Last week we talked about the SSD and after playing around with it my impressions of it and after playing around with the new cards that came in the box a little bit more I think I am comfortable to give some of my final thoughts on the new upgrade cards that come with the SSD. So let’s dive into it, in no particular order.
Admiral Ozzel (officer)
Okay so at first I did not think too much of this guy, I thought he would be nice, but dang he might be my favorite guy in the set, let me explain why. So a lot of the time deployment advantage is a pretty big deal and a lot of people try and save their big guns to the end so they are plotted on the correct Couse, makes since to me. However there are benefits to deploying your big guns first in that it creates an area denial effect as they don’t want to deploy in the course of the strong arc of your ships, making it easy to predict where ships are going to be deployed meaning your other ships can deploy in a spot to engage your opponents fleet, then with Ozzel you can re-position your big gun to be on course as well getting the area denial effect. The best of both worlds, it’s so good let me show you an example.
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So you could do this without Ozzel, but Ozzel makes it so much easier for you to do, and you don’t forfeit your first maneuver just to re-position thus losing some tempo. Ozzel makes it easy to fix deployment issues, but I think the best use of him is to get that area denial effect from a ship with big guns then fix its deployment so it can be in the fight, fake left go right type of thing, this is far more powerful than you would think. Ozzle gets a 9/10 from me.
Darth Vader (Officer)
Okay so the Vader officer is amazing mostly because he only cost 1 point, and can provide at least one reroll to all your ships once a game. He makes the officers that have a onetime effect like Needa, Tua, etc more valuable, and yes you can keep your ECM and your evade even if you kill Needa or Tua. He lets you fish for the double damage faces on red and black dice especially if your ships have other reroll options and they should. However not all ships are going to have an officer they are willing to dump and in that case Vader should be used ether on an abysmal roll after you have used other reroll options or late in the game when you really just need that one more damage to take a ship off the table. What he does is extremely helpful, and he does it very cheaply, there is really no reason not to take Vader in an imperial list unless you have used up all officer slots already and cant fit him, or if you are using him in one of his other forms boarding trooper, commander of tie advanced ace. Vader because of how cheep he is and make other officers more valuable I have to give him a 10/10, when I remember to use him.
Commander Gherant
So this guy kind of sucks, sorry. I can’t really find a meaningful way to use him. He gets discarded once you start attacking ships. With that said he fits best on ships that don’t have contains that are close range brawlers so you can save your evades for the double hits and not have to worry about the crit, so a raider is the one thing that really stands out to me. However I think this is fair to evaluate these cards with consideration to Rebellion in the rim, as it is nigh upon us, and Iden Versio is going to take up the officer slot not this guy.I could maybe see his use on a GSD, specifically Demo, as on the approach you wont need to worry about getting rid of crits with your evade, but use it on double hits, and then close the gap and Gherant is gone. Gherant does have the upside that you can choke him out before he gets discarded with Darth Vader (Officer) making it so you can really fish for the hit crits with both him, Vader and Ordinance experts. At the end of the day there are better officers to put in your officer slot, but if you have Vader in your fleet and are really tight on points to fit a better officer on a GSD or Raider, he is worth considering, he does get better if you’re expecting a lot of long range critical effects, but they are just not that common. I am just going to have to give this guy 2/10, has some synergy with Vader, but his ability is just so restrictive and niche.
Director Krennic
So when I first saw this guy I was all on board the hype train, however he will only ever work on one attack. I was excited to see him on a cymoon and see what he would do. But now that we know some more cards from Rebellion in the Rim specifically linked Turbolaser Towers I think this is a better cymoon build:
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112) • Minister Tua (2) • Intensify Firepower! (6) • Gunnery Team (7) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) • Spinal Armament (9) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) = 150 Points
I think that if Krennic will find a home on an ISD it will be on an ISD 2 with a load out like this:
Imperial II (120) • Director Krennic (8) • Weapons Battery Techs (5) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • Heavy Ion Emplacements (9) • Spinal Armament (9) = 158 Points
Krennic frees up the Ion slot, so we don’t have to take leading shots and take heavy Ion Emplacements with weapon battery techs for blue crits. Simple only getting one re-roll is not bad as you will get one shot from your front and then another from your side it will pack a lot of punch in its one front shot with HIE and Spinal combined with a con fire command. Though I do think that Krennic will find his home on the Arqutiens. An Arquitens with Krennic and Slaved turrets with the con fire command will throw 5 dice with re-rolls on all of them for 68 points it’s a pretty cheap long range heavy hitter.
