Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Officer Upgrades - Wave 1

In an effort to clear through the upgrades of Wave 1 before Wave 2 officially hits, today we are going to go over the Officer upgrades.  Officers are an upgrade that any ship can equip, but not all officers can go on all ships - like Commanders, some officers are named, unique cards that only can only be used by a specific faction.

This article is part of the Upgrades series.



Imperial Officers:

Admiral Chiraneau - 10 pts - Familiar to most folks who played X-Wing, Admiral Chirpy is in fact not a Commander as you would expect by his name.  As an officer, he enhances your squadron activations, by allowing you to move squadrons you activate with a squadron command at speed 2 when engaged.  Many people immediately saw the synergy with this and the Corrupter title for the VSD, as a way to allow bombers to disengage from fighter cover and attack enemy ships.  He also works for disengaging damaged squadrons out of a furball, or allowing you to attack an engaged squadron and move, making it harder for the enemy to attack your squadrons without using squadron commands themselves.

Director Isard - 3 pts - A staple of the Expanded Universe (at least the Legacy version of it) and X-Wing books, Director Isard shows up in Armada as a way of gaining information on your opponent.  For 3 points, Isard lets you look at the entire command dial stack of any enemy ship you want (but just one) when her ship activates.  This is very good for enemies with large numbers of command dials, especially if you have less dials.

Wulff Yularen - 7 pts - Wulff lets you keep a steady supply of command tokens - when you use a token you can exhaust him (so only one token a round guys!) to gain 1 command token of the same type.  There is obvious synergy here with other upgrades that require as command to activate, like Engine Techs on a GSD, but he works with a variety of situations.  Stock a Squadron token on the first turn and spend it every turn after with Wulff, for an extra squadron activation.  Keep engineering 1 extra shield every turn.  Always have a reroll.  Nav Team extra yaw every turn.

Rebel Officers:

Adar Tallon - 10 pts - Tallon is all about making your squadrons even better.  When you activate a squadron with a command from the ship he is on, you can exhaust him (only one squadron, folks!) to toggle the activation slider of that squadron, and letting it get another activation.  Useful for many things, not just getting another attack.  Slingshot a B-Wing twice at speed 2 toward an enemy ship.  Slingshot an A-Wing at effectively Speed 10!  Move a ship and activate it a second time with Yavaris (three attacks in a round!).  Double attacks by Dutch, Wedge, or Luke.  Tallon, for less than the cost of any rebel starfighter squadron, doubles their effectiveness.

Leia Organa - 3 pts - Leia is all about manipulating your own ships' command dial.  When you activate her ship, you can chose another friendly ship at range 1-5 and set that ship's top command dial to the same command you revealed.  Obviously, Leia wants to be on a CR90 - even though you could put her on another ship, her usefulness diminishes immensely when her ship doesn't have Command Value 1.  Like a souped up version of the Liaisons, you can set your dial to something you'll always find useful, then use her ship to change your dial into something situationaly important.

Raymus Antilles - 7 pts - Raymus gives you a free token that matches the command you just revealed.  Obvious synergy with the Tantive IV and its ability to send the Raymus token to a ship that particularly needs it, Raymus can be used with any ship to make it that much better at doing its commands.  1 Extra squadron activation, rerolls in addition to extra dice, more shields repaired, or throttle up / down by a speed of 2 - Raymus can do it all.

Non-Faction Specific Officers

Defense Liaison - 3 pts - Just before you reveal your command on a ship, you can spend a banked command token to change the top command to either a Repair or Maneuver command.  A good way to get out of a pinch if you have banked tokens, the Defense Liaison lets you set your dials aggressively (all Concentrate Fire / all Squadrons) and still be able to make tight maneuvers / emergency repairs as needed.  Works best with a way of getting tokens, such as Garm Bel Iblis / Grand Moff Tarkin or Tantive IV & Raymus Antilles.

Intel Officer - 7 pts - When you attack, you can exhaust this card to select a defensive token - if the opponent spends that token it is discarded.  Good on ships that don't have a lot of accuracy, or starting the initial attacks on a ship without many red defense tokens.  It can make an enemy chose between sacrificing a key token early to prevent significant damage, or take a shot he otherwise wouldn't.

Veteran Captain - 3 pts - When you reveal a command, you may discard this card to gain 1 command token of your choice.  One emergency token, once per game.  Good for an emergency slowdown on a high command ship.  Not very useful on ships that don't have a high command value.

Weapons Liaison - 3 pts - Like Defensive Liaison, but instead capable of changing your command dial to either a Concentrate Fire or Squadron command.  Good if you want to set your commands defensively, and switch when you know you won't be attacked.


That's it for Officers.  Next time we will begin starting on Weapons Teams for Wave 1.

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