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.

IP Class Deck Review: Military Might

When you think of the Galactic Empire, there is probably nothing more iconic than Darth Vader at the head of a sea of Stormtroopers in polished white armor. Though Stormtroopers are notorious for not hitting their targets, they are the backbone of the Imperial war machine and they are the terror of many people groups (both those that support the Rebellion and those that do not). In this post, we’ll be looking at the Imperial Class Deck that focuses on Troopers the most: Military Might.

Military Might: The Power Of Troopers

With the release of the Core Set, the Trooper choice for the Empire was decent: between Stormtroopers and E-Web Engineers, you had high-damage Troopers and swarm options. With each successive release, we’ve seen new (and perhaps better) Trooper options – from Heavy Stormtroopers and Riot Troopers to Jet Troopers and Sentry Droids. When you include the handful of Trooper heroes they’ve received (most notably CaptainTerro), Troopers can be the workhorse of any Imperial army.

Military Might, released in the Core Set, works predominantly with Troopers, giving them bonuses to keep them alive longer or do more damage on offense. While the primary focus of this post will be on Troopers, not all of the Military Might cards require a Trooper to be the primary beneficiary of the card. So, let’s see what we can do with the minions of the Empire today.

End-Game Build #1 – Troopers Only: Show Of Force, Combat Medic, Riot Grenades, Endless Ranks, Shock Troopers, Combat Veterans (11 XP)

In most scenarios, you’ll have 2-3 open groups (rarely more than that). As such, all you really need are 3 Trooper choices outside of the Core Set (though it helps to have more for choice and stuff). If you focus on the upgrades that benefit Troopers only, all of your open groups can be Troopers. Two of the upgrades we’ve chosen for this build are attachments: one squad can carry Riot Grenades (useful when targeting characters with poor Insight like Biv Bodhrick and Gaarkhan), while another (or the same one if you prefer) can be Combat Veterans (who benefit from bonus Accuracy/Damage on attack and bonus Block on defense). To supplement these attachments, our other upgrades are not assigned to particular squads, but provide one-time benefits that help our guys (like Show Of Force to make someone Focused or Combat Medic to help a Trooper and friendly figures adjacent to him) or static, global benefits (Endless Ranks makes the deployment cost – not the reinforcement cost – cheaper for Troopers, while Shock Troopers gives any Troopers who are attacking at close range a free Surge).

Best IP Units:

·         Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) – These guys benefit from all of it: with a base cost of 5 points, they drop down to 4 points with Endless Ranks, making them easily recoverable in any campaign. Their Block power token complements the bonus block from Combat Veterans very well and since they’re melee, they’ll always get a free Surge from Shock Troopers. If you weren’t killed, you can benefit from the Combat Medic bonus and heal those around you!

·         Sentry Droid (Heart of the Empire) – Sentry Droids – released alongside Riot Troopers in the Heart of the Empire expansion – are close-range shooters, making them prime candidates to benefit from Shock Troopers. They’re not as defensive as Riot Troopers are, but they have the potential to shoot more than once with a shy penalty to their offense (which you can ignore if you make them Combat Veterans).

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – What can I say – a Red-Blue attack pool won’t surge very often, so you stand a good chance of actually triggering Blast with these guys if you have Shock Troopers. Their speed makes getting within 2 spaces a bit difficult unless they’re playing defense, so make sure you see where the Rebels need to go and then place these guys in their path to guarantee close-up targets.

·         Stormtrooper (Core Set) – These guys were released in the Core Set and for a while were the only three-man Trooper choices the Imperial Player had in his arsenal. With a reroll on the attack, these guys can better utilize the double-damage faces of their attack pool and avoid wasting surge (rely on Shock Troopers to trigger your Surge-for-Damage option).

·         Bespin Wing Guard (Bespin Gambit) – While not Imperial units, these guys are Troopers and are available to any Imperial Player in any mission. Since these guys can heal themselves whenever they attack, they complement the Combat Medic upgrade quite well (going from damaged to undamaged to damaged to undamaged very quickly).

End-Game Build #2 – Balanced Approach: Show Of Force, Assault Armor, Sustained Fire, Shock and Awe (9 XP)

While Troopers are incredible, you’re not guaranteed to get Troopers in your starting (or reserved) units. Even if you do, there are plenty of great units that are not Troopers at all! If you don’t want to use Troopers and want to use something else, can you do it with Military Might? Yes!

