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! 

IP Class Deck Review: Reactive Defenses

Good morning gamers,

We’re back with another Imperial Class Deck review and this time, it’s the Reactive Defenses class deck from Heart of the Empire. I’m not sure that any class deck is as underwhelming as the Power of the Dark Side class deck (which was also released in Heart of the Empire), but at first glance, the only thing that really appeals about Reactive Defenses is that you can use those new energy shield tokens and a companion droid who gets a free dodge result . . . nothing that spectacular, really. However, as with most class decks, there’s more than meets the eye about this one and it actually provides several different ways you can play the deck. Let’s see what’s up.  

Reactive Defenses: Droid Options 

To understand what this deck is all about, we need to begin by discussing the ball-droid you get with the deck: 88-Z. Your default class card (Active Surveillance) has you deploy him at the beginning (from one of your green active deployment points) and if 88-Z happens to die later in the mission, you can exhaust Active Surveillance to redeploy him. 88-Z activates as part of any Imperial activation, so after you’ve acted with one unit that’s benefitting from his help, you can move towards another unit. Alternatively, if there’s a unit that could really benefit from being near 88-Z and needs to activate now, you can move 88-Z before that unit performs its activation. What the benefits of 88-Z are depends heavily on how you upgrade him (by default, he can surge to apply 1 Strain to the target of his attack – and that’s it). 

The cards you can buy in the deck broadly speaking fall into two categories: cards that give 88-Z more abilities (usually performed as actions) or cards that benefit units that are near 88-Z. Four of the class deck upgrades allow 88-Z to place an energy shield in an adjacent tile (Shielded), hand out surge power tokens to up to 2 figures within 2 spaces of him (Mechanical Prototype), get you 1 Threat if an enemy hero doesn’t Strain and pass an Insight check (Infrared Scanners), or gives him 3 actions during each activation, and the ability to give himself a free damage power token, or DPT (Overclock). If you were to purchase all four of these upgrades, you’d need to pick and choose what 88-Z is going to do, since he won’t have enough actions to do them all (giving himself the DPT seems the least useful to me) and because moving and attacking are also actions (if you take the DPT, you’re very likely going to be attacking on one of your activations). Each of these upgrades also does something else for your team (exhaust to apply +1 Block, exhaust to give a Droid +1 Damage, +1 movement point for each figure – no exhaust required, and exhaust to ready 88-Z, respectively), so even if 88-Z isn’t going, there’s always some benefit to your upgrades. Your starting upgrade is really the only “bad” upgrade you have, but it gets you 88-Z in the first place and allows you to re-get him if he dies (which is rare without Cleave/Blast, but definitely possible with direct attacks as the campaign goes on and access to anti-dodge tech becomes available). 

IP Class Deck Review: Precision Training

Good morning gamers,

We’re back with another Imperial class deck review and today, we’re back in Return to Hoth to view the Precision Training class deck. This deck has Snowtroopers on the front of it, which I find funny because . . . they’re not that precise. Still, the deck is interesting, though I’m not sure it rises to the caliber of other class decks (as we’ll see in a moment, that doesn’t mean it has nothing to offer). Let’s see what this deck does well. 

Precision Training: The Power of Compounding (and Feeding Threat) 

Like most Imperial class decks, Precision Training only has a few attachment cards – most of its cards are available for the Imperial Player (IP) to use whenever they wish. Most of THOSE cards have an Exhaust requirement (or a deplete requirement on one card), so the deck can provide you with some pretty awesome buffs once per round. There are some exceptions to this: the Sharpshooters and Find the Weakness upgrades apply to all Imperial units and once purchased, they’ll give your units +1 Accuracy and Pierce 1 . . . that’s pretty handy. Since much of your campaign is likely to involve running away from the heroes, the ability to pop a quick hit on them and retreat is excellent – and it’s something this deck enables you to do pretty well. 

Many of their other cards can be Exhausted to do really useful things on offense for a small fee – Versatile Attack allows one figure to add a yellow die and three new surge abilities (Damage 1, Pierce 2, and Weaken) for the low-low cost of 1 Threat, Exacting Strike allows one figure remove a defense die from their target (for the not-as-low cost of 2 Threat), and Single-Minded allows one figure to set a die to any face they want when they would reroll it (and they can ready this card for the low-low cost of 1 Threat). In case you didn’t notice, these cards are pretty threat-hungry. On the non-offensive side of the house, Knowledge of Attack allows an Imperial figure to apply -1 surge to a hero when being attacked (this one doesn’t cost you Threat . . . thank goodness). 

Finally, there are two attachments and one deplete card that are quite useful, but their applicability isn’t going to be army-wide. Strike Force is your starting card and it’s an attachment that gives its bearer a reroll on offense – which is awesome. Assassins is a 3XP attachment that gives its bearer the ability to ignore figures when making attacks (potentially useful) and it can be exhausted to reroll any number of dice they want. This is particularly useful if you also have Single-Minded. Finally, Pinpoint Accuracy is a 1XP card that can be depleted to remove a dodge result – this is best used to make sure a big attack actually makes it past a white die defense roll and like anything else in the game, having an answer for dodge results is really good. 

IP Class Deck Review: Hutt Mercenaries

Good morning all, 

After a long hiatus (read five years) from covering Imperial class decks (and anything related to Imperial Assault in general), we’re back! We've been busy over on our other blog (which mostly tackles topics for the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game), but this year, I'm coming back and working through the other articles I intended to write for Imperial Assault (and covering the Tyrants of Lothal expansion, which has been released since I stopped writing). Today we tackle the second IP deck from Jabba’s Realm: Hutt Mercenaries. While I personally think this is the weaker brother to the Nemeses deck, you can get some nice free bonuses from many of the cards (and you can get a TON more damage than you can in the Nemeses deck). Like our other posts, you’ll see units that work well in the deck – so get ready for LOTS of Mercenary cards (though you’ll see Imperials as well). 

