IP Class Deck Review: Overwhelming Suppression

Good morning gamers,

We’ve come to it at last – the last Imperial Class Deck to be released for the game (and the last one we need to do a walk-through of): Overwhelming Suppression. This deck has Admiral Thrawn written all over it, but it takes a very different approach with its upgrades than other command decks. Instead of leaning hard into one mechanic (or possibly two), this deck feels very much like it wants to be several existing class decks, but not go quite as hard into what they do – giving it more flexibility and a greater set of options than normal. In particular, I feel like this deck does the best things that you find in the Nemesis deck (which I love) and the Power of the Dark Side deck (which I don’t like very much) and melds them into what might be . . . the best Imperial class deck ever. Let’s see what’s in it . . . 

Overwhelming Suppression: Nemesis-Light, Power-of-the-Dark-Side-Light 

Your default upgrade (Commence Landing) makes you do something that’s unique to this class deck; you play with your hand of deployment cards face-up. Normally, the Imperial Player (IP) gets to keep their units a secret from the Rebel players, but not in this deck. In trade, the IP can place 1 Damage Power Token (DPT) and one Block Power Token (BPT) on cards in their hand. When you buy these units, they deploy with these tokens (distributed amongst the figures in the group – remember, there’s a limit of 2 tokens/figure!). This can make some of your units just a bit punchier (or hardier) out of the gate! 

In my opinion, you should always take Personal Flagship (1XP) to get a Villain of your choice – the villains add a lot of flavor to the game and since you can change out which villain you have each game, you can tailor your deck to how you’re feeling each game (which is awesome). This villain gets added as an extra open group to your hand and when you activate them, a friendly figure near the villain gets either a DPT or a BPT (which means the guys escorting your villain will be able to last longer or provide added muscle). Honestly, take this upgrade, always! 

Five of the other upgrades play on the power token placement thing: Redouble Our Efforts (1XP) allows you to place 1 DPT or 1 BPT on a card in your hand and can be exhausted when one of your figures with power tokens dies and can distribute them to nearby units (which keeps your investment going longer). Tactical Mastery (3XP) allows you to place a Surge Power Token (SPT) on a card in your hand each round and can be exhausted to allow a unit to borrow 1 surge ability from a nearby Imperial figure if they use an SPT in their attack (wanna borrow Pierce 3 from Darth Vader?). 

Implacable (2XP) is a defensive upgrade that allows you to place an Evade Power Token (EPT) on a card in your hand and you can exhaust it to allow one of your units to use a BPT or EPT from a friendly figure within 3 spaces (preventing your opponent from picking on a “more vulnerable unit”). Indomitable Force (4XP) is the final token-placing upgrade – you get to place a power token of your choice on a card in your hand at the start of each round and can exhaust the card during a friendly activation to move up to 2 of your power tokens from your hand and give them to units that are deployed . . . this is probably the weakest of them, but if you need a specific power token right now, this is the way to do it. 

Limitless Arsenal (4XP) plays well with Commence Landing, Redouble Our Efforts, and Tactical Mastery: you can exhaust the upgrade to replace the attack pool of one of your models with the attack pool of a card in your hand with at least 1 DPT or 1 SPT on it . . . so if you take an E-Web in your hand and start the game by placing a DPT on it and NEVER deploy it, you can have one unit each round attack with a Red-Yellow-Blue instead of what they’d get normally . . . or you could get a Green-Green-Yellow with Elite Sentry Droids . . . you get the idea. 

The other two upgrades don’t do the power token thing – they just do damage. TIE Landers (2XP) allows you to pick up to 3 Rebel figures within 5 spaces of a newly-deployed figure to suffer 1 damage each (or 2 damage if they have multiple activation tokens, which 1-2 heroes will if you’re playing with 2 or 3 heroes instead of the standard 4 heroes). Nothing earth-shattering, but it’s extra damage each round, right? TIE Fighter Patrol (3XP) works similarly: you exhaust the upgrade to pick any Hero on the board who tests Insight: if they succeed, they suffer 1 Strain, but if they fail, they suffer 3 damage. Neither of these are going to be game-altering necessarily, but extra damage when you’ve got power tokens is nice (and the TIE Fighter Patrol) can target anyone, so hiding from the Imperial figures isn’t enough. Okay, we’ve got options in this deck – let’s take a look at some sample decks we could build . . . 

