Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Scout Troopers

Good morning gamers,

We're tackling the last of the Imperial units from the Imperial starter set today and boy do these boys pack a punch! While Scout Troopers may not be the best example of a glass cannon, they certainly qualify as being heavy on the offense and light on the defense. Scouts are incredibly points efficient, but also very hard to keep alive - so in today's post, we're going to look at what these guys are good at and how you can get the most out of them in both standard Imperial lists and in several battle forces.

Scout Troopers: The Profile

Scout Troopers have some pretty common Special Forces stats: Speed 2, Courage 2, and 1 Health each. This makes them more courageous than the Imperial Corps units we've looked at recently, so they can afford to be a little distant from your Compel characters. Their offense is super good with Sharpshooter 1 and 2 black dice/mini at range 1-2 (and their melee is fine with 1 black die/mini in melee). Without Surge to hit/crit, they wouldn't mind access to the Critical keyword (available in the Imperial Remnant Battle Force - more on that later) or characters that help them get surge tokens (rare but possible - more on that later). Defensively, they're a bit fragile with surging white saves, but Low Profile helps them some - especially if they're sitting in a terrain feature that grants heavy cover. Scout 3 is a very useful Turn 1 aid, as it helps them navigate up the board quickly (though without Unhindered, they're going to still get slowed down by difficult terrain). With 4 minis for 48pts, these guys are about the same cost as Stromtroopers/Snowtroopers per mini, which is very useful for buffing out your activations.

The Scout Trooper Strike Team had a very similar profile (boy am I glad this article came out AFTER the points adjustment and profile releases). Like before, they have the Heavy Weapon Team special rule, which makes the Heavy Weapon upgrade required, but the Heavy is also the unit leader. With only 2 models including the Heavy, this squad is much easier to kill and once you include the Heavy, they aren't that much cheaper than the full squad (42pts with the sniper vs. 48pts for the full squad without upgrades). With the sniper getting better and coming down in price (20pts now) and the option for cheaper heavies if you don't want to do chip-damage from far away (10pts for a Probe, 17pts for a saboteur), these might see play now. They have Detachment: Scout Troopers, so they can only be fielded alongside full Scout Trooper units, which means their primary point of comparison is definitely Probe Droids (and since these are Support options now, you're looking to add more Support tokens to your bag instead of Special Forces).

This squad also picked up Incognito, which prevents them from being attacked, performing attacks, or scoring objectives until they turn it off. They can opt to turn it off at the start of any activation, but with Prepared Position added to their profile as well, they can start the game on the board and not be shot at - though you will want to eventually turn it off on Turn 1-2 so you can score objectives and shoot . . . probably (more on that later when we talk about Heavy Weapon options).

The big appeal of the Strike Team is definitely the modification to how snipers work - with surge for crit and 3 dice (potentially with a reroll from an aim token from an Exemplar commander, Aid, or an aim action), these guys have the option of keeping their attack results OR clear all of their attack results and deal one unblockable Wound and add one supression to their foe if they got at least one crit (natural or from surge). This . . . is super powerful, but only available if you take the sniper rifle. Let's see why you wouldn't want to do that in the sections below . . .

Scout Troopers: Recommended Upgrades

Scouts have a lot of options they can take, but most of them are bad. With very few exceptions, you should probably steer clear of any upgrades on these guys. That being said, here's a review of their options.

Heavy Weapon x1

By default, there are three Heavy Weapon options available to Scout Troopers: the DLT-19X Sniper for 20pts (down 15!), the Sonic Charge Saboteur for 17pts (down 6!), and the Probe Droid for 10pts (new!). The DLT-19X Sniper gives you 1 black/2 white dice on offense . . . which is now the exact same offensive profile as other sniper rifles, has range 2-5, High Velocity when it splits-fire or is the only attack weapon in range (you probably want to do this all the time), adds an extra suppression if you use an aim token with the new Overwhelm keyword, and gets the sniper rules discussed above. The innate Pierce is gone, but the Sniper Team unblockable wound is much better. If you're taking this guy (and I think there's a strong argument for it), you want to start on the board in-cover with Prepared Position/Incognito, you want to activate as late as possible, and then you want to take sniper shots at units that are important as they come out.

You definitely don't want to take the Sonic Charge Saboteur, who is a more economical Strike Team choice for 17pts, but survivability of this unit is basically zero. That said, I don't think the model for the Sonic Charge Saboteur is worthless: the sculpt for the SC-Sab is basically another Scout Trooper, so if you take the two Scout Trooper squads that come in the Imperial Starter set (along with 3 of the 4 Special Forces orders that you receive), cut off/ignore the bag on the SC-Sab, and swap/magnetize the hand with the charge for someone else's hand with a pistol (Mandalorian Super Commandos? ARC Troopers? Custom Imperial Agents/Officers?), you can build three full Scout Trooper squads from a single starter set . . . not bad at all.

