Mar Tuuk Fleet - *Maniacal Laugh*
*Maniacal Laugh* (55/391/400)
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Comms Frigate (70 + 47: 117)
· Mar Tuuk (28)
· Wat Tambor (5)
· Point Defense Ion Cannons (4)
· Medical Team (1)
· Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
· Tide of Progress XII (2)
Recusant-class Support Destroyer (90 + 22: 112)
· T-series Tactical Droid (4)
· Boarding Engineers (2)
· Hardened Bulkheads (5)
· Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
· Nova Defiant (4)
Battle Refit (52 + 5: 57)
· Dual Turbolaser Turrets (5)
Transport (47 + 3: 50)
· Munitions Resupply (3)
General Grievous (22)
3 x Tri-Fighter Squadron (3 x 11)
Ion Storm
Planetary Ion Cannon
Infested Fields
I just felt like messing around in the Armada builder app because it had been a minute since I'd gotten to actually play Armada and I was just jonesing for a fix. I decided I wanted to start a fleet with a title. It's not something I do very often, so why not? Nova Defiant is a title I've never flown before, despite how much I enjoy the Recusant. Honestly, that's mostly because when I want to fly a Recusant, it's either without a title or it's with Gilded Aegis and Grievous as my commander. But I'll also be the first to say that one of my favorite things about the SSD is equipping the Executor title and then using the first dial or two in order to bank two tokens per turn. So I start with a Nova Defiant Recusant. If I roll with Passel Argent, obviously I get a free dial for rounds 4-6, which is awesome. But given the set-up I'm trying out, I think I can save myself those two points by going with a T-Series Tactical Droid. I don't use Con Fire that often anyway and I can set myself up with a decent number of tokens if I play things properly, so Tac Droid in my Officer slot.
I'll come back to the Recusant, but for now, I start fleshing out the rest of my fleet so I can pick a commander and get a better handle on what kind of space this fleet occupies. I think about building this out as a squadron fleet, but that was already the last thing I did when I built a couple of Separatist fleets, plus my Yularen fleet is all about my squadrons. If I'm going to be ship-oriented, that kind of eliminates Grievous as a commander choice for me. Which is all to the good, because now I can use him in a Belbullab instead! I briefly consider Trench, but he's so expensive and I don't have a plan to make him work. Since I'm not specifically building around Trench, I sorta toss him outta my head. I can always bring him back if that's what I decide anyway. I wind up deciding that I want to use Mar Tuuk. Not necessarily for any particular reason other than my most recent Separatist builds have been utilizing Dooku, so I didn't want to pick him again. TF is really cool, but I didn't feel like building around Raid either. So while I think this fleet ended up looking like something fun, I didn't have any particular enthusiasm for my commander ability.
If I'm using Mar Tuuk, that (to me) means I'm using Hardcells. So I add two of them. I started with two Battle Refits, but decided that I wanted some additional reroll options, so I swapped out one Battle Refit for a Transport so it could boast Munitions Resupply. I equipped Dual Turbolaser Turrets to my Battle Refit Hardcell because while I'll take double arcs where I can get them, I anticipate that more often than not, I won't have that luxury. So why not give myself a cheaper reroll than Linked Turbolaser Towers. As it turned out, by the time I was done with my build, I had a 9 point bid. If I fly this fleet and decide I like it enough to keep flying it, I suspect I'll swap LTT in for DTT, but for now, I don't mind the choice.
I won't be flying squadronless because I think I'll be begging for someone to visit some serious pain on me, so I decide to keep my squadron screen simple: Grievous and 3 Tri-Fighters. It's not particularly creative, but I imagine it'll be more than effective enough for my needs. Grievous in his Belbullab is just so much fun when it comes to wiping out generic squadrons whilst also hiding amongst them. And while I like Vultures, I've spoken at length with my friend Chris about how Tri-Fighters are just outright better. They toss Red/Blue/Blue at other squadrons natively and a black die at ships. It's just more consistent damage than the Vultures can throw with their Red/Black at squadrons or red die at ships. The spike potential for Vultures is fun, but I'm not looking for spike potential with this screen; they just need to slow down enemy squadrons long enough that they can't take down my ships.
And speaking of ships, look at that: I've got enough room for a Munificent. Honestly, the thing I love most about the Separatist faction is that there isn't a medium ship out there that I enjoy more than the Munificent. It can do so many different things and I never feel as though I'm overpaying for it. I'm never sorry to have one when it's on my side of the table, but I never stop worrying about what it's going to do when it's on my opponent's side of the table. So I add the Comms Frigate just because that's my standard go-to. I'm not really that interested in a defensive retrofit, but I like the idea of being able to push an extra squadron if my Recusant isn't pushing them for a turn or two. And the Comms Frigate is cheaper, so here we are. I absolutely acknowledge that I have probably loaded this Munificent down with more upgrades than it needs. Part of that is because I enjoy the ship so much that I like playing around with various options. The other reason is simply because I've got more points to mess around with than I anticipated. I end up putting Mar Tuuk on here instead of on the Recusant because I think the Recusant will prove to be enough of a threatening target without also carrying my commander. I'd rather my opponent have to decide whether they want to sink my flagship or my gunship first; it's at least a slightly more difficult decision than if my gunship and flagship are the same thing.
