Wave 8 Imperial ship article updates

Aww yiss triangles and circles

Just a few little changes here and there to bring those Imperial ship articles up to speed on wave 8:

• Gozanti article updated to include Commander Beck as an officer option.
• Arquitens article updated to include Commander Beck as an officer option.
• Raider article updated to reflect how weird Corvus gets with on-deploy upgrades like Local Fire Control and Gunnery Chief Varnillian. 
• ISD article updated to include Heavy Fire Zone and Linked Turbolaser Tower options for the ISD-II. Added a build relying on the H9 Turbolasers + Weapon Battery Techs + blue crit combo for the ISD-I. Added a Local Fire Control salvo build for the ISD-I.
• I'm not saying the ISD-I is suddenly amazing, but it got some new toys that the other ISD variants aren't really keen on using for themselves, so give them a try if you like.
• VSD article replaced the Spray and Pray VSD-I build (which requires outside help) for the salvo boat option using Local Fire Control.
• SSD article added Reeva Demesne as a defensive officer option.

I've got a couple other articles to update to fully bring everything up to speed on wave 8 (to mind, commanders that like the Onager need all their articles updated and it wouldn't hurt to update a few of the objective articles when they have salvo interactions like Precision Strike* does), but we're pretty close.

*The Precision Strike segment has been rewritten although not all the objective articles have been yet. It's mean in the right fleets with enough salvo. You can trigger both the "flip a card" element (by spending a die with a hit or crit on it) and sometimes also the "deal a faceup damage card" (if your salvo has a crit icon in it and damage hits hull), which can generate a surprising amount of extra points from your extra salvo attacks. It's not a "no duh" choice in a salvo-heavy fleet but it has a lot more synergy with salvo than generally "no duh" Most Wanted given salvo can't add dice.

Wave 8 Rebel Officers!

Wedge and Agate updated and added to the Rebel officers page, but also posted below.

Turbolasers Updated!

I got this done earlier than expected, hooray!  Original article was updated, but here's Heavy Fire Zone below:

Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and.... something

Heavy Fire Zone is a very different turbolaser in that it's not modifying your attack against a ship but against squadrons.  The timing windows work, even though it may not look like it.  Lemme point you right to Eric's article about the attack sequence and wait for you to come back.

Alright, so you would pick your target and then you can change the blue dice you would be throwing at it into reds.  This is a nice way of forcing squadrons at LONG range to close with you, ensuring that you can hit them outside of your normal blue dice range (so yes, you can flak at long range with it).  When they close with you, you can use your blue dice (which provide more reliable damage and better ways of making it occur, Leading Shots and Toryn being the obvious examples).  The card does come with the downside that you don't usually have many great ways of rerolling red dice, but you're throwing them at least?  Add in a blue with Kallus or Draven and then reroll with Leading Shots?  They can't be engaged with any friendly squadrons of your own, of course, so it's there to force your opponent to move in towards you.  It also doesn't combine with Ruthless Strategists, because again: not engaged with your own squadrons.  But it's long range flak!

Who wants this? Maybe certain ISD-II builds, maybe Nebulons, maybe Assault Frigates?  They all have 2 blue flak, and one more turn of free flak isn't horrid if you weren't using the turbolaser.  You just have to be in red range, which generally then means you're moving towards the squadron ball you're shooting at.  Keep that fact in mind as you use it.

Wave 8 upgrades: weapon teams

Moving right along, we're covering new weapon teams (one of which is a boarding team).

Wave 8 upgrades: flag bridge

Added to the offensive retrofits article but also posted separately here. As usual, any updates are going to be made in the "real" article, not this one. Let's talk about the one new offensive retrofit in wave 8, Flag Bridge:

Eric was on the Steel Strategy podcast

For anyone who wanted to hear me ramble about SSDs, Overload Pulse, and just a little bit about wave 8, check it out!

Wave 8 upgrades: Imperial officers

I'm hoping to roll out all the new upgrades I'm responsible for over the next couple days. If you're waiting on turbolasers or Rebel officers, those are John's responsibility and he's going to be busy at the Atlanta regional until Sunday evening, so the earliest ETA on those is early next week. Anyways, let's start with Imperial officers:

John Updates 1/26

Minor clean-ups as we get read for the fanciful bird this Friday:

Updated Sato to include a paragraph about Malee Hurra (short answer: go for it if you want, but if that combo doesn't work it REALLY feels bad)

Updated the Neb article with a fun Vanguard build that Eric heard about on Reddit, the Neb version of the Arquitens Noisy Cricket build.

Now, back towards writing those Starduck articles! Quack quack quack!

Fleet Building 301: Damage synergy

I've made passing reference to this idea in a few of the fleet building 201 articles when discussing hybridizing archetypes as well as a bit in the XI7 Turbolasers article, but I figure the time has come to actually give it the space it needs to really stretch out and run around a little bit: let's talk about damage synergy.

