Bail Organa Fleet - Tenacious B

Bail Organa Fleet - Tenacious B

I have no good reason for calling this fleet Tenacious B, other than the fact that Bail Organa is out here, every night, rocking hard tasty abs, washer board style. (That's a song lyric, for you young'ins out there; look it up on your Googlepedia.)

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.

Tenacious B (114/400/400)

========================

Acclamator II-class (71 + 17: 88)

· Ordnance Experts (4)

· Assault Concussion Missiles (5)

· Swivel-Mount Batteries (8)

Acclamator I-class (66 + 17: 83)

· Expanded Hangar Bay (5)

· Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)

· Nevoota Bee (5)

Armed Cruiser (37 + 32: 69)

· Bail Organa (28)

· Clone Navigation Officer (4)

Armed Cruiser (37 + 9: 46)

· Radiant VII (1)

· Bomber Command Center (8)

Kit Fisto (26)

Plo Koon (24)

2 x V-19 Torrent Squadron (2 x 12)

4 x BTL-B Y-wing Squadron (4 x 10)

Station Assault

Hyperspace assault

Minefields

Building around a single squadron is rarely, if ever, a good idea. That said, I've heard Kit Fisto getting a ton of...hate is the wrong word, but dislike or indifference or whatever. He's real expensive, Intel has been nerfed hard, and his special ability only protects himself (unlike the other Aethersprite aces, who buff or debuff other squadrons), so why bother? To that end, I've tried building around him a bunch of times now, but still haven't actually gotten to fly him. One day soon, I will! Tomorrow, perhaps! But for now, theory-crafting will have to suffice. To that end, why would I want to fly Kit?

Yes, Intel was nerfed. However, I've got a special appreciation for Grit. It doesn't necessarily seem like much until you're on either end of it, and I take full advantage of it when I can in my tournament Tarkin fleet while flying Hondo. There have been countless times during which an opponent either tried to take him out with a single squadron only for Hondo to fly away and either bomb or activate the piece I was aiming for, or my opponent had to commit multiple pieces to lock him down; the value of those moments cannot be underestimated. That does not even consider the number of times an opponent forgot about Grit and could do nothing but clench a fist and shake it in the air as Hondo flew away to do whatever he wanted anyway.

So if he's going to give other squadrons Grit, and if I'm to take advantage of that buff, then I need a good reason for having Grit. No better reason than bombing my opponent's ships! I really like the ARCs, but at present, for me, they're still a bit experimental because of how slow they are. Since I'm already "experimenting" with Kit, I decide to play it safe and cheap by adding 4 Y-Wings. I need to protect said Y-Wings, since Kit isn't doing that in any way, shape, or form except by (hopefully) murdering other squadrons. But he'll need help. So I add a pair of V-19s as meat-shield Escorts, and then Plo Koon for good measure. After all, if anything my enemy's squadrons shoot are going to shoot back at them, my enemy is likely to have a tough time. So, that's my squadron contingent at 114 points. I haven't maxed them out, so I might revisit the squadrons. But it's a good start.

Next, I know I'm using Bail, and I'm clearly using Acclamators and Consulars (as those are the only ships I have at present, though hopefully not for long!!). I currently hate putting my commander on an Acclamator because my Acclamators rarely survive engagement; they're big targets without repeat defense tokens and it is always worth taking them down. Plus, in order to bring their full firepower to bear, they often have to get into the mud and wrassle. Plus plus, they maneuver like the Ever Given in the Suez Canal.

Look, Ma! I'm making timely jokes that won't age well at all as people forget ALL about this drama!

So Bail will end up on a Consular. As such, Imma give it a minute before I decide what that looks like. But I do know I've got bombers, so I add in an Armed Cruiser with the Radiant VII title so it can sport Bomber Command Center. That'll give my Y-Wings rerolls. But since I'm really relying on my Y-Wings doing damage, why not double-down? I'll give my Y-Wings a second reroll with Nevoota Bee. Evidently, with my Y-Wings, I should "roll my initial dice. If I do not roll a hit-crit, reroll it because I then have a 93.75% chance of a damage with the Bomber Command Center follow-up after Nevoota Bee's Swarm ability." (Thanks, Cannot Get Your Ship Out for doing that math and sharing it!!)

As long as I've got Nevoota Bee there, I might as well deck her out a little bit with upgrades. So I add Expanded Hangar Bay to maximize my bombing nonsense, and then I give her Linked Turbolaser Towers so she can add to the firepower I bring to bear. Owing to the fact that both Radiant VII and Nevoota Bee are going to be prime targets for the mere fact that they buff my bombers, I don't really want Bail on either of these ships. But I've also got quite a few points left! So I add another Acclamator (a II this time, since I don't need it to push squadrons), and I decide to mess with something kinda stupid: I give it Swivel-Mount Batteries so it can throw black dice at short to long range, put on Ordnance Experts to reroll said black dice, and then I have to decide on a black crit effect. I do love Assault Proton Torpedoes. However, as I'm flying a bomber fleet and my enemy will be counting on their Redirects more than anything else, I thought Assault Concussion Missiles were the right call, here. I can't imagine it'll go off very often at long range. But if it does, great! If it helps my bombers at close range, that's great too! I've got options and it's another type of threat I can point at my opponent. I pick up another Consular-class Armed Cruiser and stick Bail on there. I've still got some points left, so I decide to throw a Clone Navigation Officer on Bail's ship. Why? Well, I really like the card, but haven't used it much yet, so why not? Mainly, throwing out at least 2 tokens to support my ships that are either pushing squadrons or happy to have a little extra oompf in their speed manipulation sounds really great for only 4 points! Plus, we've yet to see the full impact of tokens in 1.5 rules. They'll obviously be playing a much, much bigger role than before, even in fleets that normally would not consider themselves "token-centric" in the past. So having that flexibility is something I welcome. Also, I have to admit that after something like 2 years of flying my Tarkin fleet, I've really come to appreciate how much tokens can contribute to my game, and that's even without the 1.5 rules! So I try not to lean on them too hard, but I'm also a bit nervous whenever I build a fleet that doesn't readily supply at least a couple of them...

My objectives are both weird as well as unsurprising. I think 2 of the 3 choices make sense, but are unlikely to work the way I'd like them to with this fleet. The third is probably just a bad idea, because I've never used Minefields and NOT had it either backfire or have no net impact on the game. But it sounds so inviting and I really want it to work, so I'm trying it again! I'm thinking rather than spread them out in an effort to ensure at least one of them explodes, I'm just going to absolutely load down all 6 of them to one side of my fleet so that my opponent has to come at my guns and bombers head-on, or come from only one direction. Otherwise, they risk eating A LOT of mine damage, and I'm happy to let them do that. I've got Station Assault so I can dictate where the battle will happen (which my bulky Acclamators appreciate, as do my trigger-happy Y-Wings), and I picked Hyperspace Assault so that I can drop in my Acclamator II behind enemy lines so it can chase them and hit them with Assault Concussion Missiles as they approach the rest of my fleet.

I think there are a million ways to build Bail, but I also think I'm much more likely to be flying Luminara or Yularen as my commander by the time the next wave drops. So I don't know when I'll get around to flying Bail again once the next Clone Wars wave comes out, but this feels like one of those fleets I'd like to get to the table at least once in order to see what happens!