Math Hammering: Ranking Rebel Support AND Heavy Units

Good morning gamers,

We're just about through this series of posts looking at optimal Rebel list building and today we're grouping together two ranks: Support and Heavy. The units we're looking at today include some of the most resilient options Rebels have . . . which is to say, some pretty mediocre defense ratings. :) Jesting aside, the options we have here aren't going to be the high-health, high-Armor, good-save Heavy options you might find in Republic, Separatist, or even Empire builds, but they will be pretty cheap (for the most part), pretty durable, and many of them can pack a punch on offense. Let's dig into a little methodology (which should be very familiar by now) before we get into the list . . .

Taxonomy Overview: What Is "Optimal" for Legion 2.6?

As has been mentioned so many times before, because the objective conditions (both primary and secondary) are so heavily skewed towards having more activations than your opponent in pre-defined (and often stationary) parts of the board, Legion 2.6 is about both taking enemy units off the board (whole units - not just rendering a unit inert by killing off most of its models) and keeping your own units on the board. This means there are two measures of effectiveness (MOEs) that we can use to determine if a unit is "good": average expected damage and average expected health (AEH).

Average Expected Damage (AED) is computed by finding the average number of hits and crits that a unit is supposed to get. The greatest dilemma for finding this number in the real world is that it is affected by a LOT of variables - here's a few:

• There is a subtle but mostly irrelevant distinction between a Hit result and a Crit result - Crits really only matter if the enemy unit has the Armor X keyword, has dodge tokens, and to a small degree, has light/heavy cover (often if they also have Low Profile);
• The Pierce X keyword doesn't increase the damage that you do, but it DOES make the damage that you get more likely to actually take effect;
• The number of hits/crits that you get is all fine and good, but the quality of the target unit's save (and defensive keywords, dodge tokens, and visible models) can have a huge impact on how much damage you can actually do;
• The number of wounds previously suffered might reduce the expected damage of the unit (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has 1 wound) or it might have a slight impact once a certain amount of damage is done (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has multiple wounds), or might have no impact at all (in the case of single-model units); and
• The distance to the enemy target may affect whether or not a unit can aim before shooting - and the value of an aim token is highly dependent on which dice in your dice pool hit or missed in the first volley).

Math Hammering: Ranking Rebel Special Forces Units

Good morning gamers,

We're back with another math model, trying to figure out what the "optimal" Rebel units for Legion 2.6 are. If you missed our previous posts on Corps and Commander options, you can catch up on the units that appear to be good. Both Corps and Commander are (generally speaking) required ranks to fill and today's post branches off into the rank that is probably the most contentious rank to fill out: Special Forces. There may be an argument that there's a three-way tug-of-war for what your Support slot should be - and there may even be an argument over whether or not you take one Heavy option over another - but Special Forces seems to be packed with good options that might only be rivaled by your options in the Commander and Operative ranks. The Rebels have a lot to like in this particular rank - and with only three slots that can be filled, we have a lot of decisions to make. Let's take a look and see how we're evaluating everything today, shall we?

Taxonomy Overview: What Is "Optimal" for Legion 2.6?

As has been mentioned before, because the objective conditions (both primary and secondary) are so heavily skewed towards having more activations than your opponent in pre-defined (and often stationary) parts of the board, Legion 2.6 is about both taking enemy units off the board (whole units - not just rendering a unit inert by killing off most of its models) and keeping your own units on the board. This means there are two measures of effectiveness (MOEs) that we can use to determine if a unit is "good": average expected damage and average expected health (AEH).

Average Expected Damage (AED) is computed by finding the average number of hits and crits that a unit is supposed to get. The greatest dilemma for finding this number in the real world is that it is affected by a LOT of variables - here's a few:

• There is a subtle but mostly irrelevant distinction between a Hit result and a Crit result - Crits really only matter if the enemy unit has the Armor X keyword, has dodge tokens, and to a small degree, has light/heavy cover (often if they also have Low Profile);
• The Pierce X keyword doesn't increase the damage that you do, but it DOES make the damage that you get more likely to actually take effect;
• The number of hits/crits that you get is all fine and good, but the quality of the target unit's save (and defensive keywords, dodge tokens, and visible models) can have a huge impact on how much damage you can actually do;
• The number of wounds previously suffered might reduce the expected damage of the unit (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has 1 wound) or it might have a slight impact once a certain amount of damage is done (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has multiple wounds), or might have no impact at all (in the case of single-model units); and
• The distance to the enemy target may affect whether or not a unit can aim before shooting - and the value of an aim token is highly dependent on which dice in your dice pool hit or missed in the first volley).

For the sake of a more simplistic model, I've made the following assumptions:

• Units will be evaluated at full strength, without respect to the degradation of their damage over time;
• The average expected damage of a unit will be a straight average of their expected damage at ranges 1-4, with the unit's preference of melee or range 1 as its range 1 score;
• The score for the unit as a whole will be the score of a reasonable loadout for the unit - we will not be meta-gaming upgrades to score well in the system, but will look instead at what upgrades would reasonably assist a unit with the role it's trying to fill (or the rules it wants to proc);
• Units are assumed to not take aim actions before they shoot unless that unit has a unique way to gain an aim token without spending an action; and
• The score for the unit will be the average expected hits for every 10 points spent on the unit (so units that are cheaper but do the same/more damage than a more expensive unit come out ahead).

Like the Commanders we viewed last time, the Special Forces options for Rebels tend to have one or more of these factors baked into their profiles, so there will be definite caveats for what was not factored into the analysis. Once again, I have attempted to be generous, but some of these boosts are highly situational and require understanding the target you are attacking or the rules of the unit attacking you in order to properly value them.