On 8/9/2020 at 9:06 AM, Ginkapo said:

To expand. The keys are Decimators and Arqs. On the turn you pop the scatter token Decimators with three black anti squad dice will batter their way through enemy squads. In the turn you pop brace Arqs with CF will decimate enemy braces across the board.

Palp is all about coordination. You need to hit the enemy all at the same time. This is a juxtaposition against usual fleet dynamics and last first play styles.

Oh I agree that his current design makes for a great design space and I like the planning for each turn he provides. I would even add an onager turn one evade to the plan.

I just feel that while this ability is interesting and makes for strong interactions it’s not 35 points strong. For just a point less I can grab romodi and 2 IO. While I loose the decimator scatter fun, I gain a bit more flexibility ship to ship.

10 hours ago, Church14 said:

No. It uses a command token. Look at the difference in icons between the T series and the new thrawn.

The icon's colours are inverted and FFG never explained the T-Series Tactical Droid card during the Livestream, it was revealed in the "Conquer the Galaxy" article on FFG's site, so the two icons are easy to confuse.

Regardless, my proposed revision to Emperor Palpatine's Commander card would require discarding a Command Dial to ready the tokens on the card. That gives it sufficient cost and would be thematic because Palpatine was a master strategist thanks to his Sith Lord foresight, and he'd secretly manipulate his enemies and minions into doing exactly what he wanted, and then he'd sit back in his throne room and watch his machinations play out before him, like he did on the Death Star II. That's why Palpatine should need to sacrifice his flagship's command dial to refresh his token pool.

10 hours ago, Church14 said:

Your complaining that the fact that Palpatine takes an action at the start of the round which forces the opposing player to change their choices throughout the entire round counts as “nothing the imperial player can do?“ Here’s the thing. Palpatine has already taken the initiative in this scenario and is forcing the opponent to react. Most of the time in wargaming, maintaining the initiative (concept, not game mechanic) is better than reacting.

How is Palpatine's current ability any different than the problem with Admiral Konstantine? Virtually everyone agrees that Konstantine is the worst Imperial Commander because his ability is so difficult to use. WHY is that? Because it's dependent on getting two or more medium or large friendly ships within distance 5 of the same enemy ship, and it's relatively easy for the opposing player to avoid that by maneuvering their ships smartly, thereby countering Konstantine's ability and rendering him worthless.

The only difference is that Palpatine's plan changes based on the defense token that he discards at the start of the round, whereas Konstantine's ability remains unchanged.

Yes, the opponent is reacting to Palpatine's ability, they can still counter Palpatine by avoiding combat situations wherein they'd need to use the defense token that he's targeted because he divulged it at the start of the round. Even if Palpatine has "the initiative" (as you call it) and the opponent is reactive, they can still spoil Palpatine's plan, severely marginalizing his effectiveness, which is not possible for the best Imperial Commanders, like Thrawn and Sloane.

10 hours ago, Church14 said:

Arguing “you can’t counter Vader” is a pretty terrible argument. You might as well try and argue that players can’t counter their opponent’s engineering commands for all the sense that makes. We aren’t discussing actions a player Does that affects themselves (like dice mods). We are discussing abilities that affect others.

No, you saying that "you can't counter Vader is a pretty terrible argument" doesn't make it so. It's an apt argument to your claim that Palpatine's ability cannot be countered and your implication that's "bad". I correctly pointed out that Vader's ability cannot be countered either, so y ou're trying to reframe the argument by claiming that because Vader's ability modifies his ships' attack dice, it's acceptable that he can't be countered, whereas because Palpatine forces the defender to discard a defense token, it's unacceptable that he can't be countered. You're just making up arbitrary rules whenever it suits your arguments!

But fine, perhaps Vader wasn't the most apt comparison to Palpatine, therefore I'll change it to Sloane . Sloane aligns perfectly with Palpatine because she enables squadrons' battery attacks to spend the targeted ship's defense tokens, and even better, she gets to choose which token is spent for each attack. There's no counter to Sloane's ability, aside from intercepting her squadrons so they can't attack ships -- which is a universal counter to all squadrons. The only difference is that Sloane's ability is dependent on dice rolls (luck), which she enhances by being able to reroll Crits. But I'd gladly take those odds rather than telegraphing the one defense token that I'm targeting that round -- and I can never target that token again.

That's why Palpatine's ability is so ineffective and why more Imperial players choose Sloane than Palpatine.

