What will be Commander Solo's ability?

By Piratical Moustache, in Star Wars: Armada

As @Triangular pointed out we are missing General Calrissian and General Solo, so I thought that I should make a thread for Solo too.

This is something that I have not fully thought out but what if Solo was an inverted Palpatine, where he gives a defense token across the whole fleet per round?


Well, to represent that he spent his sad time in the New Disney Canon peddling space monsters on his ship, how about:


"Raid tokens and Boarding Teams and Boarding Engineers have no effect on friendly ships, because squid-monsters eat them."


Heck, given how good BT Avenger is, this might actually be a playable ability... :D

From his time hunting the Iron Fist (although I think that's not canon anymore) "When attacking a ship of a larger size class you may add a die of any color" and/or "when defending against a ship of a larger size class the attack counts as obstructed". Not sure of points and if just one of those is good or both. Would be nice vs the SSD but also useful against large and medium ships (for your medium and small ships).

General Han Solo (Non Unique)

Commander

5 points

"The unique squadron 'Han Solo' must be present in this fleet to equip this upgrade to any ship(s). The unique Squadron is treated as the flagship. The effects of this card cannot be used if Han Solo the unique squadron is destroyed or set aside in any way. "

"During the ship phase, when it is your turn to activate, you may exhaust a copy of this card to activate 2 friendly unactivated squadrons instead of a ship. Squadrons activated this way may move and attack as if activated by a ship."


OR

General Han Solo (Non Unique)

Commander

10 points

"The unique squadron 'Han Solo' must be present in this fleet to equip this upgrade to any ship(s). The unique Squadron is treated as the flagship. The effects of this card cannot be used if Han Solo the unique squadron is destroyed or set aside in any way. "

"During the ship phase, when it is your turn to activate, you may exhaust any number of copies of this card to activate an equal number of unactivated squadrons instead. Squadrons activated this way may move and attack as if activated by a ship."

Note that only one commander upgrade may be included in any fleet, regardless of if it is unique or not. Also note that SA is currently considered a strong upgrade, and you create that with a strong secondary effect (activate Squadrons), effectively allowing each of your ships to have SA (but better), and activate squadrons [working as intended]. Is 5 points enough for that? 10 points?

What I call navigation sabatoge:

Commander Solo: 26pts:

Once per turn you may choose one enemy ship at medium-close range of a friendly ship. The enemy ship cannot use yaw clicks this round.

2 hours ago, eliteone said:

What I call navigation sabatoge:

Commander Solo: 26pts:

Once per turn you may choose one enemy ship at medium-close range of a friendly ship. The enemy ship cannot use yaw clicks this round.

What Tractor Beams should be!

5 hours ago, eliteone said:

What I call navigation sabatoge:

Commander Solo: 26pts:

Once per turn you may choose one enemy ship at medium-close range of a friendly ship. The enemy ship cannot use yaw clicks this round.

When does this trigger? Does nav override this?. Is making opponents fly off the board intentional? Is it too easy to trigger?

7 hours ago, eliteone said:

What I call navigation sabatoge:

Commander Solo: 26pts:

Once per turn you may choose one enemy ship at medium-close range of a friendly ship. The enemy ship cannot use yaw clicks this round.

may be tuning it down a bit

" At the start of every turn, just before the ship phase, you may choose one enemy ship at medium-close range of a friendly ship. The enemy ship has a yaw value of (-) for speed 1 and 2 until the start of next turn"

it can be maneuver'd but only if you have a dial, E.T. is affected too. The fact that it's chosen after dials are assigned makes it a threat for the whole ennemy fleet in range. Thrawn can mitigate if he stocks manoeuvers dial, jejerod is good too.

Edited by gounour
"until end of turn" of course

Before his commitment to the rebel alliance he often was quite busy getting away from or past imperial authorities (by dumping cargo and pissing of Jabba for example). Maybe his ability should be themed around getting away or slipping through the enemy formation?

On the other side: As far as I know Han never acted as fleet commander for the alliance. So I don't know if representing him as commander in this game would be the right thing to do. He seemed to have led smaller scale "commando" operations. So maybe a boarding party officer would be better.

11 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

General Han Solo (Non Unique)

Commander

5 points

"The unique squadron 'Han Solo' must be present in this fleet to equip this upgrade to any ship(s). The unique Squadron is treated as the flagship. The effects of this card cannot be used if Han Solo the unique squadron is destroyed or set aside in any way. "

"During the ship phase, when it is your turn to activate, you may exhaust a copy of this card to activate 2 friendly unactivated squadrons instead of a ship. Squadrons activated this way may move and attack as if activated by a ship."

