Character Review: Verena Talos

There are very, VERY few characters in the game of Imperial Assault who are rewarded for having more than one weapon. Many characters (such as Shyla Varad, Davith Elso, Diala Passil, and Gaarkhan) are rewarded for having melee weapons, but generate no bonuses from having ranged weapons (not that they can’t, of course). Other characters (such as Drokkatta, Jyn Odan, Mak Eshka’rey, or Biv Bodhrick) are rewarded for having blasters. Other characters (like Gideon Argus, Saska Teft, and Fenn Signis) can make do with melee weapons or blasters. Only one character, however, is rewarded for having weapons of different attack types and that character is Verena Talos.

Verena Talos: Managing Strain

The main questions we’ll be trying to answer today with regard to different builds is first, whether you want more than one weapon (or just get one really good weapon and focus on that), and whether you want to focus no your blaster damage or your melee damage. Ultimately, you want the ability to trigger Close Quarters regardless of which weapon you use to kill someone, but because of its high strain cost, the actual question at issue with Verena is this:

How do I manage my strain?

With the possible exception of Biv Bodhrick, the question of how to manage strain is perhaps the hardest to do with Verena: if you can recover enough strain (and if you have the right upgrades and plenty of low-Health bad guys around you), you can potentially perform a whopping eleven attacks in a single round (warning: this build requires at least 8 XP to pull off):

1.       Start of Activation: Verena is equipped with the Cybernetic Arm and has the Master Operative upgrade, giving her 7 Endurance (0/7 Strain);

2.       Action 1: Suffer 1 Strain to perform Combat Mastery, which allows her to perform two attacks (1/7 Strain);

a.       Melee attack: Verena recovers 1 strain during the attack. Assuming she kills her target, she suffers 2 Strain to perform Close Quarters - with Master Operative, she becomes Focused (2/7 Strain, Attack Count: 1).

                                                i.      Close Quarters Attack: Verena recovers 1 Strain while attacking. Assuming she kills her target, she suffers 2 Strain to perform Close Quarters again (3/7 Strain, Attack Count: 2).

1.       Close Quarters Attack: Verena recovers 1 Strain while attacking. Assuming she kills her target, she suffers 2 Strain to perform Close Quarters again (4/7 Strain, Attack Count: 3).

a.       Close Quarters Attack: Verena recovers 1 Strain while attacking. Assuming she kills her target, she suffers 2 Strain to perform Close Quarters again (5/7 Strain, Attack Count: 4).

                                                                                 i.      Close Quarters Attack: Verena recovers 1 Strain while attacking. Assuming she kills her target, she suffers 2 Strain to perform Close Quarters again (6/7 Strain, Attack Count: 5).

1.       Close Quarters Attack: Verena recovers 1 Strain while attacking. Assuming she kills her target, she suffers 2 Strain to perform Close Quarters again (7/7 Strain, Attack Count: 6).

a.    Close Quarters Attack: Verena recovers 1 Strain while attacking. (6/7 Strain, Attack Count: 7).

b.       Range attack: Verena recovers 1 strain during the attack. Assuming she kills her target, she suffers 2 Strain to perform Close Quarters again. (7/7 Strain, Attack Count: 8)

                                                i.      Close Quarters Attack: Verena recovers 1 Strain while attacking. (6/7 Strain, Attack Count: 9).

3.       Action 2: Verena performs an attack and recovers 1 strain while attacking. Assuming she kills her target, she suffers 2 Strain to perform Close Quarters one final time. (7/7 Strain, Attack Count: 10)

a.       Close Quarters Attack: Verena doesn’t have to recover Strain if she doesn’t want to (7/7 Strain, Attack Count: 11).

While I’ll admit this is basically impossible to do (in part because you need to have 11 people near each other that you can kill with whatever attack pool they have), it is possible – if you keep your Strain under control. While there is equipment you can take to supplement poor Strain recovery (the Bacta Pump, Emergency Injector, and the Supply Pack are great starts), the primary way you’re going to recover Strain is either by using an action to rest OR to recover 1 Strain during each attack. This is really hard to do. With this in mind, let’s think about how to recover Strain most effectively with the weapon pairings we’re examining below. . . .