End-Game Build #1 – Power Token Spam: Commence Landing, Personal Flagship, Redouble Our Efforts, Implacable, Tactical Mastery, Indomitable Force 

With 11XP, you’re unlikely to be able to buy all of these upgrades, but they’re all the upgrades that give you a free villain or free power tokens. I think Personal Flagship and Tactical Mastery are the most valuable and Indomitable Force is the least value, but you might want to wait to buy Implacable until you know how much XP you’re going to have for the finale. If you stick to Commence Landing, Personal Flagship, and Tactical Mastery (4XP) for the first XP you get, you’ll have lots of options for piling on the damage in the early missions (especially if you have a cheap villain with good surge abilities). 

Best IP Units: 

• Stormtroopers (Core) – These guys benefit a lot from power tokens of all kinds, and if you’re going to run a deck that hands these things out, a 3-man squad (that can hold up to 6 power tokens) can be brutal if they’re newly deployed with 4 tokens to spread out across the team. If you have Redouble Our Efforts to reclaim those power tokens when one of them dies (or Implacable so they and nearby figures can do defensive token sharing), you’re in good shape for these guys to stay alive. While you can keep 1 model safe so you can respawn units in the group, this deck actually WANTS units to die so they can come back with tokens. It’s a thing. 
• Heavy Stormtroopers (Twin Shadows) – Blue-Red die pools don’t surge, but extra damage from a DPT or surge from an SPT are exactly what Heavy Stromtroopers want! If they become tougher on defense as well, that’ll be just fine with them. Also, you can use Indomitable Force to send these guys tokens from your hand for continuous extra damage . . . that’s pretty sweet. 
• Death Troopers (Tyrants of Lothal) – Any number of these guys can be taken in one Open Group, which increases the number of actual cards you can have in your hand. Loading these guys up on the first few turns with tokens and then dropping them fully loaded onto the board can be devastating. The Elite Death Troopers can also hand out any power token you want during their activation, which is a great way to get extra surge tokens for surge-sharing. 
• Admiral Thrawn (Tyrants of Lothal) – Thrawn hands out power tokens of your choice based on how many exhausted Rebel activation tokens are currently present, so if you activate him fourth, you can replenish any power tokens you’ve spent OR give units a power token they wanted but couldn’t get in your command hand. For 6 points, he’s very cheap and synergizes really well with this deck (which should come as no surprise). 
• Maul (Heart of the Empire) – We have Tactical Mastery in this deck, and the cheapest Pierce 3 unit we can get is Maul. He also happens to be fast and until he activates, he can’t be removed from the board (so if you want to be selective with when you use Tactical Mastery, you’ll be alright). He also packs in a LOT of damage and can give himself DPTs. He benefits greatly from the defensive tokens in this deck (and the ability to borrow tokens from nearby figures if possible).  

End-Game Build #2 – Straight-Up Damage: Commence Landing, Personal Flagship, Redouble Our Efforts, TIE Landers, TIE Fighter Patrol, Limitless Arsenal 

Our second build is also an 11XP build, but this time, you’ll want to delay on whichever TIE upgrade you like less. Personal Flagship and Limitless Arsenal are the go-tos here and can be yours after one mission of a short campaign (win or lose). One of the things we’ll want to consider when building a command hand is that we need to balance open groups that we intend to deploy and open groups that we intend to leave in our hand to provide us with dice pools (per Limitless Arsenal). Since we get bonus damage from deploying a unit with the TIE Landers upgrade, we want to be able to generate enough Threat that we’re able to deploy someone each turn . . . something else to think about. 