Hutt Mercenaries: A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy 

The Hutt Mercenary deck relies on a new token mechanic: bounties. At the start of the game, each Rebel Hero is assigned a “Bounty token” and they hold this bounty token until they’re defeated for the first time (aka wounded). These Bounty tokens do different things based on the upgrades you choose, but the simplest bonus you get is that once per turn you can add +1 Damage or +1 Surge to the attack results. Other bonuses to Bounty tokens can be offensive (rerolling attack dice, adding extra dice/ignoring figures in the way, adding even more damage) or defensive (die rerolls). While not all Hutt Mercenary cards rely on the Bounty Token mechanism, the Bounties can provide niche benefits in a particular fight – I recommend stacking up all of the bonuses in the same fight. Like I said in my post on Power of the Dark Side, you can get some absolutely deadly combinations by pairing multiple class deck cards together in a single fight. Without further ado, let’s look at some lists. 

IP Class Deck Review: Imperial Black Ops

We’ve looked at all three of the Imperial Class decks from the Core Set (Tech Superiority, Military Might, and Subversive Tactics), as well as one Class deck from each of the expansion boxes EXCEPT the Bespin Gambit (Inspiring Leadership, Armored Onslaught, Nemeses, Power of the Dark Side). Today, we finish off the list by reviewing the Class deck provided in the Bespin Gambit: Imperial Black Ops. I’ll say from the get-go that of all the class decks released thus far, this one ranks near the bottom of the list (down there with Power of the Dark Side, if you read our last post in this series).

Imperial Black Ops: Hiding In The Shadows

Like we talked about with Power of the Dark Side, Imperial Black Ops focuses on a new element of the game and seeks to maximize benefits from it: the Hidden condition. If you can’t tell, I’m not a big fan of these kinds of decks – this is not only because few units innately benefit from these kinds of abilities (generating Damage Power Tokens or making themselves Hidden), but also because these game mechanics are only part of the game (and if you’re not playing the campaign from the expansion that they were released in, you’re hard-pressed to see the units that use these abilities in your starting/reserved units).

It’s hard – and I don’t think it’s worth it.

That being said, today I’m going to try to do due-diligence to what is good about this deck – and make no mistake, it isn’t a bad deck (I just think there are better ones). To get us started, we’ll be looking at what is involved in the Hidden condition and what kinds of units we’re looking for to make it useful.

As a condition, Hidden is not complicated: while you’re Hidden, you apply a -2 Accuracy penalty to any attack results that target you. If you attack while Hidden, you discard the token and add a static Surge result to the attack results. This incentivizes two kinds of units to become Hidden: those that need protection and those that have good surge abilities (or have an attack pool that doesn’t surge well). Most of the upgrades in this Class deck rely on doing something with Hidden – giving the Hidden condition to people, making it harder to hurt you whilst Hidden, or being able to turn that Hidden ability into a Focus condition. With that in mind, units that can become Hidden on their own will increase the effectiveness of your list, as you can ensure everyone becomes Hidden and benefit from all of the universal bonuses available in the upgrades.

Another distinctive quality of the Imperial Black Ops Class deck is that it has the second largest number of ATTACHMENTS out of any Imperial Class deck (second only to Technological Superiority). While the universal benefits to your team might be appealing, some of the upgrades in this deck (very powerful upgrades indeed) are limited to a single group. While you can put multiple ATTACHMENTS on a single deployment card, make sure any attachments you choose will be triggered often enough by the group you wish to enhance – upgrades like Execution Squad (which we’ll view in a bit) are phenomenal, but you need to be able to generate enough Surge each time you attack to make it worth it!

End-Game Build #1 – Upgraded Units: In The Shadows, Stealth, Execution Squad, True Shadow

In all of the Imperial Black Ops builds, you have access to In the Shadows, which is good because it ensure that you can give the Hidden condition to units that came before the release of the Bespin Gambit (to say nothing of many units that were released with/after the Bespin Gambit).
To supplement this upgrade, we're taking three attachments which help your units do more while hidden. Our first is Execution Squad, which allows the deployment group to trigger their surge abilities twice. While this has obvious benefits for units who generate a lot of surge, but it also allows hidden units to get a free copy of a surge ability they're already triggering.
The other two upgrades are defensive: Stealth and True Shadow. Stealth is a cheap, niche upgrade that requires melee units who attack the deployment card to have at least 1 Accuracy (which becomes 3 Accuracy if the target of the attack is hidden). While this won't matter against range units or melee weapons with a Blue die or Green-Green attack pools, it's great against most Red die weapons. You can also exhaust the upgrade at the end of your activation to become Hidden - perfect for getting maximum damage out of Hidden as well as protection.

The other upgrade is True Shadow, which requires you to keep the Hidden condition all the time and allows you to deplete the upgrade to add a Dodge result to your defense results. While keeping Hidden is great (and you still get that free surge result), the general lack of White dice available to Imperial figures makes the chance at having a free Dodge very tempting. While this is great on Villains, it's also great on units who don't surge well, since you keep getting that free surge every turn.

Best IP Units:

·         Nexu (Core) – Nexu benefit a lot from being Hidden (Red-Green doesn't get a lot of Surge) and in my opinion, he's best equipped with Stealth (though Execution Squad can generate a lot of Pierce). Unlike most of the other options provided here, he don’t need True Shadow (since you already roll a White die).

·         ISB Infiltrators (ISB Infiltrator Villain Pack) – while these guys can benefit from Stealth (their health is low), they really just need to be Hidden, since they can use the Hidden surge to re-Hide (though the Elite ISB Infiltrators get a lot more out of the bargain than the regular squad does). Like the Next, they don’t need True Shadow.

·         AT-ST (Core) – I don't normally recommend expensive units, but this guy is probably the best candidate for receiving all three attachments: thanks to Awkward, melee attacks are brutal, but with Stealth, your opponents need Accuracy (but you kinda need Red dice to crack through the Black-Black defense pool). With both True Shadow and Execution Squad, you get a static surge (which is great, since your attack pool doesn't surge well) to trigger Blast 2 twice OR Pierce 2 twice. Execution Squad might be overkill, but still...

