I think the discussion just gonna degenerate. It's clear that the text doesn't disallow you to to that but it isn't mean that allows you. Anyway when this kind of things came up I follow the text cause is easier to know what they wrote that what they thought. Even when I think it doesn't work this way I let you play this way. At least as long as we didn't find it OP (and I think is not).

Of course in a tournament is different but I am not TO so is not my problem. I wouldn't risk my performance on a favourable interpretation of a rule.

Anyway a future faq could help cause the text says what it says. Maybe if you put a thread in the rules discussion thread some RAW/RAI experts could help us.

I think the discussion just gonna degenerate. It's clear that the text doesn't disallow you to to that but it isn't mean that allows you. Anyway when this kind of things came up I follow the text cause is easier to know what they wrote that what they thought. Even when I think it doesn't work this way I let you play this way. At least as long as we didn't find it OP (and I think is not).

Of course in a tournament is different but I am not TO so is not my problem. I wouldn't risk my performance on a favourable interpretation of a rule.

Anyway a future faq could help cause the text says what it says. Maybe if you put a thread in the rules discussion thread some RAW/RAI experts could help us.

Or one of us could fire it off to the rules question tool, if so inclined.

Don't look at me! I'm trying to earn my black-belt in Lazy-Fu

Wait until monday when the FFG staffers return to their job?

I think for the meantime this is going to be a thing resolved by the players as a case-by-case basis. If there is an indecision on the matter, roll off, and use that ruling for that session. Obviously it's a concern, and hopefully after getting the answer here a clarification will appear in the next FAQ for others to reference.

If only FFG had any history in other cards of specifying you or your opponent, or even say, if any ship means your ship or another ship....

The card text is crystal clear, if FFG makes an errata for it that's fine, but if they don't it's a house rule to alter the card to only affect the opponent.

It's hardly game breaking and makes a pretty suck title only suck less, not like Devastator is going to be as good as the other titles for the cost because of this.

This is a point thats been made several times, and has yet to be addressed by anyone who believes it shouldn't work.

If only FFG had any history in other cards of specifying you or your opponent, or even say, if any ship means your ship or another ship....

The card text is crystal clear, if FFG makes an errata for it that's fine, but if they don't it's a house rule to alter the card to only affect the opponent.

It's hardly game breaking and makes a pretty suck title only suck less, not like Devastator is going to be as good as the other titles for the cost because of this.

This is a point thats been made several times, and has yet to be addressed by anyone who believes it shouldn't work.

I know, it's an argument between "can reads" and "cannot reads". There is zero ambiguity in the text. By their logic Predator wouldn't work on your own attack dice in X-wing.

...it's an argument between "can reads" and "cannot reads".

It doesn't have anything to do with that, Tvay has made his position very clear, and ad hom attacks do nothing to advance the conversation. Clearly you don't agree with him, and neither do I, but that doesn't give us license or cause to personally attack people.

...it's an argument between "can reads" and "cannot reads".

It doesn't have anything to do with that, Tvay has made his position very clear, and ad hom attacks do nothing to advance the conversation. Clearly you don't agree with him, and neither do I, but that doesn't give us license or cause to personally attack people.

Sorry, it should have said "reads" and "chooses not to reads".. or "reads and ignores text"...wasn't a person, but the illogic of the argument.

FFG has stated in other cards how their wording works. I would not be surprised if FFG were to errata the card if this is a use they did not intend, and they feel it causes imbalance, but in absence of that, the position that you can change the meaning of the text because you don't want the card to work that way can be applied to every card in the game.

Frankly, I think it's an interesting use of the intel officer card and fully supported as written.

I would never use it like this because it would be stupid from a cost/benefit standpoint, and for the same reason if an opponent wanted to do this I would be more than happy to let him.

Look at it this way, you have to exhaust intel officer to use it, which means you can only do this 1 time per round and then you can't use your intel officer on ME. When you consider that intel officer and a couple of accuracies can effectively cripple a ships ability to defend itself and potentially offer MUCH more long term damage potential than a couple of blue dice a round (keep in mind, front arc, blue range only).

Frankly, ISDs with less defense tokens aren't that hot. If you don't think so you haven't gone up against some home 1 buffed ackbar lists without ECM. The value of throwing a big handful of dice diminishes significantly when your boat evaporates the minute you go up against some heavy hitting opposition. If you end up having to spam engineering commands just to stay alive because you chucked your defense tokens for a couple extra dice you might as well have spammed CF commands...

