So far in my playtesting, I've picked out 3 aces that I think work well with Palpatine; Vader, The Grand Inquisitor, and of course Ace of Legend. Other ships in the Empire, like the Tie Defender, cost too much and others don't have the right tools necessary to be an ace that can last the whole game. I've been settled on Soontir being the best avaliable ace to the Empire, because I6 double repostion with the ability to still get mods is superb in 2.0. Although Vader seem's like the obvious choice I discovered after about a 2 month period of me playing this version of palp aces

Lambda-class T-4a Shuttle - Omicron Group Pilot - 56
Omicron Group Pilot - (43)
Emperor Palpatine (13)

TIE/in Interceptor - Soontir Fel - 64
•Soontir Fel - Ace of Legend (52)
Lone Wolf (4)
Stealth Device (8)

TIE Advanced x1 - Darth Vader - 73
•Darth Vader - Black Leader (70)
Fire-Control System (3)

Total: 193/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

Vader seems to be very hit or miss. On average, hes incredible with his damage and very consistent with his defence because he is basically permantly focused. However, he's somewhat unreliable on his green dice because he has no way to modify his blanks. He feels like a "win more" kind of pilot, that helps me win matchups that I can already win if I had another ace. I analyzed the other aces in empire, and at first The Grand Inquisitor seemed weak. He lost his Tie/V1 title, and it seemed to me that there was no way for me to get close to his token stacking that made him so good in 1.0. And the downside of having to spend the force for his ability seemed like a major detriment to his mods that he was paying a premium for already. However, after putting Super Natural Reflexes on him, I found a reinvigorated Inquisitor.

Lambda-class T-4a Shuttle - Omicron Group Pilot - 56
Omicron Group Pilot - (43)
Emperor Palpatine (13)

TIE/in Interceptor - Soontir Fel - 64
•Soontir Fel - Ace of Legend (52)
Lone Wolf (4)
Stealth Device (8)

TIE Advanced v1 - Grand Inquisitor - 73
•Grand Inquisitor - Master of the Inquisitorious (58)
Fire-Control System (3)
Supernatural Reflexes (12)

Total: 193/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

Supernatural reflexes is incredible on him, because it vastly changes where he can end up due to him having access to both boost and barrel roll naturally. This lets me be very unpredictable, giving him an edge over Vader here by vastly limiting the number of shots on my ace. More often than not I'm basically deciding when my Inquisitor is being shot because the ability to repostion before and after my move is so strong. Vader without Supernatural reflexes is very predicatble, and I expect it would be extremely difficult to beat a tie swarm without that card. Being able to repostion into linked focus and then clearing the stress with the green dial is absolutely gross in 2.0, and I often ended up with TL, focus, evade, and sometimes a force point (really 2 because of Palpatine) by either being coordinated, or having the TL from turns before. He's actually way more survivable than Vader by being a force user with access to the evade action and his force ability. His damage output is not as good as Vader's is on paper, but the only place where Inquisitor often isn't throwing as many dice as Vader is at Range 1. Also, Inquisitor will often get more shots on target over the course of the game due to the combo of SuperNatural Reflexes and his dial. New Inquisitor is a different beast than his 1.0 self, being optimized at range 1 instead of the long range sniper that he was in 1.0. I've found that if I must be in arc of an enemy I'd rather end up in arc range 1 than range 2 of an enemy, considering that combined with a focus, evade, and his force power, he's exceptionally hard to hit at range 1. Range 3 is alright defensively, but you often won't have the force to add the range 1 bonus to throw meaningful dice. Overall, this is my somewhat qualified analysis of the New Grand Inquisitor vs Vader, and I hope others can chime in on this Inquisitor list.

Vader's offense IS superior (not just 'on paper'). The bonus crit should not be ignored. Also, I disagree that Vader's 'time-on-target' is worse than Inquisitor's. Vader can more 'safely' K-turn (since he isn't really more vulnerable when stressed than when not) whereas Inquisitor loses out on a potential evade token if he k-turns (and he doesn't want to be stressed because then he loses the Supernatural Reflex option next turn). So actually, I'd say Vader can 'stay on target' even better than Grand Inqy (especially when you factor in that Inqy sometimes needs to flee in order to recharge his force tokens). Vader is also Initiative 6 compared to GI's 5, and while that isn't always going to matter, Vader is certainly more able to kill Fenn Rau, for example.

Having said all that, I do agree with you that Grand Inquisitor is quite good. Especially with Palp in the list, because his biggest drawback is only having 2 force points, and Palp kind of 'fixes' that. And Grand Inqy is totally more unpredictable than Vader, and that is a big benefit, especially against swarms or other heavy jousting squads.

Personally, I think either is a solid option in this kind of list. I think what it comes down to is, what are you more worried about facing: other high Initiative Aces or bigger squads of generics? Vader is slightly more deadly against other aces, but Grand Inquisitor can run circles around lower Initiative and theoretically 'solo' enemies that have no way to adapt to his extreme mobility.

May I ask why you believe the inquisitor is better at range one than range three? Assuming you are using the force ability, at range three you shoot with the range one benefits, but defend with the range three benefits. At range one, you fire the same three dice, but defend at (in effect) range two. I'm not trying to be rude I'm just curious how you came up with the conclusion as I have not played 2.0 yet.

22 hours ago, Toph said:

May I ask why you believe the inquisitor is better at range one than range three? Assuming you are using the force ability, at range three you shoot with the range one benefits, but defend with the range three benefits. At range one, you fire the same three dice, but defend at (in effect) range two. I'm not trying to be rude I'm just curious how you came up with the conclusion as I have not played 2.0 yet.

