Good morning gamers,
I played a lot with the Republic at the beginning of 2024 and then moved to Rebels as the summer hit. With Legion 2.6 changing a lot of things, I went back to the Republic for a while, got into a good swing with them, then moved back to Rebels. Their play style . . . is very, very different from the Republic.
One of the advantages of starting my plunge into the world of Star Wars Legion is that every unit in the Republic is not only elite (especially since the Phase I Clone Trooper profile got merged with the Phase II Clone Trooper profile to get the Courage/Reliable boost from the latter profile at roughly the same price as the former profile), but their costs are also heavily optimized for value. Whether it's Clone Trooper Infantry, ARC Troopers (both full squads and Strike Teams), Clone Commandos, and Anakin (my son's preferred cup of tea)/Obi-Wan (my preferred cup of tea), it's not hard to find a "good" unit in the Republic - and you can build your list around any number of the aforementioned choices and you'll do just fine.
Rebels . . . don't have that simple of a calculus. In fact, part of the reason why Republic list building is so easy is because you can pretty much pick one unit in each unit type (Corps, Special Forces, Support - and to a lesser extend, Commander) and if you just run those, you're going to get a very optimized list. Until ARF Troopers and Clone Marksmen are released later this year (ARFs are on pre-order right now), the Republic really only has one Corps option and one Special Forces option (with a Strike Team variant) that can "do the Clone thing", so list building is easy. Rebels have TONS of choices and to activate some of them, you might have to tailor your list in other unit types to really get the benefit of the juice.
Today's post kicks off a six-part series on Rebel list building where we'll be wielding the "math hammer" to understand what units - and upgrade suites - are the "best" option for Rebel players. Because you have to take at least 3 Rebel Corps options in your list, we'll begin with Corps and then move on to the other unit types (Commander, Support, Special Forces, Heavy, and Operative - probably in this order).
Taxonomy Overview: What Is "Optimal" for Legion 2.6?
Because the objective conditions (both primary and secondary) are so heavily skewed towards having more activations than your opponent in pre-defined (and often stationary) parts of the board, Legion 2.6 is about both taking enemy units off the board (whole units - not just rendering a unit inert by killing off most of its models) and keeping your own units on the board. This means there are two measures of effectiveness (MOEs) that we can use to determine if a unit is "good": average expected damage (AED) and average expected health (AEH).
Average Expected Damage (AED) is computed by finding the average number of hits and crits that a unit is supposed to get and then adjusting it for its cost. The greatest dilemma for finding this number in the real world is that it is affected by a LOT of variables - here's a few:
- There is a subtle but mostly irrelevant distinction between a Hit result and a Crit result - Crits really only matter if the enemy unit has the Armor X keyword, has dodge tokens, and to a small degree, has light/heavy cover (often if they also have Low Profile);
- The Pierce X keyword doesn't increase the damage that you do, but it DOES make the damage that you get more likely to actually take effect;
- The number of hits/crits that you get is all fine and good, but the quality of the target unit's save (and defensive keywords, dodge tokens, and visible models) can have a huge impact on how much damage you can actually do;
- The number of wounds previously suffered might reduce the expected damage of the unit (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has 1 wound) or it might have a slight impact once a certain amount of damage is done (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has multiple wounds), or might have no impact at all (in the case of single-model units); and
- The distance to the enemy target may affect whether or not a unit can aim before shooting - and the value of an aim token is highly dependent on which dice in your dice pool hit or missed in the first volley).
For the sake of a more simplistic model, I've made the following assumptions:
- Units will be evaluated at full strength, without respect to the degradation of their damage over time;
- The average expected damage of a unit will be a straight average of their expected damage at ranges 1-4 (even if the unit cannot do damage at range 4), with their melee damage taking the place of their range 1 damage if it provides an improvement;
- The score for the unit as a whole will be the best score of the various upgrade loadouts of the unit (the scores of the various loadouts will be provided for a visual)
- Units are assumed to not take aim actions before they shoot unless that unit has a unique way to gain an aim token without spending an action; and
- The score for the unit will be the average expected hits for every 10 points spent on the unit (so units that are cheaper but do the same/more damage than a more expensive unit come out ahead).
If your favorite unit doesn't do well in these rankings, it's probably due to my methodology - I acknowledge that up front. However, I will attempt to capture as caveats the things that a unit brings to the table that were not factored into their final score - and as far as it is possible, I have tried to be as fair and generous as I can to every unit reviewed (I'm just getting started on my Rebel journey and don't have enough experience to say whether or not a unit is definitively "good" or "bad" right now).
Average Expected Health (AEH) is much easier to conceptualize, but there are gray areas on the margins. Obviously, the total wounds of the unit will be "health" - and something will be added based on how good the save of the unit is - but do you account for rules like Low Profile making one cover save work? Do you assume cover at all? What if your opponent has Sharpshooter? What about rules like Impervious (do we assume the attack has Pierce)? If a unit can't be killed in a single volley, do you count its saves, dodges, Armor, Danger Sense, etc. more than once?
