I am a newbie; love the game.

I have been making a list of which ships to add to the fleet and it seems I have been looking at the ships attributes too closely I feel. After looking at the Forum for the past few weeks, I suddenly understand that I need to not only look at ships and their stats, but I should look at the commanders that come within said Expansions that can be utilized on other faction ships. So who are the best commanders that are a must have? I've made a list...please ignore the first guy, he's a must-have regardless how good he is; and he's not good; he's real baaaaaaad:

All of the commanders have their place. Which is 'best' is very subjective and largely dependent on the fleet build you will be using. There are a few commanders that I think are not particularly good like Admiral Ozzel, and Garm Bel Iblis, but even those have builds that can take advantage of them. I don't think there are any 'must have' commanders out there (unless you have a particular fleet type you want to build), so personally, I would continue to focus on the ships that look fun to play. The commanders will come as a by product of that.

I have almost no experience in Imperials considering i havnt used them since they had more than Tarkin worth using lol. Nobody wants to play rebels (until now, finally got another rebel player) so i just keep playing them to avoid mirrors.

Tarkin is great if you have multiple command ships so they can stash tokens and something to spend them on. He quickly becomes useless if you dont have upgrades that burn tokens as its pretty easy to hang onto a Nav Token and Weapons token until you need it and somehow just never need it lol. I like Defense Liaisons myself, prevents people from messing with my dial when i need engineering and lets me quickly swap to engineering if im in a pickle.

Vader originally i thought was terrible until i learned "Spend" means flip it over if green, discard if red. I thought it was a straight up discard. Faced him after we learned that and dear god he makes high dice pools scary.

Mon Mothma is surprisingly great if you have evades on all your ships. I gave it to a friend for a tutorial game since shes simple and i was rather surprised at how annoying she was lol.

Dodonna is all around great since hes so cheap you dont necessarily need to listbuild into him, but it of course helps. theres a lot of REALLY mean crits in this game, my last game i gave an Arquitens the "cannot attack at long range" crit and laughed as he zipped at max speed to do just that next turn lol.

Sato is a bit tricky to work since you need to get fighters past the enemy fighter ball, but throwing black dice at any range (or a fistfull of black dice in the MC30's case) is just mean if you can do it.

Ackbar...is Ackbar. Yeah hes kinda obviously good (though i find it a bit stale as he heavily limits your strats)

yeah, When we have a tournament i see a fair scattering of commanders. The game is balanced. But if you master your chosen admiral you can be lethal. As a mainly Empire player since I switched after wave 1 i really like Tarkin, Motti and Screed.

But i was 'forced' to play Ackbar in the Corilian campaign and Ive always hated his slimy fish tactics, I'm loving him after one game!

mc80 assualt pickle two assualt potatoes and a corvette made a complete mess of a ISD, 2 gladiator and raider, with hardly a scratch.

Plus i get to drive the rest of my rebel group nuts with Ackbar memes on our group app

My favourites are

Motti, Moff JJ and Konstantine for the Imperials.

Rieekan, Dodonna for the Rebels.

Least favourite are Madine, Tagge, and Tarkin though in the CC campaign I think he will get a new lease of life.

As a beginner you can either design a fleet then say what commander would go well with this force or you can start with the commander and go from there. The Armada Fleet Builds section of the Forums is your best place to get a force sorted out.

Screed can be pretty brutal. I played with with two Gladiators armed with Assault Concussion Missiles (and maybe Ordnance Experts?). Absolutely tore through the Home One while it tried to focus down my Avenger.

If you don't already have one I feel like the ISD is the must-have, though. I mean, I don't know about you guys but Star Destroyers are what brought me to this game in the first place. There are also a lot of upgrades in the box, and while I haven't used him yet Vader looks pretty scary.

Vader originally i thought was terrible until i learned "Spend" means flip it over if green, discard if red. I thought it was a straight up discard. Faced him after we learned that and dear god he makes high dice pools scary.

Oh god. Is that how that works? Oh god, if that's true, I've been playing everything so, so wrong.

My favourites are

Motti, Moff JJ and Konstantine for the Imperials.

Rieekan, Dodonna for the Rebels.

Least favourite are Madine, Tagge, and Tarkin though in the CC campaign I think he will get a new lease of life.

As a beginner you can either design a fleet then say what commander would go well with this force or you can start with the commander and go from there. The Armada Fleet Builds section of the Forums is your best place to get a force sorted out.

My favourites are

Motti, Moff JJ and Konstantine for the Imperials.

Rieekan, Dodonna for the Rebels.

Least favourite are Madine, Tagge, and Tarkin though in the CC campaign I think he will get a new lease of life.

As a beginner you can either design a fleet then say what commander would go well with this force or you can start with the commander and go from there. The Armada Fleet Builds section of the Forums is your best place to get a force sorted out.

I'll keep these two in mind, thanks:

At first I was like... Dodonna isn't 25 points..

Vader originally i thought was terrible until i learned "Spend" means flip it over if green, discard if red. I thought it was a straight up discard. Faced him after we learned that and dear god he makes high dice pools scary.

Oh god. Is that how that works? Oh god, if that's true, I've been playing everything so, so wrong.

I came to that conclusion because i noticed some cards say "spend" others "exhaust" others "discard" so i looked at the attack step sequence.

