Emperor Palpatine Fleet - A Palpable Hit

 Emperor Palpatine Fleet - A Palpable Hit

Let's start with the list itself, shall we? Quick note: If you're familiar with the most excellent Armada Fleets Designer app, then you'll be familiar with the format of the fleet list. If not, then you should know that the numbers in the parentheses next to the fleet name are as follows - number of points invested in squadrons/total number of fleet points/maximum number of fleet points.

A Palpable Hit (0/395/400)

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Interdictor Suppression Refit (90 + 65: 155)

· Emperor Palpatine (35)

· Minister Tua (2)

· Flak Guns (3)

· G7-X Grav Well Projector (2)

· Targeting Scrambler (5)

· SW-7 Ion Batteries (5)

· Projection Experts (6)

· Interdictor (3)

· Reactive Gunnery (4)

Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer (56 + 24: 80)

· Intel Officer (7)

· Ordnance Experts (4)

· Nav Team (4)

· Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)

· Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer (5)

Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer (56 + 24: 80)

· Intel Officer (7)

· Ordnance Experts (4)

· Nav Team (4)

· Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)

· Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer (5)

Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer (56 + 24: 80)

· Intel Officer (7)

· Ordnance Experts (4)

· Nav Team (4)

· Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)

· Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer (5)

Rift Assault

Planetary Ion Cannon

Solar Corona

Ok. So I'm a glutton for punishment.

"Ok, let's do this one last time, yeah? For real, this time. This is it."

I know I've said I'm done messing with Palpatine, and I truly am. Haven't thought about him in awhile, had no intention of returning to my failed experiment. Fun! But failed. Then I was building a Luminara fleet today that's all about one Venator I call "The Fat Man." Not sure it'll see play more than once or twice before I realize it doesn't work, but I'm looking forward to trying it out. For whatever reason, while I was working on that, I came up with the core of this fleet: 3 Gladiators and an Interdictor.

I can't imagine it works, but Imma give it a shot. The crux of the fleet is the triumvirate of Glads do the heavy lifting by leveraging black dice, Intel Officer, and Palpatine's ability. Unless an opponent lines up ships to go through the mulcher, I'm assuming I'll get a solid run on only one to two ships. That'll need to be enough for the win. The flaw in the plan, of course, is that the Interdictor following behind can't also just cut and run like the Glads. And it's worth a real chunky 155 points. Why is the Interdictor worth so much?

Half of that is what I thought I needed to protect the Gladiators long enough to get them into attack range. Projection Experts, Targeting Scrambler, and the Interdictor title all help give the Glads a little extra cover on approach. I worry about putting Palpatine on one of the Glads and watching him get sniped before he has much impact on the game. The rest of the upgrades are about stealing the "Back 'Atcha, Buddy" build that Jack Otto originated (link to that build here; also, Jack does a smashing job with alt art cards, about which you can learn in the "Resources" section of this blog). In short my Interdictor can bat cleanup after the Gladiators finish their run, and it becomes more of a threat to those who try to take it down.

The Glads are all outfitted identically. Ordnance Experts and APTs because I need to crush hull if I'm going to kill anything. I thought about ACMs, but if I'm planning on killing Redirects between Palpatine and Intel Officer anyway, then I don't know that I get any net gain from using ACMs over APTs. Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer is all about giving my Glads a little more cover on approach. I'm trying Intel Officer on each of them in conjunction with Palpatine to see if I can burn out defense tokens fast enough to kill ships, because I've a very real concern that it just won't be enough to kill anything and earn a win. Finally, I considered Auxiliary Shields Team, but went with Nav Team instead. I figure if I bank a Nav token, then maybe with Nav dials and a token, I can circle back around after an attack run to finish off anyone who is limping. I don't think it'll work, but if nothing else, it might help me get the double arcs on prey while I'm lining up my attack run.

My objectives are based more on previous Palpatine fleet iterations than this one, maybe. So if I lose because of my own objective, I don't necessarily blame the fleet for my bad choice. I started with Rift Assault mainly because nobody wants to be near the Gravity Rift, so I can use that to help dictate my opponent's deployment. But also, it might help guarantee some APT triggers and get me some points. Planetary Ion Cannon can't take advantage of Palpatine's ability (the timing windows don't match up; Palpatine can select a defense token immediately after the Ion Cannon fires), but it can exhaust defense tokens, which informs my Palpatine decision. Plus, it's additional damage on enemy ships and can't be used against me. Won't say no to that. Finally, Solar Corona. This isn't the one I really want, honestly. But it's a good placeholder, given that my opponent must deploy first. And if they need at least two Accuracies against me just to use one at all, that increases the survivability of my Glads.