"After deploying your fleet, if Ozzel and Vader are both in the fleet, you may replace Ozzel with a commander with a higher point value at no extra cost."

However, your deployment must be both clumsy and stupid. Maybe your opponent gets to deploy your ships?

Came out of hyperspace too soon. Your ships are not on the board for round 1. On round 2 one ship must be deployed backwards.

Poor Ozzel. So much fun at his expense. The man died people!

Ozzel (with some sort of amusing but clumsy and stupid advanced deployment rule)

"After deploying your fleet, if Ozzel and Vader are both in the fleet, you may replace Ozzel with a commander with a higher point value at no extra cost."

I actually like this, however, instead of a commander of higher value, you should have to take your available commander cards, shuffel them and take one at random. After all, Piett just happened to be there. Yes, he did manuever for the spot, but what if another staff captain had been there? They might have gotten to promotion too. Otherwise, people would just use this card for a free commander upgrade.

Ozzel (with some sort of amusing but clumsy and stupid advanced deployment rule)

"After deploying your fleet, if Ozzel and Vader are both in the fleet, you may replace Ozzel with a commander with a higher point value at no extra cost."

I actually like this, however, instead of a commander of higher value, you should have to take your available commander cards, shuffel them and take one at random. After all, Piett just happened to be there. Yes, he did manuever for the spot, but what if another staff captain had been there? They might have gotten to promotion too. Otherwise, people would just use this card for a free commander upgrade.

Nah, you know Piett was sticking to Ozzel's butt just waiting for him to fail. Piett pretended to be all nervous when he got promoted, but it's what he wanted.

Red,

Of course your right. I just dont want to see power lister types replacing Ozzel with Thrawn or some other potentail super commander and abusing a rule. Let's be honest. We know gamers like that are out there. Anyone who has played even one 40K game has seen rooms full of the type and they chase away too many new gamers. As a certain admiral once said: We don't need that scum... ;-)

Red,

Of course your right. I just dont want to see power lister types replacing Ozzel with Thrawn or some other potentail super commander and abusing a rule. Let's be honest. We know gamers like that are out there. Anyone who has played even one 40K game has seen rooms full of the type and they chase away too many new gamers. As a certain admiral once said: We don't need that scum... ;-)

Indeed, the power creep is a threat to all of us. I would actually see FFG releasing Ozzel as a somewhat competent option. If you ever played the PC game Star Wars: Rebellion, Ozzel had a decent rating for a commander. It was that one unfortunate mistake in front of Vader that ended him.

Red,

Of course your right. I just dont want to see power lister types replacing Ozzel with Thrawn or some other potentail super commander and abusing a rule. Let's be honest. We know gamers like that are out there. Anyone who has played even one 40K game has seen rooms full of the type and they chase away too many new gamers. As a certain admiral once said: We don't need that scum... ;-)

Unfortunately, your proposal does not solve the problem, especially at tournaments. If I have to shuffle all my other commanders together and pick one...oops, looks like I only brought Thrawn with me I think we can agree that such odd mechanics are not likely to actually be made, at least not this early in the game.

I do think that crew that can be discarded for a strong effect could be an interesting area of exploration, and Ozzel and Needa could both fit into that role.

Red,

Of course your right. I just dont want to see power lister types replacing Ozzel with Thrawn or some other potentail super commander and abusing a rule. Let's be honest. We know gamers like that are out there. Anyone who has played even one 40K game has seen rooms full of the type and they chase away too many new gamers. As a certain admiral once said: We don't need that scum... ;-)

Unfortunately, your proposal does not solve the problem, especially at tournaments. If I have to shuffle all my other commanders together and pick one...oops, looks like I only brought Thrawn with me I think we can agree that such odd mechanics are not likely to actually be made, at least not this early in the game.

I do think that crew that can be discarded for a strong effect could be an interesting area of exploration, and Ozzel and Needa could both fit into that role.

