Welcome back to The Ship Files!
This is the second half of the Rebel roster, continuing directly from Part 3: Potatoes and Shrimps. If you haven’t read that one — or the two Imperial entries before it — I’d strongly recommend starting there, especially with the intro to Part 1, where I lay out what this whole exercise is actually about.
One quick bit of housekeeping before we dive in: since the last entry in this series, Legacy Wave 1 has dropped. That release added a handful of new titles for existing ships, including two ships covered in this article. I’m not going to do a deep dive on those titles here — check out my Legacy wave 1 review for more — but where relevant, I’ll mention how they affect the ships in question.
Alright. Deep breath. Let’s talk about Rebel capital ships.
MC80 “Home One”
The original MC80 has… not aged gracefully.
It’s slow, so 90% of the time it wants Engine Techs. It lacks a Weapons Team slot, which means you’re strongly incentivized to take Leading Shots — and that immediately locks you out of PDIC. LS + ET usually pushes you toward Quad Battery Turrets just to get some reliable blue dice in there. And of course you want ECM, because of course you do.
That’s a lot of upgrades just to make the ship feel “okay”.
Firepower is middling for a large base at this price point. You can make it hit hard — especially under Ackbar — but red dice without strong modification support are fickle, and you end up paying a premium for consistency. The end result is a ship that’s better than an AFII in most respects… but costs significantly more, and still doesn’t really excel at anything.
The Assault Cruiser variant is much more interesting. Double Defensive Retrofit is rare and potentially very powerful, and the longer-range emphasis fits the Rebel game plan nicely. Unfortunately, it starts at 110 points before upgrades, which is a steep buy-in.
What if: The Command Cruiser should have had a Fleet Command slot from day one. Thankfully, Legacy Wave 1 gave us Nautilian, which at least patches that hole. Both variants also feel like ships that should have had Salvo, but we all know that conversation is going nowhere.
Verdict: The price drops helped, but I still don’t see many Home Ones on the table. I’m not sure whether they need another cut or just more time at their current price, but right now, they still feel like too much effort for too little payoff.
MC80 “Liberty”
This is my favorite Rebel ship in this article, hands down.
A large-base ship that can hit speed 4 (with Engine Techs), delete anything smaller than itself in one activation, seriously maul anything its own size, and then leave? That’s fantastic — unless you're on the receiving end. When the Liberty works, it really works.
But — and it’s a big but — it has some glaring dependencies. It almost always wants Engine Techs. It really wants Agate or Raddus. Madine can also work, making the whole “hit and run” plan somewhat more flexible, but it loses the toughness Agate brings. Those dependencies inflate the real cost of the ship far beyond its printed price.
What if: A Recusant-style defense suite — no double brace, but Evade and Salvo — would at least make the ship feel more dynamic. It wouldn’t solve the Engine Techs tax, though, and fixing the boring dice pools and upgrade bars would require a total redesign anyway.
Verdict: Slightly overpriced. I’d be happy with 93 for the Star Cruiser and 98 for the Battle Cruiser. If you do that, though, Agate (and maybe Raddus, but not Madine) probably need to go up as well, since they benefit disproportionately.
Modified Pelta-class
Ever played GAR? Ever run Peltas? Yeah. Me too. Love them.
So where are the Rebel Peltas?
On paper, they’re arguably better than the GAR versions — more front firepower, similar cost, Fleet Command access on a small hull. And yet… they’re rare sights, even after ARC dropped the Assault Pelta all the way to 52 points.
That’s because firepower alone doesn’t make a ship good. Speed, defense, upgrade bars, and opportunity cost all matter — and the Rebel Peltas struggle there.
The Assault Pelta is fine now. Cheap enough to justify bringing, capable of running Intensify Firepower!, and with the right support (Leia, CF tokens), it can punch above its weight. It’s limited, but at least it has a role.
The Command Pelta, on the other hand, is not fine at 60. As a carrier, it’s bad. The AFII-B outclasses it so completely that cost and Fleet Command access can’t compensate. Once upon a time, old Yavaris + Command Pelta + un-nerfed Rieekan was a real archetype. That entire ecosystem is gone, and the ship was never redesigned to survive without it.
What if: Personally, I don’t love Fleet Commands on small ships at all — they feel like they should belong on larger command platforms, with better internal balance between them. But that’s a much bigger discussion.
