Fleet Command ACTUAL Post!

Well, now that the Cymoon has been spoiled and Imperials can take Fleet Commands (grumble grumble grumble) I've turned the Pelta's fleet commands section into its own page! Hit the jump for all the fleet commands.
As of right now, all 5 fleet commands do different things:

Yes, fighter blob. Follow the CR90 in that's CLEARLY in your list, commanding you with its squadron 1. Liberator!

All Fighters, Follow Me! (AKA AFFM) lets your COMMANDED squadrons move 1 distance measurement more. So B-wings are speed 3, X-wings are speed 4, and A-wings remain speed 5. Get the jump on those TIE fighters though, at speeds they didn't expect. E-wings get to be speed 5 with Snipe, so you can hit anything FROM DOWNTOWN! (Kids, there was a video game when we were young called NBA Jam.....)

What fleets want this?
AFFM fleets want to be commanding significant amounts of squadrons. This is more of a Rebel thing, as Imperial squadrons tend towards high speed anyways, letting them get the jump on the Rebels more often than not. For more on how to run this, feel free to check out my series of articles in the "Squadrons Encyclopedia." I'm not saying I won't ever see this on a Cymoon, I'm just saying that I don't currently expect it. It might have usage starting on a Chimaera as your starting Fleet Command before you switch over to one of the others, or a "discard to use" with a Flag Bridge/Liberator/SSD plan.  Generally, one or two turns of use out of this on the battlefield are enough for it; you LIKELY won't need to power it up every turn, but your mileage may vary.

I'm willing to wait for it.... wait for it.... wait for it....

Entrapment Formation! (AKA EF) lets your ships change their speed during the Determine Course step. This happens AFTER you've done all your attacks, and it combines with a Navigate Command, to get a full 2 steps in the speed profile if desired, or 3 if you brought along Ozzel or Leia Organa.

What fleets want this?
This could be used on anything that isn't Ozzel (you're basically duplicating his effect that you're already paying for). The best ways I've seen it run in Rebels (and thus probably something similar in Imperials) is that you either A) rush everything forward, then use EF to slow down to really slow and smash face with all the dice you can, or B) slowly creep up, using long range dice to hit your opponent, then speeding up and running away when things get close and dice-y, a yuk yuk yuk. Or C) a combination of the 2! Again, any Imperial admiral can run it.... as can any Rebel admiral, provided you build for it.  It also can work wonders as an emergency navigate with or against Starhawk-Magnite speed shenanigans.  Lastly, it's a great starting command for Chimaera in order to potentially USE it round 1 if you need to.

Upwards, not forwards! And always twirling, twirling towards freedom!

Intensify Firepower! (IF!) lets you turn any dice you roll to a side with ONE (and only one, no wishing for more wishes, as Robin Williams would say) hit on it. It's a nice way to steady out some of the bad rolls that you may get throughout the game, especially with Red dice (where 3 of the 8 sides don't technically DO damage).

What fleets want this?
Intensify Firepower gets better the more attacks you can do. It fixes Arquitens, it helps Cymoons, it makes CR90 swarms TERRIFYING. The more attacks you can make, the better you can do. You can and potentially should run CR90A's naked. No TRCs, no DTTs, nothing. If you can cram in one extra CR90 with those points you saved?  That's gold.  They also help with the dice on Assault Frigates and Nebulons, too. My one issue with repeated Nebulons with them is just that most Nebulons can't take Gunnery Teams (waves at Vanguard now). Assault Frigates with them are very solid, though, as is theoretically the LMC80. Generally, though, you SHOULD already be taking some sort of dice modification (Leading Shots, Caitken and Shollan) on the LMC80 already. Unless you're shmitty, of course, then Garm and IF is enough.  For Imperials, it's one dice fixed on your Cymoon, and all sorts of other options that want red dice fixing (so it's Arquitens, very cheaply built Vics, and maybe an Onager).  This is one command you DON'T want to Flag Bridge or Liberator, as the dice correction this can do turn after turn makes this worth way more than 6 points.  IF is the gold standard of Fleet Commands and is the metric all others you spam get measured against.

An ISD and a SSD out the side window? One shield will be enough.

