You'll Love Yularen

Alright, time to keep writing articles and time to.... what's this? An admiral or ship I can't just copy paste part of my article from? I have to do all the work myself? How will I survive this! Hit the jump for a breakdown of the totally very important I have seen many episodes Wullf Yularen!

It's like if my grandpa was suddenly working for an evil Empire. Or at this point, my dad.

The Card!

He looks like he engages in a LOT of internet debates is all I'm saying...

I don't know why he gets the Admiral honorific here and not on his original Imperial officer card.  But they're entirely unrelated, so I won't be able to reference Eric's work at all! As a cheap GAR commander, he provides a solid bonus just in that alone, as compared to the increased costs of Tarkin or Bail.  But his ability allows you to really make him sing.  Acting much like the Liberty title, squad tokens get you an extra squad activated with it.  The Liberty title is barely seen as it is, so how does adding it onto an admiral make him worth it? Because of the second half of his text, the ability to use your repair points to heal your nearby squadrons. A dial and token on a ship with an engineering of 4 (Everything that isn't the Charger) can heal 3 HP on a squadron nearby. Put that health back on a scatter ace and you have one heck of a time killing those squadrons.  You can only spend those points in increments of 2, though, which may matter more in future expansions (slash no engineering token from a Consular)

Why Play Him!

You likely play him for the ability to do either an 8 squadron alpha strike (Venator-II, Expanded Hangar Bays, and a token) or the ability to keep repairing your squadrons and keep them relevant in the fight for a long time.  You can theoretically spend your squadron tokens half as quickly under Yularen as opposed to every other commander.  And in a faction that both depends on combined arms and has its dice rerolls and fixes tied up in its squadron game (Nevoota Bee, BCC, several instances of swarm, easy access to Flight Controllers, etc), it's sometimes nice to just say "no, send everyone." Quasars in Imperials have been beloved for throwing 6 squadron alpha strikes for several waves. Why not show them why 8 is better?

Largely though, you're playing him for that repair ability.  This is the first instance of being able to repair squadrons faster than the "1 HP from landing on the station" and it can make the difference in the squadron fight for sure. For added (insane) fun, repair your squadrons, Ruthless Strategists them, and then repair them again next turn! You should win the squadron fight through sheer attrition, so long as you ARE healing your own squadrons, and then you use those squadrons to win you the game.

There's a build somewhere in here of Chargers/Consulars and Peltas able to push crazy amounts of squadrons; a Consular with a token pushes 3 squadrons, which is crazy for 37 points in the GAR.  There's something to be said for an 8 squadron alpha strike, but there's also something nice about a 5 ship 134 squadron GAR list.  I leave that to the reader to find the list and find success with it, but I will likely steer you away from it initially.

Ships!

You'll want carriers in some sort. Things with Squad 1 (Consulars, Transport Frigate Peltas, and Venator-1s with SPHATs) are not good plans, even if a squad token takes them to 3.  Why not go from 2 to 4 instead, or 3 to 5 with some other ships? Make better choices.  Whatever you bring, you need to stay within 1-3 of your squadrons to be able to repair them, (which is also approximately medium range) so you can likely forgo Boosted Comms on those ships.  As for if that means you'll be wanting other upgrades in those slots and all, it's really a matter of how you plan on applying squadron groups of 4-8 towards killing your opponent and their fleet, really.   You may NOT want Hyperspace Rings for the squadrons you're bringing, specifically to stay within that 1-3, which then means you might want Fighter Coordination Teams on whatever Pelta(s) you end up bringing.

Fleet!

I hesitate to say "100+ points of squadrons minimum" but that's only because I definitely don't want to say "120+ minimum." He's a commander who does work for squadrons and with squadron tokens. So if you're not using heavy squadron fleets, spend 1 more point and take Luminara.  Otherwise, go nuts with squads.  Since you can repair everyone, you may want some of the "chunkier" squadrons like Y-wings and ARCs, but don't neglect any Delta aces or V19s to keep those alive and swinging. I'm not going to mandate a specific ball or ships, just make sure you're leveraging his ability as much as you can without letting your ships die.  "I healed Ahsoka for 3! But then my Acclamator exploded" is a bad plan, so make sure you keep an eye on game state and make good choices.

You're going to have at least 1 and probably 2 Clone Navigation Officers in your fleet in some capacity for passing out squadron tokens, and very likely a Parts Resupply as well for engineering tokens (one token on an engineering 4 ship is a free hit point for your squadron).  I think you can see why he comes with the Pelta now!