Someone over at Echo Base posted spoliers for the upcoming Rebellion in the Rim Campaign and a big thank you to Mike Doench over there is in order. During the time of writing this, Cannotgetyourshipout Armada blog posted better pictures. These I re posted are good enough and perfectly readable so I wont change them at this time. The waiting has been long but it is soon coming to an end! This expansion holds more promise of rearranging the meta than the Wave 8 ships!
I want to take a nosedive right into the cards and try to prophecies if they will be of use or wasted points. So much fun things will happen with the game when this expansion comes out!
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| Sorry, I couldnt find a better pic to put here, so have Vader with a dove... |
Officer Slot
We begin with the Officer slot. The earlier waves presented many officers that where of varied quality and frequency of use. In this expansion, many Officers seem very SOLID and might juggle around the meta a lot! Each faction get 3 officers each and one generic.
Rebels
Ezra Bridger is good! I like cards that change around things on the boards. He is similar to a Chart Officer in that he brings a get-out-of-damage-town-free-card. Having the ability to suddenly obstruct an arc after firing and navigating can be a useful trick. Also throwing an obstacle in front of a ship is a handy trick with some of the objectives. Imagine being so powerful with the force you can pull the station away from a bunch of squads? I hope this card gets explained in detail if obstacles can be showed underneath or away from ships/squadrons. As he is written now it seems perfectly ok.
Captain Rex makes it harder for the opponent to discard Raid Tokens and also has an unending supply of Raid Tokens to deal out, and that might be useful in the right fleet as you need to build around it. He might be good on Yavaris with the new assault HWK-290, Kannan Jarrus or another ship that is a designated carrier. Even on an MC75 Ordnance Cruiser he can work with Jyn Erso from Wave 7.
Sabine Wren makes a proximity mine suddenly appear somewhere on the board. She costs just as much at a Proximity mine upgrade, but can put that mine much closer to the opposing players ship than Proximity Mines. Can be good and annoying. How good this is, is left to be seen when the rules for proximity mines comes out.
The Empire
Iden Versio! An officer that will make the Raider, Gladiator or Arquitens a little harder to kill. With a boosted Mon Mothma ability at close range only, the Raider 1 might see more play. I don't know how good it will be to discard Iden Versio to give a ship one Raid Token, as she is an expensive officer for a small ship.
It will also be possible to put this Officer on an SSD with Captain Needa and Brunson for cancelling out possibly 2 dices at close range. An insurance for at least one or two attacks from Demolisher or Admonition if you are willing to burn the Evade.
And so, the Empire finally gets its own Toryn Farr. It only took 7~8 waves and two expansions but its finally here. Sadly it only applies for non-swarm squadrons but for any type of dice instead of just the blue (which is so prevalent on Rebel squadrons). For only 4 points. Now those generic TIE Phantoms will be much better with a handy reroll of those red dice. How crazy good is that.
BUT, it only works against other squadrons. I guess FFG don't want to make the Sloane balls more deadlier since he only applies to non-swarm squadrons, but this will make other squadron builds more appealing...
Wulff Yularen, Taskmaster Grint, Commandat Aresko. All of those deal with giving out tokens under certain restrictions. And all but Grint costs 7 points. Put 3 of these on an SSD and have tokens forever (or not). The Rebellion got Raymus Antilles with the CR90 expansion in wave 1 and hasn't received one since (please correct me if I'm wrong). Why the Empire gets more than one is, a little boring. It would have been enough with Wulff and Grint IMO. But he might be usefull. For example: Spend an engineering token to execute a engineering command, gain a token from his ability, then execute a command from a dial and the token you just gained.
Generic
Expert Shield Techs makes a Redirect into a mini-brace instead of redirecting. Perfect when there are no sides to redirect to.
Weapons Team
Weapons Battery Techs team up very well with Quad Turbolaser Cannons and H-9. Get a guaranteed accuracy with H-9, Add a die with an Accuracy, change said die to a crit. It will get at bit pricey but this might be useful. It is also a cheaper Warlord-title effect, but for every ship that has Weapons Team slot. This also is in direct competition with Gunnery Teams that wants to be on ISD's, SSD, Assault Frigates and VSD's. Put this on a MC75 Armored Cruiser or ISD 2 with H-9 and Heavy Ion Empacements to guaranatee a crit and watch how the shields evaporate.
