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).

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Snowtroopers

Good morning gamers,

We're back in the Empire for the rest of the month and we're tackling our second of the Imperial Corps units: Snowtroopers. I was a fan of these guys (at least in theory) in the previous edition of the game because they were basically Stormtroopers with Steady. Yes, they have less of a smorgasbord of Heavy Weapon options, but Steady is a great keyword and they're rolling similar stuff on offense and defense. For most competitive players, Snowtroopers have been the go-to option in Legion 2.6 and they are, truthfully, very good units. Let's dig into what makes these guys so great!

Snowtroopers: The Profile

Like Stormtroopers (and Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers), these guys are base 42pts - though in reality, these guys are 68pts+, for reasons we'll see when we get to the upgrade section. These are some of the cheapest red-defense-die units in the game and they keep their cost down by taking a few key downgrades. First and foremost, they're only Speed-1 - as we'll see in a moment, that's perfectly fine. Second, they roll 1 white attack die per mini in both melee and at range - with surge to hit, this is only marginally worse than rolling 1 black die each without surging, but it psychologically FEELS worse because "white dice can't hit". Third, they're only base Courage 1 - but the Empire has a few tricks that can fix that problem easily.

At first blush, these guys aren't much to look at - but their one and only keyword makes up for a lot of their problems: Steady. Second to Relentless, this is the strongest keyword for turning a drool unit into a cool unit. While these guys are Speed-1 (~4" of movement), the fact that they can move-move-shoot with ~8" of total movement makes them faster than most units that can only move-shoot. Additionally, because they're moving at Speed-1, they effectively ignore difficult terrain (since difficult terrain reduces your speed by 1 to a minimum of 1). Most other units would need to pay 2pts to get Environmental Gear (or have Scale in their profiles/upgrade suite), so when you think about it, these guys are actually the cheapest Corps option the Empire has. To use them effectively, you do have to build around them a little - but their upgrades can help with this a lot.

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Darth Vader, Part II

Good morning gamers,

We're looking at the other side of the coin from last time and viewing the Operative Vader profile. In many ways, this version of Vader is similar to the previous one - he hits hard, he has a lot of great keywords, and he's going to change the way your opponent plays (probably because he'll be monopolizing your command hand). At the same time, there are a lot of trades (both positive and negative) to taking this version of Vader. Let's see what he brings to the table (and what he leaves behind) from his more popular Commander variant.

Darth Vader, The Emperor's Apprentice: The Profile

Darth Vader boasts less-strong-but-still-strong combat profile compared to his Commander variant with 5 red dice and Impact 3/Pierce 3 - and unlike Commander Vader, he has a 2 black dice range 1-2 attack option that has Blast (no cover saves) and Scatter (you get to re-cohere the unit around its unit leader - which likely denies cover for your friends on future shots). While he doesn't have the innate ability to surge, access to aim tokens and occasionally surge tokens are definitely options in your list building - and against anyone with a Force slot, he gains surge-to-crit on offense thanks to Jedi Hunter. With the Relentless keyword, Vader can turn any move action into a follow-on attack action (up to one attack each turn - though he can perform two activations in a single round with Implacable). Yes, Vader is trying to deal as much damage as he can - and when he deals damage in melee, he's pretty incredible (his ranged attack is mostly to trigger suppression and bring a unit out of cover).

This version of Vader is Speed-2, which is good and might making getting Burst of Speed for a Speed-3 activation unnecessary. Having Speed-2 and Relentless means that anyone that moves to Range-2 of Vader should expect to take a hit to the face with a lightsaber - and if you want to avoid being moved towards him, you probably need to stay at Range-4 of him, which is hard to do. This version of Vader has Courage 3 instead of infinite Courage (and he's an Operative who doesn't have access to a Command slot), which means that he can't keep your units from panicking - so be sure to bring Commanders who will keep your boys in the fight (possibly with Compel to make up for what you're losing from Commander Vader). Like his Commander version, Vader has Master of the Force 1, which is great for making sure that any exhaustible Force upgrades you take can come back to you at the end of each activation (not turn - activation) so you can use them again.

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Darth Vader, Part I

Good morning gamers,

We're tackling the big man himself, "Commander Vader", today. Vader is a staple in basically every Imperial list and the reason for it is simple: whether he's hacking things with his lightsaber or just forcing Imperial Corps units to stay on target, he's changing the state of the game. We'll be looking today at what makes this version of Vader so good, but we'll be looking next time at what his Operative variant brings to the table (and loses in the conversion process). By far and away, this is the most prevalent version of Vader you're going to see - and for good reason!

Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith: The Profile

Darth Vader boasts an incredibly strong combat profile with 6 red dice and Impact 3/Pierce 3 - if given Saber Throw (which you should always give him - I left it home for a three-round Recon tournament once and sort of regretted it, as great as having Push and Choke was), he can reliably cut into enemy armor and any damage that he deals will automatically work against the target unit in most situations. While he doesn't have the innate ability to surge, access to aim tokens and occasionally surge tokens are definitely options in your list building. With the Relentless keyword, Vader can turn any move action into a follow-on attack action (up to one attack each turn), but might be able to perform a second attack via the Blizzard Force 2-pip command card (and can even perform two activations in a single round with Implacable). Yes, Vader is trying to deal as much damage as he can - and when he deals damage, he's pretty incredible.

