So thinking up some card abilities that would work as counters to Palpatine, and came up with the below options for a Yoda Crew card. Part of the challenge is something that works against Palp but can be used against other lists, too. Admittedly, some of these may be broken -- which ones are viable and what should they cost.

Yoda (Crew, Rebel only, ?? Points)

1. Once per round, when attacking or defending, after your opponent modifies dice, you may change one die back to its original facing. (This one is a direct counter, but works against focus and target locks, too.)

2. Once per round during the combat phase, when your opponent uses an ability on an upgrade card, you may cancel the use of that upgrade. If the ability required the card to be discarded, it is not discarded. (Do, or do not, there is no try. Probably over powered, so ...)

3. When your opponent uses an ability on an equipped upgrade card, you may discard this card to cancel that use. If the use required the upgrade to be discarded, it is retained.

4. Once per round, when your opponent uses a pilot ability, you may negate the use of that ability. (Not a direct counter, but counter-thinking. Almost certainly broken as written, so ...)

5. When your opponent uses a pilot ability, you may discard this card to negate the use of that ability.

6. At the start of the first round, discard this card to select one of your opponent's upgrade cards. The opponent must immediately discard that card.

7. Once per round while attacking or defending, if your opponent modifies a die without spending a token, you may also change one of your dice to any result. (Mine! Or I will help you not!)

8. When the ship equipped with this card is destroyed, select one of your opponent's upgrade cards. Your opponent must immediately discard that card. (Yoda takes one of your toys with him to exile on Dagobah.)

Let's find a lore-appropriate Yoda crew. Here are a few possibilities:

1 - At the beginning of the game, before deployment, look at your opponent's dials. Then discard this card. (the force is clouded and Yoda can't see squat)

2 - The first time Palpatine modifies a die, discard this card and throw it in the nearest swamp.

3 - When a ship that includes Luke Skywalker would be destroyed, discard this card to remove damage cards until the total number of damage cards assigned to that ship are one fewer than the printed hull value (this one actually has a use).

It would be far, far better to just errata Palp than to publish abilities which 1-up him.

It would be far, far better to just errata Palp than to publish abilities which 1-up him.

Or even better, teach all those people decrying him, to kill him first.

WTF!!! FFG has ALREADY released a ANTI-Palpatine card!!!

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/2/26/boba-fett/

Designed by none other than Paul Heaver, and it is GREAT!!!

IMO, any counter card should be aimed at dice modification and not removing other card's specific abilities. Leaving it open to target card or pilot abilities can lead to too much complication and balance issues. Plus, half of the fun of the game is in the unique abilities and FFG should be very careful to do anything that takes that away.

All that is needed is a few abilities similar to Omega Leaders that are worded in such a way to state that the attacker and/or defenders dice can be modified in no way, but any card (I won't wordsmith it here, but it just needs to cover Palpatine use). Make expensive and/or restricted so that it doesn't become commonplace, but so that it serves as a hard counter to Palpatine.

Maybe a one use upgrade that prevents any ship attacking you or defending from your attacks that round to have any of their dice modified (by you or them). Kind of a reversed and more powerful Glitterstim. Maybe make it 2-3 points.

It needn't be a counter specific to Palpatine.

Imagine a card which says that "Enemy ships [defined in a specific way*] may not [benefit from**] the pilot abilities or upgrade cards of other friendly ships."

This is more than just an anti-palpatine card - someone so affected (depending on the duration, timing and how you 'aim' it) cannot benefit from everything from Manaroo passing tokens, Jan Ors letting you evade instead of focus, Etahn giving you free criticals, Palpatine playing dice ju-ju, Jonus or Howlrunner's rerolls, Blount handing out free target locks, etc, etc.

Given the way his ability is worded, it might even allow you to ignore Biggs, too.

* In my arc, within range 1 of me, target locked by me, touching me, discard this card to nominate one, whatever.

