Well, we took last Monday off because . . . life. Today, we move from the Imperial Class decks provided in the Core Set to
those provided in the Expansion sets. I’ve decided to start off
with the Class deck provided in the Twin
Shadows expansion: Inspiring Leadership.
Inspiring Leadership:
Kings and Pawns
The Core Set provides an handful
of Leader figures – Darth Vader, General Weiss, and Imperial Officers. The irony, of
course, is that Twin Shadows only
has one Leader to choose from (Kayn
Somos), so it would probably be better thematically in the Core Set.
Regardless of why it appears in Twin
Shadows, Inspiring Leadership
allows your Leaders to do more for your team than they normally do (the
quintessential examples are Field Officer, Field General, and Lead By Example) – though these
boosts tend to be available to select non-Leader groups too. Some of the
upgrades, however, make your regular units more dangerous (like Optimal Tactics) or more resilient
(like Press On). In the end, your focus
will either be to make either your Leaders or your “other units” better.
Without further ado, let’s dig into it.
End-Game Build #1 –
Maximum Free Actions: Field Officer, Strategic Planning, Field General, Lead By Example
One of the things that Inspiring Leadership does very well is
grant free actions. With Field Officer
as a starting upgrade, you can transfer an action from a
Leader/Guardian/Trooper to enable a friendly figure to perform a move. With its
bigger cousin Field General, you can
give some of your regular Trooper/Guardian units (Stormtrooper,
Snowtrooper, Bespin Wing Guard, Gamorrean Guard) the ability to
give additional movement/attacking actions to a better unit. While this doesn’t
innately count as a free action, you can make it a fully free action by taking Lead By Example.
To best use these three upgrades,
I recommend that you place any units that plan on using this upgrade (let’s say
that two Stormtrooper squads have been given Field
Officer and Field General and
that there is an Imperial Officer on
the table as well) in a daisy chain, with one of the figures standing near a
deployment point (either where a reserved unit to arrive or one of your
standard deployment points that’s not near the enemy). You are then able to
give the newly-arrived unit a great amount of movement WITHOUT SPENDING A MOVE
ACTION! Each of these guys will be able to also perform a move (though note
that with Field General you could
also allow the guy to attack – and you can then follow up and attack as well),
which allows you to keep pace OR keep running away if you’re trying to preserve
the last member of an expensive squad.
The only other upgrade we’ve
chosen is Strategic Planning, which
is a great way to ensure that your good, average-cost units get maximum time in
the sun. Let’s say that you have a Regular Stormtrooper unit (either by your own choice OR because the mission gave them
to you) and the unit is down to a single figure. This isn’t going to be much
help to you, as a single Stormtrooper
isn’t going to do a lot of damage. Instead, he can use his activation to ready
another unit – let’s say a Riot Trooper squad that has already
been activated.
Best IP Units:
·
Stormtrooper (Core) – When you have
three options for where to use your Field
Officer or Field General skill,
life is good. You can be flexible across the battlefield AND you can keep your
units split up to ensure the card doesn’t get removed (which is often costly to
replace). Stormtroopers also don’t
tend to be too dangerous in later missions, so using them to get more expensive
and powerful units into position is amazing. I will note that you can put
multiple attachments on the same unit, so a single Stormtrooper unit COULD take both Field Officer AND Field
General – opening up tons of options for back-to-back moving and attack
with another figure (effectively giving a free activation to someone you like).
·
E-Web Engineer (Core) – While you
can give Field General to these
guys, I recommend these guys for a more flexible purpose. As we’ve said in a previous post, E-Webs play defense
and in that vein, if you have an E-Web already in position (e.g. you don’t want
to move him) AND you can’t shoot at someone, you want to be able to give his
turn to someone else. Enter Strategic
Planning. Once your opponent comes within range, you want to be able to give
him extra attacks via Field General
to maximize on all that firepower. Protecting this guy will be the primary goal
of any commander, however, as the relatively low health of these guys makes it
hard for them to stay on table very long.
·
Snowtrooper (Return to Hoth) – Though
slightly more expensive than Stormtroopers,
these guys are more resilient and can heal Troopers around them. While not a
stellar candidate for Field General
(as their attack is aweful), these guys make great Field Officers (being able to move along with an ally AND healing
in the same turn is extraordinary).