He's only Speed-1, which often means that you want to factor in options for speed with him (more on that when we cover both the Force upgrades and what command cards you take below). Speed-1 isn't that much slower than Speed-2, but avoiding him is a lot easier than the Operative variant just because a unit that moves Speed-2 once can ensure that they are safe if they started at least range 1/2 away from him before they moved. Vader also has infinite Courage, which means that any friendly units within range 3 of him (potentially range 4) never count as being panicked - which is fantastic when paired with his Compel: Corps Trooper ability, which can give any suppressed-but-not-panicked Corps units more suppression (Cover 1 for the win!) in order to get a free move . . . which is sort of like not being suppressed at all. Vader also has Master of the Force 1, which is great for making sure that any exhaustible Force upgrades you take can come back to you at the end of each activation (not turn - activation) so you can use them again.

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Stormtrooper Heavy Response Unit

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at the stock-standard Stormtrooper unit that's available to the Empire in every single army list (and was included in all but the Blizzard Force battle force starter box as your Imperial Corps choice). Today, we're looking at their Blizzard Force cousin, the Stormtrooper Heavy Response Unit (HRU from now on), which has many of the same attributes of normal Stormtroopers, but with one big exception: you have to take two Heavy Weapon upgrades and you can't take any other upgrades. Since this is exclusive to the Blizzard Force battle force, you also can't take as many Heavy Weapon upgrades as the normal squad can (none of the named guys - Gideon Hask, Del Meeko, or Agent Kallus) and per the usual, you can't take multiple copies of the same upgrade. This gives us a few different combos that we can play with, but we have a way to determine what the "best choice" is, depending on what you want your squad to do. Let's see how the profile has changed and how this modifies the way we think about fielding the unit.

I will note before we begin that Blizzard Force allows you to run both standard Stormtroopers as well as Stormtrooper HRUs AND you're limited to 2 of these units - any additional Corps units that you add (one of which is mandatory) will be Snowtroopers. Choosing whether to take Standard Stormtroopers or HRUs (or just more Snows) is a real decision point - and I don't think there's an obvious answer when you get down to it.

Stormtroopers HRU: The Profile

Many of the attributes of this Stormtrooper profile are the same as the standard version - Speed 2, non-surging red saves, surge to hit on offense, and Courage 1. These guys retain Precise 1 (so they're still a bit aim hungry - but probably not AS aim hungry as their standard cousins), but they pick up Unhindered, which is kind of like having a standard Stormtrooper unit that paid 2pts for Environmental Gear. Since Snowtroopers also have Unhindered (ignores difficult terrain when moving), these guys are able to keep up with Snowtroopers (sort of - double-moving Snows are hard to keep pace with, especially with Imperial March . . . also, it's unclear if you want to keep up with Snowtroopers, but more on that in a moment). Their Flexible Response 2 special rule requires that they take two Heavy Weapon Upgrades - but unlike Strike Teams, neither of these Heavy Weapon units gains the Leader keyword (which has big implications on the attrition effect for this unit).

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Stormtroopers

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking off the new year with a unit I have been using a lot: Stormtroopers. These are the OG Corps units for the Empire and in many ways, they've been surpassed by Snowtroopers (and maybe other Corps options). Still, these guys are still the default Imperial Corps for the starter sets and they also have a lot of customizability (for both Heavy Weapons and Personnel choices, and unit cards - though we'll be looking at the Heavy Response Unit variant next time). With a new battle force that allows you to run seven of these guys, maybe we're in a new era for the humble Stormtrooper to shine. Let's see what these guys bring to the table.

Stormtroopers: The Profile

Stormtroopers are only 44pts base and have red saves - this puts them top of the list (tied with Snowtroopers) for cheapest red-dice-save unit in the game. They keep their cost down by having surging-white attack dice and a single situational special rule - and if you have ways to generate aim tokens on these units (or on units with Exemplar within range 2), these guys don't feel like they're rolling white dice. Beyond this, you have some standard stats of Speed 2, Courage 1, and 4 starting models - all in all, not bad for just over 40pts. 

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: 74-Z Speeder Bikes

Good morning gamers,

This will be our last unit review for the year (we'll be looking at the customizable Jedi/Super-Tacs in November and taking December off, as usual) and we're looking at an Imperial unit that I've been playing with a lot recently: 74-Z Speeder Bikes. These guys were super good in the last edition of the game, able to skew easily in several scenarios (and you could massively underbid points so you got your scenario decks and make your opponent's life difficult). In the current edition of the game, these guys are super fast, but much harder to keep alive. Let's see what their place is and what you should consider getting for them . . .

74-Z Speeder Bikes: The Profile

Like a handful of supports (including most speeder units), Speeder Bikes are a two-model unit, each with 3 Wounds for 6 Wounds total. This puts them on-par with things like AT-RTs in raw wounds, but behind units like Tauntauns and functionally behind units like Droidekas who have an abundance of shields most of the time. The biggest appeal of these guys is their relatively low points cost (currently 70, but it's fluctuated some since I started playing the game) and their incredible speed (Speed-3 with a compulsory move from Speeder 1). Defensively, their innate Cover 1 and surging white save isn't great, so most players consider these guys to be very, very fragile (and I happen to agree - I've misplayed and lost these guys SO many times!).

Offensively, they hit pretty hard for being a 70-point, two-model unit: if shooting in their forward arc, they've got a double-rainbow of 2 red/2 black/2 white with surge to hit and Impact 2, which downgrades to 1 red/1 black/1 white with surge to hit and Impact 1 when the first speeder dies (not if the first speeder dies - when the first speeder dies). The end result is that each speeder is supposed to deal about 2 hits, which means you can jump out with the compulsory move, put 2-4 hits into something, then whip around again to duck to safety. If you're lucky, this will chip away at things (including Armored units), but you won't be blowing anything away with this guy.