·         Wing Guard (Bespin Gambit) – Wing Guard gain huge benefits from Execution Squad (either for damage OR healing, depending on what you need), so the important thing is to get them Hidden as fast as possible. Besides that, they can benefit from other attachments, but it isn't necessary.

·         Elite E-Web Engineer (Core) – E-Webs, like AT-STs, benefit from all three attachments (though we'll just be focusing on Execution Squad and True Shadow): a static surge guarantees Damage 2 or Recover 2, while your Yellow die can trigger the surge ability a second time, making health recovery incredible or your damage output ridiculous. True Shadow makes you incredibly hard to kill and guarantees the Hidden condition remains.

End-Game Build #2 – Augmenting Offense: In The Shadows, Shadow Corps, Surprise Attack, Execution Squad, Versatility

With our focus turning to offense, a few of our upgrades we've already seen: In The Shadows and Execution Squad. We're adding three more upgrades to make our units even more lethal. The first is Shadow Corps, which allows each Hidden figure to make an adjacent figure Hidden. Unlike most upgrades, this upgrade can be used more than once each round and since this upgrade isn't an attachment, every deployment card can use it.
We're also taking Surprise Attack, which allows you to add an extra 2 Accuracy and 1 Damage to one attack each round so long as the target wasn't in your line of sight at the start of the activation. This not only adds the equivalent of a low-scoring Blue die, but combined with the Hidden condition, you can get even more free damage.
The final upgrade is Versatility, which not only allows one figure to surge for Hide, but also allows you to swap beneficial conditions. This not only allows units who are Focused to become Hidden (for defensive benefits), but also allows units who don't surge for good things to turn their Hidden to Focused.

Best IP Units:

·         Trandoshan Hunters (Core) – You cancgan a crazy amount of damage from Surprise Attack, but I highly recommend that you turn Hidden into Focus for additional damage. Unlike most other units, these guys don't benefit from Execution Squad.

·         Greedo (Greedo Villain Pack) – Greedo can be deployed via an Agenda card and benefits greatly from Surprise Attack. You have a free surge (or convert to a Focus) to get good damage for your attacks.

·         Grand Inquisitor (Grand Inquisitor Villain Pack) – like Greedo, the Grand Inquisitor can also be deployed via an Agenda card. He benefits greatly from Surprise Attack (especially if he's using Saber Throw) and gets wicked good out of surging for Cleave 3 twice via Execution Squad.

·         Tusken Raider (Twin Shadows) – because you can’t surge for Accuracy with your Tusken Cycler, it helps to be able to add some extra Accuracy if you can’t get adjacent to the target via Surprise Attack (and naturally you’ll get more power out of the Elite Tusken Raider). You'll also want to swap Hidden for Focus with these guys.

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – these guys have great offense, but won’t often benefit from Execution Squad (though when they do, they’ll Blast really well). Instead, making sure they're Hidden not only helps on offense (since you surge so infrequently), but also helps against range attacks.

End-Game Build #3 – Overlord’s Control: In The Shadows, Stealth, Shadow Armor, Strategic Redeployment, True Shadow

Our final build focuses on the control aspect of the deck. Besides In The Shadows, we've included four upgrades, two of which we've already discussed. Stealth and True Shadow are defensive attachments that make one or two of your deployment cards much harder to kill. 
In addition to these upgrades, we're adding Shadow Armor and Strategic Redeployment. Unlike the previous two upgrades, Shadow Armor isn't an attachment, so you can reduce the Damage, Surge, or Accuracy results against one of your figures. While Shadow Armor is dependent on the Rebels attacking, Strategic Redeployment allows you to deploy/reinforce units once per round by spending surge (instead of Threat). Your hope is that by using units with a lot of Surge potential (or having Hidden figures who can reinforce cheap units), you can maintain an advantage over the Rebels with raw numbers (and not with your surge abilities).

Best IP Units:

·         Agent Blaise (Bespin Gambit) – No one generates as much Surge as Agent Blaise, and while there is no easy way to field him in this deck, you want him (he is included in this expansion after all). Blaise allows you to reinforce/deploy a cheap unit when he attacks with Strategic Redeployment and then deploy a different group as his second action. This can be a game changer late in the campaign.

·         Elite Probe Droid (Core) – Probe Droids surge better than anyone except Blaise, but you will be torn between deploying new units vs. recovering/dealing damage. On the positive side, the Targeting Computer makes it more likely that you get the surge you need for whatever you want.

·         Jawa Scavenger (Jawa Scavenger Villain Pack) – Jawas are blissfully cheap and generate almost as much Surge as Blaise/Probes. It's best to use the regular version instead of Elite version (as the Elite Jawa Scavenger surges for better things), though you can use both...

·         Hired Gun (Hired Gun Villain Pack) – these guys reliably surge, their surge abilities aren’t that good, and you should be able to get 2 surge results (which can reinforce his own group OR reinforce a Stormtrooper/Wing Guard squad). Besides the ability to deploy/reinforce new units, these guys benefit greatly from all of the upgrades.

·         Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter with Scout Form or Streetrat Form (Heart of the Empire) – because figures don’t block LOS to Scout Form, you can hit targets that don’t have LOS to you (making it hard to kill you). True Shadow is really good for this unit as it keeps you from being shot at, though Stealth might be better (True Shadow isn’t going to help against melee attacks). The Streetrat is an alternative for melee attacks – recommend it only because the surge abilities for that Form are bad (excluding the Red die worth of damage you can do to an adjacent figure).

        In our next post, we’ll be examining Hutt Mercenaries. While many of the recommended units in this post turned out to be Mercenary figures, there be no Imperial Class deck that rewards you for running Mercenary figures as the Hutt Mercenaries deck. Until next time, happy gaming!