·
Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) –
Let me begin by saying that I don’t recommend these guys hold either the Field General or the Field Officer upgrades (though they can
definitely benefit from both). Instead, I provide them here because they’re
cheap and can be readied by pretty much any unit that you could might choose to
exhaust for Strategic Planning. Additionally,
their defense abilities also make them excellent units to exhaust with Strategic Planning to ready someone
else (as they’ll probably survive whatever pounding they get – especially if
backed up by Snowtroopers).
·
Elite Imperial Officer (Core) – So
what good is taking someone who already has the equivalent of Field General? TONS! According to the
FAQ, the Field General upgrade and
the existing Executive Order ability
are different unique abilities, so you can spend both of your actions moving
people or telling people to shoot! If an Elite
Imperial Officer is given Field
General, not only can he call in a friendly unit to shoot twice during his
turn (“Take two E-Web shots in the face, you Rebel Scum!”), but he is then
allowed to take two shots of his own – focusing himself (hopefully) with the
first shot, and then stunning the target with his second shot. Ouch!
End-Game Build #2 –
Defensive Build: Field Officer, Supervisory Agent, Press On, Noble Sacrifice, Field General, Imperial Dedication
While gaining extra actions is
incredible, Inspiring Leadership has
several defensive tricks as well. At the forefront of these abilities is Imperial Dedication, which allows you
to choose a friendly, adjacent figure who could have been the target and make
him the target instead. If you direct damage towards a Leader or Guardian, you
can trigger Noble Sacrifice if they
die – perfect for during a “defeat” to a really powerful offensive round. To go
along with these two upgrades, we’ve chosen to take the dual-pairing of Field Officer/Field General that we’ve seen already, as well as the Supervisory Agent and Press On upgrades, which allow you to
get a free regular Imperial Officer
(useful) and heal 1 damage at the end of each round on a regular Imperial deployment
card – perfect for staying alive just a little bit longer.
Best IP Units:
·
Imperial Officer (Core) – We’ve
already talked about the utility of giving Field
Officer or Field General to one
of these guys, but the pairing of Supervisory
Agent and Noble Sacrifice is
amazing. By taking a Regular Imperial
Officer as one of your open groups, you can play him (once per mission)
without paying his cost and then when he does, he can Focus up to 5 figures who
can see him. This is a great way to grant Focus to Massive units as well as any
Guardian units who are nearby. With Imperial
Dedication, Rebel Heroes who try to avoid the rerollable White die of these
officers won’t be able to attack other units, getting use out of Noble Sacrifice faster (and the cost of
redeploying these guys is minimal).
·
Royal Guard (Core) – While Imperial Officers make great targets
for Imperial Dedication, the best
units to utilize Imperial Dedication
for the purpose of deflecting damage towards someone else is a Royal Guard. Since a Royal Guard doesn’t benefit from the
free Block he provides to non-Guardian, adjacent, friendly figures, you want
the person standing next to you to be the target of the attack. Since Royal Guards have the Guardian keyword,
they can take both Field Officer and
Field General, which makes them very
flexible support units (and when one of them dies, they can trigger Noble Sacrifice).
·
Bespin Wing Guard (Bespin Gambit) –
Bespin Wing Guard also get good
mileage out of Imperial Dedication,
as they can force the attack to target an adjacent, friendly figure, which
triggers the Wing Guard’s Keep The Peace
ability. Wing Guard also have the advantage of having three figures in the
squad, which means you can provide the potential for Imperial Dedication across the board, remaining flexible to use it
wherever you need.
·
Stormtrooper (Core) – Most of the
upgrades we’ve chosen won’t apply to these guys, but in order to use most of
the other units effectively, you need someone who isn’t a Guardian (Bespin Wing Guard and Royal Guards require non-Guardian units
to be the target of an attack). Stormtroopers
are not very healthy, but they have a decent defense and you get a lot of them,
which allows you to redeploy them easily (so long as you can keep one of them
alive). We’ve already talked about how they make great carriers for the Field Officer and Field General abilities, which will be helpful if they’re adjacent
to a Bespin Wing Guard or Royal Guard.