Verdict: Assault Pelta is fine. Command Pelta should drop to 56 — but if that happens, the Nebulon-B (below) also needs help.
Nebulon-B Frigate
I have a complicated relationship with this ship.
I’ve been playing Armada since May 2015. I’ve flown Nebs badly into Victory front arcs. I’ve both abused and suffered under un-nerfed Yavaris. I love how weird it looks and plays — strange arcs, strange defenses, strange everything.
But that weirdness is also why it’s so hard to just slot one into a list. Nebulons tend to appear either as title carriers (Salvation now, Yavaris once upon a time) or as part of a full-on Neb spam list. There’s very little middle ground.
Both variants also suffer from extremely dated design: bland dice pools, near-identical upgrade bars, and exaggeratedly weak side arcs. It works, but it feels ancient.
What if: The Escort having an Offensive Retrofit would do wonders. The Support as a Fleet Support / combat hybrid would be genuinely interesting. But neither is happening without a redesign.
Verdict: Both variants are overpriced. The Support should come down a couple of points, and the Escort’s +6 premium is far too steep for +1 flak and +1 squadron. 49 / 53 feels reasonable; 48 / 52 might even be fine.
Providence-class (Rebel)
This ship is a fascinating mess.
Yes, it uses the same model and arcs as the CIS Providence — but everything else is different. Speed 2 instead of 3. Less yaw. An Evade instead of a Contain. Lower squadron value. No Defensive Retrofit slot. No Invincible-style title.
At 95 points, it looks like a bargain compared to the CIS version at 103.
It is not.
Without a Defensive Retrofit, Agate is basically stapled to this ship. You also need Engine Techs because speed 2. If you want it to be a carrier, you need Expanded Hangars. And suddenly you’re pouring points into just making the chassis functional.
Here’s a fairly typical carrier build:
Providence Carrier (95)
• Kyrsta Agate (25)
• Ray Antilles (7)
• Walex Blissex (5)
• Flight Controllers (6)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Caitken and Shollan (6)
• Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Fighter Coordination Team (3)
= 164 points
That’s a lot of investment for something that’s merely “okay+”.
Legacy Wave 1’s Rebel One title helps with survivability and gives you alternatives to Agate, which is good — but it’s also more points, and the fundamental problem remains.
What if: Honestly? Too many to count. This ship is what happens when design constraints start to suffocate a system.
Verdict: Drop it to 90 points. At least then it’s easier to afford everything it needs to do its job. But again, this suggests Agate needs to come up if we want to increase variety.
Starhawk-class Battleship
What a waste of plastic.
Rebels finally get something that can stand toe-to-toe with an ISD… and it’s speed 2, has no Defensive Retrofit, and practically screams AGATE + COME AT ME BRO.
You can make it work. It’s legal. It’s effective. But it relies on fortressing, objective play, and your opponent being forced to engage you. That’s a deeply passive, reactive way to play Armada — and frankly, a boring one.
The design intent is clear: enormous hull and shields balanced by poor mobility and limited upgrade access. The problem is that Agate bypasses a big chunk of that intended weakness, while the lack of speed means the ship can’t play proactively.
And don’t get me started on the titles — two-thirds of them only working on one variant is just bad design.
What if: I genuinely think FFG tried to balance this ship. It’s just that the end result isn’t particularly fun. Fixing it properly would require fundamental changes that are well outside ARC’s scope.
Verdict: Leave the ship alone, but Agate probably needs to be more expensive. I say that a lot, don't I?
Final Thoughts
Well… that was a lot of negativity.
The common thread in this second batch of Rebel ships is age — and design constraints caused by older designs. Many of them are victims of early-wave design: conservative upgrade bars, awkward dice pools, and defensive assumptions that don’t hold up in the modern game. ARC has done what it can with points, but some hulls are simply carrying too much historical baggage.
That said, you need to take what I write with a grain of salt; you should know by now this is my style of evaluating something. In reality, I'm quite fond of the Neb, for example, but I don't think it's a particularly good design — or correctly priced. And I do actually dust off my Starhawk from time to time, but never for anything below 600 points.
Next up: Republic (one post), and finally Separatists (one post). Then we’ll see how all of this looks when viewed side-by-side.
Until then — fly casual, but not too casual.
