I was pretty excited about the Munificent when I first saw it and it has honestly surpassed my expectations. I have gotten in quite a few games with these guys and I am ready to give some final thoughts so let's look at each version, and a few build and tactical suggestions, let's get started.
First before we address anything else your turbolaser slot regardless of what ship version you are talking about you should almost always take LTT. The only cases I can see for not taking LTT is if you are taking Kraken and/or Intensify Firepower, even then LTT still has a strong argument to take it. In the previously mentioned cases you could leave the slot empty to save points, or something that increases armament might be nice. However, your red anti-squadron die really screams for LTT, with that out of the way lets start with the Comms Frigate.
This is your cheap guy 70 points. It's got command 2 squad 3 engineering 4. You are taking this version for one of three reasons: it's cheaper than the star cruiser, you need more squadron pushing power then the star cruiser can give you, or you need more reserved hanger decks. All these guys need is LTT and they are good to go, and if you're running IF you could even run these guys naked and have great success with them.
The star frigate is 3 points more but is really 8 points more. The only reason to take this guy is if you are filling that defensive retrofit slot mostly with thermal shields. Munis are slow and so getting stuck somewhere you might not want to be is very likely thermals can take that sting away particularly against Onagers. I was a little down on the star cruiser before we got thermals, but with thermals I think it’s a pretty good investment if you have 8 more points to give into your list and you don't need access to offensive retrofits. This is not always the right call, and Munis even without thermals are a bit more tanky then you might expect they can generally take one sometimes 2 big shots and survive, thermals just make it a non issue. With the drop to squadron 2 they are not the best if you need more squadron pushing power.
So what about upgrades and other options other than LTT, and thermal shields on the star cruiser? Well I think the Muni generally wants to be upgraded sparsely, really pouring points into these guys is not a great return on investment but a few upgrades can be really helpful. Lets talk about the titles first.
Munificent Comms Frigate (70)
• Medical Team (1)
• Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
• Tide of Progress XII (2)
= 80 Points
Tide of Progress in my opinion should always be paired with Medical teams. It's just one more point and a slot that will not really get used all that often on the Munificent, we will come back to that later. This effectively makes it so your opponent won't want to resolve the standard critical effect or APT effect against you because at least the first time they do they will actually lose damage. It's so cheap and it basically is always on contain when your opponent plays around it and when they don't it's even better as it takes damage away from incoming attacks.
Munificent Star Frigate (73)
• Thermal Shields (5)
• Point Defense Ion Cannons (4)
• Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
• Sa Nalaor (5)
= 94 Points
Sal Nalaor can be pretty great. Personally I typically use my redirect to tiger its effect as I always want to use my salvo when I can, but it's also flexible in that you can use any token you want to in order to get it to trigger. The above build is stupid tanky Thermals can cut most dice pools to 4 or less then add in a PDIC re-roll at close paired with Sa Nalaor is ridiculous especially if you are using general Gervious and you know you are getting tokens back anyway. Sa Nalaor is also great when you are coming up against onagers, and you will almost always be going speed 2.
As far as officers go take what you need Wat is nice for some extra durability, both Tikkes and flight commander can come in handy when using a muni as a carrier.
Munificent Comms Frigate (70)
• Tikkes (2)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
= 83 Points
Munificent Comms Frigate (70)
• Flight Commander (3)
• Reserve Hangar Deck (3)
• Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
= 83 Points
Other than that you are only command two so Skilled first officer can always be nice in a pinch. However, you don’t need an officer and none really stick out as a must have on a muni.
If you muni takes an Ion cannon upgrade it's almost always going to be PIDCS, some blue crit effects can be nice in a Kraken build, but they are not must haves. As far as the Offensive retrofit goes it's almost always going to be a reserve hangar deck, but arguments could be made for boosted comms, and disposable capacitors, I had some great fun with D-caps 3 points for 2 extra dice at long range can make the difference, in a lot of games.
Munificent Comms Frigate (70)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
• Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
= 80 Points
So what about the support team slot? Auxiliary Shield Team, bringing our sides up to 4 total shields. This is not bad, but it just does not seem to make that big of a difference for a ship that has a redirect. Battle droid reserves is kind of nice as it can act as a fake blast door if you have a dial + token, but officer Wat can do that and more for you. Engineering teams are pretty garbage. I did try a thing with fighter coordination teams and hyperwave signal boost. It was fun, but not as good as just having the squadron pushing power needed, and our squadrons are all pretty fast so if we are doing that this is not necessary. Medical team like we have spoken about is great with Tide of Progress, and who needs projection experts when you have Wat? Nav Team is kind of nice. You can bank a token turn one and hold onto it so you can slow down two one or turn hard at speed 2. Engine techs I am just not a big fan of, they are just really expensive. You can bank a token turn one and trigger it when you need to escape, but I think that if you are taking a comms Frigate upgrading to the star frigate and taking thermals is the better 8 point investment. If you are already a Star Frigate I think you are sinking too many points into the ship, maybe if you really need that offensive retrofit maybe I can see it, but it's still really expensive. I think this slot is just better left empty in the vast majority of cases.
Keeping munificents lean is the best way to get value out of them. So don’t dive too heavily into upgrades. I would personally try to keep the comms frigate around 80 points, and the star Frigate at around 85 points. Even with the Sal Nalaor, Thermals, and PDIC I ended up dropping LTT as I had IF in the list this brought the total down to 87 points and that feels about the most I would want to invest in a Muni.
Tactics with this guy are pretty simple, I have always felt that if you are not commanding squadrons you should be navigating, however I feel that from experience the Muni does not fall into that same category. You should always deploy at speed to and because of the nav chart at two it's very rare you will need the extra yaw and since you can’t go faster than speed 2 that is your get away speed, so you really want to be con frienging if you are not commanding squads. An argument could be made to take the engineering command, however unless you have Wat I think in most cases you will be better served by the con fire command as if what is shooting at you is dead it can’t kill you.
The Muni always wants to go for the double arc and with the con fire you are chucking an ISD front arc worth of dice, but spread out over two attacks making mitigating it with defense tokens harder. This is one of the deceptive powers of the munificent it will deal larger amounts of damage, but spread out over multiple attacks.
When captaining a munificent you want to start out jousting your target and then slowly fade out the right or left of your target by doing inside turns single click at the frist and double click at the second. From my experience this gets you a double arc most of the time and then gives you enough room to slip around your target and out of danger. It takes practice, and you will have to improvise based on how your opponent responds.
I love the Munificent and I think it is my new favorite ship in the game. When I go to build empire, rebel or republic lists I am always asking how can I make something like the Munificent?
Consular Charger C70 (45)
• Clone Captain Zak (5)
• Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
= 57 Points
Arquitens Command Cruiser (59)
• Reactive Gunnery (4)
• Spinal Armament (9)
= 72 Points
Assault Frigate Mk2 A (81)
• Reactive Gunnery (4)
• Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
• Paragon (5)
= 97 Points
I really love the Munificent, and just like I will have a hard time saying goodbye to Kraken I am going to have a hard time letting go of the Munificent as I start to Explore the Republic a little bit more. The word munificent refers to a gift being more generous than is usually necessary, and I can think of no higher praise the munificent truly lives up to its name. Until next time have a great week!
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