From the latest reports about the top Armada lists out there, Rieekan is the commander to have for your Rebel fleets! Come and see what makes this combo potentially “broken”.
General Rieekan is a Rebel commander that can effectively turn your ships into zombies. When a friendly ship or unique squadron is destroyed, it remains in the play area until the end of the Status Phase. This is a great way to get damage onto enemy ships, even if they are destroyed before they can activate. It’s an almost guaranteed that you will put damage onto your enemy’s ships regardless of position or initiative. This also can be very easily abused if you build your list in a certain way.
Since your ships don’t need to worry about being destroyed before they can attack, the risk vs reward is almost non-existent for carrier style ships. Nebulon-Bs prefer to stay at long range of enemy ships since their side arc are particularly vulnerable. If you have Rieekan as your commander, Yavaris can get in the thick of the fighting, activate 2 bombers, and allows them to attack twice, dealing massive damage to an enemy ship. Even if Yavaris is destroyed before it activates, it will be able to activate bombers and do it’s thing without worry. Enemy squadrons can also grind the Armada game to a screeching halt.
Since your unique squadrons are not removed whenever they are destroyed, Escort ships can get rather annoying. If say Luke is destroyed in the first activation of the squadron phase, he will remain on the table and continue to soak up damage with his Escort ability, since enemies must attack him. This can further be abused with the addition of Biggs in your fleet. 
Biggs can spread damage around to other escort ships, extending their lives for far longer. And since he himself is an Escort, he can also tank damage even after being destroyed. If one were so inclined, he could create a list of unique bombers that max out at 134 points and have them deal their damage to enemy ships regardless if they are destroyed are not, all the while being protected by Escorts and Biggs.
Could this new style of play be considered broken? What are your thoughts on a Rieekan zombie list that focuses on unique bombers?
