy on a single ranged damage from my Nightsister.  My 4th game was almost all damage though.   Good thing the game is fun though, otherwise I’d have felt lousy.

What an Amazing Celebration!

So Star Wars Celebration is over…. Well It’s been over for 2 days but I’ve been completely exhausted and had to get back to doing things around the house that have been neglected.  As a result I haven’t had much time to write.  I did a short recap video here:

It was a great experience for sure.  I’ll admit Sunday morning, that I honestly just wanted to stay in bed… but that quickly went away, as I was instantly reminded of how awesome the con was as soon as I arrived!

One of the coolest parts was being there so early in the morning as an exhibitor before they opened the doors.  Seeing Dave Filoni and Andi Gutierrez just walking around like normal people was almost surreal!   It was the calm before the storm, and I spent a good deal of time sitting at the food court trying to take it all in and commit as much of it as I could to memory.

One of the most important things this year was diversity.   Sitting at the Star Wars Show Stage, watching Kelly Marie Tran shoot T-Shirts at the crowd… I noticed an Asian woman behind me who was trying to get Kelly’s attention.   She said “Oh my god she’s so great!!!” and she meant it.   This was a powerful moment for me because I think everything suddenly came together.   I couldn’t help but wonder what it meant to her to have Asian women represented in Star Wars finally!

That has been an important part of what Lucasfilm has been doing over the past few years.   As a white male, I’ve never really felt left out of the Star Wars Fandom – because almost everyone was a white male.  I could cosplay as anyone I wanted to, and didn’t need to wear a helmet to do so.  But this convention put everything into perspective for me.

The last time Celebration was in Orlando, was long before Episode 7 or Star Wars Rebels.   There were VERY few cosplay options for women… even white women.  The sheer volume of Slave Leia costumes were staggering.   And this year I was able to draw a stark contrast between the two time frames and really take a good look at what has changed.   There were ALOT of females at Celebration, and a lot of young girls were among them!   And a huge portion of them dressed up!   Sure there were some dressed up as Princess Leia, (and even a few as Slave Leia, though not nearly a majority), but there was incredible diversity this time around!

I saw everything ranging from Rey, to Jyn, from Mon Mothma, to Aurra Sing.   From Hera and Sabine, to Governer Price and Mandolorians.   It’s no longer taboo for females to wear an Imperial Officer’s uniform, and no longer to you have to wear a mask if you want to be a bounty hunter.   This year was amazing!

 

 

 

 

Celebration Day 1

Exhausting day but also so amazing!   Got my exhibitor badge so I was able to get inside the exhibit hall early – so if you haven’t seen my youtube videos, go check them out because alot of the footage from today was taken before people came in…. very cool to see the calm before the storm.    Having the main hall empty was also the perfect opportunity to check out the Star Wars Show live stage – and look who I ran into!

Seriously!  I have watched Andi every week for what seems like forever now… and she’s brought me new Star Wars on a pretty regular basis!  She’s amazing and I got to meet her like right away!    Now whatever happens I already hit my goal so this whole weekend is already a success!

Here is some video of the day:

 

Fire the Ion Cannon!

A look at the Armada Defense Objective – Planetary Ion Canon

One of my favorite objectives in Armada has to be Planetary Ion Cannon.  I’ve played it several times in standard games, and also played its Base Defense option in the Corellian Conflict three times back to back – and it has made me a believer!  This objective comes in the Corellian Conflict expansion, so if you want to include it in your fleet, you’ll need to pick up a copy.  And for that matter, if you haven’t picked up a copy yet, what are you waiting for?  There are so many upgrades to your game in that box beyond running a campaign that it’s clearly an expansion everyone should be getting!

Lets look at this objective.

So what does that mean?   It means you get to place 3 objectives on the map, and SHOOT using them, during the game!   You get extra shots!   One extra shot from each objective actually, but only once each turn, so you don’t want them all right next to each other.   It helps to think of them as a sort of land mine – Your opponent may want to avoid them, or they may wish to plow right on through hoping to repair the damage before you add to it.

