Venator Vidi Vici!

The main reason all you wanted to fly the GAR, and the backbone of your fleet, it's time for the arrowheadiest of triangles, it's the Venator!

More lasers! More pew pew! More squadrons!

Providence article updated

Nothing major in the Providence article update, I just wanted to add in the new Flak Guns and DBYs now that they're released with the Venator. One new build for the Providence focusing on Flak Guns salvo. This brings us up to a Lucid Voice Carrier Providence salvo build and a Flak Guns DBYs Dreadnought Providence salvo build. They're distinct enough that it'll really depend on your fleet as to which you think you'd prefer.

DBY Updated and Added!

Copy-pasted below:

They look pointier than your standard turbolaser, so you can tell they're for salvos

Coming off the wave 10 presses, it's DBY-827 (henceforth DBYs).  You can turn any salvo attack dice to 1 with a crit.  So, yes, that DOES mean my black dice can flip into a hit/crit with it. And ain't THAT mean.

They pair GREAT with Flak Guns but moreso, they pair best with 2 approaches.  First, you're likely going to want Local Fire Control to ensure a second salvo on your ship (and the ability to use both!). You want LFC because if your opponent rolls or produces an accuracy and locks down your single salvo token, you're going to feel slightly silly when you spent 6 points (with Flak Guns and DBYs) to sit around with.  I also feel you want the second salvo in order to ensure that the CR90 firing on you has to consider potentially taking 2 salvo shots in return, especially if I can change the black dice coming at it into a hit/crit each time.  Those evades burn out fast in that case.

The second thing you're going to want is a focus on applying a lot of damage, more than focused damage into one hullzone.  This is me saying "I'm not sure I would pair this with XI7s if you have a 2 turbolaser ship" because I think you want them burning their tokens even harder and faster to neutralize the damage coming back at them.  The obviously strongest use of this card is to change a black dice to a hit/crit, but sometimes it might be just a blue/red dice salvo.  Because they're taking this damage (from attacking you; it's a salvo remember?) and then moving away, you're going to want to fire on them again, but you can't guarantee what hullzone they're taking the damage on and then exposing to you.  If you keep the damage from the salvo XI7'ed into that same hullzone, I HIGHLY doubt a good opponent is going to try to leave that hullzone exposed to you at the end of their movement if they have any say about it.  So pair it with a different turbolaser; and even more importantly pair it with ships that are just trying to pour more and more damage into a ship (don't use XI7s on other ships with it either, haha!).  It does go great with Intel Officer, though, that's for sure.  Nothing as rude as me firing back for ~4 damage on YOUR turn and me Intelling that token you were about to use for it.  Remember your Intel Officer timing window, though (end of step 2, before you do anything else in step 3)!

Eric article updates 5/30

 

I updated few articles hot on the heels of wave 10 releases. Everything got a bit of minor editing, hyperlink adding to articles that showed up later, etc. In addition:

• Interdictor article updated with revised Back Atcha, Buddy salvo build replacing Disposable Capacitors with Flak Guns (similar effect but better and lasts all game). Mention of Point Defense Ion Cannons.
• Count Dooku article updated to include the B2 Rocket Troopers/BORT droids, which allow for a "tons of raid tokens" fleet.
• Kraken article updated to mention Providence-class Dreadnoughts and Swivel-Mount Batteries on Munificents.
• Hardcell article updated in a few places:
• Beast of Burden can work on itself (just clarifying for rules, but spending an evade to ready your brace can be pretty handy in the right circumstances for example).
• Builds updated with new officers, particularly Tikkes.
• Some more discussion on external dice fixing with the Battle Refit and the possibility of running it with no upgrades at all.
• Munificent article has some minor updates. 
• Added new use of Flag Bridge for Jedi Hostage.
• Ion cannon discussion enhanced a bit and added Point Defense Ion Cannon as an option.
• Star Frigate expanded a bit with the introduction of Thermal Shields, which works well for the Star Frigate.
• Imperial-class Star Destroyer article updated :
• Some salvo builds updated by the Flak guns + DBY-827 Heavy Turbolasers combo.
• Point Defense Ion Cannons added where appropriate as well.
  