If you aren't looking where you want to shoot, you do have an omni-directional pistol shot of 2 black dice per Speeder and you can even split-fire if you want to with one speeder using the rainbow attack and one speeder using the pistol. Both are likely to get at least 1 hit through to the defense roll, which means you can suppress enemy units that are sitting on objectives as you pass on to another one - pretty slick, if you ask me.

That being said, the strength of Speeder Bikes has always been in taking multiple copies of them - one Speeder Bike popping out and shooting at an enemy unit is all fine and good, but if you have a line of Speeder Bikes that harass a unit that's already gone (and ideally has very few friends nearby who have yet to go), you can cripple a unit that started the round out healthy and leave it as a smoking shell or a handful of guys by the end. Since Speeders can also contest objectives, having a mob of speeders end their move near a far-flung objective or two (either by double-moving and shooting OR by triple-moving) can really swing the VPs your opponent was counting on.

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Din Djarin, Part II

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at the Rebel variant of Din Djarin and the various ways you can run him. Today, we're turning to the Imperial side of the house, where competition for the Operative slot wasn't that strong . . . until the customizable characters started crying out for use alongside Din, Op-Vader, and Agent Kallus. Today we'll be looking at what Din brings to the Imperial faction and what kinds of upgrades you should consider taking.

Din Djarin: The Profile

Din's profile is pretty standard for a Mandalorian - 5 Wounds instead of 6, Courage 3 is nice (though not sharable on an Operative without a Command slot), he has surge for crit and block with a red defense die for reliable damage into things and reliable resistance to damage when defending, and he's base speed-2, but can make that speed-3 if he's willing to shell out points. He has two weapons and the option for two more - his blaster is range 1-2 with Versatile (so he can shoot out of combat at a target at range 1-2, but cannot shoot at someone he's in combat with) and rolls 2 red/1 black for a reasonable amount of damage for being a pistol. This is an aim-hungry weapon with Lethal 1 and Long Shot, but with Tactical 1 and Independent: Aim 1 and Dodge 1, it's not unlikely that he'll have two aim tokens if he moves and shoots. His base melee weapon on its own isn't great (2 black with Lethal 1), but if it's paired with any of his additional weapons, it can be a useful little-bit-extra against a unit you're in melee with.

Din's other keywords are good or fine - Arsenal 2 is great since he has an armament option, but will only be used if you take his Flame Projector or when he's in melee. Bounty can be good if Din can actually target an enemy Commander/Operative that he picks at the start of the game and then stick around in combat long enough to kill them - but hey, it's the potential for a victory point and that's not bad. He's also got Impervious, which isn't as good as Immune: Pierce, but it's definitely better than nothing.

All of this is true for the Rebel variant too, but this version of Din doesn't have access to Grogu, so you're purely looking at Din for his damage options instead of his support options. As a result, you probably want to lean hard into the upgrades on Din (and probably more so than the upgrades you'd take for most Rebel builds).

Customizable Commanders, Part II: The Empire

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we reviewed the new customizable commander and operative options for the Rebel Alliance and today, we're pivoting to the Imperial side of the house and looking at the new Imperial Officer and Agent options (after that, I promise we'll get back to the Din Djarin articles). If you haven't seen the article yet, you can view it here and while I think the Rebel options have a lot of cool synergies, I think I'm more excited to use the Imperial ones (mostly because I've missed having "Ruth" in my Op-Vader lists).

Like the previous article, we'll be looking at the four doctrines provided in the new kit and how that shakes out with the SIX different Imperial builds you can have (max of four, of course, since the doctrines are unique . . . good thing too with this set). We'll begin with the one I'm most excited about for Officers . . .

Imperial Officer with Academy Trained: 65+ pts

The Imperial Officer is remarkably similar to the Rebel Officer - the only difference between them is that the Rebel Officer has 1 gear slot and 1 grenade slot, while the Imperial Officer has 2 gear slots. This may be important as we'll see below, but with base Inspire 1 and the need to equip a doctrine, this canvas is pretty wide open. The Academy Trained doctrine works similarly to the Proven Tactician doctrine for the Rebels: the Officer picks up Courage 3 instead of Courage 2, Exemplar, Inspire 2 instead of Inspire 1 (instead of giving out Reinforcements to nearby Corps units), and instead of getting Quick Thinking as an action, the Imperial Officer gains Strategize 1. The functional difference between Quick Thinking and Strategize is very, VERY small - since both builds have Exemplar, the fact that Quick Thinking has to give the tokens to the Rebel Officer and the Imperial Officer could pick someone else to have the tokens with Strategize is really a distinction without a difference, as whoever is in range to receive the tokens from Strategize would also be within range of the Officer. If you want someone to walk away from the Officer and still have the tokens, give them to someone else - otherwise, just give the Officer the tokens and let other people borrow them with Exemplar.

Top 5 Empire Units (for Legion II)

Good morning gamers

This is Gorgoroth, and I am here to talk about my top 5 Empire units for the updated Legion. Now if you read my other post about my top 5 Empire units, you will know that I specialize in this department in not just words, but humor. However, that was before all the rules changed, so then I realized that I was spreading pure lies to all you good folks who read our stupid stuff (Ed. it's not stupid, you rapscallion! ~Tiberius). 

So, since I felt bad about that, I have returned to do it again while the rules are still new and so I can show you awesome strategies while everybody is still learning. So, lets jump in starting at number 5 which is of course.....

