Work, Damn You!

 Work, Damn You!

For anyone who has ever played any sort of a board game or minis game, y'all know there are tactics, strategies, and component combinations that *should* work the way you anticipate they will, but simply refuse to cooperate. Sometimes, it's a matter of needing "just one more thing" to make it work. Other times, there just isn't anything in the game that will get your machine humming; it will just always be more work than it is worth. So I'm taking a look at some of the upgrade cards in Star Wars Armada to which I've absolutely said (and, in some cases, shouted), "Work, damn you!"

Commander: Emperor Palpatine

My desire to "make Palpatine work" is well-documented. I really dig the ability! I think it can be really nasty and have an incredible impact on the game, and requires a lot of creative thought in both building a fleet and executing a scheme. However, despite my best attempts, I just cannot get him to consistently do what I need him to do for 35 points. And that's saying something, since I had a fleet in which Grand Moff Tarkin worked wonders at his whopping 38 points before the 1.5 rules dropped! Listen: I had fun flying with him. A lot of it. And I did find some effectiveness in my final iteration of the "Master and Apprentice" fleet (this one, not that one).

But ultimately, and perhaps in an unsurprisingly thematic way, Palpatine is an extremely demanding commander. In my opinion, in order to be effective, he needs multiple sources of damage to pressure opponents into spending defense tokens they'd rather not. Additionally, he wants sustained fire rather than heavy but few ordnance strikes (because if you're going to punch my ship super hard for one turn, I'll happily spend and discard my Brace knowing that you're going to sail on by out of black dice range anyway). So now we're either talking exclusively red dice ships, or some squadrons that can complement whatever ships you choose. And you need to do all of that after spending 35 points on your commander. It's just extremely difficult to do effectively. And though I found a fleet that struck a balance I really enjoyed, it just wasn't enough to make Palpatine sing the way I kept hoping he would.

Offensive Retrofit: Hyperwave Signal Boost

This is just a card that does not yet pull its weight. Maybe it will if we see some Separatist droid squadrons with a little more hull so they might survive the ship phase and make it to the squadron phase. I mention that specifically because I know there is often consternation about how to interpret this card. I'm hopeful we see an FAQ, but more than that, I hope they change the way it works. Right now, as it reads, squadrons with AI that are activated by Hyperwave Signal Boost (HSB) can attack as though they were activated by a squadron command. This does NOT mean they can move and shoot during the squadron phase, as though they had been activated by a squadron command during the ship phase. The phrasing can be very confusing, and in my opinion, it reads as though they meant it to command squadrons in the squadron phase (which would be terrific!). But that's not how the card actually ends up working. Which means that by the time the squadron phase rolls around, your squishy droid squadrons must already be in whatever position you wanted them to occupy in order to take the shots you wanted them to take. If they're out of engagement range or locked down by enemy escorts or something, then sorry! Too bad, so sad!

Unless Atomic Mass Games changes this card or clarifies it, it just can't do a lot of meaningful work until we get some Separatist droid squadrons that have a little meat to them so they can stand up to a hit or two and still be alive when the squadron phase rolls around. I list this card because I like *what I want it to be*, but even though its only 3 points, I just can't see how one justifies using this instead of just pushing squadrons during the ship phase with Squadron commands.

Offensive Retrofit: Rapid Launch Bays

This card is perpetually the subject of experimentation because it is so much fun! And I can assure you that I understand the fascination, because I've come back to it several times. I've used it along with Admiral Raddus so that my Starhawk can drop a Command MC-80 so the Command MC-80 could drop several B-Wings on someone's face. My favorite use of it was in my Piett fleet, TIE One On. But it took several plays before I learned that the best way for my SSD to leverage Rapid Launch Bays (RLB) was not to stow my TIE Bombers for deployment as I had assumed (after all, delivering slower bombers to their targets free of molestation by enemy squadrons always sounds attractive, doesn't it?), but it was to equip Flight Commander so that after the SSD moves and overlaps the enemy squadrons, it can use RLB to drop TIE Fighters on the faces of those squadrons. The TIE Bombers (which had stayed toward the back of the SSD and out of engagement) could then jump forward at speed 4, leapfrog the scrum, and just start bombing enemy ships. That realization really freed up so many more options for me and increased my enjoyment of RLB that much more!

