Pelta's on a half shell

 Pelta POWER!

Next up in the 'what we know/preview' is the ubiquitous Pelta.  I'm leaving the flagships of each until a bit later, but I am excited for the Pelta.  (added later...Or I'll just get busy with work and have this halfway written up and then finally finish it up several weeks later). I love the Rebel modified Pelta and I am sure this slightly stripped down Republic Pelta will be a staple in my GAR fleets in the future.  

Below is the consolidated 'what-we-know' and again, it's essentially everything related to the ship stats except for the squadron value of the Pelta Transport Frigate.  Let's start off with our dive into what is common between the two ships. Then we'll dive into speculative builds and where they might fit in a fleet.

General Overview

Atomic Mass on their initial Star Wars stream on 3 February revealed the entirety of the Pelta Medical Frigate and from the Asmodee Preorder page we have the splash for the Transport Frigate upgrade slots. the Pelta is the second Republic small ship and has many of the same stats as it's Rebel counterpart.

Survivability

Both GAR Pelta's have the same defense token suite as the Rebel version.  An Evade, Brace, and Redirect makes this ship far tankier than it's diminutive size would suggest.  It also has a 3 front/2 side/1 Rear shield with 5 hull.  Therefore, in order to one shot a Pelta you need to either roll 2 accuracies and 8 damage, or 1 accuracy and 10 damage.  No accuracies means you need a massive 20 damage.  And all of these numbers do not include any effect of the evade on getting those doubles rerolled.  AKA this ship will be sticking around just a little longer than you feel a small base should. This is great as it can keep contributing to the fight and demand the enemy send a couple more attacks it's way to finish it off, all for not that much of a payout.

Navigation

The Rebel's modifications of the Pelta did not include adjusting the speed, so the GAR now has a Speed 2 ship as well.  A double click at speed 1 and 1 click at each joint at speed 2 means that you're decently maneuverable, but you are going to have a hard (read: impossible) time outrunning anything.  Coming in somewhere in the high 40s or low 50s that probably isn't the end of the world as long as you use them to trade up or fulfill their purpose in your fleet.

Command & Engineering

Nothing different from the Rebel version here either.  Command 2 gives you the ability to stash tokens (for those fleet support roles) and Engineering 4 is another factor that can keep the ship in the fight longer than it should.  The ability to restore 2 shields or remove a damage card and shift a shield means this ship will again...stick around. Notice a trend yet.

Firing Arc Setup

Same here as the Rebel Frigate.  Pretty wide front arc for your 'main' battery and side arcs that aren't too hard to get a double arc.  There's not a lot of dice to them, but they exist and will trickel some damage past defense tokens.  I mean who wants to spend your only redirect or brace to move/stop 2 damage when you're staring down the guns of a Venator and squad ball...

Upgrade bar

Both versions have an Officer (duh!), a support team, and a fleet support slot.  To see how good a fleet support ship this one is, let's compare it to the only other method the GAR can get fleet support slots.  An Armed C70 Cruiser with Radiant VII Title and a 2 pt Comms Net.  That comes in at 40 points.  So at a minimum it's another 7 points to get a Pelta and some sort of Fleet Support upgrade.  

Is that point tax going to be worth it? Well, that is up to you and your fleet plans.  The C70 is not the sturdiest of ships but can whip around the play area; whereas, the Pelta seems to have some durability.  It'll depend on what upgrade you elect to use (for example: Slicer Tools vs Munitions Resupply) and I'm sure we'll see both, which is nice that the GAR will have options instead of just taking a flotilla because I want comms net.

Transport Frigate

The 'cheap' Pelta

45 points will get you a lot of ship for the Republic though not that many dice.  2 Red and 1 Black die out the front with 1 Red and 1 Black out the side.  So it's lost a front die to its rebel friend.  And the rear arc is the same 2 Red.  From the arc preview picture we can see that the flak is 1 Blue, 1 Black.  So it has a bit of range to help suppress those droid fighters and support the squadron furball.

It's upgrade bar has an Officer, Support Team, Fleet support, and Defensive Retrofit.  We currently do not know the Pelta Transport's squadron value but I can't imagine it will be anything higher than 2, but if I was a betting man it's going to be 1.

I think this ship will pair marvelously with a Venator and a fleet command slot.  Put Intensify Firepower as your fleet command and this thing with no upgrades could supply a decent amount of SUPPLEMENTAL firepower for the rest of your fleet. You can have several Peltas making minor attacks that either stress defense tokens or just pile damage onto a ship.  Also the blue & black flak dice can put out some hurt on bombers as they close.

This is all speculation and most likely there will be new Fleet Support Cards (whatever the mercy mission one is) and titles that offer other means to focus or define a Pelta's role in the GAR fleet.

The only dice fixing you need if you're not looking for crits...for me anyway

Possible builds

IF buddy

    Pelta Transport Frigate (45)
        Munitions Resupply (3) + Reactive Gunnery (4) = 52 pts

Here is the cheap friend for your Venator Intensify Fleet Command ship.  52 points gets you a consistent 2 plink damage attack, decent flak support, and if anyone shoots you...guess what they're probably taking 2 damage back with the IF! powered Salvo effect from Reactive Gunnery.  Pair this with a bit of durability and the fact that it can power IF! at the same time and things are looking really good.  Since my go-to dice fixing lately has been only IF!, I imagine this guy will spend a lot of time on the table.  