Your final option is the Imperial Probe Droid. This 10pt upgrade allows you to field a Strike Team for 32pts, which is super cheap and allows you to have a unit that can do something very few units can do: not be attacked while getting to far-flung objectives. Incognito, unlike Inconspicuous, can't be turned off by being the only unit that someone can attack - it can be turned off by being too close to the enemy, but otherwise you have to choose when it turns off. So . . . you can walk these guys across the battlefield (so long as you can avoid being attacked at range-1), get to a far-flung objective, and with the help of other fast/incognito units you can choose to turn it off and secure the objective. I don't think this is better than the sniper, but if you're already all-in on a fast list (speeder bikes?), it might play to your strategy better and save you 10pts/Strike Team.

The Imperial Remnant list (which is VERY strong right now) expands your options by including access to any Heavy Weapon options available to Scout Troopers, Death Troopers, Shoretroopers, and Stormtroopers. Since Scout Trooper Heavy Weapons are expensive, we really don't want Heavies that cost more than a Sonic Charge Saboteur, which means we're only interested in the Stormtrooper ones. If you look back at the Stormtrooper post we did earlier this year, you may recall that one of them - the T-21 Stormtrooper - didn't get that great of a review because Critical 2 is less valuable when you already Surge to hit. Scout Troopers don't surge on offense innately and you're not paying for range-4 with the T-21, so for 20pts (less than half the cost of another Scout squad), you can get +1 body, the same expected damage as another body, but +2 surge conversions. For 68pts, this is a little expensive, but not horribly so for its damage output (8 black/4 white at range 1-2). The other options aren't as streamlined as this choice - I think you're taking that one every time. If you could take DT-F16, I'd recommend her - at only 15pts and 1 black/1 white with 2 wounds/Leader and Compel (no limits), this would be the gold standard for any Heavy you put in a Scout Trooper unit, but alas, we don't have that option.

Training x1

I don't think you need anything here - you could take Offensive Push to get a little oomph out of one of your attacks, but honestly, the less you spend on a surging-white-save unit in Empire, the better. Duck and Cover used to be a good choice on these guys to get them to a suppressed state to trigger cover bonuses/Low Profile, but now, I think you leave it at home. Theoretically, you could get a free dodge token with Up Close and Personal, but this is also an expensive investment (especially if you have 3-6 Scout Trooper squads in your list). 

Comms x1

There aren't a lot of Comms options available to these guys - if you want that aim token from Offensive Push, you're probably better off buying an Emergency Transponder for a one-time-aim-token (all you're going to get from O-Push anyway, unless you recover) for 4pts instead of 6pts. A Comms Jammer could be fun (especially to disrupt Coordinate chains), but it's definitely optional (and because of the fragile nature of these guys, you need to time your dive-bomb to trigger the Comms Jammer very carefully).

Gear x1

This is one of the few units in the game where Recon Intel is absolutely worthless because you can't get higher than Scout 3. Targeting Scopes might be worth it if you have a plan to generate a lot of aim tokens that they can borrow, but on the whole, I think this slot can stay empty. You might consider Environmental Gear so you can move through difficult terrain - at 2pts/squad, this is a pretty efficient points addition and doesn't cost you that much.

Grenades x1

Grenades are going to result in a reduction in overall damage no matter what you take - Fragmentation Grenades might be worth taking because you'll get the surge conversion to offset the 1/8 hit reduction on the guy who uses the grenade. That said, if there's only 4 guys in the squad, the 4 black dice from 2 of the squad members gets slightly better than breaking even with the frag grenade's surging-red die and 2 surge icons from the second guy's 2 black dice. Each additional model only gets +1/4 hit, so the maximum you're looking at with this upgrade is an extra 5/8 hit. I don't think that's worth it. On the other hand, Smoke Grenades can help you proc Low Profile for a round, which can add to your resilience quite a bit - especially if you're exposed and your opponent doesn't have a lot of Sharpshooter.

Getting More Out Of Scouts

While we don't normally cover other units to include with your Scout Troopers, there are a few Commanders who can help these guys out a lot. If you want Aim tokens to help make those massive damage pools better, you can get Spotter 2 with Director Orson Krennic (wiht Electrobinoculars), an Imperial Officer (with Deploy in Depth/Electrobinoculars), or General Veers. This is timing-dependent and won't work on the first turn because your Scouts will be off the board. Krennic and Veers have Exemplar, so they can give an aim token to themselves to be borrowed by your Scouts, which helps on any turn of the game. The Imperial Officer with Academy Trained also gets Exemplar with Strategize 1, which can give aim and dodge support to your Scouts, which can be very nice as well. All of these guys pale in comparison to Grand Admiral Thrawn, who has Tactical 1, Exemplar, and Strategize 2 (which is like having Spotter 2 . . . except you also get dodge tokens). With One Step Ahead, he won't trigger Tactical 1 if he's moving, but he might give a boost of movement to your Scouts, which could get them into cover to trigger Low Profile. Finally, you can get an interesting array of tokens from General Tagge, who also has Exemplar, so depending on what you're trying to do, he might be an interesting alternative to Thrawn (or perhaps the two could be used together).

