Good morning gamers,
Last time, we talked about the Spectre Cell skirmish upgrade, and today, we're turning to one of my favorite upgrades (and one that was released with the Zeb and Sabine pack): Extra Armor. There's nothing fancy about this upgrade, but if it's added to the right team, it can be a GAME CHANGER. Let's see what it does and what kinds of models we want to use it with.
Extra Armor
For 1 point, you can distribute 4 Block Power Tokens (BPTs) at the start of the game. That's it. Yep, a start-of-game, one-time dump of defensive buffs. This may not seem like much, but there are a lot of ways that it can be helpful - the first of which is that it can make fragile-but-powerful units (glass cannons, as it were) just a bit more resilient. I talked about how BPTs are good on Ezra and Sabine last time (two characters who take most of the damage they receive, unless they can get a dodge on their white defense die), but any white die character who has a good combat profile is a good candidate. Even single black die models that have limited health and good combat stats can benefit from this.
Second, units that aren't able to generate power tokens love this upgrade. Since you can only have two power tokens at a time, models that generate their own power tokens aren't going to benefit from this upgrade as much, but any models that were released before Heart of the Empire are certainly good candidates (and even some who came afterwards benefit). The least useful units to benefit from this are certainly Riot Troopers, since they generate a BPT at the end of their turn if they don't have one already . . . and if they start with them, they're skipping out on a free BPT.
Third, units that have absolutely no defense dice LOVE having something they can throw in their defense. There aren't many units with no defense dice, but they do exist and they can even be pricey. Most of them also have good damage, so they're more of a glass cannon anyway than your usual glass cannon models.
This is simple enough, right? Okay, let's look at my top picks for this upgrade . . .
I've been running a list against my son in four-player team games where I have General Weiss, an AT-ST, and an AT-DP . . . and that's conveniently 39 points, so for my last point, I throw in Extra Armor and give each of the STs 1 BPT and 2 BPTs to the AT-DP. It's very rare that more than one walker goes down, but the easiest one to kill is by far and away the AT-DP - with only 1 black die and 1 free block, it's nice to be able to throw an extra block on two different turns to mitigate the damage.
The damage mitigation is also great because while the AT-DP has more than half of its wounds, it gets +1 damage on offense and a free reroll on its attack dice. On a unit that has Assault (so it can park and shoot twice in a turn), that's REALLY handy!
When I'm not running the AT-ST, I tend to run some Jet Troopers (and sometimes Sentry Droids) in the list as well - and since those guys can turn any block result into an evade, having 1 BPT on each of your Jet Troopers is a great way to make sure that you get the evades that you want when you need them (or just suffer less damage, since the health on the regular Jets isn't great). As cheap terminal guards, these guys are great to have - and they can use a BPT better than most.
Pick #4: Elite Gamorrean Guards (and Royal Guards/Heavy Stormtroopers)
Well, these guys might be an unexpected pick! In my experience, these are some of the toughest units to kill in Imperial and Mercenary lists - if you have the choice of tearing into a Gamorrean Guard or a Tusken/Trando, you usually go for the Tusken/Trando because their damage is going to be about the same as the Gamorreans, but it's easier to clear them (especially with guns). When you do dedicate the resources to killing Gamorreans, you really don't want them getting any more block than possible . . . and having 2 BPTs on each of your Elite Gamorreans is SO nasty . . .
Royal Guards can lend block results to most adjacent friendly models, which means that killing off the units around them is usually harder than killing the RG itself - so giving these guys 2 BPTs each is really good for keeping them alive (and those around them while they're standing there). You can get a similar effect of frustration out of Heavy Stormtroopers if they can avoid being shot at from up close, since they get +1 block result when being shot at from 4+ spaces away (which means you're getting 1-2 free block when you have at least one BPT in your pocket).
Pick #3: Tusken Raiders (especially Elite Tusken Raiders)
Tuskens are some of the best offense-for-cost units in the game - especially the Elites that can roll a Red/Blue or Red/Green with +1 damage. With only 7 wounds each and a single black die, they can die frighteningly fast if the enemy focuses on them. While a single BPT won't save them for long, it's still useful.
There are certainly other glass cannon units in the Mercenary faction that can benefit from this (Trandos for sure, others that we'll cover later count as well), but having the option for getting +4 BPTs to spread across your vulnerable units is really nice when your units focus heavily on offense and basically ignore defense.
Pick #2: Ezra Bridger (and Ahsoka Tano)
I recommended this last time when running Spectre Cell, but Jedi in general welcome an extra block here and there. Ezra gets a free block automatically, so having potentially 2 block results on your defense is awesome (and as I mentioned last time, having Spectre Cell to hand out a BPT and a damage power token as well is super sweet).
But another great option is Ahsoka, whose command card "Right Back At Ya!" allows you to do 3 damage back to an opponent if you spent a BPT - and yes, she can generate those herself, but if you can START with 1-2 BPTs, you can have her ready to use her card whenever you get it (and avoid taking damage past that white die).
As great as all the models we've looked at so far are, the winners were always going to be . . .
Pick #1: Bantha Riders (and Onar Koma)
These are some of the few models in the game who roll no defense dice. They make up for this, of course, by having an INSANE amount of health, but if you have one or both of these guys in your list, being able to drop a BPT in the first two attacks against them, you can extend your life just that little bit longer than can help you do more damage. Banthas (especially if they have a Beast Tamer) are awesome and can deal damage with their movement (free with Beast Tamer), Trample to deal a red die worth of damage to up to 3 adjacent models, and then they can shoot someone with a Red/Blue and surge for Pierce 2 . . . keeping these guys alive is a HUGE boon.
Onar doesn't do as much damage, but with a Red/Green/Blue, his offense is going to be bigger than what you get from the Bantha's shooting attack - and with the ability to turn his accuracy into damage with the first two surges that he gets, he can deal a TON of damage (maxes out at 8 damage). Onar can also give himself a free block or evade once per round (since his Get Down rule doesn't require "another model"), so he can stand up to the punishment a little better than a Bantha can.
Conclusion
I love the flexibility of this skirmish upgrade - it's nice that it's only 1 point, is faction agnostic, and doesn't require any thoughts from you after the game starts. If you don't have the Zeb and Sabine pack, you should get it - it's great for your collection in a number of ways. This post closes out my articles on Imperial Assault for the year - tune in next time as we turn our attention fully to articles about Star Wars Legion. Until then, happy hobbying!
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