Dooku Poodoo?

In this week’s AMM we are going to be looking at Count Dooku as a commander. Count Dooku is without red tokens and red tokens have been a little lackluster and Armada. I was intrigued when I first saw him and I really wanted to make him work. I have done a lot of testing and who played games with him and come up with some kind of wonky fleet's and let's see how that went.

So the first thing is we put 3 command tokens on Dooku's card when we start the game. however, they must be of at least two different types so you can't put 3 squadron command tokens but you could have her put to Squadron command tokens and 1 engineering token. Then at the start of a ship phase, you may discard one command token from Dooku and then each enemy ship will Gatorade token matching the discarded token. it's pretty straightforward Count Dooku is kind of like the Special Rule the from station assault objective.

So how can we use this? when we think about commands what are the most powerful commands? when we look at the concentrate fire command it is relatively weak in most cases. so we probably won't be doing that. engineering is a command that usually only comes up once maybe twice per game so maybe it's worth considering taking that as a one-off token on Dooku. navigate one of the most common commands as a lot of players really do live by the Mantra always be navigating. so if you live in that kind of meta and they don't have ways to easily get rid of raid tokens Dooku could kind of mess with their commands. however, I think did it's just an un-debatable fact that Squadron commands are the commands that have the most potential to be insanely powerful.

Recusant Support Destroyer (90) • Count Dooku (30) • T-Series Tactical Droid (4) • Flight Controllers (6) • Expanded Hangar Bay (5) • Boosted Comms (4) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) • Nova Defiant (4) = 150 Points

Munificent Comms Frigate (70) • TI-99 (4) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 81 Points

Munificent Comms Frigate (70) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 77 Points

Squadrons: • 6 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (48) • 4 x Hyena Droid Bomber Squadron (44) = 92 Points

Total Points: 400

That is generally where we end up using Dooku. one of the big problems with Dooku is your opponent can see what command tokens you place on him. this is a big downside because they can pass around your bank tokens on the first turn to prepare for Dooku's incoming raid tokens. what this generally means Is you will take for example to Squadron tokens and 1 engineering token on Dooku. what this will do is your opponent will see that you have placed to Squadron tokens and will bank or somehow get Squadron tokens on the ships that they need to resolve Squadron commands so they can get around Dooku's raid. this is true regardless of the raid tokens you take. However for example, if you take two Squadron tokens on Dooku your opponent will generally be able to mitigate 1 raid token but won't be able to mitigate the second without some kind of kink in their plans.

Munificent Comms Frigate (70) • Count Dooku (30) • Fighter Coordination Team (3) • Hyperwave Signal Boost (3) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 113 Points

Munificent Comms Frigate (70) • TI-99 (4) • Fighter Coordination Team (3) • Hyperwave Signal Boost (3) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 87 Points

Hardcell Transport (47) • Fighter Coordination Team (3) • Bomber Command Center (8) • Beast of Burden (6) = 64 Points

Squadrons: • 8 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (64) • 6 x Hyena Droid Bomber Squadron (66) = 130 Points

Total Points: 394

this could be as simple as having to activate a support ship in order to pass a token to the ship they need to commands squadrons. this doesn't sound like much however this in effect buys you an extra activation of attacking their squadrons unopposed. this can have a pretty dramatic effect on the game as you'll be able to take out a decent chunk of their squadrons before they're even able to activate them. I do want to stress however there are some workarounds that don't require much from your opponent. for example officer Hondo Ohnaka can just pop at the start of the ship phase in preparation or in response to Dooku's Ray token the same is also true of Grand Moff Tarkin of the empire and Admiral Tarkin of the Galactic Republic. However, Dooku also has matchups that he's very good in such as against admiral Yularen of the Republic and Admiral Sloane of the Empire.