IP Class Deck Review: Power of the Dark Side

When the Nemeses class deck was released with the Jabba’s Realm expansion, we thought we were getting the Sith deck we always wanted. Then, with Heart of the Empire (and the release of Emperor Palpatine and Maul), we were told that we had received the actual Sith deck we always wanted with Power of the Dark Side. When I first saw it, my thoughts went something like this. . . .

THIS. DECK. SUCKS!

So, it’s taken me some time to look at the deck and determine what I think of it. My thoughts over the last six months shall be shown below. Rest assured, my views have gotten better, but given the choice, I think (for the record) I’d still choose Nemeses (you can read my thoughts on that deck here).

Power of the Dark Side: Give A Little To Get A Little

Every now and again, you’ll find a class deck that focuses on something new that was released in that expansion. This is seen most obviously in two Imperial class decks to date: Power of the Dark Side (with Damage Power tokens) and Imperial Black Ops (with the Hidden condition). When you’re playing with these kinds of decks, you’ll be given many opportunities to use whatever new mechanic is introduced – and often times if you focus full-bore into it, you’ll do alright. Power of the Dark Side does have a variety of ways to get Damage Power tokens (DPTs hereafter), but I’m going to submit that focusing fully on it isn’t that necessary. While we will discuss how you can use this “damage in your pocket” to the max, we’ll be looking also at the non-Damage-Power-Token routes that you can take.

What makes the Power of the Dark Side Imperial Class deck unique from the other decks is not only its use of a new game mechanic, but also the penalties it requires in order to gain benefits. While other decks might provide static offensive or defensive benefits for being near a certain unit, Power of the Dark Side rarely requires proximity to something but instead provides either a one-time boost to someone, a temporary boost to someone, or it requires taking damage in order to become stronger. This allows your units to act more autonomously, but requires that you take healthier units (or field cheap units that you can regrow as you require).

Perhaps the best thing about this deck is that unlike all other decks we’ve seen thus far, it doesn’t rely on an Imperial Player using a particular kind of unit (only one upgrade has any kind of exclusion at all). While other decks might require you to have Troopers, Guardians, or Leaders in your deck, this one helps everyone equally. With that said, let’s get into it. . . .

End-Game Build #1 – That Thing Yoda Says: Manifest Aggression, Embrace Fear, Embrace Anger, Embrace Hate, Embrace Suffering

Okay, I’ll be honest: when I first saw the deck, I said “Huh, it follows that quote Yoda says in Episode I: I wonder if that’s worth doing.” After some debate, I think it MIGHT be worth doing, but I couldn’t hesitate in the end from presenting it. J

The automatic upgrade available to the IP is Manifest Aggression – this is a great way to give 2 Imperial figures each a DPT. This is the most reliable way to get DPTs spread across your army (and the good thing is that it doesn’t require you to do anything bad to the guy receiving the token). The cost paid is this: you either a) get 2 tokens but tell the heroes where they’re going to be, or b) you get 1 token and the heroes can’t preemptively strike whoever gets it. I highly recommend that you NOT give out Damage tokens at the start of the first round and instead assign DPTs at the end of the first round AND the start of the second round – this gives you 4 DPTs to use during the second round (and you could have 2 DPTs on 2 figures if they can attack multiple times). The only cost of doing this is not being able to up your damage during the first round (which you’ll be hard-pressed to see that realized into anything meaningful because most of your units will likely be out of position to attack properly).

Supporting this upgrade are two upgrades that deal Strain to Rebel heroes: Embrace Fear and Embrace Hate. Embrace Fear can only be relied on to give 1 movement point to an Imperial figure when he activates (which isn’t that great, but is on-par for what we expect from a 1 XP upgrade). The value in this upgrade is that it dictates which Rebel figure goes first – the Rebels can appear to be defeating this upgrade by activating someone with a good Insight check pool (but this might not be figure who is in the most danger). If the chosen first figure fails the check, they’ll suffer 1 Strain (which turns into Damage if the hero is already fully strained OR makes it less likely that they’ll be able to use their special abilities). While only a niggling hurt, every Strain suffered pushes the Rebel hero closer and closer to having to spend an action resting (which is often good for the IP, since many missions require the heroes getting somewhere or killing things).

Embrace Hate allows you to choose a Rebel figure in the status phase to suffer 1 Strain. This not only happens right before Embrace Fear (which means a Rebel hero with only 2 Strain left could go from able-to-strain to not-able-to-strain-without-resting), but it’s not dependent on having line of sight to the figure. If you do have line of sight to the figure, your figure suffers 1 Damage and gains a DPT. Pairing these two upgrades together is powerful not only because you can slap 2 Strain on someone if they don’t have a good Insight pool and they NEED to go first (like if they’re about to be wounded). This, added to the DPTs that are handed out, makes it very likely that you can wound that character so long as you have units healthy enough to endure the first Rebel activation.

The other two upgrades we have are different: one is offensive, the other tactical. Embrace Anger is perhaps one of the best upgrades available in this class deck (if you have healthy characters): an Imperial figure can exhaust the card when he declares an attack to suffer 1 Damage and add 1 Damage to his attack results. Since this card readies at the start of each Imperial activation, you can use healthy units to rail against a single hero, driving him to rest (see the Hate-Fear combo we just talked about for how to finish this guy). Embrace Suffering is far more situational: you can either choose to exhaust the upgrade without paying Threat to push someone (useful if they’re trying to get somewhere or be next to something/someone) OR you can pay Threat to take control of a Rebel figure and perform an attack (like using that amazing Polearm with Vibrogenerator and whack another Rebel figure with it). It’s painful AND it happens at the end of the round, so you can rack up a little extra damage on someone before the first activation of the round is decided.

This build is eclectic, but it works. Your emphasis is on doing as much damage as you can during the round and then as one round turns into another, you add a little Strain, do some unexpected damage, gain a few DPTs – BAM! You’re all set up for another round of punishment.

