11 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I really like this fleet, it's a great starter idea, can I ask why you chose Mauler over Howlrunner? With no means to move Mauler and howlrunner being only 1 point more serving to grant 4 extra blue dice it seemed a better fit in my mind. I'm just curious if I'm missing some synergy here. lol

Mauler helps clear away enemy squadrons faster more reliably (agreeing with @Drasnighta) and is 1 point cheaper (in case you want the option of first or second against another 400 point fleet or wanted to swap out Jerry for Sloane), but Howlrunner is definitely fine too and means you can hold off on buying that Imperial I pack, although I like all the options it provides you. It's just you'd need to buy 2 or 3 of them to get enough TIE Bombers to do anti-ship squadrons well all on its own so I didn't want to go that way for a newer player.

6 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Its less synergy, its more guarantee.

4 extra Blue dice on an alpha is approx 3 damage with Swarm being involved on that reroll.

If Mauler hits 3 models once, he's matched that.

Of course, Howlrunner has the potential to escalate beyond that... But careful maneuver of Mauler (and killing targets) does the same for him.

Its just, Roll the Dice vs Get the damage, really.

Okay, I suppose that makes a good deal of sense. I hadn't really thought of it like that. I've seen a few players locally take him and he usually hits 2-3 squads, gets stuck, and destroyed early.

1 minute ago, Snipafist said:

Mauler helps clear away enemy squadrons faster more reliably (agreeing with @Drasnighta) and is 1 point cheaper (in case you want the option of first or second against another 400 point fleet or wanted to swap out Jerry for Sloane), but Howlrunner is definitely fine too and means you can hold off on buying that Imperial I pack, although I like all the options it provides you. It's just you'd need to buy 2 or 3 of them to get enough TIE Bombers to do anti-ship squadrons well all on its own so I didn't want to go that way for a newer player.

Yeah I'm seeing it a little clearer now. I haven't really used Mauler, like I told Dras, locally he hasn't done great, but I can see where having him can make an alpha much more efficient. I'll have to start playing with it. I think he'd fit better in my Howl, dengar, soontir combo than cienna did. Thanks @Drasnighta, @Snipafist!

1 minute ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Yeah I'm seeing it a little clearer now. I haven't really used Mauler, like I told Dras, locally he hasn't done great, but I can see where having him can make an alpha much more efficient. I'll have to start playing with it. I think he'd fit better in my Howl, dengar, soontir combo than cienna did. Thanks @Drasnighta, @Snipafist!

He reliably pulls his weight and then some when I've used him. The important thing is to support him with Intel so he can keep hopping and/or to adequately gauge the risk he can handle when he jumps in. It's fun to ping 6 squadrons with him, but without Intel he's likely not jumping again very soon (and maybe never again if he gets ganged up on) but with some friends to finish off the wounded enemies, he can keep his thing going pretty well. He's extra fun for getting damage to stick to scatter aces as well as hopping in to finish off 1 HP enemies you don't want to waste a full attack on.

He can also cause enemy squadrons to play more conservatively against you for fear of being juicy targets for his ability when they clump up too much.

9 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

He reliably pulls his weight and then some when I've used him. The important thing is to support him with Intel so he can keep hopping and/or to adequately gauge the risk he can handle when he jumps in. It's fun to ping 6 squadrons with him, but without Intel he's likely not jumping again very soon (and maybe never again if he gets ganged up on) but with some friends to finish off the wounded enemies, he can keep his thing going pretty well. He's extra fun for getting damage to stick to scatter aces as well as hopping in to finish off 1 HP enemies you don't want to waste a full attack on.

He can also cause enemy squadrons to play more conservatively against you for fear of being juicy targets for his ability when they clump up too much.

Yeah I'm playing around with the idea, and with the way my "Wambo" combo works, he's really kinda killer, it's only a 4 squad AA group, but with mauler it's easily more destructive.