As mentioned previously, Show Of Force is great for anyone – make someone Focused! You can add some additional firepower with Sustained Fire, which allows you to attack an additional time and then become Stunned afterwards. In many ways, the strategy here works the same way as To The Limit – look for ways to get more utility out of your offense. I will say that this one card allows you to basically spend both actions attacking in a given round (your first action is spent removing the Stun, the second is spent attacking to trigger Sustained Fire) – if you can manage not moving, it’s not bad.

To supplement these two abilities, we have Shock and Awe and Assault Armor. Shock and Awe is a global upgrade that allows you to add a bonus Damage to any declared attack for the low-low cost of 1 Threat (maybe). As great as this upgrade can be, it’s hard to get much bonus out of it. Unless you choose not to use it in a given round, you’ll never get more than two applications of +1 Damage (and in my opinion, that’s not worth 4 XP). You could skip buying this upgrade if you wanted to get Shock Troopers and Combat Medic instead. Assault Armor is one of the best upgrades in the game available to an IP – at the cost of 2 XP, you get +2 Health on whatever deployment card receives the attachment and the ability to reroll a Black die (which is incredible).

Best IP Units:

·         Trandoshan Hunter (Core) – We all know that Trandoshans deal a lot of punishment (what with the Strain against anyone within 3 spaces and the bonus Damage (or two if it’s an Elite Trandoshan Hunter) against adjacent targets. Sustained Fire and Show Of Force are fantastic bonuses for Trandoshans (and the extra health from Assault Armor is great too).

·         Elite Gamorrean Guard (Jabba’s Realm) – Elite Gamorrean Guards are fantastic units – Red-Red attack pool with Reach and the ability to reroll 1 attack die. With Sustained Fire, you can get a second attack out of one of the guards and you can get more damage out of the second guard with Show Of Force. Assault Armor supplements the free Block you receive from the Gamorrean Honor Guard rule and provides a reliable defense against melee attacks (against which the GHG rule doesn’t apply).

·         Clawdite Shapeshifter (Heart of the Empire) – Clawdites, like most single-model deployment cards, aren’t the best units to benefit from Assault Armor (you’re only getting a cosmic +2 Health vs. +4/+6 Health for 2-3 figure deployment cards), but a regular Clawdite Shapeshifter can deal a lot of damage when Focused. Regardless of form, Sustained Fire with one of these units is powerful – Senators heal more, Scouts shoot at long range more, and Streetrats can deal two Red die worth of damage in a single turn. Sure, you get stunned – big deal when you can do that kind of damage!

·         Tusken Raider (Twin Shadows) – There isn’t much strategy involved here: Tuskens are the melee-version of Trandoshans and their Red-Green attack pool is fantastic (and fairly reliable). Since they have low Health, they benefit greatly from Assault Armor, which keeps you from having to re-purchase them when both figures invariably die.

·         Royal Guard (Core) – You know all those good things I said about Elite Gamorreans? They all apply to Royal Guards as well. Royal Guards are not only fantastic on offense, but because they provide static Block bonuses to nearby non-Guardian units, they tend to be the first targets of Rebel figures. Placing Assault Armor on these guys not only makes the Rebels work more to kill them off, but also takes away an attack or two that was intended for someone else (someone weaker).

End-Game Build #3 – Resilience: Show Of Force, Combat Medic, Assault Armor, Combat Veterans (7 XP)

If you don’t care about what kind of troops you bring, you can instead focus on keeping your deployment cards alive (which is generally the best course of action). To do this, we’re going to join the two most defensive upgrades (Assault Armor and Combat Veterans – both are attachments, so they’ll help no more than two units) and purchase Combat Medic to heal figures at the end of each round. The best thing about this build is that it only costs 7 XP, so you’ll have 2-4 additional XP in a short campaign (and not too much more in a long campaign), so you can purchase whatever other upgrades you want.

Best IP Units:

·         Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) – Whether you give these guys Assault Armor or Combat Veterans, they’re very hard to kill. We’ve already talked about them, so I won’t prolong the discussion.

·         Snowtrooper (Return to Hoth) – If you’re going to use Combat Medic, you can’t go wrong with Snowtroopers. You get three figures in the deployment card, all of whom can spend an action healing any Troopers adjacent to them. Combat Medic not only augments this, but also heals non-Troopers adjacent to one of them. Give these guys Assault Armor, and they’ll have 6 Health and a rerollable Black die on defense – not bad.