There are a couple of really significant aspects to this objective that many people might overlook on their first time using it, so I’ll walk you through the important parts first.  First off, you  deploy obstacles as usual.   The setup for this objective starts after that – so you won’t get any setup advantage from this one.  Next you are going to place three objective tokens beyond range 5 of both players’ edges.   That much is easy enough, and you likely wouldn’t want them too close to each other.  If your opponent’s ships are fast enough they could potentially fly right past your tokens and you’ll run the risk of forfeiting shots.  You generally want to set up your obstacles in such a way that give your opponent one clear path to approach you, and that is the path where you will likely want to deploy your objective tokens.  If your opponent decides to go the long way around, that will generally be their downfall, because they will either break up their formation, or have their fastest ships reach you first and allow you to cherry pick targets.

These tokens have a pretty large radius, being able to hit anything up to range 3 of them, and they can target ANY hull zone, which means even if your opponent’s Star Destroyer has it’s front hull zone barely in range 3, you can still target the rear hull zone when shooting!  Additionally, while you can use the special blue crit effect listed on the card, you are also free to use the default crit instead.   Many newer players read this and forget that you always have the default crit unless otherwise specified (A squadron without bomber, for example).

One general strategy when placing the objectives is to try to plan to destroy at least one ship using them.  This may mean placing them in a path, so your first shot, and second shot will likely be able to hit the same target.   And if you are lucky, then possibly even the third shot as well.  This can mean placing all three objectives moderately close together, or it might mean spreading them apart, depending on the speed of the ship you are facing.   A Victory Star Destroyer, for example will go slow enough that you would be able to place all 3 fairly close and get all three shots on the same target – however there is very little chance that these shots alone would be able to kill a Victory, so unless you are going to be able to combo these shots with a barrage or two from your fleet on the same target, you may want to try to cripple a weaker ship on it’s own and save the heavy ships for once your fleet is fully within firing distance.  Which brings me to the two main placement options:

Placement option 1: Aggressive

An aggressive placement means trying to get shots on turns 1, 2, and 3.   Generally, this will often end up giving your opponent the opportunity to repair any damage from the first attack or two before the rest of your fleet is in firing range, and can sometimes prove to be a complete waste of an objective if this is done.   If you DO plan to place your ion tokens aggressively, generally you’ll want your opponents having deployed at very fast speeds, and to do so yourself, in hopes of shooting as early in the game as possible.   An example might be if your opponent deploys several CR-90s at speed 4, and you have a Gladiator with Demolisher that may actually have a shot round 1.

Another aggressive strategy is to commit to a single ship each turn.   If your opponent has a Nebulon-B for example, you can target it’s side and try to get critical damage through.   Or perhaps you have General Dodonna and are fishing for a disabling crit early in the game.   Sometimes an enemy fleet gets positioned so close together, that if you are able to reduce a ship’s speed by 1, you can cause everything to bump – and your opponent may not have a Nav command prepared for turn 1 if they expected to get shot.

Ultimately though, an aggressive placement is very risky because your opponent is likely to repair all damage before the real combat begins.  Additionally, if your opponent has any squadrons with STRATEGIC, they will quickly be able to move your tokens out of the way and ruin your setup.

Placement option 2: Defensive

Defensive is typically the wiser strategy and the one I tend to use most of the time.  Keep in mind that the 2nd player will be the winner if the game ends in a tie – so that means the 1st player has to come to you.  With this knowledge you can set a trap that your opponent will be forced to walk into.  I like to pick a section of the map that I’d like to concentrate on, usually the left or right corner, and set up obstacles blocking most of the ways in.

I will usually leave one single path into my area, and once the time comes to place Objective Tokens, I will put them into the path that I’ve laid out for my opponent.  Now they can choose to come to me  through the Ion Cannon, or come to me through the rocks.  This is particularly effective at harming larger and slower ships, but agile ships like CR-90s can often “thread the needle” so to speak, and will still be able to get to you.   However, if you are keeping your fleet fairly close together, you shouldn’t have any problems dealing with one or two CR-90s that approach your formation too early.  It’s basically Divide and Conquer, for Star Wars Armada.

 

Regardless of which approach you decide, one thing you don’t want to do is spend one of your three shots on a ship that will simply repair all of the damage before you can continue to fire.  If your opponent has built in shield recovery, like Redundant Shields or Projection Experts then you will not want to start shooting them on turn one, since in all likelihood they will fully repair all damage right the same turn.  Don’t forget, your opponent does get to set dials after you place your tokens.

