45 minutes ago, Kreen said:

and has clear evidence that this being is dangerous to the Empire, and an ally of the Rebellion.

Really? Because he hit the Rebels with lightning too.

6 minutes ago, DarthEnderX said:

Really? Because he hit the Rebels with lightning too.

Fair point. He still seemed to be targeting the Imperials a lot more than the Rebels, and Kanan at least knew what it was. It at least stands that this is a being that is dangerous to the Empire, and is a master of the heretical Force.

And we all know that heretics need to be purged.

Thank the force that Thrawn did not kill Bendu there was few moments i got woried.

3 hours ago, costi said:

The space battle was really underwhelming... did the Rebel ships even fire a shot? And a single fly-by of 2 TIE Fighters is enough to cripple a Corvette? WTF?

We clearly see four Y-Wings do a bombing run on a Star Destroyer, Rex and Zeb in the Ghost shooting at TIEs, and the Protectorate fighters dogfighting with TIEs. So yeah, the Rebel ships fire a shot.

Fighters, yeah, no complaints... but the larger ships act like mobile targets...

You know, they don't even need to be effective, just show that they're putting up a fight and not just standing there... and yet they don't even try to shoot down the fighters that are bombing them.

Zero Hour part 1&2 was totally awesome.

A few things I'm wondering about now: did Governor Pryce let Kallus go? She's from Lothal so maybe she hates the empire too. Her reaction at the end seemed to me to be something other than defeat.

Also on this same line is Kallus doing a triple cross? Something about him.

When are we getting Maul's ship as a cross factional ship in X-wing with both Maul and Ezra pilots?!

No way we aren't getting Maul's ship. Even if they have to fudge the scale.

didnt realize that it was a two-parter and watched them out of order. Boo!

If Interdictors were so common in task forces as seen here, Vader should have had one at the Battle of Hoth.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet...

What happened to the Phantom II in the second half?

4 hours ago, Kreen said:

Also, super excited we're still seeing the Kom'rk fighter; it's only a matter of time, I'm sure, before we get to see it on the tables, either as a Rebel or Scum (or both) large base or Epic ship. And, also, I cannot wait to see the Rebel Kallus card, and what they change. Though I guess we'll need to see what he gets up to in this new season first.

Basically, I can't wait for the next Rebels wave (like Wave 8 was "The Rebels Wave," with the TAP, Ghost, and Assault Carrier).

The Gauntlet would be great in the tables, but as Scum (with a badass Maul piloting it). No more Rebels-crew pilots!

I hope there isn't a "Rebels wave" anymore, just a few hand-picked ships in Waves (alongside a healthy mix of Legends and New Canon ships/content).

16 minutes ago, MPG said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet...

What happened to the Phantom II in the second half?

Indeed! The Ghost jumped without the Phantom II... hopefully it was left behind on planet.

Hear that, devs, no need to add the Phantom II to this game.

19 minutes ago, KaLeu said:

If Interdictors were so common in task forces as seen here, Vader should have had one at the Battle of Hoth.

Maybe the Empire only had 3 of them?

22 minutes ago, KaLeu said:

If Interdictors were so common in task forces as seen here, Vader should have had one at the Battle of Hoth.

Maybe, just maybe the idea of the interdictor didn't exist in 1980?

28 minutes ago, KaLeu said:

If Interdictors were so common in task forces as seen here, Vader should have had one at the Battle of Hoth.

He would need two dozens of them as this episode shows us the gravity well is like 2km in diameter.

Big ole 'MEH' from me. I mean Thrawn sort of won, but it still felt like the Rebels came out on top...again. I at least expected a main character to die, either Kanan or Kallus. I feel like both of those characters have served out their usefulness. Hell, even Kanan said to Ezra there isn't anymore he can teach him in the beginning of the episode.

One of my biggest gripes about Thrawn (despite the fact that he hasn't done much) this season is what made him to me very interesting in Legends was his care for the troops under his command. In the Legends materials he didn't look at his men as expendable fodder but more as valuable assets that should not be wasted foolishly. It made him stand out even more in the Imperial ranks as every other commander had the opposite mindset. In the show he doesn't seem concerned about the loss of his troops and equipment at all. Would have like to see that part of his mentality on the show.

42 minutes ago, eMeM said:

He would need two dozens of them as this episode shows us the gravity well is like 2km in diameter.

How does it do that? Taking out one of the interdictors allows Ezra to leave - but that may be because the gravity well cone of the other was pointed the wrong way and the fleet was very close to the planet - in order to bombard it.

And the newcanon did retcon them into being present at the Battle Of Endor - even if none are visible (too far away, probably).

Wow, that was awesome, I was rooting for Kallus the whole time. I loved his comment to Pryce. "Thrawn won't be happy you made his fleet into a mess."

Regarding the combat tactics. Even ignoring the firepower of all those destroyers and interdictors for a moment. It seems like the empire could have over run the rebels simply by launching their full fighter support. But it seems like they only launched a Squadron at best from each ship.

Also I liked the reference to battlefront when the Walker shot down the escaping transport.

10 hours ago, OneKelvin said:

I was always of the opinion that blast-type AOE weapons weren't very common in Star Wars because the basic armor completely negates them. A proton bomb is less bomb and more protons, a turbo laser is less laser and more turbo, a blaster is less blast and more... er....

