Sunday, November 11, 2018

Armada Meta Deep Dive: Raddus Liberty


Even if you've been just half reading this blog, you'll know Raddus Liberty is my baby. While I don't consider it superior to the Raddis Bomb, it certain fits me better. It has been the less popular of the Raddis builds around, but I have seen others trying it out here and there. It's picked up in usage since I won Nationals with it, so a copycat at your local Regional Championship is fairly likely.


Key Components



MC80 "Liberty" Type Cruiser
The choice of large ship is the defining difference between this build and the Raddus Bomb. Despite having the nastiest arc of any Rebel ship around, it's not going to have the sheer burst potential of the MC75. Instead, the Liberty brings endurance and pursuit. Where the MC75 punges straight in, the Liberty prefers to come in from an angle, setting up mutliple back to back (to back, to back) shots with it's devestating front arc all while using its speed to keep pace with anything trying to get away. There are a couple variants of what you can bring, depending mainly on the weapons team slot. Gunnery Teams will allow you to bully MSU. Caitken and Shollan, my personal preference, makes your single front arc shot more reliable. It comes down to just what you need it to do. The Liberty also allows you more flexibility on the drop. It doesn't need close range, nor a double arc to be effective, so compared to the MC75 it has many more options when dropping in.


Fast, dodgy flagship
Look familiar? Good, because this hasn't changed from the Raddus Bomb. I'm unapologetically copy and pasting. The always critical Raddus flagship take a couple forms, likely either an MC30 or CR90. An Admonition flagship is about as durable as possible while also being a nasty piece of work at close range. Alternatively, Jaina's Light on a TRC90 can stay on the outskirts of the fight or stay just out of the fight and rapidly commit once the drop is down. The key part is to be able to either last against enemy squadrons or just stay the hell away from them. The worst possible thing that can happen to a Raddus list is to lose the blue fish's chariot before you put down the drop. It's a delicate balancing act at times. You don't want to keep a ship like Admonition out of the fight for long. It's a great brawler and it doesn't come cheap. At the same time, however, over-committing your flagship can force you to put down your drop in a sub-optimal position.

Strengths

Compared the Raddus Bomb, this build is all about flexibility. The Liberty will always be where you need it and can keep itself in the play thanks to its speed. When combined with an MSU approach to the support ships, it's hard to force a bad drop. The Liberty is just too fast and has too much reach. Like all Raddis builds, it excels at fast wins through shock and awe. However, because of the Liberty, it can also play an endurance game if needed. As the Marines would say: Semper Gumbi!

Weaknesses

THIS BUILD HAS NO WEAKNESSES. NOPE. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.
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Fine. Squadron builds can be very threatening. There's a reason I bring multiple Slicers to play. They can respond to the drop and eat the Liberty pretty quickly. Speed can mitigate some of the worst of Rebel squads, but Imperial two ship has the sauadron speed to keep up. The Liberty, while the main source of strength, is also the build's greatest vulnerability. It is far and away the most fragile large ship around, despite the double braces. It has a hard time queuing up repair commands because you so often need that nav command to both use engine techs and make up for a rather funky nav chart. Getting the build to sing is often about knowing when to disengage and preserve the points cost of the Liberty. It's not a cut and dry line, nor is it easy to train yourself to think that why. I've been playing with a version of this on and off for a year and I still miscalculate what the Liberty can handle.

4 comments:

  1. Please show the full list for these otherwise it's very hard to follow the article let alone emulate it.

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    Replies
    1. There is no "Full list" per-se. These are archetypes. Because of how Armada's list building works, things can be built in a variety of ways, while still looking roughly the same.

      Hence "Key Components" instead of a list detailing exactly how to netlist it.

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  2. Great write up! As a Raddus Liberty player, I have a question. How much of a requirement is the "nimble flagship" component? My list has and MC-75 as the Flagship and 2 Flotillias as support. Is loosing the flexibility going to be bad? I got 2nd at store champs with this list, just worried about Regionals

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So you're running what I generally refer to as a "Hammer and Anvil" approach, which I'd classify as it's own archetype. It flies significantly different than either of the other Raddus archetypes. I usually prefer the Lib as the flagship in this case and the MC75 as the drop ship since the MC75 struggles more with positioning. My person version uses Bail and VCXs to create a massive threat as second player.

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