A Fleet for a New Age - Finding the core

Ladies and gentlemen, some world events and a busy holiday timeframe have prevented much in the way of Armada in my life over the past month or two.  But that has finally changed.  Schedules finally managed to sync up and I finally go to test my new Wave 8 fleet idea in a game.  But before we get to that, lets walk through how we got to where we are and how this fleet took it's formation.

Thanks to Jacob and Phil, who were instrumental in walking me back from super crazy ideas but allowing the core concept of the fleet to stay intact and move forward to a *hopefully* competitive but unique fleet.

The Core Idea

No unobtanium in this build....

While the new Starhawk and Onager are certainly exciting and the new shiny hotness, I was interested in a ship that really hasn't seen much play lately...or ever.  It usually seems overcosted, but I think a couple of things coming together in Wave 8 can make it a dangerous cog in a formidable wheel of shooting.

The Assault Frigate MkIIA

I exist! Use me!

While I sincerely wish these were the much cooler looking Assault Frigate Mk I's, I will use my proxy and be happy with a hopefully surprising ship.  Now the two Wave 8 pieces, Krysta Agate and Local Fire Control, combined with the always present Paragon title.

                                                       

This combination, in the right circumstances (a ship double arcs Paragon and it double arcs it back), can put out an insane amount of dice over 4 attacks, stay alive, and keep most of it's tokens for the next round.  Granted that's going to happen maybe once, but will most likely get more work out of that black paragon dice than it's ever gotten before.  Two salvo's of 3 dice, then a side arc of 3 red, 1 blue, 1 black (thanks Paragon), and a front arc of 2 red, 1 blue, 1 black equals 15 dice thrown.  ECM keeps the Assault Frigate shooting and fighting and Agate (officer) lets the AF refresh at least one of the tokens to keep the ship survivable into the future.

Local Fire Control gives it the ability to burn out those defense tokens through one of the best rear arcs in the game or the shooter just takes packets of 3 damage.  While Evade is the most likely choice to be replaced, you can adjust the token swapped dependent upon your opponent's fleet.  A giant ball of squads/bombers=no evade required.  Two Onagers=maybe no redirect, so you can stay alive to close and shoot.

This curiosity of a ship sums up to a grand total of 102 points. Only a quarter of your fleet that will survive a haymaker attack (should anyway) or take more resources to take down than it's worth while hurting you back.  At least that's the theory.

Now... I left the Turbolaser slot empty, to save points for the rest of the fleet.  But you could easily grab Spinal Armament or Linked Turbolaser Towers (LTT).  LTT is probably the go-to Turbolaser for me now, assuming the ship has red dice and no other means of fixing them.  It also makes this ship a relatively cheap (109 points) plug and play ship that can take care of itself in a variety of fleets.

The OTHER core component

Everything is a hit! or at least that 1 blank

Intensify Firepower! is one of my most favorite cards.  While it will not save terrible rolls, you can use another card in those slots usually reserved for leading shots or other dice fixing cards.  So for the rebels, I could use the new flag bridge for a 1-shot injection of Intensify Firepower! or the CR90 Liberator title;  but if I was going to use IF! to keep Paragon shooting buckets of 3 or 5 damage over multiple turns while it slowly died to a continuous barrage, I needed to trigger it turn's 2-5/6.  Which with the Rebels means the great combo of a Pelta and Garm!

Pairs like nothing else!

Taking a concentrate fire token and a navigate with Garm and Ahsoka means I can trigger IF! continuously from turn 2.  See brain flow below

Turn 1: Do something with a dial
Turn 2: Use first Garm token and convert Pelta con fire Dial to token
Turn 3: Use turn 2 token and then use Ahsoka to turn your other token to a con fire (Hondo works to)
Turn 4: Use the toekn Ahoska converted
Turn 5: FREE GARM TOKENS! Use that one
Turn 6: Discard since the game is ending and your Pelta somehow lived this long.


This ended up creating the core of the fleet that would see many different versions wrapped around it, but it always contained Paragon and a Pelta of some sort with IF!, Garm, and Ahsoka.  The final core unit ended up costing my 198 points and looking like this.

198 points of vicious plink attacks

You can argue Disposable capacitors vs Aux Shield Teams, but I found I can engineer to 3 shields on turn 1 since I'm not using that dial to bank a token.  That usually helps my Pelta survive just the little longer it needs, vs getting two extra dice on 1 turn...maybe...until they are suddenly already in medium.  OR use the assault version, with Aux Shield Teams and Ex Racks for more spiky damage, but I found the steady pressure of 3-4 damage from the command cruiser fit the feel of the fleet more.  It could also let me push 3 squads for that crucial turn or two.

Now the next part of the argument is what to do with the other 202 points available to build a fleet. Use it to take advantage of IF! but still leave me covered versus most opponents.  But that's a story for the next article.