In this week AMM I am ready to give final thoughts on the CIS commander Mar Tuuk. So with on dilly dally let’s get into it.
Mar Tuuk is a very interesting commander he reminds me a bit of Romodi. You add a red die when attacking a hull zone with shields it’s more damage to get to help you get to the hull. However, you don’t get an extra die when attacking a zone with no shields and if you are attacking a ship that has no shields on it at all then you are going to have to cancel a die in your attack pool. It sounds kind of complex but it leads to a very simple playstyle: always attack the same hull zone.
So why do you want to always attack the same hull zone? Because each ship, other than the SSD has only 4 hull zones and if you always attack the same hull zone your opponent can only redirect to the two adjacent hull zones meaning they will in to move shields from that 4th zone in order to make them relevant and to get there shield values to zero so you have to start canceling dice when attacking. This helps you avoid the downside of Mar Tuuk;s effect, I would also recommend if you can attack a ship twice but have to target different hull zones, target the one that will make it impossible for them to utilize their shields first if possible.
Providence Carrier (105) • Mar Tuuk (28) • Rune Haako (4) • Thermal Shields (5) • Intensify Firepower! (6) • Reserve Hangar Deck (3) • External Racks (4) • Point Defense Ion Cannons (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) = 164 Points
Recusant Light Destroyer (85) • Ordnance Experts (4) • Reserve Hangar Deck (3) • External Racks (4) • Enhanced Armament (10) • Patriot Fist (6) = 112 Points
Munificent Star Frigate (73) • Medical Team (1) • Thermal Shields (5) • Point Defense Ion Cannons (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Tide of Progress XII (2) = 90 Points
Squadrons: • 4 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (32) = 32 Points
Total Points: 398
This helps you get around Mar Tuuk’s downside of canceling dice. My whole time playing with Mar Tuuk at least 8 games, I never triggered his drawback. However, even if you do trigger it’s not all bad. Canceling dice happens in the modify dice step so you can cancel a blank or un-needed accuracy, it’s really not going to be a huge deal.
So while you can do some really fun things with battle hardcells with Mar Tuuk namely chuck 6 dice at long range with slaved and a con-fire. I don’t feel like it’s the greatest use of Mar Tuuk he gets most of his value from ships that can easily double arc, so all CIS ships but the hardcell. Don’t get me wrong the hardcell thing is great, but I would only do it as a one-off when you can’t fit in a munificent. Double arcs will more often than not let you either add a total of two dice with Mar Tuuk or attack an unshielded hull zone with your second attack, It is a win-win for you.
Providence Carrier (105) • Mar Tuuk (28) • Rune Haako (4) • Early Warning System (7) • Intensify Firepower! (6) • Reserve Hangar Deck (3) • External Racks (4) • Point Defense Ion Cannons (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Invincible (5) • Thermal Shields (5) = 176 Points
Munificent Star Frigate (73) • Skilled First Officer (1) • Thermal Shields (5) • Point Defense Ion Cannons (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) = 88 Points
Munificent Star Frigate (73) • Skilled First Officer (1) • Thermal Shields (5) • Point Defense Ion Cannons (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) = 88 Points
Squadrons: • General Grievous (22) • 3 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (24) = 46 Points
Another really nice thing about Mar Tuuk is because his effect is an add effect it gets around thermal shields. I had it happen not once, not twice, but three times where my opponent spent thermals removed my dice I got Mar Tuuk’s extra dice Ex-racks and Quad Battery Turrets and dropped 8-9 damage on a ship, and if that did not kill it my follow up shot always did. If you are having issues with Thermals Mar Tuuk with some extra add dice effects will really make people question why they took thermals.
I will say this I really like Quad Battery Turrets with Mar Tuuk Munifices are already slow and the providence has great yaw at speed 1. The Recusant really does not want it but Enhanced armament for 5 dice out the front or side with Mar Tuuk is solid and in Patriot’s fist if you are only getting in one attack that’s 7 dice from a light destroyer 8 if you’re at medium with a support destroyer. Just more dice particularly with the add effect I have found to be just so good when people are leaning hard on Thermal Shields, and more dice meaning more damage.
Providence Carrier (105) • Mar Tuuk (28) • Shu Mai (4) • Thermal Shields (5) • Intensify Firepower! (6) • External Racks (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) = 157 Points
Munificent Comms Frigate (70) = 70 Points
Munificent Comms Frigate (70) = 70 Points
Hardcell Transport (47) • Munitions Resupply (3) = 50 Points
Squadrons: • 6 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (48) = 48 Points
Total Points: 395
I think Mar Tuuk is best when you really lean into adding more dice and I think that makes Intensify Firepower pretty much mandatory in Mar Tuuk lists, as you won’t be getting re-rolls from LTT and other stuff like that because you will be using the slot to get more dice. This makes Shu Mia a great choice for your providence if you are not taking someone like Tune Haako to power IF.
I also ran Mar Tuuk in a heavy squadron list, and I think it was okay it was mostly the providence that did the heavy lifting, but the squads did put a lot of pressure on redirects so that is nice with Mar Tuuk as if your opponent has no redirects you can target other hull zones more freely without worrying about triggering Mar Tuuks downside. I also really like how Mar Tuuk makes the hardcell transports just a little bit scarier its subtitle but if you need one for munition resupply to power IF it’s going to get more work done than you might think.
Providence Carrier (105) • Mar Tuuk (28) • Shu Mai (4) • Thermal Shields (5) • Intensify Firepower! (6) • Reserve Hangar Deck (3) • External Racks (4) • Point Defense Ion Cannons (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Invincible (5) • Early Warning System (7) = 176 Points
Hardcell Transport (47) • Bomber Command Center (8) = 55 Points
Hardcell Transport (47) • Munitions Resupply (3) = 50 Points
Squadrons: • 2 x Hyena Droid Bomber Squadron (22) • DBS-404 (17) • Phlac-Arphocc Prototypes (19) • DIS-T81 (17) • 2 x Droid Tri-fighter Squadron (22) • General Grievous (22) = 119 Points
Total Points: 400
I do feel like I have to address the elephant in the room when it comes to Mar Tuuk and that is XI7s. So I have never really like XI7s all that much, sure they can be annoying but can be played around with engineering commands. I also hate it when only one ship in my fleet has XI7s its effect is kind of void when I have 3 ships attacking a single ship, but only one of them has XI7 they are still getting to use their shields, I think XI7 can be good but only if the effect is fleet-wide and I have has some success with that. So if you want to do XI7 with Mar Tuuk you need to put it on every ship, and even then I think just more dice is better than the effect XI7 gives you.
Providence Carrier (105) • Mar Tuuk (28) • Rune Haako (4) • Thermal Shields (5) • Intensify Firepower! (6) • External Racks (4) • XI7 Turbolasers (6) = 158 Points
Munificent Comms Frigate (70) • XI7 Turbolasers (6) = 76 Points
Munificent Comms Frigate (70) • XI7 Turbolasers (6) = 76 Points
Hardcell Battle Refit (52) • XI7 Turbolasers (6) = 58 Points
Squadrons: • 4 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (32) = 32 Points
Total Points: 400
Mar Tuuk is a very solid commander, it’s really close between him and Kraken for my favorite CIS commander so far, and he is just a smidgen cheaper. It’s really nice to have added dice effects with Thermal shields going around and Mar Tuuk gives you that, and even if you don’t run into thermals it’s still more dice and a potential for more damage, that really does not need much set up to trigger unlike Kraken or TF-1726, and if that’s what you’re looking for Mar Tuuk won’t do you wrong. Until next time have a great week!
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