I will be honest I was really struggling to figure out what to write about this week as everything feels very much up in the air right now as the game is getting ready for a pretty big overhaul with Clone Wars coming up and everything that brings with it. So I felt that no matter what I wrote about it would be dubious at best. So I was very happy to get a little bit more info from Steel Strategy's Un-named Armada Podcast, with Shmitty, Biggs, and Truthiness when they interviewed Lead Designer Michael Gernes; if you have not been following there podcast you really should be it great fun and great content, by very skilled players, and thanks to them and Michael Gernes we got some info about a new ace cap limit, and that is what we are going to be talking about today.
So what is this cap, well in short you can take one squadron with defense tokens per every 100 fleet points you are playing with so in a standard 400 point game you can take 4 aces with defense tokens, so how does this impact the game and list building, well let's look at some popular squadron archetypes and see what happens.
One of the most infamous squadron archetypes is Rebel aces, a lot has been done to bring this in line, Reekian was nerfed and so was Yavaris, and has seen recent decline due to strong Imperial Alpha strikes thanks to the quasar, and also the Onager being able to take out the light carries out of range of the fighters, but it's still quite a powerful archetype the squadron ball looks something like this.
• Dagger Squadron (15)
• Gold Squadron (12)
• Dutch Vander (16)
• Jan Ors (19)
• Norra Wexley (17)
• Ten Numb (19)
• Wedge Antilles (19)
• Shara Bey (17)
= 134 Points
So this squadron complement in the new rules now has 2 to many aces with defense tokens so what does it need to do in order to stay legal?
Well it has a lot of options depending on what the player wants, do we want to forgo Intel and forces on taking out enemy squadrons first maybe we drop Jan and get something like this.
• Dagger Squadron (15)
• Gold Squadron (12)
• Dutch Vander (16)
• Norra Wexley (17)
• Ten Numb (19)
• Wedge Antilles (19)
• 2 x A-wing Squadron (22)
= 120 Points
Or maybe we want to keep intel, and maybe protect it a little bit more and make Biggs ball.
• Dagger Squadron (15)
• Gold Squadron (12)
• Norra Wexley (17)
• Ten Numb (19)
• Biggs Darklighter (19)
• Jan Ors (19)
• 2 x X-wing Squadron (26)
= 127 Points
Or maybe now that we can't take defense token aces we want to take some pressure off of our carries and add in some rouge squadrons.
• Dagger Squadron (15)
• Gold Squadron (12)
• Norra Wexley (17)
• Ten Numb (19)
• Dutch Vander (16)
• Wedge Antilles (19)
• 2 x YT-2400 (32)
= 130 Points
or heck we may decided to add in some rely and strategic to help us better play the objectives and to make things a bit easier for our carries to activate our squadrons.
• Dagger Squadron (15)
• Gold Squadron (12)
• Norra Wexley (17)
• Ten Numb (19)
• Dutch Vander (16)
• Wedge Antilles (19)
• 2 x VCX-100 Freighter (30)
= 128 Points
there are even more options for this archetype, so archetypes are not going to go away they will just change slightly and you will see more variety from squadron complement to squadron complement even in list with the same archetypes and that's a good thing.
Let's look at a few more squadron wings let's look at another popular squadball that normally accompanies Thrawn 2 ship, or what I call the Cataclysmic Squall.
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Morna Kee (27)
• Dengar (20)
• Zertik Strom (15)
• 2 x TIE Fighter Squadron (16)
= 134 Points
This list needs to drop 2 squadrons well, but again we have a lot of options, we can simply downgrade our escort and our intel.
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Morna Kee (27)
• JumpMaster 5000 (12)
• Tempest Squadron (13)
• TIE Defender Squadron (16)
• Black Squadron (9)
= 133 Points
maybe we just forget about intel and focus on squadrons killing power
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Morna Kee (27)
• 2 x TIE Defender Squadron (32)
• 2 x TIE Fighter Squadron (16)
= 131 Points
Maybe we don't want to put to many points into one squadron like Mornna so we downgrade her to free up an ace slot for us, and make things a bit easier on our carries.