Like the damage calculus, there are a lot of variables that can affect this number - so our methodology will assume the safest case:
- This number will start with the initial total health (wound threshold) of the unit, including additional health provided by upgrades to the unit (specifically Personnel and Heavy Weapons);
- Additional health will be added to the unit based on the probability of saving wounds with defense dice (e.g. a 4-mini Rebel Trooper squad that has a surging-white save will add 4/3 wounds to its health total);
- Special rules and tokens that can prevent wounds (e.g. dodge tokens, Armor X, Danger Sense X) will apply additional wounds based on the number of hits that are likely to be blocked; and
- We're not going to assume that anyone has cover (of any kind) or that the attack has Pierce, which means that the Impervious, Immune: Pierce, and Low Profile keywords will not be factored into the calculation. Since there are Rebel Units who rely on Low Profile to help them compete (and one in particular that we're viewing today), I will comment on how the numbers would change if you assumed an extra hit was taken off by Low Profile (but will be excluding it from the quantitative assessment).
- The score for the unit will be the average expected health for every 10 points spent on the unit (so units that are cheaper but do the same/more damage than a more expensive unit come out ahead).
The last methodological thing we need to talk about is how we compare these two MOEs. Some players might want to make an aggro-heavy list that relies on blowing chunks into the enemy quickly and so would rate the AED score higher than the AEH score. Others might think, "You know, my likelihood of actually killing off enemy units is quite low, so I'd rather have my units last longer than be able to do damage", in which case, the AEH is the more valuable metric. For us today, I'm going to assume that they are equal and each contributes half of its rating to the overall score. You can disagree with this if you want - but this is the most balanced approach and all of the data will be in the post for you to mess around with if you want.
Okay, let's start looking at Corps units!
Optimal Corps Unit Ranking
At the start of 2025, the Rebel Alliance has access to six Corps units - four "actual Rebel units" (who will count towards the 3-Corps minimum) and two mercenary options (1-2 can be fielded normally, a third could be added with Underworld Connections). We'll start with our lowest ranked unit, which is . . .
Pick #6: Rebel Veterans (with no additional upgrades) - 48pts, Score: 0.855
Rebel Veterans are a pretty average cost for Corps units in Star Wars Legion - 48 points/squad is:
- More expensive than Mark II Medium Blaster Troopers, Ewok Skirmishers, Rebel Troopers, Fleet Troopers, and B1 Battle Droids;
- Marginally more expensive than Stormtroopers, Snowtroopers, Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers, and Geonosians;
- Marginally less expensive than Black Sun Enforcers, Riot Control Squads, and Shoretroopers; and
- Less expensive than Clone Trooper Infantry and B2 Battle Droids.
While these guys are "average cost" for Corps, it should be noted that being right about the median value makes them just barely on the upper half of Corps units by cost (since there are 9 Corps units below their cost and 6 Corps units above their cost) and also the most expensive Rebel Corps unit in the game (if you only consider their base cost).
When viewing damage-for-cost, a Rebel Veteran squad with 4 minis (4 black dice at range 1-3 with surge for hit) is going to get 2.5 damage icons per attack, which leads to an average of 1.875 AED across all four range-bands. When this is compared to the cost of the unit, a Rebel Veteran squad is paying about 25pts per damage icon, or 0.391 hits per 10pts spent.
On the survivability side of the house, Rebel Veterans begin with 4 wounds and will have 1 dodge token from Prepared Positions. With a 1/3 save from their surging white defense dice, this gives Veterans a score of 6.33 AEH, which translates into 1.32 wounds per 10pts spent.
When you equally weight the values of 0.391 and 1.32, you get a utility score of 0.855. This number will serve as our baseline of comparison for Rebel Corps units today and reflects the average of the damage and health you expect the unit to have relative to its cost.
Any discussion about Rebel Veterans begs the question: since we're averaging the expected damage between ranges 1 and 4 (with melee damage able to substitute in for the range 1 damage, if there's an improvement), how much does the CM-0/93 add to the fight? For this point of comparison, I evaluated three different configurations - all of which do marginally better than the "vanilla" Rebel Veteran squad. Since we don't treat crits and hits separately, however, the Critical 2 of the CM-0/93 (what made it really good in the previous edition - and still makes it good against Armor skews) isn't really valued in this comparison:
Unit (Upgrades) | Pts | Hits/Attack | Pts/Hit | AED | AEH | Utility Score |
Rebel Veterans | 48 | 1.875 | 25.06 | 0.391 | 1.32 | 0.855 |
Rebel Veterans (CM-0/93) | 74 | 3.375 | 21.93 | 0.456 | 1.04 | 0.746 |
Rebel Veterans (CM-0/93, Comms Tech w/ HQU) | 93 | 3.844 | 24.20 | 0.413 | 0.97 | 0.691 |
Rebel Veterans (CM-0/93, squad) | 137 | 5.719 | 23.96 | 0.417 | 1.05 | 0.732 |
A few notes on this comparison: first, adding the CM-0/93 to the squad increases the damage output of each attack - but without taking the "super-sized" squad, it's only adding 1.5-2 hits/attack. In trade, you're paying almost twice as much, which means you could take two Rebel Veteran squads (or a Rebel Veteran squad with a Mark II Medium Blaster Trooper - more on him later) for the same price. When you compare THOSE damage numbers, the two Vet squads or the Vet + Mark II is going to do the same or more overall damage. If you take the CM-0/93 and the super-sized squad, you're spending about as much as you would on three Rebel Vet squads (or two Vets and one Mark II) . . . the firepower will be about the same from both, so it's not really buying you anything.
