So we have all the 1.5 changes, and Clone Wars is here, I have already started painting my squadrons. and I enjoy a lot of the changes. We covered pretty much all the major changes from Intel, to pass tokens, and evade changes. These were really the three rule changes everything else was more clarifications, or addressed some fringe cases that needed to be resolved but nothing to big outside Intel, Evade, and Pass Tokens. We have not been able to talk about any of the card changes on AMM so that is what we are doing today. A lot of people where disappointment in so few changes, and I have a few cards I was hoping would get a look at again, but if I am counting right we still got 27 cards changed that is quite a lot of changes and with the rules changes and these upgrade changes the game is really up in the air, so let's get down and look at these changes.
Gunnery Team
Okay so the end all be all upgrade card for weapons team slot has been dethroned by a simple change. In order to resolve its effect you must have resolved a con fire command. This card is by no means dead, but its not going to see near as much play as it used to this a long with the new evade tokens gives small ship lists a bit of room to breath. Gunnery teams is not going away a con fire token is not a huge cost but you should start to see a lot more diversity in the weapon team slot. It is also worth noting that even if a ship has this card equipped it can still resolve the advanced gunnery objective now due to its rewording, in addition huge ships like the SSD will no longer be able to attack 3 times out of one arc, so small change but a pretty impactful one.
Engine Techs
Not much to say about this one the days of double ram are dead and I have nothing bad to say about that other than I will miss the look on my opponent's face when I use doddonas pride with this and dodonna to take out a large ship in a first last scenario, and with pass tokens first lasting is going to become a lot less common.
ECM
Okay I have never been a huge fan of just how good this card is, but its still good and worth taking just not quite as good, it might start to free up this slot a little bit on larger ships, but it will still be very common, but other cards do start to become a bit more tempting with the token required to ready this guy and I'll just say it now if you have the points and a free ion slot MS-1 stock just when up a lot with all these exhaust cards and this other change.
Leading Shots
just a two point increases and its quite a bit less tempting to take I feel like you might still see this on ISDs, and MC-80s, but even then there are a lot of other good re-roll abilities. The ion slot just became very competitive.
Slicer Tools
This change was necessary because hardcells Dooku meanness. It would have been nice to see a points decrease, but it will still see play to help win the squadron game, which should also be much more interesting part with the change to Intel making it so you can no longer just ignore squadrons.
Assault Concussion Missiles
okay a nerf and I personally like this its now an exhaust and a few less points. I like this because it makes the one big activation a game kinda die down and will require fleets to work a bit more together than just one ship doing the heavy lifting, it's not dead it's still good you will get good value out of this card when used well.
Assault Proton Torpedoes
Same as ACM its still a fine card don't panic black dice are not dead.
External Racks
Got a point increases to 4 its needed to keep the ordnance slot competitive, and its just good and probably needed the point increase anyway.
Ordnance Experts
Okay now you can only re-roll two dice and i'll be honest in most cases that is how many I was re-rolling, really this just prevents crazy damage fishing it's still good just not as good and opens this slot to a few more options on black dice ship.
H9 Turbolasers
This just added the Modification trait to the card so you won't be able to pair this with any other modification and that makes me a little sad, but with the slight nerf to ECM accuracy do become more powerful so this slight adjustment was probably needed.
Quad Turbolaser Cannons
same as H9 it is a modification now this gets rid of the Ravager H9+QTC combo that would give you just insane amount of dice and would help you lock up a bunch of stuff if necessary, we never really saw QTC outside of that case so a point decrease would have been nice, but maybe in this new world it has a place I am just not seeing.
XI7 Tubolasers
Basically the wording was changed to make it so that a player can use Advanced Projectors even when attacked by this card making the defensive retrofit that much more competitive and it opens an interesting option for smaller ships with a defensive retrofit.
Captain Brunson
She got a 4 point increases and lets be honest that is fair. With how expensive she is she will likely not be seen as much on smaller ships, but is still a good investment protect a big point sink ship.
Admonition
point reduced by 2, however now you have to discard a readied defense token to use its effect so its a lot worse and with the change to evade foresight is now going to be the king of MC-30s. Its still usable, but its a bit more of using your redirects to lower damage in place of redirecting, I think it still can be used, but will not be nearly as prevalent.
