Part two of a three part series by Mr. Matt Cary.

After our article Points Change: The Good, the Bad, and the Interesting, I realized I had much more to say about the points change than the format we chose allowed. In this series of articles I plan to break down the factions and the upgrades to dissect what was accomplished by the points change of January 2019. Should FFG see these articles, I hope that they appreciate them as honest constructive feedback and not some random internet person nay-saying them. This particular article will look into the antagonists of the Galactic Civil War, the Empire, who came out fairly strong at release.

The Ships

Like the last article, I will dissect each and every ship chassis and their pilots. I may make some comments about upgrade prices as some of them drastically effect a ship’s usefulness. Each ship will have a verdict applied to it grading the changes or lack of changes.

The Lambda saw no true points change, but truthfully, it didn’t need one. It was the only large base ship that I felt pulled its weight in points before the points change. Where the Lambda did see a points drop is in any crew that got cheaper and in the ever so good title, ST-321. Verdict: Doing fine!

The TIE Advanced Prototype saw a point drop in all of its pilots, which is good for the named pilots and kind of scary on the generic Inquisitors. Those guys are efficiency machines, and flying against a bunch of those has given me a taste of what a Jedi with a white evade would have been like. You have to concentrate fire on them to kill just a generic, but fortunately when you do finally hit them, they squish. Verdict: A cautious “Good”

Vader’s signature ship saw a much needed point drop. It wasn’t super necessary to drop the Dark Lord since he was pretty dang good before (though it is not unwelcome), but the rest of the pilots got a discount that might put them on the game mat. Maarek is pretty solid, and Ved has one of the coolest abilities in the game in my opinion (if Ved were I5, he would be an amazing ace). At their current price, all of the x1’s can take Fire-Control System to maximize their action efficiency since the necessary Lock hampers their defense for a turn. Verdict: Great

No change on the Empire’s ace-y arc-dodger chassis which seems about right. Maybe drop a point on Turr as his ability doesn’t seem worth 4 more points than the generic Saber Squadron Ace of the same Initiative. Verdict: Fine

Ick. There are only two ships in the game whose dials make me cringe, and they are the JM5K and the TIE Reaper. Lack of the hard white turn that it had for a few months in First Edition really limits this ship. At its best, I’ll say the dial is challenging. Vermeil is useful, but Vizier and Feroph are lackluster. The Scarif Base Pilot is a decent bumpmaster: put Death Troopers on it, fly in, Jam a target, and then jam up the lane. They all have the same problem that once they get behind the opponent, they are hard to bring to bear to shoot again. Verdict: Meh, give it a one point drop on all of the named pilots to see if it helps.

Curiously, there was no change in the points for the TIE Aggressor. I would chalk it up to the ability to run five of them with Veteran Turret Gunner with Ion Cannon Turret, but considering FFG didn’t see that being a problem on the Y-Wing, I don’t think they even considered the Aggressor. Like, at all. Perhaps they did, but realized that they could not drop the points without having a Barrage Rocket Bombers scenario again. I would be worried about five of these with double tap Ions, but they have considerably less health and (I’d wager) most people don’t have more than two of these ships. The biggest problem for the Aggressor, it seems, is that whatever this ship can do, another chassis does it better. Verdict: This ship needs something, but I’m not certain what.

The Punisher, as pretty much everybody knows at this point, was drastically under-priced on launch. FFG understood their mistake from First Edition that a munitions carrier with no points left for munitions is no good, and on a 1 agility ship, any upgrades made it a points toilet instead of a points fortress. But FFG swung back too hard at launch, allowing Redline (and to a lesser extent Deathrain and the Cutlass) to kit themselves up to be a bit too strong. As of this January 2019 update, Redline and his standard outfit of Advanced Sensors and Proton Torpedoes went up, changing his cost by 13 points (an 18% increase). This put him at a reasonable spot. Deathrain and the Cutlass Squadron Pilot went up a reasonable 2 points each. Verdict: Fixed without overdoing it, good job!

I wrote down some of my thoughts on the cost of Defenders in a previous Midwest Scrub article here. I am happy to see the price drop 2 points across the board, but I still think Vessery needs to drop to the old Rexler price point of 84 since there are considerably fewer Imperial ships with the Lock action and no Targeting Computer upgrade in Second Edition. Also, the go-to talent Juke going up by 1 point effectively makes this only a 1 point change on all but the Delta Squadron Ace. Verdict: Good

Note: A new FFG article came out since this blog was written which features a Targeting Computer tucked in the spread. Vessery may have more synergy in the future!