But this highlights an important thing about Rebel list building: have lots of small activations is often better than having one BIG activation. Rebel lists have the potential to put a LOT of activations on the table - especially with Mark II Medium Blasters not counting towards the 6-Corps maximum, thanks to the detachment keyword. Since three objectives can give you full VPs for securing objectives (having more unit leaders within range 1/2 of a Point of Interest) and the other three give you VPs for contesting objectives, having more activations means your opponent has to work quickly to kill off specific units to keep you from scoring VPs (and potentially denying VPs to himself).
What's more, units with big attack pools want to target units with a lot of wounds . . . so you can deny them the weight of their dice by having lots of small units that will require splitting fire in order to work them all down. All in all, there's great value in having lots of small units - and Rebel Veterans might be the poster boys for that approach.
The last thing I'll say about Rebel Veterans is that I haven't accounted for Speed 1 or Low Profile on these guys. The Speed 1 limit can be offset some by having Prepared Positions, which will make them a viable target on the first turn to anything that's got Range 3 and a deployment keyword (like Prepared Positions, Infiltrate, and Scout) OR Range 4. Be this as it may, it's also easy for Vets to move-and-shoot on the first turn and move-and-shoot on the second turn to contest an objective. Yes, if you have a few of these guys that are only 4-model squads, you very well may run out of guys before you arrive at your final location - but if you have LOTS of these guys (and Mark IIs to lay down fire as they run), you'll be quite a threat on Turn 2 (and probably remain a threat on Turn 3).
If the terrain is at all helpful, the Low Profile keyword will help you immensely when your opponent doesn't have all-crits in their attack roll. Yes, that happens sometimes, but most of the time, there's at least one hit that requires a cover save . . . and that hit isn't going to make it through. You'll see shortly that the scores between the Rebel Veterans and a lot of other Rebel Corps units are quite close - so if you'd like to use Low Profile as a reason to pip up their score above the others, be my guest.
Okay, on to Pick #5!
Pick #5: Fleet Troopers (with Fleet Trooper) - 47pts, Score: 0.909
Fleet Troopers are in an interesting place in the game, since they cost the same as Rebel Troopers and have a free offensive action (thanks to Charge) instead of a free defensive action (Agile 1). While their range 1-2 pistols used to hold them back a little, the close-up nature of controlling POIs has placed them in a good spot in the new edition. The baseline unit for comparison today is the standard squad . . . with one extra guy. For 47pts (1pt less than a vanilla Rebel Veteran squad), you get 10 white dice at range 1-2 with surge to hit for an expected 1.875 AED across all four range-bands (the same as Rebel Veterans). When this is compared to the cost of the unit, you're still paying about 25pts per damage icon, or 0.399 hits per 10pts spent (which is EVER so slightly higher than the Rebel Veterans because of that 1 point you saved).
On defense, we have a slightly higher score because we still have a surging white dice, but we've picked up a fifth health point (outweighing the dodge token that a Rebel Veteran squad starts with) and adding another 1/3 of a hit from the expected saves. This results in Fleet Troopers having a score of 6.67 AEH, which translates into 1.42 wounds per 10pts spent (again, ever so slightly higher than Rebel Veterans).
Just like the Rebel Veterans, Fleet Troopers have a heavy weapon option that is quite appealing: the Scatter Gun. This weapon got improved to be used in melee as well as at range 1-2 and with Pierce 1 added to the results, this is a pretty punchy gun. It's also a pretty expensive upgrade relative to the unit, so like the CM-0/93, its increase in cost reduces the overall effectiveness of the unit:
Unit (Upgrades) | Pts | Hits/Attack | Pts/Hit | AED | AEH | Utility Score |
Fleet Troopers | 40 | 1.500 | 26.67 | 0.375 | 1.33 | 0.854 |
Fleet Troopers (Fleet Trooper) | 47 | 1.875 | 25.07 | 0.399 | 1.42 | 0.909 |
Fleet Troopers (MPL-57 Barrage Trooper, Fleet Trooper) | 69 | 2.906 | 23.74 | 0.421 | 1.16 | 0.790 |
Fleet Troopers (Scatter Gun Trooper, Fleet Trooper) | 69 | 2.750 | 25.09 | 0.399 | 1.16 | 0.779 |
Fleet Troopers (Scatter Gun Trooper, Fleet Trooper Squad) | 107 | 4.250 | 25.18 | 0.397 | 1.25 | 0.822 |
Included in that table is the MPL-57 Barrage Trooper, which is the only heavy weapon option that still has an exhaust. It is unique in that it is one of a handful of Blast-on-a-stick options (Blast that can be used beyond Range 3) and while it exhausts, it also has Cycle. Now that Fleet Troopers have Charge, taking the MPL-57 option isn't a bad option - it gives the unit Impact 2 with 2 white/1 black dice at a distance, and then on the following turn the unit can charge into melee and the only thing you're losing is a black die. Honestly, I think it's fine - but it costs the same as the Scatter Gun, so I'm not sure that most players would see it my way.