·         Jet Trooper (Jabba’s Realm) – Jet Troopers benefit greatly from Combat Veterans – the free Block ensures they’ll always be able to gain an Evade (useful late in the campaign when the Hero’s weapons have good surge abilities), and the free Damage on the attack is great too (though the Accuracy is often unnecessary). With Mobile, you can also position these guys anywhere you want, allowing them to trigger Combat Medic and heal units that are spread out across the map.

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – while Shock Troopers is fantastic for Heavy Stormtroopers, either of the defensive attachments are good as well – having 8-10 Health keeps these guys alive for a while if you give them Assault Armor, while getting a static Block from Combat Veterans (which becomes 2 Block when being shot at from 4+ spaces away) also keeps them alive. Whichever you choose (though you could slap both of them on a squad of these guys), you’re looking at a hardy unit with lots of power.

·         Stormtrooper (Core) – There’s something about these “vanilla” Stormtroopers that I love – the reroll on offense is fantastic, but they get even better with Combat Veterans (and much harder to kill with Assault Armor). Not only do they provide 3 figures to trigger Combat Medic, but they’re better on offense than Snowtroopers and benefit from the Focus die of Show Of Force better than any of the other options (besides maybe Heavy Stormtroopers).

In our next post, we’ll be examining the final Imperial class deck in the Core Set: Subversive Tactics. While Technological Superiority provides both attachments and general upgrades and Military Might makes your Trooper units stronger, Subversive Tactics focuses more on slowing Rebel Heroes from triggering their moves (instead of making the Imperial units better). Until next time, happy gaming!

IP Class Deck Review: Technological Superiority

For the last few months, we’ve been reviewing one Rebel Hero from the campaign game each week. For the list of characters we’ve finished (and the ones to come), check out our Getting Started page. In our new Monday column, we’ll be going through the much shorter list of Imperial Class decks. Each expansion comes with 1-3 class decks that the Imperial Player (IP) uses to achieve his mission objectives. In a similar style to our Rebel Hero posts, we’ll be looking at a few different builds you can do with each of these class decks and we’re going to begin our series with one of the most flexible (and perhaps the least straight-forward) of the class decks: Technological Superiority.

Technological Superiority: Universal vs. Specifics

Imperial class decks always center around a theme and the theme for “Tech Superiority” is the ability to provide global, static benefits to your units OR attachments that make a particular unit much, MUCH stronger. While attachments can be found in almost every class deck (Hutt Mercenaries is the exception), no deck has more attachments than Tech Superiority – four of its nine upgrades are attachments! Similarly, while all class decks have one or two upgrades that either benefit all Imperial units on the board (or hurt all Rebel Heroes on the board) – conditionally or universally, three of the nine upgrades available in Tech Superiority provide static benefits to Imperial figures (one of which is limited to Droids, another is limited to deployment cards with at least one attachment).

This unique nature of the Tech Superiority class deck allows it to be played with a universal focus (helping all of your units) or a very specific focus (helping a select few units), depending on how you want to play it. Most decks don’t do this, so we’re going to look at a few different builds to help you see what you can do with it.

End-Game Build #1 – Flexible Approach: Experimental Arms, Technical Support, Failsafe, Cloaking Device, Adaptive Weapons (10 XP)

In our “flexible” build, we’re going to purchase upgrades that aren’t attachments (though we get Experimental Arms for free). In many ways, this build centers around one upgrade: Adaptive Weapons. This upgrade allows you to replace any 1 die in your attack pool with another die of your choice – perfect for getting a little more oomph out of your attacks. Perhaps the most obvious units to use with this upgrade are those who have one Red die in their attack pool and don’t have good surge abilities. These units can go from a Red-{other color} attack pool to a Red-Red pool! While this can be tricky to do with range units (you still need Accuracy), many range units available to the IP who roll a Red die already get static accuracy (like Heavy Stormtroopers or E-Web Engineers).

The other option for using Adaptive Weapons is to give units who don’t have a Red die (like Sentry Droids or Probe Droids) a Red die to turn potentially-wasted surge into Damage. Since we’re also taking Technical Support (which not only makes your Droids faster, but also allows them to heal/Focus/cleanse their adjacent friends) and Cloaking Device (not strictly tied to Droids, but very helpful for keeping them or your favorite Trooper squad alive), any help you can give to boost the damage on your Droids is welcome.