-Howl moves into position attacking with FCs
-Mauler Moves in hitting with auto damage plus an attack with Fcs and Howl
-Soontir moves in next to mauler, Fcs and howl
-Dengar moves in next to mauler, Fcs and howl

They have to shoot soontir first or suffer auto damage, and he's essentially counter 4 with swarm rerolls
After soontir, they'd have to target mauler in fear of suffering auto damage he's counter 2 with swarm reolls
both scatter aces

I've got a version that runs 2 extra tie interceptors, I could see it clearing squads pretty rapidly.

My only problem with including Mauler Mithel in the 'starting assortment' is simple:

You're asking a newbie to pay $20 for one card.

YES, the stuff in there is relevant later on, particularly if they can afford two IS1 packs, but out of that initial list it's one card that could be replaced by more TIEs or a Defender (taking it to straight 400 points!), or fewer TIEs and another superfriend for Jendon (3 TIEs and another Deci or Whisper?).

Don't get me wrong, I love Mauler Mithel, and the IS1 pack is a solid buy for any Imperial player, but if we're keeping it to a bare minimum then it's strictly not necessary.

And... well...

TIE Fighters are hard to use. I'm only NOW getting the hang of them, months after starting seriously, and telling a beginning player to use them is like telling a beginner in X-Wing (circa two years ago) to use Soontir Fel and Palpatine: Yeah, it's STRONG, but it requires a lot of experience and being able to think ahead to USE them. When they have access to more forgiving stuff, like Defenders and Whisper, it's almost like forcing our own experiences on them. "Back in my day, we only had the 6 TIEs in the starter set and we LIKED it, dadgum these newfangled ships, and you'll have to like 'em too!"

When I'm recommending stuff for beginning players in any wargame (and I'm up to about 17 now that I've been through?) I don't steer people to the harder stuff at first, even though I DO point it out. If they want a Lure in Malifaux's Neverborn, I recommend Lilitu, not Beckoners. If they want a good C3S brawler in Alpha Strike, I point them at the WVR-9W2 Wolverine, not the KIM-2C Kimodo. If they want a good melee unit in Eldar, I tell them to pick a less expensive hobby than Warhammer 40k - like Faberge eggs or antique car collecting - but when I DID play I'd recommend Scorpions, not Banshees. It's not that the other choices are invalid, but they are more corner-case and difficult to use than the other options. Same deal with TIE Fighters: Good in the right list and the right hands, but not as all-around good or easy to use as some of the other things available to this imaginary starting player.

7 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

My only problem with including Mauler Mithel in the 'starting assortment' is simple:

You're asking a newbie to pay $20 for one card.

YES, the stuff in there is relevant later on, particularly if they can afford two IS1 packs, but out of that initial list it's one card that could be replaced by more TIEs or a Defender (taking it to straight 400 points!), or fewer TIEs and another superfriend for Jendon (3 TIEs and another Deci or Whisper?).

Don't get me wrong, I love Mauler Mithel, and the IS1 pack is a solid buy for any Imperial player, but if we're keeping it to a bare minimum then it's strictly not necessary.

And... well...

TIE Fighters are hard to use. I'm only NOW getting the hang of them, months after starting seriously, and telling a beginning player to use them is like telling a beginner in X-Wing (circa two years ago) to use Soontir Fel and Palpatine: Yeah, it's STRONG, but it requires a lot of experience and being able to think ahead to USE them. When they have access to more forgiving stuff, like Defenders and Whisper, it's almost like forcing our own experiences on them. "Back in my day, we only had the 6 TIEs in the starter set and we LIKED it, dadgum these newfangled ships, and you'll have to like 'em too!"

When I'm recommending stuff for beginning players in any wargame (and I'm up to about 17 now that I've been through?) I don't steer people to the harder stuff at first, even though I DO point it out. If they want a Lure in Malifaux's Neverborn, I recommend Lilitu, not Beckoners. If they want a good C3S brawler in Alpha Strike, I point them at the WVR-9W2 Wolverine, not the KIM-2C Kimodo. If they want a good melee unit in Eldar, I tell them to pick a less expensive hobby than Warhammer 40k - like Faberge eggs or antique car collecting - but when I DID play I'd recommend Scorpions, not Banshees. It's not that the other choices are invalid, but they are more corner-case and difficult to use than the other options. Same deal with TIE Fighters: Good in the right list and the right hands, but not as all-around good or easy to use as some of the other things available to this imaginary starting player.

