SSD spoilers hot take

Okay so let's talk about the big pile of SSD spoilers that hit the internet, seemingly from some kind of promotional pamphlet stores got. First of all, there's all the SSDs themselves:

We can see that there are two that can be used in regular 400 point games and two that are too expensive to use in a normal game, which assumes players themselves will be encouraged to play larger games or a format will be made available to facilitate that. Let's zoom in a bit to get a better look:

Of immediate relevance to us is the Assault Prototype, which gains a few things over the Command Prototype that was teased earlier:

• +1 red die in the front arc
• +1 blue die in all the side arcs
• +1 offensive retrofit slot
• +1 ion cannon slot
• +1 turbolaser slot
• blue + red flak instead of double-blue flak

This comes at the cost of 30 additional points (a not-inconsequential 14% increase) and giving up both fleet command slots on the Command Prototype. It's definitely intended to be more of a brawler and less of an overweight support ship and for those wanting to run a fleet that's all about the super-upgraded giant plastic triangle, I expect this will be the default chassis. Being able to combine Quad Battery Turrets and some form of defense screwage turbolaser (XI7s or H9s would be my expectation) and Leading Shots with another ion cannon upgrade, either Heavy Ion Emplacements or Ion Cannon Batteries most likely, with my preference being ICBs as you can use them on all three of your attacks.

With the longer-ranged flak and double-offensive-retrofit-slots configuration, Agent Kallus and flak upgrades like Quad Laser Turrets and maybe even Point Defense Reroute (I can't believe I'm saying this) can make the Assault SSD very dangerous to be even at long range of, especially for ace squadrons. The typical issue with flak upgrades is they're not great value when you don't know if your opponent's fleet will bring squadrons and if they do, they can always go after another part of your fleet without them and then consider if it's worth the hassle of chasing after your flak boat. You can try to get better coverage with multiple flak upgrade ships but then the cost on those potentially-worthless upgrades gets even worse. The SSD should be the main focus of any fleet it's in and it's tough to imagine getting much of a win without going after it, and the flak upgrades there are equipped very cost-effectively.

That's not to say I think the Command Prototype is inferior. Mostly I would expect to see the Assault Prototype totally decked out with upgrades trying to do the heavy lifting itself and the Command Prototype equipped a bit more frugally to ensure points remain for a more serious squadron presence or to provide a cheaper combat ship buddy for the fleet commands to buff.

For completion's sake, I'll post close-ups of the other two ships, but I won't talk about them more here as they're clearly intended more for casual play.

Anyways, let's talk about the upgrades, starting with the titles.

Annihilator seems like it could get pretty nasty with the right flak support setup. Agent Kallus, Quad Laser Turrets, and Annihilator creates a ship that can consistently hose down ace squadrons that get too aggressive with volume of accurate flak.

Eclipse isn't expensive and seems like a quasi-Hardened Bulkheads in that it discourages enemy ships from ramming you, which I can see being something certain fleets might try to simply drill through to the hull.

Executor itself is designed to maximize the benefit of the free command tokens the SSD grants itself as well as to allow you to pile them up with a commander like Tarkin or (more likely) with the assistance of a Comms Net Gozanti or two. There's some synergy here with upgrades further down the list. As a reminder, remember you can only resolve one command of each type per turn and the only methods you have of doing so are dial, token, or dial+token. I keep seeing people thinking they can do an omega repair command spending a dozen repair tokens and that's simply illegal.

Ravager turns your concentrate fire tokens into dials, effectively. So a concentrate fire dial+token resolution is 2 extra dice. Tasty! That's an 11-dice front arc on an Assault Prototype, not even considering additional methods of adding dice like Quad Battery Turrets!

So Piett is kind of a discount (10 points cheaper) Thrawn that is awful unless you're running few ships and have token generation. So basically in 400 point fleets using an SSD. Because he exhausts to use, you can try to use him twice a round when he's seated on an Interdictor title Interdictor (as he's an upgrade and Interdictor can ready him to be used again), but it feels too janky to me. Use Thrawn instead for something like that if you want extra full-strength dials. People have been saying he could be useful for the kind of 2-ship builds people are using Thrawn with presently, but those 2-ship (ISD+Quasar+squads nearly always) builds run very lean on support elements that would provide the tokens Piett wants, so I'm not a believer there.

That said, Piett looks very good for SSD-focused fleets, potentially with a Comms Net Gozanti around as well. With Command 4, you're going to have issues adapting to the needs of an SSD, and Piett allows you to stash tokens from earlier (or even turn-of with a Comms Net pass-off) to turn them into full-strength dial commands. This is a good workaround for command screwage stuff like Cham Syndulla or Slicer Tools, but is also just helpful due to Command 4 and should hopefully free up an officer slot you would've otherwise used a Liaison or Support Officer or the like on, which can help increase the defensive or offensive oomph of Piett's SSD without causing command headaches.

