Valen Rudon is I N S A N E!!!! 3 black dices?! Three?! For only 14 points? With one roll he can wipe out literally any squadrons... And if it has a wingmate you can't even attack him?Now the Imps have the Rhymerball AND this indestructible killing machine. Bringing squadrons against Imps has no point any more...
Definitely not LITERALLY wipe out...
Well yeah, heroes may have scatter tokens... 
Yeah just to be clear, everyone: Valen exists to mess up generic squadrons. He's a bully. He picks on weaker guys. He doesn't like going up against aces. He's gonna be great, but tamp it down just a tad, haha.
Yeah at best it would take him three turns to kill wedge
OK maybe I overreacted. A bit. I still think he's insanely powerful for such few points...
Valen Rudon is I N S A N E!!!! 3 black dices?! Three?! For only 14 points? With one roll he can wipe out literally any squadrons... And if it has a wingmate you can't even attack him?Now the Imps have the Rhymerball AND this indestructible killing machine. Bringing squadrons against Imps has no point any more...
Except, y'know, Criticals don't count (so he's only doing 3 damage at best)...
And you can still Scatter / brace it to your hearts delight, as there's no Accuracy involved...
And by the time you have Rhymer, Jonus, Howlrunner, Dengar, Mauler, Valen and Vader, you have no points left...
Just end reading article. Jonus is my favour. He will be must have sidemate to Demo.
Second on the list is Numb aka "bomber mauler" for poor people. Hd is funny and very situational but have some edge.
On third place is Lady Bey with mad crit counter
CC is a nice addition to armada squadrons.
Yeah just to be clear, everyone: Valen exists to mess up generic squadrons. He's a bully. He picks on weaker guys. He doesn't like going up against aces. He's gonna be great, but tamp it down just a tad, haha.
Sounds perfectly Imperial To me.
Calls himself an "Ace"
Specialises in mugging and beating up those "lesser" than him.
Completely off the **** useless against his "Equals"
Spends most of his defensive time hiding behind everyone else.
Yeah at best it would take him three turns to kill wedge
Probably nearer 4... once Biggs start laughing in his face.
When I read the first section of the article, I did think, "good luck making a veteran Wedge", and then I saw Biggs. Rieekan Zombie escorts just became even more amusing.
Valen Rudon is I N S A N E!!!! 3 black dices?! Three?! For only 14 points? With one roll he can wipe out literally any squadrons... And if it has a wingmate you can't even attack him?Now the Imps have the Rhymerball AND this indestructible killing machine. Bringing squadrons against Imps has no point any more...
TROLOLOLOL!!!!
This reminded me of a great troll post I read back in classical vanilla WoW days about 'locks pewpewing some guys face with purple beamz. (you had to be there I guess)
And by the time you have Rhymer, Jonus, Howlrunner, Dengar, Mauler, Valen and Vader, you have no points left...Valen Rudon is I N S A N E!!!! 3 black dices?! Three?! For only 14 points? With one roll he can wipe out literally any squadrons... And if it has a wingmate you can't even attack him?Now the Imps have the Rhymerball AND this indestructible killing machine. Bringing squadrons against Imps has no point any more...
Except, y'know, Criticals don't count (so he's only doing 3 damage at best)...
And you can still Scatter / brace it to your hearts delight, as there's no Accuracy involved...
Hello, my name is Agent Kallus, and I'm a ruthless strategist. I also have this friend called Mithel. Day goodbye overpriced ace squids.
Veteran Wedge is easy.
Non-scarred Veteran Wedge is not.
Yeah just to be clear, everyone: Valen exists to mess up generic squadrons. He's a bully. He picks on weaker guys. He doesn't like going up against aces. He's gonna be great, but tamp it down just a tad, haha.
Sounds perfectly Imperial To me.
Calls himself an "Ace"
Specialises in mugging and beating up those "lesser" than him.
Completely off the **** useless against his "Equals"
Spends most of his defensive time hiding behind everyone else.
Valen and Bossk. What a pair.
Rhymer ball gets even more utility (not direct boost, I know). Jan/X ball gets even harder to kill.
FFG says: Remember when you guys said squadrons are useless? REMEMBER?!?
My only question is did FFG take my photo at some point for their official Biggs art, because that is uncanny.
omg. Shara Bey, Counter 3 WITH CRITS!!!
No one is going to shoot at her...like...ever.