I understand where you're coming from and that's a fair way to save on $20. The way I figure it is Mauler is all-around useful and the Imp Squadrons I pack is a good way to have a smattering of basic building block squadrons you can experiment with once you get tired of the starting fleet and want to tinker.

I don't disagree that TIE Fighters are a bit tough to get a handle on, especially early on, but the process is inevitably unavoidable given most Imperial squadrons specialized towards anti-squadron have the same merits and demerits. The only real exception is the TIE Defender and it's very expensive for what it does and not very reliable as an anti-squadron asset unless fielded in larger numbers or alongside the aforementioned fighter squadrons.

In short, I'm not unsympathetic but I'd rather start new player off learning a tough thing that's going to be fairly fundamental. Something like Raiders, which I love to pieces but are tricky to master and aren't essential to an Imperial fleet, can certainly wait.

On 10/3/2017 at 11:34 AM, geek19 said:

That's a fair assessment of the use of why CR90s. I will admit that I based some of my strategy off of @Ginkapoand his plan for running his list. The main thing I think with regards to everything about him is that you need to realize that a large portion of the ships in game have Evades. Whatever you throw out, you can't count on the crits unless you overwhelm your opponent or you're fighting a Thrawn 3 ISD fleet. Which has its own issues of course.

My own personal issue is that I like squadrons and consistent squadron damage too much, so it then becomes a matter of "why didn't you (John, personally) just do this better with Dodonna?" Sato is very enjoyable (APT crits at red range on LMC80S are quite fun) but it's not the most enjoyable for ME (I can stop chasing Norra crits with b wings any time, I'm not addicted you are).

And thanks. I'll likely include your and ginks advice in there when I finish the edits tonight, considering Ive run him based on your guys' recommendation every time I DO run him.

I ran Sato last night and swapped out my 2 CR90A with 2 APT HH. It was interesting. I also used the doom pickle with Sato:

MC80 Assault, ET, ECM, RBD, LS, QBT, Defiance.
2 Torp HH + APT
Comms Net+Leia
GR-75
2 VCX
2 YT-2400
Shara + Tycho
Advanced Gunnery, Fire Lanes, Sensor Net
2 point bid

This MC80 throws so much dice and hits so hard. It could even rival Ackbar. ET and QBT are such a good combo. 2 speed 1 moves to trigger QBT but also moves me far enough on the board. ET sets up double arcs, and with QBT and Defiance, gives me an additional 4 dice per round. The side arc can throw 3 blacks, 2 reds, and 3 blues, while the front has 3 blacks and 2 blues.

The HH worked well enough dealing out 3 APTs on a Vic, basically killing it by itself. My other HH was one shot from a RR, CF Demo. I'm still not sold on the APT HH with Sato, but once you get to close range you can dish out 5 black dice for 41 points, and deal an APT, which is the real value in taking a HH. Problem is still getting a fragile ship into position to attack. I'll explore it some more but I think they having 2 glass cannons in the fleet is a huge liability. If I lose both HH, I just have the MC80 and 2 flots, and 6 squads. Maybe I just need to get better flying HH and I won't run into this problem. It could also be an activation order dilemma too. The MC80 wants to go last, but so does the HH so the target can move into range. Flots want to go first to put squads on an enemy ship.

With most people running a Vics, thanks to GT+DC, or MC80s and ISDs, I do think taking 1 or 2 HH is a good addition to a Sato list. Can't wait for wave 7 when more large ships will be on the table since you will always have a target for a long range APT.

On 2017-10-02 at 0:10 PM, Snipafist said:

I didn't contribute anything for over a week because I was writing this.

Hey! I'm from rural Illinois and I resemble your comment!

