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https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/6/20/squadron-battle-plans/

And it's a doozy, nearly as much as the previous X-wing one.

-Flotillas can no longer be flagships
-Bomber Command Center and Turbolaser Reroute circuits are now once per activation.
-Rieekan is now once per turn
-Demolisher no longer activates off of Engine Techs
-Rhymer's ability is reduced to Close Range

So yeah, things are going to change.

If I may put on my Eagle of Doom hat, in order of the FAQ:

Bomber Command Centre: I'd never used two, but we'd all seen the 2016 Worlds winner use them. It's still a good card, you just can't spam to make sure you insure a good result on a low number of dice. A pity. I didn't think bomber squadrons were such a problem before, now they are less reliable. We essentially saved 8 points. Because rarely will you have too many fighters and think "Yeah, I can make two bomber groups."

Demolisher: Again, save some points. Unless you really value that extra 1 of movement.

Rieekan: Not surprised. He was very prevalent in a lot of Rebel builds because not removing anything until you had made sure it fired was... efficient. It's bad for squadrons, because when faced with losing a ship, I'd much rather let my 25 pts base of gnats go out rather than a bucketful of dice. For ships, I don't know. Time will tell. For fleets that relied on very light fighter support, he could still work. Worth 30 pts? Hmmmm.... I'm going to say yes, and learn to manage risk better.

TRC: My fleet of MC30c will now gently fly into the sunset. I feel it will nudge us back to bigger ships, since it makes those smaller ones less efficient.

Rhymer: This is big. As in was made small. He's no longer the answer to all of the Empire's problems. Although to be fair, the only thing that really changes is the range of Rhymer's ability. The rest of the "ball" does not change, and so the tactic remains valid. You might actually just skip him altogether and fly the ball regardless. You're just going to spend some time chasing your enemies, for once.

Flotillas: There were a lot of complaints from people against lifeboats. I get it. So the fragile ship that got obliterated if you focused on it for half a turn no longer carries your admiral. Blessing in disguise, imho. Maybe flotilla will pop up in other roles, finally.

Rapid Launch Bays: Interesting. You can dump your content, but you're not beholden to activating those when you reveal your command. Mechanically it makes sense, cinematically, not soo much. But hey, you invest pts in those squadrons, might as well have a bit of flexibility.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:


Flotillas: There were a lot of complaints from people against lifeboats. I get it. So the fragile ship that got obliterated if you focused on it for half a turn no longer carries your admiral. Blessing in disguise, imho. Maybe flotilla will pop up in other roles, finally.

The problem was typically that if your opponent flew the lifeboat well (ie speed 1 along their board edge), then you needed to commit serious resources away from the main scrum in order to actually kill their admiral.

Yes. But let's face it, it was often worth it. A couple of good volleys with a CR90 could dispatch it if you rolled an accuracy,

Wowzer.... ok that may of put a bit of a dampener on stuff that i was planning on getting.

Regarding flotillas, I think their surviveability (sp?) will remain about the same, because you still need either luck (an accuracy) or focused fire to get rid of them, And now that they are clearly just support vessels with a few tricksies up their sleeves, but very little firepower, it would be a poor target.

I know I'd be happy if my opponent decide to get rid of one while the rest of my fleet is pounding him.