As weak as they are I'm fairly sure Ruthless is not the right way to go with them.

Something that should be considered while looking at this is the change to evade. Now that evade will work against squad attacks will make it harder for single die squadrons to get damage to stick the separatist generic bomber has effectively 2 dice and one ace can get an accuracy to help lock up evades it a much bigger deal then I think most people think particularly with the evade change. I guess there is a teaser for the next AMM.

10 minutes ago, Formynder4 said:

As weak as they are I'm fairly sure Ruthless is not the right way to go with them.

One hull damage on an expendable vulture for 25% the hull of a lauded jedi ace (who is probably the cornerstone of some kooky squad synergy) seems like a no brainer to me.

All theoretical though until we get a seppy ship with a weapons team.

15 minutes ago, BiggsIRL said:

Math was only my major, not reading.

8 minutes ago, Pikeman84 said:

One hull damage on an expendable vulture for 25% the hull of a lauded jedi ace (who is probably the cornerstone of some kooky squad synergy) seems like a no brainer to me.

All theoretical though until we get a seppy ship with a weapons team.

I wonder if Weapons Teams might be the Separatist's 'scarce' upgrade like Support Team is for Imperials.

Grevious is even more devious the more I think about it. He's not just a generic hunter.

Obviously he wants to be paired with plenty of generics for protection. If he gets his sights on a unique squadron, he can lead with the generics. Defender now has a conundrum. Do they spend defense tokens on the generic attacks, knowing Grevious is coming to follow up on them?

35 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Throw 9 red dice in one activation from 3 bombers and 404? For 9x3+17= 44 points?

You forget that Intel has changed. Unless your opponent doesn't have squadrons this won't happen. And in a "squadron fleet vs squadron fleet" you just won't get through Republican squadrons.

Especially since Separatists don't have escort - your bombers will just get nuked on contact. You have no way to protect them other than praying to Dice Jesus.

Generic Tri-Fighters are pretty awesome, I'll admit. Gotta sell those squadron packs! Probably 3.

42 minutes ago, Formynder4 said:

Flight controllers and AI are quite potent.

There are no Separatist ships that can use Flight Controller (yet).

I bet Providence will have that ability, but that's far off and only a guess.

Your point being? And I wouldn't call a month far off.

This is probably a dumb question, but AI provides a bonus to DIS-T81's Snipe, right? Being able to pick out Jedi through V19 swarms and jet away at speed 5 ought to make it pretty good for 17 points.

1 minute ago, Flyinpenguin117 said:

This is probably a dumb question, but AI provides a bonus to DIS-T81's Snipe, right? Being able to pick out Jedi through V19 swarms and jet away at speed 5 ought to make it pretty good for 17 points.

Yes.

36 minutes ago, Petersaber said:

Intel has changed

Exactly. Not only is Intel less powerful, it's also harder to get. No generic in either faction has Intel, it's stapled to an expensive ace. While the seps don't have escort, they do have plenty of cheap squadrons to tie up the enemy and keep them from moving, even with grit. It will be much harder in 1.5 to escape from interfering fighter screens. Seps will have to rely on directly engaging enemy squadrons to protect their bombers, but the Intel changes actually make this viable.

So, the Belbalub's screen ability gives it dodge 1 up to 3 times, rather than giving it dodge 3. Seems to me that this means that it can be used on the same dice more than once if the first reroll doesn't come up favorably.

Also...

... it's going to be a headache learning all the new Separatist ace squadron names.

I think a Stargate meme would be appropriate here.

@BiggsIRL I think you are mistepresenting the design philosophy of the Seperatists.

I think it was:

Very nice. I am not the biggest fan of the clone wars era but this squadron pack in particular is giving me the itch to buy into the separatists. To me this faction feels different from the rebs and empire. The republic faction feels like a mixture of the rebels and empire to me. Just my opinion but the separatists sound really fun and unique.

11 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

@BiggsIRL I think you are mistepresenting the design philosophy of the Seperatists.

How about this?

4x Hyena Class Bombers 44pts

1x General Grevious 22pts

8x Vulture Class Squadrons 64pts

130 points

12 minutes ago, Pikeman84 said:

How about this?

4x Hyena Class Bombers 44pts

1x General Grevious 22pts

8x Vulture Class Squadrons 64pts

130 points

Moar! (switch trifighters in for the vultures, 7 is enough)

Thats actually a ghastly 12 squads.

1 hour ago, Formynder4 said:

Your point being? And I wouldn't call a month far off.

Because it's unconfirmed. I am HOPING that it will have Weapons Team slot, but I think it might not have it - it's going to be more like Home One. Which doesn't have it.

1 hour ago, Pikeman84 said:

Exactly. Not only is Intel less powerful, it's also harder to get. No generic in either faction has Intel, it's stapled to an expensive ace. While the seps don't have escort, they do have plenty of cheap squadrons to tie up the enemy and keep them from moving, even with grit. It will be much harder in 1.5 to escape from interfering fighter screens. Seps will have to rely on directly engaging enemy squadrons to protect their bombers, but the Intel changes actually make this viable.

And how exactly are you going to bypass those heavy duty Republic squadrons without an intel of your own?

This change is double-edged. IMHO Separatists are worse off, because they can't protect their bombers properly and eat their way through enemy squadrons before bombers die.

IMHO a total spam will have to be the way here. It'll easly die to red flak with LTT, but what else are you going to do...

4 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Moar! (switch trifighters in for the vultures, 7 is enough)

Thats actually a ghastly 12 squads.