Courtesy of the Nova Defiant title and Tac Droid, my Recusant will have a lot of opportunities to heal up, so I add Wat Tambor to my Munificent so that it can steal some shields as needed to buy itself an extra round or possibly even a full escape from my opponent. As long as I'm making little choices to extend the life of my Munificent, I add the Tide of Progress title and Medical Team. In writing up batreps and such with my long-time Tarkin fleet, I frequently wrote about how my defensive tech was not meant to "keep my ships alive," but meant to help ensure that they reached their targets. It's not quite the same philosophy here, but it's similar: I'm not just "trying to keep my Munificent alive" *period*, but rather just doing what I can to ensure it lasts longer than it should. If it manages to escape, then great! But my thinking is that it can be supremely frustrating when we plan to only spend so many shots and so much effort taking down a target, only to have that target stick around one or two attacks longer than it *should have*. How frequently have you run into a situation where a squadron that is tying down several of your own only has something like 2 hull left, but it takes 3 attacks to kill it instead of 1? How tough a pill is it to swallow when you were planning on sending those last two squadrons to attack something else? Or God forbid you have to flak to kill that threat instead of shooting at another ship? Have you ever been in a position where you're hoping to kill a small ship and run only to fail, ram it, and be stuck in place - perfect prey for your opponent's next activation? Sure, that little ship or squadron dies, but only after you've invested more effort and firepower in it than you planned. There's a cascading effect that impacts other plans. Maybe it's not even worth pursuing that secondary target now because you simply can't get it. There have been a number of times I've said, "Let me roll my side arc against that and then see where my life is." Because that first attack absolutely informs my future plans. If it's a decent roll but not great, then I've got a chance and a tough decision. If it's an outstanding roll, then I'm going to pour more energy into that target. If it's a complete whiff, I'm going to just move on. So I'm building my Munificent to force the extra attack or activation, thus detracting from my opponent's efficiency.
I put Linked Turbolaser Towers on there because my Munificent needs to be double-arcing, or how exactly am I planning on winning my match short of hoping my opponent makes really bad mistakes? And then I add Point Defense Ion Cannons. That's probably my weakest choice on here, honestly. The upgrade itself is absolutely brilliant, but I'm also planning for situations which I'm specifically working to avoid (close range and falling under fire from enemy squadrons). So it's a preventative measure that reads just a little too defensively and poor conceived to me. But I've got the points and the slot, so Imma try it. It does act as some extra discouragement for anyone thinking about targeting my flagship before targeting Nova Defiant. Speaking of Nova Defiant...
I double back and of course I add Linked Turbolaser Towers to my Recusant. There's some slightly wonky stuff going on in my head for this build, but if I'm counting on my red dice to do all of my damage, I better do what I can to ensure that's what happens. I consider putting Flight Controllers in the Weapons Team upgrade slot because I'm counting on my 4 fighters to do some heavy lifting if I run into a squadron-heavy fleet, but I decide not to. I already know that can be pretty effective, so I decide to try something else, first, and equip Boarding Engineers. I've never used the card and I'd like to try it at some point. Now feels like a good time! And I also add Hardened Bulkheads so that I have less to fear from MSU trying to bypass my shields and just box me in so they can ram me to death. Honestly, outside of LTT, Tac Droid, and Nova Defiant, I'm not in love with my Recusant build. I don't hate it or anything, I just don't love it. Some of my choices feel experimental rather than focused and intentional. And honestly, that's fine! I acknowledge that hypothetical planning can only carry us so far and at some point, the plastic needs to meet the table in order to suffer through various iterations if it's ever to become something more than how it began. I've got no problem with that, so I'm not worried about it. I was just thinking about not being in love with it as I'm staring at the build, you know?
So, that's the fleet! My objectives are...not well-considered. I love Ion Storm in general, but honestly, my Hardcells might get left out in the cold if I don't know what I'm doing, since I've no way of getting them Engineering tokens short of dialing up Engineering for them. And that's not an idea they love. But when I chose it, I was thinking mostly of Nova Defiant and my ability to ensure that ship will not suffer backlash from an opponent trying to turn the objective against me. Plus, it scores me objective points. Next is Planetary Ion Cannon. A bit of a lazy choice, but I couldn't find a point-generating objective that I liked with this fleet. Planetary Ion Cannon can't harm me unless I go out of my way to use the tokens and end up out of position with my fleet. And then there's my old stand-by for any fleet featuring only a couple of squadrons: Infested Fields. It'll likely net me 15 points if an opponent chooses it and then I can try to chomp down on some enemy squadrons with those nasty Exogorths. Not particularly inspired choices, but a decent-enough starting place!
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