Currently, without the SSD, if each player were to be allowed 1 of every set, including the Core set, and assuming each player were to be of equal skill, and no point limits, which faction would win. Rebel Alliance or the Galactic Empire.

Assuming no upgrades. I think it would all depend on die rolls. Rebels have the shields, but empire have the hull points. But for squadrons I think the empire have it hands down.

Rebels:

• 835 points of ships, 13 activations (or 794 points of ships, 12 activations with only one Hammerhead).
• 431 points of squadrons, 24 units (may not be optimal).
• 1,266 points in total.

Imperials:

• 761 points of ships, 10 activations.
• 476 points of squadrons, 28 units.
• 1,237 points in total.

Based on that I think I'd give the Rebels the edge. A lot more points invested in ships, and a healthy activation advantage. Not sure if the extra 45 points of Imperial squadrons can make up for the 74 point ship deficit.

Rebels also have 3 large ships to the Empire's 2, and while the Victory has fallen off a bit, the CR90 and NebB can still be a core part of a Rebel fleet.

Rebels have 71 hull, Imperials have 70 hull, so slight advantage to the Rebels there as well (I'm not adding up all the shields, but I suspect that will go Rebels way as well).

The Empire has two "niche" ships - the Interdictor and Quasar. The Interdictor can't do much without upgrades, and the Quasar only works if it comes into close-medium range of the action (at which point it probably gets killed, and is blocking the rest of the Imperial fleet). The Pelta also suffers without upgrades, but I don't think as much as the Interdictor for its points.

So... yeah, I suspect the Rebels might win, unless the Imperial squadrons can do some heavy lifting.

The Imperials probably have Admirals that probably "scale" more powerfully. Motti, Thrawn, and Vader get better with each additional ship on the board, as they're applying their bonus to more ships. Even Tarkin would be a token powerhouse, giving out 10 tokens a turn.

Interestingly, Leia and Garm become far more tempting Rebel commanders in this variant as well, since their power scales with number of ships. Ackbar still won't play terrible well with the Hammerheads and the two Nebulons and the Pelta that the Rebel fleet would necessarily have, and admirals like Raddus and Reikaan that target 1 Ship are far less impactful with such a huge board.

Imperials could also bring two fleet commands, since they could run two Cymoons. Rebels would be capped at a single Fleet Command on their Phoenix Home. Fleet Commands, like certain Admirals, get much better as the number of ships on the board increases.

Also, Gunnery Teams would be supremely valuable in this format, since there would be so many targets on the board. The Empire would have four solid platforms for Gunnery Teams: 2x ISD, 2x VSD. The Rebels would really only have the MC80L and Assault Frigate and maybe the MC75, but it's short range might better warrant OE or something.


With these sorts of considerations, I think Imperials would have the edge. Especially with such a full board, the small little ships of the Rebellion (two CR90s, two HHs) would have a hard time avoiding scary arcs and would risk getting one-shotted in a lot of the board space (given 2x ISD, 2x VSD, 1x Gladiator). Also, with such a crowded board, Rebel ships that tend to want to kite at range and circle around a target would have a harder time finding the space to safely do that, where the Imperial's "FRONT TOWARD ENEMY" claymore mine strategy would work great for a big block of wedges. It becomes much harder to exploit the sides or rear of an ISD when it's got other star destroyers on its flanks.

It also doesn't help that the Rebels have to bring 2x Nebulons and 1x Pelta, as they are arguably the worst ships in the game ( Yavaris title not withstanding).



So I'm going with Imps, by a country mile.

This is pretty interesting to read, as the two comments with proper descriptions and details, seem to be split down the middle.

2 hours ago, Zeoinx said:

This is pretty interesting to read, as the two comments with proper descriptions and details, seem to be split down the middle.

Not really - we're going with different assumptions. My comment assumes no upgrade cards, just the ships and squadrons. The other assumes upgrades and commanders. I'm not sure I agree with their conclusions but I haven't thought enough about it or run the numbers to check properly.

With just the numbers, Rebels should still win points-wise; they have 71 upgrade slots + commander, whereas the Empire only has 56 + commander. That gives the Rebels a pretty substantial points advantage (at 5 points a card, that's another 75 point advantage - although obviously there are diminishing returns to more points after a while).

That said, two of the weaknesses of the Imperial fleet I noted were the Interdictor and Quasar - both fairly useless without upgrades. With upgrades they become pretty deadly (particularly with the squadron advantage the Empire has). While the Rebels do get a Fleet Command on their Pelta, the Empire gets up to two Fleet Commands - including Chimaera (so only one Cymoon - probably one ISD II?), which gives a lot of flexibility. Plus maybe G-8s on the Interdictor could cause a huge mess for the Rebels; negating the manoeuvrability advantage they have.

17 minutes ago, Grumbleduke said:

That said, two of the weaknesses of the Imperial fleet I noted were the Interdictor and Quasar - both fairly useless without upgrades. With upgrades they become pretty deadly (particularly with the squadron advantage the Empire has).

Right, and as you noted the 71 to 70 hull advantage the Rebels have changes quickly if we consider Motti as the Imperial Admiral the Imperials suddenly have +20 Hull, for a 71 to 90 Hull Point differential. Out of all the Admirals in the game, Motti probably scales the best with the number of ships on the board, and unlike Admirals like Mon Mothma or Cracken or Ackbar, he works on all types of ships. I'm not convinced Motti would be the most powerful Admiral for the Empire in such a format, but his simple brute utility sure would be hard to ignore.


I'm not sure that the fleet with the "most points" will be the best fleet in this match-up. You may be right that the Rebel fleet will have more points spent once all the slots are filled on both sides (I'm certainly not gonna check the math), but as the board fills with more and more ships and less and less free space, it really starts to favor the general Imperial Strategy (fly in and blast things) and hamper the general Rebel Strategy (kite around the fight), generally speaking.

It's kind of like the difference between Standard X-Wing (100pts) and Epic X-Wing (300 or 400pts): the sheer number of things on the boards drastically changes what is good, since hyper-defensive opposing ships can be flat-out ignored or focused down easily given all of your firing arcs. Thus, ships that are meta-defining in Standard are over-costed potatoes in Epic. In the same way, I think the less-brawly and more nuanced hit-and-run tactics of Rebel ships like the Nebulon, AFmkII, CR90s and MC80 are far less potent on an overflowing board. All of the Empire's ships are pretty happy in a tight scrum, except maybe the Arquitens.