Work, Damn You! Part II - Solutions?

Work, Damn You! Part II - Solutions?

I make absolutely no promises about any of this! But when I posted up "Work, Damn You!" this past weekend, one of the responses asked for possible solutions to what I had posted. I really appreciated the response, because I am generally one of those people who would rather have a solution or two in mind when I complain about a thing. In my previous post, I didn't do that because I was just sharing some thoughts, blowing off a little steam, and having some fun. So thanks, Eric, for making the suggestion and pulling me in a more positive direction! As well as, you know, giving me an idea for a follow-up post!

Let's start with Emperor Palpatine, shall we? I've got two solutions that I think can be decently effective. Not great, mind you, but decently effective. Especially for a self-described casual player. The first is Arquitens. Lots and lots of Arquitens. Throw some Rogues in there, like Firesprays. The Cruisers keep their distance while tossing red dice (ideally with dice-fixing, for sure - either Linked Turbolaser Towers or Turbolaser Reroute Circuits, depending on how vulnerable you feel like making your cruisers) while the Rogues can deal with enemy squadrons or go in and bomb enemy ships. This is not an original idea, but it is a good one. If I'm not mistaken, duck_bird from the FFG forums used this to decent effect. I didn't really experiment much with this build because duck is a far better player than I am, so I can't imagine I'd have gotten better results with it than she did! She is actually the primary reason I built out my Palpatine experiment in a different direction - if she only got decent results with such a build, I wasn't going to fare better. But this is probably the ceiling as far as Palpatine's effectiveness.

Honestly? The other direction in which you can build a Palpatine fleet is pretty straightforward: just build a decent fleet and leave 35 points worth of space for your commander. Don't rely on Palpatine's ability to anchor your fleet, but view it as a sometimes-useful bonus effect. That's a real tough pill to swallow at 35 points, I know. This isn't tossing MS-1s on your ship because it's only 2 points and what the heck, you might use it. I know they're definitely not equivalents. But if you really want to fly with him as a commander, rather than building a fleet around his ability as the linchpin, just try building a solid fleet and let his ability augment whatever your fleet does well. You might discover that the moment you stop trying to make his ability work for you and just take it where you can get it, you can find success. I would liken that possibility to how my Tarkin fleet handles MSU fleets: I take what my opponent gives me. If I start chasing down CR-90s, I'm dead. Because I'll never win that race, I'm giving them shots they wouldn't have had if I just stuck to a plan, and I'm letting my opponent dictate the terms of the battle. If I'm facing an MSU fleet, I pick a primary target, a secondary target, and I do not stray from those plans unless I'm literally handed a shot. I'm not talking about bait that's dangled out to the side if I "just break off for a turn," but ships that pull up alongside me because my opponent got greedy. The same may simply be true of Palpatine: don't get greedy with his ability, and acknowledge from the start that there will be wasted turns and tokens. It'll happen. But if you get a couple of good turns out of him and you win the match, does it matter? Those would be my two possible solutions for the problems that I think commander Palpatine poses.

Imma skip Hyperwave Signal Boost for a moment because I think that's a really difficult one, so I'll come back to it.

I'll do Rapid Launch Bays (RLB) next. Rapid Launch Bays is, I think, fairly easy to build around. It's just rare that it pays dividends after the effort you put into it. I already offered my best suggestion in the original blog post (keep your bombers back and stuff your fighters into the ship, let your opponent get the counterstrike in, then after moving, use Flight Commander to drop your fighters on their faces), but of course, that requires a ship that can eat an alpha strike of any size and not fear exploding. Which more or less leaves us with the SSD and maybe the Starhawk. So I guess if you insisted I build around RLB, I think I'd avoid bombers. I think everyone's first inclination is to use RLB to drop bombers in the ideal spot for bombing an opponent. But that requires that the opponent cooperate, right? They need to fly within range of the ship carrying said bombers, and they either have to be flying squadronless or keep their squadrons arrayed in such a way that your bombers are not engaged (much tougher since the Intel nerf; a nerf I've previously mentioned as being one of the best changes they made in 1.5!). There are a lot of things that can go wrong. I think if you want to use RLB, you should go hard the other way; forget about bombers in RLB and pick squadrons that can Snipe. Rebels can use E-Wings, Republic can use V-19s along with Officer Ahsoka sitting on the ship that equipped RLB (thus giving 3 non-unique squadrons Snipe), Empire uses Saber Squadron and Separatists use DIS-T81. Obviously, the latter two factions will need to round out the squadrons they load into RLB, but it's a start. Why Snipe? Because it creates a little "no fly zone" bubble around your ship for enemy squadrons. Sure they might still come and get you, but when you drop your Snipers, their firing range is nearly doubled because of Snipe. They need not be dropped into engagement in order to be effective. If you worry that you can't eat an alpha strike or your opponent is flying a squadronless fleet, then simply don't load up your RLB! Don't forget that the upgrade is optional, and so you can simply opt not to use it. Sure, it's 6 wasted points and that doesn't feel good. But what's better: using your 6 point upgrade or employing a superior strategy once you've seen what you're up against? Yeah, that's what I thought. If leaving RLB empty means you have two extra deployments and so you can see where your opponent is deploying their biggest, baddest ship, then do it! You will almost certainly gain a far greater tactical advantage from superior deployment than from dropping some squadrons at distance 1. Don't forget: you can't win your match on deployment, but you can absolutely lose it.