10 hours ago, Church14 said:

Fear? Not fear, just a resigned “oh good, this BS again.” Nobody feared pre-nerf Demolisher. We were just tired of seeing imperial players at tournaments whose fleet brought nothing to offer except that broken little prick. There won’t be any fear with your Palpatine, just a bored frustration that you literally cannot do anything against him as a commander except know you’ll only ever use each defense token on your important ships once.

Semantics . Anyone could make the same argument "It's not fear, it's BS!" about going up against an effective Commander or ship title, like Rieeken or Raddus or Yavaris or Demolisher. You may choose to refuse to acknowledge it as fear, but whenever someone describes a particular card or ship as "powerful" or "devastating" or "awesome", there is the undeniable implication of fear when you're facing an opponent who has chosen that card.

There is also fear whenever your opponent rolls attack dice and you know there's a mathematical chance they could destroy your ship or squadrons with that attack. Whether you choose to acknowledge or deny fear, it's omnipresent.

10 hours ago, Church14 said:

The rest of your post was a bunch about how the Emperor should be amazing. Except he was a terrible fleet commander. His track record commanding fleets is 0-2 and he’s lost one SSD, 10000 Xyston-class, and about a dozen ISDs in two fights. He managed to destroy.... what? 20-30 capital ships for all that. He was at his best Subtly moving pieces until he won without his opponents ever knowing they’d been in a fight.

Firstly, Emperor Palpatine wasn't ever really a fleet commander ; he was the elected/self-proclaimed leader/ruler of the Republic/Empire, a Sith Lord, and a master strategist. Aside from "Fire at will, Commander," Palpatine never gave a single order to the Imperial fleet during the battle. Admiral Piett was the Imperial fleet commander of the Battle of Endor. Palpatine was the architect of the battle and he setup the chess board; Piett and Ackbar played out the game. It's probably unfair to blame Piett either, because the SSD was lost due to an inherent design flaw of Imperial ships' over-exposed bridges and all star destroyers' lack of anti-starfighter point-defense weaponry.

It was the Imperial Army commander on the moon's surface who was primarily to blame for the Empire's disastrous defeat at Endor because his failure to protect the shield generator was the first domino to fall, setting off the disastrous chain of events that caused the Empire to be defeated.

Second, I will never defend The Rise of Skywalker. #NotMyPalpatine

Third, Palpatine (Darth Sidious) deserves credit for masterfully orchestrating the Battle of Coruscant, which went exactly according to his plan -- except for Count Dooku failing to kill Obi-Wan, which again, was Dooku's failure, not Palpatine's. Regardless, it demonstrates Palpatine's unrivaled brilliance as a grand strategist and shadowy manipulator.

Finally, Palpatine's ability in Armada, I believe, is intended to represent his Battle Meditation and his Dark Side ability to cloud the Force and the minds of his enemies, instilling fear, doubt, and confusion. Palpatine chooses a defense token each round, inexplicably telegraphs his choice to his enemy, and punishes enemy ships for using that particular defense token by forcing them to discard it.

I believe Palpatine's enemy token discarding power is appropriate for his character, but its mechanics are deeply flawed and need to be improved. Reducing Palpatine's points cost will accomplish nothing. Even if Palpatine was only 20 points Palpatine, I bet that Imperial players wouldn't use him any more often than Ozzel (but definitely more often than Konstantine). Palpatine's points down matter, it's his ineffective ability that needs to be improved. I'd much rather Palpatine's points cost be increased to over 40 points if his ability was legitimately powerful.

My idea for revising Palpatine's ability maintains the spirit of his current ability and decisively enhances its power -- perhaps making it too powerful. It just needs some refinement .

57 minutes ago, Revan Reborn said:

How is Palpatine's current ability any different than the problem with Admiral Konstantine? Virtually everyone agrees that Konstantine is the worst Imperial Commander because his ability is so difficult to use. WHY is that? Because it's dependent on getting two or more medium or large friendly ships within distance 5 of the same enemy ship, and it's relatively easy for the opposing player to avoid that by maneuvering their ships smartly, thereby countering Konstantine's ability and rendering him worthless.

I'd argue its because Konstantine doesn't actually help you win the game in any way as opposed to every other Admiral in existence.

Quote

That's why Palpatine's ability is so ineffective and why more Imperial players choose Sloane than Palpatine.

