General Jan Dodonna

General Dodonna was a member of the galactic republic during the clones wars and a general in the rebellion during the galactic civil war.

For us rebel players, General Dodonna was most likely the first commander we used in Armada, and in my opinion, he remains one of the best and most fun rebel commanders in-game.

He is tied with commander Kyrsta Agate for cheapest rebel commander at 20 points, which is a steal! This does, however, mean there is an inherent competition between the two of them if you just need a cheap commander. At the point of writing Agate is the favorite in the eyes of most people and will probably remain that way. That is to say unless you build specifically for Dodonna or have a very good reason not to bring Agate then you should bring her.

General Dodonna's ability is fairly strong and easy to use. "Before an enemy ship is dealt a faceup damage card, look at the top 4 cards on the damage deck, place 1 on the deck and discard the others." Pretty straight forward. Use him to essentially choose from the top four cards of your opponent's damage deck when dealing face-up cards. This is strictly good. Being able to pull a Structural Damage, Misaligned Projectors, or other terrible cards is not easy to write off. Granted, this is all probability and there is a chance you pull four useless cards from the deck, but you still get to choose the best one so it's not too bad. ISDs shiver at the thought of Luke getting a projector misaligned on his first shot.

Dodonna can be okayish if you don't build for him but you won't get much mileage out of his ability that way. That means building for him specifically. Bring MC30s with Assault Proton Torpedos (APTs), Hammerheads with APTs and Garel's honor, Luke Skywalker, or even a TRC90 can TRC to a crit. Bring as much crit tech as you can to guarantee you will be procing Dodonna's ability.

This is a list I ran in a local tournament a while ago and had a ton of fun and a lot of luck, that was of course before the 1.5 changes to evade and the addition of PDIC so a lot has changed for black dice ships in a bad way. They can still be good but it takes more effort.

Name: Gilded 2020
Faction: Rebel
Commander: General Dodonna

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation: Dangerous Territory

MC75 Ordnance Cruiser (100)
• General Dodonna (20)
• Lando Calrissian (4)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)
• External Racks (4)
• Profundity (7)
= 150 Points

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)
• H9 Turbolasers (8)
• Foresight (8)
= 87 Points

CR90 Corvette B (39)
• Dodonna's Pride (6)
= 45 Points

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)
• Garel's Honor (4)
= 48 Points

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)
= 44 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Munitions Resupply (3)
= 21 Points

Squadrons:
= 0 Points

Total Points: 395

You can see what I mean by build for him. Bring loads of APTs and Loads of Rerolls to make sure you're getting those crits. Generally, I advise against anything other than exrax on hammerheads, which can still be good with Dodonna, but I think APT is worth the extra points for its use.

Dodonna can also be used with squad lists to pretty good effect, assuming you have a lot of bombers going out and getting crits. I just prefer the ship route.