Navigation Officers...of the Clone Variety
Navigation Officer's need love too
Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, while others may surely have used him and enjoy him, I wanted to point out a new favorite officer of mine that I really didn't appreciate that much when he was initially teased or even released. That is the humble Navigation Officer.
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| *insert record scratch here* |
No! Not that guy! While navigating is good, for 6 points and your officer slot this guy is a great choice if you're learning the game and still getting used to what to do when, BUT he is not a great officer.
In a more competitive world the officer seat is way too important for the simple Navigation Officer. The Navigation Officer I'm talking about is the chap below and all his friends, they have very familiar faces.
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| I can help you navigate to victory! |
It's the Clone Navigation Officer (CNO). And he is essentially nothing at all like the navigation officer mentioned before.
Lets go over what he does: These guys explain it better than I can. You should probably just go read most of their blog to begin with.
Why he's useful
Right now the Republic has exactly 1 ship, the Radiant VII, that can hand out tokens either through Comms Net OR a parts/munitions resupply. The Pelta is coming in April and will have that same option, but now we’re stuck with the Radiant VII. While this is a great, there's currently very limited ways to generate tokens and share them for the Republic.
Enter this man. Unless you have strong desires for Intel Officer, Hondo, or Flight Commander there aren't many other officers for the Republic right now that I consider highly competitive. Clone Captain Zak belongs on your first red dice C70, double arc with that man and use him in that slot. I'm sure this slot will become more contested with additional Jedi/Clones coming out as officers in April, but right now its not as highly contested of a slot as any given Imperial or Rebel officer chair in any given fleet.
CNO hands out a token matching your revealed dial (but not engineering!) to any ship (including itself) within range 1-5 and can do it for free twice in a game with his included token refresh. After that it takes spending any token in the status phase to refresh the card and enable the trick a third time. So it's 2 points a token and it offers a lot of options even if you never refresh him again.
Finally, while Clone in his his title it does not restrict him from going on any ship. So throw him onto that C70 Charger at the end of the battle line and get a decent comms net like effect while still getting to resolve your dial!
Ways to use him
I recently used CNO on all 3 of my Acclamators in my Clone Wars Tournament fleet and while that may have been a little overkill I did learn something about him. He is a great way to counter Raid and enter battle with every token you could want. If your favorite Admirals are Garm or Tarkin this can give you a close approximation of them, at least as you start the battle.
Way 1
Imagine if you will 2 Acclamators both with CNO. Round 1, they both take an engineering token. Round 2 one reveals a Nav dial, takes it as a token, and uses CNO to give the other 'Clam a Nav Token. The second 'Clam reveals a Con Fire or Squadron dial as desired, takes it as a token, and passes it to the first Acclamator. So at the end of Round 2 you have maxed each Acclamator's token capacity as you go into the round where the shooting traditionally intensifies. That's a pretty fair approximation of half of Garm, granting it does cost some dials, 2 officer seats and 8 points. But it's still pretty slick if you're not using them for something else.
Way 2
You have Radiant VII floating around with parts resupply, and a Clone Nav officer on it as well. Now you can reveal a Nav, Squad, or Con Fire dial, hand out Engineering tokens from parts resupply, and exhaust CNO to send a matching token to a ship of your choice. Got an Acclamator that needs a Nav token to get out of trouble and toss some shields to his endangered flank? Send him a nav and repair token and then nav yourself out of trouble or into a double arc. Alternatively, if the Radiant is safe take your dial as a token and refresh parts resupply and do it again next round!
Way 3
Staple him to an Acclamator with Swivel Mount Battereis or Clone Gunners. Then either use CNO to give yourself a Con Fire token to refresh Swivel Mount Batteries as required or pass a friend a Con Fire token to get that sweet auto accuracy to lock down a key brace from Clone Gunners.
Way 4
The reason I ended up taking him in my Clone Wars fleet. CNO provides protection against Raid and specifically Dooku. Have your squad command get raided when you really need to push some squads, call on CNO to have that carrier give itself a squad token, clear the raid token with said token, and then use your dial to push your squads anyway. Dooku can only raid squadrons twice and guess what, you get 2 free uses of CNO. Coincidence?
Conclusion
So in conclusion, Clone Navigation Officer is a fantastic officer card for the Republic specifically right now since they don’t have intense competition in a list besides his 4 point cost. He offers a range of flexibility to get a token where you need and still enable you to use your dial. If you haven't given him a try I would recommend you find a chair for at least 1 of him in your next Republic fleet.