Pick #5: Shoretroopers

Photo Credit: Tabletop Admiral

These guys were always awesome when I ran them and they are, not surprisingly, still awesome. They are still the only Empire Corps unit with black dice on their guns and they picked up Prepared Positions which gives them a dodge token when they deploy and lets them deploy without spending an action. They are at Speed 1 now but are still red dice defenders which gives them the leg up. Now that I have poured out my heart on these guys, I need to address their heavy weapon which is in my opinion the most awesome weapon in the game (no offense, Vader. Darth Vader: "None (wheeze) taken (wheeze).") So yeah, they are really awesome but do you know what is even more awesome? Moving On!

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: LAAT/LE Patrol Transport, Part II

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at the LAAT/LE Patrol Transport in Republic lists and today we're looking at what appears to be the same unit but in Empire lists. While the Comms and Ordnance upgrades are the same, the Empire list itself and the Pilot options available to the Empire changes how useful a LAAT is (and how it's played) dramatically. We're going to begin by going back over the profile - if you read the Republic post, much of this will sound familiar . . .

LAAT/LE Patrol Transport: The Profile

LAATs are Heavy unit choices and like most heavy options, they have Armor 5 (slapping the first five hit results in the attack pool is basically like what full armor was, though big dice pools are likely to get some hits past Armor 5 - but more on that later). Armor X is one of those keywords that's so powerful, that there are OTHER keywords specifically designed to counter it (the Impact keyword, which turns Hits into Crits, and the Critical keyword, which turns surge results into Crits). While LAATs are probably one of the least popular full armor units in the game, they have some of the best supporting keywords alongside the Armor X keyword.

Three logical LAAT layouts, running you 116-133pts
Photo Credit: LegionHQ

LAATs also have Cover 1, which will remove 1 Hit result before keywords like Impact are applied - super useful. They're also Immune to Blast (so you can't take their Cover 1 away), Melee weapons (so you don't have to worry about Jedi slamming you with 6+ dice and loads of Pierce/Impact), and Range 1 weapons (which includes all grenades - one of which has Impact). It's important to note that most weapons with Blast happen to be Range 1 weapons, but for the few that aren't (Bunker Buster Shells, the MPL Barrage Trooper, and the B2-HA Trooper), you're immune to those too. With a white defense die and defensive surges, any damage that does make it through is probably going to be successful in wounding you (especially if Pierce is present), but you'll be shrugging off most of the dice that are thrown your way.

Star Wars Legion: My Top 5 Empire Units

Hello there!    

I am Gorgoroth, the son of Tiberius. Tiberius has talked about me in his posts. I am writing SWL posts because in 2024 I became in love with tabletop boardgames in general. But the reason you are here is because I will be going through my top 5 empire units today and I hope you enjoy. So without further ado I will start at number 5 which is the empires greatest core unit . . . Shoretroopers.

Pick #5: Shoretroopers

I chose shores for number 5 for this reason: they are so far the only black dice attacking unit that is also core in the whole legion of core available to the Galactic Empire. They also have an incredible heavy weapon option (range 1-4 BBWW Critical 1) so they pack a punch. They also, if you take them, give you the option to run another core option.....DF90 mortar troopers. They are a separate core unit that has Fire Support. They have an attack pool of 3 whites, Critical 1, and Suppressive. They are, in my opinion, the worst core in the game. Shoretroopers are a great core investment and are used in most of my armies (emphasis on most). They are incredibly useful and can, if needed, take a huge beating. Who else can take a huge beating? LAAT patrol transports! And these bad boys are number 4 on this amazing list.

Pick #4: LAAT/LE Patrol Transport

Why are laats on this list? I did it because a simple reason crossed my mind while wrestling my siblings: they are closed transports. This means whoever starts in a laat is pretty much invulnerable. So it is perfect to take vulnerable or slow units into the fray unscathed. It is also no slouch in a fight either, it has awesome blasters (1-3BBBR) plus the ordnance option which in my opinion is the armor piercing shells (2-3RBB Impact 3). It is one heck of a power piece as well as a helper piece. If that was somehow not enough then there is one - just one - more ace up my sleeve: It, if you take Governor Pryce, can be your commander. Warning: brains are exploding in New York, Detroit, or wherever you're from. Please stay alert and don't step on the brains because they couldn't handle the amazing knowledge they just died from. Thanks. The mention of scattering brains reminds me that we are not even close to done so let's just get number 3 over with: it's Royal Guards.

Pick #3: Imperial Royal Guards

Of course it's royal guards. If you know anything about me you would know that I love magnaguards from the separatist faction. These guys are incredible at what they do. They have Guardian and Disciplined 2 (for the young people out there, disciplined means that candy's "come here and eat me" effect has no power over you. Keep working on it, kids). They also have double blacks at B2 Battle Droid range for their pistols. Why do they have pistols? In the Emperor's throne room you don't see the royal guards pull out their "pistols" do you? Anyway, they have incredible melee attacks and you can pair that with their red defense and 2 wounds each and get close to your guts exploding. Now I have to wrap the royal guards up because they are no match for the man who pulled his nerve together and battled Mando. That's right, it's none other than Moff Gideon.

Pick #2: Moff Gideon

Moff Gideon has always been buds with me - especially when I dumped Din for Cad. I love his versatility when it comes to strategy. He has the Darksaber, which has 5 blacks, Impact 1 and Pierce 1. It also gives him demoralize but that keyword is garbage. He has an excellent blaster and a 2-outta-3 chance of blocking blaster bolts when people get violent. But he shines with his command cards. His 1-pip is garbage; it gives him Agile 1 and that's basically it. His 2-pip helps Dark Troopers fly around the board which is only useful if you run them and they are a heap of points. But his 3-pip issues orders to 3 heavy or core units, and they all gain Fire Support. Now any Clone player knows that Fire Support is one of the best keywords in the game. In fact, I have used him with the number 1 unit before. Who is it you may ask? Well don't beg, it is the greatest unit in the game: the unstoppable Dark Troopers.