But ultimately, you're spending 6 points for an upgrade that robs you of deployments (at least 1, but it's more likely to rob you of 2), squadron deployment is that much more predictable because they're tied to the ship that sports the upgrade, and finally, should you be unlucky enough to have your ship explode or lose an upgrade (specifically RLB) before you drop your squadrons, those squadrons are now stranded on your ship with no way to deploy. I've done this before when I used Darth Vader boarding teams to rip RLB off of a ship before the B-Wings and Jan Ors dropped. At that point, the game was decided. And that feels crappy. His only other option was to drop those squadrons early and out of position, and that would've also been less than ideal. RLB affords the player using it fewer options, not more. And an upgrade that engenders a less flexible strategy is rarely something that can withstand the tougher tests on the game table.

Officer: Director Krennic

I cannot - cannot - tell you how badly I want to like this card. When all of the upgrades accompanying the SSD were spoiled by FFG, Krennic was the thing about which I was most excited. I was more excited about the Krennic upgrade than I was about the SSD itself! But ultimately, this card has fallen flat. I doubt I'm the only one. I'd love to see someone make this upgrade work wonders! But every single time I've used this upgrade, I've run into the same problem: my enemy closes fast to ensure that I literally cannot use the upgrade. I've gone matches not using this 8 point Officer upgrade (a usually hotly contested upgrade slot) because my first attack is good and I don't need any rerolls, and then every subsequent attack is executed at close range. So now I'm rolling red dice at close range with no way to reroll them, and it's a total coin flip as to whether or not I get stomped or I obliterate my opponent's ships. The whole point of dice fixing is to increase the odds that you'll roll what you need to be effective. If I have to count on redundancies for rerolling dice because I can't count on my primary upgrade, then what am I doing? Why not just use the redundant measures as my primary dice-fixing measures and save myself the Officer slot and 8 points? I think the "medium-long range" requirement is what absolutely breaks this card and all but ensures it will only ever be an overpriced cog in a machine that never quite runs as smoothly as one needs it to.

Title: Redemption

This title wins the award for "Most Times I Built a Fleet Around a Card, But Deleted It Without Trying It." Seriously. I don't know what it is about this title that makes me want to make it work. Maybe because it feels like such a simple, straightforward title that it *should* work? I think that's probably what it is. After all, an additional Engineering point for every ship in your fleet sounds great! And its range of 1-5 from the Nebulon-B Frigate sporting the title is pretty generous! Sure, it's 8 points, but we spend points for defensive and healing tech in other fleets, so why not this one?

Two reasons, in my opinion, there's difficulty in making this title more than a juicy target. The first is that defensive tech prevents damage whereas Engineering points heal the damage. Seems obvious, but it's worth noting that fixing a problem is often more problematic than preventing it from happening in the first place. So the argument can be made that Redemption starts from a place of inefficiency. I wouldn't make that argument because I think Engineering commands can be leveraged for terrific results. But it is definitely a factor in our calculations when building a fleet. The second reason is because it only impacts your ships if they spend an Engineering dial or an Engineering token. Did your ship want to use Engineering? Did it plan for it? If not, then Redemption doesn't do anything for ya. And this can also lead to timing issues: did you line up an Engineering dial too early and now have no use for it because you haven't taken damage yet? Did your opponent set you on fire early and so you can't count on an Engineering dial for at least one more turn? That's a shame, because Redemption can't help you there, either.

I like the Redemption title. But at 8 points and with three other terrific titles for the Nebulon-B Frigate, Redemption isn't something you add on a whim; there needs to be a good reason for it and a plan. The closest I got was a fleet I called Red Dead Redemption that involved throwing a bunch of red dice from range, but even that was so ineffective that I don't even have the fleet list saved in my app anymore. And that is saying something. I don't think the title is bad or impossible to use! It just never quite does what I want it to do...

Title: Dominator

Sacrificing shields for the most reliable die in the game. Honestly, I'm all for it! Yes, it's short-term gain for long-term loss, but given that the Victory-II Star Destroyer has some decent shields and hull as well as an Ion Cannon upgrade slot, I'm willing to blow the shields to add extra dice to my attack. So why is it on this list? It's 12 points and does not work in conjunction with Disposable Capacitors, which is one of the few cards that really helped make Victory Star Destroyers viable as the game evolved and sort of left them behind. I want to like this card giving my Vic extra juice, but it just doesn't quite earn its keep on the field.

Weapons Team: Fire-Control Team

This is the upgrade about which I have probably fielded the most questions, and it's also an upgrade that frequently makes me sigh whenever I see it in the process of building a fleet. I think we all love the idea of resolving multiple crit effects on a single attack. The question ends up being "which critical effects?" And this, I think, is where we start running into issues. 