Probably my favorite idea of the thread, but too cheap. I had a similar idea where Commander Solo allowed deployment of his squadron. I think the ability I added is the one I used over on the General Calrissian thread.

An alternate ability is Han's Falcon gains the Assault keyword, thus Han activates first and can raid an enemy ship each turn prior to retaliation.

7 hours ago, eliteone said:

Commander Solo: 26pts:

Once per turn you may choose one enemy ship at medium-close range of a friendly ship. The enemy ship cannot use yaw clicks this round. 

My second favorite idea, but instead maybe like a Rebel Jejeroid; when in range 5 of 2 rebel small-medium ships you may reduce the clicks of the first adjustable joint by 1. Only problem with this, as with another idea above, is that rebels already have 3 commanders heavily focused on small ships, and one on outmaneuvering the enemy.

Perhaps coupled with a second ability, when attacking the rear arc of an enemy ship, add 1 dice to your attack pool.

My current idea for Han is; After revealing command dials, allied ships may spend a command token to apply the corresponding raid token to an enemy ship within medium range.

18 hours ago, Piratical Moustache said:

As @Triangular pointed out we are missing General Calrissian and General Solo, so I thought that I should make a thread for Solo too.

This is something that I have not fully thought out but what if Solo was an inverted Palpatine, where he gives a defense token across the whole fleet per round?

Palpatine is a sort of fleet-wide Intel Officer. Maybe General Solo could be a sort of fleet-wide ECM.

"After deploying fleets, place 1 defense token of each type on this card. At the start of each Ship Phase you may discard 1 of those tokens. If you do, until the end of the round, if an enemy ship or squadron attacks it cannot aim a matching token with an Accuracy symbol." [24 pts.]

The only way to get General Solo will be in a single squadron expansion, 'Stolen Imperial Shuttle.' Once per round when your opponent reveals a command, gain a matching command token.

0 pts.

You can only play in exchange of money. Before taking the money you must play a second match. After the second match, regardless of the result, return all the money to her owner.

Edited by ovinomanc3r
3 hours ago, Divad said:

Probably my favorite idea of the thread, but too cheap.

I mean, Han is 26 points by himself add + 5 for at least 1 copy of the card to make it the commander and it's a 31(+) point commander...

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I mean, Han is 26 points by himself add + 5 for at least 1 copy of the card to make it the commander and it's a 31(+) point commander...

I realize this. But if you are calling him a 31pt commander, then you are saying he gets a 26pt squadron for free. That is very good value, and probably means I can now spend about 26pts less on my squadrons for the same result.

Also any current list with squadron Solo would be faced with an interesting choice. For example I like running squadron Han Solo with Garm, together they cost 51 points. In that particular list I would now be faced with the idea of dropping Garm for General Solo for a saving of 20 points. Do I value Garm's tokens 20pts higher then whatever additional ability Solo brings?

22 minutes ago, Divad said:

I realize this. But if you are calling him a 31pt commander, then you are saying he gets a 26pt squadron for free. That is very good value, and probably means I can now spend about 26pts less on my squadrons for the same result.

I guess I just don't get the logic here.

The squadron isn't free, it's still 26 points, it still comes out of your squadron limit, it still comes out of the point total, and now it's even got a minimum of +5 tagged on for an effect that technically can't even be used until you add another squad...

I guess it may seem cheaper if you're looking to circumvent having a commander AND you already run Solo anyways... but I think that's a pretty niche group? At that point, congrats you've saved 15 points, enjoy. I guess.

For everyone else, the investment requirement to get the commander effect is pretty high...

26 + X5 + X(2Y)

X= number of "passes" desired
Y= cost of squadron type desired.

IE

I want 3 passes and to use x-wings or Yt-1300s

26 + 3x5 + 3(2x13)

I need Han so 26 plus 3 of the 5 point commander cards so 15, then I need 2 squads per pass so 78 points in Xwings or Yts1300s for a total of 119.

Sure, I get the effects of all these ships, but I HAVE to take them to get the commander effect.


Considering the added risks of having your flagship being a squadron, which is super vulnerable to auto damage and has no real way of recovering on it's own...

I think the cost is appropriate.








I don’t expect there to be one.

