Nah, there is no better place for the meme machine than the ARCatine!

3 minutes ago, Dwing said:

Sidious would fit better in the CIS or Empire factions.

Yeah! Thats for sure... It kinda feels strange to get the whole ambiguity of the republic to be a game effect, but if it is well done perhaps it turns as one ofthe most fluffy cards for the game!

2 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Nah, there is no better place for the meme machine than the ARCatine!

Without having Dooku in the same faction to constantly tell to "DEW IT", it just won't be the same!

Thematically, flipping Chancellor Palpatine to Darth Sidious should execute order 66 and replace all your own jedi-pilots with Vader in his X1 and the points should kind of match.....which would be cute but impractical.

Anyways, I find it unlikely that Palpatine flips into Sidious. They are showing two upgrade cards, most likely, cause it is two different cards...

13 minutes ago, Sciencius said:

Thematically, flipping Chancellor Palpatine to Darth Sidious should execute order 66 and replace all your own jedi-pilots with Vader in his X1 and the points should kind of match.....which would be cute but impractical.

Anyways, I find it unlikely that Palpatine flips into Sidious. They are showing two upgrade cards, most likely, cause it is two different cards...

You can l i t e r a l l y read at the bottom of the Chancellor Palpatine card, “[During ???] Phase, you may [flip] this card.”

Yes, the word flip is covered by the spread, as is the timing. But you can read 2/3rds of the exact wording of the game mechanic that flips Pivot Wings and S-Foils.

Why is this so hard to believe? It makes perfect sense mechanically and thematically.

1 minute ago, SpiderMana said:

You can l i t e r a l l y read at the bottom of the Chancellor Palpatine card, “[During ???] Phase, you may [flip] this card.”

Yes, the word flip is covered by the spread, as is the timing. But you can read 2/3rds of the exact wording of the game mechanic that flips Pivot Wings and S-Foils.

Why is this so hard to believe? It makes perfect sense mechanically and thematically.

NO YOU CANNOT LITTERALLY READ PALPATINE FLIPS INTO SIDIOUS!

Feel free: what do you think fills in those blanks?

2 hours ago, Sciencius said:

NO YOU CANNOT LITTERALLY READ PALPATINE FLIPS INTO SIDIOUS!

But can you do it objectively?

Ugh, all this arc related excitement is not good for my health (or my wallet)

You can see both Palps have purple coordinate. The only way purple actions make sense is "spend Forcus --> do action" (and he seems, if I squint hard enough, to be able to regain Forcus if somethingsomething range 0-2 and also you take a stess"

Between the possibility of a "free" coordinate (should cost an action, but palp might give you your forcus back) and Stinker/Sinker, you're looking at ARCs that might not suck... HYPE!

FWIW the product blurb for this expansion states there are 14 upgrade cards included, so they are only showing half (or less if that Palp/Sidious card really is double-sided) in the spread.

I'm still trying to figure out why there is a Saturation Salvo in the Guardians of the Republic spread when none of the Republic ships have the Reload action...

2 minutes ago, NeonWolf said:

FWIW the product blurb for this expansion states there are 14 upgrade cards included, so they are only showing half (or less if that Palp/Sidious card really is double-sided) in the spread.

I'm still trying to figure out why there is a Saturation Salvo in the Guardians of the Republic spread when none of the Republic ships have the Reload action...

Either a place holder or an upgrade card gives reload

4 hours ago, Dwing said:

Sidious would fit better in the CIS or Empire factions.

No kidding.

I was genuinely expecting the CIS to have a Sidious card that was basically identical to palpatine, but with a dark twist.

3 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

You   can l i t e r a l l y read at the bottom of the Chancellor Palpatine card, “[During ???] Phase, you may [flip] this card.”      

And you can l i t e r a l l y see an entirely separate card named Sidious.

Why is it so hard to understand that they are showing us 2 separate pieces of cardboard.

The possibilities

Palpatine and Sidious are different cards, with palpatine flipping to some other effect. This is what the picture shows, but makes no sense thematically

Palpatine and Sidious are the front and back of the same card, and FFG included 2 copies in the spread to tease us, but only 1 copy will come in the expansion. Possible, but they have never done anything like that before. Previous flip cards have only shown 1 side in the spread, and the mechanic was called out in the article text, with pictures of the two sides individually.

Palpatine and Sidious are the front and back of the same card, and 2 copies are being included in the expansion. This makes even less sense, as surely they are both unique.

I am wondering if the crew next to Palp is Side (or Door) Pocket Gunner? Seeing how a few other things reference the side arcs, a gunner restricted to side arc only shots sounds neat.

Primo. I'm 99% sure Palpatine / Sidious are actually one and the same. Card. Who could ever expect that, knowing the movies, right?

Secundo . To those saying Sidious would obviously fit CIS better - I beg you pardon? At what point of the Clone Wars did Sheev actually act in favour of CIS? The Confederation has always been merely a puppet at his command but nothing else. He put the separatists in motion to create a threat to the Republic which would allow for the creation of the Grand Army of the Republic for him to command and for the supreme rights to be appointed to him. He used Dooku as nothing but a tool and a plaything for Anakin to kill and begin his collapse to the Dark Side. The CIS engineers designed the first bits of the Death Star for him, a project that any Republic specialist would surely refuse to participate in due to moral consequences. And finally, once all the pawns have been set as he pleased, he had no remorse sending Darth Vader against the remaining leaders of CIS so they'd take to their graves the grim secret of the puppetmaster behind the whole tragedy of the Galactic War... At no point in time had Palpatine actually planned for the Confederation to win the conflict! Just because Sidious is a bad guy and CIS are the bad guys of the era doesn't mean they're an automatic Tinder Match, eh?