That's also why they get up close - the shields and ships could just shrug off nukes and missile blasts, so warfare has come to a point of closing up along side and drilling through the enemy defenses with highly-focused plasma weapons.

Even in real space a nuke doesn't do much damage, and we still don't know the exact mechanism for energy shields: do they absorb damage, redirect it, etc? I think shields and hyperdrive make the game here.

Nowadays you'd scoff at the idea of up-and-personal combat on the seas or in person. "Their armor can't block .50 rounds!" you'd say, "so why wouldn't I fight from a distance?" But in Star Wars the pendulum has swung back, and defenses are very, very, powerful compared to the weapons. Ships can sit back and chillax, safe under shields and armor while a laser a thousand miles away lights them up like a Christmas tree, then hyper-drive to within a couple kilometers of it (and the ships are measured in kilometers long) and hammer it with slow-but-powerful plasma weapons.

So this is definitely a NEW idea in the Star Wars universe, but I think it's the one they're going with (because it makes more dramatic battles), and can be summed up simply:

Defense makes long range and medium range combat impractical or impossible, so you have to close to what is in space warfare terms ridiculously close distances.

Perhaps they are literally 'deflector' shields, and a long range shot would simply be bounced in the wrong direction. If they're going with this notion, it explains why we don't see capital ship shields as being effective at all, because against bombs or fighter shots they're NOT - they probably block some punishment, but overall don't do a great deal

The only thing I don't like about this notion is that we see how classic SW shields are supposed to work in the ground bombardment of this episode.

But YES, this episode. I thought the death flags were everywhere ("I don't have anything left to teach you, Ezra") but sadly they did not resolve. Or happily? And Hera/Kanan was great. ("This is your friend?" "I might have made him mad." "I can relate...")

One other thing: Thrawn had orders, for better or worse, not to kill the leadership. So perhaps he launched fighters and had them SLOWLY kill enemy ships, rather than just running them over with the capships, to give leaders time to eject and land on the surface where they could be more easily captured than if they blown up.

Just a thought.

3 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

A few things I'm wondering about now: did Governor Pryce let Kallus go?

When she ordered them to throw him out an airlock, I don't think she intended for it to be in an escape pod.

1 hour ago, Jo Jo said:

I mean Thrawn sort of won, but it still felt like the Rebels came out on top...again.

Um...how exactly? They lost their base, their flagship, and most of the rest of their fleet and gained...nothing.

Like, originally I thought they were going to lose their fleet taking out the TIE Defender factory, but they never even got to LAUNCH their attack.

The Rebels were decimated in exchange for absolutely nothing. I'm not sure what your definition of coming out on top is, but mine sure isn't that.

5 minutes ago, DarthEnderX said:

When she ordered them to throw him out an airlock, I don't think she intended for it to be in an escape pod.

touché

3 hours ago, KaLeu said:

If Interdictors were so common in task forces as seen here, Vader should have had one at the Battle of Hoth.

Perhaps they were amongst the SDs hit with ion cannon volleys off screen, they would seem priority targets after all.

1 hour ago, iamfanboy said:

So this is definitely a NEW idea in the Star Wars universe, but I think it's the one they're going with (because it makes more dramatic battles), and can be summed up simply:

Defense makes long range and medium range combat impractical or impossible, so you have to close to what is in space warfare terms ridiculously close distances.

Perhaps they are literally 'deflector' shields, and a long range shot would simply be bounced in the wrong direction. If they're going with this notion, it explains why we don't see capital ship shields as being effective at all, because against bombs or fighter shots they're NOT - they probably block some punishment, but overall don't do a great deal

The only thing I don't like about this notion is that we see how classic SW shields are supposed to work in the ground bombardment of this episode.

But YES, this episode. I thought the death flags were everywhere ("I don't have anything left to teach you, Ezra") but sadly they did not resolve. Or happily? And Hera/Kanan was great. ("This is your friend?" "I might have made him mad." "I can relate...")

But we're 'classic' shields the big attack absorbing bubbles? I remember their first appearance on screen in episode 1 upsetting a lot of people.

Shields as previously shown seem more ephemeral, sometimes they stop a bit alltogether, sometimes they perhaps absorb the worst of it, sometimes they do nothing. Given lines like "Chewie, angle the deflector shields", I've always figured that shields on anything big enough to have multiple crew were some sort of active defence requiring careful monitoring rather than a star trek impervious bubble.

Thrawn most certainly won the battle. Nominal Imperial losses, that can be easily replaced, compared to the rebels. The Lothal Cell has been destroyed along with fifteen ships filled with valuable staff and equipment .

Gravity well projectors have always had limited range if i'm not mistaken. Anyways it could be retconned that Vader did have Interdictor Cruisers at Hoth but they were disabled by the Ion Cannon. Boom easy fix.

7 minutes ago, Forresto said:

Thrawn most certainly won the battle. Nominal Imperial losses, that can be easily replaced, compared to the rebels. The Lothal Cell has been destroyed along with fifteen ships filled with valuable staff and equipment .

Gravity well projectors have always had limited range if i'm not mistaken. Anyways it could be retconned that Vader did have Interdictor Cruisers at Hoth but they were disabled by the Ion Cannon. Boom easy fix.

Or they were simply deployed somewhere else, many differnt possible reasons.