Bail Organa Fleet - Bail's Bombers
Man, I love this guy. I mean, the commander is great, but Jimmy Smits is really just terrific. Can't even tell you how many times I've watched the final season of The West Wing for him and Bradley Whitford...
Bail's Bombers (133/396/400)
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Acclamator I-class (66 + 70: 136)
· Bail Organa (28)
· Flight Commander (3)
· Gunnery Team (7)
· Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
· Hyperspace Rings (3)
· Expanded Launchers (13)
· Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
· Implacable (4)
Charger c70 (45 + 19: 64)
· Clone Navigation Officer (4)
· Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
· Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
· Swift Return (3)
Armed Cruiser (37 + 26: 63)
· Clone Navigation Officer (4)
· Reinforced Blast Doors (5)
· Engine Techs (8)
· Radiant VII (1)
· Bomber Command Center (8)
Luminara Unduli (23)
Anakin Skywalker (19)
Axe (17)
2 x ARC-170 Starfighter Squadron (2 x 15)
2 x V-19 Torrent Squadron (2 x 12)
2 x BTL-B Y-wing Squadron (2 x 10)
Ion Storm
Contested Outpost
Infested Fields
This was one of the first fleets I built when the Clone Wars starter sets dropped. I'm sure you guessed as much because I think we were all doing the same thing: what can we build with a single starter kit? Well, a single starter kit and squadron packs (I pre-ordered 3 for each faction because squadron packs have quickly become scarce in the past). I think there's plenty that Bail can do for your fleet as a commander. He's flexible in so many ways and always offers something useful, which I appreciate. I know there's plenty he can do, but it's hard for me to look at him as anything but a squadron commander. Now that wave 2 commanders have been spoiled, it's easy to see him as being more than just a squadron commander (after all, Plo Koon and Admiral Yularen are *strictly* squadron commanders). But still, this is where I started. So I built my squadron contingent first.
And yet...
Anakin is an auto-include for any fleet featuring bombers. He's just too good for his cost to skip. He's almost always going to be my first target, so I've got a couple of Escort squadrons hanging out with him and the other bombers. A couple of V-19s and Axe will help eat some of the damage that my opponent wants to put on Anakin. How else to protect my bombers? Well, Luminara is a great choice. Yes, her debuff bubble is only distance 1 from herself, so it'll take a lot of practice to land her right. But the Obstruction bubble will help protect my two generic Y-Wings and two generic ARC-170s. It does not extend to Anakin, as he is a unique squadron. So, that's my little squadron cloud. It's spread pretty evenly across types of squadrons, so I don't know if it'll need to be more specialized in order to be effective or not. But the designers are clearly moving in a direction that better supports generic squadrons, so I'm trying to roll with that as well to see how it goes. I always liked the idea of it (see my Palpatine fleet that features 4 TIE Phantoms!), but I understand why all-ace contingents dominated the playing field.
Okay, so, I've got my squadrons. What about my ships? Well, I had one Republic starter set, so I was clearly going with one Acclamator and 2 Consulars. And the abundance of points means I can basically build them any way that I want. I started with the Acclamator and threw Flight Commander on there because I don't have the space for Boosted Comms, so it's sort of a fake Boosted Comms for me. Not sure this is a great idea (especially because Bail is on here) because my Acclamators rarely survive battles, but, you know, we'll see. For s's and giggles, I've put Expanded Launchers on here to turn the front arc into a big no-fly zone, so I also had to put on Gunnery Team to make sure they don't front load my front arc and force me to prioritize y targets more than I'd like. I've got 9 squadrons and not nearly enough power to push them all, so Expanded Hangar Bay was an auto-include for me. Hyperspace Rings pushes my ARCs far enough ahead that I hope I won't need any other speed boosts for them. I think Implacable is likely a mistake because Nevoota Bee is SO GOOD. But I do like the idea of being able to shield my squadrons or other ships as needed.
The Consulars. Things get a bit tougher here. Originally, I had two Chargers so that each of them could have Expanded Hangar Bay to help command more squadrons. But I also needed one of them to have Bomber Command Center (BCC) since I'm not using Nevoota Bee. The Consular sporting BCC is a clear target, so I wanted to give it a little extra armor. That led to me changing that Consular from a Charger to an Armed Cruiser for the defensive retrofit slot. I then put Reinforced Blast Doors on there to try and bring it back from death, maybe buy a turn as needed. It's also got Engine Techs so it can run if it has to (or keep up with the bombers, depending on how I fly it). Both Consulars have Clone Navigation Officer (CNO) to support Implacable in pushing squadrons. I mean, they can do other stuff, of course, but that was my primary consideration. The Charger boasts the Swift Return title because it's cheap and SO good. It has Linked Turbolaser Towers so that it can help contribute to killing enemy ships or squadrons, and this one does have Expanded Hangar Bay so it can help push squadrons. I figure it will have the luxury of doing that because Swift Return will help it moderate speed and yaw (as long as I fly it well enough) without the assistance of a dial.
I really wasn't sure about my objectives. Because this isn't a traditional sort of bomber fleet, I didn't want the unholy trifecta of objectives normally fielded with bomber fleets (Precision Strike, Fighter Ambush, and Superior Positions). So I took Ion Storm (as the crit effect is nice and I've got the dice control/black dice to make it work) because it allows me to place all of the obstacles as hiding places for my squadrons as well as to best leverage the Swift Return title. If it gets me points, great! If not, hopefully, I've deployed my ships, squadrons, and obstacles well enough to have an advantage in taking out my opponent. Contested Outpost means I have to expend less energy in pushing my ARC-170s because my opponent has no choice but to come to me. Infested Fields...I know, y'all are probably sick of seeing this objective in my objectives suite, but it's just so good! Seriously, ever since I was introduced to it for my Tarkin fleet, I have just fallen in love with it. More likely than not, it'll only net you 15 points (after you gain 3 tokens and your opponent gains 2), but your opponents will have gained those tokens at cost to themselves, and being able to continually shift obstacles to get in my opponent's way is always welcome. It's possible for this objective to backfire, but that particular failing is really much more in your court as second player than in your opponent's, since they're not the ones who move the obstacles at the start of the Squadron phase or place the Exogorths at the end of each round.
Om nom nom.
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