Valen Killer combo, Jan Ors with an extra Hwk290 friend or two + a bunch of X-wings.
Those X-wings are going to jump from one position to another only being engaged with Valen every time they move and shoot.
A squad in this game is only truly OP if there are no counter at all against it, but somehow there is always some devious counter lurking somewhere in some players mind 
Although it can be
annoyingto see all the very powerful Imperial combos, I think it's very thematic. The Imperial fighters hit hard with lots of anti squadron dice, counter, combos, and scatters. On the other hand, Rebels are more defensive with abilities from Jan, Biggs, and generally more hull, just like the movies. After all, the Rebel fighters in the trench run were all about defense, while the Imperials attacked.
You misspelled awesome
The shara bey hype is way out way out of control
Edited by TirionI am a Rebel Player.
I believe all of these Imperial Options are awesome.
Even though they will cause me pain, and consternation, and hefty amounts of beard-scratching......
.. I will enjoy the challenge that comes from variety once again.
IG-88 disagreesomg. Shara Bey, Counter 3 WITH CRITS!!!
No one is going to shoot at her...like...ever.
Who's that? ^^
Tell me, am I the only one who wants to prod Mel into making a squadron of TIE vanguard miniatures for Jonus? Acting as a spotter plane is exactly what the TIE/vg was supposed to do.
Otherwise I feel the CC does more for the Rebels than the Empire. Shara Bey can shut down any squadron ball, Biggs makes your X-Wing swarms better, and Ten Numb combined with the fighter attack tricks (Yavaris, Adar Tallon) can clean up TIE swarms without even doing directed damage. Now there's even less reason to take generic TIE Fighters when facing this kind of setup.
On the other hand Mythics reminds me the Empire has a lot of auto-damage already, so this kind of evens the scales that the Rebels have been facing with the Imperial aces.
Out of the Empire's selection... I'm the most impressed with Saber Squadron. If the attack combinations work, Sabers hanging back by Howlrunner can help take out annoyances like Shara Bey and Jan Ors from a distance and ignore counter. Jonus is going to be the ONE squadron capital ships take to get that free accuracy... like a 16 point upgrade to automatically generate it and keep the turbolaser slot open. X-Wings can still take out Ciena without her scatter token.
Valen is particularly interesting and would be a good counter to Shara if he could find a way to generate accuracy. I take Counter to include attack, so he'd be one of the (only?) squadrons to ignore that keyword apart from IG-88. I think he'll be good in chipping away at Escorts as long as you have someone else getting shot at (like Bossk?).
I don't feel like any new strong fighter archetypes for the Empire are coming out of the CC pack. I start to think of building wide starting with Saber Squadron and Howlrunner, but with Ten Numb on the field (And a Yavaris with Tallon behind him, and Toyrn Farr in a BCC GR-75 beside that), 3-hull TIEs without scatter just aren't safe anymore. Instead, the Empire aces handed to us here just mix up the Ace squadron ball. If you're going Generic, you're still taking Rhymer with every Bomber/Firespray you can take in the list.
Though on that note, Jonus does nothing for the ball and Gamma Squadron can upgrade a TIE bomber squadron into an anchor that ignores the squadron it is engaging (so at least if your fighters are tied down, you are tying down a squadron in turn until Gammas are dead). Black Squadron is the best help for a Rhymerball I feel, since it's a cheap escort that has to be shot first. That will only take away one attack from Rhymer though.
All in all an interesting setup. It still doesn't motivate me much to start building Imperial fighters (at least until I decide to try out aces), but the Rebels have some interesting toys now for their squadron builds. I'm particularly interested to see how much damage Ten Numb can do against enemy squadrons, and how Shara is being used in games.
So is Kallus going to be an auto-include for Imperial lists now?
Imagine Kallus on a VSD with Warlord, Quad Turbolasers Turrets and Quad Turbolaser Cannons.... Obviously enemy squadrons would steer clear of you, but dang tho...
Tldr empire auto damage is auto damage..... Numb is not. In facts odds are it won't trigger..... By itself
So is Kallus going to be an auto-include for Imperial lists now?
Imagine Kallus on a VSD with Warlord, Quad Turbolasers Turrets and Quad Turbolaser Cannons.... Obviously enemy squadrons would steer clear of you, but dang tho...
...... Hide B-Wings in an Asteroid Field and Shoot at him with no return fire!