Armada 1.5 Commander Relook: Mon Mothma

The final Rebel in our 1.5 re-look series will be Mon Mothma. Before diving into her, we just want to acknowledge that, yes, Garm and Rieekan also got 1.5 tweaks. Rieekan’s marginal point increase and Garm’s added flexibility, though, don’t meaningfully change those commanders in a substantial way in our eyes. They are just as viable as they were before the tweaks, nor will their preferred fleet builds really change. If you want some ideas for Garm, go check out Biggs’ and Shmitty’s ongoing Dumpster Fire epic. If you want some ideas for Rieekan...well, have you been playing this game? Go check out a Worlds finalist list from any of the last four years.

Now back to Mon Mothma. She is the original MSU queen of Rebels, having come onto the scene back in wave 1. Since then, she has slowly fallen out of use. Part of that was getting edged out by other commanders that fill that same MSU niche. Cracken was the first, but Rieekan has become the dominant choice of MSU. The second, and bigger part in my opinion, is the decline of MSU as a whole. The game has increasingly become about big ships and big activations, which was crystalized by Pryce, Strategic Advisor, and Bail. 1.0 MSU relied heavily on activation advantage. Once flotillas and activation officers disrupted that advantage, MSU was slowly but surely edged out. Small ships and maximum squads still worked well, but Mon Mothma was almost entirely supplanted by Rieekan in that archetype to ensure Yavaris got that one last activation before going down.

So what’s changed? For one, Mothma got cheaper. Not by a whole lot, but 3 points is a small upgrade. It’s only in combination with Rieekan’s increase that you really see the space Mon Mothma might occupy. In 1.0, if you were making an MSU list, Rieekan and Mothma were the same cost. It was hard to see a reason to bring Mothma over a pretty clearly superior ability with Rieekan. Now it’s a 7 point difference. That’s pretty significant. The second change is Mothma now forces re-rolls of two dice at close range instead of one. However, that’s really because of the massive changes to small ships in 1.5 overall. Now that every small ship can evade at close range, obviously Mothma needed a little something extra to set her apparent. The class size check I think is the biggest change in terms of Mothma’s viability. The ability to discard an evade to cancel two dice at medium range is pretty great.

Mothma’s fate will be inextricably linked with that of small ships as a whole in 1.5. The activation changes in particular are a pretty big wild card. On the one hand, you don’t need to invest in flotillas for activation padding anymore, instead taking more actual combat power. On the other hand, the evade changes may or may not be enough to compensate for the last/first becoming much more difficult. MSU relied on last/first more than any other archetype, so the pass mechanics may very well hurt Mothma and MSU rather than help. With that in mind, let’s have a look at what a Mothma 1.5 list might look like:

Name: Mothma 1.5

Faction: Rebel

Commander: Mon Mothma

Assault: Surprise Attack

Defense: Hyperspace Assault

Navigation: Volatile Deposits

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)

• Mon Mothma (27)

• Lando Calrissian (4)

• Ordnance Experts (4)

• Assault Concussion Missiles (5)

• Foresight (8)

= 111 Points

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)

• Ordnance Experts (4)

• Assault Concussion Missiles (5)

= 72 Points

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)

• Ordnance Experts (4)

• Assault Concussion Missiles (5)

= 72 Points

CR90 Corvette A (44)

• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)

= 51 Points

CR90 Corvette A (44)

• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)

= 51 Points

Squadrons:

• Tycho Celchu (16)

• Shara Bey (17)

= 33 Points

Total Points: 390

I’m not going to lie, I threw this list together in about two minutes just to have a Mothma list to talk about. If you want a real Mothma list, go bug Ardaedhel over on the Star Wars Armada Discord (https://discord.gg/vwDjsBZSNW if you didn’t know it existed). He’s been the crazy guy sticking with Mothma through thick and thin over the years. 

What I do know is that when you’re making a Mothma list, it should include as many MC30s as you can cram in there. Mothma synergizes best with the MC30 Torpedo, which wants to get into medium and close range. It’s at that range where Mothma makes a big difference. It’s a knife fighting list that wants to pack a lot of damage into furious close range exchanges. Sometimes you need finishers in a list like that, though, which is where the CR90s come in. TRC90s are some of the most reliable damage dealers around. If something limps away from an MC30, the 90s can hang back for pursuit. Oh yeah, and Shara and Tycho are there for a screen. Hey, I TOLD YOU I only took about two minutes on this list. I have no idea if it will work, but will sure be fun to try.

