Wild speculation and guesswork aheah... (including spoilers of Rogue One)

The first article about Wave VII mentioned, that it offers access to "Admiral Raddus, and Jyn Erso, as well as other notable characters from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." Of those other notable characters, so far, we've only seen Caitken and Shollan and we've seen General Draven in the picture... neither of them particularly notable...

Now that the latest article name-dropped Cassian Andor, let's just assume that he will be the last of the unrevealed officer upgrade cards of the Profundity Expansion.

The other cards are really thematic and represent some plot element in Rogue One. Raddus enters the battle as a late surprise, the Profundity has another small ship in its hangar and Jyn Erso raids another ship...

Let's assume Cassian Andor's card will be just as thematic.

I challenge us as a community to come up with an upgrade card effect that represents his role in Rogue One best...

I'll start...

As an intelligence officer in Rogue One, he kills this one guy supportive of the Rebel cause for the sake of secrecy and he later enters an Imperial compound in disguise.

Perhaps as an SWArmada officer, he let's your ship only be recognized as an enemy ship by your opponent, if one of his/her ships enters your ship's close range... where you'll reveal your true affiliation. But you have to pay for this disguise.

"You cannot be attacked until an enemy ship ends its movement at close range of you. Until this happens, suffer 1 damage when an enemy ship ends its movement at long range."

... Well? What do you think?

The card should certainly have a constrait such as...

"Small ship only."

"Flotilla only."

A Mon Cal Cruiser doesn't fool anyone...

I dunno, that seems a bit outside his skill set.

How about something akin to boarding troopers but you can redirect some of the weapons fire of the ship you board’s next attack onto a friendly ship?

Small or medium ships only.

Considering his actual mission was to assassinate Galen Erso, his ability should be something along the lines of:

When at range 1 of an enemy ship discard this card and a Squadron command or Squadron token to discard 1 unique officer upgrade on an enemy ship at range 1 of you.

3 minutes ago, Indy_com said:

Considering his actual mission was to assassinate Galen Erso, his ability should be something along the lines of:

When at range 1 of an enemy ship discard this card and a Squadron command or Squadron token to discard 1 unique officer upgrade on an enemy ship at range 1 of you.

If an enemy Darth Vader card is about to discard one of your upgrades in your fleet, you may choose to discard it yourself instead.

Yeah, he could be similar to Boba Fett from X Wing, where he removes an officer card from enemy vessels. That would be fun.

I like your idea of Cassian Andor being an officer assassin. In Rogue One, he doesn't execute his assassination order, but it was his mission, nevertheless.

I, however, doubt that his role will be as similar to Vader's ability in Armada. Boarding Vader takes up both the Weapons Team and the Offensive Retrofit Slot, as does Jyn Erso, Cham Syndulla and the others teams which screw with an enemy ship's tokens, dials and cards...

If Cassian Andor could discard enemy officer cards as Vader does with non-Commander upgrade cards, why would he only take up only the one Officer Slot, when force-wielding Vader needs the two?

He should be a souped up intel officer...

he does work for the alliance secret service

Well, since his expertise is infiltration and subversion, as well as him being an assassin deep behind enemy lines, I could fathom something along these lines:

"Spend a Squadron command dial or token to choose a [Team and/ or Officer] upgrade card equipped to an enemy ship at Range 1-3. You may discard the chosen card to treat it as if it was equipped to your ship until the end of the round. Then, discard this card."

So he basically jumps over, plants misinformation, kills the target and pisses off again/dies.

19 minutes ago, DampfGecko said:

Well, since his expertise is infiltration and subversion, as well as him being an assassin deep behind enemy lines, I could fathom something along these lines:

"Spend a Squadron command dial or token to choose a [Team and/ or Officer] upgrade card equipped to an enemy ship at Range 1-3. You may discard the chosen card to treat it as if it was equipped to your ship until the end of the round. Then, discard this card."

So he basically jumps over, plants misinformation, kills the target and pisses off again/dies.

Nice!

In X-Wing, he lets you change your maneuver if you correctly guess the enemy's maneuvers. Maybe something like that?

He's basically a spy, so:

When an enemy ship activates, but before it reveals its command dial, exhaust this card. Declare a command - if it matches the one on the enemy ship's dial, you may change your top command dial.

6 points?

