Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Two RR Officers!

Before I dive into Draven, I figured I'd punch out Pryce and attack Assaj: hit the jump, kids!

Guess who's back, back again....

Governor Pryce is back, and she's.... slightly less mean! Once per activation (which means both yours for regular attacks and your opponent's for Salvo ones), you can spend a shield to change a die to any face.  Free double hits on your red, all for the low low cost of 1 shield! Free accuracies! Free hit/crits on your black dice! Annnnd you're now flying a near shieldless ISD, good jorb.

In essence, she's easy to understand (trigger crits, get accs, improve damage, combo with Quad Turbolaser Cannons for a free double red accuracy) but the trick to her is making sure your shields remain up; if I'm shooting you in a shieldless zone, you can Salvo all you want but you can't Pryce a dice.  Hence, you're going to want her on ships that can have friends either tossing them shields with Projection Experts or engineering tokens (possibly both).  Realistically, because of her expense and need for spending shields, she's on a large or huge base.  Onagers for extra crit damage from range, ISDs with Romodi for getting REALLY mean shots at red, or Super Star Destroyers with the aforementioned QTCs.  Either you naturally roll a red accuracy OR you force her to give you one and get a free one for the trouble.  I reiterate, again, that you want to make sure you keep your shields up.  In the words of a famous ex-Jedi, "It is unwise to lower your defenses!"  Good card, expect to see her on some beefier lists helping (or attempting to help) murder your ships.  And watch out, small bases, your Evade is about to get locked down (he says, having had this happen to me like 4 times in one game).

The one upside for non-Imperials slash downside for those Impos is that if she's driving the ol' space-bus, then Intel Officer, Tua, or whoever else isn't in there, and 7 points makes for a more expensive ship if/when it dies.  Watch out for that, especially as you keep spending shields for her ability.

Twice the officer, double the Raid shenanigans!

Assaj took an FAQ or so to get her understood, but now that she's been clarified, she's..... present! The FAQ on the forums states that the token you're gaining is the same as the one you're removing (not a raid token).  Let me lay out how and why you want to take and use her:

  • Your opponent has a raid token on their ship, and a command token to possibly clear it and trigger the command (most likely squadrons but it could be nav as well).
  • You, using Dooku or B2s, give them a second raid token (for the purposes of this exercise, let's say you give them a concentrate fire raid).
  • Assaj attacks and lets you remove the con fire raid ("remove 1 raid token") and the command token they wanted to use to clear the raid ("1 command token").  You then get that command token, effectively stealing it from them.
  • They are now sitting with their original raid, no token to clear it, and have just been attacked by your Assaj ship.  The earliest they can pass a command token (to clear that initial raid, if they were even thinking about it) and activate that ship is after another activation of yours.  Or they can discard the dial they have and never get to resolve that command.
Assaj is for the Dooku players and somewhat for the TF-1726 players.  With respect to other commanders, she seems prohibitively expensive as she would DEFINITELY require adding B2s onto another ship before you can even start to see her benefit and like, I suppose? But pair her with Dooku and get to raiding for sure.  Put her on your Patriot Fist or Providence, as they are very token hungry beasts and can really appreciate having a free extra (whatever you're stealing).  She looks like a "win more", but what she's actually more of a full-court press (and help Dooku win).  If you can prevent them from getting out of the jam you're putting them in, that's how you win, not win more.  She's worth using, trust me.

3 comments:

  1. Ventress seems tailor made for Jedi hostage ships since she can steal a raid token during a salvo attack in which the enemy just paid the "raid tax" to attack you in the first place.

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    1. True but then you are paying 7 points and a massive debuff to your ship to basically get a token of your opponents choice. Seems pretty bad to me.

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    2. I wouldn't call it a massive debuff (unless you're specifically thinking of the exhausted version).

      Jedi hostage may not be a very strong card, but for 3 points it does respectable work specifically in TF1726 and dooku fleets. Then with ventress added the "Jedi tax" now also includes zapping command tokens or incentivising opponents to accuracy a salvo instead of a "real" defense token. Both useful effects

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