Obi-Wan Kenobi Fleet - Jedi Mind Tricks

 Obi-Wan Kenobi Fleet - Jedi Mind Tricks

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.

Jedi Mind Tricks (80/396/400)

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

Venator I-class Star Destroyer (90 + 69: 159)

· Obi-Wan Kenobi (28)

· Barriss Offee (6)

· Ordnance Experts (4)

· Intensify Firepower! (6)

· Flak Guns (3)

· Expanded Launchers (13)

· XI7 Turbolasers (6)

· Tranquility (3)

Acclamator II-class (71 + 23: 94)

· Clone Gunners (4)

· Electronic Countermeasures (7)

· Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)

· Nevoota Bee (5)

Pelta-class Transport Frigate (45 + 18: 63)

· Expert Shield Tech (5)

· Munitions Resupply (3)

· Projection Experts (6)

· FB-88 (4)

Plo Koon (24)

3 x V-19 Torrent Squadron (3 x 12)

2 x BTL-B Y-wing Squadron (2 x 10)

Advanced Gunnery

Asteroid Tactics

Solar Corona

For anyone who plays Star Wars Armada and keeps up with the meta outside of your local meta, you probably know about certain groups of players who tend to train, develop, travel, and compete together. There's a group of players from Canada who come down to tournaments in the States and sometimes go so far as to all bring the same, single fleet that they have all developed and tested together. There's a lethality in such practice, as having four people perfecting the same fleet can really pay dividends. For whatever reason, I'm more interested in sort of forging my own path, and so I'll develop fleets in conjunction with friends and other folks in the St. Louis meta, and if someone else wants to take *my* fleet to a tournament, I'm totally cool with that. But I don't really want to feel as though I'm taking *someone else's* fleet to a tournament. Anyway, to that end, some of my most fun ideas come from other people. Leveraging Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer in my Tarkin fleet (listed here) was an idea that came from my friend Damien, and I haven't looked back. My friend Ted mentioned trying to build a "deranged" Leia fleet, and after reading it, I decided to try my own hand at a "deranged" Leia build (link here).

All of that to say that during Cabin Con 2021 (about which I wrote in parts one here and two here with more parts to come!), I had the opportunity to teach my buddy Josh how to play Armada after delivering some of his Republic components. We first flew my Republic and Separatist learning fleets (here) so I could teach Josh. Once we were done (and he beat me by 20 points; well done, Josh!), he immediately got to work building an Obi-Wan fleet. After he did and we flew against one another again (which I'll be detailing in a future part of my Cabin Con 2021 recap), we were talking about how useful Obi-Wan is and how to augment his ability. And that's when I had the idea that would serve as the core of this fleet.

Up until now, just about every fleet I built around Obi-Wan featured Electronic Countermeasures (ECMs) to ensure I could spend my Redirect for Obi-Wan's ability. Also, any time I was flying a Venator featuring the Tranquility title, Luminara was my commander because of course she was. In talking to Josh, I had a different idea as to how I could leverage Obi-Wan. So I outfitted the Venator with Barriss Offee so that I could always use my Redirect token before it could be locked down with an Accuracy. This still triggers Obi-Wan's ability, which I appreciate! But it comes with the price of not *using* a Redirect. So why not add Tranquility to this ship? I get to use Redirect for Obi-Wan's ability without having to worry about using Electronic Countermeasures (which means I can safely use the Venator-I instead of having to rely on the Venator-II with its defensive retrofit slot). The Venator-I needs to close in order to be effective, and while I sort of hate that I turned the ship into a Christmas tree by kitting it out with a bunch of expensive upgrades (lookin' at you, Expanded Launchers!), and while I expect I'll need to really cut these upgrades back in order to really feel like I'm not paying too much for too little impact, for now, I'm excited to fly this as is! It'll hopefully be lots of fun if nothing else! Between Expanded Launchers and a Con Fire dial, I can be tossing 3 red and 6 black dice out of the front arc (or 4 red and 5 black dice out of the front, depending on my preference). Intensify Firepower! and Ordnance Experts will help a ton with fixing my dice while Flak Guns make my Salvo more dangerous, and XI7 Turbolasers will help me drill through that hull. I thought about using Clone Gunners here to ensure I could lock down any Braces, but decided it was more important that I sport a way to fix my ordnance dice if they misbehave.

I don't want to count on Tranquility as my only source of damage, so I thought that I could build in two different directions. The first is several Chargers kiting around the battlefield, tossing red dice. I think that can be really effective and have several fleets that feature that, so I decided to go in a different direction. I included an Acclamator II specifically so it could be outfitted with ECMs. It's got a weapons team slot, and I plan on including Munitions Resupply somewhere so as to keep IF! fueled. So I put Clone Gunners on it for that automatic Accuracy, as well as Linked Turbolaser Towers (I figure that's enough dice-fixing between LTT and IF!). As long as I'm putting an Acclamator in there, I'm really starting to run out of points early, so I'll likely have to rely on some squadrons to do damage. Of course, this isn't really much of a squadron build, so to speak. So I put Nevoota Bee on the Acclamator because with Nevoota Bee, even my V-19s pose a threat to enemy ships.

I decide to figure out my squadron contingent next. Knowing I need squadrons to pull double duty, I decide to include a couple of Y-Wings in addition to Plo Koon and the V-19s. Plo is happy to give anyone at all Counter, and with 3 Escort units flying around, my opponent cannot simply gun for Plo or my Y-Wings. It serves as 3 additional deployments, and while clocking in as a low-end medium fighter screen, I think it can do some work. Finally, I've got a Pelta in there for Munitions Resupply and Projection Experts to better protect my Venator and Acclamator. Expert Shield Tech will better protect my Pelta, and FB-88 gives my Pelta serious flexibility.

I think Advanced Gunnery could be leveraged against me, but I honestly think that it is unlikely to ever be chosen because my Venator's front arc would be just devastating, what with being able to unload 16-17 dice between two attacks and all. Asteroid Tactics with Obi-Wan is obviously an excellent way to keep preventing damage. And Solar Corona is always a useful include; moreso in this fleet to help ensure I can use my Redirect tokens without having to use ECMs.