The Rebels: Architects of Their Own Destruction?

This week we are going to talk about something that has been on my mind for a little bit it has to do with the Rebel faction. Before I start I want to remind everyone AMM is meant to spark discussion and thought in the community it is not armada dogma. As I look locally and a bit at the community at large I think the Rebels are in kind of a weird spot right now. I just want to share some of my thoughts once I finish up with Republic probably yearly next year I am going to put a lot of energy into rebels to see what they can do in the new world 1.5 and clone wars.

First I want to talk about the squadron game. This for me has always been the backbone of the rebellion’s tough hard-hitting squadrons. Back in the day of Rieeken aces, it was the cause of many pulled hairs. However, now compared to most other factions they seem a little lacking in the squadron game too for me I think this comes down to three issues.

First reserved hanger decks are a powerful card for the Empire especially when paired with Tie Interceptors it makes your anti-squadron power stay in play. The same goes for the CIS Vulture droids or tri-fighters who love reserved hanger decks. Looking at the Republic torrents get a huge amount of staying power 5 hull and you can use reserved hanger decks to get them back makes them really hard to get off the table. The rebels on the other hand have z-95s and they are pretty lackluster even with reserved hanger decks. They can just be ignored due to the change to Intel, you can use them to clog things up but they won’t get you to a win in the squadron game even with reserved hanger decks. So reserved hanger decks really ups the anti-squadron and staying power of squadrons in all fleets in a meaningful way except the rebels.

Second consistency with access to swarm and adept the republic is the most consistent at dealing damage in the squadron game with CIS and Empire right behind them. Rebels on the other hand don’t have anything outside of taking Toryn Farr as an officer to really get consistency on squadrons’ anti-squadron attacks, swarm on red dice just is not reliable enough.

The third is access to flight controllers both Republic and Empire have easy access to taking flight controllers making it easy for them to increase their damage output that is already consistent. While CIS has a bit more difficulty getting access to flight controllers in general I think this is mostly mitigated, though not entirely by the consistency of the black anti-squadron dice on vultures and the potential spike of the single red die on tri-fighters. Rebels on the other hand lack the consistency these other factions have in the squadron game and flight controllers is harder to come by and even when you are able to most ships have a lower squadron value than all other factions as CIS has access to flight controllers on the providence dreadnought that has squadron 4. These issues compounded can make the squadron game a bit of an uphill battle for the rebels right now at least as I see it.

Let’s look a the ship game. I think the rebels also struggle a little bit behind in this category as well. First exacerbating the same issue with flight controllers its lack of weapons team makes it hard to keep up with damage output of the other fleets because salvo is hard to come by. You can make an argument that because defensive retrofits are a thing you could take reactive gunnery, but I think there is a pretty big opportunity cost to that on most ships. With little access to salvo, it does put the rebels at a bit of a disadvantage.

Second, rebel ships particularly larger ships are a bit light on hull this can make salvo even more of a treat to them even with redundant redirects pressure will mount, and without ways, to salvo back in most cases, there is no deterrent to attacking rebel large ships as opposed to almost all other large ships in the game. I also think it is worth noting that after factoring in durability and potential firepower I don’t think rebel large ships are very competitively priced outside maybe the MC80 Star Cruiser.

I don’t think it is all doom and gloom for the rebels at all I think that a lot of people are sleeping on how good Craken can be against salvo to help your small fast ships out. I also think rebel small ships are in a pretty good spot right now they are competitive. Also, rebels are the faction that can lean the most on squadrons with the rouge keyword. I am just not sure that is enough I do look forward to really exploring the rebels and hope to be proved wrong in my current impressions I am getting as the dust slowly settles after these past few releases.

What are your thoughts on the rebels as a faction? Do you think I am missing something? What do you think are the Rebel’s greatest strengths and/or weaknesses? Again remember AMM is meant to spark discussion and thought in the community. This is just something that has been on my mind it is not armada dogma. Until next time have a great week!