Tertio. It's an awfully lot of squinting so it's a solid bunch of guesswork, but from what I see, the card will read:

• Chancellor Palpatine:
  Setup: Equip this side faceup.
  When you defend, if the attacker is in range 0-2 you may spend one [Forcus]. If you do the attacker gains one stress token.
  During the End Phase, you may flip this card.
  • This would actually fit nicely with the scene his art comes from - putting seeds of doubt in the head of the assailant.
• Darth Sidious:
  After you perform a coordinate action, the ship you coordinated gains one stress token. Then it gains a focus token or you recover 1 [Forcus].
  • Another - would be - thematic ability, focusing on the reign of terror Sidious has grasped the Galaxy with. People do as he commands out of fear. Yet still, the work is very effective. Alternatively, unlimited powwwah!
  • In this form, it would also pretty much confirm that purple actions are bonus actions performed at the expense of a Forcus. Otherwise, the second branch of such ability would be pretty much pointless on non-force pilots. And we shouldn't expect to see any other pilots in the ARC, most likely the only crew carrier the Republic will feature.

26 minutes ago, Kilrex said:

I am wondering if the crew next to Palp is Side (or Door) Pocket Gunner? Seeing how a few other things reference the side arcs, a gunner restricted to side arc only shots sounds neat.

Would love to see one like that, but ARC did not feature any side-facing hardpoints. The side-arc abilities are meant for reinforcement of a wing-formation flying.

Please also explain to me how it would make sense to have a unique Palpatine card and a separate, also unique, Sidious card in the same faction.

You can equip both in the same squad, then?

I just don’t see what’s so difficult to grasp about it being double-sided here. No they’ve never shown both sides of a double-sided card in a spread before.

They’ve also never had purple actions or Clone Wars era factions.

29 minutes ago, ryfterek said:

To those saying Sidious would obviously fit CIS better - I beg you pardon? At what point of the Clone Wars did Sheev actually act in favour of CIS? The Confederation has always been merely a puppet at his command but nothing else.

The same can be said about him and the Republic. As Chancellor Palpatine he controlled the Republic, as Darth Sidious, through his apprentice, he controlled the Separatists. Remember, the leadership of the CIS knew about "Lord Sidious", and that he was Dooku's master. While he probably weighted his schemes for the republic to win, I think he would have been perfectly happy if it had gone the other way. His goal was the conflict itself, he almost certainly used his position to provide intelligence or strategic planning to the CIS in order to draw the war out until he was ready.

Certainly no one in the Republic knew who "Darth Sidious" was, or worked with him in that capacity, while no one on the separatist side knew that the sith Lord they were taking orders from was a member of the Republic.

@Forgottenlore your points are perfectly valid, but I'd argue that - being de facto in charge of both of these sides - Sheev had any reason to favour CIS. Composed of a multitude of offside worlds, confederation was not the greatest starting point for the Galactic Empire he has plotted. Not without a devastation of multiple crucial Republic worlds which would be invaluable in the future past war. The machine-based army, while cheap and somehow efficient, left no room for a fanatic propaganda needed for the totalitarian doctrine of the Empire and wouldn't tear the society into controllable bits the way Imperial Academies did.

To top it off, having the Order 66 prepared in advance shows clearly what Sheev's dominant intention was. And bear in mind that Republic was not at so much of an upside at the turning point of RotS, for him to make up his mind in their favour ad hoc . While he must have had many outcomes covered in his plans, he was ever capable of ending the war with no more than a nod. He only dragged it long enough so that Anakin would grow up to become the apprentice he sought. Immediately after that, the Order has been called, Jedi slaughtered, CIS collapsed and the Empire established.

You’re making my point for me. He wanted a war and used it to progress the galaxy to a point that he could declare himself emperor. Like I said, he probably weighted things to go the way they did, but if greivious and the droid armies had been more effective, or the Jedi and clones less so, he could have made it work.

The point is that he only interacted with the republic as palpatine, and he only interacted with the separatists as Sidious.

8 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

The point is that he only interacted with the republic as palpatine, and he only interacted with the separatists as Sidious.

Alright, here you've made it more clear than before for me why you'd like to see the two cards of him to be split. Still, I really doubt this dream shall come true. For a less fluff-dependant argument to present, the fact only the Palpatine side appears to be flipping, suggests the point is to recreate his grand revelation as the mysterious Sith Lord.

Might be interesting if the palpatine side can flip to Sidious, but the Sidious side has a separatist limitation. So you could equip palpatine to a republic ship and reveal him later, or equip the Sidious side face up to a separatist ship at start. Not sure how that would be worded.

The thing is, I’m not sure anyone who even knew “Darth Sidious” existed survived (other than Anakin, yoda, and obi-wan, of course). After the separatist leaders were all killed I figure “Darth Sidious” became unknown. It certainly seems that no one in the Empire knew that the Emperor could use the force.

Is there a discussion somewhere about why the ARC would need calculate tokens?

10 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Is there a discussion somewhere about why the ARC would need calculate tokens?

Why would there be?

We already have examples from various droid crew (notably the protocol droids 0-0-0 and both c3pos...also Ig-88D) that could explain it

Course, it could be a gunner or astro with calculate...that'd be neat

1 minute ago, ficklegreendice said:

Why would there be?

We already have examples from various droid crew (notably the protocol droids 0-0-0 and both c3pos...also Ig-88D) that could explain it

I guess I posted before I thought the thing through. Is there anything suggesting new Astromechs that might grant them?