Attacking at range 3 makes you spend a force to up your dice, but the defender gets the range bonus too now. While if you attack at range 1, you are already throwing 3 dice, and you can spend your force to reduce their red dice, which is better than me adding a green dice to my pool. I'd rather not have to spend a force to throw my 3 dice, and instead get it natively and use my force to reduce their red dice. Combined with evade and focus/palp, the Inquisitor might be the hardest pilot to hit in the game at range 1.

Is palpatine enough to build an aces list around?

46 minutes ago, Greebwahn said:

Is palpatine enough to build an aces list around?

While not as broken as OG Palp, there's still a lot of value here. And having the Lambda to support the aces can be surprisingly effective.

If your opponent focuses on the Lambda first, it's not the end of the world if it goes, and you've likely had time to chew the enemy down. Rear arcs on the Lambda really help keep it dishing out hurt, too.

If your opponent doesn't focus on the Lambda, now you've got access to the Force to influence dice, which is a great thing -- it frees squishy aces to focus on positioning, or letting them use tokens on offense/save them for defense, depending on how much paint you get. The aces can die to really terrible rolls still, but it does take away a lot of the decision making that even OG Palp sometimes required.

Without having too much 2.0 practice under my belt, I'd still say Palp Aces feels like a viable archetype still.

So, while we're on the topic of how cool the Grand Inquisitor is, I just noticed that his ability does not specify primary weapon only, only that you must be performing an attack at range 2-3. 4 die concussion missiles anyone? 6 die proton rockets (provided range 2 and in bullseye arc)? Not the reason to choose the Inquisitor I know, but a fun little bonus

The 'missile' icon in the rules specifically state that secondary attacks that have it cannot benefit from 'the range 1 bonus'. So while its true that Grand Inqy could spend a force for his ability when firing a missile, it would be a complete waste since it would have no effect.

3 hours ago, blade_mercurial said:

The 'missile' icon in the rules specifically state that secondary attacks that have it cannot benefit from 'the range 1 bonus'. So while its true that Grand Inqy could spend a force for his ability when firing a missile, it would be a complete waste since it would have no effect.

Darn.

12 hours ago, Toph said:

Darn.

Well, actually you are right till september 28th. Then the new rules v1.0.2 with a change explicitly forbidding it will be effective.

Lambda or Reaper best as a Palp carrier? I flew a list very similar to the second one but with Vizier Reaper instead (and some changes to the aces, predator Sontir, SR, FCS, Proton rockets Inquisitor) and I feel it did a lot more work than a Lambda could have ever done.

Its ability to get into the thick of it and block stuff is great and with Viziers ability the coordinate is usually white and is very useful to give the Inquisitor better action economy so it's the action you mostly want to take. And once you done that blocking you can get back into the fight quickly again because of that really nice 1 sloop. The Lambda on the other hand would have a much more difficult time getting into a good blocking position and even if it manages to it's a one off thing as it would take too many turns to turn around, so best it can do then is just slow roll it and hope do get something done with the rear turret. And even if you don't try to block you are going to have much harder time staying in coordinate range of your aces compared to a Reaper.

So I flew this yesterday:

(58) Grand Inquisitor
(3) Fire-Control System
(12) Supernatural Reflexes
Points 73

(43) Omicron Group Pilot
(13) Emperor Palpatine
Points 56

(52) "Whisper"
(4) Juke
(14) Darth Vader
Points 70

Total points: 199

I dislike Vader as a pilot. He is very expensive and the dial is really bad.

Also I cannot play soontir I am just very bad with him. Hence I tried the Phantom. The repositioning power is just great. It makes it very easy to stay out of arc. Vader steals green tokens and then the Juke works wonders.

For me this list worked very well. I kind of only made it since I like having Vader, Palp and the Inquisitor in one list, this is very dark side. But it also worked quite well.

I have to agree, Inq is really good at range 1.

23 hours ago, Cartchan said:

Well, actually you are right till september 28th. Then the new rules v1.0.2 with a change explicitly forbidding it will be effective.

Well actually, actually, the Main Rulebook quite clearly and explicitly states that you CANNOT apply range bonuses with attacks that have the 'missile' icon. So no, this 'combo' is not allowed if you play by the rules. The Rules Reference document just added a clarification calling out Inquisitor specifically (that for whatever reason, is dated to apply Sept 28th), but that doesn't mean it 'counters' the Main Rulebook until then...

Well, it is not that obvious:

On 9/16/2018 at 8:53 PM, SnooSnarry said:

Attacking at range 3 makes you spend a force to up your dice, but the defender gets the range bonus too now. While if you attack at range 1, you are already throwing 3 dice, and you can spend your force to reduce their red dice, which is better than me adding a green dice to my pool. I'd rather not have to spend a force to throw my 3 dice, and instead get it natively and use my force to reduce their red dice. Combined with evade and focus/palp, the Inquisitor might be the hardest pilot to hit in the game at range 1.

Isn't taking away your enemy's range bonus at range one the same as adding your range 1 bonus while at range 2?

3 hours ago, Intergerm said:

Isn't taking away your enemy's range bonus at range one the same as adding your range 1 bonus while at range 2?

Yes, but with supernatural you often won't have enough force each turn. It encourages you to stay at range 1 to better arc dodge and not spend a force to throw the extra die, and you can make the choice to just do your move and end up range 1 to tank the shot.