Personally I think using the card like this is legit until they FAQ it, and in any case, it's silly beyond measure to use it this way ANYWAY.

More thoughts: you don't usually get into a shooting fight until round 2, so that limits how many times you can do this and how many dice you will get from it. Once you do this a couple of times you have THAT MANY LESS defense tokens on your big expensive ISD to USE Vader making it a 38 point brick, if you discard a bunch of tokens AND use Vader you are effectively defenseless and a simple Fireball can make you its galactic ***** while everyone else runs away from your very slightly buffed front arc.

Really I don't know why anyone is arguing against this I would love to see someone run it and laugh as it flops (no offense to the OP, just think there are fundamental theorycrafting problems with this list)

Think how much better taking screed, and loading a few of those raiders with overload pulse and taking the avenger title would be to overall effectiveness at an equivalent or cheaper cost! It's a list that leans on a clever synergy that results (in my opinion) in a net negative.

Wowsers. My internet goes down for a day and this happens.

1. This use of Intel Officer literally never occurred to me. So props to Clone for being far more creative in his search for combos than I've ever been.

2. Personally I don't feel comfortable with the cost of taking Devastator + burning a couple of my own tokens off (17 points + two fewer tokens for 6-10 blue dice over 3-5 rounds). If Devastator could synergize with Gunnery Team, I'd be more tempted... probably.

3. Just as an aside, legal canons of construction (here in the US, at least) only consider the intent behind a law/regulation/rule if the text is somehow ambiguous. Any discussion of "intent," in turn, requires evidence of the actual intent of the drafter (legislative history, statements of public record, etc.), not speculation of intent. Since that's lawyer-gibberish, you can now discard the above as useless bits of Yank knowledge if you prefer.

4. Amazingly, I don't see any ambiguity in Intel Officer as-written, and (amazingly) agree with those who have argued it doesn't preclude this (and that it could have been easily written in a way that would have precluded this use).

5. I agree this seems counterintuitive to how I've viewed the purpose of Intel Officer, but don't have any special knowledge as to whether FFG's intent in creating Intel Officer was limited to how I've viewed Intel Officer in the past.

6. I agree this seems a bit squirrely, but do not feel like it would break the game.

7. I don't see any harm to me if players in other metas explore counter-intuitive combos that are permissible under the cards/rules as-written in private games, and/or share and solicit feedback on counter-intuitive combos that are permissible under the cards/rules as-written on the forums.

8. I would hope that tournament organizers would be appraised of this (and other counter-intuitive combos) at the start, and make rulings for the benefit of tournament participants (and, in an ideal world, would do so at the start of the tournament).

9. I would hope for and support efforts to obtain an official FAQ before any official FFG-sponsored/sanctioned events.

10. I fully expect this to be errata'd out, though there's a small part of me that kind of hopes it's not... and after what happened to Xi7s/APs, who knows how it will ultimately shake out...

11. I'm glad the conversation has mostly moved to a less-charged place, and hopefully will move back to where the OP intended it to go... namely how to make Devastator work well.

So, um, yeah... on that note...

+++ Devastator (386pts) +++

++ Imperial Navy (Standard) (386pts) ++

+ Imperial Star Destroyer (143pts) +

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (143pts) [H9 Turbolasers (8pts), Intel Officer (7pts), Leading Shots (4pts), Ordnance Experts (4pts), •Devastator (10pts)]

+ Raider Corvette (220pts) +

Raider I-Class Corvette (80pts) [•Darth Vader (36pts)]

Raider I-Class Corvette (44pts)

Raider I-Class Corvette (48pts) [•Instigator (4pts)]

Raider I-Class Corvette (48pts) [•Impetuous (4pts)]

+ Squadrons (23pts) +

TIE Fighter Squadron (8pts)

•"Mauler" Mithel (15pts)

+ Objectives +
Be 1st player!!!

Created with BattleScribe (http://www.battlescribe.net)

I think the Vader + multiple ships combo is the way to go. Four Raiders allows some nice deployment/activation shenanigans.