End-Game Weapon #1 – Melee with Some Blaster On The Side: Military Blaster and Polearm with Extended Haft

At first blush, Verena’s skills focus heavily on using blasters. While a blaster is a perfectly sensible weapon, Verena doesn’t need to use them – she can focus on melee instead and use a blaster as a secondary weapon. In this build, we’ve chosen to keep Verena’s Military Blaster because it’s not bad – it’s like a DL-44 in many respects and can get a maximum of Damage 4 + Pierce 1 (which is as good as Gaarkhan’s Vibro-Ax or Biv’s Repeating Blaster).

The real focus of this build is on the Polearm: we’ve chosen to put the Extended Haft on it for a free Pierce 1, which supplements the fabulous Red-Red attack pool (and you have the potential to Cleave as well). The Red-Red can be unreliable, but generally speaking, it’s going to do 4-5 Damage (not including the auto Pierce 1) when you attack with it, which is enough to breach a normal Black die and go most of the way towards killing the target in a single blow. With Combat Mastery, Verena can attack with this weapon AND with the blaster, which should be able to finish off at least one figure, allowing you to trigger Close Quarters.

The other upgrades we’re taking complement this build: Combat Momentum is a great way to get free movement (and potentially the equivalent of a free move action). Create Opening allows you to strain once to apply -1 Block (basically like straining for Pierce 1), which further ensures that you do the damage you need to do in your attacks. Since we want to trigger Close Quarters, taking Student of Battle is an obvious choice (getting the Accuracy we need OR recovering damage). Finally, I’ve chosen Improvised Cover, not only because it boosts your defense (and so long as your healthy, you get a static +1 Evade from Duck and Weave too), but also because it does damage to other foes that are adjacent to you (which might kill them, triggering Close Quarters – which doesn’t have a stipulation that they need to die on your turn).

Upgrades to purchase - 11 XP: Combat Momentum (1), Create Opening (1), Student of Battle (2), Improvised Cover (3), Combat Mastery (4)

End-Game Weapon #2 – Just Shoot ‘Em: Disruptor Pistol with Plasma Cell

Let’s be honest: if we’re only taking one weapon, we’re TOTALLY taking a pistol. Verena has an amazing 3XP upgrade called Point Blank Shot, which allows you to swap a die from your attack pool for a Red die AND add an automatic Pierce 1 to your attack results IF you are attacking an adjacent figure. So what weapon could be better than the Disruptor Pistol?

When you’re looking at maximum damage output from pistols, three pistols stand out about the rest: the Hand Cannon (Tier 1), the 434 Deathhammer (Tier 2), and the Disruptor Pistol (Tier 3). Let’s view each of these in turn, with Point Blank Shot in mind:

·         The Hand Cannon already has a Red-Red attack pool, so it will benefit from the Pierce 1, but it won’t benefit from the Red-die-swap of Point Blank Shot;

·         The 434 Deathhammer starts with a Red-Blue attack pool, which would turn into a Red-Red attack pool. While this is generally a good thing, you don’t have the static accuracy that the Hand Cannon possesses, which means you need to get static accuracy from your mod slot (more on this in a bit).

·         The Disruptor Pistol begins with a Red-Green attack pool (which turns into a Red-Red) AND it has a static +2 Accuracy, which allows your mod slot to take something that improves your damage.

Thanks to the Plasma Cell working with Point Blank Shot, you get a static Pierce 2 to your attack results and you can use up to 2 surge (the maximum surge you’ll get on a Red-Red) to add Damage 4 to your attack total (making your maximum damage output a whopping Damage 8 + Pierce 2, while your expected damage output is closer to Damage 5 + Pierce 2 – which will still auto-kill just about any Regular deployment card in a single shot). It’s important to note that thanks to each of these weapons being in a different tier, you can actually cycle through all three of these weapons if you like – though the Hand Cannon doesn’t do too much more damage than you’re expected to see out of your Military Blaster.