Offensive Retrofit
Want an extra non-unique squadron? Want it dirt-cheap? This is a nice inclusion in fleets that has an offensive retrofit slot not in use and the points to spare.
Straightforward. Simple. Put this on an Assault frigate or VSD that has an Offensive retrofit slot to spare and dot the void with nacho-bombs. When this card resolves is important to notice. Since it happens before deployment, so ot is more of a area-denial type of upgrade. Increasing the Engineering value wont work since that only affects the ship when it is deployed.
This card text reads: "Fuck your Intel". Finaly a hard counter against Intel. Now the SSD and ISD's can be made bomber-proof when all those YV-666 are guarding the flanks of the ship.
Moving on with...
Turbolaser Slot
Re rolls are always nice, and specially with red dice. The other ability is also a very interesting take on the ship/squadron interaction. With Draven/Kallus and a dedicated anti-squadron ship, I think it is possible to completely murder that one annoying squadron. The sad part is that ships that would have been insanely good with this is not able to take it. No Gladiator and no Raider.
New Titles
This. Is. Very. Good. Tired of loosing the deployment mini-game? Take Corvus and get an extra deployment for 2 points! Effectively the Raider with this on gets just as expensive as 2 naked Gozantis. One thoing to look out for is that the Raider with all the bells and whistles will be quite expensive. Iden Version, Corvus,
Nebulon-B has the worst sidearcs in the game, but with this title it gets a little better. Change out one of the Brace or Evade with a redirect AND gain a Weapons Teams slot. Personally I would rather have had an Defensive Retrofit slot, or as I call it, the ECM slot. But this is the curse that all the double-brace ships must bear.
This is thematically a very interesting title. For one turn use one Fleet Command. It fits very good with the rebels sylee of playing but is at the same time restricting. But it is now possible and reasonably(?) cheap to take 2 differnet Fleet Commands in one list. Intensify Firepower! with a crapload of Scout Hammerheads for that guarranteed damage since those Hammerheads probably wont last long enough for a second round of shooting :).
And saving the best title for last: Harrow. The VSD has been on the sidebench for too long, ever since the big brother came out, the ISD. But now the VSD will get more use and this title opens up a whole rainbow of possibilities.
Engine Tech for improvemed speed is a given.
Fighter Coordination Team for squadron shenanigans. Move 3 squadrons one, then Squall, then have an almost guaranteed Alpha Strike.
Projector Experts for passing around shields to those who need it.
This is a fantastic thing to happen for the VSD, and it might be the last upgrade that is a specific fix for it. I am still running dual VSD when I fancy a bit of fun shuckles and also try to convice my opponent that "It iS a gOod sHIp foR iT's coST!" and I will roll up with this title stapled to one of my VSD's.
On a serious note, this is a bit silly. The VSD now have Minister Tua, Quad Battery Turrets, Moff Jerjerrod, Dipsosable Capacitators and now Harrow as fixes for a ship that has been in the game since the core set. For a player just starting out with the Imperial faction, buying all of these fixes for your one VSD from the core set is an insane amount of money for a ship that is outperformed by the ISD in every way. And all the other ships you buy will probably get more playtime than the VSD.
BUT: if you already, like me, have bought almost every ship in the game, you might as well try this.
I want to hope that this title will be great on a VSD 1 with Ordnance Experts, External Racks and H-9. Putting Tua and ECM on there might be a good idea for increased survivability. Point cost for that setup is 73 + 2 + 7 + 3 + 3 + 8 = 96 points for a ship that can punch pretty har with 3 red and 3 black + 2 black from external racks.
Fleet Commands
The last and missing fleet command that improves the last Yaw value. It is great for so many ships. Now suddenly even the Empire can have a Maidene ability and the Rebels don't need to take Maidene. Green Knight pointed out that
And can only nod in approval over how good that is.Now an ISD can go II-II-II...
Support Team
The rebels can put this on a CR90, The Nebulon-B, Liberty MC80 and the Pelta. It can go on a MC80 Home One but it does nothing...
Great fix for many ships.
Closing notes
I hope this inane ramblings where of help to anyone. I plan to do a writeup for the Squadrons and the Objective cards that comes in the box in the future, but that will probably come after some playtesting has been done (and the actuall box is in my hands).
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