General Rieekan Fleet - Run It Back

 General Rieekan Fleet - Run It Back

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.

Run It Back (83/400/400)

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MC80 Command Cruiser (106 + 51: 157)

· General Rieekan (34)

· Reserve Hangar Deck (3)

· SW-7 Ion Batteries (5)

· Spinal Armament (9)

Modified Pelta-class Command Ship (60 + 9: 69)

· Intensify Firepower! (6)

· Reserve Hangar Deck (3)

CR90 Corvette A (44 + 7: 51)

· Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 + 4: 40)

· External Racks (4)

Lando Calrissian (23)

Luke Skywalker (20)

Kanan Jarrus (19)

3 x Z-95 Headhunter Squadron (3 x 7)

Station Assault

Contested Outpost

Volatile Deposits

I've never really flown a Rieekan fleet before because I've never built one I liked. And that's more because of the commander than because of the fleets I've assembled. I've only ever flown Rieekan when friends were practicing against a Rieekan Ace-holes archetype in preparation for a tournament.

So what I was saying earlier is that I just don't really like Rieekan. I think he's incredibly effective and a great commander and I think he can be an amazing commander for both novices and experts alike. But I've just never been particularly interested in using him enough to master him. I know that for me as a player, personally, I am vulnerable to using crutches. When I first started playing the game, I was using Tactical Expert a bunch so that I could fix any dials I screwed up. It was for no other reason than I was uncomfortable setting dials on the command 3 ships. But it wasn't teaching me much about how to improve my dial game since I could always just hit the panic button and dial up a Concentrate Fire command when I needed it. Now, I think if you've got a plan for that card, you should go for it. And there are a lot more ways to screw with the commands of your opponents now than there were then, so it's not like I was fixing my commands in case an opponent screwed with it. Like I said: I've been guilty of leaning on crutches instead of throwing them aside so I can learn from my mistakes and get better going forward. So I have mostly avoided Rieekan because there are plenty of other commanders I find much more interesting and because, as I said, I think Rieekan can really be a crutch for players who aren't sure how to fly whatever they've built in a way that doesn't cost us ships or squadrons before they serve their purpose.

But I figured it had been a long while since I'd bothered with Rebels in the first place, so maybe it was time to come back to them. And since I'd never built a Rieekan list and posted it up here, I thought perhaps this was something worth messing with. There are several types of Rieekan fleets that work, and this is a bit of a combination of all three - I've got my big ship in the MC80, my smaller ships with the Pelta, CR90 and Hammerhead, and then 6 squadrons, all of which can live beyond that pesky first death. All 6 can be formidable against enemy squadrons, and all 6 can be thrown at enemy ships (though, of course, with varying success -  I'll get into it). It's not like a Rieekan fleet I've seen before and it feels like it may be a bit disjointed. So of course that means it actually interested me enough to share here!

I knew I was going to be using a big ship because I love the Rebel large base ships. I think Rebels (and Rieekan in particular) run excellent MSU fleets, but I really just love the big Mon Calamari cruisers. I knew I'd be using squadrons and wasn't sure I wanted to rely on a Pelta, so I started with the MC80 Command Cruiser. I knew that would be the toughest ship I was flying, so I put Rieekan on there. I put SW-7s on there as well as Spinal Armament. I like SW-7s because a guaranteed 3 damage isn't anything to sneeze at. The Spinal Armaments are probably a bad call. Why add dice to my weaker arcs? My initial thought is that I'll want to double arc when possible since I can't put Gunnery Team on here, so 1 additional red die is welcome when I can swing those double arcs. Again, it's probably a bad call, but it's where I decided to start because I thought it might be fun. I hadn't yet decided to drag those poor Z-95s into my fleet, so the inclusion of Reserve Hangar Deck would come later.

I knew I wanted a CR90 with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits in there, so that was an easy addition. Originally, I was going to include a Nebulon-B Frigate, but as I tried to build the fleet with it included, my math just kept coming up wrong. I didn't like the complexion of the fleet and ultimately scrapped the Neb-B and ended up including a Pelta. I was going with the Assault chassis and External Racks. Same with the Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette and External Racks. Then I got to my squadrons.

I wanted some aces that could stand up to enemy squadrons as well as do harm to enemy ships. But with that said, I was also working on a budget. I picked up Lando and Kanan, figuring the former was a more expensive ace balanced out by the latter being a less expensive ace. But I wasn't fooling anyone: my squadron contingent was going to be pretty small. I didn't love those odds when running into fleets with a bigger squadron screen. Sure, Rieekan can help keep my friends alive, but not if they're all dying at the same time. And besides, just because my ships and aces can stick around longer than they're supposed to doesn't mean I want to sacrifice them for no reason at all. Obviously, the less I lose, the more likely I am to win or increase my MOV. So I want at least some weight of numbers. Plus, that'll help with deployments. This is why I lit on the idea of throwing in several Z-95s. Rieekan could keep my aces alive, but Reserve Hangar Deck could keep my Z-95s alive. Now everything in my fleet could get a second chance. And while Z-95s aren't bombers, they are throwing red dice at enemy ships in case I'm flying against something squadronless. I'm willing to throw a Z-95 or two at them and hope for single or double damage. If they die, I just resurrect them with RHD and then fly them clear of danger. I decided to round out my squadron group with Luke. He's a gigantic target and I can't imagine he'll live terribly long, but he's fun and I never build a fleet that lets me use him.

Those squadron decisions brought me back to my ships and saw me swap out the Assault Pelta for a Command Pelta so I could include RHD on that ship as well as the MC80. I also put Intensify Firepower! on the Pelta because all 4 of my ships are throwing red dice and I wouldn't mind some dice correction since I'm already including the Pelta. That puts me at exactly 400 points. I was looking for a way to free up 3 points so I could add a copy of RHD to my Hammerhead, bringing my total RHD count up to three. But I just didn't see anything I wanted to get rid of. Note that I didn't say I couldn't find anything I couldn't *afford* to get rid of, because I'm sure there is (namely Spinal Armament on the MC80). But I rarely tinker too too much with a first build because theorizing only ever gets you so far. And if the premise of the fleet holds any water at all, this one thing won't be the element that makes or breaks it for me. I'm certain of that much.

This cat is cuter than Luke, but they both have targets on their backs, is my point.

So that's the fleet; onto the objectives! I chose Station Assault after much consternation because nothing else really jumped out at me. I've no idea how I plan on flying this fleet, so I don't know what objectives will best serve me. Oftentimes when I build a fleet, I at least have an idea in my head of how I plan to fly it. "These ships will kite around the skirmish and this one will plunge into the middle of it to deliver its ordnance payload." "These ships will be slow on approach, fling squadrons ahead of themselves, and then catch up." But in this case, I really don't know what I want to do with it. So I picked an objective that I thought could serve me no matter how I fly. I picked Contested Outpost because I can afford to babysit an area even if it puts me in danger, since I'll get my shot off no matter what (so long as I'm not losing multiple friends in the same round). I picked Volatile Deposits because...honestly, because I want an objective I could score. There are several of them and I doubt this is the best for me, but I never really get to fly it, so I thought, "what the hell?" But I was thinking that this fleet will have some difficulty racking up enough points for a decent MOV, so I need scoring objectives. If I want to fly this fleet more than once, I'll be stunned. But if that happens, then I'll re-examine my objective suite and figure out some better choices.