The defender's turn to use defense tokens says SPEND and we know how that works. Meaning Vader does the same thing. Exhaust a defense token is usually reserved for offensively burning it but preventing it from being removed if it was already red and Discard doesnt care if its red or green it goes away.

I have a writeup on all the commanders over at Boardgamegeek.

For the short version.... Rebellion loves Rieekan, but other commanders can be taken for some variety. The weakest link appears to be Garm or Ackbar. The former isn't as zingy as the rest, and the latter now struggles with the many broadside list counters out there.

I usually play Empire. My big three are Tarkin, Motti, and Screed. The former is for carrier lists and a lot of flexibility out of multiple ships. The second is the fallback every list when I have no other synergies I need a commander for. Screed is in APT or other critical effect-trigger lists. Now that Arquitens have joined the fleet there may be some cause to bring Vader out of retirement as well.

Vader. Awesome dude. The ability to re-roll everything is just amazing, especially when coupled with other re-roll sources.

He's a bit costly though, so like Ackbar it's hard to get full mileage out of him at the 400 pt level.

Up until now I think the line of reasoning is, "Why do I need vader? Anything that needs a re-roll is either taking Ordnance Experts or Leading Shots." The Arquitens can take neither, and now that it's a good source of attack power in the game Vader has a little more application across an entire fleet.

The Campaign combined with the Arquitens is breathing new life into Lord Vader.

Hooray!

(Queue talking head jargon) You really need to figure out your play style. get lots of games in with everyone. this will help you figure out what suites you and how you like to play. (on to opinion)

Admiral Ozzel is my go to for sure. When dealing with black dice heavy ships like imps have an abundance of, speed control is so important. it can really help dictate at what ranges you engage at and make you less predictable. he's great once you get the hang of how he works. Some times being at the right range/ arc can really be the best defence.

As a rebel player, here is how I rank them;

Disclaimer I am very opinionated and often in the minority.

Ackbar - over costed garbage. In almost all cases it is better to double arc than to give up your front arc. Also 50% of rebel ships either cannot use his ability or the front is their primary arc. So he has serious fleet availability cost. There are plenty of arguments for him on the forums as well.

Sato - Still early and while he has a lot of prereqs really indications are he is solid. And with salvation.... Mhmmmmm

Rieekan - one of only 3 (really only 2) rebel commanders that works for all ships no matter what without requiring you to do something. Also one of only two rebel commanders that benefit squadrons. Always a good choice no matter the fleet.

Mon Mothma - works well with 75% of rebel ships. Helps mitigate enemy bombers.

Madine - compared to both of his imperial counterparts to spendy. Doesn't compare to others in his point bracket. Also had the opportunity cost of dictating commands.

Crackin - Great returns on his cost. Available to 63% of ships.

Garm Bel Iblis - technically works with all ships but really works with 75% of them. Low cost with no opportunity cost are appealing.

Dodonna - personally my go to. Extremely low cost requires absolutely nothing from the player. In fact he can trigger from your opponents actions. Works with 100% of ships and and wopping 64% of squadrons.

My favourites are

Motti, Moff JJ and Konstantine for the Imperials.

Rieekan, Dodonna for the Rebels.

Least favourite are Madine, Tagge, and Tarkin though in the CC campaign I think he will get a new lease of life.

As a beginner you can either design a fleet then say what commander would go well with this force or you can start with the commander and go from there. The Armada Fleet Builds section of the Forums is your best place to get a force sorted out.

I'll keep these two in mind, thanks:

At first I was like... Dodonna isn't 25 points..

That is a pic of the Dodonna card used in the Pre release publicity for the starter set several years ago. The real one of course is

THAT explains why the Armada Fleet Builder app was wrong. They had the old preview card on there for some dumb reason. Preview Dodonna is terrible...25pts and only ships benefit.

As a rebel player, here is how I rank them;

Disclaimer I am very opinionated and often in the minority.

Ackbar - over costed garbage. In almost all cases it is better to double arc than to give up your front arc. Also 50% of rebel ships either cannot use his ability or the front is their primary arc. So he has serious fleet availability cost. There are plenty of arguments for him on the forums as well.

Sato - Still early and while he has a lot of prereqs really indications are he is solid. And with salvation.... Mhmmmmm

Rieekan - one of only 3 (really only 2) rebel commanders that works for all ships no matter what without requiring you to do something. Also one of only two rebel commanders that benefit squadrons. Always a good choice no matter the fleet.

Mon Mothma - works well with 75% of rebel ships. Helps mitigate enemy bombers.

Madine - compared to both of his imperial counterparts to spendy. Doesn't compare to others in his point bracket. Also had the opportunity cost of dictating commands.

Crackin - Great returns on his cost. Available to 63% of ships.

Garm Bel Iblis - technically works with all ships but really works with 75% of them. Low cost with no opportunity cost are appealing.

Dodonna - personally my go to. Extremely low cost requires absolutely nothing from the player. In fact he can trigger from your opponents actions. Works with 100% of ships and and wopping 64% of squadrons.

You might feel you are in the minority but I think that is very accurate. The only thing I disagree with really is Madine. He is absolutely amazing. He effectively makes the whole fleet impossibly mobile across the board supporting the strongest command in the game, Navigate.

Other than that though I think its a really good assessment. I especially agree about Dodonna, he would still be good at 30 points, at 20 he is a steal.