I'd argue it's more the strength of Imperial squads being able to just plow through other lesser squad balls and then start hitting ships AFTER you win the squad war. It's not a matter of "defense token spending time" so much as "sloane counters a very popular archetype, including herself."

Quote

I believe Palpatine's enemy token discarding power is appropriate for his character, but its mechanics are deeply flawed and need to be improved. Reducing Palpatine's points cost will accomplish nothing. Even if Palpatine was only 20 points Palpatine, I bet that Imperial players wouldn't use him any more often than Ozzel (but definitely more often than Konstantine). Palpatine's points down matter, it's his ineffective ability that needs to be improved. I'd much rather Palpatine's points cost be increased to over 40 points if his ability was legitimately powerful.

His ability IS powerful and potentially a Negative Play Experience, its leveraging it that takes time. That's likely why hes as expensive as he is. Now that onagers are out, for that matter, it may work with him and get those early shots. What have you tried with him to leverage his ability?

This past primes season I played against a certain avian cross-breed whose Palpatine list wrecked me - it was the most lopsided loss I had out of 17 matches.

Is Palps janky and complex to use? Sure. But that doesn’t make him weak. It just means it takes a skilled player to make him shine.

14 minutes ago, geek19 said:

I'd argue its because Konstantine doesn't actually help you win the game in any way as opposed to every other Admiral in existence.

I'd argue it's more the strength of Imperial squads being able to just plow through other lesser squad balls and then start hitting ships AFTER you win the squad war. It's not a matter of "defense token spending time" so much as "sloane counters a very popular archetype, including herself."

His ability IS powerful and potentially a Negative Play Experience, its leveraging it that takes time. That's likely why hes as expensive as he is. Now that onagers are out, for that matter, it may work with him and get those early shots. What have you tried with him to leverage his ability?

I absolutely agree with @geek19 on this last point as it allows you to potentially pressure defense tokens on turn 1 with Cataclysm. I would further add that including an Intel Officer or two in the fleet has a very synergistic effect where the Intel Officers can cover the turns before/after Palp’s choice.

When I try to rationalize out his ability, I think of a comment @geek19 made to me about Leia, “Her ability is useful, she’s just too expensive” (hopefully, I got it right). I’m stuck trying to evaluate if/how this applies to Palp. In the process of doing this, I think of some words from @BiggsIRL and @shmitty ’s podcast. (Paraphrasing), “...there’s those leverage points in the game and does this admiral give you leverage in those key moments?”. Very perceptive on their part... I think he does. Is he tricky, prone to error, and potentially not useful? Sure, but I’ve played games with Moff Jerry and didn’t need him. Does that make him not useful? Of course not, but he’s 15 points less, so as I said earlier, if you don’t use him, you have less points wasted.

I’ve had a couple of additional observations in my playing experience: 1) if you’re facing someone that uses a limited range of defense tokens (e.g. no Salvo, no fighters, etc.), then his value goes down a bit as you typically get to use him for 3 turns or so, 2) if you’re facing a squadron ball with lots of generics, his value goes down a bit as well.

At the same time, cutting one use of a Brace can change a game. Having fighters to pressure Redirect’s means you can put damage through and possibly get a crit, that can change a game. Taking out a Salvo may save the return shot that saves you the game. I have a much harder time doing this with Tagge, Konstantin, etc. Again, there’s lots of situational pros/cons.

As someone who plays X-Wing, I’ve appreciated the incremental, measured points changes they’ve made to limit the chance of creating a new problem with the fix. For now, I think he’s a little too expensive, but that’s just a gut feeling based on a limited, but measurable number of plays.

I will say it’s great to be able to have these types of discussions though with the knowledge that some portion of it is making it through to FFG.

If countering Konstantine means running away, then I'm not sure you have quite understood Armada.

@Revan Reborn do you use objectives?

On 8/9/2020 at 3:06 PM, Ginkapo said:

To expand. The keys are Decimators and Arqs. On the turn you pop the scatter token Decimators with three black anti squad dice will batter their way through enemy squads. In the turn you pop brace Arqs with CF will decimate enemy braces across the board.

Palp is all about coordination. You need to hit the enemy all at the same time. This is a juxtaposition against usual fleet dynamics and last first play styles.

Something on these lines?

