Evolution of a Prime List (mine)
Welcome to a deep (and longer than intended) dive into the twisted creation of my latest list for Prime season. It all started with an idea to use two big ships to harvest points through objectives. I don't really care to play the bidding game (12 seems aggressive to me usually) so I've gotten used to using all the points for upgrades and picking some scary objectives. Sometimes it ends up with me as first player, most times it ends up with someone getting first/lasted.
What my fleet building exercise look like |
My first creation was like many ideas I'm sure everyone has had. It was rough and pretty unfocused. List below for your consideration.
My idea was to chuck lots of red dice and be able to cruise along the edge while harvesting points. The MC75 would lead the way so if you did stop the conga line it you'd be taking a pretty big front arc with a guaranteed HIE. Proxy mines seemed cool too.
This list was never played but I ran it by some friends and they started the hole poking process.
Plan 1 |
This further got modified to a 3 large/medium list. Lots of gunnery teams and repair but only a meager VCX and not many ways of shooting squadrons. This did get play tested and it didn't hold out well as the next battle report will attest. But it began my drive to somehow stop squadrons without bringing too many of them. See that battle report here
Enter Ruthless strategists...
No one expects the Ruthless Inquisition |
This is a list I've been batting around for a while. Any squadrons that engage are going to get pummeled in a turn or two, forcing you to run away with your squadrons (and you stop bombing me) or they evaporate.
But there are some major problems with this lists as well. In general it has some squishy ships (hi Mr. Neb!) and a single fighter can stop the bomber horde from doing it's work. Also, ATN locks in the MC75, Vanguard and Bomber Command Center Transport to a tight group for mutual support. Not the greatest plan with SSDs and gunnery teams out there. So now it was time to combine the two of them.
Enter the final iteration (after several small tweaks) which combined the two general gameplans and covered down on the holes that appeared. Or at least that was my hope.
It merges the move along the edge of the board and score points if you make me 2nd objective play or give a Dodanna Ordinance APT MC75 first player. Since I picked two large Mon Cal Cruisers Exodus Fleet was almost an auto include, especially since I can chuck repair tokens every turn to both of them. At a minimum they'll always have a repair 'dial' essentially or I double down and get 8 engineering points. The MC80 was designed to follow the 75 and just keep it alive alive for way past when it should've died. It also patched my squadron coverage issue with 24 hull to chew through due to ATN and the ever present Shara Bey to hop around as needed since Y-wings are slow.
This was it, I was gonna try some crazy rebel Exodus fleet Y-wing swarm idea and since I flew to Georgia with only what was required I couldn't readily change my mind once there. Standby for engagement....