Finally, we add Failsafe to the list, which is great for the end-game missions where you need to keep your favorite villain character alive. Failsafe requires you to save some Threat, but can keep you from taking a world of punishment from a Rebel Hero (and potentially buy you the time you need to get a Droid nearby to heal the villain). I’ve been bailed out countless times by this upgrade – though it has a high Threat cost, it will be well worth the XP and Threat you pay.

Best IP Units:

·         Tusken Raider (Twin Shadows) – Since the surge abilities for Tusken Raiders doesn’t allow them to add damage to the attack total, rolling a Red-Red with the chance to Cleave 1 (or Weaken) is a huge increase. Additionally, you can get better range out of your Tusken Cycler ability with a Blue-Blue or Green-Blue instead of the traditional Red-Blue attack pool.

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – With a static 2 Accuracy, you can roll a Red-Red and do a TON more damage at very close range than you would with your traditional Red-Blue (though you could also roll a Red-Green for improved damage while still getting some Accuracy).

·         Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) – These guys are basically Heavy Stormtroopers in melee form – their surge abilities aren’t bad, but they’re better served with a Red-Red pool than a Red-Blue pool.

·         Regular or Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter (Heart of the Empire) – Regular Clawdite Shapeshifters get a Green-Blue attack pool when using the Scout Form, but you can turn this into a Red-Blue combo for increased Damage (and at least 4 Accuracy), though they can also use the Senator Form if they wish to attack adjacent characters and use a Red-Red combo. Elite Clawdite Shapeshifters are better served using the Streetrat Form with a Red-Red-Green combo, relying on the Green die to get you not only the required Accuracy but also the Surge to trigger Assassin’s Blade.

·         Sentry Droid (Heart of the Empire) – Whether you choose to shoot twice with a Green-Green attack pool (Damage -1 penalty) OR shoot once with +2 Accuracy, you’re well served by swapping one of those Green die with a Red die. These guys are also one of the new multi-figure Droid squads, giving you multiple healing actions in the same round.

End-Game Build #2 – Attachments Everywhere: Experimental Arms, Jetpacks, Arc Blasters, Cloaking Device, Superior Augments (11 XP)

When I first played with Tech Superiority, I liked the attachments: slap one (or more) of these things on each deployment card and see the benefits abound. Got slow units (like E-Webs or Heavy Stromtroopers)? Give them Jetpacks. Got a unit that gets lots of surge and not much to spend it on (like Stormtroopers, Jet Troopers, or E-Webs)? Give them Arc Blasters. Need to keep that one Trooper (or Droid) unit alive longer? Try on a Cloaking Device. Just want a little more surge? Experimental Arms is an equal opportunity provider (at a cost). With these four upgrades available to you (at 7 XP), you can afford all four of them in any game.

Adding in the Superior Augments upgrade, each of your units that has an attachment gains +1 speed (great for the card using Jetpacks) and gains +1 Damage to its attack results (great for those Arc Blasters and Experimental Arms users). While I don’t think Superior Augments is better than Adaptive Weapons, if you’re running a Trooper/Droid-oriented list, it’s a good upgrade (and it gives you a maneuverability benefit instead of just a combat upgrade).

The trick to running this list, however, is to pick one upgrade for each deployment card you have. While there’s no rule limiting you to one upgrade, putting multiple upgrades on a deployment card limits the effectiveness of Superior Augments (as the bonuses aren’t applied per attachment, but based on whether you have one or more attachments). While some units might benefit from multiple upgrades (want that Trooper hero you love to have a Cloaking Device AND Arc Blasters?), your ability to do maximum Damage (and get maximum positioning) is limited if you clump your upgrades among a select few units. Just saying…

Best IP Units:

·         Stormtrooper (Core) – The “vanilla” Stormtrooper variant benefits from all of the upgrades (less so the Experimental Arms upgrade because of their low health and limited Surge abilities). With Jetpacks, they become very maneuverable, while the Cloaking Device keeps them alive much longer (improving their chance of getting Evades and giving that ever-elusive-but-oh-so-wonderful Dodge result). Arc Blasters is a great upgrade for Elite Stormtroopers, allowing 2 Surge results to be turned into Damage (and Blast) – you’re pretty likely to get the 2 Surge results if you’re Focused.

