Kraken is a beast in the right fleet composition. The long story short of Kraken here is that you want either several small medium ships that are working in unison to priority target your opponents key ships, or you want a few medium/large ships that are focused on getting rid of one ship at a time. Really, those two strategies are effectively the same, meaning that Kraken is very flexible as a commander in their utilization.
The effect is very straight forward with some major impact. Essentially, if you park two ships at Medium/Close range, each time they fire a shot they can change one die to any single icon face. If you haven't realized how good this is, keep in mind that critical icons on blue and red dice are a single icon, meaning you have guaranteed critical effects available. Worst case you're turning a blank into damage or an accuracy which can be just a useful for making sure that pesky brace doesn't get in the way.
Currently, the Munificent has an Ion slot that can be fitted out with Overload Pulse, HIE, or ICB for crit effects. Normally, I would say HIE is the way to go here, but with the new refresh mechanic on cards, being able to snipe tokens with ICB and on every shot has some very good potential to shut down your opponent's most vital upgrades. So depending on your meta, that maybe a good (and cheaper) alternative. However, since the Munificent is only rocking blue dice in the front, HIE will still be the front runner in my estimation unless you wish to run either Swivel Mount or QBT. Then I think ICB becomes very competitive.
So let's look at a fleet design for Kraken:
1. Munificent Comms Frigate (70)
Kraken (30)
Aux Shields Team (3)
Hyperwave Signal Boost (3)
Ion Cannon Batteries (5)
Quad Battery Turrets (5)
Ship Total (116)
2. Munificent Comms Frigate (same upgrades minus Kraken)
Ship Total (86)
3. Munificent Comms Frigate (Same as 2)
Ship Total (86)
4. Hardcell Transport
Slicer Tools (7)
Squadrons:
Haor-Chall Prototypes (16)
5x Vulture Droids (40)
Fleet Total: 398
Objectives: Close-Range Intel Scan, Contested Outpost, Volatile Deposits
The goal of this fleet it to form a loose blob and focus one target down at a time. QBT means you want to stay pretty slow so you are getting the extra dice and enabling you to maximize ICB on every shot that meets Kraken's conditions. After a single salvo most ships will be very depleted on shields and definitely out of tokens. Slicer tools is there to stop an escape attempt or emergency repairs but is not a high priority. Otherwise the Hardcell can be an excellent Kraken setup and some light carrier operations if you don't need to activate the entire wing with HSB. Vultures are mainly a screen element that can provide some swingy damage in a pinch to enemy ships, but really they should be taking out enemy bombers if they can. Objectives here either help you blow up ships or force your opponent to engage with you meaning you can play more defensively.
So there we have it, a quick synopsis of Kraken! Hopefully this is helpful to all of you new CIS players out there and feel free to leave a comment below! Soon we will be tackling Darth Tyranus and all the ways he can manipulate your opponent.
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