Armada 1.5 Commander Relook: Tarkin

Next up in our 1.5 commander spotlight is the snootiest of snoots, the stealer of Krennic’s glory, the butcher of Alderaan. Yes, we’re talking Grand Moff Tarkin. Tarkin dovetails nicely off of our discussion of Leia, not just because the two are so inextricably linked in the Star Wars canon, but also because of the similarity of their abilities and cost. Tarkin is amongst the oldest commanders in Armada, shipping with the original starter set. His ability allows you to give out command tokens like candy to all of our ships every turn. The catch is that it has to be the same token for every ship. Unfortunately he has not aged particularly well, despite getting a boost with the Sovereign title.

Tarkin had two issues. First and foremost is cost. As I said with Leia, the cost reduction Tarkin is getting (10 points) is a lot in Armada. That’s two moderate upgrades, or one big one, which can make all the difference in a fleet. The second is Tarkin’s lack of flexibility. It’s hard to make a fleet that wants just one type of token each turn. I saw him work somewhat in the early days with Victory carriers, who all generally wanted to do the same thing as the other Victories each turn, but as the game has evolved, Tarkin’s lack of flexibility became more of an issue. The Sovereign title alleviated this problem a good deal, allowing you to swap out some of Tarkin’s tokens for different tokens. Overall it’s a pretty solid deal, leaving Tarkin with just one real problem: his cost. 

That’s where 1.5 opens new possibilities. As a 28 point commander handing out tokens all over the place, Tarkin is suddenly a lot more competitive with other Imperial commanders in that range. I still think you’ll want to have him sitting on Sovereign at all times, but if you’re OK with that, then have at the old man. In my opinion, he’s probably better than Garm now (COME AT ME SHMITTY!) since he’ll give out more tokens with more flexibility over the course of a game. The only possible catch is...well they’re still just tokens. If you have a plan to maximize them, then awesome. If not, well, Tarkin is going to seem pretty lackluster. Here’s a pass at a Tarkin list:

Name: Tarquitens

Faction: Imperial

Commander: Grand Moff Tarkin

Assault: Most Wanted

Defense: Rift Ambush

Navigation: Volatile Deposits

ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)

• Grand Moff Tarkin (28)

• Minister Tua (2)

• Electronic Countermeasures (7)

• Intensify Firepower! (6)

• Gunnery Team (7)

• Reserve Hangar Deck (3)

• Spinal Armament (9)

• Sovereign (4)

= 178 Points

Arquitens Command Cruiser (59)

• Engine Techs (8)

• Reactive Gunnery (4)

= 71 Points

Arquitens Command Cruiser (59)

• Engine Techs (8)

• Reactive Gunnery (4)

= 71 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)

• Comms Net (2)

• Reserve Hangar Deck (3)

= 28 Points

Squadrons:

• Ciena Ree (17)

• Valen Rudor (13)

• 2 x TIE Interceptor Squadron (22)

= 52 Points

Total Points: 400

As with Garm, Tarkin needs a token plan. The plan here is navigate tokens for the Arquitens, confire for the Cymoon, and navigate or repair for the Gozanti. If you see a token factory and don’t immediately think of Intensity Firepower!, you’re doing it wrong. As with Shmitty and Bigg’s Garm Dumpster Fire, I think any Tarkin list absolutely has to start with this crucial Fleet Command upgrade. It allows you to forgo a significant investment in dice fixing upgrades. For Imperials, that means a Cymoon or the Chimera title. As I said above, though, I can’t see running Tarkin without the Sovereign title, which makes the choice of a Cymoon pretty obvious. That flagship is itself pretty straight forward. It should be concentrating fire as much as it can in order to utilize its Gunnery Team, while relying on tokens beamed over from the Comms Net to toss over nav tokens to adjust speed or repair tokens to refresh Electronic Countermeasures as needed.