Palpitens (116/399/400)
======================

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 + 47: 101)
· Emperor Palpatine (35)
· Intel Officer (7)
· Quad Battery Turrets (5)

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 + 12: 66)
· Intel Officer (7)
· Quad Battery Turrets (5)

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 + 12: 66)
· Intel Officer (7)
· Quad Battery Turrets (5)

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 2: 25)
· Comms Net (2)

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 2: 25)
· Comms Net (2)

4 x VT-49 Decimator (4 x 22)
Mauler Mithel (15)
Valen Rudor (13)

Opening Salvo
Planetary Ion Cannon
Solar Corona

Not sure about the intel officers but they are still useful and I'd like to give it a try.

8 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Something on these lines?

Palpitens (116/399/400)
======================

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 + 47: 101)
· Emperor Palpatine (35)
· Intel Officer (7)
· Quad Battery Turrets (5)

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 + 12: 66)
· Intel Officer (7)
· Quad Battery Turrets (5)

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 + 12: 66)
· Intel Officer (7)
· Quad Battery Turrets (5)

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 2: 25)
· Comms Net (2)

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 2: 25)
· Comms Net (2)

4 x VT-49 Decimator (4 x 22)
Mauler Mithel (15)
Valen Rudor (13)

Opening Salvo
Planetary Ion Cannon
Solar Corona

Not sure about the intel officers but they are still useful and I'd like to give it a try.

Yup try that out

9 hours ago, geek19 said:

I'd argue its because Konstantine doesn't actually help you win the game in any way as opposed to every other Admiral in existence.

I have been trying to get Konstantine to work and I can see how he can work, in theory. He's more about getting inside your opponent's OODA loop, and picking your engagement range - I think. I am playing with him a bit at the moment, and with an Interdictor and a pair of VicIs you can force ships like the Liberty up to speed 3 so they can't easily bring their front arc to bear, and move away from threats like the other MC80 by slowing it down. But it's hard, and it's circumstantial. In my last game my opponent brought a Madine double liberty fleet which meant he could turn on a dime, but I used the Interdictor (and a bid and grav well objective) to split his forces up so one Liberty was doing speed-1 and one speed-3, which let me engage them one at a time.

I think Konstantine's major drawback is that he needs one of two things. Either a cheaper medium-base ship with long range side arcs needs to come out, so that you could use him to create a conga and slow your enemy's approach towards you, thus holding them at your preferred range. Or he needs to be altered to affect any ships with Command-2 or above, instead of any medium or large base ships. This would allow you to run him with Arquitens and Gladiators and would make him a scream to play.

On 8/11/2020 at 4:24 AM, Ginkapo said:

If countering Konstantine means running away, then I'm not sure you have quite understood Armada.

@Revan Reborn do you use objectives?

Firstly, discussing Konstantine's shortcomings is getting off-topic .

Regardless...

You don't need to "run away" to counter Konstantine. If a player charges directly toward Konstantine's ships, then his ability works fine. However, a smart player counters Konstantine by keeping their small, fast, red dice ships, like CR90s and Arqs, at long range and outflanking Konstantine's ships. There's a difference between flanking and running away.

Even if the flankers screw up and bumble into Konstantine's range, they should be past the med/large Imperial ships' front arcs, so even if they were slowed down, a CR90's front arc or an Arq's side arcs are comparable to Imp med/large ship's side arcs; they can give as good as they get, survive, and get into the Imp ships' rear arcs the next round.

Those are purely combat-focused anti-Konstantine tactics.

Objective-focused play rarely benefits Konstantine. The only Objective Cards that I can think of that give Konstantine an advantage are Blockade Run, Contested Output, Fleet Ambush, Salvage Run, and perhaps Minefields, and only if the Konstantine player is 2nd player. Even if Konstantine gains an early victory point advantage with Contested Outpost or Salvage Run, outflanking and destroying Konstantine's ships will usually still result in a points victory for the Konstantine's opponent.

I've tried to make Konstantine work and have won occasionally, but usually only against less experienced players. Against veteran players who know how to effectively counter Konstantine, I only only winning a few times, because I got lucky.

While it's possible to win using Konstantine, I believe the competitive statistics prove that Konstantine is rare ever -- if ever -- used, and I don't think anyone has competed at Worlds with a Konstantine build. So Konstantine could definitely use an update.

Regardless, Palpatine might not be as ineffective as Konstantine, but I'd rather his ability be changed and made more powerful, rather than his ability remaining unchanged and his points cost reduced.

