The Empire doesn’t mess around with its officers. Where neutral officers are a mixed bag of staples and filler, the Imperial roster is stacked with power pieces. Some are defensive (Montferrat, Brunson, Iden, Needa, Tua), some are offensive (Krennic, Palpatine, Vader), and others are unique tech tools (Chiraneau, Beck, Grand Inq) or token managers (Aresko, Grint, Vanto, Yularen).
But the flip side is cost and opportunity. The officer slot on any Empire ship is hotly contested — there are simply more good options than you can possibly fit. And yes, some officers are so good they almost always show up on the table, while others never leave the binder. Let’s break it down.
Admiral Chiraneau
Funny one. Post-1.5, he should be better than ever — Intel was nerfed, and combined with the ace cap, Dengar isn’t everywhere anymore. Yet Chiraneau rarely shows up on the table. Mildly strange, but I guess Speed 2 is so restrictive that he isn't super desirable. His effect IS still valuable, especially paired with Mithel shenanigans, which is why he can’t cost less than 10.
Verdict: If Mithel himself were toned down, Chiraneau could easily be 8.
Admiral Montferrat
Five points of pure conditional value. “Go fast, be obstructed, live forever.” The better you fly, the better he gets.
Verdict: Excellent design, excellent cost (6 points would not be unfair).
Admiral Ozzel (Officer)
A fun one-shot trick — particularly nasty with Cataclysm or an SSD. Afterward, he’s just Vader choke fodder.
Verdict: Balanced, leave as is.
Admiral Titus
Same boat as Ozzel: a one-time trick with niche but real applications. Can swing an early game if used cleverly, then becomes Vader fuel.
Verdict: Works as designed.
Agent Kallus
Good card, often useful, occasionally brilliant. His cost is fair with the 4-ace cap in place. Without that cap, he was underpriced.
Verdict: If I had my way, he’d only work against squadrons with defense tokens — no reason to penalize the generiques.
Captain Brunson
The queen of Imperial defensive tech. At 5 points, she was everywhere, since the “within distance 1–2 of an obstacle” clause is barely a restriction in skilled hands. She was rightly pushed up to 9, which curbed her ubiquity.
Verdict: 9 feels a touch high. 8 would be a sweet spot. But 9 is a lot better than 5, so whatever.
Captain Needa
Goodbye useless Contain, hello Evade. For 2 points, Needa is always valuable — whether enabling TRCs or just letting your ISD actually evade things. Balanced, iconic, and Vader can choke him afterward.
Verdict: Perfect.
Commandant Aresko
A short-range, clunky knock-off of Yularen. At 7 points, he’s WAY too much.
Verdict: Drop him to 4 and he might see use.
Commander Beck
A fun little enabler. For 3 points, she gives flexibility, with the risk of backlash. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it stings — as it should.
Verdict: Leave her alone.
Commander Gherant
Supposed to make the SSD immune to crits on approach, but falls flat. The cost isn’t the problem; the effect just isn’t worth the officer slot.
Verdict: Binder material.
Commander Vanto
A solid token officer, somewhere between Yularen and Aresko in efficiency. A bit clunky, but good once mastered.
Verdict: Five points feels right.
Commander Woldar
Decent effect, decent range, fair cost. The only real issue is the Empire’s squad pool — there's too much Swarm and not enough good non-Swarm squadrons to make him shine. I mean, he SHOULD be in there with your Firesprays and Aggressors!
Verdict: A good card limited by context.
Darth Vader (Officer)
This one makes me sigh. Up from 1 to 4 points, but still underpriced. As long as 1-point officers exist (SFO), Vader should be at least 6. Still, he’s undeniably fun — chew through expendable officers for ket rerolls.
Verdict: A neat concept, but currently too cheap.
Director Isard
Pure trash. A beginner’s crutch at best. Rework it entirely — something like “guess the top command dial correctly, gain a matching token.” That would actually be useful.