Don't forget to warsh up after you fork.

8 minutes ago, Maturin said:

Hey! I'm from rural Illinois and I resemble your comment!

Don't forget to warsh up after you fork.

Although I've become a Chicagolander over the last decade, I'm originally from rural Illinois (spent half my life growing up in the northwest corner of the state, my high school mascot is a pretzel and I'm not kidding) so there's no shame in that game ;).

1 hour ago, Snipafist said:

Although I've become a Chicagolander over the last decade, I'm originally from rural Illinois (spent half my life growing up in the northwest corner of the state, my high school mascot is a pretzel and I'm not kidding) so there's no shame in that game ;).

Never doubt pretzel power. I've won games because of that lucky pretzel shirt.

2 hours ago, Snipafist said:

Although I've become a Chicagolander over the last decade, I'm originally from rural Illinois (spent half my life growing up in the northwest corner of the state, my high school mascot is a pretzel and I'm not kidding) so there's no shame in that game ;).

Whoah- I grew up in Belvidere. But a pretzel is way cooler than a generic pirate any day.

29 minutes ago, Maturin said:

Whoah- I grew up in Belvidere. But a pretzel is way cooler than a generic pirate any day.

Oh hey then you are familiar with the glories of Beef-A-Roo, the restaurant that should have gone nationwide and crushed Arby's decades ago but for some reason never left the Rockford area! Small world.

1 hour ago, geek19 said:

Never doubt pretzel power. I've won games because of that lucky pretzel shirt.

I'm getting myself one of those shirts next time I'm in town. I grew up rolling my eyes at the silliness of a pretzel mascot and not terribly big on school spirit* but as I get older I delight in the harmless goofiness of the whole thing.

*I was a nerdy teenager, which should surprise nobody and which doesn't help when it comes to school spirit, but I was/am still built like a football player so they were frequently trying to recruit me and this further intensified my grumpiness about it. The whole set of emotions is very "high school" at this point and I've mercifully grown out of it.

16 hours ago, Snipafist said:

I understand where you're coming from and that's a fair way to save on $20. The way I figure it is Mauler is all-around useful and the Imp Squadrons I pack is a good way to have a smattering of basic building block squadrons you can experiment with once you get tired of the starting fleet and want to tinker.

I don't disagree that TIE Fighters are a bit tough to get a handle on, especially early on, but the process is inevitably unavoidable given most Imperial squadrons specialized towards anti-squadron have the same merits and demerits. The only real exception is the TIE Defender and it's very expensive for what it does and not very reliable as an anti-squadron asset unless fielded in larger numbers or alongside the aforementioned fighter squadrons.

In short, I'm not unsympathetic but I'd rather start new player off learning a tough thing that's going to be fairly fundamental. Something like Raiders, which I love to pieces but are tricky to master and aren't essential to an Imperial fleet, can certainly wait.

I can see your point of view; however, the more I use stuff from Imp Squadrons 1 (the only set I own currently aside from R&V) the more I feel like it's a case of "Buy more or go home." Rhymer doesn't start to sing until you've got at least 4-5 Bomber ships around him. TIE/INs don't really work as a one or two off until you get Saber Squadron and Ciena in CC. Vader is nice, but you don't really need Escort as an Imp until you get Rhymer going full bore - and at that point you probably want Tempest Squadron as well. Mauler Mithel, once again, requires Intel in order to REALLY start destroying stuff.

When I compare that to purchasing, say, Rogues & Villains as a second pack - which gets you IG-88 for countering Intel/Escort combos, Bubba Feets for a versatile killer, and an Intel ship to work with that has uses in both generic and Ace varieties - R&V seems like a better deal than IS1 if we're arguing from "But they'll use the stuff in there later anyway!"

I'm not saying it's a bad choice for them to buy IS1. Obviously they'll use it later, so recommending it has serious merit. But it's not the best early choice IMHO.

But I also enjoy arguing, so don't mind me TOO much.