And lastly, you don’t always HAVE to shoot.  You can maximize your advantage by waiting until the right opportunity to spend an objective token.  Maybe you deploy your tokens fairly far forward, which prompts your opponent to start the game with an engineering command.  If you opt NOT to fire, your opponent will be forced to take a token rather than repair the damage, and now you can fire the next turn when they have something less helpful queued up in their command dial.

 

But what if you are 1st player?

   If you are the 1st player you might want to consider this one if you have a few squadrons with Strategic, as you can then move the objective tokens out of the way.   You may also want to choose this objective if your fleet has mostly tough ships that can mitigate or recover the damage easily.   Ships with Redundant Shielding, supporting ships with projection Experts, and Tarkin fleets handing out Engineering tokens (possibly Garm here as well) all will help minimize the impact from an aggressive 2nd player who might deploy these tokens close to your starting position.  Additionally, if you have Mon Mothma you will be able to remove a die of your choice with an evade token, making the attack even weaker.

The GREEN Version In the Campaign!

 

The Corellian Conflict has a Base Defense version of this map that is slightly different.  I’m not going to talk about the Base Defense version too much other than to say that it plays differently, and if you haven’t played the campaign’s Green Version yet, you will want to re-read each card because of two primary differences.  1) You will have to deploy ALL of your forces first as second player, and 2) you DON’T pick up the tokens after you use them.  (Yes that’s right the base defense version actually leaves the tokens on the map so you can fire from it multiple times!   The campaign can be crazy that way!)   This one is a great way to defend a base, especially against a superior force.  I’ve used a fresh 400 point fleet to fend off a 500 point fleet attacking, and this was my all-star objective of choice.   Try it and you won’t regret it!

 

 

Does Armada Need a New Core Set?

Every single time I talk to someone who is interested in Armada, the number one complaint they have is that the price point is too high to get started.  And they are right.   An MSRP of $99 is a huge barrier to entry for most people, and while it does go on sale from time to time, it still remains one of the most expensive FFG games on the market.  If you compare it to X-Wing’s core set at only $39.99, it is easy to see why even the biggest Star Wars fan will choose X-Wing over Armada.

 

So what if FFG followed X-Wing’s lead, and released a new core set, priced around $40 bucks?   It could have all new stuff, so new players and veterans alike will both want to pick up a copy.  It would have all the basic components, but include smaller ships.  No Star Destroyers in this one.   If it’s going to have three ships, then they need to be small.   Reducing the plastic can help reduce the cost.  That also means less squadrons.   Heck they could possibly do a core set with zero squadrons if they wanted to.  The game has more than enough right now.  If it gets people to buy in, then I’m all for it.

Episode 8 could in theory provide the perfect opportunity to do this.  If Episode 8 has enough ships, and the right types, we could potentially see 3 small ships in a smaller core set.   It might also provide an opportunity to balance the factions, since the Rebels have one more ship than the Empire right now, it could be 2 weaker First Order ships paired up against a stronger Resistance ship.   And yes, First Order and Imperials would be allowed to team up, and so would the Resistance and Rebellion – they would effectively be the same faction, just like in X-Wing.

There’s also the idea that they could create smaller core sets called “Starters” – one for each faction.  A “First Order” starter and a “Resistance” starter – this way you could include only 2 ships in each one and really bring the cost down.   Most players on a budget tend to stick with a single faction for awhile anyway.

Anything to get people into the game is a good thing!  Especially people who don’t have $100 to spend on a game they aren’t 100% sure of.

Taking Sato in a Different Direction

I’ve been having some fun with Sato lately.  I recently flew several MC-30 Scout Frigates with Sato, specifically because they can use Sato to trigger black crits at long range that way.   Plus ordnance experts make them pretty much the ideal ship for triggering Sato… But this time I wanted to try something else.   Something a little more fun and also to test out some ideas that have been floating around in my head.

The key is that ships in this build need to have at least 2 red dice.  This way I can almost always get the maximum benefit from Sato’s ability.  I have been seeing more and more CR-90s with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits lately and I’m going to try to change up the standard CR-90 loadout.  So I wanted to run Enhanced Armament on a CR-90 for my Sato fleet.  This way I’ve got 2 red in front, but also have 2 red on each side.   The rear arc is still weak with only 1 red, but considering how cheap they are I think I can live with that.