Best IP Units:

·         Royal Guard (Core) – If you’re going to be taking damage in order to gain bonuses, you might as well get a static Block 1 each time you defend yourself. While Royal Guards don’t give themselves static Block results, they do give friendly figures this bonus. They themselves not only have a great attack profile (Red-Yellow with Reach), but they also have a great health-for-cost ratio (great for keeping them alive).

·         Elite Gamorrean Guard (Jabba’s Realm) – While these guys can’t benefit from the free Block provided by the Royal Guards mentioned above, they do receive a static Block 1 against blaster attacks. With the same cost and health as Royal Guards (plus a punchier attack pool and a reroll whenever they attack), these guys are less team-oriented and more self-oriented – the perfect candidates for the two DPTs provided by Manifest Aggression.

·         Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) – With an equally good health-to-cost ratio as Royal Guards and Gamorrean Guards, Riot Troopers are very inexpensive and their free Block Power Token allows them to supplement their defense results quite nicely. As Guardian units, they also can’t benefit from the static Block 1 of the Royal Guards, but they’re still great to have (and can be easily fielded in the first half of any campaign. On offense, they lack the Reach of the previous two candidates, but they can turn any surge they get into Damage, which is pretty nice (and can convert Damage into Strain if required).

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – Like the previous three candidates, Heavy Stormtroopers also have a great health-for-cost ratio and are the first non-Guardian units we’ve considered (so they can benefit from the static Block 1 bonus from the Royal Guards). They can add to this an additional static Block 1 against attacks from 4+ spaces away – perfect for not being sniped (though in practice, the Rebels tend to just run up closer, so it’s not a big thing). As one of a handful of Imperial units who can surge for Blast, getting a DPT is critical to getting the damage you need to breach an opponent’s defenses and blast into his friends.

·         Elite Probe Droid (Core) – While getting free defense is a way to offset taking damage, healing is far more reliable. Elite Probes not only have a good health stat, Probe Droids have always been an inexpensive three-dice-attack-pool unit – and the ability to Recover Damage is huge.

End-Game Build #2 – Maximizing DPTs: Manifest Aggression, Embrace Hate, Unnatural Abilities, The Power of Passion

Four of the nine upgrades in this Class deck allow the Imperial Player to hand out one or more DPTs. While we’ve already talked about Manifest Aggression (use back-to-back at the end of a round and the start of the next every other round) and Embrace Hate (which comes at the cost of a damage to whoever gets the DPT), there are two other upgrades that provide DPTs: Unnatural Abilities and The Power of Passion.

Unnatural Abilities rewards you for having single-figure, non-Creature deployment cards in your list. With a static Block 1 + Evade 1, your single-figure deployment card is MUCH harder to kill (though multi-model deployment cards still get the static Evade 1), and at the end of the deployment group’s activation, one figure in the group receives a DPT to use during his next activation (regardless of how many figures are in the group). The Power of Passion makes anyone who uses a DPT more powerful by adding a static Surge 1 to the Damage 1 of the DPT. This static benefit is supplemented by the ability to exhaust the upgrade in order to reroll any number of attack dice. This is similar to upgrades in other Imperial Class decks (Precision Training, Nemeses) while other decks allow a reroll of a single die (Inspiring Leadership, Precision Training, Hutt Mercenaries). While the ability to reroll attack dice is nice, the real benefit comes from the static offensive benefits – don’t get too caught up in which unit gets the reroll.

Best IP Units:

·         AT-DP (Heart of the Empire) – If equipped with Unnatural Abilities, this guy gets a static Block 2 + Evade 1 (in addition to whatever he gets on the Black die – likely an additional Block 2). The Evade 1 is the real boon, since you want to keep those nasty Pierce 3 guys from getting through all that armor – and because you lose the ability to perform multiple attacks each turn if you fall below half health. With very few surge abilities (and a Yellow die already in your attack pool), it’s not that necessary to use DPTs with this guy (unless you’re just trying to maximize damage).

·         Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter with Streetrat Form (Heart of the Empire) – I love this build – the surge abilities on the Streetrat are phenomenal (free Red die worth of damage against an adjacent figure, Damage 1, or DPT) and with the Elite, you have a good chance of getting 2 surge (which you should use to deal the Red die worth of damage and regain your DPT). As a single figure deployment card, you also get the full benefits of Unnatural Abilities (which can give you a DPT at the end of the round if you didn’t surge to get a DPT during your attack).

·         Elite Probe Droid (Core) – If you’re going to get a free surge result from your DPT, you might as well have some great surge abilities to use – with choices of Damage 2 / Pierce 2 / Recover 2, it’s hard to go wrong with this guy. He also will get the full weight of Unnatural Abilities to assist him in defense, including a free DPT each turn, allowing you to use Manifest Aggression on other figures.

·         Clawdite Shapeshifter with Senator Form (Heart of the Empire) – Thanks to the Conspire skill on the Senator Form (and the ability to surge for a Wild Power Token), you can make sure all of your teammates get DPTs. This is a cheaper, less-powerful version of the Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter we discussed previously, but if you’re planning on playing the support role and passing out tokens, I recommend taking the cheaper version.

·         Wing Guard (Bespin Gambit) – These guys don’t benefit from the static Block 1 from Unnatural Abilities, but they do benefit greatly from the static Surge from DPTs (as a Green-Blue doesn’t reliably surge and they can Recover Damage whenever they surge). The DPT gained from Embrace Hate can be an excellent counter to the Damage 1 suffered in order to gain the DPT (since you can then surge to Recover 1). Be watchful of the damage these guys are taking though – they’re not hard to reinforce, but redeploying a new batch costs 6 points (which is very hard to come by in most missions).

End-Game Build #3 – Defensive Stance: Manifest Aggression, Dark Resurgence, Supernatural Vigor, Unnatural Abilities

It was a little surprising to me that a Sith-oriented deck could play defense – none of the Sith characters have any kind of defensive abilities. Some of these upgrades, however, are quite good. We’ve already seen the defensive (and offensive) benefits of Unnatural Abilities, but there are two other upgrades we’ll look at: Dark Resurgence and Supernatural Vigor.