Your right about the tournament situation but there is an easy fix there. Have a rule that if a person only brings the one alt commander, they are disqualified and thier opponenet gets a win by default.

In reality I think you bigger point about FFG just not doing that at all is more realistic. But in the future, I would hope for interesting mechanics that memic iconic movie incidents.

OK, how does this sound for Ozzel?

Command ability:the opponent gets to choose from their objective cards.

Cost :-30 points

Interesting, but I would never take him. The ability to choose your own objective is huge.

If the wave consists of only a mon cal and a sd, then the only choices for commander are:

Piett and Ackbar. (Period. I mean come on, they re the only two commanders tht go head to head in the OT fleet battle)

However, given these models will cost somewhere around $60 (Vic and af2 are $40), I sure as hell hope we get a deck of cards with them. Therefore we are likely to see two or even three commanders.

Additional imperial commanders:

Thrawn (most famous EU admiral)

Ozzel (with some sort of amusing but clumsy and stupid advanced deployment rule)

Rebel:

General Madine (he is in the card art)

Lando (he did command the starfighter wings at Endor)

Additionally crew imperial:

Captain that apologizes to Vader

Daala

Many other EU options for imperials.

Additional rebels:

Nien numb

Some random mon cal guy

... There really aren't that many non-star crews that I can recall...

Haha. "Captain that apologizes to Vader"

My friend, that would be Captain Needa.

It didn't turn out so well for him.

Edit: Missed the below!

I think there will be a lot more characters being represented as crew upgrades than as commanders. We can already see in the base set that Princess Leia and Ysanne Isard are both crew cards, and they both have far more story importance than Bel Iblis or Screed.

The fact that Screed and his Gladiator made it into wave I indicates to me that FFG is trying to pace themselves, releasing ships tied to specific roles and commanders whenever possible. The Gladiator's role could be served by several ships: Lancers, Tartans, Strike-class frigates, but do any of those have established commanders associated with them? As this discussion has indicated, there's no shortage of Imperial fleet officers who could be made commanders for an expansion pack, but FFG clearly want to maintain as tight a connection as possible between the commanders and the ships they come with. Crew upgrades, however, are a little more general. Obviously, with an ISD, they have to pick not just commanders who make sense with an ISD, but those who make the most sense with one.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Ozzel, Needa, Jerjerrod and Pellaeon as crew (I mean, it looks like we're getting Ysanne Isard and Admiral Chiraneau as crew, so it's obviously not dictated by rank or storyline importance), and feel like there might not be enough space for Thrawn, Piett and Daala as commanders, although if they do intend to do all three as commanders, it will probably be spread across multiple waves. Of those three, I think of Thrawn as being the most exclusively associated with the ISD, while the other two commanded a larger range of ships (although if those ships aren't going to be produced, that doesn't mean much). Personally, I don't care much for Daala, but she apparently served as fleet commander long enough to be considered. Then again, wave I included Motti and Screed, so fame and relevance clearly aren't the most important elements that go into being in this game.

At the end of the day, I doubt every Imperial we could hope to see will be included. The list of Imperial warlords is long; probably longer than the list of ships FFg wants to make, or the number of unique mechanics they plan to use for commanders. If Armada takes off and FFG wants excuses to keep printing money, I'm sure we could see re-releases of ships with different commanders, upgrades and crew, scraping more of the EU characters like Zsinj and Teradoc, but I don't think we can expect to see most of those characters in the next wave or two.

Lol...Jerjerrod! He'd be awesome I think.

When suffering X amount of crew loss, your crew receive a significant boost in efficiency out of nowhere as they have been made to re-double their efforts by Jerjerrod!

Thrawn, please.

For Rebs... I would really like to see Obi Wan show up in some fashion. He hasn't been a Commander since the Clone Wars, so maybe as a crew member.

Special ability: "Discard Obi Wan to Force opponent to discard Tractor Beams upgrade from one ship."

<sigh> if only we had a Tractor Beam upgrade...

