Arquitens Rant
Right away I want to state that I am playing the game since Jan this year. So I am not a very new player nor am I a very experienced player. Many of my gripes with the ship will come down to its terrible movement chart and the fact that at my skill level it is basically necessary to run the ship with exclusively navigate commands. Maybe experienced players can get more out of this ship but the game needs to be balanced for every skill level.
I also wanna state that I am not an expert on game balance and as stated above I am not necessarily the most experienced player, so take my opinions on balance with a grain of salt. What I want this thread to be is a place where I can state my frustrations with this ship and hopefully a place where you can teach me how to better use the Arquitens.
So what I want to do is compare this ship to the Neb and the CR90 and the conclusion will be that the Arquitens is just strait up worse than these two ships for a higher point cost.
So I wanna start with the Nebulon B. First of all the Neb navigates way better. This allows the ship to use other commands than just Nav.
Now let's look at pure fighting strength. The Neb has a very comparable armament to the Arquitens and both have a Turbolaser slot. But the Neb has an easier time to get those Concentrate Fire Command (because unlike the Arquitens it does not have to constantly use Nav commands) and it has access to the very good title Salvation which raises its DMG EV per red die from ¾ to 1. That means the Nebs DMG EV from its main arc is 3 while the Arquitens' is 2.25. And with the easy Concentrate Fire Commands its DMG EV rises to 4 compared to the 2.25 from the Arquitens. This is almost twice as much DMG as the Arquitens does! So clearly the Nev is just superior to the Arquitens in pure fighting strength. (Also I will never forget the Sato Neb that just casually rolled 11 DMG in a single attack)
Lets get to Squads. All I need to say is Yavaris, but lets elaborate a bit more. Both ships have equal Squad value and access to the support team slot for fighter Coordination Team and neither have access to the offensive retrofit. So on the surface they seem equal. But there a two big differences. No. 1 Yavaris. This automatically makes the Neb basically the very best carrier in the game. But there is also No. 2 the Arquitens needs to constantly have Nav Commands so it has effectively a Squad value of 0 and even if it can squeeze out a Squad command every now and then it is not a reliable carrier that can constantly do Squad commands because of its terrible Nav chart. And this in general a problem for the Empire because it has no ship that can take this roll of a small ship that is a good carrier but also good at fighting and navigation for its cost.
Fleet support: This one is simple. Both have access to projection Experts but once again it is harder for the Arquitens to squeeze out any command other then Nav while the Neb has no problem with that.
Flak: This one is also simple the Neb is just strait up better at flak than the Arquitens. But not only is it better, I would argue it is just flat out the best flak ship in the game. Two blue dice give amazing range and DMG (especially with Toryn Farr). And that range allows the Neb to fight squads without getting itself in danger from those squads and its can fight squads without having to deviate from its course. Those two facts make it in my opinion better then the Raider at Flak.
And now the last point, survivability. Both have the same hit points and Engineering value but the Arquitens has better shields and redirects to make use of the shields. While the Neb has double brace and better nav to mitigate the side arc weak zones. On the surface I would say they are almost equal in survivability with a slight edge to the Arquitens. But with access to the Defensive Retrofit the Arquitens can potentially be more survivable. I think it is just a little questionable how useful the defensive retrofit is on the Arquitens. I don't see that slot populated very often and I did not have much success with it but non the less the option is there so i would give this category to the Arquitens.
So the Neb is in pretty much every aspect better or equal to the Arquitens while still being cheaper!
I also want to compare the Arquitens to the CR90 as a cheap fast and nimble low point cost long to medium range fighting ship. I make this comparison because I think this is an important ship role and the closes ship the Empire has to fulfill this roll is the Arquitens. And spoilers, it is way worse then the CR90 while costing way more.
So let's start with navigation. The CR90 clearly navigates way better than the Arquitens. Like ALOT better. More yaw, higher max speed.
Command: Well, the CR90 has command 1 so it always has the command it needs not much to say. It is just better than the Arquitens.
Fighting: It has the same DMG EV from its arcs and also a Turbplaser slot but one of its dice is blue. I don't think that red dice are strictly better than blue. Red have a higher variance and a lower chance for accuracy while having the same EV than blue. I would say so far the two ships are about equal when it comes to fighting but the thing is that the CR90 can always have a Concentrate Fire Command (which the Arquitens can't have because of it's terrible nav chard). And the best upgrade for these small ships, TRC, is just way more reliable on the CR90 than on the Arquitens. (also a TRC CR90 is still cheaper than a naked Arquitens)
Survivability: On the surface theses ships are once again very similar. Almost identical shields, similar kinds of def tokens. Both have the def retrofit but the CR90 has one less hitpoint. And still I would CLEALRY give this category to the CR90 because its insanely good navigation ability allows it to just straight up avoid danger zones.
Now you may say that the CR90 should rather be compared to the Raider than the Arquitens but I am sorry the skill level required to successfully use the Raider seems to way above mine because so far I had almost no success with the Raider whatsoever.
So once again the CR90 seems to be way more effective for less points than the Aqruitens. I just don't see what would justify the higher point cost of the Arquitens while being worse at everything. If you want a small strong fighting ship you would do better with a CR90 (or a Neb) and if you want a small Carrier or fleet support ship, or anti Squad flak ship the Neb is just flat out better. There appears to be nothing that the Arquitens is better at than those ships but it still costs more.
I really hope that some day we get the Katana fleet Dreadnaught-class / Imperial Support Vessel to fill a kind of CR 90 roll at that point cost. And I also hope we get some small base ship that can fight and also push two squads like the Neb (You know, what the Arquitens should have been but absolutely is not!).
Also while we are at wishing for ships, the Empire really needs some more large ships. The Rebels have several options all used, like we have seen in the German masters. While on the imperial side almost EVERY list was build around an ISD. I just feel like the Empire has a MUCH smaller design space to work with. MSU lists are way harder to pull of and all that is left is to design a list around an ISD that is just a front arc heavy ship. While the rebels have Side arc strong large ships (MC80 H) and front arc strong ships (MC80 L) and even a strange combination of both (MC75). The Rebels seem to just have a lot more variety and options compared to the empire. (Maybe this discussion needs its own thread)
I also want to address one last thing before everybody will bring it up and that is JJ. Many of you will point out: „just get JJ“ that fixes the Arquitens and allows it to do all those other things like Squad command or Concentrate Fire Command. I am sorry guys but a ship that needs a certain commander just to function properly is just strait up broken. “Just put JJ on it” is not an answer. Also these kind of small base ships are something that you throw into your fleet when you have already a basic concept for your fleet and you just need to fill some points with another good small ship. In that case you can't just swap out your commander for JJ because that might break the entire build. The Empire seems to really be lacking when you already have max squads and need to fill 40 to 60-ish points. Especially when you need two more squad activations in your fleet.
Rant over!
Now please tell me where my argumentation is faulty or what unique roll the Arquitens can take that I did not consider so far. Please point something out that makes me realize that the ship is actually worth its cost, especially compared to the Neb and CR90.