9 hours ago, Indy_com said:

Considering his actual mission was to assassinate Galen Erso, his ability should be something along the lines of:

When at range 1 of an enemy ship discard this card and a Squadron command or Squadron token to discard 1 unique officer upgrade on an enemy ship at range 1 of you.

“...But then question the morality of your orders and your role in this conflict. Lose all your tokens.”

5 minutes ago, Hedgehogmech said:

He's basically a spy, so:

When an enemy ship activates, but before it reveals its command dial, exhaust this card. Declare a command - if it matches the one on the enemy ship's dial, you may change your top command dial.

6 points?

2pts, should be cheaper than Leia

They hopefully won't make him so good that he's an auto include as when they surely add U-wing squadrons he will likely be one of the ace pilots and we cant have 2 of him flying around at once.

At the start of any round you may discard this upgrade to destroy every friendly ship and squadron. You gain one victory token.

How about: Counter intelligence: confers immunity to the Intel Officer effect on the ship Cassian Andor is assigned to. Something like 2-3 points?

I think one should keep in mind that Cassian acts on orders as often as on educated guesses, and is very much a "take risks to avert consequences" kind of man- in a tactical game like X-Wing, that translates well into on-the-fly decision making involving guesswork, but as we know, Armada favours the strategic, "slower" approach, the bigger picture if you will.

This, to my mind, would place Cassian as a tactician in the optimal spot to gain some sort of interruption effect, maybe we should think around that.

5 hours ago, Hedgehogmech said:

He's basically a spy, so:

When an enemy ship activates, but before it reveals its command dial, exhaust this card. Declare a command - if it matches the one on the enemy ship's dial, you may change your top command dial.

6 points?

Choosing 1 out of 4 command options is perhaps a little easy in comparison with the various maneuver options in X-Wing.

Being an assassin of enemy officer upgrade cards or especially when he even takes over another officer's ability should take more than just being at medium range/distance 1-3. Just a flyby of a ISD with a crew of 36.000 shouldn't be enough to single out and kill one guy.

9 minutes ago, JadinED said:

Being an assassin of enemy officer upgrade cards or especially when he even takes over another officer's ability should take more than just being at medium range/distance 1-3. Just a flyby of a ISD with a crew of 36.000 shouldn't be enough to single out and kill one guy.

The earth Vader boarding troop can, with a simple fly by, destroy any upgrade card short of the commander, for 3 points. This theory of cassian seems fine to me.

3 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

At the start of any round you may discard this upgrade to destroy every friendly ship and squadron. You gain one victory token.

I really like the idea that his ability should come at a prize - people's lives or material... not just at a point cost...

3 hours ago, Lord Tareq said:

How about: Counter intelligence: confers immunity to the Intel Officer effect on the ship Cassian Andor is assigned to. Something like 2-3 points?

A counter to Intel officers is definitively something that's very sensible from a game perspective. In our local meta (Berlin), there are boatloads of them everywhere.

Perhaps, he doesn't just provide counter-intelligence for the ship he is on, but for every ship and squadron at medium range.

However, that's hardly Cassian's role in Rogue One.

5 hours ago, Steck638 said:

The earth Vader boarding troop can, with a simple fly by, destroy any upgrade card short of the commander, for 3 points. This theory of cassian seems fine to me.

Boarding Vader uses two slots, a token and discards his card when activating at close range...

Cassian may fit the other criteria, but only uses one slot, making him a lesser version of Vader. How much lower in point cost do you want to go to kill off Toryn Farr or Lando. And why would FFG put in two cards with extremely similar roles in this expansion.

Cassian was supposed to assassinate Galen Erso, but didn't, Vader actually runs amok in another ship... without even sending in stormtroopers first to clear the way as in A New Hope.

I think the assassin role in the Profundity Expansion is taken and rightly so... Cassian - at least that's what I think - needs another role...

... as an intelligence officer, as an infiltrator, as a tactician...

... or as a data thief...

The only upgrade cards that let you access hidden information in Armada so far, are Director Isard, Slicer Tools and Cham Syndulla (to an extend)...

I think that disguise, infiltration and data theft, all central themes in Rogue One, need some love in Armada...

On top of that, a ship that lets you operate "behind enemy lines" could be a good fit for Raddus and the Profundity. This way, you can drop a major threat directly "unto the breach..."