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – While Jetpacks certainly help with the slow speed of these units, their high Health stat (as well as automatic Block against attacks from long-range) make Experimental Arms a tempting choice. Since their Red-Blue combo doesn’t generate Surge very often, having the ability to deal 1 Damage to yourself in order to trigger Blast 1 (or Damage 1) is nice. Even if you never have to use it, at least you leave yourself the option of doing it.

·         E-Web Engineer (Core) – Ah, E-Webs – so powerful if they get to attack. As I said in a previous post a while ago, E-Webs play defense. To assist with this, giving them Jetpacks for maneuverability (getting 6 movement points with Mobile is pretty great to get them in position) or Arc Blasters (your surge potential is great) improves their utility a ton. If they're destroyed, it takes a lot of Threat to get them back, so be careful.

·         Trandoshan Hunter (Core) – Now begins the not-Trooper part of the list. Trandoshans – as everyone who’s played against them already knows – get free Damage if attacking someone adjacent to them (and a free Strain on any target within 3 spaces). When paired with the Superior Augments upgrade, these guys are PAINFUL if they can attack someone adjacent to them (pretty easy with the +1 Speed). While they can’t carry Jetpacks or the Cloaking Device, the Experimental Arms upgrade (they have plenty of Health – automatically triggering Pierce 2 or Bleed is nice) is useful.

·         Hired Gun (Hired Gun Villain Pack) – Perhaps the most flimsy of units available to the Imperial Player, Hired Guns are all-but-guaranteed to get a shot in against the strongest Rebel figures. If a Hired Gun squad has the Arc Blasters upgrade, during their parting shot they have the chance to Stun the person who shot them (potentially disrupting the Rebel figure’s turn) AND applying Stun to people adjacent to the target (which may disrupt THEIR turns). Having done this before, I can say there’s nothing more satisfying about losing one of your own figures than seeing him do something meaningful on his way out. Beyond that, don’t give these guys any of the other attachments.

End-Game Build #3 – Heavy Fire: Experimental Arms, Jetpacks, Superior Augments, Adaptive Weapons (9 XP)

In the previous two builds, we’ve looked at purchasing upgrades that are centered on the Adaptive Weapons upgrade and the Superior Augments upgrade. This poses a question: can you use both? Because you start with Experimental Arms, the Superior Augments upgrade will be useful, though I recommend picking up Jetpacks too – it’s cheap. The other attachments are expensive and picking them up both of them basically excludes you from getting anything else. In this case, we’re going to forego these two attachments and instead get Adaptive Weapons for its general benefit to your units. If you’re playing a long campaign, you can rely on your Agenda Deck side missions to give you additional attachments (I recommend Imperial Industry, Agents of the Empire, 501^st Training, and Tusken Treachery). This comes at the steep price of Influence, but these side missions (or Forced Mission for the Agents of the Empire one) provide great upgrades for your team (and can be given to you automatically if the Rebels wish to do something else).

Best IP Units:

·         Sentry Droid (Heart of the Empire) – With both the Superior Augments upgrade and the Adaptive Weapons upgrade, you can give a Sentry Droid squad the Experimental Arms attachment and fire twice with no Damage penalty and a Red-Green attack pool. With an impressive Speed 5, it’s pretty easy to get into close range with your target and deal incredible damage.

·         Heavy Stormtrooper (Twin Shadows) – We’ve probably talked about these guys enough already, but if you get the 501^st Training upgrade, you can have these guys Recover 3 Damage AND become Focused (or get to attack and move a little, supplementing your low Speed). Rolling a Red-Green-Blue (which can turn into a Red-Red-Green) is fantastic, even if you do nothing else with it!

·         Elite Jet Troopers (Jabba’s Realm) – While Jet Troopers don’t require the Jetpacks upgrade (they’re already Mobile), they do benefit from Experimental Arms (especially if they are shooting at someone close-by with a Red-Green-Blue attack pool). 501^st Training is also good for them for the same reasons identified above for the Heavy Stormtroopers.

·         Tusken Raider (Twin Shadows) – While Tuskens can’t get much mileage out of Experimental Arms, they can get a TON out of Jetpacks – melee units can always benefit from Mobile. A Tusken Raider with Jetpacks is not only Speed 5 + Mobile, but he can also roll a Red-Red in melee with +1 Damage to the attack results (+2 Damage if it’s an Elite Tusken Raider).