The biggest takeaway from this table is that there is very little difference between Rebel Veterans and Fleet Troopers - the Fleets will do marginally more damage at range 1-2 while the Vets will do more damage at range 3 (since Fleets don't play at range 3 much). Additionally, the Fleets get marginally more health-for-cost if you don't factor in Low Profile on the Vets - which means that's probably also a wash as well. If you like Fleets, run Fleets. If you like Vets, run Vets. If you don't like either, run . . .
Pick #4: Rebel Troopers (with SX-21 Trooper, Rebel Trooper, and Prepared Supplies) - 65pts, Score: 0.923
It's a little scary that our lowest three competitors for this spot happen to be the primary Corps options for the Rebels . . . but this is only by the raw numbers. As it actually happens, these guys should all rank one slot higher, but more on this when we talk about #3. Rebel Troopers have one advantage over the two previous options: they have access to exactly one very cheap, very punchy heavy weapon option in the SX-21. I discovered this back in the old edition when getting to range 2 was very hard - but since the release of Legion 2.6, I've been tooting the horn of the SX-21 (and it would appear some Rebel players in the US have had some success with double-SX-21s in recent months and two players did very well with FOUR SX-21s at LVO).
Rebel Troopers have four Heavy Weapon options, as well as several specialized Personnel options (but the Rebel Trooper Captain and Rebel Trooper Specialist cost a few points more than the "extra guy" and don't add too much to our matrix here, besides perhaps a dodge token once per game). For the sake of fairness, I've omitted both of these options, but if you have the points for them, you can pick them up - they're fine.
For 65pts ("only" 17pts more than a vanilla Vet squad), you get 2 white/5 black/2 red dice at range 1-2 for an expected 3.000 AED across all four range-bands (about 60% higher than Rebel Veterans). When this is compared to the cost of the unit, you're still paying about 22pts per damage icon, or 0.462 hits per 10pts spent (which is better than Rebel Veterans, but like Fleet Troopers, is still only marginally more).
As you can see from the MASSIVE table below, there's a very compelling case for the SX-21 being better than the other heavy weapon options once you factor in the cost of the heavy weapon and what it's actually getting you:
Unit (Upgrades) | Pts | Hits/Attack | Pts/Hit | AED | AEH | Utility Score |
Rebel Troopers | 40 | 1.500 | 26.67 | 0.375 | 1.33 | 0.854 |
Rebel Troopers (Rebel Trooper, Prepared Supplies) | 52 | 1.875 | 27.73 | 0.361 | 1.47 | 0.917 |
Rebel Troopers (Z-6 Trooper, Rebel Trooper, Prepared Supplies) | 65 | 3.000 | 24.00 | 0.417 | 1.25 | 0.833 |
Rebel Troopers (SX-21 Trooper, Rebel Trooper, Prepared Supplies) | 65 | 3.000 | 21.67 | 0.462 | 1.38 | 0.923 |
Rebel Troopers (SX-21 Trooper, Rebel Trooper Squad, Prepared Supplies) | 103 | 4.500 | 22.89 | 0.437 | 1.39 | 0.914 |
Rebel Troopers (DLT-20A, Rebel Trooper) | 73 | 3.250 | 24.00 | 0.417 | 1.15 | 0.785 |
Rebel Troopers (MPL-57 Ion Trooper, Rebel Trooper) | 74 | 2.906 | 27.18 | 0.368 | 1.14 | 0.754 |
You'll notice I have two configurations for the SX-21 - and they both basically scored the same thing. It's unclear to me whether taking the "super-sized" squad is THAT worse of a pick (especially when compared to what Rebel Veterans and Fleet Troopers are getting from it), but I think I can safely sit in the same camp and say, "You don't need to super-size this unit either." Still, it's going to deal a TON of damage and will stand up to several blows, getting more use out of their Agile 1/Nimble keywords. The six-man SX-21 squad pays the fewest points-per-hit and gets the third-best health-for-cost out of the group (and it's only trailing the first-place entry by 0.09 health per 10pts spent . . . that's basically nothing). The moral of the story? Buy an SX-21 on these guys if you have the points.
Also, if this model is at all informative, you should buy the extra guy and Prepared Supplies. For each of the heavy weapons, I evaluated them with "just the heavy weapon," "the heavy weapon and the extra guy," "the heavy weapon and Prepared Supplies," and "the heavy weapon, the Prepared Supplies, and the extra guy". Because the Prepared Supplies upgrade only costs 5pts and it guarantees that the unit will have a dodge token when they need it (and can use that dodge token multiple times that round if they aren't completely blown off the board thanks to Nimble), the impact of this upgrade on Rebel Troopers has been MAJORLY undervalued in this model (but even with it only contributing 1 additional wound to the unit, it still moves the needle in the health-for-cost category).