Just a couple of questions, about things that made me do a double-take:

• I'm not immediately seeing the point of Mauler without Chiraneau/intel ship, and swapping him for two more TIEs would only drop your initiative bid from 14 to 13 (which seems plenty large to me, though perhaps not in your local meta?). Dropping the two Raider titles would allow a fourth TIE, which is another deployment buffer to delay setting out your ISD until the last possible moment.
• I'm not seeing the benefit of the H-9 when you already have Intel Officer and will be rolling 4+ blue dice with multiple rerolls from Vader and Leading Shots. It seems like the ship has multiple ways to get accuracy results/deal with opposing defense tokens without the H-9s, and no particular trigger for the H-9 to work off of (like Warlord)
• I don't know if taking Ordnance Experts over Gunnery Teams is going to net more overall damage (triple-rerolls on blacks vs. potentially two front-arc shots per round, with fewer rerolls), especially since you already have Vader and Leading Shots to fish for damage. But that's probably just me. And rerolling blacks three times sounds pretty sweet.
• If you're looking to burn a token in a less... um... controversial way, TRCs + Needa + Gunnery Teams (instead of H-9s + Ordnance Experts) seems like a devastating combo, for 4 more points (depending on whether the 14 point initiative bid is a non-negotiable, or if a 10 point bid would work). Burn that Evade on long-range Gunnery Team shots in round 2 (milking +4 damage out of those two shots while you're at it), freeing up +1 blue die for next round when you enter medium range. If you use your own Intel Officer to burn something (or get help from an opponent's Intel Officer), you could have 3-4 extra blue dice in short order.

So, um, yeah... this has been fun.

Haha, I totally agree but! The point was to try and make devastator work (sorta) I personally run screed/Ozzel all Tue time with APT raiders(which are beasts) just want to make something different

I don't see how devastator can work for the points cost vs other options. Brave to try though!

I think maybe the 2 GSD projection experts list in conjunction with Vader and Devastator might be tactically more viable?

basically send the ISD in full steam ahead with trailing GSD and let the tokens burn out naturally, as the fight develops your forward firepower will increase naturally and you can spam Navigate commands to bring that arc to bear while the GSDs feed you shields?

I think the Vader + multiple ships combo is the way to go. Four Raiders allows some nice deployment/activation shenanigans.

Just a couple of questions, about things that made me do a double-take:

• I'm not immediately seeing the point of Mauler without Chiraneau/intel ship, and swapping him for two more TIEs would only drop your initiative bid from 14 to 13 (which seems plenty large to me, though perhaps not in your local meta?). Dropping the two Raider titles would allow a fourth TIE, which is another deployment buffer to delay setting out your ISD until the last possible moment.
• I'm not seeing the benefit of the H-9 when you already have Intel Officer and will be rolling 4+ blue dice with multiple rerolls from Vader and Leading Shots. It seems like the ship has multiple ways to get accuracy results/deal with opposing defense tokens without the H-9s, and no particular trigger for the H-9 to work off of (like Warlord)
• I don't know if taking Ordnance Experts over Gunnery Teams is going to net more overall damage (triple-rerolls on blacks vs. potentially two front-arc shots per round, with fewer rerolls), especially since you already have Vader and Leading Shots to fish for damage. But that's probably just me. And rerolling blacks three times sounds pretty sweet.
• If you're looking to burn a token in a less... um... controversial way, TRCs + Needa + Gunnery Teams (instead of H-9s + Ordnance Experts) seems like a devastating combo, for 4 more points (depending on whether the 14 point initiative bid is a non-negotiable, or if a 10 point bid would work). Burn that Evade on long-range Gunnery Team shots in round 2 (milking +4 damage out of those two shots while you're at it), freeing up +1 blue die for next round when you enter medium range. If you use your own Intel Officer to burn something (or get help from an opponent's Intel Officer), you could have 3-4 extra blue dice in short order.

So, um, yeah... this has been fun.

So the reason I'm bringing mauler is tht he has a scatter token. Basically I am useing howl and mauler to tie down enemy fighters so my raiders can tear them up

Also I am against using trc to discard 1 token and make 9 points useless the rest of the game and I really like Intel officer (I due intend to use Intel on the enemy after all)

Your other points are entirely valid and l have no argument against them

I'm Drasignata on this one.