Mon Karren
to resolve its effect you must resolve a con fire command to trigger its ability, and got a two point cost reduction. This makes it so this card cannot be used on both attacks and adds a little bit more planning to get use out of it, it's still a good title.
Yavaris
So this change simply lets squadrons add dice to their attack if they don't move this is much better and is not the same force multiplier it used to be. It's not dead, and I would still say it is a very nice ship to have in a rebel bombing wing, but not necessary.
Demolisher
Okay so when I first heard of the change it seemed to be that demo could only attack once, but now that I have the card in front of me that is not the case. Basically this cards wording is a little complex but think of it as “you can only perform one attack before moving, you may perform one attack after moving.” So what this does is it keeps Demolisher from going In hitting a ship then attacking the ship with both arcs and then fly away from battle to live to fight another day. This change forces Demo to stay in the fight in order to maximize its attacks, again like yavaris still very good, but not completely obligatory.
Avenger
Okay so Avenger is pretty much dead, your opponent can now spend one exhausted token and well it's going to be brace. I guess this helps get tokens off ships to help support your other ships while still giving you some edge, but I am pretty sure this card is very likely just in the binder now, but maybe I will be surprised. I think this change is in line with what seems to be the idea of no more super activation and that fleets will have to work much more together to take down ships, in place of just having this ship kill that ship and this ship kill that other one.
Commander Sato
Okay so he got a 5 point cost reduction, however as we spoke ACM and APT got a cost reduction as well so Sato seams to be a much more competitive commander so you should probably look to start seeing him a lot more, sure the evade buff does make it hard for crits to stick on some ships but the biggest prizes don't normally have evades.
Garm Bel Iblis
okay so he has always been good, but now you get to pick the turns the tokens come in on most likely 1 and 4, but some added flexibility can make for some very interesting builds he is still better if for nothing else he has become more flexible.
General Rieekan
4 point increases and is now the rebellions most expensive commander as he should be. Still useful in the right builds, but he is no longer the well I built this fleet insert Rieekan, he is still fine and will see play in certain lists, but no longer out competes nearly all other Rebel admirals.
Leia Organa
10 point reduction so yeah she will start to see play mostly in MSU lists thanks to the evade buff, but she could be used on other ships.
Mon Mothma
Okay so 3 point cost reduction making her 7 points cheaper then Reekian and has the same effect at medium range, but at close range she can now force a re-roll of an extra die. I kinda wish she just let ships affect an extra die across the board to give her something at long range, but ships that want to get in medium and close range are going to really like the extra survivability Mon Mothma now brings.
Admiral Konstantine
So he got reworked so that he is a lot easier to build a fleet around and can now also force ships to dump navigation or increase or decrease speed. Is he going to be great, probably not, but he is no longer the worst commander in the game.
Admiral Ozzel
So this commander basically got a complete rework, when you are determining your course you can increase or decrease your speed by 1 no navigation command required. This could make him potentially very nice in non-Sloan squadron builds, and also gives ships a lot of flexibility in MSU to stop navigating and just get more dice with a con fire command. I think he has some interesting potential and it will be fun to see what happens with him.
General Tagge
Basically got the same treatment as Garm, however this helps him much more than it helps Garm as it gives him the ability to get tokens back when they are most valuable turn 4 and sure that means your likely getting a token back turn 6, but an extra token on turn 6 can make the difference between life and death. The evade change also helps Tagge so a turn 3 and 5 might not be as bad as it used to if you have some ships discarding their evades to negate a lot of damage. Tagge is going to be interesting at the very least and is probably the commander I am most eager to see how he works now.
Grand Moff Tarkin
Okay 10 point cost reduction, but on top of all of that tokens are far more valuable now so yeah you're going to see this guy across the table, probably quite frequently.
So thoughts are the changes, if you see that I have missed any please let me know. The game has really been blown wide open, and now I can't wait to get back to the table. There are some cards that were more indirectly affected by these changes and I mentioned some and a few cards I am sad that did not get another look at, but we will talk about them in the next AMM, until next time have a great week!