The $250 Challenge is a great idea. Since I have a couple of friends looking to get into the game, I decided to see what I could come up with. Here is my Budget Rebels fleet.

Budget Rebels — $190
Faction: Rebel Alliance

Points: 399/400

[Flagship] CR-90 Corvette B (39 points)
• General Dodonna (20 points)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7 points)
• Dodonna's Pride (6 points)
= 72 points total ship cost

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57 points)
• Yavaris (5 points)
= 62 points total ship cost

Nebulon-B Support Refit (51 points)
• Salvation (7 points)
= 58 points total ship cost

Modified Pelta-class Command Ship (60 points)
• Fighter Coordination Team (3 points)
• All Fighters, Follow Me! (5 points)
• Expanded Hangar Bay (5 points)
= 73 points total ship cost

1 Wedge Antilles (19 points)
1 Luke Skywalker (20 points)
1 “Dutch” Vander (16 points)
1 Tycho Celchu (16 points)
2 B-Wing Squadron (28 points)
1 YT-1300 Squadon (13 points)
1 HWK-290 Squadron (12 points)
1 Y-Wing Squadron (10 points)

• Core Set — $100
• Nebulon-B — $20
• Phoenix Home — $30
• Rebel Squadrons I — $20
• Rogues and Villains — $20
TOTAL = $190

7 hours ago, stonestokes said:

The $250 Challenge is a great idea. Since I have a couple of friends looking to get into the game, I decided to see what I could come up with. Here is my Budget Rebels fleet.

Budget Rebels — $190
Faction: Rebel Alliance

Points: 399/400

[Flagship] CR-90 Corvette B (39 points)
• General Dodonna (20 points)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7 points)
• Dodonna's Pride (6 points)
= 72 points total ship cost

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57 points)
• Yavaris (5 points)
= 62 points total ship cost

Nebulon-B Support Refit (51 points)
• Salvation (7 points)
= 58 points total ship cost

Modified Pelta-class Command Ship (60 points)
• Fighter Coordination Team (3 points)
• All Fighters, Follow Me! (5 points)
• Expanded Hangar Bay (5 points)
= 73 points total ship cost

1 Wedge Antilles (19 points)
1 Luke Skywalker (20 points)
1 “Dutch” Vander (16 points)
1 Tycho Celchu (16 points)
2 B-Wing Squadron (28 points)
1 YT-1300 Squadon (13 points)
1 HWK-290 Squadron (12 points)
1 Y-Wing Squadron (10 points)

• Core Set — $100
• Nebulon-B — $20
• Phoenix Home — $30
• Rebel Squadrons I — $20
• Rogues and Villains — $20
TOTAL = $190

Not having a BCC flotilla could make you VERY sad with this list. Also why not a CR90A with Jainas light instead of a CR90B?

3 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Not having a BCC flotilla could make you VERY sad with this list. Also why not a CR90A with Jainas light instead of a CR90B?

Need to buy a Corvette expansion for that title

https://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/10/slowly-updating.html

So as of now, I've updated and added in links for:

Commander Sato (based off some helpful suggestions from @Ginkapo and @Undeadguy on the forums), I added in a bit more about not just trying to turn him into a crit machine and using HWKs with him. Minor upgrades, but if you're interested in running Sato (he's not bad, I swear!), take a look again.

Prelude: Squadron Roles and Basic Thoughts
Chapter 1: Basics and Outline
Chapter 2: Small Fighter Coverage
Chapter 3: Medium Fighter Coverage

Note to self for the next day or two: add in Ten Numb to chapter 4.

I've got plans now to add in a chapter 7, actually attacking ships with your bombers (an article I vaguely promised to do in Chapter 1) and then how to deal with your opponent's heavy squadron blob, an article that I both promised in chapter 1 and will continue our Fighting Fleets series (Eric or I may talk about hunting flotillas before or after that, as well). I'm going to work on the updates FIRST, as I'd prefer to have them all done. It also gives me more time to play my bomber fleet a few more games and get back into the swing of using fighters and all in my meta to blow up ships, so there is THAT helpfulness, haha.