While Iden Versio is way to expensive for what she does and doesn't do anything innately to help Scout Troopers, her Tactical Strike command card can give 2 Scout Troopers (or 3 if one of them takes an HQ Uplink - but that seems pretty expensive to me?) Steady and Tactical 1 if they are willing to go down to speed-1 for the round . . . seems like a worthwhile deal to me if you're already all-in on Iden? I don't know that you really need anyone else to be taken for their command cards, but Iden is an interesting option.

Scout Troopers: Sample Lists and Strategies

Our first list is an vanilla Empire list that features 12 activations and runs Grand Admiral Thrawn and General Tagge for token support, Operative Vader for punching power (along with Thrawn, who is pretty good in a fight), 6 Snowtroopers with Ions/Imperial March, 2 Scout Troopers with no extra gear, and a DT-F16 Death Trooper squad for Compel on your Snows (and anyone else who wants it, I guess):

• Grand Admiral Thrawn with Inspiring Presence and Tenacity
• General Tagge with Trusted Agent and Logistical Prowess
• Darth Vader with Force Choke, Force Guidance, Tenacity, and Into the Fray
• 6x Snowtroopers with T-7 Ion Snowtrooper and Imperial March
• 1x Imperial Death Troopers with DT-F16 and E-11D config
• 2x Scout Troopers

Next we have an 11-act Imperial Remnant list, which features the standard Gideon-triple-Dark-Troopers, my preferred mix of 1 Shore/Death Trooper and 2 Storm/Scout Troopers (all with Stormtrooper heavies because of points efficiency), and a Tip-of-the-Spear Agent with Command and Control Uplink and Riot Baton:

• Moff Gideon
• Imperial Agent with Tip of the Spear, Command and Control Uplink, and Z-6 Riot Baton
• 1x Shoretroopers with T-21 Stormtrooper
• 2x Stormtroopers with HH-12 Stormtrooper
• 1x Imperial Death Troopers with DLT-19 Stormtrooper and E-11D config
• 2x Scout Troopers with T-21 Stormtrooper
• 3x Imperial Dark Troopers with XS-IV Assault Cannon

Finally, we have a 13-act Stormtrooper Battalion list, which features 6 Stormtroopers (five of which are super-squads), an Academy-Trained Imperial Officer with Heavy Blaster Pistol (for Target 3/Exemplar/Compel), a Tip of the Spear Officer (alternate Compel option - plus Direct is always nice), 3 Scout Troopers, and 3 Scout Trooper Strike Team . . . who you could take as Probe Droids. You could definitely make changes to get a seventh Stormtrooper unit (dropping two Super Squads would do it easily), but this provides maximum bodies supported by Strike Teams for dealing with pesky armor (since snipers work against those):

• Imperial Officer with Academy Trained, Seize the Initiative, Command and Control Uplink, and Heavy Blaster Pistol
• Imperial Officer with Tip of the Spear, Seize the Initiative, and Z-6 Riot Baton
• 5x Stormtroopers with T-21 Stormtrooper and Stormtrooper Squad
• 1x Stormtroopers with HH-12 Stormtrooper
• 3x Scout Troopers
• 3x Scout Trooper Strike Team with DLT-19x Sniper

Scout Troopers: Final Review

I think these guys, alongside Stormtroopers and Snowtroopers (and possibly the DT-F16 Death Trooper squad) are some of the finest units the Empire has. The new starter set looks really good for someone like me who's looking to expand a fledgling Empire collection (gotta save for it first) and the fact that you can use what you get in it to build three squads of Scouts is pretty sweet.

Overall Unit Review: 4/5 stars. Obviously, this rating doesn't apply to the Scout Trooper Strike Team - if I could give negative stars, I would to those guys. This unit hits hard and is pretty fast - and I think the changes to Strike Teams have made them much more worth taking (we'll see if they're broken or not). The unit is still plenty good though squishy, which provides a nice balance to the unit overall.

Next time, we're back to Rebels, but with a twist: May will be "Ewok month", so we'll be looking at the Ewok Slinger profile . . . a profile that I like a lot and that really should cost more than it does. Find out what makes these guys so awesome (inside and outside of the Bright Tree Village battle force) next time - and until then, happy hobbying!