Romodi Dual Onagers

 

Being a bully, and looking good doing it

Couple of new Romodi lists today, both featuring dual Onagers. The classic Testbed-Ozzel-Cataclysm-Hondo-Vader combo. And a generic one to add pressure on the target from r2. In the bottom list, I had another version that removed Needa and MS-1 to put Rakehell on the 2nd Onager. Didn't hate it. It's possible to tweak a little on the top list to do the same, but I couldn't fit an arrangement I was 100% happy with.

THe primary difference between the lists is that the top one used Corvus & some Ints/RHD to set up a squad screen, while the Onagers do all the work. The bottom one goes squadless, making room of an Interdictor. That one is all about using the objectives, the Dictor and Romodi to set to early knockout punches.

Basic Romodi Onager builds

 

Today I present 2 basic Romodi Onager lists, both based on pre-1.5 lists I played early in 2020. One list with an ISD and one squad-heavy with a Quasar. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. The Quasar doesn't like other Onagers, for example. And both lists doesn't fully leverage Romodi because they have so few shooting ships. But both lists can be tweaked and both lists are fairly easy to grasp and play with, and reasonably effective.

The Onager, a double-edged sword

 

No, not THAT kind of Onager

It is the Age of the Onager. Forget the promise of a fair fight and range limitations, for FFG's game designers had a collective breakdown making wave 8, and all that remains is the laughter of thirsting dice gods.

Everybody and their granny is flying one - sometimes more than one. There are good reasons why everyone running Imps has to have one (or more). And reasons why ppl might switch over to Imps just bc this ship exists. I've certainly done my fair share of soul-crushing flying with the Onager, with Romodi and with Sloane both. 

The Onager is a moderately priced, even when fully tricked out bc most upgrades it wants are low-cost, one-trick large-base ship. But WHAT A TRICK!!! Shooting, not only beyond long range, but SO WAY BEYOND long range IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY, with a TON OF DICE, all of them rerollable if you've built and set up right, from TURN 1 if you can be bothered. Did you try to hide behind an obstacle? Sorry, but get MOAH dice if u do. Each element taken separately might be ok, but the ease of which it can all be leveraged together? FFG, what were you thinking???

NuLeia QuadNebs

 

Semi-decent attempt at making Leia work with a bunch of combat ship, including the much-maligned Nebulon B. The idea here is that almost naked nebs, only 4 pts in upgrades each, makes for a pretty decent fire line. Aux Shields team transforms those weak side arcs into something pretty tanky (with Leia it's just 1 eng command in r1).

Leia CF + the SFO to quickly switch commands if needed, give both an extra die and a reroll. You don't joke around with 4x4 reds with rerolls & Intensify Firepower! hitting the same ship, with JL ready to double arc with TRCs. The Pelta hangs back and is the least threat, but hopefully your opponent overextends trying to get to it. And if he does, Leia isn't that great a commander anyway lol...

Which I think is maybe the big issue with this list. It could be just as good, if not better, if you took Agate and made your flagship a lot beefier.

Agate SH2 & TRCx2

 

I hope you've had a nice X-mas eve. I certainly have. Here in Norway it's actually the 24th that the real X-mas. Christmas day isn't a thing at all. Weird, huh?

I was going to share another retro Ackbar list, but it was just too boring, so I started looking at some older stuff (well, not that old, but w8) that I tried prior to 1.5 and found this Agate Starhawk list that I've actually played - more than once. I dropped using SAdv since I knew it was going out with the trash.

The idea here is that Agate is generally awesome, the SH is pretty nice WIT Agate, and it's all about the SH1, so let's try the SH2. Rather than go 100% points fortress/max squads, I tried to leverage some TRC90s (this is pre-evade 1.5).

The original had Leading Shots, but I got little mileage out of them so switched to Ion Batteries to stay under 400...

The combination of the SH2 red flak, the title, and Toryn, makes flak awesome. The 2 A-wings delay stuff above and beyond their points. EST +  Walex + LFC + Agata means 2xBrace, 2xRedir, 2xSalvo, with redundancy and damage reduction. So. Fucking. Awesome. It's got all my fav Rebel officers. Even has room for Ezra (Ezra + Abandoned Mining is cool).

AG actually works on this, forcing everyone to take the yellow (or Infested if they haven't yet experienced the power of slugs + moving rocks). Asteroids is kind of the default yellow now, but I'd recommend AMF. The purrgil, given that 2nd player moves first + the dust fields makes for a very interesting board state. Ezra is a big boon here. But ok, Asteroids isn't a bad choice.