I wouldn't mind seeing a bonus to certain star fighter types, such as a boost to bomber or escort craft when being commanded by a certain vessel. There is plenty of room to have these sort of things go on. Heck, it could even be a crew upgrade for all it matters.

I think most of the obvious have been covered. Thrawn, Daala, Pellaeon, Piett, Chimaera, Devastator. Maybe the Accuser, Avenger, Right to Rule, Stalker, Tyrant or Thunderflare? When it comes to the ISD there's so many options that there's no way we'll see everything any time soon.

If Ozzel shows, I hope he's actually useful. There has to be a practical reason he was promoted high enough and considered for Command of the Executor, and not just to keep an eye on him for being a problem officer. The Empire kills its problem officers.

I like to think that Ozzel did well enough under a different set of tactics and took the posh posting not knowing the helm was contrary to his style of command, and contrary to Vader's desires. Ozzel wanted a surprise attack rather than a slow siege, and the only reason he died was because Vader didn't approve of that action.

But I don't think Ozzel will show in the Star Destroyer pack. If there's ever an Executor, that might be where he appears. I'd like to see Thrawn and I admit he'd be a better choice for a Star Destroyer than Ozzel.

I just want it to be fun to play with and look nice on the table. Anything else is gravy.

I agree on Ozzel, not a bad commander, just crossed purposes with Vader.

Thrawn should be an obvious choice.

Someone mentioned adding Life Pod minis to the game: I cannot find their post at the moment.

The ISD should come with a couple stands of Life Pods -- because everyone who meets the Imp-Star in battle will need them!

And the Imp-Star/ISD could also come with a new Objective card: Capture Fugitives. Still puzzling out how to make this work, but basically one Rebel Commander or Officer would be nominated as the "Fugitive." The Imps have to blow up their ship, the Fugitive goes into a life pod and the pods are launched. The Imps score bonus points for rounding up those life pods...

Honestly, that should be a lot easier with some VT-49's

Daala is a must, then Thrawn. As commanders though. Not as "crew".

I also wouldn't mind seeing some more options released for the other ships. So disappointed we didn't get the VSD Protector and Admiral Harkov.

Harkov! Then hopefully we'll get Maarek Steele in a Defender where he belongs. Or hell, a TIE Avenger.

There is going to be a lot of disappointment if Thrawn does or doesn't make the ISD list, and here's why:

Thrawn was considered the greatest tactician in the Star Wars universe. As such, his presence in Armada should reflect that. In game terms - he should be overpowered. With only Chimera, he easily took down 4 Assault Frigates. A Thrawn backed Armada fleet should outmatch all comers. This would lead to a handful of problems, either:

1.) everyone always uses him because he's unbalanced, and he breaks the game, or

2.) he's too expensive to realistically include in a 300 point fleet

On the other hand, if he isn't overpowered, it wouldn't do his character justice. I certainly don't want to see a Thrawn commanded ISD2 struggle with an MC80. That's not the Thrawn we all nerd-out to.

I LOVE Thrawn, and part of me would want to 'be' him on the table, but there's no way to make him both seem like Thrawn and be balanced. He's inherently unbalanced.

EDIT: On the other hand, he could be worth 150 Points, be CRAZY powerful, and is only allowed in whatever game format FFG comes up with for 'epic' play (600 pt, or whatever). Now, you're effectively sacrificing a pair of Vics, or a fully loaded ISD to have him... but to make him worth it... mmmmmm.

Honest question, why do soo many people want Dalla?

The first books she was is were TERRIBAD. Sun crusher?

What did she do that I missed that has her soooo requested?

Honest question, why do soo many people want Dalla?

The first books she was is were TERRIBAD. Sun crusher?

What did she do that I missed that has her soooo requested?

Only thing I can think of is she took out the other imperial warlords, got her $@! kicked, and turned things over to Pellaeon.

Step 1 and 3 are good, step 2 was an unfortunate neccisity for step 3.

I hope every SD comes already in flames, becuase that is what is going to happen every game. Suck it Imperial Scum!