Are.... are you lecturing @Ginkapo about Konstantine?

On 8/11/2020 at 12:38 AM, Revan Reborn said:

How is Palpatine's current ability any different than the problem with Admiral Konstantine? Virtually everyone agrees that Konstantine is the worst Imperial Commander because his ability is so difficult to use. WHY is that? Because it's dependent on getting two or more medium or large friendly ships within distance 5 of the same enemy ship, and it's relatively easy for the opposing player to avoid that by maneuvering their ships smartly, thereby countering Konstantine's ability and rendering him worthless.

1 hour ago, Revan Reborn said:

Firstly, discussing Konstantine's shortcomings is getting off-topic .

We can all read. Timestamps are interesting things. Just imagine the other 500 words to let me ignore everything you said. Blah blah blah

On 8/13/2020 at 6:32 PM, Ginkapo said:

We can all read. Timestamps are interesting things. Just imagine the other 500 words to let me ignore everything you said. Blah blah blah

Use TikTok if you can't be bothered to read.

4 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

Use TikTok if you can't be bothered to read.

Use Twitter if you insist on sockpuppeteering, @Reavern .

It's disingenuous.

4 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Use Twitter if you insist on sockpuppeteering, @Reavern .

It's disingenuous.

Do you think someone would try to fool us into something just changing a few names? Really?

Look! Clone Wars announcement, have to go!

Lately I'm trying to make it work. I feel like it's similar to Sato, where you want to balance squadrons and ships to get maximum effect. First rip those pesky scatters from aces and flottillas, then wreck havoc on the enemy ships.

This is the current iteration:

Palpatine's vengeance
Author: Rimsen

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 398/400

Commander: Emperor Palpatine (com)

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Dual Turbolaser Turrets ( 5 points)
= 66 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Dual Turbolaser Turrets ( 5 points)
= 66 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Emperor Palpatine (com) ( 35 points)
- Strategic Adviser ( 4 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 177 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Darth Vader (off) ( 1 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 26 total ship cost

1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)
1 Valen Rudor ( 13 points)
1 Black Squadron ( 9 points)
1 Maarek Stele ( 21 points)
= 63 total squadron cost

Ok so maybe you all already noticed this but as I didn't try Palpatine yet I didn't noticed until now: Palpatine is great against double defense tokens so it may deal with most ships in a way Intel officer just cannot. Double token sets may be annoying as you "intel" one and the opponent spend the other but you can't get away with Palpatine around. Combined this with intel officer or some accuracy enabler and defensive options from your target get crippled.

On 8/23/2020 at 4:44 AM, ovinomanc3r said:

Ok so maybe you all already noticed this but as I didn't try Palpatine yet I didn't noticed until now: Palpatine is great against double defense tokens so it may deal with most ships in a way Intel officer just cannot. Double token sets may be annoying as you "intel" one and the opponent spend the other but you can't get away with Palpatine around. Combined this with intel officer or some accuracy enabler and defensive options from your target get crippled.

Agreed. So far, I'm keeping IO's on the Kittens, since they can potentially lock down 2 redirects and the brace against big ships. They really don't like that. Those 2-4 damages are adding up fast if you can't (shouldn't) use Defense Tokens, because an ISD (or Onager in another version) is looming over you.

Two trials already with my Palpitens fleet.

First with QBT Mithel and Rudor, I save the day with a 6-5. It was against some kind of Ackbar fleet, not the classic Conga.

Second time I reinforced the fleet with good objectives swapping the aces for lambdas which help me control the engagement, which is key with Palpa. I also run DTT instead of QBT to don't worry about speed. This time I face h9 scouts Admo and foresight, mc75 and a carrier transport, much more scary fleet than the first. I would say Palpa sucks but considering my rolls were terrible (I mean @Drasnighta level) and I managed to kill Admo and the transport I think if anything it was thanks to the boss. I won 8-3.

He is really hard to use correctly though.

14 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

He is really hard to use correctly though.

What would you say did go right in your games and which moves were useless.

I played a Onager plus 2 Gladiator list and some Interceptors. My opponent brought an Agatha-Liberty plus HomeOne and lots of A-wings. The best use I got out of Palp was a during 3rd round blocking Scatter and during 4th and 5th blocking Brace then Redirect. The MC80s were way too tanky to bring down. Palpatine's effect was okay but not good in my game. I hoped for more effect in the fighter game. But my numbers were too small and my rolls were really bad. I don't think I will try him again with an Onager list. Maybe 2 ISD I together with a decent fighter wing?