I'm NOT planning on updating the Rebel starter fleet article, as I feel it's currently a good mix of ships and squadrons and you can choose where to go to from there (as I state at the bottom of the article, haha). I considered adding in a few more options to give people the chance to go harder squadron or ship, but as it's a starter fleet I'd rather let them play that a few times and see WHAT they like playing and develop up from that.

Also, given that I finished my 3rd marathon (hash brown humble brag), I have a bit more time (and don't need to run for 2 hours every other day), so I can hopefully get my articles updated sooner rather than later. But, I make no promises. I'll do what I can, though, haha.

I wrote an article about how much I love the Skilled First Officer. He's so dreamy!

It's time for a special feature article about one of my favorite upgrades that I can only hope FFG will be releasing as a tournament kit upgrade card so more people can get use from him, the Skilled First Officer! I love this guy and I've gushed about him in multiple ship articles, so I figure maybe I should have an article just about him instead of hijacking and then making John's generic officers article longer. It also means I can just link right here to save people from reading the same advice multiple times ?.

The Skilled First Officer is an incredibly flexible and affordable officer upgrade that will happily sit in the officer chair on any of your Command 2 or 3 ships (he's useless on Command 1). Sometimes your ships find themselves in a bad situation where even a mighty Intel Officer or faction officer just won't help you get out of the pickle you're in. If only you had access to that command dial one further down, but the game didn't quite go as expected and now you're screwed.

Fear not, the Skilled First Officer is here!



There are a surprising number of uses for the Skilled First Officer and it's rare that I regret bringing one when I have the spare point and open officer slot. Let's cover some!

Command screwage insurance

This is the most reactive and meta-dependent use for a Skilled First Officer, as a kind of Slicer Tools countermeasure (discard the altered top command dial to use the one you want to use below it). All by itself, it's not worth including a Skilled First Officer just because of maybe Slicer Tools (we're getting to other tricks), but it can be helpful when you're up against them.

In general, if you're relying on executing a specific command (usually navigate or squadrons) and a Slicer Tools flotilla is lingering about nearby, it's time to start doubling up on the command your ship needs to do so when your Quasar (or Nebulon or whatever) is told it actually wanted to concentrate fire, you can activate and discard that dial to get to the squadrons dial you had underneath instead.

As Slicer Tools insurance the Skilled First Officer is a lot more flexible than the Support Officer (who is also more expensive), as he's used at the beginning of your activation rather than at the start of the Command Phase.

The Skilled First Officer can also help against Cham insomuch as you burn through the "corrupted" command dials faster by discarding one of them and it gives you more options if your opponent didn't just spam the same command all the way down (which of these two non-optimal command dials do I want to use this activation?). It won't do you much good initially but it does help you get off the pain train one round earlier.

Command 2 ships command on a dime

This is the most straightforward way to use your Skilled First Officer and why he's a common sight on Command 2 ships (or effectively Command 2 ships, like a Relentless ISD), especially those that are more prone to needing an emergency command to get out of trouble, like Gladiators, Arquitens, and MC30s. Sometimes you find your Command 2 ship is in a situation it expected to happen a turn earlier or later and that's where the Skilled First Officer is so important. For example, let say we have a Gladiator that during the Command Phase of round 1 set its two dials as:

1. Navigate
2. Navigate

With the intention of taking a navigate token during its first activation and then navigating "for real" during its second to set itself up for an attack at the top of round 3. The enemy, however, was very reckless and charged in a corvette too fast and you'd really like to be able to punch it right in the face with maximum firepower. The Skilled First Officer can help with that! If necessary, use your navigate command to close with the enemy and add a concentrate fire dial on the bottom, so it looks like this:

1. Navigate
2. Concentrate Fire

When you activate that Gladiator, simply discard that navigate dial and instead keep the concentrate fire dial:

1. Navigate
2. Concentrate Fire ?

Once the Gladiator has finished its activation and you're on to the Command Phase of round 3, your command dial stack will look like this:

By which I mean "you get to assign both dials right now," which effectively means your Skilled First Officer just bought you two turns of commanding your Command 2 ship like it was a Command 1 ship (while still being able to hold onto two command tokens!) for just one point.