EDIT: Was just joking around guys. No disrespect meant. Sorry

I think the Vader + multiple ships combo is the way to go. Four Raiders allows some nice deployment/activation shenanigans.

Just a couple of questions, about things that made me do a double-take:

• I'm not immediately seeing the point of Mauler without Chiraneau/intel ship, and swapping him for two more TIEs would only drop your initiative bid from 14 to 13 (which seems plenty large to me, though perhaps not in your local meta?). Dropping the two Raider titles would allow a fourth TIE, which is another deployment buffer to delay setting out your ISD until the last possible moment.
• I'm not seeing the benefit of the H-9 when you already have Intel Officer and will be rolling 4+ blue dice with multiple rerolls from Vader and Leading Shots. It seems like the ship has multiple ways to get accuracy results/deal with opposing defense tokens without the H-9s, and no particular trigger for the H-9 to work off of (like Warlord)
• I don't know if taking Ordnance Experts over Gunnery Teams is going to net more overall damage (triple-rerolls on blacks vs. potentially two front-arc shots per round, with fewer rerolls), especially since you already have Vader and Leading Shots to fish for damage. But that's probably just me. And rerolling blacks three times sounds pretty sweet.
• If you're looking to burn a token in a less... um... controversial way, TRCs + Needa + Gunnery Teams (instead of H-9s + Ordnance Experts) seems like a devastating combo, for 4 more points (depending on whether the 14 point initiative bid is a non-negotiable, or if a 10 point bid would work). Burn that Evade on long-range Gunnery Team shots in round 2 (milking +4 damage out of those two shots while you're at it), freeing up +1 blue die for next round when you enter medium range. If you use your own Intel Officer to burn something (or get help from an opponent's Intel Officer), you could have 3-4 extra blue dice in short order.

So, um, yeah... this has been fun.

GREAT POINTS!

So the reason I'm bringing mauler is tht he has a scatter token. Basically I am useing howl and mauler to tie down enemy fighters so my raiders can tear them up

Also I am against using trc to discard 1 token and make 9 points useless the rest of the game and I really like Intel officer (I due intend to use Intel on the enemy after all)

Your other points are entirely valid and l have no argument against them

I was wondering if the scatter was the reason. Makes total sense.

I hadn't thought of burning 9 points... yeah... that's pretty steep. The dark side must have blinded me in my desire to burn as much as possible.

[never mind

Personally, just going by the card text, I would have to say you can target your own tokens. There is nothing in the rules that would prevent this and the card text does not specify enemy/other ship.

With that said though, I do agree that this was most likely not the intent of the card. But without a FFG ruling, I see no way to say this is illegal from a rules standpoint.

Yeah, after rereading what I said, I realized it came off much harsher than it was supposed to. It was edited in turn. It was supposed to be a crack at the slippery slope RAW can be, but I came off sounding like a jerk. My actual point of view on this is still with Drasignata though. I think its pretty clear what they intended here and I know you can go back and forth on all of these arguments. Personally, doing RAW things like this has to be up to your gut feeling and what you consider to be sportsmanship. I wouldn't pull something like that unless A) I thought the opponent was a power playing butthole and it was a close game or B) I was at a high-level tourney and I had a FFG judge right there to arbitrate. Take that with what you will. Personally, the point is moot for me because at 10 points, I would rather just buy something else (and Avenger is so much more of a bargain and less ambiguous).

Logic dictates Intell officer cannot be used on your own ship as the silly fairy dust hope runs dry quick on at one. It is just plain simple logic that it was never in a million years intended that way, but then again we Americans are all now regarded as "a well regulated militia" so intent is clearly not the banner of logic but whether or not you believe it.

So believe on. Sometimes things are gust as simple as they appear any all the reading into won't change it.

But nice try. However, if your friends are cool with you doing that and you feel cool with doing that, by all means do it. You house p, your friends, your rules mate. It is your world, we are just living in it. Out

However, per the text of the card:

"While attacking, after you roll your attack pool, you may exhaust this card to choose 1 defense token. If that token is spent during this attack, discard that token."

It's never specifically stated that the token has to be the target's token.

Now if it were worded this way:

"While attacking, after you roll your attack pool, you may exhaust this card to choose 1 of the defender's defense tokens. If that token is spent during this attack, discard that token."

There would be no argument.