• There are 4 crit effects that can be triggered with red dice: the standard crit effect, XX-9, and both Onager Superweapon critical effects.
• There are 7 crit effects that can be triggered with blue dice: the standard crit effect, XX-9, MS-1 Ion Cannons, Ion Cannon Batteries, Overload Pulse, Heavy Ion Emplacements, and NK-7 Ion Cannons.
• There are 5 crit effects that can be triggered with black dice: the standard crit effect, XX-9, Wide-Area Barrage, Assault Proton Torpedoes, and Assault Concussion Missiles.

I listed all of the various crit effects because it's the interaction between different crit effects that creates problems for us when considered against the ships that actually have the weapons-team slot and accompanying upgrade slots to even consider using the card in the first place. The easiest combination would seem to be the standard crit effect and XX-9, since they can be used across any dice combination. Except that's not how the standard crit effect works: it doesn't stack with XX-9 - XX-9 says "The first two damage cards dealt to the defender by this attack are dealt face-up." Okay, well, the standard crit effect says "the first." That is fulfilled by XX-9, which means triggering both still only nets 2 faceup damage cards. The same is true of the standard crit effect and APT. So those aren't worthwhile. A bunch of the blue crit effects aren't generally that useful (I'm looking at you, Overload Pulse and NK-7s!), but the ones that are? I think you often have to ask yourself whether it's so important that you trigger it alongside something else. One of the standout exceptions is how appealing it would be to trigger both Heavy Ion Emplacements and ACM for maximum shield and adjacent hull zone damage. Sounds great! How many ships are capable of doing that? The MC75 Armored Cruiser can from the front and rear hull zones (but man, you're really hoping those crits come up, since you now don't have any reroll options with weapons team, ion, and ordnance upgrade slots all filled), as can the Kuat Star Destroyer from any arc and the Providence-class Dreadnaught. That's it: just those 3. And obviously, it all needs to happen at close range. And you need to roll at least one blue crit and one black crit. And you need to hope that no forced rerolls remove those crits. And HIE is only useful if the defender still has shields. It's just a lot of "ands." And that's the most appealing combination of triggering two crit effects!

I don't mention all of this so that you won't try to make it work; I mention all of this because these are the reasons this card just doesn't do what I want it to do. It's cheap and has an interesting effect (and honestly, it can probably do the most work while sitting on an Onager since that ship can attack from extreme range). It's just that this is a machine that usually requires so much work and is so easily disrupted that one has to ask themselves whether the dividends it pays are worth the energy invested. I have played opponents that build machines like this, and in the rare instances when the desired impact happens, they're incredibly excited and often say something along the lines of "finally!" The one I remember most clearly was from my first tournament, which happened to be a (then) store championship. I was playing against a guy who was so excited that he literally had his girlfriend take a picture of the board state because he was "living the dream." We were playing at the bottom table of the tournament, and I still won, despite his desired effect finally triggering. It's not that this isn't worth exploring, but rather that it's really often hard to make it behave the way we think it should.

Ship: Venators I and II

And finally, a whole damn ship that doesn't quite do what I want it to do. I really like the ship! And it's capable of doing so many different things: it can be a carrier, it can be a gunship, it can serve in a support role. But the problem I keep running into is two-fold: fairly unreliable dice owing to no Ion Cannon upgrade slots, and once the Venator has been designed to do a thing, that's the thing it can do. I know I'm not the only one to make these observations, but still...

It always seems to me that the things of which it is capable are things that ships in all three other factions can also do, but better. Those ships aren't available to the Republic, but it can then become difficult to justify flying Republic other than "I want to." To be clear, that reason is sufficient! No judgement here! It's just that I kinda want a better reason than "I want to fly Republic." It's a faction that absolutely relies on its squadrons in order to deal enough damage to an opponent to win, and I'm fine with that. But it always feels as though the Venator is an upgrade or a die away from greatness and can never quite get there. Maybe its designation as a Star Destroyer or my expectation that it'll be like the other large bases are interfering with my expectations, and so it's not really the ship's fault that it's not doing what I expect of it. But out of all 60 ship chassis across four factions (not including the Executor-class SSDs, owing to the fact that they're not legal in standard formats), the Venator is the only one that never quite lives up to my expectations of what I think it *should* be able to do.