Building a Fleet for Cheap 2: Rebel Boogaloo!

So this was a subject that Eric and I have been talking about for a little bit.  Eric got his out previously, so I figured I'd throw mine out as soon as possible. Maybe you looked at all those Rebel articles I've been writing, and you said to yourself, "I want to free the galaxy from the tyranny of the Galactic Empire!  I'm sick of all those guys in my meta playing Imperial on Imperial and not learning how to dodge CR90 shots!  I want to be the very best, like no one ever was!"

Well welcome to the Rebellion, let's learn along with Finn.

The fun will never end, it's Rebellion Time!

Our rules, as stated previously by Eric:

400 point fleet, $250 max.  As Eric mentioned, PLEASE buy at your local game stores whenever possible, as they let you come in and play there all the time, generally with helpful employees, friendly counter staff, and hopefully a good and growing community.  To DIRECTLY steal from Eric's article (thanks for doing the work for me, man!),

I also want a selection of ships that are very easy to expand off of for when we want to bulk out our options more and try other commanders, so in general it would be ideal to avoid doubling up on ships or squadron packs early on. I want newer players to be learning lots of different elements of the game, seeing what they like and don't like, and being able to cheaply progress outward bit by bit towards other archetypes that interest them without having to make another big $250+ investment all in one go again. Finally, the fleet in question is going to have to use upgrade cards available only from the items purchased themselves - no snagging cards from eBay or borrowing from friends - those are perfectly acceptable things to do, but we can't assume that everyone can or wants to do either of those right away.

Lots to consider there, but at least I now have the Card Pack to make things easier for building and playing around with!  I fully agree with Eric about the Core Set and the dice pack, so we're at $110 already here too.  The easiest life choice for us is going to be grabbing the Upgrade Card collection as well, which adds another $25 (bringing us to $135).  Past that?  Well, I'll follow Eric's example and jot a list down, create a fleet, and then do some splainin' about how I got what I got. I'm planning on building in the assumption that "everything" is available to purchase, lest I be updating this every 2 months when something comes back into stock. Who are we starting with?  General Garm Bel Iblis, whose special ability reads "After deploying fleets, place 2 non-consecutive round tokens on this card.  At the start of the Ship Phase during each round matching 1 of those tokens, each friendly ship may gain a number of command tokens equal to its command value."

I'm gonna form my OWN Rebellion! With blackjack!

Garm will let you use the tokens to get to where you need to and will help you figure your way out of trouble.  Did you need to be navigating this turn? Well you can always increase/decrease speed 1 on your ships with the Navigation token ALONG with whatever command you were using this turn.  Fun fact: If you combine the token and the dial, you get both effects! (Change speed by 2! Add a dice in and reroll one (Must be the same roll though)! Push another squadron with the token! Heal for more engineering points!)  Garm lets you manipulate things much more than you'd expect, doing more each turn than normally possible, depending on what you need when.  Garm is a great starter Admiral, and I'm willing to bet Shmitty and Biggs would agree with me on that....

What's a good start?

• Armada Core Set ($100)
• Extra Dice Pack ($10)
• Upgrade Card Collection ($25)
• Rebel Transports (AKA Flotilla) Pack ($20)
• Rebel Squadrons Pack 1 ($20)
• Rogues and Villains Expansion ($20)
• Home One Pack ($40)

All that for a grand total of $235! And the fleet I built with mine as well!

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 400/400  

Commander: Garm Bel Iblis

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Garm Bel Iblis  ( 25  points)
-  Defiance  ( 5  points)
-  Lando Calrissian (off)  ( 4  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 6  points)
= 161 total ship cost

Nebulon-B Support Refit (51 points)
-  Salvation  ( 7  points)
-  Auxiliary Shields Team  ( 3  points)
= 61 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Jainas Light  ( 2  points)
-  Ahsoka Tano  ( 2  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
= 55 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Toryn Farr  ( 7  points)
-  Bomber Command Center  ( 8  points)
= 33 total ship cost

1 Jan Ors ( 19 points)
1 Wedge Antilles ( 19 points)
1 Dutch Vander ( 16 points)
2 X-Wing Squadrons ( 26 points)
1 Y-Wing Squadron ( 10 points)
= 90 total squadron cost

An Explanation!