Logic dictates Intell officer cannot be used on your own ship as the silly fairy dust hope runs dry quick on at one. It is just plain simple logic that it was never in a million years intended that way, but then again we Americans are all now regarded as "a well regulated militia" so intent is clearly not the banner of logic but whether or not you believe it.

So believe on. Sometimes things are gust as simple as they appear any all the reading into won't change it.

But nice try. However, if your friends are cool with you doing that and you feel cool with doing that, by all means do it. You house p, your friends, your rules mate. It is your world, we are just living in it. Out

How... is any of that relevant or logical?

I don't think he quite processes that stating (obliquely) that he knows the intent of the developers is not a logical assertion. It would require the capacity to read minds, and then demonstrate that the information gained by doing so were accurate and factual, which in itself is about as fairy dust as an idea gets.

Is there some degree of probability that the intent he posits is correct? Of course. But it is not, at this moment, a certainty.

Now if he were, perhaps, to ask them, and then copy and report said response here, then we would indeed know the intent of the writers as they would have stated their intent in said response and clarification. Which is an entirely logical, rational course of action.

As far as the veiled pro-gun/anti-gun argument and condescension in his tone are concerned, all I can say is , don't come here if you can't be polite, and leave your political views at the door.

And for the last time we don't know the designers intention, but based on their product it is safe to say the are not gimmicky retards who plan on putting text on cards for stuff not even under development at the time.

My god take a step back and realize how completely asinine this entire concept is: using your Intel officer to trigger you own ship's defenses so something else can trigger.

FOR THE BLOODY THE LAST TIME... IT IS NOT MAGIC THE GATHERING. If you want that type of gimmicky game play magic not a game clearly design to be a more rational and straight forward game.

You can argue your silly, fairy dust gimmick until you are blue in the face, but you'll going to find people will not only laugh at your silly attempt using it, but more importantly they will question your sportsmanship, rational, and coolness as a human being. Do you want that?

Of course, you are so dug in right now that the idea of moving on is impossible due to the theory of cognitive dissonance. Your mind is telling you right now that you are a ration human being and to maintain your self esteem as a rational human being you must continue down this path. As people get more invested in whatever cause they tend to HAVE to believe in, any change course creates conflict in the brain and the human brain works hard to avoid thinking that we make mistakes...that we are irrational. That is why the conspiracy theorists evolve to believe greater and greater conspiracies because it reinforces their other conspiraciesl. The start forgetting that some of their crazy ideas would require hundreds of people keeping secrets--people don't do that well, especially when it comes to issues involving morality. I got this guy I know who has evolved to the level he thinks the American Government took down the World Trade Center, not realizing how completely irational such things are due to the scope, size, and penalty for getting caught. I am not saying your is type of person, just saying that the entrenched views become more difficult to abandon than you might think, and reason against them, no matter how clever, are not going to change your mind until you start to understand the human brain better.

Key one: be excellent to one another. You pull this cheesy interpretation out you lose respect

Key two: remember the card is meant to be used on opponents' ships because this is not magic the gathering.

Key 3: even if the intent of the designers was to allow this silly mechanism, for Pete's sake, don't use it until some other person says it is ok because at the current state it defies rational. They are never going to have the cards printed in a way to prevent all this sort of stuff in the future. And thank goodness, because I think we have enough darn text on the cards already. These are not contracts being written. They are short and sweat upgrades.

I will no longer engage with you on this point as you are proud of this sneaky, bend the rules tomfoolery you have discovered and you're not about to let it go until the powers that be step in and say sorry we didn't plan years in advance for all eventualities and absurb interpretations that run counter intuitive to the natural logic of what a card is suppose to be used for.

Maybe they will release two sided upgrade just for certain people to pick up or forget the picture on the top to squeeze in some more text. In all seriousness, it would be nice if they sent some examples in the ship packs of the upgrades and any possible clarifications needed. Simple piece of cardboard the size of the capital ship card with examples and explanations front and back.

We already spend way too much time on the web attempting to determine the intentions of the designers because the rules are so poorly written. They included so few examples. They attempt to make the shortest rule books ever in an attempt to make the game look simplier than it is and thus require hours of looking up the one sentence in another section which finally divines or tells you their intent. The sheer number of questions prove the rules are terrible. Should have been an extra 6-10 pages in the rule book for more examples and adding to the content of sections even though one sentence elsewhere eludes or defines the intent. As a reviewer of textbooks in the past, and a gamer who has a massive game room and hundreds of games, I can honestly attest that the Armada rules are the single worst rules ever created that I have came across.