The Arquitens Command Cruisers are intended to be slim, but solid damage dealers. There are players who have already had success with Arqs with Engine Tech fueled by Tarkin. By using a nav token, you can speed up and slow down as need, and then get 4 clicks of yaw thanks to the Engine Techs. As long as you’re ok with that coming at the end of the move, that’s a much more flexible Arquitens. Oh, and it can effectively go speed 4 if it needs to get out of a bad situation. Now you can do that for 10 points cheaper, so I figure it’s worth giving a shot. Reactive Gunnery adds a new wrinkle as well, putting that seldom used contain to work, put out two dice at medium range with IF guaranteeing at least one damage. The plan is spam concentrate fire commands and rely on the Tarkin navigates for maneuver.

The Comms Net is barely worth mentioning. It’s Tarkin token will immediately find its way back over to Sovereign, based on whatever that ship needs in a given turn. Otherwise, the Gozanit is just commanding squads to the best of its ability. I have felt less of a need to maximize squadron command value on screen in 1.5, since part of the screen can hang back to, you know, screen ships. Ciena, Valen, and 2 Interceptor backed up by a couple RHDs I think is plenty solid for a 1.5 screen. Cienna and Valen remain a very obnoxious combo that can tie things up and whittle them down quite effectively for the cost. And RHD Interceptors I think are just gold.

So will it work? You should be familiar with this answer by now: who the heck knows! The point is to get out there, try new things, and have fun doing it. This feels like a whole new game to me. Enjoy it!

Armada 1.5 Commander Relook: Leia

The third installment of our 1.5 commander re-looks is the Princess herself. We here at Steel Strategy have been pretty unapologetic in our scorn for Leia Organa as a commander card to this point. By all means, we would love to see her become a viable commander. However, despite the delusions of some diehard Leia supporters (we all know who we mean by that *cough* John *cough*), she has consistently been the Rebel’s worst performing commander. Like many others, she got a re-look with the 1.5 update.

The most glaring issue with Leia was her point cost. At 38 points, her cost was rather absurdly high. That was multiple significant upgrades you have to cut to get her into your list. If you’re looking to just use her to get an additional squad command out of your flotilla, then why not just buy two sets of Expanded Hangar Bays and one of many cheaper commanders? That wasn’t her only issue, though. The Leia commander card simultaneously undervalued and overvalued tokens. It overvalued gaining a token that matched your command dial. That’s a nice thing to have, but not a game changer. The downside to Leia, however, is that you can’t use OTHER tokens. As someone who constantly lives and breaths off of those extra tokens to help me slow down or move shields, that is a major downside.

The 1.5 changes help the first part of Leia’s problem: her cost. At 28 points, she is a far more reasonable investment. You can do quite a bit with 10 points in Armada, so that adjustment immediately changes the calculus. Now Leia is on fairly even ground with other MSU commanders, such as Cracken and Mon Mothma. If you are able to leverage Leia’s “super commands,” she is no longer getting in the way of the rest of your list. Still, her major downside is still very much there: you cannot use other tokens when using her commander ability. In essence, you are surrendering flexibility for magnitude. If you are comfortable with that, then Leia could work out. Here’s a try at a Leia list: 

Leia Squads (133/400/400)

========================

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57 + 32: 89)

· Leia Organa (28)

· Skilled First Officer (1)

· Auxiliary Shields Team (3)

Modified Pelta-class Assault Ship (56 + 10: 66)

· Wedge Antilles (4)

· Intensify Firepower! (6)

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57 + 4: 60)

· Auxiliary Shields Team (3)

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 + 9: 27)

· Toryn Farr (7)

· Comms Net (2)

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 + 7: 25)

· Munitions Resupply (3)

· Boosted Comms (4)

Jan Ors (19)

Shara Bey (17)

Tycho Celchu (16)

3 x Scurrg H-6 Bomber (3 x 16)

3 x A-wing Squadron (3 x 11)

Surprise! It has a Pelta! Did you really think we would stop putting in Peltas? Pffft. We have a reputation to uphold here. The main idea with this list is to use Leia primarily for flexible squadron pushing. The Nebulons and flotillas are able to push three squadrons a piece. That means, at most, only three of them need to be pushing squads to max out commands. That leaves at least one of the Nebs able to concentrate fire or navigate as needed. The Pelta is nice and lean, but provides a lot of solid support. The plan is to bank a turn one squadron token for Wedge. If a second use of Wedge is needed, that’s where the Comms Net comes in. Since the Comms Net doesn’t need to keep a token for its own use, it can hang onto one for the Pelta as long as it needs. Meanwhile, the Munitions Resupply flotilla can fuel Intensity Firepower! The Pelta, meanwhile, can just concentrate fire, repair, or navigate as needed with Leia boosted effects.

