SW Armada: Konstantine and Victory
Admiral Konstantine and his Victory fleet are here to lock down your enemies.
Lately I’ve been playing around a lot with the venerable old Victory Class Star Destroyer. While long maligned the Victory is having something of a resurgence with a host of new cards benefiting it. There are now a number of good, and powerful, Victory Star Destoryer builds out there. More and more however I am looking at Admirals that are good when used with VSDs and one has really been standing out: Konstantine.
Konstantine has not been the most popular admiral in armada. Hard to use and less versatile than many of the other Imperial commanders, he really needs a fleet crafted around him. His biggest weakness is needing to get the enemy in range of a number of large or medium ships, not always easy. He is however a perfect combo with VSDs, they provide a cheap but though medium ship for him to work off of, and his speed manipulation abilities help make up for their slow speed. After several games with him I’ve come up with two lists that us him and VSDs, lets look at them.
Lock Em down
Commander: Admiral Konstantine
Assault Objective: Station Assault
Defense Objective: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona
flagship Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
– Admiral Konstantine ( 23 points)
– Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
– Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
– Leading Shots ( 4 points)
125 total ship cost
Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
– Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
– Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
– Leading Shots ( 4 points)
102 total ship cost
Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)
– Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
– External Racks ( 3 points)
82 total ship cost
Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)
– Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
– External Racks ( 3 points)
82 total ship cost
391/400
Tractor Tactics
This fleet is a pretty simple brutish hammer. Four VSds, 2 IIs and 2 Is, allow for the most use of Konstanine to slow the enemy down. Combine that with a host of Tractor Beams and enemy ships will find themselves grinding to a crawl in front of your ships. The fleet mixes long range VSDIIs with the brutality of the short range VSDIS for some powerful attacks.
It’s weakness is in the fighter game. Without any real defenses in dependent on pushing through a fighter screen and taking out enemy ships or using overlapping anti-squadron attacks to take out enemy fighters and bomber. Played right this list can be very powerful and even in a bad match up it’s unlikely to get tabled. Being first player is pretty important for the list, due to its speed, so I’ve gone with a 9 point bid, but honestly I’d consider dropping a few upgrades to get a better chance at first. In general if you can keep your VSD together and the enemy stuck at speed one you can win big.
Long Range Vics
Commander: Admiral Konstantine
Assault Objective: Station Assault
Defense Objective: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona
Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
– Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
– Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
– Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
– Leading Shots ( 4 points)
104 total ship cost
flagship Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
– Admiral Konstantine ( 23 points)
– Minister Tua ( 2 points)
– Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
– Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
– Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
– Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
– Leading Shots ( 4 points)
136 total ship cost
Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
– Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
– Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
– Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
– Leading Shots ( 4 points)
104 total ship cost
Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
– Instigator ( 4 points)
48 total ship cost
392/400
The Wave VI Victory
Similar to the first fleet this one is designed to make use of Konstantine and multiply VSDs to manipulate the enemy speed. Unlike the previous fleet this one makes use of all the newest tricks to power up its VSDs. The core of the fleet is of course the three powerful VSD IIs. Each of them is equipped with Quad Battery Turrets for that extra long range blue dice. Slow moving VSDs should have no problem getting this bonus, especially with Konstantine. Quad Batteries not only add dice but allow the ships to take advantage of Leading Shots rerolls at long range. Add in Disposable Capcaitors and on the turn that matters each ship can throw an impressive amount of rerollable dice out at long range. Gunnery Teams of course lets them do this twice each turn, or get in some extra anti-squadron attacks.
Wave V upgrades make their presence known on the flagship. The inclusion of Minster Tua allows your most important ship to take Electronic Counter Measures giving it that important bit of extra toughness. The real weak link is really the Anti-Squadron game again. I’ve gone with a Raider-I with Instigator to tie down enemy squads and get some anti-squadron shots going on. Mostly I’ve gone with this choice because I’ve yet to find a solid 50ish point Imperial fighter build that doesn’t feel like I am just throwing away points. Maybe three Aggressors? You can run the fleet with Instigator or replace it with your anti-squadron formation of choice.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it. Two different fleets building off of the new found power of the VSD and Konstantine’s ability to mess with enemy movement. I think both of these fleets can be really deadly if used right, and certainly have a few tricks in their playbooks. One thing that is clear is that, whether it’s in these fleets or others, the Victory Class is back and here to stay.
~That’s all for this time BoLS fans! Let us know what you think of these fleets, and how you plan on using the VSD, down in the comments!
