Bail Organa

Leon the Professional.  John Wick. John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank. Into their ranks.... steps Bail "The Terminator" Organa.

Bail Organa, seen here blending in at a local police station before completing his mission

The Card!

These clones would never betray my Jedi friends!

Bail Organa, fresh off traveling back in time and killing Pryce/completing his mission was clearly stuck in the past. So he decided to use his cyberdyne abilities to power up your ships.  Amongst nav and engineering, you get either 5 tokens of one type (pro tip: I generally wouldn't do this), 4 of 1 and 1 of the other, or 3 and 2.  The easy default is 3 nav and 2 engineering, but 4 nav and 1 engineering isn't necessarily out of the question (or 1 and 4, respectively).

At the start of any ship's activation (so long as Bail hasn't been killed/thrown into a lava bath), it can spend one of the tokens on his card and get another dial for that ship matching that token.  These DO combine with any tokens on the ship, and you can spend 1 of each type, resulting in a ship that can do 3 dials in one turn.  Bail's tokens on his card, which become dials for ships, can be combined with tokens that are already on the ship getting that dial.  Notice my wording in that sentence.  Any dials you apply to the ship can be triggered as "dial plus token" if you combine them with the tokens on the ship.  This does not mean you can pull two identical tokens off Bail's card for dial+token, but you can pull one of each (nav and engineering) for one ship on one activation (assuming it needs both).

And ixnay on the wishing for more wishes, pal!

Please note that he works when a ship reveals a command.  Realize belatedly you needed a navigation command? No can do, you'll have to wait until next turn for that.  The choice/number of tokens on the card is going to come down to a few things.  First, you choose them AFTER deployment.  Which means if you deploy badly and need to nav a few turns early, you can take 4 nav and 1 engineering.  Are you facing double onager, because your opponent wanted to be That Guy? Here's a minimum of 3 engineering tokens for you, Bail.  Whatever you need at the time is the right answer.  Have a plan for a generic fleet and deployment, but realize plans can adapt and change on the fly.  And Jimmy Smits is nothing if not adaptable.

Voted most likely to rebel against the man

Why Play Him?

Because you want to be able to steer those GAR ships and/or repair them while you push squadrons or concentrate fire at the same time.  He's like a weird Thrawn, except he's actually at the mercy of Slicer Tools.  Thrawn maxes out at 2 commands each ship, but Bail can get you up to 3 dials per ship.  No Imperial commander can get you THAT. Bail also doesn't telegraph your turns as much as Thrawn does.  Thrawn reveals start of turn, but if your speed 1 Acclamator reveals a nav, he can take it as a token at the start of turn.  When it comes to the Navigation phase, he can then use a Bail token to not only jump to speed 3 (with its own token) but can add in that yaw click from the Bail token/dial.  Pretty sneaky!

Bail lets you focus your ships on commanding your squadrons, so if you want to push squadrons with your ships a little easier, Bail Organa is the man to do that.  He's also a limited resource, however, which means that you'll need to consider when to use him and how best to do so.  Don't deploy badly and use Bail to get you back in the fight when thinking smarter and deploying closer to the action would be a better use of him.  Use him if/when he's going to make a difference, but if you can use a token now and save his dial for something more impactful....

Ships!

The general answer is that any ship that could want a spare engineering or navigate command is great with Bail (this is every ship).  Based on the GAR ships available in the starter pack, this means you'll prefer Acclamators to the Chargers, but I'm sure you'll include at least 1 Charger to steady out the points.  Bail will end up helping out the Acclamators more than the Charger you include, but don't neglect thinking about using him for the Charger if it will keep it alive/out of a bad situation.  Navving and Con-firing with a Charger could be the difference between living and dying, between a win and a loss.  He's great with a Venator or two, and Peltas act very similar to chargers as well.  There's a reason he comes in the starter box alright....

Fleet Building!

Take ships that would appreciate having the ability to command squadrons and potentially concentrate fire, especially if you're trying the Sato Special Acclamator build I mention.  This also means you're going to end up going heavier in squadrons, which means reading up on them and their synergies.  The Radiant VII taking Bomber Command Center and following your squadrons in is a solid plan, or use it as a lifeboat for Bail and attach Projection Experts to it and use its engineering to heal your Acclamators.  Combined with his dials, you can keep a larger ship alive for a lot longer than you'd think!  Even if/when you buy 3 starters and get 3 Acclamators, realize that you only get Bail's bonus 5 times a game.  This isn't like Thrawn where one dial applies to everyone, it's one where you want to make sure that getting the bonus is important/helps you/that ship significantly.  So take a ship or two that won't necessarily need that bonus immediately (Chargers) slash can be fine on its own if necessary.  Also realize that if Bail dies, he takes any remaining tokens with him.  So keep him alive, until it's time for him to leave.

I need to watch the prequels again so I can make more dumb jokes!

Final Thoughts?

Bail isn't flashy, but he really lets your ships work together and get done what they need to, finishing the job and setting up for next turn.  Pretty great for an assassin from the future!