Pick #1: Dark Troopers

Here's a question, why are the Dark Troopers number 1? Here's an excellent answer: they do huge amounts of damage and are impossible to kill off. They are excellent units and make me say two words when an enemy player brings them to the table. "Oh man." So yeah, they are so incred...wait, hold on, pause, reset. They're only speed 1! Yes, it's a problem, but there is an excellent answer: Moff Gideon's 2-pip. With this you can jump them across the board and use their power and might to kill everybody. They are the only units with 2 activations every round. Yeah, it's a thing. Well, I am going to wrap this up with a few words.....

May the force be with you.

Command cards: best ally/villain packs to get

Good morning gamers,

As more and more Ally/Villain packs are released for the Imperial Assault game, it’s hard for newer collectors to determine what packs to prioritize getting. I’ve been playing this game since mid-2015 but only started seriously collecting for a little over a year. I own some of the Ally/Villain packs, but as new packs are released, I identify which packs of the new lot I want and which ones I don’t. I’ve also spent quite a while determining which of the older packs I want (or don’t want). If you also are trying to determine which Imperial Assault Ally/Villain packs you want, this post is for you.

What Makes a Good Ally/Villain Pack?

Let’s begin by getting the following caveat taken care of up-front:

We’re only evaluating Ally/Villain packs here based on their Command cards.

Are there other factors that contribute to whether or not an Ally/Villain pack are good besides its Command Card makeup? Of course. Are Ally/Villain packs not mentioned here worthless? Not at all. When it all comes down to it, while most of the content in the Ally/Villain pack are exclusive content, if you only want the character, you can usually get the token for the character in the core box or an expansion box.

While having the actual model is nice, the Command cards provided are the bulk of the new content provided by the pack…so that’s why we’re using it as the standard. Furthermore, you’ll usually get Command cards that support more than just the character purchased – even cards that are neutral in affiliation and may not cost any Command card points (allowing you to include more expensive cards in your deck that favor a particular class of characters). Command cards make a big difference and should not play a small role in determining the priority of getting Ally/Villain packs for your collection. That all said, if you don’t see your favorite listed here, it’s not because I don’t like it…it’s because the overall utility of their Command cards is not as good as the packs listed here.

Honorable Mentions: Chewbacca, Bantha Rider, Grand Inquisitor, and Maul

I used a simple qualitative assessment to determine the utility of each Command card provided in each pack and found the weighted average of their utility scores. The following packs all ended with an average score of 0.750 – their cards (on average) are not needed by their users, but are helpful and above-average in value. Let’s take a look at these honorable mentions by affiliation:

·         REBELS: Chewbacca: These packs provide valuable allies in the campaign game, but in the Skirmish game, their cards are incredible. Chewbacca’s deck is more useful to Wookie decks than the Wookie Warrior pack – with two copies of Wookie Rage that allow Wookies to deal damage to nearby foes based on the damage they’ve already taken (not based on a die roll) and the Debts Repaid card that allows Chewie to ready his deployment card when a friendly figure is defeated. You also get cards like Roar and Adrenaline, which are more situational but still quite valuable (applying Stun en masse is great as is getting a temporary boost to your health).

·         IMPERIAL: The Grand Inquisitor: If you like Force Users (especially the Imperial kind), you want this ally pack – both DeadlyPrecision and Force Rush are 0-cost Command cards and they provide the ability to ignore a Dodge result in each attack you make this round and the ability to gain a little more movement – invaluable if you’re running someone like Darth Vader. Hunt Them Down is great too (though at 2-cost, it’s a bit pricey along with all the other Imperial Force User cards you’ll include in your deck).

·         MERCENARY: Bantha Rider: Let’s face it: Banthas are fun to run – they’re big and nasty and squish stuff. Cards like Crush and Jundland Terror (two copies!) are great for getting the most out of Bantha rules (though you can use Crush with your Imperial Walkers and Jundland Terror with your Tusken Raiders too). Add to that the Opportunistic card, which can give any Mercenary figure additional movement after you deal damage (either making a big escape or furthering the advance). Keep in mind, though, that if you stomp on someone (let’s say as a move action before an attack action) that you can’t move anymore that turn – so coordinating this if you’re planning on stepping on stuff is tricky.

·         MERCENARY: Maul: Maul’s pack provides excellent cards for Brawlers instead of Force Users. Melee characters will get a great boost from Deathblow, while your favorite Brawlers (I like Trandoshans, Tuskens, and of course Maul) will get free movement out of Face to Face and Looking for a Fight. While many figures have expensive unique Command cards, Maul’s Wreak Vengeance card comes in at 1 point and allows him to be Focused AND use Reach AND Cleave 2. All told, Maul is fantastic.

These packs are fantastic – they have some cards that provide huge benefits to your skirmish squads and make for brutal teams. But now, we get into the real power players – characters whose Command cards really shine!

Bronze Medal: Jabba the Hutt

Jabba’s already gotten lots of press on this blog, both as an excellent candidate for using To The Limit and as a user of On a Diplomatic Mission. Included in this incredible Villain pack are three Command cards that are very helpful to your skirmish lists (he scored a 0.833 on our rating scale). First, the Assassinate card allows you to just add 3 damage to an attack performed by a Hunter. While this will generally be done by a Mercenary army, you can also use the card to beef up the first attack of Close and Personal by Biv Bodhrick (for you Rebel players out there). Hunter units who already dominate the damage output (IG-88, Trandoshans, and Shyla) become even more dominant when you (essentially) add a red die to the attack results. It’s very, VERY brutal.