Best IP Units: 

• General Weiss (Core) – Okay, so here’s a quirky thing you can do with this build: start by placing a DPT on General Weiss’s card (who you take as your villain), then use Limitless Arsenal each round to swap out whatever die pool you’re rolling with any random pleb and swap it out for Weiss’s die pool (three dice, any color you want, max of two dice of any color) . . . yeah, that’ll work out great. You won’t benefit from the token distribution section of the Personal Flagship upgrade, but someone who attacks will have the dice pool they’ve always wanted. 
• Jet Troopers (Jabba’s Realm) – Jets are like Stromtroopers, but they need DPTs MORE because they can’t reroll their dice. The Elite versions can also get an extra blue die on offense and ALL Jets can get Evade results by trading block (which means a BPT can be used to get an Evade, if needed). These guys are tough and very fun to run.  
• Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter (Heart of the Empire) – Do you want to be able to give anyone a Red-Yellow-Green attack pool (with the option of eventually deploying said unit to attack the enemy)? Well, an Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter might be your thing! 
• Agent Blaise (Bespin Gambit) – If you’re looking for a good, cheap villain, Agent Blaise is a pretty good option (especially early in the campaign). For only 6 points, he can help you resolve an optional deployment to get more units down (with power tokens!) and can shoot first to try to get 1 Threat for you to use. With a Green-Yellow-Yellow attack pool, he’s likely to get a lot of surge and can benefit greatly from the surge abilities of others (especially those that can surge for 2 Damage, which he can’t do innately). 
• Hondo Ohnaka (Tyrants of Lothal) – If you don’t want to take Agent Blaise for Threat generation, take a look at Hondo. For 6 points (again), you can get 2 Threat from each crate he moves through as well as 2 Threat each time he attacks (or 2 damage, if the targeted Rebel player would prefer). With all the other random damage you’re doing to people with the TIEs in this list, having a pesky Hondo-fly in the mix can be a great way to win some extra cash. If you want to run both of these guys, you want to look into the Nemeses deck. 

End-Game Build #3 – Bare Bones Power: Commence Landing, Personal Flagship, Redouble Our Efforts, Limitless Arsenal 

While the previous two builds might not be fully realized in a game, this build is easily completed in any campaign. We’ve stripped this build down to its barest level, focusing on the free DPT that we get from Commence Landing to trigger Limitless Arsenal at the start of the game. We’re also getting a villain from Personal Flagship and the ability to get the two most essential power tokens in the game (DPTs and BPTs) with Redouble our Efforts. With only 6XP, you can then pick whatever upgrades you want – though keep in mind how close you are to the finale to make sure you don’t waste XP! 

Best IP Units: 

• Elite Sentry Droids (Heart of the Empire) – Pick someone each round to get a Green-Green-Yellow attack pool and enjoy yourself. Seriously, that’s it. 
• Elite Loth-cats (Tyrants of Lothal) – These guys can give themselves whatever power token they want each turn and can use Pounce to do a special move and attack. Their normal attack pool isn’t great (Blue-Green in melee), but with an auto Pierce 1 and the option to surge for 2 damage, changing their attack pool to something more melee-oriented would be excellent. 
• Riot Troopers (Heart of the Empire) – These guys can already get a BPT after their activation, but if you can START them with either a DPT or a SPT, they can become even more lethal on offense! Changing out their offensive attack for something better would be awesome too, but if you can’t swing that, that’s fine. These guys are tough to bring down early in the campaign – and jump for the slightly higher cost of the Elites if you can manage it! 
• Vinto Hreeda (Jabba’s Realm) – A 5-point guy who can shoot twice and deal 1 chip damage after each shot he makes is pretty good. He has TONS of surge abilities and lacks a way to get surge efficiently, so being able to borrow a better dice pool would be EXCELLENT for him. And hey, if he gets to use that dice pool to charge up his second shot (which will have to use his normal dice pool), even better! 
• Greedo (Greedo Villain Pack) – Greedo is a VERY cheap villain (4 points) and rolls a very reliable Green-Green with a static Accuracy 1, Damage 1. Yes, he will force other units to attack him before he gets to go, but if you kit him out with defensive boosts (especially BPTs, since he has a white die), his return shot can be incredibly strong. While he could swap out his attack pool with something else, the main reason you want him is so you can cheaply generate a free DPT or BPT on a friendly unit nearby when he activates (courtesy of Personal Flagship). Who exactly would be ON Greedo’s personal flagship is anyone’s guess, but that’s a technicality. :) 

That’s it for the Imperial Class decks. Over the next month, we’re going to be reviewing the two Rebel Heroes who were released in the Tyrants of Lothal expansion and seeing what you can do with them in both the Campaign and Skirmish games. Until next time, happy gaming!