Oh snap!! Anakin as a Y-wing?! And 4 different delta 7 aces?! ok then.

I appreciate @Crabbok making these videos about the Clone Wars Squadron packs.

It's great to learn that there will be 4 Jedi Ace squadrons for the Delta-7 in the Republic Squadron Pack.

As for the Separatist squadrons, it's interesting that they have a couple of "Prototype" squadrons, which presumably are superior to generics. I wonder if they are unique "Named" squadrons, which means only one of each is allowed; or will FFG use multiple dots, like in X-Wing 2E, to indicate how many multiples are allowed. Alternatively, perhaps those prototype squadrons have defense tokens, and that's how FFG plans on limit their numbers using the new Squadron Rules.

I liked the explanation of the Intel ability's rule change. Intel giving Grit to friendly squadrons instead of Heavy to enemy squadrons makes a lot more sense and seems more balanced. This should encourage players to bring more squadrons to counter Intel, and bring more than one Intel squadron to create multiple attack groups.

I'm looking for to learning more about the Clone Wars Squadron Packs from FFG's official Preview.

A quick and dirty translation from German:

Republic squads:

• " Skilled ?" X: While attacking, you may reroll X dice
• " Evade? " X: While defending against a squad, during the "spend defense token" step, you may choose X attack dice to be rerolled.
• Grit - as usual
• Intel: friendly squads in distance 1 gain Grit
• " Spotter? " or " Scout ?": While deploying fleets you may be placed beyond the deployment zone and don't have to be in distance 1-2 to a friendly ship. You have to be beyond distance 1-5 of a enemy ship or squad

Separatist squads:

• " AI: Battery X " or " AI: anti-squad X ": While attacking with the noted armament, and if you have been activated with a squad-command, you may add up to X dice to your attack pool. they have to have one or more color already present in your existing pool.
• " Evade? " - as above
• Grit - as usual
• Intel - as above
• Relay X - as usual, current FAQ-version
• "(defense) screen?": While defending, you gain the keyword " Evade 1 " for every friendly squad without the keyword " (defense) screen " that is engaged with your attacker, to a maximum of 3.
• Snipe X - as usual

33 minutes ago, Revan Reborn said:

I think it's a safe bet that the Republic Fleet Starter will have the Anakin Skywalker Delta-7 Ace because it includes a few Delta-7 squadrons,

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-armada/products/galatic-republic-fleet-starter/

1 minute ago, Formynder4 said:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-armada/products/galatic-republic-fleet-starter/

Really? I don't know why I assumed that the Republic Starter had Delta-7s. I guess just because the Delta-7 was just so much more prominent in TCW than the V-19.

That makes it even stranger that Anakin is a Y-Wing Ace instead of one of the 4 Delta-7 Jedi Aces in the Republic Squadron Pack.

I just hope that FFG plans of releasing a Clone Wars Campaign Expansion in the near-future, which will hopefully add Anakin (and possibly Obi-Wan) as a Delta-7 Ace. I know that Anakin and Obi-Wan will probably be Eta-2 Actis Jedi Aces, but I'd be surprised if we see Republic Fighter Squadrons II in 2021. But I wouldn't be surprised if FFG plans to release a CW Campaign Expansion sometime in 2021 -- the sooner the better!

Except that the starter doesn't have delta 7s in it.... Only V19 torrents...

I don't think we will get squadron cards in the starter for squadrons that are not in the starter.

I think anakin will then come with obi-wan as ETA-2 aces, but I’m also hoping to see the twilight(from tcw tv show) in the game and presumably ani would be the pilot of that though? I don’t see him being in 3 different ships though.

1 hour ago, mattmaclaren31 said:

I think anakin will then come with obi-wan as ETA-2 aces, but I’m also hoping to see the twilight(from tcw tv show) in the game and presumably ani would be the pilot of that though? I don’t see him being in 3 different ships though.

That’s the problem with Anakin. They pretty much put him in everything. (Best pilot in the galaxy, and all...)

Interesting wording on defensive screen, which makes me think that we'll see it on the Hyena bombers, as sort of a 'reverse escort'.

Yes, you can attack the Hyena instead of the Tri-fighters, but I'll just force a reroll if I don't like what rolled.

26 minutes ago, ianediger said:

Interesting wording on defensive screen, which makes me think that we'll see it on the Hyena bombers, as sort of a 'reverse escort'.

Yes, you can attack the Hyena instead of the Tri-fighters, but I'll just force a reroll if I don't like what rolled.

That be a cool idea. I beleive they did say in an interview the belbullab would have an escort like keyword. Think they were refering to defensive screen now

Yes if you look at the belbullbab squadron picture you see the Screen Icon. It is NOT on the generic squad base for Hyena bombers it could be on the ace though. There is a very high probability that it is on General Grievous. The screen fighters you probably will see used will be droid tri because of counter.

The Belbullab combo of Relay and Screen seems weird to me. Screen helps to defend if other squadrons are engaged with your attacker. That means you want to be in the middle of the fight. Relay helps to activate squadrons that are at distance 3 of you. That means you want to stay behind the enemy lines.

12 minutes ago, Triangular said:

The Belbullab combo of Relay and Screen seems weird to me. Screen helps to defend if other squadrons are engaged with your attacker. That means you want to be in the middle of the fight. Relay helps to activate squadrons that are at distance 3 of you. That means you want to stay behind the enemy lines.

Yes but AI attack wants squadrons to be activated to get that bonus. Also Jendon has Relay 2 and he doesn't seem to be used for that a lot. Maybe screen is more for the ace? Or use screen or relay.