Blood Feud is a relatively cheap unique Command card, but don’t underestimate its power: being able to add a static 1 damage to your attacks against a particular deployment card is HUGE. If your opponent has static block on that figure, forget about it. Can the figure heal himself? Mob him with attacks. Perhaps the best thing about it is that you can use units with relatively low damage ceilings (Weequay and Hired Guns for example) and it gives them the edge they need to really cut through their opponent’s defenses.

Finally, Jabba’s Villain pack gives you Shoot the Messenger, which is one of the most painful ways to burn through your opponent’s Command deck. If you also include two copies of Merciless (credit due to the IG-88 Villain pack), you’ll find that you can rake through your opponent’s cards (or force him to give you victory points). All told, life is good.

Silver Medal: Stormtrooper and Alliance Smuggler

Tying for second with a score of 0.875 are the Stormtrooper and Alliance Smuggler packs. While Mercenary lists got a huge boost with Jabba the Hutt, these packs include a lot of neutral cards that can be worked into Imperial, Rebel, or Mercenary lists. Let’s look at the contents.

In the Stormtrooper pack, you get two copies of Reinforcements. These cards (also available in the Rebel Trooper pack) are a must-have if you’re running a Trooper list – you need to be able to regrow your Troopers if you’re going to get the most out of them. If you’re running Elite Stormtroopers or regular Heavy Stormtroopers, this is a definite must (though it also applies to Elite Wing Guard and Elite Rebel Troopers…and regular Echo Base Troopers…and regular Alliance Rangers…you get the picture). The Stealth Tactics card is also really good – being able to just add a White die to your defense results is HUGE (even if you don’t get the Dodge result). The pack also comes with Set for Stun, which I don’t find to be as useful as the others, but Stun results require the target to remove them, which does limit actions, so…

The Alliance Smuggler pack also provides good bonuses: Without a doubt, the best two cards provided in it are the Heart of Freedom card and the Smuggled Supplies card. Heart of Freedom is a must-have for any Rebel list – you get movement points, healing, condition removal – it’s fantastic. Smuggled Supplies works much the same way (and can be found in the Hired Guns pack), except you get healing OR extra Surge OR extra Evades (all of which are very useful) so long as you’re a Smuggler. The pack also includes Self-Defense – a neat little 0-cost Command card that allows you to just do a damage to someone who moves next to you – and Smuggler’s Tricks – a niche card that allows you to make sure enemy figures don’t control terminals or don’t have units on map tiles that are important to the scenario objectives. Everyone should have a copy of this pack – it’s just really, REALLY necessary.

But for all the benefits that you get from the Smuggler and the Stormtrooper packs, there is one that beats all, and that is…

Gold Medal: LukeSkywalker, Jedi Knight

Ok, let’s get one thing straight: I don’t like this pack for Jedi Luke. Luke is great – he does a lot of damage and he can attack twice each turn (and one of those doesn’t count as an action). But the reason Luke wins this contest is because his cards help basically anyone and they provide things that make normal units in the skirmish game better than they should be. Want a free Surge? Here’s Blitz. Want a free damage? Here’s Positioning Advantage. If you’re a Guardian/Brawler (very popular classes across all three affiliations), try getting a free Block with Parry. Total Command cost for all three of these cards? 1 point. ONE POINT! Yeah, the cards aren’t earth-shattering. Yeah, they’re lame and they aren’t flashy. Yeah, they’re not as powerful as pretty much any of the other cards that we talked about. But this is why it’s the best pack to get:

It doesn’t matter what your favorite affiliation is – you can use it NOW.

Do you like running bounty hunters that hack through things? All three cards will help your deck. Like running Wookies? Here are three more cards. What about those Royal Guard-Imperial Officer swarms that were so popular when the Core game came out? Yep, all three of these help them too. No matter what you run, two of the cards will help you and quite possibly all three will help you. And that, dear children, is why it’s the best.

And it comes with Jedi Luke. There, I said it. Happy?

In our next post, we’ll be looking at two Command cards and examining some great combos to use with them: Strength in Numbers and Squad Swarm. Until then, happy gaming!

Star Wars: Imperial Assault - Tips for the IP Player, Part II: Bucketheads

Good morning readers,

In today's post, we'll be looking at the core of most Imperial armies: troopers. There's probably nothing more iconic than stormtroopers in all of Star Wars (except Darth Vader), so if you like troopers but wonder how to use them, today's post is for you.

You might think that there's not much difference between the trooper options available to the Empire, and you wouldn't be too wrong. Most Bucketheads use a Green-Blue on offense (blame E11s). This means that besides health and surge options, they all basically do the same damage. In today's post, we'll be looking at Stormtroopers and E-Webs - we'll cover the other Stormtrooper units in our next post.

Stormtroopers:

Perhaps the “vanilla” Imperial grunt might be assumed to be the worst of the bunch, but this wouldn’t be true. Stormtroopers are the most “standard” of the troopers simply because they have common buffs you see across other troopers. Stormtroopers, though, have two important characteristics that work in their favor.

