Re-Reviewing the Mk2 Medium Blaster Trooper and Fire Support

Hey Reader!

So with the recent changes made to Star Wars Legion, one small tweak has changed a lot about how some units in the game work, and one of those we've reviewed before on this blog, and mentioned in almost every other article as a synergy piece: the Mark 2 Medium Blaster Trooper.

In previous posts, we've talked about how useful the Medium Blaster Trooper is for adding 4 black dice, Critical 2, and often an Aim token to an attack pool, and with the recent changes, this has gone away. Now, Fire Support just gives the unit a standby token, which is useful, but it's not the same by any stretch of the imagination. So let's talk a bit about how this changes the strategy that we laid out months ago for utilizing this unit to its full potential.

I.  The Medium Blaster Trooper: Suppression, Not Removal

Before the change, the Medium Blaster Trooper was specialized and can be difficult to use, but it had a specific niche it filled: adding extra firepower to an attack you really needed to work (and often an Aim token, which Rebels in general are hard-pressed to get). And all of the times we've mentioned that as a use for this weapon you can now scratch out, :P

Instead, it now fulfills a purely suppression role: since you have to use the Standby Token before your activation if you want to perform another attack, this is a piece you're using to provide an element of board control because if your opponent wants to activate near him, they're giving him free attacks. And with the change to cover, there's a better chance that you can sneak in hits, which means suppression tokens are going to come out, even if no wounds are done.

The issue, of course, with it being a suppression tool, is that 1) you can add suppression tokens to people with almost any unit, so there's nothing unique in taking this unit, and 2) it doesn't have the Suppressive keyword (like the Laser Cannon Team), so it's not like it does suppression better than another Rebel unit (except inasmuch as you can pull off using a Standby Token early in the round and an Attack action on your turn, as that is 2 suppression tokens over the course of the round, potentially).

Which leads us to assess how important it is in your order of battle and unit selection.

II.  Less Important, Still Useful

To be honest, the Medium Blaster Trooper probably drops in the rankings from where it was, which is not great, considering it hasn't been rated very highly by most people (and I think I might have been the most charitable/generous person on the internet for this unit, haha). The only thing really going for it now is that it's a cheap activation, but to be honest that matters a lot less in Star Wars Legion than it does in, say, Bolt Action, for example. 

There is still utility; it's good for closing off potential lanes of advance, and since you don't need to worry about being able to target someone in your forward arc that is also in range of another unit it is slightly easier to maximize the use of the Medium Blaster Trooper, so that's not bad. But once again, that's something you can do with almost any unit (heck, Han can do it, and he only rolls 2 dice), and all of your other choices don't involve the Cumbersome keyword (you can move or attack on a given turn, but not both). 

So how would I rank this unit? It's effective for the cost (c. 43pts is not bad at all), but not as effective as it used to be, and I think it's a solid "C" unit. It doesn't count toward your maximum Corps (while still counting toward your required Corps), so that's a nice boon, but it's definitely a step down from where it was, at least in my mind.

Conclusion

There's a lot to unpack from the changes that came down the line, so watch this space for more as we unpack what the new changes mean for the game! Until next time, you know where to find me,

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"I know that you have learned the names of the planets and their moons in Astronomy...and that you have mapped the stars' progress through the heavens.  Centaurs have unraveled the mysteries of these movements over centuries.  Our findings teach us that the future may be glimpsed in the sky above us." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix