The X-Wing what makes it tick articles have been tons of fun to write but right now in my local gaming area it’s really all about Star Wars Armada. I like to write about what I’m thinking about and playing at any given point and since this blog is really my canvas it suits me just fine to write some articles for Star Wars Armada. Now I will admit that I’m a lot less comfortable about putting out what makes it tick articles about Armada than I was about X-Wing because I’m definitely no master of Armada, not that I was in X-Wing either but it was certainly a game I played a ton more before I started writing. I have a couple of tournaments under my belt at this point none the less and while I consider myself “still learning”, there are definitely some conclusions I have come to about the game.

With this first article I’m going to tackle one of the most commonly discussed aspects of Armada for Rebel players. The one that I find myself in discussions about regularly is the value of the Nebulon B ship for the rebels. The discussion is always about effective uses for this ship in a fleet, whether or not it’s worth it point wise and how it can contribute in competitive play. In a recent tournament I participated in out of 10 lists there wasn’t a single Nebulon B other than the one I put in my list, hardly a full analysis of the current meta but it certainly says a lot about the Neb-B’s status in competitive play at least in my area. I thought I would kick off the article series by exploring this rather iconic rebel capital ship.

The Nebulon B Problem

The Nebulon B is probably the most difficult ship to keep alive over the course of 6 rounds of any ship in the game, in particular when using the Salvation title card which needs to enter the fray to make use of its Title ability. It’s a really strange combination because it has both the best and the worst defenses of any ship in its class as well as the best and worst weaponry of any ship in its class. It also has some real vulnerability to select types of equipment that can just utterly devastate it while being ridiculously effective in select situations. It’s a real quandary, the kind of ship that can be a game changer in some situations and absolutely useless in others.

With 2 brace and 1 evade token it’s a ship that can mitigate damage extremely well under normal circumstances, better than any other in the rebel fleet without any special equipment cards. It has 3 shields when facing with its front arc which is extremely good considering its dirt cheap price. As well that front arc has real potential to do a ton of damage when combined with certain title and equipment cards, it really can out shoot far more expensive ships, in fact it’s been known to out joust victory class destroyers.

The problems for the Nebulon B however are its extraordinarily vulnerable side arcs and the fact that in order to leverage that defensive and offensive strength of your front arc you have to be moving towards your enemy which in turn means at some point you are going to have to pass your opponents ships and expose your vulnerable sides. From the sides the Neb-B neither shoots well or defends well. With only 1 shield on its side it goes down shockingly easy once enemy ships set their sights on them and you aren’t going to do a whole lot with 1 red and 1 blue die when shooting even with equipment boosting them. It’s in particular vulnerable to commonly used equipment like Assault Concussion Missiles and Heavy Turbolaser Turrets and let’s not forget squadrons which can melt a Neb-B with very little effort.

This drawback is extremely difficult if not impossible to manage, really in a sense if you want to leverage its firepower you have to see it almost as a suicide ship.

Or do you?

I think in large part the current presumptions about the Nebulon B are largely driven by its miss use tactically and it’s really not surprising since it really functions opposite to everything a Rebel player would learn and understand about maneuvering and tactics with the Rebel fleet. I think Imperial players might have a better understanding of a front loaded ship. It’s a ship that is used in the exact opposite way of every other ship in the rebel arsenal, but more importantly it’s a ship that has extremely specialized uses and combinations that require very special care to both pull off and survive afterwards.

More than that though a Nebulon B ultimately borders on being useless without an investment so if you’re looking at the low cost of the Nebulon B and you are tempted know that a properly fitted and used Nebulon B is going to cost you about as much as a base Assault Frigate. You are far better of taking a Corvette for pretty much any purpose over a naked Nebulon B. So this is the first lesson in the use of the Nebulon B. Never, ever… ever use him naked. Of that I’m 100% certain.

A Nebulon B is only as good as the equipment you put on it and it begins with the Title Cards. There are 3 and as such there are really only 3 versions of the Nebulon B (with some subversions based on those core versions). You have the Salvation, Yavaris and Redemption, not having a title card on a Nebulon B is a waste of points, always, no exceptions.

The Versions of The Nebulon-B

There are variations on the Salvation build but typically you are looking to maximize your front arc shooting.

