Saturday, October 21, 2017

The Madine Trials: Part One


The stress tests have begun. The iconoclast in me can't help but go against the grain of the meta, so I've tentatively chosen my Madine list for this Regionals season. So far I've gotten in three games, all of which have taught me some good lessons.


My first game was against CaribbeanNinja, who has fought various versions of my Madine lists a lot. I think he might have a little Madine PTSD. He was kind enough to tool out a Defiance list explicitly designed to combat my list. He took a tooled out Ackbar Defiance, 3x CR90Bs, 2 flotillas, and Shara and Tycho for squadrons. It may not sound all that good as a general list, but trust me when I say this is about as bad as it can get for me. He matched my activations and maintained a similar level of flexibility. He had the bid and chose second. I took his Solar Corona. This was a close one that I squeaked out 165-118. I think I could have found a way to approach Defiance to take out that pinata, but I wanted to practice against it as thought it had Advanced Gunnery. The game confirmed my suspicions about how hard a well flown Ackbar Defiance is to approach, but it also showed me I can keep myself out of reach and peck away at the rest of a fleet if need be. A flotilla and/or squadron heavier list would require a different approach, but I'm good enough at dismantling flotillas that it could potentially be easier rather than harder. The fact that I was able to pull out a win, however close, against a well flown Defiance made me very confident that Madine was going to be my best way forward.

My next game was against Moodswing, who decided to go mirror match on me. He pulled out my old version of this list that he flew at Worlds. This was a certifiably insane matchup. And yes, there was lots of ramming. He took first and chose my Capture the VIP. The initial stages of this game were slower and more deliberate than you would expect. My ranged superiority was largely negated by his abundance of evade tokens. In the end, I think this game hinged on a single counter ram. With his last activation of a turn, mood moved in to ram one of my TRC90s. He was rocking RBDs, so his obvious intent was to discard the damage at the beginning of the turn. However, I had another TRC90 lined up for my last activation. That allowed me to double ram his CRambo and kill it before the RBDs could come into play. From there, the dominos started falling. I got greedy at the end of the game trying to finish off his Admonition. I came up one damage short and then got hit with the perfect rear arc dice roll (blue hit, black hit/crit to kill my ship. Still, this ended 280-111 and was a single die roll in either direction from being an even larger win for me.

My latest game was against my buddy Dan. He's not a competitive gamer, but has pretty good instincts for someone who plays once every few months at best. He went with a double VSD and Quasar Sloane list. I won the coin flip and took first player, selecting his Dangerous Territory. I cleaned up pretty well here, going 460-192. I really want to get a test against Green Knight's Nordic Champion list, but I'm pretty certain this game gave me the template for beating Sloane with Madine. The key was to do my best to wait out the squadron activations with the ship I expect to take the biggest beating. In this case, that was Jaina's Light, who angled to nab up some Dangerous Territory tokens early in the game. Once it can't take much more, I turn on the Afterburners and get the hell out of Dodge. With Engine Techs, even Sloane squadrons have a hard time keeping up. I can out pace their activation radius and effectively disengage. My other lesson is that VSDs with External Racks and Quad Battery Turrets fucking hurt. I parked a CR90 at close range of the rear of a VSD, thinking 'it's just 2 red,' forgetting that External Racks just need close range and not other black dice. One blue accuracy, two reds, and two blacks later, I watched a fully shielded CR90 disappear. I love what External Racks and QBTs have done for the VSD.

I've gotten some good decision points from these games. The main question continues to be squadron cover. I'm very unsure of going forward with just Shara and Tycho. They disappeared very quickly against Sloane. Then again, I can't imagine things being much different with additional fighters. JJ also gave me an alternative idea for the MC30 that would make it better against large ships, but not quite as potent against flotillas. The catch is it's 12 points more, so I'd have to downgrade my 5th combat ship in some way.

10 comments:

  1. I assume for the harder 12 more points MC30 it's expanded launchers and maybe Intel officer? Keeping the H9s on that is EVIL and I love it, or you could go with the XI7S that would bring it into focus I think.

    I may have to try that evil out, that sounds amazing...

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    1. It's a Scout with TRCs and Intel Officer. It trades certainty against flotillas for higher damage output against large ships.

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  2. Where can I find the list you played?

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    1. The Madine list in this article was the starting point:

      http://www.steelstrategy.com/2017/09/committing-to-regionals-list.html?m=1

      After my game with Ninja, I added Engine Techs to Jaina's Light and downgraded one TRC90 to a CR90B with Engine Techs and Reinforced Blast Doors. It seems likely to change even further, but the core of the list will stay consistent.

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  3. I´m flying too a Madine list now that we´re deluged into this Sloane madness. I think there´s no Rebel fighter investment that can clear Sloane Aces, and since I am no friend of giving up points for free, I´m going squadronless to all events until the next wave. I´m only saying this because of you talking about Shara and Tycho. I too wanted them in. I too feel they are free points for squadron lists and contribute next to nothing against lists with little to no squadrons. But my list comes out with two liberty class, a 30 and 2 flotillas XD.

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    1. Tycho and Shara die every time, but can typically take down at least a couple generics. More importantly, every shot against them is a shot that's not against a ship. Squadronless offers Sloane free reign. Tycho and Shara at least buy some time.

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    2. You´re right every point, I just endure my round of sloane suffering. Instead of Tycho and Shara I use those points to fly slicer tools on a Quantum Storm, double engine teched Libertys and an H9 MC30. Quasars just can´t run and flotillas get smacked quickly. If you can´t activate aces, you have 130 redundant points. It also helps Sloane builds then to go 400.

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    3. It also helps Sloane builds tend to go 400, sorry.

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    4. I didn't care for the MC30 Scout variant JJ suggested, but I did like the other edits I make to fit it into the list. That means that I have some points to play with. Slicer Tools is looking mighty tempting.

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  4. I personally think Ciena Ree and Valen Rudor can hold up a much bigger fighter force for a while without giving many points away. Tycho and Shara are in the same league, I think the key thing to remember is - they are going to die. If they buy you one extra turn to murder the opponent’s carriers or run away, then it is points well spent. A higher investment in fighters would only lead to the same result but give away more points!

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