Verdict: As is? Compactor.
Director Krennic
Suffers from clunky wording and too many conditions. Needs a CF dial and token, medium-long range, and costs 8 points. On an SSD, his range restriction kills him. On a Cymoon or Ravager he’s okay — but again, you’re paying a lot for something fiddly. And at 8 points IMO he's too expensive for the Arquitens.
Verdict: Either reduce his cost by 1–2, or rework him to streamline his effect.
Emperor Palpatine (Officer)
Love this guy. Puts immense pressure on defense tokens, especially with Salvo, Sloane, or Boarding Troopers. All for 3 points!
Verdict: Realistically, he should be 4. One of the best value officers in the game.
Governor Pryce
A fantastic offensive boost. Need a crit? A hit/crit? Double hit? She delivers. The shield-spending cost is real, but manageable.
Verdict: She’s fine at 6, maybe 7 at most. Great offensive focus — don’t nerf her.
Iden Versio
Excellent on a double-evade ship that wants to knife-fight. Six points is fair. Demo likes her, but Tua or Montferrat are often better. Her discard-for-raid trick is irrelevant — if it were exhaust instead, it might actually matter.
Verdict: Could come down to 5, same as Montferrat, since she's operating off defense tokens AND needs to close. Or Monty could come up to 6.
Instructor Goran
Very niche, potentially very powerful. His ceiling is scary, so his price needs to stay high. That said, he sees so little play that you could test him at 6. Balanced but underused.
Verdict: Maybe reduce to 6.
Lira Wessex
On paper, not bad: repair tokens to flip face-ups. In practice, it only matters on the Executor, with stacked repair tokens, in a crit-heavy meta.
Verdict: Two points is fine, but the officer slot is too valuable. Lives in the binder.
Minister Tua
Two points to enable a Defensive Retrofit slot — usually ECM. This card highlights Armada’s core flaw: defense token negation is too oppressive, so every large ship needs a “fix.”
Verdict: She’s sort of fine at 2, given the context. But if you're not on board with the whole reasoning behind her, she should really cost 4+.
Reeva Demesne
A fantastic officer at a great price. She doesn’t show up as often as she deserves, but that’s only because of opportunity cost. Compare her to Luminara, and you feel the faction disparity.
Verdict: Leave her alone.
Taskmaster Grint
A solid command spammer. But at 5, he’s not worth it compared to modern token officers. Rune Haako is 4 and offers more flexibility.
Verdict: Drop Grint to 4 and call it even.
The Grand Inquisitor
Speed manipulation tech as an exhaust triggering of enemy movement? It's kind of interesting in some corner cases, and with Quad Battery Turrets, but overall, this will never be worth 4 points and an Officer slot. But beyond that: why isn't this guy a cool boarding party of some sort? Why doesn't he hand out raids? Or anything other than change your speed?
Verdict: Reduce to 2 or rework.
Wulff Yularen
The OG token officer. Still functional, but the game has outgrown him. At 7 he’s overpriced; 5 would be more appropriate. Easier to use than Aresko, less efficient than modern equivalents.
Verdict: Reduce to 5 points.
Final Verdict – Empire Officers
The Imperial officer pool is strong. Some of these cards (Brunson, Tua, Vader, Palpatine, Pryce) are so efficient that they define archetypes. Others (Isard, Gherant, Lira) are so bad they may as well not exist.
The big issue here is balance creep. The early-wave staples still hold up, but modern additions range from over-tuned defensive tech (Brunson at 5 was absurd) to clunky, overpriced experiments (Krennic). The opportunity cost of the officer slot makes anything mid-tier hard to justify, and mostly crowds out the large selection of token handling officers.
Still, compared to the Rebels or GAR, the Empire has one of the most robust officer pools — if you want flexibility, efficiency, or raw power, you’ll find it here. Just don’t expect much design subtlety.
Next Up: Rebel Officers.
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