With the Yavaris you are effectively a support carrier, usually supporting specialized squadrons that can really make use of that double attack.

Finally the Redemption turns the Nebulon B into a mobile repair platform and support ship.

The Salvation

The standard tactic of the salvation is to arrive to the fight late shooting at already diminished fleets. By leveraging its doubling effect of the critical hits and the defensive front arc combined with two braces on the approach you have both survivability and considerable damage potential. After you strike you will be flying past the fight using its speed and maneuverability, hopefully using its rear arc and braces to escape and survive.

Putting him in a flanking position on deployment and gaining a Nav token is critical in round 1. You also want to make sure as he enters combat he does so by getting into long range and moving at speed 1 so that your approach is slow. Your primary fleet whatever it is, should already be engaged laying down fire on the enemy and softening up shields so when the Nebulon B gets into range it can attack ships that are already damaged.

Than after a round or two when you are about to clash with enemy ships and you are going to pass, you want to ensure you time it right to get a navigation command to speed up spending the nav token you held on to from round one to go from speed 1 to speed 3 in the same round, adjusting angle to ensure whatever shoots at you, shoots at your rear shields.

Finally making use of your speed 3 and double yaw you want to immediately start U turning yourself back into the fight.

Sound easy? It’s not, it’s so extremely circumstantial that odds of your Neb B making it out alive is slim to none, especially in a tournament where the Neb-B will be seen as an easy way to score points. The truth is that this first pass is likely to be your last so you have to make it count. There are however benefits to the Neb B being exposed. Someone is going to have to shoot at it and while they are shooting at the Neb B, they aren’t shooting at your other ships. 5 Hull is not that easy to chew through when a ship has two braces either so be sure that while your Neb B is getting ripped apart the rest of your ships are tearing into the enemy fleet and making good use of the redirection of firepower. That said, with certain ships and equipment, the defenses of the Nebulon B are worthless, Assault Concussion Missiles in particular will make short work of a Neb.

The real problem with the salvation as an advantage is that it’s an entirely luck driven advantage and the odds of it going off are not very good considering your investment and the almost certain loss of the ship. Statistically you have a 2 in 8 chance per die to roll a critical hit. Regardless of how many dice you roll, the odds of rolling a critical are offset by having the same odds of rolling a miss. It’s really a wash in that regard so you are really gambling here. Even with a concentrate fire and added turrets your average damage is not going to exceed 3 to 4 unless you get lucky. Not bad if the ship could survive and get more than one or two shots in a fight, but given its vulnerability you really have to question the investment on something so luck driven and ultimately fated to explode.

The Salvation can be a real threat if you roll well, which is true of any ship, but it has absolutely nothing else going for it beyond that and the point investment to make it a threat is about the same as buying a naked Assault Frigate. A naked Assault frigate will last longer in a fight and likely put out more damage than a fully loaded salvation.

I personally believe the Salvation version of the Nebulon-B is the weakest of the three versions for that reason. It’s entirely luck based focus and it’s really inability to help your fleet in any other way make this a gamblers ship.

While there are variations on a typical Salvation build, the most effect one would look something like this.

Nebulon –B Support Refit
Salvation
Intel Officer
Slaved Turrets or Heavy Turbolaser Turrets or XX-9 or XI7 or Turbolaser Reroute Circuits

Which turrets you use will have various effects on different types of lists. Typically you won’t know what you will be facing hence Slaved Turrets are best to simply get extra dice. The combination of Intel Officer and Heavy Turbolaser Turrets is great against the brace heavy empire putting your opponent to a really hard choice. X17’s are great to prevent redirects especially effective against Rebel Assault Frigates counting on those Advanced Projectors. XX-9’s are wonderful for dishing out critical hits, great combined with Dodona in particular if you stick to the strategy of attacking late in a fight. It’s all very good and really up to preference, regardless of which one you choose you need one on the Salivation to really stretch the effectiveness of that one or two attack rolls you are going to get with it before it likely dies.

The point of the build is to ensure that when you maneuver into combat you are concentrating fire and rolling at least 4 dice, potentially 5 with salvation effect, intel officer effect and the effect of your laser turret which in combination can (if you’re lucky) be completely devastating especially when firing at a damaged ships. With good timing and maneuvering you will be in a position to do this two rounds back to back before you have to make that very risky pass exposing your side arc.

It’s good to point out that the Neb B can be sacrificed to cause additional damage by crashing into stuff and blocking movement if it’s lucky enough to survive added volleys in subsequent rounds. Suffice to say the suicide salvation can cause a lot of chaos and in a way this can be an effect of its own on the fight.

For me personally though the Salvation is a hard pass, its too many points dumped into a ship that is marked for death, in particular for tournament purposes where points are involved. On average it has been my experience that this ship just has far too little impact on a match to justify. I have never been lucky enough to see it cause the havoc the ability of the Title card suggests its capable of. In short, it looks good on paper, but fails in practice in my opinion.

The Redemption

The Redemption build is really built to frustrate your opponent. It’s basically a ship that stays completely out of the fight but has a very noticeable impact on combat results by not only supporting the rest of the fleet with heals and tokens, but also potentially coming into the fight at the end to put those front arcs to use. This makes this version of the Nebulon a lot more versatile.

The strategy is simple. Keep your redemption Nebulon-B out of the fight at a maximum range that you can maneuver from your fleet but remain in range to use your primary ability. Hang back and repair ships that are in the fight while helping to manage the battle with command tokens.

This strategy is exceptional with Assault Frigates, MC30’s and especially the MC80 which can be rendered nearly invisible with Redemption in range.

The Redemption Build

Nebulon B-Refit
Redemption
Leia Organa Or Raymus Antilles
Projection Experts

The Redemption effect works on you as well as other ships so while its already helping the rest of the fleet by providing 1 more engineering for everyone (because everyone should always be within range 5 of you), it also gives you a total of 4 engineering. Leia Organa is great because you will be spamming engineering tokens hence you can pass an engineering command to ships that take too much heat in the fight regardless of their command level. This allows them to fix themselves in addition to the help you’re going to pass on with Projection Experts.

Projection Experts are going to be passing 2 shields each round and you will use the remaining 2 engineering points to recover 1 shield giving you a net loss of 1 shield each time you use it. In the first round you are going to pick up an engineering token so the first time you pass 2 shields you can recover them both with an engineering command and the token. It will take several rounds to really deplete the Nebulon B and frankly it really shouldn’t need them because it should be well away from the fighting anyway.

The alternative here is to use Raymus Antilles, which effectively allows you to pass 2 shields and recover 2 shields every round. I prefer Leia because you get more overall healing to you primary fleet by passing engineering commands. The Neb-B losing a couple of shield over the course of the match is really no big deal, besides it makes for a cheaper build.

Imagine the scenario here. You have an Assault Frigate that has its side shields down and 2 damage on the hull. The redemption kicks in with an engineering command. Leia changes the assault frigates command to engineering. Redemption passes 2 shields to the Assault frigates side, then the redemption recovers 1 of its shields. Then the Assault frigate acts. It has an engineering command, with 4 engineering it removes 1 damage and shifts one of its shields to the side arc from an unexposed area. Suddenly a ship with no shields on its side and 2 damage has 3 shields and 1 damage. If you take an engineering token with the Assault Frigate early, the recovery from the initial engagement can be even better.

It’s extremely effective and frustrating for your opponent to watch all that damage get recovered. The redemption should really be called the demoralizer because that’s really the effect it has. This build is definitely approved, it’s easy to use, works reliability and best of all it doesn’t require to put the Nebulon-B in harm’s way.

The Yavaris

The Yavaris is a force multiplier and itself can be an amazing support ship, but requires expert skill (which I don’t have) to use. In fact, I would say avoid using her until you really get the hang of managing squadrons because to use Yavaris you have to understand how to do that well in addition to all the specialized consideration of getting her effect to really pay off. One small error in judgement with this ship and your delicately balanced build will cluster fuck into oblivion.

Yavaris should only be used with named pilots, that’s the first piece of advice. It’s an expensive toy on the board and you want to make sure whatever squads will get those double attacks will be able to maximize their impact on the field. An exception might be B-Wings.

The real trick to Yavaris is to understand that it’s a support carrier not your main carrier and in most fleets that use Yavaris, it should be a late arrival ship. You want those two or three fighters that it’s supporting to come late into a fight to shoot at ships that are already damaged to sort of finish them off. This is for two reasons.

