It has been quite a while since I have seen a comms net support ships across the table from me. I mostly see either parts resupply or munition resupply and comms net seems to have fallen off the map with these cards why? Well, one of the biggest upsides of taking a resupply card is that you can use your support ship to push squadrons or resolve another command while comms net eats up your command. Another is that both engineering and con fire tokens seem to be what ships are really wanting, so have the resupply cards killed comms net?
What are things that comms net can do that the resupply can’t do? Well first giving out nav tokens or squad tokens can be needed in some lists. A consistent squad token is in effect the same as an expanded hanger bay however you do need to ask yourself why your support ship is giving up commands for tokens when it could be pushing those squadrons themselves? Another issue is that nav tokens can be a little lackluster and if you really need one you could pretty easily bank one on turn one a consistent nav token generally is not that good.
Nav tokens can get better with nav teams or the fleet command Take Evasive Action. Nav tokens are just a bit underwhelming and sacrificing a command on your support ship is just a lot of time not worth it especially if you have squadrons that need to be commanded. So I think in most cases it’s just not worth taking comms net for the nav token and forfeiting a command.
Another issue is that hondo can very easily be taken to give out tokens sure you do have the slight downside of giving your opponent some tokens, but he cost just as much so if you are in need of emergency. tokens Hondo just seems like a much better option for the same points, and he does not lock you into a particular activation order either.
So when would you ever take comms net now? I can think of a few cases. When you have a commander that generates tokens, If you are utilizing Take Evasive Action, If you are powering a carrier to push more squadrons with flight controllers.
Taken with comms net of ether the republic or empire is really nice as your support ships can still resolve commands and move tokens around at the needed time. Garm is not too bad sure it is only one token, but letting a ship of yours spend its tokens more freely is nice I found this to work really well with nav teams on liberty.
Take Evasive Action is a very interesting fleet command that I think is a bit underutilized. We have no resupply card that gives you nav tokens so it becomes one of the only ways to keep it up and running however if you have a commander that gives out tokes it’s not much of an issue. Take Evasive Action can be really helpful for the republic.
Lastly passing a squad token with comms net can be useful if you are getting a ship to push more squads with flight controllers or the yavaris title. However again you need to ask yourself why you are not taking a commander that generates tokens for you, but forfeiting a squad command on a support ship to give a carrier that will empower the squadron the ability to buff more squadrons seams worth it in most cases.
So I think Comms net is in a very odd place at this time. It has some niche uses but I think in most cases it is outperformed by the resupply cards. I think comms net has its place, but you will likely not see it to often on the table anymore. How have you used comms net? And do you think it is effective? Until next time have a great week!
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