Director Krennic. Oh man, what potential he's got. Okay. How I would "make him work." My inclination has always been to put him on a Cymoon because it's a lot of red dice and with him being 8 points, I'd like to protect my investment. But I think if I were trying to really maximize use out of him, I put him on a Tarquitens. A Tarquitens is a command Arquitens Cruiser. You specifically want the command chassis because it's got a Support Team slot. Your Commander is Grand Moff Tarkin, and Tarkin feeds your Arquitens Navigate tokens. You equip Engine Techs so that even at speed 1, your Arquitens is insanely maneuverable because it gets 2 tics of yaw at the end of its final joint of movement on the tool. Then, you have executed a Navigate command, thus triggering Engine Techs, and thus, another speed 1 move with two tics of yaw. It can be dirty. This frees up the Arquitens to consistently dial up Concentrate Fire. Because the Arquitens is maneuverable and need not throw its attacks out of the front arc, it can kite around a battle, tossing red dice all day long. Since it has the capability to keep enemies at distance, it's harder for your opponent to close in on it and negate Krennic's ability.

Admittedly, this means one Arquitens will not only be more effective than the others, but it will also be SO much more expensive (Krennic is 8, Engine Techs is 8, you'll want a Turbolaser upgrade, etc etc etc).

But as long as I'm trying to make something work the way I want it to, I guess this gets me a little closer? If they're working that hard to close in on my little Tarquitens, they're welcome to chase it down as I rain fire down on them from other sources. After all, it's not my only ship. I want Krennic to work better on something like a Cymoon, but I just don't see that happening with the range restriction, since it's so easy to close on an ISD. So yeah, I guess that's my solution to Krennic and his current limitations!

Hyperwave Signal Boost. Woof. That's a tough one as far as I'm concerned. I stand by what I said about how we really need at least slightly beefier squadrons if waiting around until the Squadron Phase is your best play. But if I really wanted to try and make them work, I guess I'd try the following (and again, I haven't, so please don't be surprised if this doesn't work, as people way smarter and more skilled than me can't recommend this upgrade!): stick Fighter Coordination Team on a bunch of ships so that squadrons can be dragged along through the Ship Phase until they can be landed in a desired position. I'd make sure that a bigger, tanky ship (Providence) had TI-99 equipped, and I think my commander of choice would be General Grievous. I'd also make sure that I capped out at my limit of 4 ace squadrons. I might consider tossing Jamming Field in there, but that's a stretch simply because it's Area of Effect (AOE) is only distance 1-2, and that's just not a lot of leeway. 

So why all of the extra stuff I've listed? Well, other than Jamming Field, I can't think of any other way to help your Separatist squadrons tank beyond defense tokens and luck, since your Vultures and Tri-Fighters only have 3 hull and your Hyenas only have 4. Hence the aces. For my ace choices, I'd roll out both Hyena aces, DIS-T81, and DFS-311 (all have more options to survive attacks and also have AI, which is kinda important, since we're trying to find a use for Hyperwave Signal Boost). TI-99 hands out some mean Counter, and yes, it activates your droids, but it's still a mean Counter going back at opponents. And if it's from a Tri-Fighter or Vulture, they get Swarm rerolls if you've played your cards right. Between the risk of eating some nasty Counters and the possibility of refreshing or resurrecting a defense token via Grievous' ability, your opponent may have to make some difficult decisions about whether or not it is worth attacking your squadrons. At that point, they may decide discretion is the better part of valor, thus leaving your squadrons alive for the Squadron Phase, and therefore, letting you leverage Hyperwave Signal Boost. It's a LOT of work and energy into making HSB relevant to your plans, but if that was my intention, I think this is how I'd go about it. I'd have a ball of ships and squadrons that could possibly approach in formation and then starburst out in different directions as needed? I haven't through it all the way through and I'm unlikely to experiment with it, but I think that would be my first attempt at a solution for the problems HSB presents.

In my next post, I'll come up with some ideas on how to work with the remaining four "problem children" I listed in my original post. Stay tuned!