5 minutes ago, Wolf_58 said:

Yes but AI attack wants squadrons to be activated to get that bonus. Also Jendon has Relay 2 and he doesn't seem to be used for that a lot. Maybe screen is more for the ace? Or use screen or relay.

It‘s a squadron that supports and wants to be supported. Not bad, just weird. I guess, it will work with plenty of cheap droid-fighters.

You have a point with the AI attack, and Relay makes it easier to draw friendly fighters into your screen.

I totally get buffing 1 generic fighter over the others is very weird. But An ace gets doge 3 from friends? Totally! Also engagements Are more permanent with the changes to intel. Take out the ace with doge 3 or his 3 counter buddies? Excited for the changes!

8 minutes ago, Wolf_58 said:

I totally get buffing 1 generic fighter over the others is very weird. But An ace gets doge 3 from friends? Totally! Also engagements Are more permanent with the changes to intel. Take out the ace with doge 3 or his 3 counter buddies? Excited for the changes!

Doge 3 can only be beaten by Ceiling Cat

I don't completely understand it... It seems that they try to tone down the importance of squadrons (the new unique rule, new AS cards etc) in GCW, and in the mean time they seem to make squadrons even more important in the Clone Wars factions. It seems a bit confusing.

Toning down Intel and defense token uniques does not equal toning down squadrons in general.

In my opinion toning down uniques means that more squadrons fit into 134 points, which also means you need more command to activate them, which means less points in ships. Therefor, unless you take a dedicated bomber fleet, you will invest less into squadrons.

1 hour ago, Norell said:

In my opinion toning down uniques means that more squadrons fit into 134 points, which also means you need more command to activate them, which means less points in ships. Therefor, unless you take a dedicated bomber fleet, you will invest less into squadrons.

This I don't understand.

You will have to have some means to control your squads, yes, that's true. But there are ways to run stuff like Y-wing swarms. Or swarms of Ints.

Squadrons:
• Black Squadron (9)
• Saber Squadron (12)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Soontir Fel (18)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Dengar (20)
• 4 x TIE Interceptor Squadron (44)
= 134 Points

Total Points: 134

Name: Untitled Fleet
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Admiral Sloane

Assault:
Defense:
Navigation:

Imperial II (120)
• Admiral Sloane (24)
• Emperor Palpatine (3)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Leading Shots (4)
• Avenger (5)
= 174 Points

Quasar Fire I (54)
• Skilled First Officer (1)
• Flight Controllers (6)
• Boosted Comms (4)
= 65 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Hondo Ohnaka (2)
• Comms Net (2)
= 27 Points

Squadrons:
• Black Squadron (9)
• Saber Squadron (12)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Soontir Fel (18)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Dengar (20)
• 4 x TIE Interceptor Squadron (44)
= 134 Points

Total Points: 400

I kind of like the idea of Squadron value being more of a limiting factor than it has been in the past. One place where I don’t feel the game’s done a great job is in making you bring ships with enough carrier capability to activate everything. They’ve given us FAR too much access to the Rogue ability, which has skewed the importance of Squadron value on ships (particularly for the Rebels). I personally think that lists like “Starhawk 134” shouldn’t even be possible, because generic fighters (YT-2400’s, for example) should never have been given access to Rogue, and most of the aces who have it shouldn’t either. I feel like it should have basically been limited to maybe 2-3 squadrons per faction (Han, Luke, Rogue Squadron, Boba Fett, Vader... and that’s like, it, would have been my vote), and everyone else would have been reliant on carrier activations or would have done the unactivated squadron thing, which would have served to lower the overall power of squadrons, and also led to Squadron value being more important.

I don’t know if they can put that genie back in the bottle, but if the Clone Wars rebalances anything, and it moves us any closer to an eventual Armada 2.0, I hope that Rogue becomes a very rarely-seen keyword.

4 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I kind of like the idea of Squadron value being more of a limiting factor than it has been in the past. One place where I don’t feel the game’s done a great job is in making you bring ships with enough carrier capability to activate everything. They’ve given us FAR too much access to the Rogue ability, which has skewed the importance of Squadron value on ships (particularly for the Rebels). I personally think that lists like “Starhawk 134” shouldn’t even be possible, because generic fighters (YT-2400’s, for example) should never have been given access to Rogue, and most of the aces who have it shouldn’t either. I feel like it should have basically been limited to maybe 2-3 squadrons per faction (Han, Luke, Rogue Squadron, Boba Fett, Vader... and that’s like, it, would have been my vote), and everyone else would have been reliant on carrier activations or would have done the unactivated squadron thing, which would have served to lower the overall power of squadrons, and also led to Squadron value being more important.

I don’t know if they can put that genie back in the bottle, but if the Clone Wars rebalances anything, and it moves us any closer to an eventual Armada 2.0, I hope that Rogue becomes a very rarely-seen keyword.

I'm gonna go with the easy joke of "based on imperial player fleet design, they only play 3 total squads with rogue anyways!"

(Bicycle horn honks, hits someone in the face with a pie.)

Huh, I guess I've never viewed Rogue as that problematic. Usually they're tremendously expensive compared to a non-rogue with similar stats ( YT-2400 being the obvious exception). Really the only issue from my perspective is that FFG probably didn't design them expecting people to run 6-8 Rogues at a time and just not needing shi commands. It also gives some flexibility for lists that want squads but aren't designed to push them as much (I love Irregular Rogues for my Rebel MSU nonsense)