Their mistake has not resulted into this sort of ridiculous rabbit hole though processes as well.

This is someone, not cheating per se, but being a be poor sport and certainly not cool.

****And the political point is used as an analogy. Don't think similes and apologies; can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Get out of the aurguing business and leave it to the big boys and girls. It was used to point out that some people will distort any text to their will. I am a conservative, but it is fact the framers never saw it that way based on Hamiton's writing which were practically the entire foundation of the constitution. That line didn't get perverted--something you are attempting here in this post--until many year later when big money got involved in the gun business. The rise of urbanization out of an agrarian culture due to fossil fuel energy leading the industrial revolution lead to gang violence etc. in burgeoning cites that required the "right" to be cannonized during an intense period of laissez-faire ruling ps to help big business grown the country and economy at all costs. The constitution was written when people on their lands needed guns for hunting. Clearly people are not a "militia", well again unless you want them to be because your aurgument only works if they are percerted into be call so. Guns back then meant food. So the political analogy holds and is valid. I even own and shoot guns, but I am well read enough so I know that is not a "real" constitutional right but a right bestowed upon us during the long, long period of conservative Supreme Court justices in the period of the mid to late 1800s--actually until the progressive movement occurred in to the 1920s and 1930s. Just because I am also a conservative, doesn't also mean that I can't call a spade a spade, and not use false aurgument to divine and justify my rights. And when you act like a kid, you get talked to as one, because that is all you understand when you pull the, "But we don't know the designer's intent card" out of your rabbit hat waving it proud as an excuse to prevent rules and rational. You must be shown the error of your ways, because to you only forceful points, in your face types of aurgements, have any chance of sinking into the entrench position you have fortified yourself in. Your whining like a kid because someone is attempting to take one of your toys away. It is just a game, don't lose people to play with over such a childish position and air of indignity for common sense just because you want to play it that way. Just find something else to use that is honorable instead of devious and a perversion.

I'd gladly allow this - feel free to drop all your defense tokens! In fact, I'll let you start the game without any at all. A couple of blue dice are nice but watching your opponent's clever strategy go belly-up when a big roll comes up with just enough accuracies to make an ISD go up in flames? Priceless.

I'd gladly allow this - feel free to drop all your defense tokens! In fact, I'll let you start the game without any at all. A couple of blue dice are nice but watching your opponent's clever strategy go belly-up when a big roll comes up with just enough accuracies to make an ISD go up in flames? Priceless.

I think this is how I feel about the "burn the tokens" strategy, too. It seems to me that Devastator can be played either one of two ways:

1. Focus-insurance. In a world of NK-7s, Nym, cheap Overload Pulse platforms, Intel Officer, and higher damage totals, it seems like double-spending/losing/nuking/self-sacrificing defense tokens is going to happen a lot. I mean, goodness, the Rebels have a crew slot upgrade that's basically built to provide a one-time respite from exactly this circumstance. In every circumstance I was aware of (well, prior to today), the only way you could lose defense tokens was from being focused down: two MC-80s pelt an ISD with Ackbar-broadsides, for 8-11 damage apiece, so you brace twice, because you kind of have to, right? Goodbye brace token. Cards like Intel Officer, Nym, etc. only hasten the loss. Devastator offers some sort of disincentive for doing that. I don't know that the disincentive is strong enough to outweigh the advantage ("I'll trade your brace and two redirects for one shot of +3 dice from medium range before I boogie out of here..."), or to justify its extremely high cost (10 points for a once-per-round benefit, however incredible, is a lot), but it's a disincentive. If I'm going to be focused down, I'm going to get something out of it.
2. Aggressive damage platform. At optimal range, an ISD with Devastator's full power can fire 14 dice (8 normal + 4 from Devastator + 1 from a CF dial + 1 from Slaved Turrets; +2 more if you're playing Opening Salvo). I think that's the highest total in the game (edging out an Ackbar-captained MC-80 Defiance with Slaved Turrets and a CF dial, which I believe has 11, +2 if playing Opening Salvo). But I worry about the durability of that sort of a ship, especially without tokens (and if it goes down quickly, what sort of return on investment I got on the 4% of my fleet points I spent on the title).