That's not to say his only use is aggressive. He's also great for emergency navigate and repair commands when your ship gets rushed earlier than you expected or took more damage than expected or perhaps suffered a really bad crit that you cannot wait two rounds to get around to fixing.

Contingency plans

A sneakier use for the Skilled First Officer is for contingency plans. What exactly do I mean by "contingency plans?" Time for another example:

The fleet I brought to Adepticon earlier this year (and won the Friday event with) had 6 TIE Fighters, 2 Gozantis, 2 Gladiators, and 2 Raiders. You may note that in terms of "ships that are okay with commanding squadrons with some regularity," that is only 2 Gozantis for 4 total squadrons pushed. What do you do when you are in a situation where you need all 6 of them commanded in one turn?

Well here's what I did, anyways: my "finisher" Gladiator flagship had a Skilled First Officer and in general that Gladiator started meaningfully contributing to combat around round 4 or so. It didn't mind chipping in on one crucial turn with a squadrons command if it was the kind of game where getting in all the TIEs I could when necessary would be meaningful. What I did was usually at the end of round 2's Command Phase, Ozzel's Gladiator's command stack would look like:

1. (whatever, usually a navigate or repair intended as a token)
2. Squadrons

Because squadron-on-squadron combat usually begins on round 2 or 3, this set me up pretty well to throw squadrons about if it was necessary. Suppose enemy squadrons presented themselves as a target on round 2. The Skilled First Officer resolves like:

1. (whatever, usually a navigate or repair intended as a token)
2. Squadrons

and I command squadrons early.

Suppose squadron-on-squadron combat begins round 3. I simply leave the command dial stack alone.

Suppose the squadron command isn't needed (either things turned out better than I expected on that front or some of my TIEs got wiped early and so the Gozantis can handle it on their own without any extra help). When the time comes on round 3, the Skilled First Officer can axe the squadron dial and I'll do something else. It looks like:

1. Squadrons
2. Actually something else! What a twist!

Effectively, using the Skilled First Officer for a contingency plan gives you 3 options when setting up a command dial that is only effective when timed well:

1. Use the command dial on the turn you wanted it if everything works out fine and save the Skilled First Officer for some other use.
2. Use the command a turn earlier than slotted.
3. Ignore the command altogether if it didn't go as planned.

This use of his is particularly good on Command 3 ships. Speaking of which...

Command 3 ships

I wasn't a big believer in the Skilled First Officer on Command 3 ships initially, but after some play experience, I've changed my mind. He's particularly welcome on heavier medium ships like Assault Frigates and VSDs that generally want to be kept cheap and efficient and don't merit the full "Christmas Tree of upgrades" treatment that's more warranted on larger ships.

Because it can be difficult to predict the game 3 turns out, the Skilled First Officer primarily finds a use on Command 3 ships for contingency plans. Given Assault Frigates and VSDs are mixed-role combat ship/carriers, I find they like to issue the occasional squadron command but they can't really afford to focus on doing so in most cases. By setting up a contingency squadron command (usually for round 3, as I discussed with the Gladiator earlier), you get a lot more versatility in what command you're issuing and when.

This is not to say you can't contingency plan with other commands. Say for example you're running a VSD-II with the full Disposable Capacitors "blow em up real good from downtown" suite. In general, you should be able to rely on attacking enemies on round 3 out of your front arc and so it may be worth slotting in a concentrate fire dial for round 3 (to improve the odds of getting that one extra point of damage or accuracy you need to really mess up a flotilla or corvette or the like). The problem is what happens if the enemy gets into range too soon or if they're sneaky and get around your front arc? If so, that concentrate fire dial is misplaced and you really would've been better off just focusing on navigating when in doubt, as you're generally always going to get some value from that. For a situation like that, the Skilled First Officer is perfect. Imagine you're planning your gunship VSD's first four command dials with the help of a Skilled First Officer. I'd set them like this:

1. Repair (for a token)
2. Navigate (for a token or to course correct)
3. Concentrate fire (for when you expect to drop the bomb on someone)
4. Navigate (for keeping on target/this is your backup plan)

This setup gives us a lot of versatility. For example:

• Targets pull off some unexpected maneuvers round 1, potentially causing trouble: use the SFO to remove the repair and go straight to navigate to stay on target.
• Targets get into range of your front arc earlier than expected, setting up round 2 shots: use the SFO to remove the navigate command and concentrate fire round 2.
• Targets slip out of your front arc round 2, leaving you poorly suited to use concentrate fire round 3: use the SFO to ditch your concentrate fire dial to hit your emergency navigate early.

Worst case the Skilled First Officer helps hasten the approach of a command dial you slotted in for 3 rounds in the future to next turn, should that be necessary. You can then either choose to ditch your current command dial or wait to ditch next turn's, depending on your circumstances.

Closing thoughts

This ends my love letter to the Skilled First Officer. He's a surprisingly versatile and helpful upgrade for a very competitive price and I hope I've inspired some of you to try him out for yourselves in ways you may not have considered before!

Surprise TTGL reference.

Unfortunately, I don't think his drill pierced the heavens.

(FFG plz don't ban me, that's totally not an innuendo)

You forgot to mention SFO is like $15 on eBay, so you should pick up another Liberty if you want another, since you also get a bunch of useful upgrades. Like Chart Officer, who run about $5.

That's another article you should write. Chart Officer.

1 minute ago, ianediger said:

(FFG plz don't ban me, that's totally not an innuendo)

Where's your fighting spirit?

1 minute ago, Undeadguy said:

You forgot to mention SFO is like $15 on eBay, so you should pick up another Liberty if you want another, since you also get a bunch of useful upgrades. Like Chart Officer, who run about $5.

That's another article you should write. Chart Officer.

I try to avoid discussions about costs for things unless it's specifically about buying a starter fleet or something like that. I would also agree that at this point you're better off just buying an LMC80 and getting some other good upgrades as well, but it's possible that down the line we'll get easier access to the Skilled First Officer and so that part of the article would not age well.

Chart Officer is not an upgrade I have a lot of experience with, but I see the appeal. I may need to change that eventually, but there's only so much time... Prior to co-writing the blog I felt pretty good about getting in 1-2 games a week and now I feel like it's not quite enough to try everything I'd like and play a Corellian Conflict campaign and get a Regionals fleet honed.

2 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

Prior to co-writing the blog I felt pretty good about getting in 1-2 games a week and now I feel like it's not quite enough to try everything I'd like and play a Corellian Conflict campaign and get a Regionals fleet honed.

I'm SURE you'll have plenty of time soon!

Just now, Snipafist said:

I try to avoid discussions about costs for things unless it's specifically about buying a starter fleet or something like that. I would also agree that at this point you're better off just buying an LMC80 and getting some other good upgrades as well, but it's possible that down the line we'll get easier access to the Skilled First Officer and so that part of the article would not age well.

Chart Officer is not an upgrade I have a lot of experience with, but I see the appeal. I may need to change that eventually, but there's only so much time... Prior to co-writing the blog I felt pretty good about getting in 1-2 games a week and now I feel like it's not quite enough to try everything I'd like and play a Corellian Conflict campaign and get a Regionals fleet honed.

Fair enough. I only mention the cost of SFO because it's 1 point so it's really really easy to run 2, but most people own 1 Liberty. I bought a second Liberty for the officers and turbo upgrades.

You don't really need to run CO on your ships. Rather, when you play and overlap an obstacle, imagine you took no damage. Or look at the board and ignore obstacles for movement. The only down side is losing the officer slot. I'm not sure who else has run CO. I might have the most experience with it JJ+CO+Demo+Nav. That ship is going where ever it wants.