My biggest issue I am having with Krennic is that he makes your commands a bit inflexible you have to have that dail/token, and if you are always con firing you are obviously not doing other commands. You can just use a token it will let you re-roll 3 dice 1 from the token and 2 from Krennic, but how are you getting that token most likely from a coms net and that makes it so if you want rerolls your activation order is inflexible. I think Krennic is best used in a list with Thrawn or Pettie as the commander to provide the necessary command flexibility or even a JJ Arquatines would provide a bit of flexibility. I like Krennic, and think he has his place but he will not be nearly as big as I thought, still a solid officer choice in the right build, as you will be wanting to through at least 5+ reds to really maximize his ability, otherwise Linked Turbolaser Towers, just seams like the better option. Krennic gets a 7/10 is a solid choice but really makes your ships fairly inflexible in ether activation order or commands, also not getting to re-roll at close range is sad.
Lira Wessex
She is kind of like Gherant, but she does not work against special crits. In essence a ship can turn an engineering token into a contain defense token, with the added bonuses that it works when you take damage from an asteroid and the faceup card given by APTs, plus you can see the face up card before you decide if you want to spend the token. Lira is nice and I think again is worth considering in the same circumstances as Gherant, but works well on any ship that does not have a contain token, that does not mind saving an engineering token for a rainy day. I like her more than Gherant, but if you are worried about long range special critical effects, which are few and far between Gherant is a slightly better choice, but if you just want in essence a pseudo contain token on your ship she is worth considering, and is fairly cheap. Nothing amazing, but she has her niche and I think she fills it better than Gherant in the vast majority of circumstances. If you have a ship that does not have a contain and needs some cheep Vader fodder she is almost a no-brainer 6/10.
Emperor Palpatine (Officer)
So Officer Palpatine is kind of interesting, now he is very good on the SSD, but in a way actually gets worse the more ships/viable targets you have. This is because for most ships spending one defense token is not a huge deal but you get two attacks each round and you don’t want to waste attacks, but you don’t want to spend two tokens to do it most of the time, but if that is the only option well tokens will start to go very fast. Palpatine is very punishing against TRC ships, and double taping ace squadrons so if you are running into that a lot he is worth his points.
To get the most value out of him you want to put him on your biggest most durable target, right now that is ether an ISD, or SSD, I can see an argument for putting him on an interdictor as well. In addition you need to follow up after a ship attacks your Palpatine ship with an attack or it is truly useless as spending a token does not mean much unless you can follow it up with some kind of attack to get the token to be discarded completely there is next to no point to his ability.
Palpatine does have some fun synergies with Sloan, and Overload Pulse, and I actually think both are pretty good with him Overload Pulse makes it so you don’t need to follow up with an attack as long as the ship that got hit with OP has not activated that ship if it attacks palatines ship will be discarding tokens, this generally works better if you are first player.
Palpatine is a solid officer but you have to have a plan to use him, he also works well in lists that go second because ship attacks you then you activate to put pressure on the spent tokens, he is great in SSD list as every ship will probably have a double arc on you and spend two tokens every round outside of an SSD list to really make him work he needs to be in a low ship count list, or get just a little bit more help for ether OP, Suppresser, Sloan, etc to really make him scary 8.5/10.
Well that is all the new upgrades we get in the SSD box and basically my final thoughts after having played with each at least once. I really don’t think any of these upgrades are mandatory or so good that they must be in your list. So for anyone unwilling or unable to drop $200 on this box don’t worry too much. Ozzel I love him lets you pull some really cool tricks with deployment, honestly he might be my favorite upgrade in the box, but takes up a very competitive slot the officer slot and that is really the theme for every card in this box they are all officers and there are so many good officers even if you don’t get these guys you are still going to have very good options available. However if you ever take tua or needa, I really feel that Vader is mandatory to squeeze out out every last bit of value you can out of them, so there is that, but even then you don't need him.
So even if you cant get the SSD because of cost you are not out that much as far as the upgrades, as they just give you more options, but because there are so many good officers already there is hot competition for the slots. With clone wars around the corner and both X-wing and legion getting card packs I would not be surprised to see these guys in a card pack in the future or at least as promos for Organized play. Until next time have a great week!
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