Okay so this a a big week of news this week this AMM will be evaluating the Separatists starter, and I am hoping to cover both factions fighter packs in next weeks AMM assuming we get the separatist one before thanksgiving. We also got some new about Armada transferring to Atomic mass games I won't really be dive into that in AMM at least until we have more info of how everything will work out. Clone Wars launch is still right around the Corner and won't be affected by this change so let's look at the Separatist starter.
Now on to what I have been waiting so long for the Separatist Starter spoilers I will just say now I am super pumped for this. Let's just get down to what I am the most excited for like many others in the Armada Community the Munificent, and to fully understand why I am so excited let's look the the cardboard.
Just look at how beautiful those arcs are this is probably the ship that I have been the most excited for in a long time, so lets dive in we get the Comms Frigate at 70 points and the Star Frigate at 73. There is not all that much different between the two one has an offensive retrofit the other a defensive the Star gains a black anti-squadron die and loses one squadron value. Really the only reason to take a star over a comms is if you are going to use the defensive retrofit, if not always go for the Comms. So let's look at the comms first
we have an officer, support, offensive, ion, and turbolaser upgrade slot, what can we do with this, well first this guy is going to be the main carrier for the separatists in the starter with access to offensive retrofits and the separatists get a cool new offensive retrofit.
Signal boost Carrier
Munificent-Class Comms Frigate (70) • Flight Commander (3) • Hyperwave signal boost (3) • Fighter coordination team (3) = 79 Points
Okay so this guy leans into the idea of using the new Hyperwave signal boost in the squadron phase on your Hyena Bombers. I'm imagining 2 Munificent kitted out like this 6 Vulture droids and 6 hyenas. During the ship phase use your Vultures to tie up squadrons and Fighter Coordination team to move the Hyenas where they need to be to catch ship in the squadron phase, Flight commander is used more as a sudo boosted comms, we could switch it out for a T-series tactical droid for command flexibility, but you really need a way to generate tokens if you are going to do that because we need to ready hyper-wave Signal boost as much as possible, but its your call. Okay so how does this Hyperwave signal boost work?
So it's a bit complex but to keep it simple when you would activate squadrons during the squadron phase you can exhaust Hyper-wave Signal boost and to my knowledge there is nothing preventing us from exhausting both of our hypothetical copies of this card to activate 6 squadrons our 6 hyena bombers. Now this is not a normal activation you don't get to move and shot you get ether or, but when you attack you can trigger your AI ability and that is key for our bombers to get extra dice. Its weird I know, but will it work not sure, but it's interesting enough for me to want to try it.
Old Reliable
Munificent-Class Comms Frigate (70) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 77 Points
The fact that all you need is LTT on a Munificent to make it super efficient is amazing and I think that is they way to go with these guys keep upgrades as minimal as possible. Slapping on engine techs is nice to make it go a little bit faster, but not necessary. With that said I can see investing a decent amount into these guys in this next build in particular.
Christmas Tree Muni
Munificent-Class Comms Frigate (70) • Skilled First Officer (1) • Medical Team (1) • Disposable Capacitors (3) • Heavy Ion Emplacements (9) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 91 Points
On of the reasons I have a really hard time taking the Star Frigate over the Comms is access to Disposable Capacitors. Now you may say HIE does not have a reliable way to trigger, but you're forgetting Kraken, and sure he very likely won't be able to trigger when I use D-caps but a well timed confire can increases my chances. Really Skilled First officer and Medical teams are totally optional here but nice as skilled first officer is always great on command two ships and Medical teams is nice as we don't have a contain, but just D-caps, HIE and LTT pared with Kraken I think will do some work for you.
Maybe you are not so hyped about Kraken or relying to much on a crit just take the often forgotten High-Capacity Ion Turbines to add a blue to your side to only increase the value you get from d-caps.
So what about the Star Frigate like I said it's going to be all about that extra durability gained from your defensive retrofit.
It is probably a good pick for a flagship, personally I have become a bit Disillusioned by the Defensive retrofit recently its always nice, but it's not a must have and with changes coming to some cards still that we don't know for 100% how valuable the slot will be I really think ECM will get a change and that is what leaves me pretty skeptical about his ship variant.
Old Reliable and Durable
Munificent-Class star Frigate (73) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 87 Points
Again boring, but it will likely be more durable than just LTT on a comms will it be worth 10 total more points it really depends on the changes to ECM and the fleet you are flying against, and so I am skeptical.
Hull Healer
Munificent-Class star Frigate (73) • Battle Droid Reserves (4) • Tide of Progress XII (2) • Reinforced Blast Doors (5) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 91 Points
Okay so this guy uses the Tide of Progress title and Battle Droid Reserves to keep damage cards face down to get that one turn value out of blast doors Battle Droid Reserves also makes removing hull damage pretty cheap so you can keep it off. The problem is this costs just as much as our fully decked out Comms Frigate and hits less hard so again I am not sold its cool and fun, not sure if its good.
