Looking at commander Sato in this weeks commander emeritus. Sato is an interesting commander he has won a prime or two in the past but is very sparsely seen. However his ability is kind of interesting, lets take a look at him.
To state his ability simply it is every time a ship attacks a ship at distance 1 of one of your squadrons you get to change two dice in your attack pool to any color you want. Need accurices more blue dice need more reliable damage black dice, however in order to really make this ability shine you are going to want to try to resolve color specific critical effects, like blue and black crits from long range as you can change your red dice to the respective colors that you need.
The first issue Stato runs into is that using him to resolve critical effects a long range makes him susceptibility and fairly easily counted by ships with evade. Sato is a big ship hunting admiral, you know the kind that don't have evades fortunately this is where at least when I left it off due to everything going on in the world the meta was big ships, big ships everywhere.
However this leads us into another issue you have to have a squadron at distance 1 of the ship you are attacking. At first this does not seem like a huge deal because well you activate and move squadrons first then attack right that is easy. Well not as easily as you might think we have to deal with our opponent's squadrons what if they lock all are squadrons up and we can't do anything, well I will just bring Intel, okay what if they kill your Intel, well I will bring escorts, what if they have snipe or out maneuver your escorts, or LTT your intel to death before you can get Satos ability off? Sato is one of the few commanders in the game that your opponent can actively counter his ability, the vast majority of commander abilities just happen but because sato has a stipulation to his ability that “attacking a ship at distance 1 of a friendly squadron” phrase makes it so if they can keep squadrons out of distance one of there ships they will effectively counter your 32 point commander.
Now with all that said Sato has got a few new toys that just might bring him back into the action. First and foremost I think is Officer Wedge Antilles.
Wedge lets you spend a squadron token before the end of the squadron phase to give non-unique squadrons that don't have strategic cloak. Now this might not seam big at first, but it can be pretty huge, it can move up to 3 of your squadrons out of engagement or even into distance 1 of the ship you are going to target and if you are first player it pretty much becomes a sure thing that you will get satos ability off so Wedge is a great piece for a Sato list.
Also the Y-wing is the cheapest and one of the rebellions most toughest squadrons and Advanced Transponder Net should not be overlooked, as it gives them just that little extra bit of utility, combine that with Wedge Officer use y-wings to hold off your opponents squadrons disengage and go on a bombing run and help trigger Sato yes please.
MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• Commander Sato (32)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Fire-Control Team (2)
• Advanced Transponder Net (5)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Assault Concussion Missiles (7)
• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
= 170 Points
Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)
• Assault Concussion Missiles (7)
• Task Force Organa (1)
= 44 Points
Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)
• Assault Concussion Missiles (7)
• Task Force Organa (1)
= 44 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Wedge Antilles (4)
• Jamming Field (2)
• Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
• Bright Hope (2)
= 31 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Comms Net (2)
= 20 Points
Squadrons:
• 5 x Y-wing Squadron (50)
• Malee Hurra (26)
= 76 Points
Total Points: 385
In addition we also got Kanan Jarrus, he has cloak and that is just so helpful like we talked about with wedge is just really nice and if you have him disrupting your enemy carriers with his assault keyword its going to make things easier on you squadrons.
Lastly he got Malee Hurra, now I don't think she is absolutely amazing, but she is nice if she could get cloak from wedge I would probably put her in the amazing category, but she cant. She does have grit and that makes her a bit hard to tie down, but in order to use her screed like ability she not only has to be at distance 1 of a ship, but also only engaged by one squadron. This makes her a bit limited and part of me really does not see why there is this extra step she is already a bad fighter than her other counterparts two blue dice in place of blue black for anti ship and a very finicky red dice in her anti-squadron armament in place of a bit more reliable blue, I mean she drops the heavy keyword, but still she is very expensive especially for a non rouge ace, I think they just did not want her to be to powerful, but I think it was a little heavy handed, but she is still nice, but you will need Intel or clever use of rocks to get her where you need her.
All in all I really think Sato with a bit more exploring with some of these tools might be able to start to see play, I do think a point cut of 8ish or so would be nice to fit in the upgrades and squadrons you need to make him work. Honestly Wedge officer is mandatory in a sato list in my opinion never leave home without him. How have you used Sato and what success have you had with him? Until next time have a great week.
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