Still good. Still decent. Nothing to see here. Move along. Verdict: Good.

The TIE Phantom has been a break out hit in Second Edition, with Whisper proving to be a damage machine and Quad Phantoms running the table. FFG made some good moves upping Whisper by two points and exchanging the crew slot for a more thematic gunner slot so the Dark Lord of the Backseat would stop auto-damaging folks. The only problem with that is that there is only one gunner the Phantom can take that does anything: Fifth Brother (Okay BT-1 exists, too). I’m not certain the Imdaar Test Pilot needed to drop in cost, because the reason it wasn’t being taken was the lack of talent slot, not the cost.

However, the Sigma Squadron Ace not going up in cost seems a terrible oversight. Juke may have gone up, altering the Quad Phantom list by one Juke upgrade, but three Juke Sigmas and one non-Juke Sigma are only slightly less punchy. I would have rather seen the Sigma go up and not Juke, so as not to punish every other ship chassis besides the Defender and Phantom (and Attack Shuttle Sabine) for taking Juke. Verdict: A solid start but need improvement

Note: This article was written not long after the points change, and we had yet to see the effect of TIE Phantoms on the new meta. They have won at least two System Opens at this point with 31 Phantoms in the top cut from the Chicago System Open. Sigmas should probably go up to 49 points to be more in line with the other I4 three attack die ships.

While I do appreciate the increase on the Bomber, I believe the Barrage Rocket Bombers had already faded from the spotlight. They can still be utilized as a decent filler at 37 points. The bad part about the rise in cost is that it pushed Deathfire and Tomax up even though they hadn’t seen a lot of competitive table time. Rhymer and Jonus went up as well, but maybe too much. Drop all of the named pilots back down 1 point. Verdict: Decent but needs re-evaluation

I have a love affair with the Striker despite not really liking to fly them in Second Edition. Duchess is solid. Countdown has been rediscovered as great. Pure Sabacc, I’m sure, is still good, as well. The bomb slot is nice, too. They seem to get one- or two-shot when I fly them which feels… bad. Verdict: Probably fine, but this scrub can’t use them

While the Alpha-class Star Wing needed adjustments, dropping the I2 Nu to 32 and the I3 Rho down to 35 was a mistake. If you put Barrage Rockets on either they have the stat line of a T-65 X-Wing for a cheaper cost. Bump all the pilots, limited or non-limited, back up 1 point for some parity or make OS-1 Arsenal Loadout cost 1 point. Verdict: Decent

I would imagine the 6-plus point drop on the Decimators is good, but I have yet to see anyone fly one since the points change. Verdict: Probably good

The Upgrades

For this section, I will address each upgrade that made a point change and the upgrades that didn’t see a change that probably should have for this faction.

0-0-0 moving up 2 points makes plenty of sense. The droid was too good for just 3 points. Ciena Ree and Moff Jerjerrod could probably both drop to 7 points each since their abilities are so niche. Tarkin dropping to 6 points is a good move since you either had to roll him on a Decimator or run him with 5 points worth of Krennic since the ship must have the Lock action for him to be on it. Speaking of Krennic, he has so many caveats, corollaries, and addendums as to how the Optimized Prototype works that 5 points is too much. Seventh Sister, the Grand Inquisitor, and Emperor Palpatine dropping were good choices; the Grand Inq could probably stand to drop 4 more points as the ships that can take him (Reaper, Lambda, Decimator) don’t exactly clear the stress that the Grand Inq gives very well.

I think increasing the OS-1 Arsenal Loadout configuration to 1 point might be the way to balance the Star-Wing with the X-Wing, as suggested earlier.

Fifth Brother dropping 3 points was a good call. He’s not super strong, but at twelve points he was bloating any ship you put him on. BT-1 could probably drop a point and no one would notice.

ST-321 dropping to 4 points really makes the Lambda shine, particularly with Lt. Sai, who can get triple action economy out of the Coordinate action. Making it 4 points also avoids the bloat that large ships get. Dauntless dropping 2 points is likely also a good move, but again, I have yet to see a Decimator flown since the points change to make a good call on this.

Well, there is my diagnosis on the Imperial points change. What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree? What do you think still needs addressed to be usable? What do you think needs addressed because it is too strong?