Dark Resurgence is simple: pick someone who was just defeated to recover 3 Damage instead. While this is an obvious boon to an Imperial figure who needs to be defeated in order for the mission to end, it’s not as powerful as the Failsafe upgrade in Technological Superiority. That said, it’s a 1 XP upgrade – how much can you really complain (and unlike Failsafe, it doesn’t cost Threat)? Supernatural Vigor is a tricky upgrade to use: whoever receives it has a slight health boost (or a dramatic health boost if it’s a low-health figure), but that figure needs to be able to recover any damage that spills over onto the upgrade in order for it to move to someone else (assuming it follows the general understanding of the Adrenaline Command card – see discussions here and here). In my opinion, it’s best put on a low-health figure who will begin at the front of the fighting, keeping him alive for an additional attack action – though it obviously has benefits on a villain that you’re trying to keep alive for mission objective reasons.

Perhaps the best thing about this build, is that it only costs you 6 XP in order to field – giving you plenty of opportunities to get other upgrades to supplement your offensive needs (I like Embrace Anger, though borrowing a Rebel figure to perform an attack with Embrace Suffering is also great).

Best IP Units:

·         Stormtrooper (Core) – When it comes to thinking about a defensive build for an IP team, cheap units are one way to do it. If you can keep one of your guys alive (let’s say with Supernatural Vigor), then redeploying your men comes easily. When I mentioned above that you want to give Supernatural Vigor to someone who might get one-action-KO’d by your opponent, I had Stormtroopers in mind.

·         Elite E-Web Engineer (Core) – E-Webs are great at using both Unnatural Abilities and Supernatural Vigor: not only can they Recover up to 4 Damage in a single turn (if they shoot twice and surge to Recover 2 Damage each time), but they will have a static Block 2 + Evade 1. Since E-Webs play defense (our mantra on this site), I kinda felt like I needed to put them in the list.

·         Elite Probe Droid (Core) – what can I say – we’re looking for units who can Recover Damage? These guys are just going to naturally benefit from upgrades like Unnatural Abilities and Supernatural Vigor (with the healing bringing them under the +3 bonus health they receive), but don’t underestimate the benefits they get from free damage provided by Manifest Aggression or Embrace Anger.

·         Clawdite Shapeshifter with Senator Form (Heart of the Empire) – The Senator Form allows a Clawdite Shapeshifter to Recover Damage and since Clawdites have low Health as it is, this makes them difficult targets to remove if they have Supernatural Vigor and Unnatural Abilities. I’ll note that you can run a Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter as well, passing the Senator Form along with the Supernatural Vigor upgrades between them – boosting the health of whichever one needs to recover the most.

·         Wing Guard (Bespin Gambit) – As the final unit that can recover damage, it shouldn’t be a surprise that these guys made it here: like their Stormtrooper counterparts, they don’t benefit particularly well from getting Unnatural Abilities, but Supernatural Vigor can keep one of them from dying.

In our next post, we’ll be looking at the Imperial Black Ops Class deck – another deck that focuses on maximizing a new game mechanic introduced in its expansion. Until next time, happy gaming!

IP Class Deck Review: Armored Onslaught

In our previous posts in this series, we’ve looked at Imperial Class decks that provide flexibility to your units, make your Troopers better, make the Rebel heroes suffer more Strain, make Leaders more effective, and give you access to villains. Today, we look at a different set of units (that are often hard to field for the Imperial Player): vehicles. While Heavy Weapons and Droids will also feature prominently in this post, today we look at the things that are part and parcel of the Imperial war machine with the Armored Onslaught class deck.

Armored Onslaught: Adding Some Steel To Your Army

Armored Onslaught is one of two Imperial Class decks released in the Return to Hoth expansion. As we’ve talked about in our post on Endless Reserves, an Imperial Player is able to get far more out of vehicles with the advent of Jabba’s Realm (which introduced the Jet Trooper). While vehicles of all kinds are certainly an important part of this list, most of the cards that benefit a vehicle ALSO benefit Droids or Heavy Weapons. If you don’t have cheap vehicles (aka Jet Troopers), you can still get a lot out of this deck by using heavy weapons and droids (both of which are commonly available in the Core set).

In addition to flexible unit choices (Droids, Heavy Weapons, and Vehicles), you also get one of the best starting Upgrades for any Imperial Class deck: Explosive Munitions. While it requires that the unit that uses it is making a blaster attack, it allows you to swap a die out for a Red die AND add Blast 1 to the attack results – perfect for giving a unit that doesn’t use surge well to add a little oomph to their offense and damage nearby units should they stray too close. Like Show Of Force, this can only be used by a single figure, but it can make an attack that wasn’t likely to do any damage do a TON of damage. So, let’s get into the meat of the post and see what kinds of things you can do with this class deck.

End-Game Build #1 – Vehicle-Trooper Combo: Explosive Munitions, Armor Corps, Automated Repairs, Heavy Firepower, Mortar, Reactive Armor

We’ve already talked about how great Troopers are in our post on Military Might, but something bears repeating: the best thing about Troopers it that you can get a lot of them. Since most Vehicles and Droids come as single-model deployment cards (AT-ST, SC2-M Repulsor Tank, AT-DP for Vehicles; Probe Droid for droids), having lots of figures is a huge boon. If you take Troopers (be they Troopers without other keywords like Stormtroopers or those that share other keywords like Heavy Stormtroopers), Armor Corps is a great benefit to you – getting that reroll on defense is HUGE (especially in the early missions). To get the most out of this upgrade, you just need to have enough Droids, Vehicles, or Heavy Weapons to be adjacent to all of your Troopers. Since this is a static bonus, you don’t need to protect a single deployment card with it – you can help everyone (which is great).