I'm starting to refer to the DBY-827 Heavy Turbolasers in some of my articles and linking to the turbolaser article. John's got his hands full and hasn't updated the article yet but I'm sure it'll get added in a few days. In the meantime, it's this:

Imperial ship review: Imperial-class Star Destroyer

Let's talk about the first Imperial battleship seen in all of Star Wars, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer. With wave 7 including two new chassis for this iconic ship, this article will be covering all four of the available options and so is going to get rather lengthy, so settle in someplace comfortable!

TIE Fighter squadrons not included (but recommended!)

Separatist ship review: Munificent-class frigate

The first serious Separatist warship we'll be discussing is the Munificent-class frigate. It's a dependable scrappy and adaptable little medium-based ship that operates very differently from every other medium-based ship in the game.

Plus it looks neat.

Separatist ship review: Hardcell transport

The first small ship for the Separatists is the Hardcell Transport, a support-oriented vessel that can play helper robot or even act as fire support.

Seen here shooting at... something. Something that's making them explode.

Separatist commander review: Count Dooku

 Let's get rolling on Separatist commanders with Count Dooku.

Me too, buddy. Me too.

Imperial ship review: Interdictor cruiser

We've made it to wave 4! I mean to be fair, waves 3 and 4 are basically the exact same wave because they came out together, but... technically it's wave 4!

Oh hello there, I didn't notice you getting choke-slammed out of hyperspace!

Where's my Ven Article, John?

So it's sure 3 pm when this published, right? And you're asking yourself "why is John waiting on content? Is it because he hates me?" I mean, probably not, but if you want to think that, who am I to stop you?

Anyways, the real REASON is that I wrote the Pelta article first way back when we thought these were all coming out in April (sad laughter).  Then I hit the Pelta commanders (Side note: no Pelta until it's in my hands. Sorry bros and bro-ettes)! Things were looking great! So I'm ready for June (stupid boat in the stupid canal). I got the other 2 commanders together (as i'm sure you've seen already), and then I intended to write that Venator article (and update the other stuff).

And then I moved in with my fiancée and hit a wall of "pack and unpack all your stuff." I'm currently in UNPACK mode, but I still have a bunch of boxes to hit.  And then clean out my old apartment to get a security deposit back this weekend, and hang out with friends.  So, uh, I'ma hit it next week? Along with a few commander updates (Bail for sure, Obi very likely), and updates to the charger that are basically "this is a Pelta now instead of this build." Along with the updates about all the upgrades (I'm grabbing my Venators TOMORROW, so I honestly don't even know what upgrades I'm getting with them, haha!)

So it's coming, I promise. Just don't expect it Monday.  Give me a week and I'll definitely be either unpacked enough to do it or I'll kill my sleep schedule even more to make sure it's done.

The Power of Plo Koon

One commander I personally am very excited about in Wave 10 is one of the coolest Star Wars characters, who is also apparently super important in the Clone Wars series. He's so important they made him into a card before the Clone Wars even existed and they've now banned him, so good riddance Strategic Adviser.  Anyways it's Plo Koon!

What's up, Jabberwock?

Flak Guns added to Offensive Retrofits

Figured I'd get my contribution out of the way early given the Venator is dropping today. John's gonna have his hands full, though, so be patient for Republic content please. We'll be making changes to older articles affected by new options. For example, I updated the Flag Bridge entry in the offensive retrofits article (due to the new fleet commands) in addition to adding the below entry for Flak Guns.

Without further ado, it's time for Flak Guns!

In a universe where one-man fighters keep blowing important things up, making flak guns optional feels dumb.

The Ever Present Luminarticle!

Luminous articles are we writing, not this...crude matter. Let's get to talking about one of the most interesting commanders/DJs from the wave, Luminara Unduli.

About to drop the mic after she drops your ship

Who's the Bossk Followup!

As several of you know, I've been putting on a tournament.   As round 3 begins, I thought I'd share a few life lessons both from running a tournament and from running this Who's the Bossk tournament.  If you ever end up wanting to run it in real life, feel free to use me as a guide for doing so.  I'll throw it below the fold for anyone not interested.

Angry lizard is angry

Quick Update

I updated the GAR squadrons article for a few more groups/plans.  Nothing major and if you've been playing a bit I'm sure you've already stumbled onto these groups.  My other articles are in progress, as usual.