Pass in REVIEW
For those not in the know, Green Knight put a small little (like over 50+ players?) Vassal tournament to let everyone pile in and figure out how all these fancy new Clone Wars ships work. I fought my way into the Top 8 with a triple Acclamator List and got beat by the grand champion himself, Beanicus.
This little post will go a little bit into the dissection of my fleet, what I liked, what I didn't, what just plain won't work for the next tournament. If you're interested in the construction of the actual fleet or ththe BatReps they are posted below for your clicking/reading pleasure.
Top 8 (Final Game for me)My List
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| In case you forgot or didn't click through 6 other articles |
Things that worked
#1 Squadron Ball
This is a mean 102 points of squadrons. Supported with Reserve Hanger Decks and Nevoota Bee it can do work whether it meets and engages a enemy Squadron ball (even Slone) or if there is minimal enemy fighter presence, it can go to work hitting ships reliably enough for 4 damage a round. Not enough to kill ships of its own accord but... it can weaken ships for the next round or help finish off stragglers.
I think 3 V-19s and Plo Koon are the very core of this fighter ball. No matter what if you're looking for a 60 pt screen, that'll be my starting point. That keeps those V-19s hitting back and Plo is a consistent ace at hitting things with his Adept 2. After that, Luminara is nice as she keeps the V-19s alive longer due to her obstruction but it's a tricky dance to get her engaged so everyone is obstructed and still let the V-19s cover her, otherwise she will die as quick as any other scatter ace when left alone against multiple attacks. OR she won't be using her ability to help keep the V-19s alive at which point why is she there?
Anakin is the one bit I might change. If I need to free up some points, he is really just a consistent source of capital ship damage or can just go chase something down that I need to die. If you want to keep 6 squadrons though and don't care about bombing this is a very easy switch to Axe, who can keep 1-2 points of damage from sticking to your V-19s a turn. It's a trade off off durability vs killing power...and 2 pts, and sometimes you don't have 2 pts to spare.
#2 Boarding Troopers on a Acclamator 1
This! This is a solid investment. 69 pts, 73 to include External racks and you don't need any more upgrades. Give it some Con Fire tokens or Intensify Firepower somewhere in your fleet and this is a monster for the point cost. The Acclamator chassis seems like an ideal chassis for Boarding Troopers. It has squadron 3, so you will get to exhaust or spend 3 defense tokens. And most ships only have 3 really good ones anyway, evade, brace, redirect, salvo...all worth exhausting, because when you follow it up with 3 red, and 4 black dice (with External Racks) either tokens or shields/hull will start to disappear.
Now, having 3 in my fleet was mostly due to the limitations of ship availability, but it also wasn't that bad. Every now and then I got out activated and had to move someone in before it was ideal but that happens. The one thing the Republic has been lacking is dice control, or at least it takes a lot of upgrades (read: points) to get consistent dice. If you want a cheap Boarding Trooper Acclamator you need an external way to fix dice, say a Venator with Intensify Firepower or some means to get Con Fire tokens continually.
I most definitely will be including a barebones BT 'Clam in most of my Republic fleets. It can push squads but I think you'll mostly want to be Nav'ing to your target of choice and then converge on it with the 'Clam and at least one other threat, be that a squad ball or a gunship.
#3 Implacable
I actually really enjoyed the Implacable title. It seems Republic ships (and all Clone Wars ships for that matter) will be suffering from a single redirect, at least for the foreseeable future. In which case, IF you are bringing an Acclamator (and it's not being used to push fighters, that should be Nevoota) I would strongly consider Implacable. It's essentially a 'free' redirect, both for itself (after you get flanked) or for it's friends. The one thing I didn't do is use it ever was to keep my fighters alive, but if you're trying to let your V-19 ball live through a Flight Controller Alpha, don't be afraid to use it to soak up some damage.
This will probably be my Acc 1 BT friend. 80 points to bring BT, Reserve Hanger Decks, Ex Racks, and the Implacable Title. Lots of value for the cost there.
#4 Clone Nav Officer
I wrote a whole article on them. I love them and they're super useful if you want to take only combat ships and no support ships (even if Republic support ships can still shoot a fair bit). That being said they do take an officer slot and I will most likely have one somewhere in my fleet but certainly not on all of my ships.
Things that didn't really work
#1 Republic Needs to Nav
Looking at the Acclamator Nav chart, you know it turns like garbage, but until you actually try to turn them or dodge asteroids I didn't really appreciate how supremely unagile they are. C70s and Peltas are fairly maneuverable, but the upcoming Venator looks like a pig as well. My major lesson and what cost my some ships over the tournament was that I need to dial in some more Navigation Commands across the fleet.
OR what I might be a good use is flag bridge and Take Evasive Action. This would give me that one time boost in Turn 3 or 4 to actually pivot that little bit more that you need to why enabling other commands like Squads for Nevoota or Repair for Implacable. It would also let you become somewhat less predictable. As it stands now the Separatist Munificent is slow but can put itself seemingly in any position you want. Acclamators seem more like bricks you throw at the enemy. If you miss, well....I've never seen a brick turn around in mid-air so I wouldn't expect your Acclamator to either.
#2 Dice Control
When the separatists left the Republic I think they took all the Nav Chart clicks as well as the Blue dice. Until the Ven-1 emerges and grants a Fleet Command to the Republic, the piles of red and black dice that the Republic has have little to fix them other than piling on upgrades and removing more interesting combinations. For example, if you want consistency with 'Clams you'll need to take Ordinance Experts and Linked Turbolasers Towers. Both great cards but that's 11 more points on a chassis that is not as durable as you want it to be. And that's just to get the dice to hit consistently. If you want to get an auto-accuracy with Clone Gunners you've got nothing to fix your black dice. And Red dice can just whiff, and LTT will only ever let you re-roll one.
Especially with a native Salvo giving you 3 attacks pretty consistently if you can double arc, some way to fix dice is my top priority....or you can just use your squadrons for damage since the Republic seems to lean really hard in that direction. But Intensify Firepower floating around in the fleet would turn Acclamators into consistent damage factories, plugging that 3-5 damage consistently. And I love fleets that can do that, especially if I have Boarding Troopers around to stress out defense tokens even more.
I tried the quantity has a quality all of its own technique for ensuring enough damage gets through. Most of the time it did, but there were several occasions where my 'Clam hit the other ship with a wet noodle instead of actual warheads and then it sailed away and out of the danger zone.
Conclusion
A short little sojurn back into writing so hopefully you enjoyed it. Coming up over the next week will be the rollout of my Vassal World Cup listbuilding and then some BatReps. Also, I'm trying out this youtube thing like Green Knight did for his Vassla World Cup matches. Mine are just even more delayed.
