28 minutes ago, Mad Cat said:

My main problem with the Emperor as a fleet commander is that 2 Intel Officers + Motti/Jerjerrod/Romodi cost about the same as Palpatine. If your fleet has two main sources of damage output (double ISD) then Intel officers can generate a similar Palpatine effect and you get the extra hull, better turning or obstruction shooting bonus.

I feel like this is both true and not true. Your math on the cost makes sense, and to that end, I cannot think of any fleet archetypes that are "Palpatine no-brainers," in the way that Imperial squadron spam is basically Sloane or Rebel Aceholes is basically a Rieekan lock. But there are a couple of factors that I think change the way that math is assessed. Two ISDs fielding Intel Officers can be brutal. But they can also only target 2 defense tokens per turn. Additionally, they are far less effective against duplicate tokens. If your ISD targets one of my Redirects, I'll just use the other. Then your second ISD attacks, targets my healthy Redirect, and I end up losing it. But I still carry a Redirect over to next turn. Palpatine says it doesn't matter which Redirect I spend: it burns. So I'm either straight-up taking that damage to save my tokens this turn, or I'm burning them. Plus, if I can snag multiple targets with Gunnery Team, Palpatine is more effective because I don't have to exhaust him to use him. On top of all of that, I don't have to give up an Officer seat for Intel Officer, which should also be a consideration as to whether or not Palp is a good fit for your build or not.

Specific to my build, I'd never put Intel Officer on a Quasar. That feels like a waste of 7 points. But with Palpatine hanging out, I don't need to justify that 7 point officer upgrade I'd rather spend elsewhere. As for ISDs, sure, Intel Officer fits on there! But there are also a ton of other upgrades that can just as quickly use that seat.

All of that to say that I think he's a very niche commander, and that's my problem with him. I think one needs to work very hard to actually build around him, and then evaluate the fleet to see if another commander is a superior (and cheaper!) choice. I ran into this while trying to mess with Tarkin squadron fleets. Nearly every time I finished building the fleet, I subbed Sloane in for Tarkin, and it was a better fleet. So I think, when building around Palpatine, one needs to sub in just about every other Imperial commander to weigh pros and cons and see if you've accidentally built a Romodi fleet instead of a Palpatine fleet. I think I had a total of 15 different builds (including ones I actually flew once) before I settled on my current iteration that I'm testing. I think Palpatine is just a really delicate commander. If I sub out the Quasar or the Arq. for Demo, then I think I'd probably be better off with someone like Motti. If I'm flying a Kuat or ISD-I instead of a Cymoon, I think I'm better off with another commander like Jerjerrod. So I think it's a real delicate balance for Palpatine to be one's best commander choice. But when that balance is struck, I think that's where he might sing. As I've been evaluating my Palpatine fleet, I've considered other Imperial commanders I might use instead, and I currently can't find another commander who better serves the balance I've struck so far.

16 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Yeah, that's the idea. But a third arquitens instead of an ISD is something that you will notice. I mean, it's not just an extra red die (it may comes also with 4 extra blues) but also GT (which I guess the ISD is equipped with) which allows you to pressure more ships. Even if IO is exhausted you may force some redirects from another enemy ship to pop thanks to the extra frontal shot.

I might be really bad with Arquitens but I noticed that I had to focus fire on one ship so at the end, if I'm shooting you with IO three times per round do I really need Palpa at all?

Someone already explained in detail, but Palpatine really synergizes with IO when talking about double tokens. It just something IOs in itself can't do and barring the ISD your ships can't generate accuracy reliably to use only IOs against double tokens. Also, I have one other notion.

15 hours ago, Irate Pooka said:

So when and how does Palpatine force those bad decisions from your opponent, such as burning a token too early, or not spending it because they'd rather not "waste it?" I've found that Palpatine, in my own matches so far, has a smaller wide-ranging effect than I had originally intended. He only burns 2-4 defense tokens a game for me, so far. At first, I found that kind of disappointing. After all, I paid 35 points for him! But I've also learned not to get greedy. Yes, I want to maximize my use of him. Absolutely. But did he help me win the game? What were his specific impacts? I found it was hard for me to recall anything less than spectacular if I wasn't documenting my matches. But when I did, I could actually trace back certain game impacts to specific Palpatine tokens rather than simply by way of playing the game.
(...)
But now that I'm actually documenting the process, I think I'm able to measure his value far more than when I sort of eyeballed his impact and couldn't really nail it down. That inability to nail down his specific impacts really soured me on him early. (...)

But with Palpatine, barring some really memorable moment in which a defense token was burned, and then the ship was destroyed that turn unexpectedly, it can be tough to gauge his impact on the game as opposed to other commanders. In short, I kind of feel as though he reads as a more sexy commander than he actually plays. If that makes sense...

It absolutely makes sense. We analyzed the several matches I've played with my opponents and Palpatine is far from shining, sexy obvious commander. He is forcing the opponent to make decisions which might seem inconsequential, but adds up on the long term. Numerous times I counted that my kittens, do 1-2 more damage per shot because the opponent don't want to waste the defense tokens. He will use it eventually. But if you shoot a ship 3 times for 2 turns and he can only use an evade or brace twice that +1-2 damage for the 4 shots he saves the defense token is 4-8 in total. That's comparable to having a Romodi with +1 red die/shot (6 shots, ~4 dmg).

That's why I think IO's are great synergy, because creating overlapping turns for different tokens, you really force the enemy to take those small extra damages to have his token 2 rounds later or just burn it now.

For this reason, i believe Palpatine would be best if the ships could dish out 4-5 damage reliably so every unused defense token adds 2 damage to the total, but I had no solution for that especially with a decent squadron coverage.