Assisting Armor Corps is Reactive Armor and Automated Repairs – both of which are attachments, so you’ll need to pick one or two deployment cards to use them. Automated Repairs should go on a unit that surges a lot in order to get the most use out of recovering damage, while Reactive Armor should go on a unit that can benefit from the added health (since you can’t count on getting the Evade on the black die at all). As good as it is to have these two upgrades, they’re nothing to write home about: Reactive Armor might provide more benefit than the Assault Armor we saw in Military Might, but it costs 3 XP instead of 2 XP. Automated Repairs is useful in that a unit can heal itself with Surge or by spending an action, but it doesn’t heal as much as Technical Support does (though admittedly it doesn’t require coordinating Droids with the troops that need healing). Where this list really shines is in its final two upgrades.

Heavy Firepower is incredible: you basically get to remove a Red die to guarantee that it rolls its highest possible damage face. With Explosive Munitions ever-present in any list you choose, any blaster-wielding unit can benefit from maximum Red damage AND you add Blast 1 to the attack as well. As long as most (or all) of the units you take have a blaster attack type, you’re all but guaranteed to be able to do maximum damage to the Rebel target of your choice. While limited to once a round, you only need to focus your firepower on a single person in order to make it worth the effort.

In addition to Heavy Firepower, we also took the Mortar upgrade: unlike the Riot Grenades found in the Military Might deck, any figure can perform a special action to do a Red die worth of damage to anyone on or adjacent to a space within 3 spaces of the attacker. Because it’s not an attachment, you can do a TON of damage if ANY figure has a free action. It’s important to note that any figure (massive vehicles, creatures, anyone) can do this – which seems a little broken, but hey, we paid 3 XP for it, so it might as well be good.

Best IP Units:

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – Want cheap heavy weapons? Heavy Stormtroopers are your guys. Unlike other Heavy Weapon choices (and there aren’t any), Heavy Stormtroopers come in a pack of two, allowing you to spread them out between two teams to make your Armor Corps more effective. With a Red-Blue attack pool, they can automatically trigger Heavy Firepower OR you can run them with a Red-Red attack pool with a static Accuracy 2 + Blast 1 with Explosive Munitions. Of course, you can go the extra mile and make things even more painful with Heavy Firepower…

·         Jet Trooper (Jabba’s Realm) – Best paired with Heavy Stormtroopers to accompany your Troopers, Jet Troopers can wait with your Troopers while your Heavy Stormtrooper advances. The accompanying Troopers are then able to move up to be adjacent with the Heavy Stormtrooper while the Jet Trooper swoops in for clean-up. While these guys have low health, they’re easily deployed (and re-deployed) in early missions, making them invaluable assets to your team.

·         Snowtrooper (Return to Hoth) – To finish the Trooper Trifecta, Snowtroopers not only come in large numbers, but can heal your Heavy Stormtroopers and Jet Troopers, making it more difficult for the Rebels to clear out your Armor Corps bonus. On offense, these guys aren’t great, but all that can be fixed with Heavy Firepower if you really need it.

·         AT-DP (Heart of the Empire) – Okay, time for an “actual” vehicle: as the cheapest “actual” vehicle available to the Empire, AT-DPs are fantastic: with plenty of health, a static Block on top of a Black die, and the potential for multiple attacks (and very poor surge abilities), you want to give this guy Automated Repairs. Since your ability to attack twice is tied to the amount of damage you’ve taken, recovering damage is a HUGE part to getting the most out of this guy. I don’t think Reactive Armor is that helpful (I think it’s much better on Jet Troopers, though it’s been confirmed on the forums that they can’t use Agile to trigger the free 2 Block), but if you have no other vehicles or Droids, I guess you might as well.

·         Probe Droid (Core) – Ah, the original cheap three-attack-dice-pool Droid available to the Empire – yes, they’re a good option as well to get more out of Armor Corps. In my opinion, Probe Droids are the opposite of AT-DPs for this list: Probe Droids aren’t great carriers for Automated Repairs (they only have 5 Health and they can already Recover 1), but they are great carriers for Reactive Armor (with only 5 Health, getting to 7 makes it far harder for you to be one-turn-KO’d). Having a Red-Yellow-Blue attack pool with a static Blast 1 is also not bad, though make sure you don’t give up that Blue die – you need to guarantee your Accuracy in order to get any use out of the Explosive Munitions upgrade!

End-Game Build #2 – Offensive Build: Explosive Munitions, Explosive Entry, Heavy Firepower, Mortar, Rapid Dominance

As powerful as the last list was, it’s not nearly as powerful as the list we’re about to unveil. In addition to the Explosive Munitions, Heavy Firepower, and Mortar upgrades, we’re taking Explosive Entry and Rapid Dominance. Explosive Entry allows you to do some damage (generally 1-2 damage) to any Rebel heroes who are sitting in a deployment zone – this is great in some missions, but incredibly niche (I recommend getting it late in the campaign – you want Heavy Firepower first). Rapid Dominance requires that you save a lot of Threat in order to allow a Heavy Weapon or Vehicle to attack a second time OR ready itself (at the cost of depleting the upgrade). While I’m not convinced that Rapid Dominance is worth the cost, it does get you more usage out of your power units – and if you take the right ones, you can get a TON of benefits from it.

To balance out the lack of healing/defense boosting, I recommend that you purchase units that are healthy – in early missions, you can take whatever units you can afford, but you want to move towards healthier units as the missions progress (as you’ll need a good bit of your Threat to pay for Rapid Dominance). It’s important to note that you can use Heavy Firepower with anyone who has a red blaster die (which can really be any blaster die if you use Explosive Munitions with it), allowing you to bring some cheap units alongside your expensive ones that allows you to offset the cost of Rapid Dominance. Furthermore, the Mortar can be used by anyone (melee or blaster attack types combined), allowing you to get other units that might also offset your costs.

Best IP Units:

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – Yes, we love these guys – they’re great. With Rapid Dominance, you can get two attacks from one of them each round (which is SO GOOD) and in a critical round you can pay 3 Threat to ready their card instead – glorious.