Shields to Maximum! (AKA StM) gives all your ships a free shield back when they activate. Any shield zone you want, no overdoing it if you're full up. Combos nicely with Projection Experts builds.  StM is often thought of as a spammable command; healing one shield on all your ships for one turn sure is.... a thing? But healing multiple shields over multiple rounds is often seen as a better use of it.  The issue right now is that if I can put enough damage in to get your ship to be 1 point away from death this turn, I'm gonna do everything I can to find that last point.

What fleets want this?
However, having just seen this work very well, it does get very good mileage out of Cracken Liberator shenanigans.  Being able to constantly cancel damage, and combining it with with Hammerheads passing damage back and forth (Task Force Antilles), you can make very good use out of it if you time things right with the shots hitting your ships.  You can also go with ships that are taking a fair amount of damage and want to try to repair as many shields back as they can in order to stay alive. I've usually used it in Rebel 5-6 ship builds with several smalls that don't have many shields, but I know of several 2016 Summer Store Champions (waves at Steel Strategy) who ran it on a Pelta with Garm and 2 other Large ships (for a total of 3 ships, yes.) I like the idea of combining it with Jerjerrod in order to make up the damage he does to his ships or with a 7th Fleet Star Destroyer group in order to keep preventing front arc damage and then healing any tiny amount that DOES get through.  The issue of course being that IF costs the same and offense usually trumps defense in the game.  But with the right fleet.... Handwave untested argument; a Wat Tambor focused Separatist fleet to heal shields on your ships every round in some fashion?

PIVOT!!!!

And the latest entrant, Take Evasive Action (TEA) allows your LAST joint to get one extra yaw value. All sorts of NOT Arquitens and NOT CR90s like this one. Like a Nebulon! Or a Victory! Or an SSD!

What fleets want this?
Take Evasive is more interesting about what fleets it SHOULDN'T be with. CR90 spam is out, as are Arquitens spam lists. But it helps the Navigational ability intensely of a lot of early wave ships. Assault Frigates, Nebulons, Victories, speed 2 or 4 MC30s, EVERY LARGE BASE SHIP in the game. It's a Madine effect without Madine, and it's very much worth building around. I can VERY much see this on a Cymoon/Chimaera led Imperial fleet doing some handbrake turns to get around the battlefield in a LOT scarier way than you ever thought possible. Because a more maneuverable Demolisher isn't ALREADY terrifying.... Of super special fun note: Jerjerrod and a Super Star Destroyer's navigate command and this DOES let you do a full 90 degree turn with it. So.... that's my new nightmare.

As for the Rebels, I like the idea of it on a Pelta, helping out an Assault Frigate and Nebulon, maybe a Hammerhead or two? Maybe a large base? I'm not specifically NOT using a CR90 with it, but it's a very interesting concept, freeing me from automatically stapling a CR90 into things. LMC80s getting more turning ability have never complained, that's for sure.

TEA seems tailor made for a discard in either Liberator or Flag Bridge when you NEED a sharp turn, and getting a potential 90 degrees out of an HMC80 and an Assault Frigate in an Ackbar fleet can be DEADLY.  You won't really need it more than likely one turn in my opinion, but hey, maybe your plan calls for it?  Fun fact: this combines super great with Engine Techs, but only if you're making a speed 1 move there.  However, you can still use the TEA on the last click and then Engine Techs your normal speed one.

So how do you know what command to use in your fleet?

Basically, the gold standard is IF.  Being able to fix one dice on every shot per round can result in significant damage increases across your entire fleet.  Red dice generally roll well (0.75 expected damage) and adding in 1 more damage to a 2-3 dice shot can add up really quickly.  Usually when building your fleet with one of the others in there (with multiple uses intended), you should often be asking yourself "why am I spamming X over IF instead?" StM may provide an answer for a Task Force Antilles Hammerhead swarm fleet, of course, but otherwise I have a hard time answering that myself.  If you're spamming the fleet command, you're gonna need to power it, of course....

Your more "disposable" ones are those along the lines of EF, TEA, and AFFM; they can usually be tucked into Flag Bridge (or Liberator, or one of the SSD slots).  With a "one-and-done" approach, you want to make sure your fleet is utilizing the Fleet Command (you spent points on it, right?) but you don't necessarily need to design a whole fleet concept around exploiting it.

For more on properly using these all, I'm going to refer you back to the Pelta article and the Cymoon/Chimaera article for you Imperials. These Fleet Commands are very good, but they require building your fleet around their use carefully.  One usage of these under Flag Bridge is worth the 5-6 points they all cost; what happens if you can get multiple turns of use out of them?