** Define the wording of 'benefit' carefully, obviously. Receive Dice modification? Tokens? Free Actions?

Imperial assault just released a card in the Lando pack called "tough luck". It removed a die that has been rerolled. Hilariously awesome ability! I could see something like that in X-Wing:

2 points Lando: Discard this card, remove one modified attack die from combat. "Tough luck, kid"

An upgrade specifically designed to counter another upgrade is never, ever, a good idea.

If that card proves useless other than countering that specific card, then its a gamble if its worth it or not on BOTH ends. Even if Yoda is worth more than palp that is extremely unfair to 100% negate his ability automatically.

If that card is good in general, then it dominates as the other card completely vanishes.

I think a card that acts like crack shot but is not discarded upon use, but must meet an in game requirement that often occurs with Palp ace players, Uboats and Dengaroo to trigger would be great. Here is my idea-

Exploit , elite , 1 pt-

"When attacking a ship in your firing arc,

at the compare results step, you may

cancel 1 evade result per stress token

assigned to the defender."

While not all Palp Aces are PTL variants, almost all Palp ace lists have at least 1 vital ship that is. Even Yorr, who can sap the stress, will have any evades rolled canceled and should burn down quickly. And if we are just being perfectly honest, there is way too much PTL in this game as is. Even if not a direct counter to Palpatine, a card that penalizes the most overused EPT in the history of the game would be welcomed.

Uboats, now that they primarily run OC agro, will have stress as well fairly often. This card works well against them as they tack on stress to keep their focuses.

And finally, Dengaroo also fears this card. Whether it is Dengar, who will have 0 evades each shot due to his massive pile of stress, or Roo who will often be PTLing if you are chasing her, will also lose an evade result.

While 1 pt may seem a bit cheap with how strong it is against the lists listed, remember that outside of these top tier lists, the triggers are minimal against many other list types, particularly those that are currently struggling, like jousters, who are usually not dependent on self stressing upgrades. Also, some may say it's a bit too powerful in combination with flechette weapons. That could prove true, but considering we see them very rarely as is, I think they need something like this to see the table.

I'm not even going to read the suggestions, I'm just going to say that the designers have been pretty clear in stating that Palpatine as a character is incredibly powerful and wanted to express that in his card. There is no chance in hell they are ever going to produce a counter to him - he costs 8 points and two crew slots for crying out loud! His fierce personality and unmatched power in both rule and the Force are what make him such a compelling and fearsome character. The point is that, thematically, there was no counter toward Palpatine; it took two Skywalkers to defeat him in the end.

Palpatine doesn't need to be nerfed, a card doesn't need to be produced to counter him, and he is not OP. If you haven't figured out that multiple shots on the same target render Palpatine almost unnoticeable, then, to put it bluntly, aren't playing the game to the best ability.

...

Palpatine doesn't need to be nerfed, a card doesn't need to be produced to counter him, and he is not OP. If you haven't figured out that multiple shots on the same target render Palpatine almost unnoticeable, then, to put it bluntly, aren't playing the game to the best ability.

Oddly enough thats the general consensus about C3P0 vanishing: he only really works once but when focus fired he doesnt do much.

Yet people dont think that about palp for some reason, and even weirder still they INCLUDE him in various vacuum comparisons. Unless its a deci in a vacuum, you cant factor him in a 1on1 comparison because guess what thats not 1on1 thats 2on1!

I'm not even going to read the suggestions, I'm just going to say that the designers have been pretty clear in stating that Palpatine as a character is incredibly powerful and wanted to express that in his card. There is no chance in hell they are ever going to produce a counter to him - he costs 8 points and two crew slots for crying out loud! His fierce personality and unmatched power in both rule and the Force are what make him such a compelling and fearsome character. The point is that, thematically, there was no counter toward Palpatine; it took two Skywalkers to defeat him in the end.