The extra guy is only 7pts and he moves the needle more than Prepared Supplies, since he contributes an extra 0.5 hits in the range 1-3 bands to the offensive score AND an extra wound/one-third save bonus wound on defense. For +2pts over Prepared Supplies, he's also a really good deal.
What is perhaps the most surprising thing about all this is that the heavy weapons, in general, have far less of an impact on the final result than the personnel upgrade- which makes some sense, since we saw a similar thing with the previous two Corps choices, but is also weird because the heavy weapons available to this squad are quite a bit better than non-surging single black dice. Still, with 20-27pts making up nearly the same points as another squad, there's ample reason to NOT take most of the heavy weapons . . . except the SX-21, which does have a slight boost over "five guys with Prepared Supplies."
With our three main Rebel Corps choices in the bottom three, it's time to see what the Mercenaries are bringing to the table - though this first guy should really be rated at #6, in my opinion . . .
Pick #3: Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers with Electro-Whip - 54pts, Score: 0.968
Wow - did you see this coming? I evaluated seven builds of the Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldier (shown below) and the best three were (wait for it) the "vanilla" Pykes, the "extra guy" Pykes, and the "Electro-Whip" Pykes. Why is this? First off, the P13 Disruptor didn't do poorly, per se (0.852 on its own, 0.863 with the extra guy, and 0.780 with the Capo - all of which are on-par or better than the most expensive heavy weapon builds for the previous three Corps choices), but the P13 alone pushes the unit to almost 70 points . . . and an extra 1 red/1 black is nice and all, but it's not THAT much nicer than what you're getting from the bare unit or the "extra guy" (and you're paying more than half of the base cost of a second unit). As you can see from the chart below, your points-per-hit is slightly better with the P13 (21-22 points for every damage icon you get with the P13, 25-31 without it), but the health-for-cost that you get drops off a bit in exchange:
Unit (Upgrades) | Pts | Hits/Attack | Pts/Hit | AED | AEH | Utility Score |
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers | 44 | 1.500 | 29.33 | 0.341 | 1.59 | 0.966 |
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers (PSFS) | 53 | 1.875 | 28.27 | 0.354 | 1.57 | 0.963 |
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers (PSFS, P13 Disruptor Trooper) | 77 | 3.625 | 21.24 | 0.471 | 1.26 | 0.863 |
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers (Capo) | 62 | 1.969 | 31.49 | 0.318 | 1.34 | 0.831 |
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers (Capo, P13 Disruptor Trooper) | 86 | 3.750 | 22.93 | 0.436 | 1.12 | 0.780 |
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers (P13 Disruptor Trooper) | 68 | 3.25 | 20.92 | 0.478 | 1.23 | 0.852 |
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers (Electro-Whip) | 54 | 2.125 | 25.41 | 0.394 | 1.54 | 0.968 |
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers (Electro-Whip, PSFS) | 63 | 2.500 | 25.20 | 0.397 | 1.43 | 0.913 |
Furthermore, only one of the utility scores from the P13 variants is better than what you're getting from Rebel Veterans (0.855) and all of them are worse than what you're getting from Fleet Troopers or Rebel Troopers. With a score that's only slightly better than Rebel Troopers, I think there are several reasons for why you could and should choose any other Rebel Corps option over these guys.
Second, since these guys are Mercenaries, they're competing with the other Mercenary option for Rebels, which is Ewok Skirmishers (who we haven't seen yet). These guys are . . . stupidly cheap and come with SO many bodies! If you have to pick and choose between Pykes and Ewoks . . . well, we'll see that the choice is pretty clear when we get to Ewoks. For now, just understand that you can get about the same utility out of Rebel Troopers as you can from Pykes - and those can meet your Corps requirements and Pykes can't.
Finally, Pykes want to have a Capo and ideally a heavy weapon as well - but to take both the Capo and the P13 makes them VERY expensive and basically the cost of two Corps units (or the same as some Special Forces units or characters - all of whom are going to outperform Pykes). While their average numbers might look pretty good, their cost is going to be a bit prohibitive to making your list as good as it can be. So . . . yeah, these guys are technically #3, but for me, they're actually #6.
But Pykes aren't all bad news - taking an Electro-Whip squad or two actually gives you comparable range damage to other Corps options for about the same price as we've been seeing with Vets, Fleets, and Troopers, but with a comparable or better melee damage profile (3.5 expected hits with Immobilize 1/Suppressive from the Pykes, compared to 3 from 6 Rebel Troopers, 3.125 from 4 Rebel Veterans, and 3.75 from 5 Fleet Troopers). The Immobilize 1 wasn't evaluated here, but it has clear benefits if you need to intercept someone from getting to a POI or to charge an important unit (like someone holding a scanner). Still, Fleets can do this job about as well - so even in this case, I'm not sure Pykes have a place in Rebel lists.
It should be noted that my metric for what is "good" includes an equal emphasis on both offense and defense - if you're running an aggro-offensive list and you don't care about the defense of the unit, then the P13 Disruptor actually does quite well on its own (21-23 pts/hit is really only matched by the CM-0/93 on its own or the SX-21 builds), so once again, consider the assumptions of the model and how they contrast with what's important to you.