That makes me intrigued by Hastatior's suggestion of Projection Experts, as perhaps a way to keep the weapons platform alive. I can't seem to get that sort of a list to a place where I like its offensive firepower outside of Devastator, but that's probably just me.

I'd gladly allow this - feel free to drop all your defense tokens! In fact, I'll let you start the game without any at all. A couple of blue dice are nice but watching your opponent's clever strategy go belly-up when a big roll comes up with just enough accuracies to make an ISD go up in flames? Priceless.

I think this is how I feel about the "burn the tokens" strategy, too. It seems to me that Devastator can be played either one of two ways:

• Focus-insurance. In a world of NK-7s, Nym, cheap Overload Pulse platforms, Intel Officer, and higher damage totals, it seems like double-spending/losing/nuking/self-sacrificing defense tokens is going to happen a lot. I mean, goodness, the Rebels have a crew slot upgrade that's basically built to provide a one-time respite from exactly this circumstance. In every circumstance I was aware of (well, prior to today), the only way you could lose defense tokens was from being focused down: two MC-80s pelt an ISD with Ackbar-broadsides, for 8-11 damage apiece, so you brace twice, because you kind of have to, right? Goodbye brace token. Cards like Intel Officer, Nym, etc. only hasten the loss. Devastator offers some sort of disincentive for doing that. I don't know that the disincentive is strong enough to outweigh the advantage ("I'll trade your brace and two redirects for one shot of +3 dice from medium range before I boogie out of here..."), or to justify its extremely high cost (10 points for a once-per-round benefit, however incredible, is a lot), but it's a disincentive. If I'm going to be focused down, I'm going to get something out of it.
• Aggressive damage platform. At optimal range, an ISD with Devastator's full power can fire 14 dice (8 normal + 4 from Devastator + 1 from a CF dial + 1 from Slaved Turrets; +2 more if you're playing Opening Salvo). I think that's the highest total in the game (edging out an Ackbar-captained MC-80 Defiance with Slaved Turrets and a CF dial, which I believe has 11, +2 if playing Opening Salvo). But I worry about the durability of that sort of a ship, especially without tokens (and if it goes down quickly, what sort of return on investment I got on the 4% of my fleet points I spent on the title).

That makes me intrigued by Hastatior's suggestion of Projection Experts, as perhaps a way to keep the weapons platform alive. I can't seem to get that sort of a list to a place where I like its offensive firepower outside of Devastator, but that's probably just me.

Another candidate for dice is a Victory 1 + Dominator/Expanded Launchers/Slaved Turrets/CF Dial. 12?

As for Intel, I think I'd rather toss the tokens myself when I'm attacked. But I don't see an issue with it. Star Wars (and Sci-Fi) is filled with characters who pull weird/crazy stunts in the heat of battle which risk destroying their ships but ultimately allow them to win against incredible odds.

For those against using the Intel officer like this, would you have problems if the raiders instead fired on the ISD turn 1 to discard the tokens? Assuming it's not your flagship, what's more imperial than risking or killing your men to better kill rebels?

Another candidate for dice is a Victory 1 + Dominator/Expanded Launchers/Slaved Turrets/CF Dial. 12?

Yes, I believe that's correct, it is 12. Nice catch!

I kinda want to make a gimmick list with that victory just for kicks

"Because the develops count on us be rational human beings and not Rogues who will bend things to their will."

Rather than post a page and a half rant about magic the gathering and the second amendment to use the above line to try and support ignoring the text of a card, forgetting how similar text works in other cards in this game and it's sister game, and forcing a house rule based on guessing that the intent of the designers was not to let people use a card in a way I don't want them to use it..

Because the developers count on us to be rational human beings and not Rogues who will bend things to their will, using the card as it is presented is the logical and rational path. Simple math would show it still won't make a devastator ISD as good as one with the other 2 titles, so it's not going to imbalance anything either way. Maybe this wasn't something they thought of when they made the card (very likely), and maybe they will errata it. Maybe they like seeing a creative if relatively ineffectual new slant on it. Maybe they will get so mad they cancel the entire Armada line. Until they do something, the practical and rational path is to use the card as it is presented, and not act like a Rogue trying to unofficially change what the card says to bend things to your will.