I've been through the forum but I am still having a little trouble understanding the use of multiple command dials and revealing one command dial per ship per round from the stack. Is this merely a matter of making players with ships that have multiple dials think 2-3 steps ahead? Just want to make sure I am playing this correctly

I've been through the forum but I am still having a little trouble understanding the use of multiple command dials and revealing one command dial per ship per round from the stack. Is this merely a matter of making players with ships that have multiple dials think 2-3 steps ahead? Just want to make sure I am playing this correctly

The fewer command dials a ship has, the more responsive it is. However, the flip side is that ships with higher command ratings (and thus more dials) can 'bank' more command tokens at one time.

Lets say you have a VSD in your list.

At the start of the game you take 3 command dials and set them on the card, or somewhere near it so you know which ships those dials belong to.

You'd set the command you want for each of the 3, like say a Navigate, Engineering and Concentrate Fire, with the Nav on top, Eng in the middle and CF on the bottom.

When you activate the VSD in the first turn you take off the top dial, and execute that command, either by taking a Navigate command, or putting a navigate command token on the VSD. When you're done you put it face up on the ship's card.

In the planning phase at the start of round 2, you take the dial you used in the first turn and set the command you want for it say Squadron, and place it under the two command dials you already have.

So now the stack will be Engineering, Concentrate Fire, and Squadron on the bottom. Then when you activate the VSD in round 2 you take the top one off again and execute the engineering command.

So yes, it's a way of making larger ships plan farther into the future.

So, for those of you who have played multiple games, what do you think is better? Is a low command value ultimately more powerful or does the ability to carry lots of command tokens more than make up for the sluggishness of response?

So far it seems like a fairly decent tradeoff. Having a banked Engineering or Navigation token can make or break the game. Having a Concentrate Fire command or Squadron command to spend along with a token can really get you a lot of firepower for one attack.

But knowing you can react each turn to what's going on can be rather nice too.

In general I've found so far that picking 3 commands isn't that difficult, because it's only 6 rounds and you can figure out what you're likely to do for the first 4 or so anyway. Then you can throw in upgrades like Defense or Weapons Liaison as insurance in case you get it wrong.

My experience is limited so far, but having played exclusively Victory Star Destroyers up till now, I haven't found the restriction too onerous. There are plenty of upgrades that can help mitigate the unresponsiveness issue.

of course, the command stack (dis)advantage varies based on other cards

Tarkin loves him some victories that can stack all his free tokens. Garm's ability scales directly with your ship's command value. Liaisons only really make sense on these command 3 ships where you might need to make a sudden adjustment now rather than 3 turns down the line.

And then there are commanders who don't give a toss, in which case high command is more of a detriment unless you're clairvoyant. Of course, low command ships also carry advantages that high command ships don't have access to (such as quantity) which can synergize more directly with certain commanders

Liaisons only really make sense on these command 3 ships where you might need to make a sudden adjustment now rather than 3 turns down the line.

BTW, in case anyone hadn't noticed it, the liasons specifically say to spend the token, which means Wullf can work when you use the liason.

yes, but Wulff and Liaisons share the same upgrade slot...

yes, but Wulff and Liaisons share the same upgrade slot...

I knew that, no really, I did

So, theoretically, sometime in the future.

I played last week and my opponent thought he would just set the dials on Navigate and use Tarkin Tokens for other stuff. Was not the best at efficiency of use but he was happy enough, because he was able to turn much faster.

Yeah, I kinda discounted the liasons as not worth it when I first saw them, then I tried one and saw how very useful one of them can be on a big ship...

I kinda view them the same way I do gunner in X-Wing, they are points you spend on an insurance policy. You may never use them, but for 3 it's not a lot to spend to know you have the ability to get the command you need when the plan doesn't survive first contact with the enemy.

The real cost of the liaisons is the slot they take up. But if you don't have points for something else or need something else, I don't see why you wouldn't take one just in case.