Okay, no on to our runner-up - and an excellent choice for any generic Rebel list . . .
Pick #2: Ewok Skirmishers (with Forest Dwellers) - 43pts, Score: 1.017
Yep, it's "the murder bears" - and these guys doing well was a bit of a surprise to me because we averaged their damage output across all four range bands . . . and they can't participate in three of them. Nevertheless, they start with six models and each of them rolls a black die in melee. They're also cheaper than any of our other options . . . look at how that changes their scores (especially in the health department):
Okay, no on to our runner-up - and an excellent choice for any generic Rebel list . . .
Pick #2: Ewok Skirmishers (with Forest Dwellers) - 43pts, Score: 1.017
Yep, it's "the murder bears" - and these guys doing well was a bit of a surprise to me because we averaged their damage output across all four range bands . . . and they can't participate in three of them. Nevertheless, they start with six models and each of them rolls a black die in melee. They're also cheaper than any of our other options . . . look at how that changes their scores (especially in the health department):
Unit (Upgrades) | Pts | Hits/Attack | Pts/Hit | AED | AEH | Utility Score |
Ewok Skirmishers (Forest Dwellers) | 43 | 0.750 | 57.33 | 0.174 | 1.86 | 1.017 |
Ewok Skirmishers (Trapper, Forest Dwellers) | 53 | 0.875 | 60.57 | 0.165 | 1.73 | 0.947 |
Ewok Skirmishers (Ewok Skirmisher Squad, Forest Dwellers) | 71 | 1.250 | 56.80 | 0.176 | 1.78 | 0.980 |
Ewok Skirmishers (Axe Ewok, Ewok Skirmisher Squad, Call to Arms) | 88 | 1.563 | 56.32 | 0.178 | 1.46 | 0.818 |
A few notes on these guys: first, their AED is the lowest we've seen so far - because we're averaging between four bands (and they can't play in three of them), their overall scores are quite low. However, when compared to the other units in melee (who all lived in the 3.000-3.750 range), these guys are expected to get 3.000-6.250 hits at full strength . . . that's pretty crazy. The Trapper/Forest Dwellers combo is only 6pts more expensive than a Fleet Trooper squad and it's going to get the same damage in melee AND have Scout 1/a dodge token on the first round. Oh, and they'll have more bodies than the Fleets do, so their attrition rate will be lower. All in all, these guys are pretty decent little fighters - but also, nothing too weird compared to what you could get without going the mercenary option.
Second, there is VERY little difference between upgraded and un-upgraded Ewoks. I took Forest Dwellers on all of the Ewoks I could for the same reason I took Prepared Supplies on all of the Rebel Troopers - getting Scout 1/a dodge token for 3pts is just too good of a deal to pass up! Whether you're looking at damage-for-cost or health-for-cost, an Ewok Skirmisher squad with Forest Dwellers (43pts) is going to do about as well or better than their fuzzy competitors - and while their health-for-cost is a good half-wound per 10pts better than the Rebel Corps competitors, they're still only coming in 0.1 utility points ahead of Rebel Troopers (and the more upgraded Ewoks come in at about the same place). All told, if you're going to run Ewoks in a standard Rebel list, skip most of the upgrades and extra bodies and just run a normal squad (with Forest Dwellers, of course).
Third, these guys have Low Profile and like our discussion of Rebel Veterans, this wasn't factored into the analysis. Yes, this is helpful in guaranteed blocking of an incoming hit when you have cover, so if you possibly can, make sure you have cover! Does this boost make them noticeably better than Nimble-cached-dodge Rebel Troopers? Low-Profile-Rebel-Veterans? I don't know - but it is a thing.
All told, these guys are the cheapest way for Rebels to get 6-7 bodies in a squad - and if you're facing someone big with a 6-die lightsaber pool, a squad or two of these guys is guaranteed to be able to stall out that hero or force them to burn a tactical rule to neutralize you . . . or you can absorb a bunch of blaster fire for other units. Either way, these guys are good pincushions, though they do lose some potency as they take damage (but again, you don't care about that until you hit melee, so . . .).
Second, there is VERY little difference between upgraded and un-upgraded Ewoks. I took Forest Dwellers on all of the Ewoks I could for the same reason I took Prepared Supplies on all of the Rebel Troopers - getting Scout 1/a dodge token for 3pts is just too good of a deal to pass up! Whether you're looking at damage-for-cost or health-for-cost, an Ewok Skirmisher squad with Forest Dwellers (43pts) is going to do about as well or better than their fuzzy competitors - and while their health-for-cost is a good half-wound per 10pts better than the Rebel Corps competitors, they're still only coming in 0.1 utility points ahead of Rebel Troopers (and the more upgraded Ewoks come in at about the same place). All told, if you're going to run Ewoks in a standard Rebel list, skip most of the upgrades and extra bodies and just run a normal squad (with Forest Dwellers, of course).
Third, these guys have Low Profile and like our discussion of Rebel Veterans, this wasn't factored into the analysis. Yes, this is helpful in guaranteed blocking of an incoming hit when you have cover, so if you possibly can, make sure you have cover! Does this boost make them noticeably better than Nimble-cached-dodge Rebel Troopers? Low-Profile-Rebel-Veterans? I don't know - but it is a thing.
