Monday, February 19, 2018

Madine Postmortem


Regionals season is behind me, so it's time to look have a hard look at my (poor) choices for the last few months. Madine scored me 9th place at my Regionals. That's a bit disappointing on my end as that's a drop from last year. Either I'm getting worse at this game (very possible) or I need to stop trying to make niche commanders something they're not (hey, I recognized Rieekan early on, didn't I?). Bellyaching aside, let's dive into the postmortem.


First, a quick reminder of the list I finished my Madine run with:
Name: I'm a Leaf on the Wind
Faction: Rebel
Commander: General Madine
Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Fire Lanes
Navigation: Intel Sweep
CR90 Corvette A (44)
• General Madine (30)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
• Jaina's Light (2)
= 91 Points
CR90 Corvette A (44)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
= 59 Points
CR90 Corvette A (44)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
= 59 Points
MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• H9 Turbolasers (8)
• Admonition (8)
• Lando Calrissian (4)

= 92 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
= 18 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
= 18 Points
Squadrons:
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Shara Bey (17)
• 2 x VCX-100 Freighter (30)
= 63 Points
Total Points: 400
What Worked
Man do I love the TRC90 with Engine Techs and Madine. I can't talk this little ship up enough. It's so damned fun to fly.  More importantly, it's never out of the fight. It can flip around 180 degrees in a single turn, it can accomplish a more or less lateral movement to avoid drifting into range, and it can paste flotillas without so much as firing a shot. It does all this while providing steady, consistent damage from long range. It was worth every penny of the 59 point investment.

I also really liked what Madine did for the MC30. One of my biggest problems with this ship has always been trying to stay engaged after the first pass. Getting three extra clicks from a Madine dial+token helped with that tremendously. The MC30 was easily the heaviest hitter in the list, so opponents often based their movement on what the MC30 was doing. I had more than a few games where I was able to fake out my opponent because of Madine's flexibility by appearing to swing out wide with the MC30, only to swing drastically back the other direction and catch them flat-footed.

Overall I matched up very well against Avenger based lists. More often that not, I could out manuever the beast. Even if I didn't, my MSU approach meant it didn't have a juicy target for it to knock out with Boarding Troopers. In all my games, I never lost against a list with an ISD. Zippy little CR90s are aggravating like that.

What Didn't
I practiced against Sloane. I practiced against Rebel squadrons. I failed to account for straight Imperial bombers, which ended up being my undoing. Both my Regionals losses where against Imperial squadrons that could keep up with my speed and peck away at one hull zone. Tried as I might, my limited squadrons just couldn't keep up. I might have been able to do a little better with A-Wings instead of VCXs, but I'm not certain. They would have died easier, so the likely would have only tied some things down for a turn or two longer. The VCXs helped me in other ways, so I' not sure the overall result would have been much better. Squadrons in general are hard for Madine. You want to be using that nav dial all the time, which means you either have to go squadron light, or Rogue heavy, neither of which work well in the current meta.

I also knew going into Regionals that a Death Pickle was a major problem. I tried to offset that by being better at the strategic game, which may have worked. I'm not confident in that assessment, though. Others who have used my list have reported similar difficulties, even when trying to play the strategic game.

Wave 7 Potential
I'm torn on how I could do Madine in a wave 7 world. On the one hand, my MSU approach alongside Madine's natural flexibility is exactly what you need to deal with Raddus, someone I expect to dominate this wave. On the other hand, MSU does not fare well in this wave. EWS alone would cripple my Madine list as it stands. Seeing as many are experimenting with EWS to combat the squadron menace. All I know is my time with Madine, like Garm, has come to an end. It was a good run, but I'm ready to try something different.

7 comments:

  1. Madine needs too many Nav commands to be good. That's close to crippling IMO. And I'm a guy who really appreciates the positioning and activation part of the game.

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    1. On one hand I'd argue that there is no such thing as "too many" Nav commands. On the other hand... when it is to the exclusion of all else...

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    2. Well if the ship(s) can benefit from Nav Commands...

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  2. I've enjoyed reading your posts for a long time. As a long time practitioner of Madine, it is always good to see him get some press and play. At this point, I've tried tons of different combinations with Madine, and I agree with some of the assessments made. I still think that by and large, the Liberty is the ship that most naturally fits Madine. And although I've run an MC30 for the longest time, the last four months or so I've gone without with no otherwise ill effect. I'm not really sure 3 CR90s and an MC30 in a list with nearly any commander has enough of the tools to answer the diversity of lists that are out there, and I think that ended up being the greater undoing rather than Madine himself.

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  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. I... pressed the wrong button and deleted this comment by mistake. I can't figure out how to bring it back. Here is the original comment in it's entirety:

      "Apologies up front for my grammar Nazism, but it's "fare" not fair. "Fair" is what life is not. "Fare", used as a verb, is for describing good or bad fortunes/outcomes in a given situation. I know, I know, I'll show myself out...

      But before I go, my thanks to you and the rest of the team for your insightful articles which have been a key component of my performance improvement in Armada. I too share a strange obsession with choosing commanders from the island of misfit toys, almost as though they were puzzles to be solved."

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