Palpatine doesn't need to be nerfed, a card doesn't need to be produced to counter him, and he is not OP. If you haven't figured out that multiple shots on the same target render Palpatine almost unnoticeable, then, to put it bluntly, aren't playing the game to the best ability.

So all you need to do is get multiple guns on the best arcdodgers in the game, all that the same time? Why didn't I think of that?

Oh wait, I did, it's incredibly obvious, and very easy to say, but not exactly the easiest thing to do.

Of course Palp gets worse the more shots you get on soontir. But unless you have multiple turrets, or you're at range 3 of him, or you can manage to bump him, chances of >2 guns on him without beating his PS and just playing aces yourself, is minimal. And in most of those situations, he gets additional passive dice mods from autothrusters, so with minimal dice luck he can end up tanking two or three shots by himself anyway.

Talking about the least trivial part of fighting palp/aces as if it's trivial doesn't really help the discussion.

After all, to win, all you need to do is shoot the other guy without him shooting you.

Is that easy? Now that you know that key tactic, you're clearly going to go win Worlds, right? I look forward to seeing your trophy

Woah now, if we counter palpatine and imperils go down to less than 50% of top lists we'll have to hear about how OP rebels are, let's not rock the boat too much dude.

Since when is a Lambda one of the best arc dodgers in the game?

if you need inspiration for anti-ace stuff, take a page from scum and then modify the trigger to be less scum and more rebel

example:

Coordinator - 1 point, EPT

Rebel Only

When another friendly ship is attacking, if the defender is at range 1-3 and inside your firing arc as well as at range 1-3 and inside the firing arc the attacker, you may choose and discard one of the defender's focus or evade tokens before the "Modify Dice Step".

Since when is a Lambda one of the best arc dodgers in the game?

"Of course palp gets worse the more shots you get on Soontir "...

thats why you spearhead the lambda first. It cannot get away, even if it goes "full speed" its moving at basically half speed compared to everything else except bwings lol.

Move in like youre going for the ace then cut for the lambda. Caught many people off guard with that trick as i flew right by the two aces and they couldnt regain arc on me.

if you need inspiration for anti-ace stuff, take a page from scum and then modify the trigger to be less scum and more rebel

example:

Coordinator - 1 point, EPT

Rebel Only

When another friendly ship is attacking, if the defender is at range 1-3 and inside your firing arc as well as at range 1-3 and inside the firing arc the attacker, you may choose and discard one of the defender's focus or evade tokens before the "Modify Dice Step".

Make it a crew card and save the b wing

if you need inspiration for anti-ace stuff, take a page from scum and then modify the trigger to be less scum and more rebel

example:

Coordinator - 1 point, EPT

Rebel Only

When another friendly ship is attacking, if the defender is at range 1-3 and inside your firing arc as well as at range 1-3 and inside the firing arc the attacker, you may choose and discard one of the defender's focus or evade tokens before the "Modify Dice Step".

Make it a crew card and save the b wing

not going to save them from TLTs

saves em from torpscouts, though. You run two daggers and something else (green squaddie crackshot adaptability thrusters?) with a Coordinator Wes Jenson and, if you position well enough, you'll see exactly 0 torps fired

Theorist over at Team Covenant had a great card ability idea. It doesnt really touch Palp at all and lets Palp do his thang, but cripples so called "arc dodgers" for not dodging arcs.

He called it Dogfighter title for small ships only

"After defending, if the enemy ship is in your arc, you may remove up to 2 focus tokens and assign 1 of those to yourself."

So now arc dodgers better dodge those arcs or else jousters are gonna **** you up. Palp and your evade token can save two hits, but the rest are getting through.

I thought this was a great idea to help bring back bwings, xwings, even Khiraxs, and is not a direct nerf to Palp Aces, only penalizes arc dodgers for not flying properly.

Theorist over at Team Covenant had a great card ability idea. It doesnt really touch Palp at all and lets Palp do his thang, but cripples so called "arc dodgers" for not dodging arcs.