·         Royal Guard (Core) – While Tuskens are fantastic, you can get even more strength out of Royal Guards. Though slightly more expensive, these guys can be Speed 6 + Mobile + Reach with Jetpacks OR Speed 6 + Reach with the ability to gain additional Surge with Experimental Arms. If you get Tusken Weaponry, you can give Royal Guards a Red-Blue range attack pool (which you could change to a Blue-Blue or Green-Blue if you prefer) or have a Red-Red attack with +2 Damage and no surge abilities. Both are great and VERY painful.

In our next post, we’ll be examining the Military Might class deck (also available in the Core Set). While this deck will predominantly feature Troopers, you’d be surprised at the wealth of benefits this deck provides. Until next time, happy gaming!

Skirmish Upgrades: Zillo Technique

Good morning gamers,

To date, we’ve looked at two Imperial skirmish upgrades: Advanced Com Systems and Vader’s Finest. Both of these cards are Attachments – you pick one person to use them and that’s all they benefit. Today’s post is different: we’ll be looking at a team-beneficial upgrade: Zillo Technique. While the Empire has several units that are hard to crack, no army is more resilient than those with Zillo Technique. J

Requirements for Finalists:

While we’re not going to pick three finalists like we normally do, there are certain requirements for units that will benefit from this the most:

• The ability to draw Command cards (so you can discard them for additional Block);
• Favor double-Black-dice defense pools (basically resilient to all damage if they can ignore most/all of the attacker’s Pierce value); and
• Units with static defense results (since a little extra defense allows you to save the extra Block provided by Zillo Technique less often).

Obviously not all of the figures we’re going to include will rate on all three of these areas, but we’re looking for these kinds of elements to be visible in the army. Without further ado, let’s look at what we have to work with today:

Deployment Cards:

• Darth Vader with Driven By Hatred
• Riot Trooper
• Riot Trooper
• Jabba the Hutt
• Elite Gamorrean Guard
• Temporary Alliance
• Zillo Technique
• Unshakable

Command Cards:

• Blood Feud
• Close the Gap
• Deadly Precision
• Deathblow
• Fleet Footed
• Force Rush
• Lord of the Sith
• Planning
• Price On Their Heads
• Pummel x2
• Recovery
• Reinforcements x2
• To The Limit

This list fields 8 figures (kinda small), but they’re very hard to kill: your defense begins with two squads of regular Riot Troopers. With a free Block token, these Riot Troopers are pretty hard to hurt with two-dice attack pools (and even certain three-dice attack pools). They can be escorted by the Elite Gamorrean Guards - these guys not only have an impressive amount of health, but also have a free Block against blaster attacks (which makes them more resilient than Heavy Stormtroopers). Both the Gamorreans and the Riot Troopers are painful in melee - you want to close quickly and batter down your opponents quickly.

Leading the charge, of course, is Darth Vader – he’s nasty and tough as nails with his Double-Black-dice defense pool (and one of those is rerollable) – makes it pretty hard to break through him. While you can use Zillo Technique to protect him, he shouldn’t need it. With Force Choke (which he can activate during his activation or at the end of the round thanks to Driven By Hatred), Vader has some “range damage” capability to provide cover for your squad. Generally speaking, your opponent will probably not stay to fight Vader and his goons if they’re advancing quickly.

Presiding over your army (for that’s all he can do) is Jabba the Hutt. While Agent Blaise would save us 1 point and give us some ability to draw cards, Jabba does this more reliably. As we’ve discussed in several posts already (To The Limit, Best Ally/Villain packs, On A Diplomatic Mission, Black Market, Smuggler’s Run, Under Duress - I like Jabba, what can I say?), you can draw cards AND do Strain damage against nearby opponents if you want (or Focus your Gamorreans). Jabba can be left behind (guarding a Terminal perhaps?), providing benefits to your team without being present. With cards like Blood Feud and Price On Their Heads (to say nothing of Planning), you can make life easier for your team and smash through your opponent’s figures quickly.

Finally, the team is supplemented by Zillo Technique and Unshakable: Unshakable only applies to Vader (you could substitute this out for Motivation on Jabba the Hutt OR upgrade one of your Riot Trooper squads to a Heavy Stormtrooper squad), but ensures that any harmful conditions don’t slow him down from slashing through people. With a free reroll on offense (and a free attack at the end of the round), you want to be able to rush into your foes quickly (and 1 Strain is not that big a deal…most of the time…see our Under Duress post for the exception to the rule).