First, they can reroll a dice. This ensures that if you get a bad roll, you will probably get something better. While the bump you get in damage/accuracy isn’t that high, it does make your units more reliable than other troopers. Look at the chart below to see the difference between the base (dashed lines) and reroll (solid lines) probability curves:

Second, when you’re using a regular Stormtrooper, you’re good against White defense dice. Since Elite Stormtroopers get 2 Damage from the first Surge they get, they’ll do better against Black dice (since Blacks let in almost all Surges). For a regular Stormtrooper, though, 1 Surge is worth only 1 Damage, which means that a White dice (unless the defender gets a Dodge) will effectively get 0-2 Block on a white dice – here’s what the same methodology from above looks like against the White dice (notice that roughly one-sixth of the time, you don’t hit the target – this shows the impact of the Dodge on the white dice):

While it’s hard to compare the two pictures above, your Stormtroopers are slightly more reliable at dealing higher damage against the White dice than against the Black dice. With this in mind, here’s my recommendation for running Stormtroopers in Imperial Assault:

·         For Regular Stormtroopers, shoot whoever’s nearby (ideally, you’ll want the target to have 3-6 health, since you should get 1-2 damage per trooper), but make sure as many of your Stormtroopers are adjacent to a trooper;

·         Attack in groups – while each of you individually doesn’t do a lot of damage, you want to be able to focus the fire of all three of your figures on the same target.

·         You can reliably stand 4-5 spaces away from your opponent (80% probability of hitting or higher) – make him work to shoot you back;

·         Special note on Elite Stormtroopers: we didn’t cover these guys much, but they get a lot of damage coming from that Focus dice when they die – expect to add 1-2 damage to the total damage dealt (along with 1-2 accuracy). While this doesn’t make a big difference for an individual trooper, if the group is doing 3-6 additional damage, it means the difference between polishing off a basic unit (like a Regular Rebel Trooper) and a hardy power unit (like Han Solo).

E-Web Engineers:

E-Webs aren’t like Stormtroopers – you need to use them differently! For one thing, an E-Web Engineer is a single model, so reinforcing the unit if it’s lost is much more expensive (and virtually impossible in early missions when you’re getting 2-3 Threat/round). Similarly, an E-Web has slightly more health than its equivalent Stormtrooper cousin, but because there are three Stormtroopers in each squad, Stormtroopers have roughly double the health of an E-Web cumulatively.   

As a heavy weapon, E-Webs are also slower than Stormtroopers. Added to their special rule that allows them to “Scoot or shoot” (but not both), getting an E-Web into position (and keeping it alive) can be really, REALLY hard. With all this in mind, what do you do with E-Webs?

E-Webs play defense. Yes, they’re very powerful and deal a lot of damage. Yes, they can heal themselves which gives them some resilience. Yes, they get to shoot twice (which effectively allows them to blow a low-health unit up pretty quickly OR drill through a low-health hero’s health store quickly. But they play defense: you don’t want to move an E-Web (like, ever). So, find a firing lane (preferably one that won’t let an attacker stand out of sight and then charge you on its next turn) and sit there and wait. A turn that an E-Web isn’t attacked is a good turn – even if the E-Web doesn’t shoot.

While E-Webs are complicated to use well, there is one thing that isn’t that complicated – they fight everything well. What’s shown below is their range/damage curve against black (dashed) and white (solid) lines. As you can see, doesn’t really matter what you’re hitting – you’re going to do roughly the same damage against it no matter what dice they have:

As shown above, an E-Web will do slightly more damage against a White dice than a Black dice. For those who are wondering, the Elite E-Web Engineer gets slightly more damage against White dice, but again, it’s not that different:

For those of you who are scratching your heads trying to figure out why there’s basically no difference against a White dice (and why the Elite against the Black dice only does roughly the same as either version does against a White dice), there’s one simple explanation: White dice fight yellow dice really, REALLY well (see my first post for why). With the primary difference between most elite/regular units being the benefits you get from Surge, unless you’re rolling 2 Yellow dice (like Probe Droids), you won’t see that big of a difference. 

In our next post, we'll be wrapping up our discussion of "bucketheads" by examining those that do not appear in the core set (heavy stormtroopers, snowtroopers, jet troopers, and Dewback riders). Part III will cover the stormtrooper heroes (Kayn Somos and Captain Terro - sorry, no Blaise yet). After we're done with troopers, its on to new groups, so watch this space and happy hobbying!

Battle Report: Riekaan v. Tarkin

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to Wretched Hive!  As we discuss different types of Neb-B builds, we thought we'd bring you a fun battle between Dark Knight and myself.  I took an army that relies heavily on Nebs (probably too heavily, but hey: we're focusing on Nebs, so what's a bro supposed to do, :) ).

Jango's Forces (Rebel Alliance - 396 pts)
-Nebulon B Escort Frigate (Yavaris, Riekaan): 92 pts 
-Nebulon B Escort Frigate (Salvation, Turbolaser Reroute Circuits, Intel Officer): 78 pts
-Nebulon B Support Refit: 51 pts
-Nebulon B Support Refit: 51 pts
-Nebulon B Support Refit: 51 pts
-1 Moldy Crow: 19 pts
-1 HWK 290s: 12 pts
-2 YT-1400 Freighters: 26 pts
-Tycho Celchu: 16 pts

Dark Knight's Forces (Galactic Empire - 398 pts)
-Imperial Star Destroyer-II (Tarkin, Gunnery Team, Boosted Comms, Electronic Countermeasures): 176 pts
-Imperial Raider-I (Flight Controllers, Extended Hangar Bay): 55 pts
-Imperial Raider-I (Flight Controllers, Extended Hangar Bay): 55 pts
-14 TIE Fighters: 112 pts

With the lower total points, I had the choice of whether to be the First Player or the Second Player, and true to form I went with my normal choice of Second Player (more on why in a tactics post in the future).  Of the objectives I offered Dark Knight, he opted for Hyperspace Assault, so Salvation and Tycho are being held in reserve as we head into Turn 1.  The deployment looks like this:

Turn 1

As per most Turn 1s, the fleets moved up, no shooting yet, and the Imperial fighter wing (wow, that's a ton of TIEs!) is waiting in the wings for its attack run as we head into the Squadron Phase.