He called it Dogfighter title for small ships only

"After defending, if the enemy ship is in your arc, you may remove up to 2 focus tokens and assign 1 of those to yourself."

So now arc dodgers better dodge those arcs or else jousters are gonna **** you up. Palp and your evade token can save two hits, but the rest are getting through.

I thought this was a great idea to help bring back bwings, xwings, even Khiraxs, and is not a direct nerf to Palp Aces, only penalizes arc dodgers for not flying properly.

That's actually a really good idea. It could almost get jousters back into the game, if it weren't for one thing--U-boats. They'll still stomp on you since you're not stealing their tokens until after they shoot. But I am having trouble thinking of a place where that title would be overpowered, which is a good sign.

On the other hand, titles that can go on anyone don't really fix the old problems; i.e, it's still better to take a TLT warthog as a jouster than it is to take an X-Wing. Existing imbalances will still have to be addressed separately.

The cure to Palp Aces, I think, is anti-ace tech. Yes, that's treating the symptoms rather than the cause; but more hard counters to aces that Palp can't deal with will make flying those lists a riskier proposition, and will do so without creating power creep (if you buff jousters too much, they'll need a nerf before too long).

Anti ace tech IS anti palp as palp can't do anything about them specifically

And I ain't talking prox mines

Guaranteed damage and Autoblasters do curbstomp palp.

Hell, after inventing my warden double conners aSLAM list (on TLt Miranda; Biggs for escort) palp aces have almost felt like a joke

But the problem with guaranteed damage is the jm5ks waiting on the other side of the meta.

Dengaroo isn't really that bad because it's only 9 health to go through. Triple scouts, though? 27

As much as aces feel like a joke to my Ks, my Ks feel like a joke to torp scouts. The dice damage output of a Conner K is utterly abysmal (sometimes literally nonexistent; SLAM), Biggs only gets a focused 3 dice primary and Miranda does two damage max

I'm not even going to read the suggestions, I'm just going to say that the designers have been pretty clear in stating that Palpatine as a character is incredibly powerful and wanted to express that in his card. There is no chance in hell they are ever going to produce a counter to him - he costs 8 points and two crew slots for crying out loud! His fierce personality and unmatched power in both rule and the Force are what make him such a compelling and fearsome character. The point is that, thematically, there was no counter toward Palpatine; it took two Skywalkers to defeat him in the end.

Palpatine doesn't need to be nerfed, a card doesn't need to be produced to counter him, and he is not OP. If you haven't figured out that multiple shots on the same target render Palpatine almost unnoticeable, then, to put it bluntly, aren't playing the game to the best ability.

So all you need to do is get multiple guns on the best arcdodgers in the game, all that the same time? Why didn't I think of that?

Oh wait, I did, it's incredibly obvious, and very easy to say, but not exactly the easiest thing to do.

Of course Palp gets worse the more shots you get on soontir. But unless you have multiple turrets, or you're at range 3 of him, or you can manage to bump him, chances of >2 guns on him without beating his PS and just playing aces yourself, is minimal. And in most of those situations, he gets additional passive dice mods from autothrusters, so with minimal dice luck he can end up tanking two or three shots by himself anyway.

Talking about the least trivial part of fighting palp/aces as if it's trivial doesn't really help the discussion.

After all, to win, all you need to do is shoot the other guy without him shooting you.

Is that easy? Now that you know that key tactic, you're clearly going to go win Worlds, right? I look forward to seeing your trophy

The salt is so strong, someone get this guy some water.

Yes, the only way to beat Soontir/Palp is to get multiple shots on him, block him, or take the shuttle out to make it slightly easier. Is it supposed to be easy? No, that's the high PS arc-dodgers game. Can you make those situations happen? Absolutely, and they do happen all the time. If you can't make it happen and your instinct is to throw everything to the side and say "this needs a fix," well then I'll reiterate what I said - either the list can't handle arc-dodgers or you aren't playing it to the best ability.

That's the wall, brother!