Next up I wanted to take a look at the Salvation.   A friend of mine runs a Salvation a lot in many of his Sato builds and he always ends up frustrated.   You see, on paper, it sounds like a dream.   2, possibly even 3 black dice at long range… crits can count as 3 damage if it’s on a black!  You can end up with 11 damage at long range that way if you rolled 2 black crits, a red crit, and used concentrate fire for another black crit.  thirteen if you manage to sneak a spinal armament or slaved turrets in there and roll another red crit!  In practice however, that ends up almost never happening.   First off, a nebulon with Salvation is very predictable.   It’s got a narrow front arc and you know exactly which arc it needs to point at you.  It’s easy for an opponent to dodge it and with it’s weaker side arcs, you may very well NEVER see a front arc shot during a game before the nebulon gets blown up from the side.

So I decided to take a risk and have a little fun with a nebulon by giving it enhanced armament and also Salvation.   I realize this isn’t exactly min/maxing, but like I said, this is an experiment.  The purpose here is two-fold.   First off, I am trying to be less predictable; with 2 red dice on my sides, I can turn those into 2 black dice via Sato, and still pose a threat to enemies that dare to approach my sides with the intention of hitting my weak spot.  Well, certainly more of a threat than the typical red die that tends to do very little on its own.  And secondly, I wanted to fit into the category of having 2 red dice everywhere because of Sato.  This does mean that my front shots are going to cap at 4 dice with a concentrate fire, but the trade off is that I can more than make up for it with reliable side shots.   Additionally, a second die in my armament means I can still take long range shots that happen to be obstructed – and that’s huge, because it really stinks having an entire shot cancelled because you had to remove that first die, and you don’t even get to spend your concentrate fire.

I also wanted to play around with the original MC-80 – a ship I pretty much never use any more.  After playing a lot of games for the Empire with the Arquitens, I’m really wanting more big bad side arcs – and while I could just as easily go with Assault Frigates, I wanted even more and I wanted to use the titles for the MC-80.  Home One seemed like a possibility – If I’m using Sato to make many of my dice black, I’ll REALLY need those accuracies from time to time…  but I decided that I instead wanted to try Defiance because I am trying to set new records for the number of black dice I can potentially throw at long range!  I also tossed on Enhanced Armament onto an MC-80 Assault Cruiser, for a battery armament which includes 5 red dice!  With concentrate fire, Sato, and Defiance, I could potentially throw 4 black dice at long range, plus 3 red!  But what if they are blank?  No problem – lets add leading shots.  Now if my first few dice are blank, I simply use defiance to add a blue, which can then be spent to fix all the bad dice.

Blue dice!   Leading shots got me thinking about blue dice.   You see, everyone tends to think Sato is a black dice machine – but blue is totally an option!  Weather you need an accuracy for that flotilla, or just want to ensure you get no blanks, blue dice can be used or even a combination of black and blue.   So I decided I’d add a second CR-90 and make one of them Dodonna’s Pride!  Face up Damage at Long Range is now easier than ever!  And since I’m adding titles my first CR-90 gets a Jaina’s Light, because why not?

For squadrons I went with started with Tycho because he’s perfect for  Sato list.   I also added Shara Bey, because she’s easily the 2nd best choice.  Also threw in a few Z-95s just because they are cheap and I want a modest initiative bid.  For Objectives I went with Opening Salvo, Planetary Ion Cannon, and Solar Corona.

Here is the final list:

SHIP: MC80 Assault Cruiser 114

UPGRADES PTS
Commander Sato 32
Leading Shots 4
Enhanced Armament 10
Defiance 5
TOTAL POINTS: 165
SHIP: CR90 Corvette A 44

UPGRADES PTS
Enhanced Armament 10
Dodonna’s Pride 6
TOTAL POINTS: 60
SHIP: CR90 Corvette A 44

UPGRADES PTS
Enhanced Armament 10
Jaina’s Light 2
TOTAL POINTS: 56
SHIP: Nebulon-B Support Refit 51

UPGRADES PTS
Enhanced Armament 10
Salvation 7
TOTAL POINTS: 68

SQUADRONS PTS
Tycho Celchu 16
Shara Bey 17
Z-95 Headhunter Squadron × 2 14
TOTAL POINTS: 47
Total : 396 / 400