The main problem with this list is the TRC90s. To be useful, they have to join the fight. If they pop, that's a lot of points you have to win back. So going max squads IS, objectively better, but this is still good. Also, nuEvade will help.

Another Retro Ackbar

Today's list is another retro Ackbar list. It's got that classic Command Cruiser Defiance with Advanced Gunnery, an AF2 + a TRC90, and all my fav rebel officers (except Toryn). S&T as a minimal squadron screen. I don't think it will be amazing in the new meta (but would be objectively bad in the old one), but it's a kind of list that can win some games, and isn't too hard to fly. I guess the Onager would fuck up the AF2 pretty bad, but at least it can now cancel THREE dice at extreme range. For someone that's been playing since 2015 there is also a bit of nostalgia looking at it.

Ackbar MC75 and Duotato

 

So this list is an evolution of the Triple Potato list. That was something out of the past, whereas this is firmly in the present. Not that the MC75 doesn't have GT, as it's less likely to need it, and more likely to want to double arc and reroll (also, it's not a good sign if your flagship is in range of too many enemy ships). It's extra fun to actually roll the Armored version. Most of the time, the Ordnance Cruiser is the ship of choice, but there the big brother can work.

If you want GT on all ships, drop Lando, move Ahsoka to the flag, and add SFO to each potato. That's 399, giving u a 1 point bid 👅

You don't know the power of RAID pt. 2 (List building)

 

The true glory of raid

We discussed the rules and meta considerations surrounding Raid in part 1. With that in mind, let's look at how Raid can be leveraged (and by extension, countered):

Raid is best employed by keeping up the pressure. 

A single raid token to a single ship is an inconvenience at best. 

A single raid to multiple ships gets annoying and eats a lot of tokens.

Multiple raid over several rounds to the same ship gets annoying and eats a lot of tokens.

Multiple raid over several rounds to multiple ship might overwhelm your opponent's ability to clear raid without sacrificing dials.

It's important, however, not to just load any single ship with a ton of raid tokens, and especially not too early. A single dial clears EVERYTHING. You want raid to be on a ship when it matters, either to strip away a key token, or preferably, shut down an entire dial.

There is no hard rules, only the above guidelines, for how to accomplish this. It's something you can only develop a feel for during play. So to get good with raid, you have to actually play with raid. Sorry about that 👀

Dooku is by far the best single source of raid in the game. But even Dooku alone isn't enough if your REALLY want to disable your opponent. Nor do you always want to be playing Seppie/Dooku lists...

Which is why I propose that raid should ideally be run in conjunction with other game effects, such as slicer tools and ion cannon batteries, that further cut down your opponent's ability to use the commands they want to use.

Armada Fleet Builders (UPDATED)

It's 400 points exactly. Honest.

Building fleets without a builder app is HOPELESS.

Here are the THREE builders I know of (and 1 more I've never tried) that are actually maintained as of Armada 1.5

ARMADA WARLORDS 

Fleet building made easy

I maintain this builder. It's visual and easy to use, and also has some good database functions, list filtration, and the ability to look at other (public) lists. There is also a compact version of the build wo images that's perfect for mobile.

Pros:

- 100% free

- visual, easy to use

- excellent online saves

- good text export

- easy to share links to fleets

- ALWAYS up to date with new content

Cons:

- has a few quirks, like you can't swap ship models and it tends to reorder your ships when you edit/clone

- missing some code to enforce stuff like double-slot upgrades, so you have to keep track of that manually

- too many adds; fucking hate that!

Link: http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/

The Triple potato is back!

 

Space potato, why u so ugly!?

A while ago/back in hallowed antiquity, Ackbar GT space potatoes was a thing that held a relatively strong and stable positing in the meta. I wouldn't say it was necessarily top tier, but it was a decent all-rounder list. There were several variations, some going squad heavy (YT-2400s being a stable), some not as much.

With the changes to evade, activations, and intel, I figured it was time to give tri-potato another spin. I'm not expecting great things, but I don't think it will be bad. It's a list that can do reasonably well against a variety of opponents.

Please not that this list needs to resolve some CF commands to be fully effective. However, you don't have to use GT every round on every ship: experience has shown that opponents try to avoid the threat that is overlapping Ackbar GT broadsides, so I think Comms Net/Leia/Ahsoka should be sufficient.

Toryn is there for flak/A-wings/Counter, but if you want you can kick her out (if u do, move Ahsoka to the flotilla and give AFs SFOs). And argument can be made for either TEA! or EF! as this is a list that could really use some maneuvering flexibility. Still, DTT + IF! is hard to pass over.