All told, these guys are the cheapest way for Rebels to get 6-7 bodies in a squad - and if you're facing someone big with a 6-die lightsaber pool, a squad or two of these guys is guaranteed to be able to stall out that hero or force them to burn a tactical rule to neutralize you . . . or you can absorb a bunch of blaster fire for other units. Either way, these guys are good pincushions, though they do lose some potency as they take damage (but again, you don't care about that until you hit melee, so . . .).
Ewoks did come in second because of their outrageously good health-score outweighing their outrageously bad hit-score, so once again, if you value offensive output over defensive output, these guys might (and should) rank lower. However, one could also argue that the equal weighting of range 4 and melee is not right, but hey, you can noodle on the finer points of this if you want.
So if the Ewoks came in second, that leaves exactly one unit to reign supreme . . . but it was close. I give you . . .
Pick #1: Mark-II Medium Blaster Trooper - 38pts, Score: 1.080
By 0.063 utility points, the winner is the Mark-II Medium Blaster Trooper (or "Mark-II" from now on)! Mark-IIs are detachments, which means you need to field them with Rebel Veterans, but they also don't count towards your force-construction maximum for the Corps rank (but DO count towards your minimum Corps count). This is huge for several reasons. First, if you want to go bare-bones on Corps, you could run 1 Rebel Veteran squad (48pts), 1 Mark-II (38pts), and 1 Fleet Trooper squad with extra guy (47pts) for a nice tidy 133pts - and for that low investment, you'd meet your three-Corps requirement, but get three punchy squads with 4-5 wounds each (and 4-8 dice each on offense).
Second, if you want to go hard into the activation count and overwhelm your opponent with activations (all of which have low health values, which make big dice pools a bit overkill), you could run 6 Rebel Veterans (48pts each) and 6 Mark-IIs (38pts each) for a surprisingly low 540pts - that's about 450pts left for whatever-the-heck-you-want with 12 activations already in the bucket! I ran a list with 6 Vets/6 Mark-IIs recently and I hit 19 activations and didn't really care if Anakin and his 501st buddies tore into any one of them - I was always going to outnumber the Clones on objectives and so could guarantee an early VP lead just by making sure I had enough bodies lying around on the objectives. 450pts is also enough to get some interesting/expensive characters so you can have a little fun OR gives you plenty of room for still MORE activations if you want to abuse the detachment rule more in the Special Forces slot (I had 2 Ewok Slingers, 3 AT-RTs, Leia with Underworld Connections, and Commander Luke with Recon Intel, Offensive Push, and Burst of Speed - it was a lot of fun to have a proper smashy hero in the mix!).
Third, the detachment rule - paired with the Prepared Positions rule on Rebel Veterans - means that these speed-1 units can start as far forward as possible and move towards objectives quickly on Turn 1 so they can be "emplaced" on Turn 2 to fire at enemy units racing for the objectives. Some objectives will be easier to secure than others, but getting your units into position quickly on Turn 1 guarantees that your opponent has to work hard on Turn 2 . . . and if you give a bunch of Rebel Vets orders on Turn 2 so that the Mark-IIs get standby tokens . . . I mean, that's pretty good.
Okay, enough about detachment - let's talk about the scores this guy got. For 38pts (6pts less than a Rebel Veteran squad), you get 4 black dice (same as Rebel Vets) at range 1-3 (same as Rebel Vets) with Critical 2 (Rebel Vets need to get the CM-0/93 for this) and an expected 1.875 AED across all four range-bands (the same as Rebel Vets). This turns into 20pts per damage icon, or 0.493 hits per 10pts spent (which is better than everyone we've seen so far - but only marginally better than the SX-21/extra-guy Rebel Troopers and the P13-only Pykes). This is also the only unit whose expected damage won't deteriorate as it takes damage, which means if you can keep them alive after getting sucker-punched once, they can still shoot back at full strength - pretty neat. Since they can gain a standby token whenever they are issued an order, they might be able to shoot twice in a turn OR can distract valuable fire so that their standby tokens are taken away (and some poor unit that was going to be hit isn't shot or isn't shot as hard if your opponent split fire). These guys can really control a battlefield if they get into the right position on Turn 1.
The downside to this unit is that it has Cumbersome and speed-1. Turn 1 probably won't be spent shooting unless you have a standby token - and don't underestimate the value of using that standby token to move when your opponent moves within range 3 of you (since moving during an enemy activation doesn't trigger Cumbersome). If you have to move up on Turn 1 and forego shooting, that's fine - just plan ahead for the second turn to make sure these guys get orders so you can get the most out of those standbys!
If possible, you want to plan your deployment so they don't have to move very far into to contest/secure a POI - have a plan before you arrive at the table for where you want these guys to go down for any of the six scenarios that may show up (and definitely have a plan for the three you're bringing). These guys want to spend as little time walking as possible and if they must walk, shoot first then walk.
So if the Ewoks came in second, that leaves exactly one unit to reign supreme . . . but it was close. I give you . . .