I feel I just can’t get excited about an EU “thing” now.

I mean, I understand that there were a series of books that related to it, but not having read those ones, I have no attachment to it, and acknowledge going forward, neither will my son.

But, digressing....

Rules wise, it feels kind of defunct and overly complex to have a flagship squadron tied to requiring an upgrade card which is still lost when the ship is, invalidating your squadron.

Its one of those rare situations where you’re going to have to write new rules to accommodate, or just pick another plan, because trying to finangle it in that way is just... a little awkward, as read.

Balance wise, I’d need to see how broken a full squadron compliment can be when last-firsting with them instead of ships...

40 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I don’t expect there to be one.

I feel I just can’t get excited about an EU “thing” now.

I mean, I understand that there were a series of books that related to it, but not having read those ones, I have no attachment to it, and acknowledge going forward, neither will my son.

But, digressing....

Rules wise, it feels kind of defunct and overly complex to have a flagship squadron tied to requiring an upgrade card which is still lost when the ship is, invalidating your squadron.

Its one of those rare situations where you’re going to have to write new rules to accommodate, or just pick another plan, because trying to finangle it in that way is just... a little awkward, as read.

Balance wise, I’d need to see how broken a full squadron compliment can be when last-firsting with them instead of ships...

As always, the input is appreciated. Yeah, it's kinda way too much text for a card anyways. I like the idea, but I'm not sure quite ow to get it to work.

I like the idea of General Solo putting the flagship on a squad. That might be enough of an effect in and of itself as it changes the game in an interesting way. What if - for wording and abilities sake - you made him 29 pts and reading "Place one "Han Solo" Squadron on this card. At the end of both players deployments deploy this squadron as normal. This squadron is considered part of your fleet for resolving unique keywords."

Essentially, his ability is being able to take the falcon in lieu of a "traditional" commander ability. So you could take 395 pts in ships and squads including Solo on Falcon, at the expense of a commander ability. I find this actually really cool and themey. He doesn't really have a "command" ability - but you get him, and when it comes to piloting and skill he can tip the battle in your favor just cause he is Han Solo and does his thing. At face value this means buying a squad out of your ship points which has some cool uses. The underlying math/balance perspective would be that he would add the 15-33pts which would normally be points spent on an admiral ability to your overall combat effectiveness fleet wide which isn't anything to sneeze at.

@Darth Sanguis

16 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

I like the idea of General Solo putting the flagship on a squad. That might be enough of an effect in and of itself as it changes the game in an interesting way. What if - for wording and abilities sake - you made him 29 pts and reading "Place one "Han Solo" Squadron on this card. At the end of both players deployments deploy this squadron as normal. This squadron is considered part of your fleet for resolving unique keywords."

Essentially, his ability is being able to take the falcon in lieu of a "traditional" commander ability. So you could take 395 pts in ships and squads including Solo on Falcon, at the expense of a commander ability. I find this actually really cool and themey. He doesn't really have a "command" ability - but you get him, and when it comes to piloting and skill he can tip the battle in your favor just cause he is Han Solo and does his thing. At face value this means buying a squad out of your ship points which has some cool uses. The underlying math/balance perspective would be that he would add the 15-33pts which would normally be points spent on an admiral ability to your overall combat effectiveness fleet wide which isn't anything to sneeze at.

@Darth Sanguis

Also a neat idea... lemme ponder on that a bit.

12 hours ago, LennoxPoodle said:

On the other side: As far as I know Han never acted as fleet commander for the alliance. So I don't know if representing him as commander in this game would be the right thing to do. He seemed to have led smaller scale "commando" operations. So maybe a boarding party officer would be better.

As far as I know only in EU/Legends.

Personally given the way General Solo operates, I would say that it is this:

General Solo: 30 points

Friendly small ships may take more than one modification, OR as a officer upgrade.

Captain Solo: 12 small or medium ship

This ship may take two modifications.

There is definitely a large potential for this being overpowered, but since modifying ships is what Han does I figured that he would do something of this sort.

Edited by Darth Bane's Wrath
3 hours ago, Darth Bane's Wrath said:

... is definitely a large ...

This word really looks strange, if it's spelled like this!

@Captain Ordo N-11Well, he definetly led the post-endor pathfinder operations in Shattered Empire, which is canon. This and the fact that he leading the raid on the shield generator seems to indicate that he indeed serves more as a leader for smaller scale commando opertions.