·
Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) –
While the other Guardians we’ve talked about before are good at deflecting
damage away from themselves towards other figures, Riot Troopers are the Guardians you want to absorb damage. This
uses the same strategy we talked about with Imperial Officers above, using Imperial Dedication to force attacks
against the high-defense Riot Troopers
and just-so-happening to Focus a bunch of people when one of them dies. When a Riot Troopers becomes Focused, he rolls
a Red-Green-Blue (with the ability to turn just about every Surge into damage).
End-Game Build #3 –
Heavy Fire: Field Officer, Supervisory Agent, Noble Sacrifice, Strategic Planning, Optimal Tactics
Let’s be honest: with any Imperial
Class deck, we want to be able to blow stuff up. Inspiring Leadership certainly has some neat tricks it can play,
but thankfully it also has options for straight-up offense. The core of this
strategy is centered around Optimal
Tactics, which gives a static Damage 1 bonus to any Imperial attacks where the
attacker is within 3 spaces of a friendly Leader AND a free reroll of one die
in the attack pool as well. To make sure we get lots of Leaders on the board
(though you may only need 1-2 depending on the scenario), we’ve decided to take
Supervisory Agent, which once again
allows us to get a free Imperial Officer
on the board (he just takes up one of our open groups). If you’re looking for
best offensive firepower, it’s hard to argue with Noble Sacrifice (up to 5 Focuses is awesome) and Strategic Planning (take a unit who
isn’t doing much and ready a unit that’s going to do more that’s already gone
this round).
If you’re getting a free reroll
out of the bargain, you want to focus on getting Red-die units – that Damage 1
face is awful, so you want to get a different result as often as you can. This
can make Red-die figures much more powerful, though don’t underestimate the
power of reroll Green die as well (if you can surge for Damage 2).
Best IP Units:
·
Imperial Officer (Core) – Obviously,
whenever you take Supervisory Agent,
you want to take an Imperial Officer.
For this build in particular, we need Leaders on the board – and who better to
pick than cowering Imperial Officers?
·
Elite Jawa Scavenger (Jawa
Scavenger Villain Pack) – At only 1 point more expensive than an Imperial
Officer, an Elite Jawa Scavenger is
an excellent bargain: he’s got a static Block 1 (if he applies a -1 Evade
penalty), makes friendly Droids more reliable/useful, and has a 50% chance of
increasing your Threat by 1 each time he shoots. All told, he’s an annoying
little chap and an excellent bargain.
·
Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter (Heart
of the Empire) – Clawdites are cheap (Regulars cost 4, Elites cost 6) and they
have great attack pools. If you’re looking to do damage, you get some great
benefits out of the static Damage 1 and rerollable Red die (or your choice of
the Green/Blue if you’re in Scout form). What’s more, since
Elite Clawdites cost 6 points, you can tap them to ready one of your other 2-6
cost units with Strategic Planning.
·
Gamorrean Guard (Jabba’s Realm) – Coming
in a 6 points, Gamorrean Guards pack in a lot of punch – Red-Red attack pool
with Reach is awesome. What is remarkably less awesome is the -1 Damage penalty
they suffer from and the ability to reroll an attack die at the loss of 1
Strain (which is killer in the Campaign, since you need to take it as damage).
Enter Optimal Tactics: the -1 Damage
penalty is mitigated nicely by the static Damage 1, giving Gamorreans the full
weight and power of their Red-Red combo. Want that reroll? You got it with the Optimal Tactics upgrade and without
damaging yourself. Since they’re 6 points, you can ready them with Strategic Planning by exhausting a unit
you don’t want to use (a lone Stormtrooper
who’s just trying to stay alive, perhaps).
·
Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) –
Yeah, these guy show up a lot – they do a lot of damage, they’re really painful
to fight, they’re hard to kill, AND they can really benefit from that reroll.
With the ability to reroll either the Red or the Blue, they reliably do 4
Damage each time they attack (which can crack a Black easily). Not much else to
say about these guys.
In our next post, we’ll be moving on from Twin Shadows to
talk about one of my favorite decks: Nemeses. While we’ve caged all of
our discussions heretofore to non-Villain units that work well in each deck,
we’ll be including some big, bad, ugly villain units in the next post. Until
next time, happy gaming!
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