The Nautilian getting acquainted with long heavy burst damage.

The Denouement!

IT IS FINISHED

Rebellions are built on hope.... and hiding from the Empire repeatedly

Mothma - I eliminated some ship builds and talked about using her with an Amity.  I also mentioned that Rieekan is an easier to use commander and you need to justify her over him.

Cracken - I eliuminated some ship builds, and I mentioned making sure to make sure why you're choosing this commander over Rieekan/Mothma. He's good against salvo? If you're worried about it, that is.

Garm Bel Iblis - I eliminated builds, pointed you towards some Steel Strategy articles about using him, and advised you against any Comms Net flotillas in your fleet.

Raddus - I addesd a bit about the FAQ changes and mentioned the Profundity bomb option.

Sato - I removed some builds (noticing a theme, are we?), removed some ship descriptions, and I was a little vaguer about the necessary squadrons used with him.  I advise a few ships and squads, and definitely state that if you're not doing black crits you should probably rethink your admiral choice.

Madine - I eliminated a few individual ship builds and added a little more discussion of how to make Madine work for you.  If you're navving, nav hard and be where you don't think your opponent would expect.

And with that, I've updated everything for wave 8.  It's all good, we're ready to go.  I've mentioned in a few articles some of the revealed upgrades from the released Onager, and it looks like I'll need to get on an Agate article and a Starhawk one as well.  And I'm sure I've got some other articles to work on as well!

Cross-Blog Synergistic Promotional Movement to Fix the Paradigm

Biggs and Shmitty graciously decided I was worth listening to, and invited me on the latest Steel Strategy podcast.  Feel free to go over and listen and try out my latest Leia jank fleet.

I was on a podcast!

Rebel Commanders!

I updated the top 5 best Rebel Commanders!

Ackbar! Eliminated some chaff, redirected a lot of examples and builds to the ship sections!

Raddus! Same chaff elimination, and eliminated a lot of "potentially decent" ships with him.

Dodonna! I added a bit about using him versus choosing Agate instead, and some rearrangements and reorganization of the article.

Rieekan! I eliminated most of the fleet building section and referred you to Eric's fleet archetypes section.

Leia! I eliminated a lot of my meandering and summarized the "common ships" a lot faster.  I kept the "call-and-response" voice in there for organization and it's where I started using it.

Upgrades... upgraded!

I just hit every one of my upgrade articles, leaving me nothing but the Commanders left.  Some basics:

Generic Officers:
Chart Officer got an update.  She's not bad, just, I usually just end up with other options in the slot.  As in all upgrades, if you have a plan for her....  Otherwise it was minor sentences and link updates for a lot of things.

Defensive Retros:
Advanced Projectors - i advise you not to take it, as most of the time EWS does it better, and XI7s still are everywhere.  I may re-evaluate this at some point, but it's very hard to justify at this point.

Fleet Commands:
Updated some links, rearranged parts of it (so now it reads Upgrade-What it does-Who wants it), and suggested using TEA with Flag Bridge...as soon as it comes out.  I''d rather it be in there without the link and have the suggestion in there just to be safe.

Support Teams:
Links and such, removed the passage about using Engine Techs on a CR90 (go read it there!) as I think I only have it in one spot now.  Hopefully not 3....

Turbolasers:
Link updates, more details that QTCs are good on SSDs.  Shocked, I'm shocked.  Who would be taking this upgrade?

Rebel Officers:
Some removal, some links. Draven updates but just removing sentences dancing around the fact that he's at best "fine."

Onwards to commanders I believe! Of course, let me go reread Eric's articles and see how I can shorten some of my own articles....

Minor Squadron Updates!

I got a bunch of squad updates done today!

For the B-wing, I removed any amount of me suggesting you use Independence to move them.  It's not great, use a better way.

For the E-wing, I added a sentence to ensure you're using the snipe you're paying for, or else you're wasting points to just get speed 4.

For the VCX I made it more concise and updated some links.

For the YT-1300 I added some phrasing updates and some minor line changes.

And for the Lancer I advised you not to take it.  Ketsu or nothing, kids.

No MAJOR updates, considering I just updated these all recently.  Next up is the upgrades I have, and then we'll round this all up with the Commanders (and some more of the random articles I've got scattered about).  We're getting there!

 (and some I think the A-wing is dogging it.

MC75 Updated!

And the MC75 is updated.  Not much there, killed a few experimental builds that really aren't worth the experiment in my opinion.  Feel free to take a look, but hey, all the Rebel ship builds are done for wave 8! Time for some upgrades and some squadrons!

Just missing the fancy jacket

On that note, I'll wish you all a very merry Christmas and see you all at the next update