The Squadron Phase was relatively uneventful - the Imperial fighters start moving into command positions, as the Rebel fighters start moving to intercept.

Turn 2

Turn 2 is usually where things start getting interesting, and this game didn't surprise.  The Imperials starting swinging south toward the Space Station, as the Rebel Neb fleet ran north toward the Imperial deployment zone.  As we head into the Squadron Phase, we are just out of attack range of the Imperial fighters.

By the end of the Squadron Phase the Imperial fighters have moved up, and the Rebel ships are bracing for a fighter wing in Turn 3.

Turn 3

At the start of Turn 3 I opted to bring in Salvation (mostly because, frankly, there are so many fighters out there that we're going to get hammered if we don't give them something to shoot at, and we have a beautiful attack run against both a Raider and the ISD this turn), so it deployed as you see.

By the end of the Ship Phase Salvation had taken quite the beating, with damage to the forward shields and all of her side shields gone, and had take 3 hits against the hull (3/5H).  Most of the squadrons had been activated via Squadron actions during the Ship Phase, so the Squadron Phase was pretty quiet.

We also wiffed a number of our rolls against the Imperial Raider at the top of the screen - we had shots from two nebs who were both using Concentrate Fire actions (so 8 red dice) and between both attacks we only did 1 damage past the Evade defense tokens.  This was unfortunate, as we were hoping to put some serious pain on the Raider to make room for the quick get-away from the Star Destroyer.  But oh well - this happens in dice-based games, :P

Turn 4

The heat of the moment being what it is (and this is par for the course for me, by the by, so bear with me: this may occur in other battle reports as well), I didn't take any pictures during Turn 4, :P  But I got one at the end that summed up the action.

As a quick synopsis, Dark Knight called a ton of Squadron actions, and with a few of his fighters he was able to polish off Salvation.  His fighters punctured the shields on Yavaris and one of the other Nebs, but were unable to do more than 1 point of hull damage on each.  One of the HWK-290s went down, as did Tycho.  And courtesy of two really bad sets of rolls from the Nebs, the Raider is still on the table, :P  Gotta love and hate red dice, :P

As we headed into Turn 5, the pain of this bad streak of rolling was about to show itself...

Turn 5

In the Ship Phase the ISD lit up the Nebs, and both Yavaris (which is housing Riekaan) and another Neb went down to its Gunnery Team.  Courtesy of Riekaan we still got to activate our ships, so all of the ships opened fire on starfighters or the Imperial Raider (as there's no reason to fire at the ISD - we can't take it down at this point).  We popped the raider, and we ran like mad, :)

As the Squadron Phase came to an end, our two remaining YT Freighters (they're hidden behind the ISD) took some shots to finish off a TIE Fighter, the two nebs were removed, and we had winnowed the TIE swarm down to five fighters (so ten down).

At this point we knew the Empire had the match, and Turn 6 would be a boring "limp away" turn for the Rebs, and "consolidate" turn for the Empire.

Turn 6

Which is more or less what happened.  The ISD called one final Squadron command, was able to finish off one of the remaining Nebs, and the fighters spread out to avoid giving the YTs anything to shoot at.  So the match ended like this.

End Analysis

It was a fun match - the strengths and weaknesses of the Neb were shown well throughout the match to both of us:

• Nebs whiff rolls pretty often, but they can also pound away at shields and hull points pretty quickly.  So very much a "wild card" ship as regards damage output and defense.
• Nebs are also relatively weak against starfighters (as they have two very poorly shielded hull zones, and have no defense tokens that help much against fighters), though Salvation was able to put a lot of fire down on ships before it died, so the two blue dice v. squadrons makes a difference.
• Fighter screens are going to be a necessity now that we are at 400 pts.  Since both sides can now field a solid number of fighters (up to 16 TIEs for the Empire, and as many as 13 squadrons for the Rebels), anti-squadron batteries are not going to be sufficient to hold off an enemy fighter wing.  And with the inclusion of Intel (which was not a factor in this game), even a large wing of fighters won't be a guaranteed defense.  But fighters will help to distract fire, do damage to enemy squadrons without having to use anti-squadron batteries on a ship, and tie down enemy bombers (ideally) before they can reach your ships.
• ISDs hurt a lot.  This is not surprise - 8 dice is painful against anyone.  But against a ship that only has 5 Hull, 1-3 Shields, and two Brace defense tokens, 8 dice means a good number of accuracy icons (neutralizing the Brace tokens) and enough damage to puncture and injure (if not destroy) the light frigate that is the Neb.
• I really like the Extended Hangar Bays on the Raider.  It makes for a Squadron 2 ship (effectively Squadron 3 if Tarkin is passing out the token each Ship Phase), which allows a relatively low-cost ship (55 pts) to move with a small fighter force that can spread enemy fighter squadrons thin.  Add to that the generally high speed of Imperial ships, and you've got a beautiful long-range strike team that can cost under 80 pts (as Dark Knight did here).

In our next post we'll see Part 2 of our Neb series, talking about ideal upgrades to your Nebs (which may help to give them greater survivability, firepower, and/or speed to control the flow of the battle (which, as you might have noticed in this game, is an important question for Nebs).

Until our next meeting,

Jango