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Dengar (20)
• Black Squadron (9)
• Tempest Squadron (13)
• 2 x Firespray-31 (36)
= 134 Points
again the options go on and no, it is important to realize that even though the squadron ball function much like the old version that we started with, we have more variation, and the squadron complement is overall less durable, because of the lack of defense tokens, meaning a light and medium squadron wing can more easily handle a larger squad complement. So all of a sudden smaller squadron balls like these.
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Shara Bey (17)
• Wedge Antilles (19)
• Dutch Vander (16)
= 68 Points
• Ciena Ree (17)
• Valen Rudor (13)
• 2 x TIE Interceptor Squadron (22)
= 52 Points
are not as nearly as disproportionately durable against larger squadron wings as the used to be as the number of defense tokens in squadron wings on average will drop. Now larger squadron wings have more attacks based on sheer numbers, but I have had great success with small and medium fighter wings in the past and its even more doable now.
I want to go over two more commonly seen squadrons balls just so we can really get a feel for how this change impacts the game. First up rebel rouges.
• Wedge Antilles (19)
• Dutch Vander (16)
• Hera Syndulla (28)
• Dash Rendar (24)
• Lando Calrissian (23)
• Ketsu Onyo (22)
= 132 Points
This or variations of this I think have started to become a fairly standard rebel squadron ball, however now its has two to many aces with tokens, again we can simply drop wedge and dutch into a different squadrons and then we fall right back into line.
• Corran Horn (22)
• Dash Rendar (24)
• Lando Calrissian (23)
• Ketsu Onyo (22)
• 2 x YT-2400 (32)
= 123 Points
Or maybe Ketsu is really only in here for double blue bomber so we take a different route.
• Hera Syndulla (28)
• Dash Rendar (24)
• Lando Calrissian (23)
• Wedge Antilles (19)
• Gold Squadron (12)
• YT-2400 (16)
= 122 Points
again it's a small change, but again less durability overall due to a decrease in defense tokens, and now probably the most impacted squadron ball the Slone ball.
• Ciena Ree (17)
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Dengar (20)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Valen Rudor (13)
• Saber Squadron (12)
= 134 Points
Sloan list will likely start to rely a bit more on Reserve Hangar deck, this complement has to drop 3 aces and that might look something like this.
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• JumpMaster 5000 (12)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Saber Squadron (12)
• 2 x TIE Interceptor Squadron (22)
= 118 Points
or maybe if we don't want to rely on Reserve Hanger deck to much something like this.
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Dengar (20)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Saber Squadron (12)
• 3 x TIE Phantom Squadron (42)
= 130 Points
or maybe we just forget Intel all together and just go for raw anti-squadron power.
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Saber Squadron (12)
• 3 x TIE Interceptor Squadron (33)
= 117 Points
So how will this Impact the game, well if it affects a squadron ball it will likely only have to change out 2 or 3 squadrons tops, however this actually fairly drastically reduces the durability of a squadron wing let's look at a quick example we drop wedge for a regular X-wing and it goes up against a Tie.
Ties do about 2 damage on average with swarm will assume it never gets swarm, so on average it will take 3 shots from a Tie to kill an X-wing, now if that X-wing was Wedge with braces it become pretty easy for wedge to take 5 attacks from a tie to bring him down on average. This is true for most aces they can take on average 2 more shots to kill than their generic counterparts in most circumstances. This means your investment in a light squadron wing is more likely to pay out points and squadron balls will be overall a bit easier to kill.
Remember it is possible that more changes are happening with regards to squadrons and squadron rules we don't know about, but this subtitle change makes that 32 points of Ties seem like a better investment as it is more likely to bring in points now that squadron wings overall will be less though. What do you think of this change? How do you think it will Impact the game? What are some of the other changes you are hoping to see come with Clone Wars? Until next time have a great week!