More expensive IF buddy

    Pelta Transport Frigate (45)
       Munitions Resupply (3), Reactive Gunnery (4), Aux Shield Teams (3),  Clone Nav Ofcr (4)= 59 pts

Another 7 points gets you the deluxe IF tagalong buddy. Aux Shield Team lets his side arcs get even more use of the redirect or just assist in staying alive and Clone Nav officer helps spread even more token love around.  Pass out some Nav tokens as well as Con Fire, or just double down and get a Con Fire Dial for 3 red dice, pass a Con Fire token to your Venator flagship to run IF! from Munitions Resupply AND pass another Con Fire token to a different ship to help power the Venator's Clone Gunners.  Lots of flexibility here in a pretty small price package.

I don't want my BCC to die

    Pelta Transport Frigate (45)
        Bomber Command Center (8), ECM (7...EWS is an option also), Aux Shield Teams (3)=63 pts

I don't know how much I'd run this version but if you really need Bomber Command Center to get consistent bomber damage then this version will ensure that the enemy is really going to have to focus on killing this Pelta.  The current Radiant VII can get destroyed pretty easily and then (whomp whomp) no more bomber rerolls.  Here, ECM means you can always brace and aux shield teams again helps it stick around. Expert Shield Tech and Obi-Wan could make this ship an absolute nightmare to kill for 67 points but I imagine they'll just shoot something else then.  

Projection Expert Friend

    Pelta Transport Frigate (45)
        Parts Resupply (3), Projection Experts (6)=54 pts

Here is a friend who can still provide some limited fire support but can really help larger ships stick around. Parts resupply can help other ships repair and lets the Pelta keep full shields while still moving 2 shields to a friend.  Pair this with Implacable and your enemy is going to have a hard time getting damage to stick to the ship it wants, unless it wants to focus on a 54 pt Pelta?

Medical Frigate

So for an increase of 4 points we have a small shift in capability. We trade a defensive retrofit for a Offensive retrofit and our black dice for blue dice.  We also swap the transport keyword to medical so perhaps that will have something to do with the cards available in the expansion.  Who knows? Not me that's for sure.

It also drops the black dice from it's flak armament and is only left with a single blue.  Finally, it *gains* squadron 2, or rather we KNOW it has squadron 2 where we're not currently sure on the Pelta Transport.

My initial thoughts most likely parallel yours.  This is your slightly sturdier pocket carrier.  The Rebel Command version has squadron 3 and an extra blue dice so I find it's a useful carrier there or with Disposable Capacitors a good way to get 4-5 dice at long range.  Here I'm not so sure but it can definitely be used as a more squadron friendly support ship.

Possible Builds

Pocket Carrier

    Pelta Medical Frigate (49)

        Clone Nav Ofcr (4), Expanded Hanger Bay (5), Bomber Command Center (8)= 66 points

This build with Clone Nav Ofcr lets you on 2 turns (3 if you take a sq token round 1) push 4 squadrons around with Bomber Command Center natively onboard.  Now, for 66 points you can also get a naked Acclamator 1 and with minimal investment can be a far better carrier, but this offers the ability to bake in BCC into one of your carriers and not commit to 'wasting' pts on Radiant VII floating around. I'm not sure it's worth it but if you're strapped on points and need more carrier power at a discount this could get enough work done for you.

Arc pusher

    Pelta Medical Frigate (49)

        Flt Commander (3), Expanded Hanger Bay (5), Fighter Coordination Team (3), Bomber Command                 Center (8)= 68 points

Do you hate slow ARC-170s but don't like the idea of Hyperspace Rings (you should just use those, like seriously).  This ship could be an answer though, it lets you drag your fighters along after you shoot something and weaken it.  Again, with native BCC your ARCs will always have a reroll on hand if you can drag them.  I don't hate it but it's probably not the most efficient way to run ARC-170s. Though even if you just put Fighter Coordination Team onboard that'll still let you shuffle two, not many other ways for the Republic to currently do that.

Hyperspace Ringer

    Pelta Medical Frigate (49)

        Hyperspace Rings (3) = 52 pts

        

One of the more cost efficient ways to bring Hyperspae Rings.  This comes in at 26 pts per squadron you decide to deploy via hyperspace rings.  Currently, the only other ship that beats this is the Acclamator 1, which will bring 3 in at a cost of only 23 pts IF that is the only upgrade you bring, so the pts cost will probably be about the same but the Acclamator will bring in more firepower too.  If you just need to forward deploy another couple fighters this might fit the bill.  

All this is assuming the Venator II (with a monster squadron 5) doesn't have an offensive retrofit slot.  Then that point cost per squadron probably approaches 20.

Conclusion

All this being said I am looking forward to several Pelta's winging their way across my Armada tabletops of the future.  It might not be as sleek as a C70 or as mighty as an Acclamator, but I think this will be an affordable support ship that can help across a breadth of fleet builds and provide a little bit of fire and staying power to keep a flank from collapsing.  I hope you enjoy the ship as much as I plan on enjoying mine.