The Nebulons in particular excite me with Leia. Normally when I use Auxiliary Shield Teams, I use my first turn command to gain one shield on a side, and then move a rear shield to a side. That can potentially cause issues if I take fire to the rear. With Leia, I have enough repair points to just recover the shields on the first turn without help. After that, the Nebs can flex their commands to either add more firepower (plus a Leia con fire re-roll and IF! for fixing), drastically adjust speed, and command a significant number of squadrons. As a bonus, Escort Frigates with Toryn support have very dangerous flak.

The squad ball is more in line with what I expect to see from Rebels with the 1.5 changes. The intel nerf means that you can expect squadrons to stay locked in for longer, making counter harder to avoid. That means A-Wings, and Tycho and Shara by extension, become much more powerful. As proof that Jan was way too good before 1.5, I’m still bringing her in this list. That is entirely for her ability to pass braces to the generic squadrons, which is especially mean with A-Wings and counter. Even if she’s the first target, attackers are still dealing with her braces and still taking counter damage. The Scurrgs are something I expect to come out looking pretty good in 1.5. Their native Grit allows them to spread out, causing engagement problems for enemy squadrons. If they get stuck, then I have Wedge to help them slip free, once again made easier by Grit.

So is it any good? You’re going to get the same answer from me every time: who the heck knows? What it will be is more fun and interesting. Now get out there and try some jank!

Armada 1.5 Double Take - Special K: Admiral Konstantine! Finally Not The Worst Commander?!

 No.  He's still the worst.

That's it.  That's the article.

You can move on now.

Armada 1.5 Commander Relook: Sato

Today, we're starting the first in what will be a series of commander articles looking at 1.5 changes to commanders. The goal is to look at how they've changed, how you might leverage now, and what weaknesses might remain. For our inaugural article, we're talking Phoenix Leader: Commander Jun Sato. Sato has always been an intriguing commander. He doesn’t really compete against other Rebel commanders for use in a certain archetype. He’s not competing against Mothma, Rieekan, and Cracken for MSU primacy. He’s not competing against Raddus or Agate in a large ship based list. Sato, as I recently told Geek19 of CGYSO, is kind of the David S. Pumpkins of Rebels: his own thaaaang. The idea of delivering black critical effects, such as Assault Proton Torpedoes or Assault Concussion Missiles sounds fantastic in theory. Some dedicated players (Shmitty and I included) have done decently well with him. Yet no one has really ever cracked the top tier consistently. 

It's Finally Here: Armada 1.5 Introduction

Hello again everyone! Today, I finally get to talk about the "1.5" rule adjustments for Armada. As you may or may not have noticed, Shmitty and I are in the playtest credits for the game’s latest update (so yes, this is all our fault, hate away). I've been waiting a long time to discuss this openly, and I'm really excited that the larger community finally gets to play with the changes. The adjustments go toward addressing some long standing complaints from the player base. The result, in my opinion, creates options for much more diverse fleets than we currently see in the competitive environment. More importantly, it makes the game even more fun to play. So without further ado, let's dive in.

The biggest change, by far, is the introduction of revised activation mechanics. One of the oldest tricks in the Armada book is to set up a ship to get the last activation in one turn, and then activate the same ship at the start of the next turn. There have been upgrades, such as Governor Pryce, introduced in an attempt to disrupt this strategy, but those upgrades have ended up just causing more problems. As such, the revised rules have introduced a pass token, which are awarded to the player with fewer ships at the start of the game. Unlike the previous iteration found in the Super Star Destroyer expansion (which this update replaces), the new pass token is one time use, and you also cannot use pass tokens back to back. In addition, Governor Pryce, Bail Organa, and the Strategic Adviser are being removed from competitive play for the time being. All of that put together means that, while last/first is not completely eliminated, the second player has more opportunities to avoid it.