1 hour ago, Triangular said:

What would you say did go right in your games and which moves were useless.

I played a Onager plus 2 Gladiator list and some Interceptors. My opponent brought an Agatha-Liberty plus HomeOne and lots of A-wings. The best use I got out of Palp was a during 3rd round blocking Scatter and during 4th and 5th blocking Brace then Redirect. The MC80s were way too tanky to bring down. Palpatine's effect was okay but not good in my game. I hoped for more effect in the fighter game. But my numbers were too small and my rolls were really bad. I don't think I will try him again with an Onager list. Maybe 2 ISD I together with a decent fighter wing?

The skatter thing is probably the easiest trick to do it right and it almost always worth it. Isn't hard to get rid the skatter from aces and it something they just can't afford to skip using cause it's almost always a thing of use it or die and when is gone, well, it's gone and the aces isn't scary anymore. Black dice squadrons do the trick perfectly but I guess blue dice with swarm can do it too just rerolliing even the accuracies. You could argue about actually using the accuracies but that's ask Murphy to show up. I guess it will depends on the number of attacks you may put onto the ace. The higher the less you care about Palpatine's effect so here I would splash as many hard hit on as many skatter aces as I could. Worst scenario: they don't commit their aces that round what sounds good to me too, specially of that means a free round of decimators decimating ships. It's basically the same with flotillas. They want to use the skatter. However the can live through small long range pools with the evade. That's where intel officer proof himself. And you can easily coordinate attacks on aces and flotillas alike the same round.

From that point, things are more tough. I am not sure what depends on Palpa and what on the ships you bring. Maybe kind of both, I dunno. To me arquitens are pillow fighters, which means you are not likely getting any good from Palpatine's brace. Your opponent is gonna skip it, which is not bad but that usually means you're getting +1 hit which is only good if you stack a lot of attacks on the same target which also means you're just getting rid of one target's brace, instead of a more wide-fleet effect. With other ships that brace may actually hurt.

On the other side, for redirects, Palpa is the king and he may actually get better with the incoming xi7 nerf. There are so many double redirect ships in every size and shape that's it's just nuts. Lot of them are quite big for an arquitens batteries so they thank Palpa a lot BUT, again, nothing those ships cannot live through without caring too much. However, IMHO that's something you feel is wrong while playing but it actually turns out powerful enough at the end.

The other tokens are more niche I think. Evade may be quite powerful in the right situations, just like salvo. I don't imagine I will ever use contain with this fleet. However, defense tokens are binded to specific batteries (including effects from then) so that's a good point about Palpa that makes him useful for a lot of fleets depending on your ships and upgrades.

Something that bothered me a lot was the Palpa-Intel-Accuracy thing. It may be just the bad rolls and the "poor" batteries of the Arquitens or maybe the defense token set I face but I can't recall many times I actually get something from intel officers or rolling accuracies. I think the combo on paper is quite powerful but I get almost nothing from it. Maybe I try the fleet a third time swapping the officers for something else.

17 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

The skatter thing is probably the easiest trick to do it right and it almost always worth it. Isn't hard to get rid the skatter from aces and it something they just can't afford to skip using cause it's almost always a thing of use it or die and when is gone, well, it's gone and the aces isn't scary anymore. Black dice squadrons do the trick perfectly but I guess blue dice with swarm can do it too just rerolliing even the accuracies. You could argue about actually using the accuracies but that's ask Murphy to show up. I guess it will depends on the number of attacks you may put onto the ace. The higher the less you care about Palpatine's effect so here I would splash as many hard hit on as many skatter aces as I could. Worst scenario: they don't commit their aces that round what sounds good to me too, specially of that means a free round of decimators decimating ships. It's basically the same with flotillas. They want to use the skatter. However the can live through small long range pools with the evade. That's where intel officer proof himself. And you can easily coordinate attacks on aces and flotillas alike the same round.

From that point, things are more tough. I am not sure what depends on Palpa and what on the ships you bring. Maybe kind of both, I dunno. To me arquitens are pillow fighters, which means you are not likely getting any good from Palpatine's brace. Your opponent is gonna skip it, which is not bad but that usually means you're getting +1 hit which is only good if you stack a lot of attacks on the same target which also means you're just getting rid of one target's brace, instead of a more wide-fleet effect. With other ships that brace may actually hurt.