3 hours ago, Rimsen said:

Someone already explained in detail, but Palpatine really synergizes with IO when talking about double tokens. It just something IOs in itself can't do and barring the ISD your ships can't generate accuracy reliably to use only IOs against double tokens. Also, I have one other notion.

I know, as I said before it might be a problem more related to my pools (3 reds), my rolls (pretty bad) and my opponents defense token set (2 evades 2 redirects). I think the two times I got an accuracy to block the 4th token one was 0 damage and the other Admo had like two tokens left so duh.

Against brace+redirect+redirect IO should be great!

So I tried out a Warlord instead or 2 Arquittens and boy the damage is coming! Unfortunately navigating is jus t as hard with the flying rock as coodinating 2 Arqs with the rest of the fleet.

So after a month of playing with ISD/Arqs and a medium fighter coverage. I decided to give a shot to then Onager. I kept the 2 Arqs first, because I figured that the Onager can lurk behind the lines with less trouble and the Arqs can maneuver more freely as doing next to in ISD2.

Then came it to me, what if I dust off a familiar concept! And here I am, Palpatine 2 ship!

2ship Palpatine
Author: Rimsen

Faction: Galactic Empire
Commander: Emperor Palpatine (com)
Points: 393/400

Assault Objective: Surprise Attack
Defense Objective: Fighter Ambush
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] Onager-class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Emperor Palpatine (com) ( 35 points)
- Sunder ( 10 points)
- Reeva Demesne ( 4 points)
- Weapons Battery Techs ( 5 points)
- Fire-Control Team ( 2 points)
- H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)
- Superheavy Composite Beam Turbolasers ( 7 points)
= 181 total ship cost

Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 points)
- Squall ( 3 points)
- Governor Pryce ( 7 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 79 total ship cost

1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)
1 Valen Rudor ( 13 points)
1 Maarek Stele ( 21 points)
1 Mauler Mithel ( 15 points)
1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)
1 Morna Kee ( 27 points)
1 Darth Vader ( 21 points)
= 133 total squadron cost

Card view link

Fleet created with Armada Warlords

Palpatine takes care of defense tokens, Scatter on Pryce turn to eliminate enemy fighters, next is Brace so Onager snipes that away, also works on the rest of the squads, if any left. Squall, and even the medium Ignition attack gives plenty of space, I can unleash the power of this fully functional space station the Onager from long range as opposed to medium with the classic ISD2 and I can even chip down some shields the turns before in extreme (Squall doesn't need an introduction).

Squadron compartment can be varied, Rhymer is additional reach, but doesn't really useful against full squad enemies. IG88 could be used instead of Vader, and EHB could be dropped potentially for more bid.

Also Reeva might be questionable, but Brunson is boring and Reeva can also be used offensively as letting me Salvo twice a turn without discarding it (provided they shoot my front which should have shields). It's risky, like 1 shot on side can totally nullify it, whereas Brunson works continously if I just place my obstacles right.

1 hour ago, Rimsen said:

So after a month of playing with ISD/Arqs and a medium fighter coverage. I decided to give a shot to then Onager. I kept the 2 Arqs first, because I figured that the Onager can lurk behind the lines with less trouble and the Arqs can maneuver more freely as doing next to in ISD2.

Then came it to me, what if I dust off a familiar concept! And here I am, Palpatine 2 ship!

2ship Palpatine
Author: Rimsen

Faction: Galactic Empire
Commander: Emperor Palpatine (com)
Points: 393/400

Assault Objective: Surprise Attack
Defense Objective: Fighter Ambush
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] Onager-class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Emperor Palpatine (com) ( 35 points)
- Sunder ( 10 points)
- Reeva Demesne ( 4 points)
- Weapons Battery Techs ( 5 points)
- Fire-Control Team ( 2 points)
- H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)
- Superheavy Composite Beam Turbolasers ( 7 points)
= 181 total ship cost

Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 points)
- Squall ( 3 points)
- Governor Pryce ( 7 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 79 total ship cost

1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)
1 Valen Rudor ( 13 points)
1 Maarek Stele ( 21 points)
1 Mauler Mithel ( 15 points)
1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)
1 Morna Kee ( 27 points)
1 Darth Vader ( 21 points)
= 133 total squadron cost

Card view link

Fleet created with Armada Warlords

Palpatine takes care of defense tokens, Scatter on Pryce turn to eliminate enemy fighters, next is Brace so Onager snipes that away, also works on the rest of the squads, if any left. Squall, and even the medium Ignition attack gives plenty of space, I can unleash the power of this fully functional space station the Onager from long range as opposed to medium with the classic ISD2 and I can even chip down some shields the turns before in extreme (Squall doesn't need an introduction).

Squadron compartment can be varied, Rhymer is additional reach, but doesn't really useful against full squad enemies. IG88 could be used instead of Vader, and EHB could be dropped potentially for more bid.

Also Reeva might be questionable, but Brunson is boring and Reeva can also be used offensively as letting me Salvo twice a turn without discarding it (provided they shoot my front which should have shields). It's risky, like 1 shot on side can totally nullify it, whereas Brunson works continously if I just place my obstacles right.

It's fine for the next 6 weeks until Pryce is tossed in the trash compactor and the 4-ace rule comes in.

22 minutes ago, flatpackhamster said:

until Pryce is tossed in the trash compactor

You mean launched in a dome rigged to blow. 😆

1 hour ago, flatpackhamster said:

Tossed in the trash compactor and the 4-ace rule comes in.

50 minutes ago, Bravo Null said:

You mean launched in a dome rigged to blow. 😆

I say we take off and nuke the entire card from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

2 hours ago, flatpackhamster said:

It's fine for the next 6 weeks until Pryce is tossed in the trash compactor and the 4-ace rule comes in.

That's still 6 weeks of games