I will not, for 3 reasons

1. Vultures have more hull for points

2. Seven is an odd number, and that bugs me

3.

2 minutes ago, Petersaber said:

And how exactly are you going to bypass those heavy duty Republic squadrons without an intel of your own?

This change is double-edged. IMHO Separatists are worse off, because they can't protect their bombers properly and eat their way through enemy squadrons before bombers die.

Who cares? They’re only Droids.

No pension plan needed in my up and coming Separatists Navy.

2 minutes ago, Pikeman84 said:

2. Seven is an odd number, and that bugs me

But you have 13 squads, doesn't that bug you?

19 minutes ago, Petersaber said:

And how exactly are you going to bypass those heavy duty Republic squadrons without an intel of your own?

The hyenas are nice, but they are a hike on the tie bomber and the ywing, much less hull for the points, and cannot be escorted.

And republic ships have excellent flak.

They are going to die like flies if the enemy can hit them. If you can time it, you might be able to get one attack in with hyperwave then a second with your first activation the next round.

You will also need bcc for them to be reliable as anyone who has ever used xwings will atttest.

The Separatist Squadrons are interesting -- albeit not as "mind blowing" as the Republic's Jedi. I suppose that should be expected. Clearly the Separatists squadrons' strengths are they're cheap and they can inflict more damage when activated by Squadron commands, but it might be difficult to activate all of the squadrons. I think that the Hyperwave Signal Boost will be a necessity for Separatist squadron-heavy builds.

DFS-311 is expensive for a Vulture Droid and its ability is just ok, because most starfighter squadrons have 3 or 4 attack dice; 1 less die from obstructed means that 1 of the 2 or 3 remaining dice must be rerolled; so ideally, 2 hits are rerolled to only 1, or 3 hits to 2 (which can be Braced to 1). I suppose that makes DFS-311 more survivable, but I think Kit Fisto's ability is far superior -- even though he costs 8 points more. The real problem is that the Separatists don't have an Escort squadron so there's nothing to stop the enemy from focus-firing on DSG-311 and killing the Separatists' only Intel squadron early in the match.

I'm not sure it's even worthwhile for the Separatists to use Intel (post-nerf) because they are more likely to outnumber enemy squadrons, so they could send a swarm of Vulture Droids and Tri-Fighters to tie up the enemy's squadrons, and have a separate group of Hyena Bombers attack ships.

Speaking of Hyena Bombers...

I'm really impressed with the Hyenas. 2 red Battery dice when activated by a Squadron command, with Bomber, and the potential to inflict 4 damage is huge! And only 11 points is very reasonable.

The Baktoid Prototypes Hyena squadron seems to be made for countering ships with Evade, because the recent leaks reveal that Evade can now be used a close range or distance 1 to force a reroll of 1 die. The Baktoid Prototypes' Accuracy can block that Evade (and none of the Clone Wars ships revealed so far have 2 Evades).

DBS-404 has a killer ability! Just the chance of inflicting 6 damage makes it worthwhile for 17 points. I anticipate that Sep players will place DBS-404 in the path of enemy ships, especially larger ships, and enemy players will do whatever they can to avoid overlapping DBS-404. In a strange way, DBS-404 could screen one or more Separatist ships from attacks from the enemy's heavy-hitter ship(s), and deter an Acclamator from getting in range to use its black dice.

The Droid Tri-Fighter seems very similar to an A-Wing. It gives up 1 hull in exchange for a 4th Anti-Squadron attack die when activated by SC, which is a great trade-off!

DIS-T81 combination of Snipe 3 and its attacks can't be obstructed is really potent. It could just camp out on an obstacle and snipe away at enemy squadrons.

The Phlac-Arphocc Prototypes Tri-Fighter seems even better than Soontir Fel because it doesn't need an Escort squadron to help it use its ability; it just needs to be in a squadron ball to keep enemy squads from moving away from it and they'll suffer 1 damage. It's pricey but it could be the most effective way of getting around V-19 Escorts and inflicting damage to Jedi. And none of the Jedi abilities, like Luminara or Plo Koon, can interfere with its damage inflicting ability. However, similar to DFS-311, Separatists can't protect this Ace with Escorts, so enemy squadrons will be gunning for it!

The Belbullab-22 seems like a tough, heavy-hitter, and will probably get a lot of use out of its Screen ability. I can see it being used a lot in the Squadron Phase because it doesn't have AI.

General Grievous is certainly a beast! And also helpful with Relay 2. I know someone said Grievous could munch generics, but I'd like clarification from FFG that a "squadron with no readied defense tokens" does include generics, or if it's limited to squadrons with defense tokens, which must be exhausted. Also, if an Ace has discarded its defense tokens, does that trigger Grievous' ability? Grievous is a Jedi-Killer and there are a lot of Jedi Aces, so it would make sense if Grievous was more adept at killing Aces than generics.

That's another card with wording fated to provoke arguments, so it would be helpful if FFG spelled it out from the start so we know with absolute certainty how it works.

Overall, the Separatist Squadrons are great.

I've decided to pre-order 2 additional Separatist and Republic Fighter Squadron packs. I think 3 of each should be enough, and I don't want to risk them being sold out for months or years at a time, like Imperial and Rebel Fighter Squadrons I have been in the past.

One thing I noticed is how much cheaper all of the fighters (including named fighters) are from republic. Say what you want about power level, but droids should be able to overwhelm by sheer numbers alone. Adding all the named pilots into one list (I know competitive games have a limit, but still...) they only total 125! That’s cheap! Wonder how many fighters the average CIS list will end up bringing to the table?