On the other side, for redirects, Palpa is the king and he may actually get better with the incoming xi7 nerf. There are so many double redirect ships in every size and shape that's it's just nuts. Lot of them are quite big for an arquitens batteries so they thank Palpa a lot BUT, again, nothing those ships cannot live through without caring too much. However, IMHO that's something you feel is wrong while playing but it actually turns out powerful enough at the end.

The other tokens are more niche I think. Evade may be quite powerful in the right situations, just like salvo. I don't imagine I will ever use contain with this fleet. However, defense tokens are binded to specific batteries (including effects from then) so that's a good point about Palpa that makes him useful for a lot of fleets depending on your ships and upgrades.

Something that bothered me a lot was the Palpa-Intel-Accuracy thing. It may be just the bad rolls and the "poor" batteries of the Arquitens or maybe the defense token set I face but I can't recall many times I actually get something from intel officers or rolling accuracies. I think the combo on paper is quite powerful but I get almost nothing from it. Maybe I try the fleet a third time swapping the officers for something else.

I had a lot of successes with IO, especially on the aforementioned redirect turn. You Palp the redirects, IO the brace and suddenly, that ISD and 2 Arquittens shooting 4+3+3 reds (without CF, who has time for that?) is much more devastating.

As the squadrons, i usually run MJ, Valen and a filler but I might try a double Victory fleet which gives a stronger long range salvo and needs less coordination than 3 ships. In that way I could have more deployments with more squads, setting the Victorys on a better course.

5 hours ago, Rimsen said:

I had a lot of successes with IO, especially on the aforementioned redirect turn. You Palp the redirects, IO the brace and suddenly, that ISD and 2 Arquittens shooting 4+3+3 reds (without CF, who has time for that?) is much more devastating.

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?

I will still try three arquitens but I easily see myself moving onto something if not bigger, at least punchier. Problem is the squadron force. Those decimators are just great with Palpatine.

The VSD idea sounds good. I might give it a try.

Palpatine is a really tough nut to crack. I know I'm hardly the first person to say that, but I'm going through my own experience of trying to figure out how to use him. Or, more specifically, how *I* might use him, as I know duckbird has already had some success with him, as has snipafist. I'm documenting that process here and here . I keep coming back to the same base notion, though, which is ensuring I can leverage enough damage at any given time for Palpatine's ability to take effect. I think Palpatine is actually a commander of which only the most dynamic Armada minds can take advantage. I say that because I don't think there is any "right" order for Palpatine's tokens that translates to any match. The Scatter call makes sense, but if I've got one enemy ace with scatter and two incoming ships with Evade, unless that scatter ace outkicks their coverage, I'd rather call Evade and kill it in a round that makes sense, even if that means my enemy keeps the scatter.

The other thing I'm learning about him is in the context of knowing that the full impact of his ability will never really be known without discussing things with my opponent, because I don't always know when Palpatine has played a role in decision-making regarding defense token use. Snipa says it on CGYSO when it comes to TIE Phantoms: "When they're attacking ships and one does 2 damage, do you Brace that 2 damage or not, knowing that the next Phantom can hit you for zero damage, or for 4 damage?" It's a really tough call with those swingy dice. 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. The two batreps in Part Two of my series details that. But the more I use him and actually document the matches, the more I like him.

Overall, I always knew I liked him, but couldn't figure out how to use him. I'm still figuring that out. 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. While flying Tarkin, I know when tokens have saved me a match or come up big for me (such as while playing Abandoned Mining Facility), or while flying Sato, I can see with every attack how Sato has served to change my red or blue dice into black dice. 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...

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.

If your fleet has many sources of damage such as Arquitens/Raider/GSD MSU or Quad VSD then Palpatine could be worth the opportunity cost of not taking one of the other popular Imperial commanders. A truly mixed fleet containing good ship firepower and a decent 70-100 point fighter force is probably the best use for him, bit if the enemy have no ace squadrons in a game you could still find yourself longing for a different commander at the helm.

Looking at the previews of the clone wars I think Acclamator spam could be a common fleet to see and they give an enemy 3-4 salvo tokens. The Emperor could be very useful turning off all those small rear arc salvo volleys for either a whole turn (choosing not to salvo) or the rest of the game (stuff it let's salvo anyway)