Pick #1: Mark-II Medium Blaster Trooper - 38pts, Score: 1.080
By 0.063 utility points, the winner is the Mark-II Medium Blaster Trooper (or "Mark-II" from now on)! Mark-IIs are detachments, which means you need to field them with Rebel Veterans, but they also don't count towards your force-construction maximum for the Corps rank (but DO count towards your minimum Corps count). This is huge for several reasons. First, if you want to go bare-bones on Corps, you could run 1 Rebel Veteran squad (48pts), 1 Mark-II (38pts), and 1 Fleet Trooper squad with extra guy (47pts) for a nice tidy 133pts - and for that low investment, you'd meet your three-Corps requirement, but get three punchy squads with 4-5 wounds each (and 4-8 dice each on offense).
Second, if you want to go hard into the activation count and overwhelm your opponent with activations (all of which have low health values, which make big dice pools a bit overkill), you could run 6 Rebel Veterans (48pts each) and 6 Mark-IIs (38pts each) for a surprisingly low 540pts - that's about 450pts left for whatever-the-heck-you-want with 12 activations already in the bucket! I ran a list with 6 Vets/6 Mark-IIs recently and I hit 19 activations and didn't really care if Anakin and his 501st buddies tore into any one of them - I was always going to outnumber the Clones on objectives and so could guarantee an early VP lead just by making sure I had enough bodies lying around on the objectives. 450pts is also enough to get some interesting/expensive characters so you can have a little fun OR gives you plenty of room for still MORE activations if you want to abuse the detachment rule more in the Special Forces slot (I had 2 Ewok Slingers, 3 AT-RTs, Leia with Underworld Connections, and Commander Luke with Recon Intel, Offensive Push, and Burst of Speed - it was a lot of fun to have a proper smashy hero in the mix!).
Third, the detachment rule - paired with the Prepared Positions rule on Rebel Veterans - means that these speed-1 units can start as far forward as possible and move towards objectives quickly on Turn 1 so they can be "emplaced" on Turn 2 to fire at enemy units racing for the objectives. Some objectives will be easier to secure than others, but getting your units into position quickly on Turn 1 guarantees that your opponent has to work hard on Turn 2 . . . and if you give a bunch of Rebel Vets orders on Turn 2 so that the Mark-IIs get standby tokens . . . I mean, that's pretty good.
Okay, enough about detachment - let's talk about the scores this guy got. For 38pts (6pts less than a Rebel Veteran squad), you get 4 black dice (same as Rebel Vets) at range 1-3 (same as Rebel Vets) with Critical 2 (Rebel Vets need to get the CM-0/93 for this) and an expected 1.875 AED across all four range-bands (the same as Rebel Vets). This turns into 20pts per damage icon, or 0.493 hits per 10pts spent (which is better than everyone we've seen so far - but only marginally better than the SX-21/extra-guy Rebel Troopers and the P13-only Pykes). This is also the only unit whose expected damage won't deteriorate as it takes damage, which means if you can keep them alive after getting sucker-punched once, they can still shoot back at full strength - pretty neat. Since they can gain a standby token whenever they are issued an order, they might be able to shoot twice in a turn OR can distract valuable fire so that their standby tokens are taken away (and some poor unit that was going to be hit isn't shot or isn't shot as hard if your opponent split fire). These guys can really control a battlefield if they get into the right position on Turn 1.
The downside to this unit is that it has Cumbersome and speed-1. Turn 1 probably won't be spent shooting unless you have a standby token - and don't underestimate the value of using that standby token to move when your opponent moves within range 3 of you (since moving during an enemy activation doesn't trigger Cumbersome). If you have to move up on Turn 1 and forego shooting, that's fine - just plan ahead for the second turn to make sure these guys get orders so you can get the most out of those standbys!
But all this brings us full circle back to Rebel Veterans. Vets are good - really good - but they're often viewed as expensive (which they are). In today's analysis, their overall cost is actually reduced quite a bit if you're also taking Mark-IIs, since the average cost between a Vet squad and a Mark-II is only 43 points . . . which is not only tied for the cheapest Corps we've seen today, but they're just about the same cost as bare-bones Rebel Troopers, Fleet Troopers, and Ewok Skirmishers (who all live in the 43-52pts range, as has already been discussed). If you average the utility scores of Rebel Vets (0.855) and Mark-IIs (1.080), you get 0.968 . . . which is the same as Pykes and better than the other two "true" Rebel Corps options.
Vets might appear to be more expensive, but that's only true if you leave the Mark-IIs at home. So don't - and run Rebel Vets with them. The damage you're supposed to get at range 3 is better than all the other options and having squads of these guys can make sure the small-dice attack pools you're throwing actually end up getting icons - which is something Rebel Troopers and occasionally Fleet Troopers can struggle to do.
Conclusion
So yeah, that's our discussion of Rebel Corps units (whose total gap between last and first was about one-quarter of a utility point). If you don't think that the analytic model properly factored for certain things, let us know in the comments below! The Rebels have lots of these trades in their various force composition tiers, so we'll be revisiting this series soon with the other ranks as well! Until next time, happy hobbying!
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