Character review: Saska Teft

To wrap up our discussion of support heroes, we're going to view today my favorite character so far in Imperial Assault: Saska Teft. While Diala Passil can Focus friendly models and Gideon Argus can give them free actions (and other stuff), Saska can provide a variety of benefits to her teammates and give them the flexibility to choose how and when to use them.

Saska Teft: Something From Nothing

Saska Teft is like Q in the Bond films: she makes the cool gadgets and works her technical wizardry to turn ordinary weapons into high-powered tools of destruction (or an ordinary vest into a defensive fortress or a shorted-out explosive into an actual explosive). Saska does this by using her Battle Technician ability, which allows her to pass “device tokens” (DTs) to adjacent heroes. By default, this allows heroes who are attacking to add a Surge result to their results OR allow heroes who are performing an attribute test to reroll a die. This is very, VERY useful in the early game when your weapons are bad (and is still useful later in the campaign with weapons that don’t surge well).

Saska – more so than any other character – can provide benefits to other characters that make them better at what they already do. While Gideon makes other figures do “their thing” more often (and can remove Strain or make them Focused or add a Surge result), Gideon can’t make a bad weapon good. Saska can. Ko-Tun can pass out battle tokens, Diala can focus other people, Fenn can pass around some movement points, and several characters can provide one-time block/evade results. Saska can’t pass out battle tokens, but she can give friendly figures the ability to do all the rest via her DTs.
The most powerful upgrades in Saska’s arsenal are her 3 XP skills: Gadgeteer and Power Converter. Gadgeteer is a must-have – it allows Saska to use Battle Tactician twice each turn, which means she can help a friend nearby and help herself (or help two friends if you feel generous...or claim both tokens if she's feeling selfish). Since these don’t take actions, she can still rest and perform an attack OR move and perform an attack. Gadgeteer also opens up otherwise unavailable configurations for weapons by allowing her to add an additional mod slot to the weapons she’s using – which includes adding a mod to weapons that have no base mod slots (thank you for clearing that up, FAQ).

Power Converter requires a Strain to use, but it allows anyone using a DT on the attack to not only gain the free Surge result, but also change one of their die out for a different color die. If you start with this skill in a short campaign, you can allow characters like Gaarkhan to roll a Red-Red with his Vibro-Ax or Biv Bodhrick to roll a Red-Green with his Repeating Blaster. Characters who have terrible starter weapons (like Jyn Odan’s Vintage Blaster or Fenn Signis’s Infantry Rifle) suddenly have powerful Red-Green weapons that can roast their foes so long as they’re up close (Fenn could roll with Red-Blue if he needs the accuracy). Saska has the choice with her starter weapon of rolling a Red-Yellow or a Red-Green, both of which are incredibly powerful combos and with the ability to surge for Damage 1 and Pierce 1 (and Weaken if you plan on shooting twice) with a free Surge, you’re hard-pressed to not do damage.

Her vulnerability, though, is her relatively low Endurance for a support character. As opposed to both Diala and Gideon (who have 5 Endurance each), Saska has a standard 4 Endurance, making her run out of steam pretty fast and you’ll find that she constantly needs to rest. As a result, it’s best to only plan on attacking once per turn (and occasionally, you may need to sprint instead of fighting). The exchange though is that you don’t need to be the one using your DTs and straining to change die colors – you can pass that buck off to other people!
You can also get the Remote Distribution upgrade which not only brings you up to Endurance 5, but also allows you to toss DTs to a figure within 3 spaces (instead of being adjacent to friendly figures).

I will say this before we delve into the different builds for Saska – we’re going to focus only on the three upgrades listed above. Saska has other ones – and they’re good – but they require splitting synergies (do A or B or C or D with your DTs). While this toolkit approach to Saska is useful (and one of the reasons she’s my favorite), the builds we’re going to show below all work with the same upgrade tree – and it costs a lot of XP (because it’s so powerful). Know that there are other upgrades that are fantastic and very useful…but they distract from the overall firepower support that we’re choosing to focus on here. With this in mind, let’s look at several weapon builds for Saska.

End-Game Weapon #1 - Whirlwind Punch: Vibro-Knucklers with Balanced Hilt

Saska can turn any weapon into a great weapon with her Gadgeteer ability. From the melee perspective, it’s hard to do better than the Vibro-Kucklers. The Vibro-Knucklers are an upgraded version of the Tier 1 Armored Gauntlets, but they are way, WAY better. Where the Armored Gauntlets surge for Cleave 1, you gain Cleave 2. Want to surge for Stun and Pierce 1 separately? Try getting Pierce 2 and Bleed together – it’s not even a question which is better! For 400 (and only 100 credits more than the Armored Gauntlets), it’s a steal.

However, for most characters (except Gideon – see our last post for more info on that), if you get 3 Surge, that’s about all you get out of the weapon.

• In an ideal world: Damage 1 + Surge 1 + Damage 1 + Surge 2 = Damage 2 + Surge 3 = Damage 4 + Pierce 2 + Cleave 2 + Bleed. Of course, this only happens 5% of the time.
• Most of the time: Damage 2 + Surge 1 (or Damage 2 - doesn't matter) = Damage 2 + Surge 1 = Damage 4. 
• Worst possible result: Surge 1 + Damage 1 = Damage 1 + Surge 1 = Damage 3. This isn't TERRIBLE, but not great for a Tier 2 weapon (no matter how cheap it is). 

So, all that to say . . .

Against a Black die, you can expect to get 2-3 Damage past the defense results.

If Saska wields this weapon with the Gadgeteer and Power Converter upgrades, though, we have several advantages: first, we can add the Balanced Hilt. For 300 credits (a whopping 700 credits for your character), you get a free Damage 2 (or Pierce 2 and Bleed) – you’re not going to get that kind of benefit from any other modification! Sure the High Impact Guard is a fine upgrade – and could be triggered by this weapon pretty easily. But nothing beats reliably triggering all your surge abilities at the same time. The Balanced Hilt can be acquired early (perhaps on the Armored Gauntlets for a free Damage 2?) before you upgrade to the Vibro-Knucklers.

Second, we can swap the Yellow die for a Red die. While there isn’t generally much difference between Green and Red, the jump from Yellow to Red is huge since a) we have a free Surge from the Balanced Hilt (see above) and b) we have another free Surge from the DT. With 2 free Surge (if we need both of them), we only need a single Surge to trigger all three effects (which we should get ~65% of the time past a Black die) – and approximately half of the time, we won’t need the Balanced Hilt at all (though if you plan to attack and rest, it’s nice to use the Balanced Hilt anyway since you’ll only be attacking once). Instead of doing 2-3 Damage past a Black die, you’re averaging 4-5 Damage (plus Cleave 2) past that die – that’s close to three dead EliteStormtroopers if you double-attack in one turn! And all this for the cost of…700 credits. Worth it? I think so.

Upgrades to purchase - 10 XP: Power Converter (3), Gadgeteer (3), Remote Distribution (4)

End-Game Weapon #2 - That Big Dang Gun: T21 with Sniper Scope OR Spread Barrel

Okay, as fun as slashing things with Vibro-Knucklers is, Saska starts off with a gun. So what better gun to give her than one that she alone can turn into a truly formidable weapon? A T21! The T21 is the only Tier 2 weapon that has an attack pool with 3 dice in it. It’s surge abilities aren’t great (Stun and Pierce 2 are nice, to be sure), but it rolls a Green-Green-Yellow. Assuming the Power Converter upgrade has been purchased, you can convert that Yellow die (you don’t need the Surge coming off that Yellow) into a Red die (because it’s fun).

Now here’s the cool part: always make sure you are either 2 spaces away from your target or 5 spaces away from your target.

• If you are 2 spaces away, the two Green die will make sure you hit the target, allowing you to use the free Surge from the device token to gain Pierce 2. 
• If you’re 5 spaces away, you can use the free Surge from your device token to surge for 3 Accuracy which, combined with the 2+ Accuracy from your Green die makes sure you hit the target. You then have the Sniper Scope’s free Surge to use for Pierce 2. 
• Either way, you get the Accuracy you need and the Pierce 2 FOR FREE! All of the other die results can be free of Surge and you’re happy – 6-7 Damage with Pierce 2 and enough accuracy to hit the target, thank you very much. Any Surges that appear allow you to Stun the target or recover Strain – not bad all in all. 