I'm honestly pretty keen on him for the specific type of fleet most SSDs will be used in. He's not flashy but he does something neat within his niche and he's cheap. He's one of the two cards that's got clear synergy with Executor. Pile on a bunch of tokens early on and just keep resolving two full-strength commands all game long.

I now love every version of Admiral Ozzel. For 2 points, his ship gets a speed-1 maneuver at the start of the first round. You can do an awful lot with this maneuver that makes it a lot more powerful than you'd first think. Some examples:

• A Gozanti can use the maneuver to put itself on top of an objective token to begin scoring for objectives like Intel Sweep immediately, rather than wait until round 2. This all without needing to invest in Strategic infrastructure!
• A VSD-II with Disposable Capacitors can scoot up closer to the enemy fleet, making it rather difficult to not be at range come round 2.
• Demolisher getting an extra speed 1 bump closer to its prey can make it very difficult to avoid. Remember back when you could Demolisher after Engine Techs and catch ships round 1? Ozzel gives you effectively the same range.
• An Arquitens that deployed in a not-ideal facing gets a free double-click move to reorient itself prior to anything else happening.

He looks to be tremendously flexible for only 2 points and I love him already. He's got his obvious uses on an SSD to get closer to the enemy sooner, but he's a lot more than that. He's also got some real synergy with Moff Jerjerrod, allowing you to ping a ship with Jerry for extra clicks of yaw during the Ozzel move.

He's... basically a worse Damage Control Officer intended for ships without contains? Maybe you could use him on a Gozanti, but why? Pass.

 Darth Vader now shows up in 4 different forms in Armada, and this version is just as great as the others. I'd also like to note how great it is with both officers Ozzel and Vader that the Empire finally gets some love for officer slots on its cheap ships, particularly Gozantis. Previously this was more of a Rebel kind of specialty and it's good to see some upgrades that give the slot more of a purpose there.

Anyways, Vader loves choking out your officers and even your commander(!) to get an on-demand reroll against an enemy ship, provided those officers or commanders are at distance 1-5 of Vader's floating choke-a-matic Gozanti. This is best utilized on officers that provide a one-time benefit early on but linger around, like Captain Needa (checks out), Minister Tua, officer Ozzel (yep, that happened), Governor Pryce, and Admiral Titus, but can also be used in a pinch on officers like Agent Kallus if there aren't good targets for him or exhausted officers like Brunson or Intel Officer that are done doing their job for the round and you need to get extra oomph out of their ship.

Choking out your commander is a ballsier move, but it's a great move on commanders that may no longer be doing much of anything, like Konstantine (who deserves it anyways, he's terrible) when there aren't enough medium or large ships left on the board, Tagge once he's done regenerating tokens on round 5 or 6, Thrawn once he's done giving out all his dials, or even Emperor Palpatine once you've targeted all the juicy tokens (feels so good!).

There are some niche uses here too that can feel a little silly. If you've got The Choking Game Gozanti flying around already, it can be tempting to put a Skilled First Officer on a Raider or Arquitens just for the reroll potential, even if he doesn't do anything on a Raider. In cases like that, I'd encourage you to spring for the extra point to get a one-use officer like Ozzel or Needa or Titus or the like so they can actually do something before getting choked.

Krennic has an obvious use with Cymoons, especially when they're given some command help from outside to help free them up to use concentrate fire commands. This could be Moff Jerry taking the wheel while they use con fire dials or Grand Moff Tarkin providing concentrate fire tokens or whatever you please. Cymoons currently are only really seen with Vader, but Krennic can fix that. He's not cheap, mind you, but that kind of dice control in the officer slot is really something.

That said, he shouldn't be overlooked on an Arquitens, either, for very similar reasons. Krennic and Slaved Turrets on an Arquitens provides a 5 red dice broadside with a concentrate fire dial, and all of those red dice get rerolls.

Also note that Krennic is cumulative, so spending a concentrate fire dial and token will add a die, reroll a die, allow you to reroll any number of red dice, and then allow you to reroll 2 red dice. It's a scary amount of red dice control. It won't work at short range, however, because Krennic can't resist monologuing when enemies get close enough to hear him.

The Senate also comes in officer flavor, and he's designed to hang out on your meanest centerpiece ship. Because SSDs have 3 officer slots and are going to be a laser sponge, the use there is obvious. You can also use him on ISDs, especially Avenger ISDs that want to dare nearby ships to spend defense tokens prior to Avenger attacking. And of course there's also Sloane, who loves getting a leg up on burning down defense tokens.

That said, ISD officer slots are very competitive right now so I'm curious to see how frequently we'll see The Senate outside of an SSD build.

Lira Wessex is the second card that synergizes with Executor in that she can turn a horde of repair tokens into facedown damage cards. That said, I think Damage Control Officer is generally a more flexible card and those two contain tokens can go a ways there. Lira does have the benefit of acting as something of a Chart Officer as well by limiting the harm received when overlapping asteroids, which a big fat unmaneuverable ship like an SSD may very well do and a Damage Control Officer can't help with. Plus she's only 2 points, so don't expect miracles 😉.