Obi-Wan Kenobi Fleet - Obi-Wan Step at a Time

 Obi-Wan Kenobi Fleet - Obi-Wan Step at a Time

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.

Obi-Wan Step at a Time (105/397/400)

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

Acclamator II-class (71 + 43: 114)

· Obi-Wan Kenobi (28)

· Clone Navigation Officer (4)

· Electronic Countermeasures (7)

· Implacable (4)

Venator I-class Star Destroyer (90 + 16: 106)

· Barriss Offee (6)

· All Fighters, Follow Me! (5)

· Triumphant (5)

Pelta-class Medical Frigate (49 + 23: 72)

· Expert Shield Tech (5)

· Bomber Command Center (8)

· Projection Experts (6)

· FB-88 (4)

Kit Fisto (26)

3 x ARC-170 Starfighter Squadron (3 x 15)

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

BTL-B Y-wing Squadron (10)

Surprise Attack

Fleet in Being

Superior Positions

I'm kind of a long way from home with this fleet. I mentioned here in my recap of a local tournament that I flew an Obi-Wan fleet unsuccessfully, but that reflection led me to changes in the fleet in an attempt to find an Obi-Wan fleet I enjoy flying. The previous incarnation of the fleet can also be found in that recap at the link above. I suspect my thinking will make much more sense if you've read that recap and know what my previous list included.

So, some big changes. I trimmed the hell out of my Venator, basically cutting 50 points of upgrades off of it. Admittedly, a little more than half of that was Obi-Wan moving to the Acclamator, but still. I also overhauled the complexion of my squadron game. Lots and lots of changes. The biggest ones, though, are why my upgrades and squadrons changed so drastically: the roles of nearly everything have changed from "Jedi Mind Tricks" to "Obi-Wan Step at a Time." The Pelta and the V-19s more or less fulfill the same purposes they did before, but everyone else involved is now doing something different, and their roles are what dictated my choices.

My inclination with Obi-Wan is always to do whatever I can to ensure I can use his ability. After all, if my opponent rolls Accuracies for every attack (unlikely, but certainly possible), I can go an entire match without using my commander's ability even once. And even worse, that outcome can occur even if I've flown an excellent game! So after having my Redirect token targeted a couple of times in this past tournament, I'm predisposed toward swapping out the Venator I for a Venator II so I can add ECM to it. But as I mentioned in my previous blog post, while that's the easy decision, it's also an expensive one. Plus, that doesn't help my Pelta. Sure, I suppose I could just throw Barriss Offee on the Pelta instead, but still - pricey stuff. Ultimately, though, I decide the Venator is going to play a different role in this fleet, and as such, I can afford to stick with the Venator I. In fact, I sort of have to, because I'm going to try throwing ARCs at my opponents; if I'm planning on using ARCs, that basically guarantees that I'm either using Hyperspace Rings or All Fighters, Follow Me! I've got the Venator, so I decide on the latter rather than the former. But I also don't want to just spend a bunch of points on Boosted Comms to try and stay safe. So I grudgingly swap out the Tranquility title for the Triumphant title. The Venator will take advantage of Obi-Wan's defensive ability to hopefully stick around a little longer than it normally would and act as a squadron node. This is one of those instances in which I'm grateful for the insight offered by the folks over at Blissfully Ignorant Gaming. They (and specifically Geek19, in this case) advise keeping the Venator light on upgrades so it's not just a giant points pinata. As Triumphant is already a target, why make it a bigger target than it needs to be? I've got AFFM and Triumphant to facilitate ARC delivery, and then I've got Barriss Offee as a way to guarantee I'll be able to use my Redirect token for Obi-Wan each turn. I decide to leave it at that. Yes, I'm worried about the fact that I don't have any dice fixing on here, but it's a risk I decide to take with this build.

I know, I know. I'm just going to try it. Honestly, I had a bunch of rerolls in the last iteration of this fleet, and they didn't really help me much. So, dice are gonna be dice.