Dooku seems to be strongest when trying to prevent Squadron list from doing Squadron commands. even if that only buys you an extra activation of squadrons not activating if you have a good chunk of squadrons you can use those to take out a good chunk of your opponent's squadrons before they get a chance to activate. this is why I think Dooku should primarily be used in Squadron-heavy fleets. however, the mileage and value you get out of Dooku will really be heavily dependent upon the builds and type of fleets you come up against. so if your meta is largely squash and light or no squadrons you're not going to get a whole lot of value using Dooku in this way. however, if it is the very Squadron-heavy meta that you have you might get some good mileage out of Dooku depending upon how much token generation the list has to help mitigate the effect of Dooku's raid token.

Providence Carrier (105) • Count Dooku (30) • Thermal Shields (5) • Jedi Hostage (3) • B2 Rocket Troopers (7) • External Racks (4) • Leading Shots (6) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 167 Points

Hardcell Transport (47) • Bomber Command Center (8) = 55 Points

Hardcell Transport (47) • Tikkes (2) • Slicer Tools (7) = 56 Points

Squadrons: • DBS-404 (17) • General Grievous (22) • DIS-T81 (17) • Phlac-Arphocc Prototypes (19) • 2 x Droid Tri-fighter Squadron (22) • 2 x Hyena Droid Bomber Squadron (22) = 119 Points

Total Points: 397

With all that said it's not impossible to get value out of Dooku even if you bring a squadron light list. however, the build is fairly specific and relies heavily on slicer tools. in effect, you use do coo to get ships to raid tokens and then you slice of tools to slice their dials to the matching raid token. This is by no means a foolproof strategy however it will help you get value out of Dooku.

Providence Carrier (105) • Count Dooku (30) • Shu Mai (4) • Thermal Shields (5) • Intensify Firepower! (6) • External Racks (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) = 159 Points

Hardcell Transport (47) • Slicer Tools (7) = 54 Points

Hardcell Transport (47) • Slicer Tools (7) = 54 Points

Hardcell Transport (47) • Parts Resupply (3) = 50 Points

Hardcell Transport (47) • Munitions Resupply (3) = 50 Points

Squadrons: • 4 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (32) = 32 Points

Total Points: 399

I've tried really leaning into raid so I just hand out a ton of raid tokens on top of what Dooku's already giving out. however, at this point, I was wondering why I wasn't running the cheaper Commander TF-1726. The tokens Can really pile up and can force your opponent to discard dials in effect not getting any commands off. however, you can kind of get the same effect in a TF-1726 list while increasing firepower. So this just kind of puts Dooku in a weird spot.

Recusant Support Destroyer (90) • Count Dooku (30) • B2 Rocket Troopers (7) • Flag Bridge (0) • Jedi Hostage (3) = 130 Points

Providence Carrier (105) • Rune Haako (4) • Thermal Shields (5) • Intensify Firepower! (6) • B2 Rocket Troopers (7) • External Racks (4) • Ion Cannon Batteries (5) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) = 141 Points

Munificent Comms Frigate (70) • B2 Rocket Troopers (7) = 77 Points

Squadrons: • 6 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (48) = 48 Points

Total Points: 396

I don't want to necessarily say that Dooku is a bad Commander. however, he is probably the closest thing that the Confederacy has to a completely bad Commander. however, I think he follows more so into the same category as Admiral Trench. Count Dooku is very niche in what he does. however unlike trench that's not just in a niche list that's also in a niche meta. Dooku will seem to do just fine for you if you consistently come up against heavy Squadron lists and you are also running a heavy Squadron list. that one activation to 1 full turn that Dooku can buy you in the Squadron game can really make the difference in the entire game in that kind of match-up. However, outside of that match-up, he is at best okay but in most cases is almost useless. At the end of the day all I can really say is if you are running a squadron heavy Fleet and you come up against a lot of Squadron heavy fleets Dooku is worth considering however after Admirals are also worth considering that won't be almost entirely useless if you don't run into that specific matchup. So if you feel like you are Confederacy heavy Squadron list are having a problem competing against other factions with heavy squadrons Dooku might be worth considering but at the same time, you might consider just to git gud. Until next time have a great week!