·         Sentry Droid (Heart of the Empire) – Perhaps the best unit to use with Rapid Dominance, Sentry Droids have two great special actions that lend them a total of three attacks. With Rapid Dominance, you get the ability to attack three times for 2 Threat or four times for 3 Threat (though I think the former is much better as it doesn’t require you to deplete the card).

·         Elite Jet Trooper (Jabba’s Realm) – While regular Jet Troopers are wonderful, we’re looking for healthier stock. Elite Jet Troopers are fabulous on offense, incredibly mobile, and they can benefit (as vehicles) from Rapid Dominance (which will give them 4 free points of movement with Mobile if they’re shooting at nearby figures – which translates to a free move).

·         SC2-M Repulsor Tank (Return to Hoth) – Right, time to talk proper vehicles. While the tank is slightly more expensive than the AT-DP and very similar to the walker in many respects, SC2-M Repulsor Tanks specialize in focused damage to one target (instead of spreading damage against several). Thanks to a static Accuracy 2, you can use Explosive Munitions to get a Red-Red-Yellow attack pool with a static Accuracy 2 + Blast 1 and the ability to turn additional surge into Blast 1 or Damage 2 – perfect for doing LOADS of damage to the target. On defense, you have the flexibility of either a static Block or static Evade, which is slightly better than the AT-DP. With multiple attacks that can’t be taken away as you take damage (though only 10 health vs. 16 health), it’s hard to say that the Tank is the better choice, but it certainly works well with this list (as bringing it doesn’t require the use of Rapid Dominance with this card).

·         Dewback Rider (Captain Terro Villain Pack) – When you’re looking for a good health-to-cost ratio, Dewbacks are fantastic. With free movement points at the start of its activation, a Dewback Rider can ride forward and perform both a powerful attack and use its Shock Lance - a nasty special ability that softens up a hostile figure. While a Yellow-Green-Blue is a perfectly acceptable attack pool, you’ll get far more utility out of a Red-Yellow-Green if your enemies are close (or a Red-Green-Blue otherwise) thanks to Explosive Munitions. If you don’t like the Shock Lance, he can always use the Mortar. At only 5 Threat, he’s also easy to deploy and (if you can keep him from being exposed to too much fire) he’s decently hard to kill.

End-Game Build #3 – Defensive Build: Explosive Munitions, Armor Corps, Automated Repairs, Reactive Armor, Power To Shields

In our first list, we saw a balanced approach to both offense and defense. This list takes most of the upgrades from our first list and trades the high-powered upgrades for the Power To Shields upgrade. This niche defensive upgrade gives you the ability to ignore certain keywords when a Rebel figure attacks you – perfect for mitigating those annoying Pierce 3 surge abilities, static Cleave 3s, and static Blast bonuses. To accompany this amazing upgrade (which you can spend Threat to ready after you use it), we have the tried and tested Armor Corps-Automated Repairs-Reactive Armor upgrades to boost the healing or resiliency of your army.

On offense, we only have Explosive Munitions, but this upgrade is still something to be reckoned with – you get incredible flexibility for one of your attacks to get the damage you want with the Blast bonus you so rarely get. All told, this build focuses strongly on staying alive and relies on taking high-damage units to deal the real death-blows to the Rebels.

Best IP Units:

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – Basically, see the comments we made in our first list – they all still apply. Since you want these guys to provide the Armor Corps bonus to nearby Troopers, ignoring the Blast/Cleave keywords is fantastic (keeps those grunts you’re protecting alive longer).

·         Jet Trooper (Jabba’s Realm) – Same comments as our first list.

·         Sentry Droid (Heart of the Empire) – Yes, these guys are great in both offensive and defensive builds. While having two droids is a great way to also get Armor Corps bonuses, the extra health they can get from Reactive Armor is also helpful in keeping them alive. On offense, getting a Red-Green attack with Explosive Munitions will do a lot more than a Green-Green (both suffer -1 Damage if you’re using Multi-Fire).

·         Elite E-Web Engineer (Core) – As we’ve said in several posts, E-Webs play defense. Who better to have in a defensive list, then, than an E-Web! With a static block, you stand ready to resist a fair bit of punishment (and getting 9 Health with Reactive Armor certainly helps). The better upgrade (though you can take both) is Automated Repairs, which allows you to turn 2 Surge into healing (recovering 4 Damage in a single attack). While this is a bit overkill (given that you only have 7 Health – or 9 Health if you have Reactive Armor as well), there aren’t too many more threatening units that you could bring to your list than an E-Web. On offense, getting a Red-Red-Yellow with a static 3 Accuracy (or a Red-Red-Blue with at least 5 Accuracy) is fantastic – and the static Blast 1 is a nice benefit.

·         AT-ST (Core) – He’s the icon of the deck – I needed to include him. J Here’s a fact: Pierce is most effective against units that have more than one defense die. Sure, someone might get 2-3 Block on a Black die, but half the time they’ll get 0-1 Block and at that point, surging for Pierce 2 (or automatically getting Pierce 2 as we showed with Verena and Murne) just doesn’t do very much. When your target has 2 Black dice, however, having the ability to surge for Pierce 2 all but guarantees knocking out one of those die, leaving the rest of your attack to deal with a single defense die. It’s no wonder that the high-Pierce characters of the world go charging towards AT-STs and other such high-defense figures – they can actually do something against them! AT-STs not only benefit from all of the bonuses in this build (though I don’t recommend Automated Repairs – you want to move and spend your surge on other things), but they can also roll a Red-Red-Red with a static Accuracy 3 and Blast 1 (which can turn into Blast 3 if you can land a single surge) and the ability to reroll one of their attack die. Sure, you can’t attack people who are adjacent to you, but feel free to move and then attack once the target is clear of you.

In our next post, we’ll be turning our attention to the depths of the Dark Side and looking at the Power of the Dark Side Class deck. While Nemeses gives us access to powerful villains throughout the campaign, Power of the Dark Side provides static bonuses to your units that makes them better (and sort of villain-ish). Until next time, happy gaming!