First it’s because the Yavaris is still a Nebulon B, which means you have to soft side arcs and since your managing squadrons you are likely to be put in a position to expose those arcs when you commit to ensure you are in the position you need to be to manage fleets. So you want to come in late into a fight to make a less tempting target. The second reason is that typically the squadrons Yavaris supports are going to have black dice and be bombers, so you want to be throwing those dice against ships with their shields down so that when you roll a critical hit it takes rather than bouncing.

That means that you need other fighter screens and ships capable of managing those squadrons to be up front keeping your Yavaris and its precious squadrons safe. It’s all very complicated and I feel inept here, I don’t feel comfortable really advising on tactics using this ship because either the Stars have to align for this work, or you have to be a fucking maneuvering tactical ace. In fact, it’s precisely because it’s so complicated to use that I don’t use it. At least not yet.

There are variations on the build as well and it’s hard to say which is best, I suppose it comes down to price.

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (always for the 2 squadron command)
Adar Tallon or Raymus Antilles
XX-9 Turbo Laser (optional)

You must always take the Escort for the extra squad command and the 2 Anti-Fighter attacks. This will help you to clear for your squadrons if need be and of course to allow you to manage a minimum of 2 named squadrons.

Adar Tallon is really good as it can get you a 3rd attack with one of the squadrons in later actions or the squadron phase, this can be in particularly deadly if you combo it with Luke Skywalker for example. Personally I think it’s a little too pricey just to squeeze out one more attack. Raymus Antilles is the better choice in my opinion, it allows you to pick up much needed navigation tokens, extra squad commands and if you actually do get a firing solution you get that extra re-roll. He just works well with anything really. You can also do without either for a cheaper build and I actually think that might be the best version. After all, it’s a Neb B and you will be putting it in harm’s way so it getting blown up is a real possibility, quite likely really.

The XX-9’s are optional but personally I think they are just perfect if you adhere to the rest of the strategy here. You are coming in late, you have squadrons doing double damage on your target during squad activation hopefully by the time you get to the shooting phase the shields your shooting at are going to be down. It can be a real finisher and it’s quite cheap.

Conclusion

I firmly believe that the Nebulon-B is a very difficult ship to use well, but in a sense Star Wars Armada battles are all about risk vs. reward management. There are few guarantees and anything you put on the table is going to have its drawbacks. The Nebulon-B when fitted with purpose and used to good effect, sometimes with a bit of luck can be a real game changer. It never ceases to surprise me how something as seemingly insignificant like a well-timed Engineering Token, or well-orchestrated maneuver can quite literally mean the difference between a crushing defeat and an overwhelming victory. Star Wars Armada can really swing and ships like the Nebulon-B that are well equipped can really turn the tide of a battle.

Still that said, of all the ship in the Rebel arsenal I think the Nebulon-B comes with the greatest risk of backfiring on you. It’s a very unforgiving ship, one small mistake and your toast which is why I typically use it very sparingly. It’s certainly not a ship to build your entire list around, but it’s cost effective enough to splash in there for an extra boost in very specialized areas.

I have very little confidence in luck based mechanics so of all the Neb-B builds, I think the Salvation is perhaps the riskiest but provides perhaps the greatest reward while the Redemption is undoubtedly the most reliable yet pays in moderate dividends. In a way that is the center of balance for the Nebulon-B, it really runs the spectrum of risk vs. reward. Amidst there you also have the Yavaris which I think is perhaps the most specialized and most difficult to use ship and again, I think this is a nice feature as it gives players who get deeper into the game and have more confidence an option to take on some more complex builds that use more complex tactics.

I whole heartedly disagree with the current Meta assessment that the Nebulon-B is somehow useless or doesn’t carry its value. It really offers something for every type of player, whether you like reliable low risk ships, if you’re a high risk gambler or if you are looking for a deeper tactical challenge. The Nebulon-B fits the bill for all three types of players, giving everyone something it can be used for and I think that makes it a really great ship in the Rebel fleet.

I doubt I hit on every point here with the Nebulon-B but hopefully there is sufficient information here to give my readers something new to try with the ship. Good luck in your battles and keep an eye out for future What Makes It Tick articles for Star Wars Armada.