8 minutes ago, Jimble said:

You are a font of all knowledge on Armada, but leave cricket history to those who go through the pain of watching England play. It was the Australians.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashes

On an Armada note, I think Bail might be waiting for the Starhawk. I've got this feeling it will be the right ship for him.

You see, I always considered that it was the ashes of English cricket which it was named for - and primarily it is the relations that cremate a loved one, not the enemy...

Alrhufh it could be said the actual ashes, the literal ones, rather than the mere naming ones, are Australian.

and I am always happy to be proven incorrect 😁

I agree on Bail too - he force multiplies a better activation, so getting a better s ruvatyin as well as delayers are imperative...

I can see the comparison to Pryce too, in fact that she’s easier and more straightforward - but the question to ask isn’t why Bail isn’t seen as much as Pryce - it’s why Bail is comparing unfavourably to OTHER Officers available to the Rebels.

6 hours ago, LordCola said:

Now first things first, I am an imperial player and I have never even played rebels before but Bail Organa seems like a really good card to me. Like better than Pryce good but you never see him and I wonder why.

Bail is like Pryce a tool to allow you to go last first and I think in context he is much better at that for the rebels than Pryce for the Empire. Rebel ships are already through the board significantly cheaper than Imperial ships. So it has always been way easier for them to get more activations and with that get the last activation. Now with Bail you have a tool to guarantee the first activation in a crucial turn. But not only does he make it very easy for rebels to get last first he also allows the rebel player to do this while having a full 400 point list. If you want to go last first with Pryce you still need to fork over an additional 20+ points for a bid (and even than there is no guarantee for first player). With those 20+ points rebels can buy a whole additional ship (with a common loudout. A Comms Net GR-75 is 20 points!). And since you have a full 400 point list you will likely also have the advantage of playing your objectives. Compared to a Price last first a Bail last first gets to have roughly 20+ more points and second player objective advantage. That's insane!

Now you may argue that Bail is pretty bad if you get first player, but just think about that. You just got away with getting first player with a 400 point list. I would gladly take that (of course this needs to be on a list that wants to go last first.)

And lastly Bail is the perfect defense should you face a Pryce list. The biggest danger when facing a Pryce opponent is them getting last first and Bail can guarantee that that wont happen. Bail and Pryce trigger simultaneously, so if Pryce is the first player they will have to determine the Pryce turn first. You can than just set Bail to trigger the turn after Pryce guaranteeing that the opponent does not get the last first. And if Pryce is not first player than that means not last first for her.

So why do we see him so rarely, especially in top level games?

As others have mentioned it is a problem that he doesn't go well with many squads and that is the most effective way to build fleets at the moment

A weakness of Bail that is constantly overseen is that after his activation the enemy player will activate his entire fleet once plus most likely his heaviest hitter a second time, before he can be activated again. That quite often results in his death. Considering that he is most likely on a ship that is a massive point sink he then becomes a liability. This is a problem you do not face with Pryce.

Poor poor AFmk2 nobody loves it. Just sits in the rebels Limbo of fleet choices. I like it, but it's fault is that it's hard to include, it's a hard ship to give a signed role to that isn't done by a more pricey stronger ship, nor is it cheap enough to just throw in that a better kitted cheaper baseline ship wouldn't be a bit more preferable. Still good just needs worked at to fit in harder than others. Dunno that's kinda how I see it.

7 hours ago, geek19 said:

Also if you Bail wrong it hurts you WAAAY more than if you Pryce wrong. You get to watch your own ship get last-firsted.

3 hours ago, Snipafist said:

Pryce is much easier to use and allows for two back-to-back activations with last+first on the (pre-SSD) strongest platform in the game. Because you don't need to pad activations to get that last+first, you can just ignore activations entirely and afford a ridiculous bid. Her design is stupid, but we're stuck with her (until some hoped-for future errata).

If you want to get Bail working in a similar manner, you need a good number of activations and at that point Strategic Advisor is a much easier inclusion. If you want to build more aggressively for second player with a Strategic fleet, he can work better in that role, but there still aren't any Rebel ships that can leverage him as aggressively as Pryce and if your opponent outbids you, they can still just make you first to sidestep your Strategic shenanigans and demote Bail to "token boy." He just isn't as good as Pryce or Strategic Advisor overall. He has some uses, but there's a reason you don't see as much of him as the other 2.

Not much more to say about this, to be honest. You can get a pretty reasonable fleet in at 5 activations, but you're going to cede that last activation to something like @GiledPallaeon 's Nova fleet. How much you choose to build around that is up to you.

I built a reasonably decent Bail fleet around Hammerheads and the MC75. It would have perhaps been better with a Liberty, but it turns out that those are pretty expensive.

I took Bail to World's this year. On a BC with Admo, BY/Toryn, Ketsu, and 5 2400s. I got decent use out of him, but the reason you don't see him more often has already been covered rather thoroughly.

When he did work, he worked fantastically. But while I built the list to counter 2 ship, I never faced it and instead got smashed by a couple of Raddus and Rieekan lists instead.

I'll keep the redundant commentary going!

The statements about timing and relative risk to Bail and Pryce are spot on.

The one comment I haven't seen made yet is that Bail makes going second less bad, while Pryce makes going first even stronger.

Differences in durability, natural dice arcs, and available upgrades mean the AFMK2 has a harder time leveraging that first action to deal a lot of damage and get out safely (especially if it wants to use a squadron dial to maximize its burst). The MC75 works extremely well with Bail, but Strategic Adviser is generally a better choice.

I took him to Worlds and he did well for me, but he was part of my 2-ship insurance given I was running a 4 ship squadless fleet.