Obi-Wan Fleet - The Indomitable

Obi-Wan Fleet - The Indomitable

Let's start with the list itself, shall we? Quick note: If you're familiar with the most excellent Armada Fleets Designer app, then you'll be familiar with the format of the fleet list. If not, then you should know that the numbers in the parentheses next to the fleet name are as follows - number of points invested in squadrons/total number of fleet points/maximum number of fleet points.

The Indomitable (71/400/400)

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Acclamator II-class (71 + 18: 89)

· Expert Shield Tech (5)

· Flight Controllers (6)

· Electronic Countermeasures (7)

Armed Cruiser (37 + 43: 80)

· Obi-Wan Kenobi (28)

· Expert Shield Tech (5)

· Electronic Countermeasures (7)

· Fighter Coordination Team (3)

Armed Cruiser (37 + 19: 56)

· Expert Shield Tech (5)

· Electronic Countermeasures (7)

· Fighter Coordination Team (3)

· Radiant VII (1)

· Parts Resupply (3)

Armed Cruiser (37 + 15: 52)

· Expert Shield Tech (5)

· Electronic Countermeasures (7)

· Fighter Coordination Team (3)

Armed Cruiser (37 + 15: 52)

· Expert Shield Tech (5)

· Electronic Countermeasures (7)

· Fighter Coordination Team (3)

Ahsoka Tano [delta] (23)

4 x V-19 Torrent Squadron (4 x 12)

Station Assault

Fire Lanes

Infested Fields

As I'm certain will sort of be a motif for my Armada blog posts, you're surely just looking at the list and scratching your head, wondering what I've constructed. 

That's pretty much my permanent face. Just not as good looking as this one...

Unlike my Tarkin fleet, this one is almost completely experimental. I've played with something akin to this twice, and I've lost both times. The first time, I went in too hard on Obi-Wan's ability and couldn't put out enough damage between my Acclamator and two Consular-class Chargers. But between my Aethersprites, V-19s, and 2 copies of Fighter Coordination Team between my Chargers, I was really able to abuse Ahsoka's special ability to give her friends extra attacks. Great fun! But not enough damage to ships to win. So I swapped some things around, tried to maintain the fun with Ahsoka, ditched the Aethersprites, and added in some ARC-170s for a bombing threat in addition to my three ships. I fared worse this time, but whether that was my build or my play, I'm uncertain. I'm fairly certain it was some of column A and some of column B. I basically had every intention of sort of abandoning the idea altogether, as Obi-Wan is not a commander I'm particularly fond of. I think he can do good work, and I think others will make some nasty fleets featuring him! But I just don't think I'm that person. But that whole "he doesn't fit into my wheelhouse of play" thought process led me to sort of mull it over for a couple of days and then try something that sort of combined both failed fleets.

It's not the most Frankenstein fleet I ever Frankenstein'ed, but there's enough Frankensteining to suggest this probably won't work. Worth noting that it could be fun if it does, though!

The result is The Indomitable. Now, I'm no (complete) fool: I know those Consular Cruisers won't survive through a lot of fights. They've got limited defenses and need to get into blue/black range in order to even begin throwing dice. But one of the biggest problems I ran into my first two matches was that it was a no-brainer to use Accuracy to eliminate my Redirect token. Such a play invalidates my commander as well as the officer I've got on each of my ships. Rough stuff. But does putting Electronic Countermeasures (ECMs) on these little dinky ships even make sense? Honestly? I'm really not sure! I doubt it! But if I'm going to lean on Obi-Wan's ability to deliver any sort of a punch, then I need his ability to be reliable. ECMs grants that consistency to my ships.

To which you may say, "Well, yeah. Okay. I'll grant you that VERY theoretical premise. But what is the rest of this hot mess?"

I'd say that's a really fair question, and if you could see my face as I explain the following, it would be hard to ignore that while I make my argument with conviction, I also wear a very sheepish expression on my face. I've got Expert Shield Tech (EST) on each of my ships so that I'm doubling up on Obi-Wan's ability - when I use a Redirect token, Obi-Wan prevents one damage, and ESTs then prevent another. ECMs, as previously mentioned, ensure I can use said Redirect token. Radiant VII then hands out Engineering tokens to everyone so they can refresh their ECMs. Without too much effort, my ships should be able to use their ECMs three times -- they each bank an Engineering token on turn one, they use ECMs (#1), their banked tokens are used to refresh ECMs, they use ECMs (#2), Radiant VII hands out Engineering tokens which are used to refresh ECMs, they use ECMs (#3).

I think it's a little bit of both, Consular. Don't worry: it'll all be over soon.

So now, I've got 5 ships all throwing their dice. Great! If that's not enough to kill my opponent's ships, then there's no way I'm going to win. But it should be enough damage coming from several different directions! My black dice are 75% likely to each land 1-2 damage. My blue dice have something useful on every one of their eight sides. So what's the rest of my fleet built around?

That's right: THIS badass. I've got 4 V-19s and Ahsoka flying around my ships, doing what they can to protect 'em. Is it enough? Not gonna know until I get to field them. But basically, each of my four Consulars are fielding Fighter Coordination Team (FCT), which means that if I can maximize Ahsoka's ability, that's an extra 5 attacks from my V-19s against other squadrons. That's an additional 10 blue dice per turn. Not bad. And my Acclamator has Flight Controllers attached to it so that when it pushes squadrons, they each add a blue die to their attack against squadrons. When all is said and done, I should be able to overheat defense tokens of just about any enemy squadron and hopefully take a couple of them with me. Because I have no illusions about winning the squadron war. I've got one ace and four generic squadrons (each of which only have 5 hull). For anyone who fields any sort of concentrated squadron contingent, there's no chance I beat them in the squadron game. But hopefully, I can slow them down long enough and pick off enough of their squadrons that my ships can do the damage they need to win me the fight.

As for my objectives, they're centered on forcing my opponent to fight on a battleground of my choosing. Depending on how I deploy my stations for Station Assault, either the opponent HAS to come to me, or they have to split up their forces in order to ensure I don't net 80 objective points. Fire Lanes is pretty self-explanatory: if they don't come to me, I'll just keep scoring points. Infested Fields gives my squadron game a little boost, and also lets me throw obstacles in the way of approaching ships. No idea if any of this will work, but at present, it's one of the only Obi-Wan fleets I'm excited about trying out. And honestly, I refuse to give up on the notion of abusing Ahsoka's ability, because it is just so. much. fun.