Caitken and Shollan added to weapon teams article

Continuing to update the blog to wave 7 by adding the Caitken and Shollan to the weapon team article:

"Seriously, Caitken, clear your browser history before sharing this thing. I've seen things that can't be unseen."

Caitken and Shollan, also known as "the twins" or as I prefer to call them, "the Mon Calbinos," or as John prefers to call them, "Statler and Waldorf"...

Oh come on, if John's involved, you know Muppets are happening soon!

Anyways, they are the only weapon team added in wave 7 and also the first faction-specific weapon team, being limited to Rebels only. Their rules require nearly no clarifying except to make a special note that they exhaust upon use. I've seen some people think they can be used on both attacks, and that's incorrect. Sorry.

The main issue for Caitken and Shollan is finding a ship that wants them more than other weapon team upgrades - shorter-ranged ordnance ships like MC30s generally prefer Ordnance Experts, because they work on both attacks (and you're trying to line up a double arc) and are cheaper. Longer-ranged ships like LMC80s usually prefer Gunnery Teams, as they're hoping to get extra use from their best arc at long range. Carriers obviously prefer Flight Controllers. So where exactly do these fish friends go?

The general answer is Caitken and Shollan should be considered on ships designed to funnel a single strong attack into an enemy ship with extreme prejudice, often from range and featuring a decent number of red dice. The reason for that is blue dice are not as frequently in need of rerolls (as all faces have something on them and any ship with a decent number of blue dice can usually use Leading Shots if it wants the reroll option) and black dice can get rerolled by Caitken and Shollan's competition, Ordnance Experts. Red dice, however, are the most fickle color of dice in Armada and greatly benefit from rerolls, and rerolls on red dice are not something Rebels normally have easy access to.

Okay, let's get back to the "single strong attack" qualifier to explain that, too: if you're taking Caitken and Shollan, they work once per activation due to exhausting to use. Their primary competition on combat ships, as mentioned earlier, is generally Gunnery Team (which wants to make two attacks out of the best arc usually) and Ordnance Experts (which wants to make two attacks from different hull zones on the same target), and Caitken and Shollan will generally come out poorly when used as straight-up substitutes for those two weapon team upgrades because they can only work the once. The solution is simple: use them as a critical component of a ship that is designed to get one serious wallop in against heavier targets.

For example, let's take an Ackbar Assault Frigate. It's common to give these Gunnery Team so they can spray-and-pray with 5 red dice at two targets out the side arc. With Caitken and Shollan, you can configure one differently with Slaved Turrets (one of the few times I'd recommend their use) and an Intel Officer for a rerollable 6 red dice broadside (7 with a concentrate fire dial, potentially more if the unfortunate victim is the Most Wanted target) with the Intel Officer giving the stink eye to the heavy target's brace. That will add up quickly. You can do something similar with an LMC80 Battle Cruiser using Spinal Armament and XI7 Turbolasers with an Intel Officer too. Ships outfitted in this fashion will get serious damage to stick to heavier targets even at range and can gobble up small ships quickly and should almost never fail to one-shot corvettes and the like at medium range, similar to full-on premium large ships like ISDs but at a lower cost (and admittedly a narrower focus).