If you’re concerned about the off-chance that you get 3 Surge results and can’t use them all, consider picking up Responsive Armor – if it keeps Saska alive, it’s good, right? This weapon is pricier than the previous set, but requires you to strain to move (or spend an action to move) less often – at just under 1200 credits, though, it’s still comparable in both damage output and utility as many Tier 3 weapons.
It’s important to note that the Sniper Scope isn’t strictly necessary for this build – you can instead rely on shooting things up close (or rely on recovering Strain less often) by going with the Spread Barrel. Assuming you only attack once per turn, you’ll get the same damage output from up-close as you do with the Sniper Scope (and you can get this at Tier 2 instead of Tier 3). Just a thought…

Upgrades to purchase - 10 XP: Power Converter (3), Gadgeteer (3), Remote Distribution (4)

End-Game Weapon #3 - Paint Everything Red: Valken-38 Carbine with Disruption Cell and Plasma Cell

We come now to the most surprising weapon for Saska to use – and by far the most expensive. Once you see it in action, though, I think you’ll agree there’s no other weapon quite like it. Enter the Valken-38 Carbine with the two most destructive blaster upgrades you can muster: the Disruption Cell and the Plasma Cell. It’s important to note that there are two different ways you can use the Valken: first, you can spend all your actions to become Focused and fire the darn thing (ignoring all bad guys in your path). Second, you can just shoot the thing without becoming Focused, which allows you to both move and shoot (with a small difference in the output of the weapon) OR you can shoot twice (which overall is likely to do more damage). There are reasons for both, but we’re going to focus on the latter right now and assume you want to save an action to rest (or shoot twice – whichever strikes your fancy).

Let’s review what we’ve said in the previous entry for our default bonuses:

• Thanks to the Power Converter upgrade, we can turn the Valken’s Red-Blue-Blue dice pool into a Red-Red-Blue dice pool. 
• We will also get an automatic Surge result from the DT, which can trigger the Damage 2 surge result.
• Thanks to the Disruption Cell, we get an automatic 2 Accuracy (we’ll need it) and we change the current Red-Red-Blue dice pool into a (WAIT FOR IT!) Red-Red-Red dice pool. 
• With three – I REPEAT THREE – Red dice and a free Surge for 2 Damage we add *dun dun dun* the Plasma Cell for a free Pierce 1 and the ability to Surge for 1 Damage.
• Each Red die is likely to provide 2-3 Damage to the result total. We will get (besides the free Surge we get from the device token) no more than 3 Surge results, which we can use to a) gain extra accuracy, b) recover strain, and c) add 1 more Damage. 

Depending on the circumstance, these are all good: you can always take a shot at someone who is more than 2 spaces away because you know you’re getting a free Surge from the device token. In the odd event that they get an Evade, you have a fair chance at getting a surge on one of your three Red die. Of course, all this becomes moot if just run up to the guy and blast his head off at close range, but in the end you’re looking at 8-10 Damage with an auto Pierce 1 – YOU CAN’T REALLY DUPLICATE THAT!!!! Alright, some characters can, but you certainly don’t expect it from Saska…or the Valken.
But this underscores yet again why Saska is my favorite character: compared to other Tier 3 weapons, the Valken is kind of weak – it has the requisite surge for Damage 2 ability, but it doesn’t surge very often and while the two Blue dice give you range, it doesn’t give you damage. Anyone can put the Disruption Cell on it to make it a Red-Red-Blue (which surges even less often) or the Sniper Scope (if you want that Damage 2 so badly), but nobody is going to be able to rival what Saska does with it. She is, once again, just that good.

Upgrades to purchase - 10 XP: Power Converter (3), Gadgeteer (3), Remote Distribution (4)

Saska in the Skirmish Game

Saska Teft in the Skirmish game is more expensive than many smuggler and is probably not as good as Diala or Gideon. However, she has the unique ability of not only being able to surge for 3 different Damage/Pierce options with her Yellow-Green (that’s pretty good for a Smuggler), but also she can add a single Mercenary Deployment Card to your army. This has excellent synergies with Jabba the Hutt and Vinto Hreeda, though you could also grab anyone you want (Smuggler, Hunter, Brawler, Creature…). While Saska doesn’t provide many other unique abilities, she’s got a good Health stat to back up her White die, and a great Command Card that can blow up a wounded figure who is trying to maintain control of a Terminal. All told, she’s nice to have (though a little pricey).

Saska is a wonderful hero and I highly recommend her. While her DTs can drain her Endurance pretty quickly, you can use her to either provide niche benefits to your team (again, most of which we didn’t cover here) OR provide self-bolstering offensive/defensive capabilities if you want to play more independently of the group. Don’t forget to rest and have lots of fun with her. We’re stepping away from Support class heroes and moving into fighter heroes and who better to view than the berserk Wookie Gaarkhan, the gunslinging reckless showoff, Vinto Hreeda, and the soldier who taught us to love the blaster-toting-warrior class, Fenn Signis. So until next time, happy gaming!