To complement Point Blank Shot, we’re taking Master Operative (which not only boosts you to an impressive Endurance 6, but also allows you to be Focused once per activation when performing Close Quarters) and Student of Battle (which we’ve talked about already). We’ve also chosen to take K’tara Maneuver, which is a great way to get a little more movement on your turn, as well as line up a nice shot for your pistol. This build for Verena, however, requires you to rest a lot – you’re not going to be recovering Strain while attacking (you barely generate any Surge at all), so you’ll need to rest.

Upgrades to purchase - 11 XP: K’tara Maneuver (2), Student of Battle (2), Point Blank Shot (3), Master Operative (4)

End-Game Weapon #3 – Two Power Weapons: Gaffi Stick and 434 Deathhammer with Marksman Barrel

With our previous two builds, we’ve seen how you can do a lot of damage in melee or at range with Verena, but we haven’t seen a build that does both well. If you’re on a budget (I’m staying under 1200 credits for this build), you can’t do better than with the Gaffi Stick and the 434 Deathhammer. We’ve already talked about the Deathhammer, but let me just add this: the Deathhammer with the Marksman Barrel and Point Blank Shot does just barely less total damage than the Disruptor Pistol with the Plasma Cell (4.926 Damage past a Black die vs. 4.968 Damage past a Black die) – they’re basically the same weapon. The Accuracy you get is also just about the same (since you rarely get 2 Surge with the Deathhammer and both will get a static +2 Accuracy), so since the total cost of the Deathhammer is a bit less, buy this one!

For less than the price difference between the Deathhammer and the Disruptor Pistol, you can get the Gaffi Stick. On its own, it has a Red die and a free Pierce 1, so it’ll do good damage, and while the Yellow can generate an additional 1-2 Damage, you really have it for a different purpose: reliable strain recovery. While there are plenty of Tier 1 weapons that do more expected damage than the Gaffi Stick (the Armored Gauntlets aren’t bad), the Gaffi Stick doesn’t incentivize turning surge into damage (because it can’t). Instead, by choosing this weapon, we focus ourselves to do what we’re supposed to do with Verena:

We’re supposed to recover strain when we attack.

In a way, by taking the 434 Deathhammer with Marksman Barrel, we further incentivize this: you can only turn that beloved surge into a single point of Damage (instead of 3 with the Disruptor Pistol). By not surging for damage with the first surge, you fall from 4.926 Expected Damage to 4.690 Expected Damage (negligible), so you’re still doing plenty of damage while recovering 1 Strain (whenever it shows up).

Finally, we support this weapon build with Point Blank Shot and Combat Mastery (no duh – it’s why we took the weapons we did in the first place), as well as Master Operative (we’ll be triggering Close Quarters – we might as well get the most out of it AND increase our Endurance so we can do it a lot). Like we said with Jyn Odan, the key question is which of these upgrades to grab first: if you’re getting the Gaffi Stick early, Combat Mastery would be good. Point Blank Shot is expensive, but you want that by the time you get the Deathhammer if possible. Personally, I like this build the best not only because it allows Verena to recover strain pretty easily, but also because it uses three of her most expensive upgrades (and is the only build that can launch the eleven-attack-combo you saw at the start of this post.

Upgrades to purchase – 11 XP: Point Blank Shot (3), Combat Mastery (4), Master Operative (4)

Verena in the Skirmish Game

Verena Talos is a bit on the expensive side in the skirmish game, but she’s fantastic: double-digit health, a free Evade to support her Black die, three surge abilities that can do damage with a decent blaster attack pool, and the ability to borrow someone else’s attack type/pool if you like theirs better than yours. Perhaps what’s the best thing about her is the ability to synchronize with other characters. We’ve talked about how to use her with Leia (both of whom have the Spy attribute) in a past post, but you can also synergize with Wookies, Jedi, or Biv thanks to her Brawler attribute. Regardless of where you put her, she’ll do good damage so long as she’s adjacent to her targets.

In our next post, we’ll be continuing our discussion of “Slashers” by looking at the amazing Jedi operative, Davith Elso. While one could argue that he’s more offensive-focused than his Jedi counterpart Diala Passil (though Precise Strike with Force Adept is pretty irresistible), Davith is the only character who can guarantee the use of a lightsaber in any campaign. We’ll talk about his lightsaber (and whether it’s worth getting) next time. Until then, happy gaming!