The benefit of the card pack is that I save you from needing to immediately purchase a second Nebulon or CR90 to get some of those great cards in there.  You can use the CR90 and the Nebulon from the starter set and have a great time with them for a while, which is super helpful.  If you like the ship, go for it and grab more of either.

The HMC80 orbits the battlefield, but it can also close as needed.  Strafe and fire, and try to get both a double arc and wait until after your opponent has activated in order to trigger Defiance.

The Nebulon-B is there to finish off whatever ships end up skirting behind your HMC80 attack.  Deploy it at speed 1 and let it be the sniper in the back attacking anything that starts trying to get close to your back edge.

The CR90 is there to help your HMC80 get damage into ships. The standard Jaina's build here will serve you well for many years in the Rebellion, and Ahsoka is incredibly helpful in a Garm fleet.  It'll solidly contribute every game, thanks to TRCs.

The Flotillas is there to provide rerolls to your Squadrons.  With the Bomber Command Center, they can reroll their Bomber dice, so long as they're at 5 or less of the Flotilla.  And if Toryn Farr is 3 or less away, you can reroll Blue dice (to win the squadron game and start bombing ships, or from your CR90!).  It's a nice support ship, try not to get it too close to your opponent's ships!

The Squadrons will stop any basic fighter issues, provided you use them well (IE, COMMAND them!).  The HMC80 can command 4 of them, and the flotilla can help get the other 2.  When they get done beating up squadrons, they can go attack ships relatively well.If you want a fun combo to use, have Dutch attack a squadron or two first (two if Yavaris), then have Wedge roll 6 blue dice against them each.  It'll render your opponent speechless.  Jan is one of the more helpful additions to your squadron groupings as well, keeping your generics alive longer than you'd think.

Just like this

Where do I go from here?
You have a whole bunch of options and paths to go to from here.

If you like squadrons (and I hope you've been reading my articles, haha!), here's some good paths to go down.

• Try out the Yavaris title on the Nebulon.
• Try out some of those other squadrons in the Rogues and Villains pack (like the Scurrgs) or the B-wings from the main squadron pack.
• The Pelta/Phoenix Home ($30) is a great way to get your squadrons pushed forward one more speed notch, and push 4 squadrons at a time while doing it.
• If you want to crazy contribute with your bombers, get a second Rebel Squadrons Pack ($20) or a second Rebel Transports/Flotilla Pack ($20) for the Bomber Command Center/Comms Net.  Even without BCC, it pads your activations and helps you pass tokens with Comms Net to your other ships.  You won't ever need to go past two, luckily.

If you like dealing straight ship damage:

• Try the CR90B with HIE equipped.
• Add a turbolaser onto Salvation to steady out its damage output.
• Getting a MC30 ($30) is a great next step, as it'll let you get to use some black dice.  Tired of Demolisher being a big black dice rolling jerk? Well turnabout is fair play! Roll some back at him!
• The LMC80 ($40) can put out a LOT of damage, resulting in many dead ships from your abilities.  It depends if you want to apply that damage FORWARDS or SIDEWAYS.
• A second CR90 ($20) will help if you want to start trying out an MSU approach.
• A third CR90 isn't CRAZY, but a 4th may be.  May not be, if you really want to run Cracken...

If you sorta like everything:

• Buy what you want! They are your plastic spaceships, of course.  If you see something you love the look of, get that.  Hopefully I'll have an article up soon about using it properly.
• If you can, as Eric recommended, another maneuver tool ($8) is helpful, and the Corellian Conflict/Rebellion in the Rim and eBay/trade for Upgrade Cards are always good.  If your store is established, you might be able to find older Alternate Art (Fancy Pictures!) upgrade cards floating around in previous tournament kits, which is LITERALLY just as good as going to eBay for them.

Give this a try, and hopefully the Rebellion will have another new General to pin some medals on!

"I made Han come back to rescue HIS whiny butt, and I get nothing? Lame!"