Obi-Wan gets moved to the Acclamator because he's safer there than on the Pelta or the Venator. I keep ECM on here because I need to keep Obi-Wan alive for as long as possible. Plus, I'm about to do something that's probably really stupid - I swap the Nevoota Bee title out and the Implacable title in. If I'm flying ARCs, why on earth am I doing this? It's a fair question. Honestly, it's probably a stupid mistake and I'll probably end up changing back if I decide it's worth sticking with this fleet for a minute. But bear with me here: I need Triumphant to stay alive long enough to command squadrons through it. I also need my squadrons to do their work. Implacable can protect any of these, including the more vulnerable Pelta that's tagging along. There have been a number of times when I used an Engineering command to either generate new shields or move shields around, only to discover that I moved them to the wrong hull zone. Tranquility really mitigates this problem, but of course, I don't have Tranquility anymore. If I can leverage Implacable in an intelligent way, this becomes way less of a problem because Implacable can provide that kind of protection for anyone else in range, including itself! So I've got Obi-Wan on there with ECM and Implacable. The Acclamator in my other list was pretty well loaded-up, but I don't want that here. Especially because I'll need points for my squadron contingent. I throw Clone Navigation Officer on there because the Acclamator will absolutely be dialing up Squadron commands, and then it can use CNO to toss those Squadron tokens over to Triumphant to fuel All Fighters, Follow Me!

I mostly leave the Pelta as it was because its role is mainly the same: support. However, I do switch from the Transport Frigate to the Medical Frigate so that I've got increased squadron value. I also swap out Munitions Resupply for Bomber Command Center. I need *some* rerolls if I'm counting on blue bomber dice, right? And I'm not using Nevoota Bee. Plus, I was mostly using Munitions Resupply to fuel Intensify Firepower! and Clone Gunners. Neither of those cards made it to the next iteration of this fleet, so BCC it is.

Finally, my squadrons. Previously, I had Plo Koon and 2 V-19s as a small screen to fend off enemy squadrons. I also had 3 Y-Wings. Plo Koon's Counter buff helped out all of my squadrons, and Nevoota Bee pushed the Y-Wings out at enemy ships. I liked this, but ultimately decided that my squadrons had to pose a bigger threat to my opponents if they brought a sizeable squadron contingent. ARCs throw two bomber dice instead of one at enemy ships, but are also a much bigger threat to enemy squadrons between their anti-squadron dice and their Counter. I keep the V-19s because I think 2 can better pull their weight when flying alongside ARCs. At this point, I have 4 ARCs, 2 V-19s, and Plo Koon. But now Plo has extremely limited usefulness because he'll only affect the two V-19s. I don't want to pay 24 points for a squadron that is suddenly so low-impact. I opt for Kit Fisto. I like Luminara and Ahsoka, but I don't think either of them will boost this fleet enough to include. I'm not so worried about my ARCs dying and Luminara's debuff bubble can be tough to effectively position. And Ahsoka is really cool; I love her ability! But I tend to build at least a small apparatus around it to abuse it (such as with Fighter Coordination Team); if I'm not going that route, then Ahsoka is more of a luxury than a necessity. Kit, on the other hand, provides the same anti-squadron firepower the other Jedi provide, but unlike Ahsoka and Luminara, he's got Adept 2. But more importantly, he grants my bombers Grit. Gonna take more than one squadron to lock down my little bomber ball, and that feels like far more synergy with my fleet.

Of course, Kit is expensive and I'm stuck trying to figure out how to afford him. I don't want to lose any of the upgrades I have on my fairly trim ships. I ultimately decide that I need my ships to remain the way they are, and so I save myself 5 points by replacing an ARC with a Y-Wing. I've still got 4 bombers, so I can make it work.

My objective suite makes a little less sense now, given the change in tactics I'm employing. So I replace Advanced Gunnery with Surprise Attack. I like the idea of my Venator being the beneficiary of Advanced Gunnery, but given that Triumphant will always be in a forward position and will not always have other ships right there to back it up, I don't really wanna hand away an additional 90 points every match. Surprise Attack may work well given Triumphant as a node. Maybe I can jump on the flagship before my opponent is ready. Of course, the Raid tokens aren't a big deal if I'm flying against Tarkin or Thrawn, but it's still worth a try. I keep Fleet in Being because readied Redirect tokens under Obi-Wan are terrific. And I made the switch from Solar Corona to Superior Positions. This last choice is, I think, my riskiest one. It's definitely one that can backfire. But with my speed 3 ARCs, I'm willing to take the chance and see if I can't exploit it for points. If it proves too troublesome, then I'll just go back to Solar Corona.