Wat Shields
Munificent-Class star Frigate (72) • Wat Tambor (5) • Advanced Projectors (6) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 91 Points
again this is expensive you have a cool combo in that if you get hit hard if they want stuff to go to the hull they need to lock up both your brace and your redirect in most cases and you can use Wat to recharge shields to do it again, but I am just not seeing it For me it comes out a little bit to expensive.
ABS (always be salvoing)
Munificent-Class star Frigate (73) • Reactive Gunnery (4) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 84 Points
Lastly what I think might be the best use of its defensive retrofit just really lean on that salvo, every time you get attacked try to salvo and with two reds and LTT you will get off a good amount of damage at a fairly cheap price point.
So I am really excited for the Munificent I might be a downer on the Star Frigate, but overall am very excited I can see the argument that you don't take LTT on the star frigate and just rely on Kraken and get some more durability I can see taking it in that case.
So the Hardcell is the other ship we get in the pack and we know almost next to nothing about them and what we do know about them mostly comes from their cardboard but we do have some info on the battle refit version.
So the battle refit has an officer slot, offensive retrofit, defensive retrofit and turbolaser, and looking at the cardboard has 5 hull and one blue one black flack 3 reds in front 1 red out the sides and comes in at 52 points. The other version I will just call it the support looks like it has an officer, support defensive retrofit fleet support and turbolaser slot, it's hard to see its anti-squadron but it looks like single blue die 3 dice out the front but one is now a blue and one blue out of each side and no idea on cost I amuse a little bit cheaper so around 46 ish points give or take.
The hardcell is a simple support ship and I think of it as a cross between a hammerhead and a nebulon. There is not a lot to talk about it I think the battle refit will likely have ether LTT or Slaved turrets on board and will likely use its offensive retrofit to have reserved hanger decks ready to save a Vulture droid or droid Tri-fighter as we know they have swarm, other than that there is not much to be said about these guys maybe they have double evade so TRC might be a thing but we will have to see you likely won't see much more than just turbolaser and RHD on these guys. It is possible given their price point that they have access to a brace, so ECM might be argued here but again we need more info.
We do know something else about the support hardcell it has squadron 2 so not bad for a small ship not great either without a cost it's hard to advise builds, but we do know that this one has the fleet support slot and well comms net slicer tools and the new munition resupply are all good picks to go into that slot, LTT is still an okay choice with two reds out the front as well. If the Support does indeed have a support slot then Auxiliary Shield Teams might be a good pick up for your sides that only have one shield, in addition if we really want to lean into the hyper-wave signal boost idea we could put Fighter coordination team and with two squadron you could push a few key bombers into the right spot to catch a ship in the squadron phase with hyper-wave signal boost.
We also have Vulture droids as the squadrons that come in this pack so lets take a look at what they get.
At first glance they look very much akin to a tie fighters and they are same speed same hull same point cost and have swarm however I would argue they are better. First lets look at its anti-squadron its a blue and a black however with AI: anti-squadron 1 you get to add a die when activated when attacking a squadrons so likely a black meaning your average damage before factoring in swarm is 2 as opposed to the tie fighters 1.5. looking at the battery armament or anti-ship we change from a blue to a red, what does this mean? Well you odds of doing damage are at about 38% as opposed to a tie fighters 50% so that is a bit of a downgrade, however your average damage is actually the same as the tie fighters at .5 because of the double on the red. This means over the course of many rolls a vulture droid will do just as much damage as a tie fighter so while less consistency in doing damage you should statistically end up doing about as much as a tie fighter, this leads to games where your vulture could roll hot or cold so again not as reliable, but in the long run just as effective its a little weird, and I don't consider it much of a downgrade. It is worse if you don't activate it with a ship command but even with hyper-wave signal boost if your are primarily a anti-squadron fighter and are not getting activated in the ship phase I would say you are doing it wrong.
In addition you get an ace the Haor Chall Prototype you have the same stats other than you gain a brace and scatter to really help boost your suitability. You also gain this ability before an enemy ship or squadrons at distance 1 moves you may perform an attack against that ship or squadron even if you are engaged. So with the nerf to Intel the ability to move squadrons around is going to be important and having an ace that dis-insensitive your opponent from using cards and abilities that allow squadrons to move in nice and it might be a bigger deal then some think. Also this squadron in essence should get twice as many attacks against a ship if they start going in an anti ship mode as they will get their native attack plus an attack when the ship moves this will cause the die to be more likely to average out in the span of a single game. I think this guy while not an auto include is a good choice for a squadron wing that needs some anti-squadron firepower but wants something that will do damage to ships because of getting in essence two attempts at hitting a ship each round if used well I think you might be surprised how much damage this squadron could put on a ship over the course of the game even when it's fighting off squadrons near a ship I think they are a lot better than most people think at first glance.
I am so excited for the separatists they might become my “main” faction as I really like the design behind their faction. The release is in about two weeks now and I am so excited to start painting squadrons and we will hopefully talk about both factions squadron pack in the next AMM. Until next time have a great week!