The second major change is to the evade defense token. And man do I love this one. For small ships, this is often their only way of reducing incoming damage. It was, however, completely useless at close range. That is, until now. The effect previously allowed for medium range is being extended to close range. This allows ships some measure of use from evade at all times, even against squadron attacks. In addition, the evade token also allows smaller ships to get greater use out of evade against bigger ships. If a smaller ship is defending against a large ship, the evade token can affect an additional die. For example, a Raider defending against a long range attack from a MC80 Assault Cruiser could cancel two dice instead of one. The catch is that if the small ship elects to cancel an additional die, they also have to discard that defense token, even if it was readied. This allows evades to become somewhat of a panic button for small ships, especially those that need to get to close range, where evade is less effective. Trust me when I say this change gives Raiders and Hammerheads some major help, and makes MC30s and Gladiators without titles much more interesting.

Moving on to squadron changes, Intel is perhaps the most controversial keyword around. When it was introduced, it upended the squadron portion of the game, in many cases allowing bombers to entirely bypass a fighter screen. The updated rules have changed Intel considerably, attempting to strike a balance between total freedom and total lockdown. Intel now affects friendly squadrons instead of enemy squadrons. Instead of inflicting the Heavy keyword, it now instead grants Grit to friendly squadrons at distance one. The impact is to allow smaller fighter screens to have a greater impact on fleets with maximum squadrons, allowing the screen to slow down enemy bombers for at least a little while.

Finally, unique squadrons with defense tokens, often referred to as "Aces", have often come to be the only squadrons players take. It is not uncommon to see eight unique squadrons fill up the maximum squadron capacity of a fleet. In many tournaments, you often see the same eight or so Aces in fleet after fleet. They're often more capable and more efficient point for point than their generic counterparts. It also means that a lot of interdependent abilities have to be perfectly lined up. Many players felt this slowed down the game, as players have to be very exact in their squadron placement. While I hope a total points rebalancing comes at some point, for now the developers have elected to simply cap the number of unique squadrons with defense tokens that a player is allowed to take at four. The hope is to speed up squadron play a bit and force some more variability in squadron composition.

Accompanying these changes to the rules are tweaks to a large number of existing upgrades. Some are simple points changes. Some are some slight functionality changes. The goal is to make some highly-used cards feel less “mandatory,” and some less-used cards feel more viable. How often have you wished the Grand Moff Tarkin or Leia Organa commander cards cost less? Have you ever wished Garm bel Iblis or General Tagge had a little more flexibility? Those cards have all gotten another look and changed to make them more compelling. Meanwhile, Gunnery Teams and Electronic Countermeasures, two upgrades that completely dominate their slots, now use a new mechanic requiring the player to spend a certain command token in order to be refreshed. That’s just a very small sample of the upgrade rebalancing.

I've been playing with these updated rules for a while now. I thoroughly enjoy them, so much so that I've struggled to force myself back into the old ruleset for competitive play. I know Shmitty has been dying to play with them in the open as well. These rules changes are a significant improvement for an already fantastic game. The best part is all my old favorite fleets still work with some minor adjustments, while also opening up a lot more options for new competitive archetypes. It's a great time to play Star Wars: Armada!

Reylo In The Rim - Outro

 Geek19 of CannotGetYourShipOut and I wrote a lot about Rebellion in the Rim awhile back, and we're done writing about it now.  You can look at our previous articles:

Reylo in the Rim - Basic Fleet Building - Teamwork Makes The Teams Work - Selecting Planets - Going Through a Turn - Actually Fighting - It's Not Easy Playing Green

I've been busy.  What?

New Podcast Episode Up

 https://steelstrategy.podbean.com/e/episode-29-separatist-starter-fleet-and-the-atomic-mass-games-move/

Here's a post saying we've got a new podcast episode up.  Expect more blog posts once Dec 4th rolls around.  Some stuff IS better in text after all.