For Command cards, we’ve chosen a few Force User cards, but most are melee-character-oriented (or tactically beneficial). Vader alone benefits from Lord of the Sith, Force Rush, and Deadly Precision – see our post on Force User Command cards for more info on these. Jabba is required to play Blood Feud and Price On Their Heads – both of which you can chuck with Zillo Technique if you happen to lose Jabba before you get to play them (you can do the same with the Force User cards if you lose Vader…not very likely to happen, but just in case). Since both of these figures have special actions on their cards, you can use To The Limit with either of them to get more out of them – Unshakable will clear this on their next turn.

All of your figures (sans Jabba) benefit from Close the Gap (nice little movement pip to get them in position), and since all your figures are melee, they all benefit from Pummel and Deathblow too. Since we’re running a low figure count list, taking two copies of Reinforcements will keep our Troopers on the map (though watch out for people spreading their damage against you – retreat to keep one of the figures in each group alive if you need to). Finally, all of your figures benefit from Fleet Footed, Urgency, and Recovery – use these as you need to (and view our post on the nuances between the Fleet Footed and Urgency).

In our next post, we'll be wrapping up our series on skirmish upgrades look at the Rebel upgrade Heroic Effort. If you like running heroes and get frustrated when you can't use their command cards, this card is for you. Should be fun - until then, happy gaming!

Skirmish Upgrades: Prey On The Weak

Good morning gamers,

Today we dig into one of the most straight-forward skirmish upgrades available to date: Prey On The Weak. When it comes to the skirmish upgrades we’ve viewed so far, there are two basic kinds of upgrades:

• Attachments that encourage the figures for the attached deployment card to behave in a certain way (Advanced Com Systems, On a Diplomatic Mission, Vader’s Finest, Smuggler’s Run);
• Non-attachments that provide some benefit for the team as a whole OR for one specific character on the team (Black Market, Under Duress).

So far, the only Mercenary skirmish upgrades we’ve looked at fall in the second category, so it’s about time we look at an attachment skirmish card for a change. J

Requirements for Finalists:

This skirmish upgrade is pretty straight forward: increase the Pierce and Accuracy of your attacks. The nuance comes with guessing how high the figure costs of your opponent are going to be (players who run Trooper swarms are likely going to have most of their army composed of deployment costs with figure costs of 2-4 points, while Jedi/unique-character teams will have figure costs well at or above 6). Given this guesswork, here are the assumptions we’re making about finalists today:

• The figure must be a Hunter (as that’s a requirement for the upgrade);
• Figures should have a deployment cost above 4 (sorry, Greedo) and no more than 10 (sorry, Boba Fett and IG-88); and
• While Accuracy isn’t required, figures who benefit from both the Pierce bonus and the Accuracy bonus will receive a higher preference.

I know what you’re thinking: why did you choose the range that you did? Here’s what my rationale is: there are many, MANY players who believe that Trooper deployment cards are the most competitive deployment cards in the game right now. And they would probably be right. Rebel or Imperial (or Mercenary hybrids), Troopers do reliable damage against the majority of units and reliably get Accuracy (and you tend to get a lot of them). You can also regrow them, heal them, and boost their damage. What’s not to like? Most Trooper choices, though, have a figure cost of 2-4 points. As such, if you’re facing an army of Elite Troopers, you want to cost at least 5 points (hence my floor value).

On the other extreme, the most expensive Hunter figure to-date costs 13 points (all hail Boba Fett), but there are very few figures that have a figure cost above 10 (many vehicles and a lot of the named characters from the Core Set and Twin Shadows – hence my ceiling). As such, figures who cost a bit less than 10 points will free up more space for you to flesh out the rest of your army while still getting the bonuses provided by Prey On The Weak. Does this make Boba Fett or IG-88 a bad host for this upgrade? No - though I think you want Focused On The Kill for IG-88 more than Prey On The Weak. As with many of my reviews, this is one man’s opinion – feel free to disagree if you want (but read the article first – I want the views). J

Honorable Mention: Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter (Senator/Streetrat Form)
I don’t usually do “honorable mentions,” but (SPOILER ALERT) seeing as how we don’t have very many Mercenary cards in this post, I figured I needed to give them a bit of an edge in the final tally. J The more I look at these guys, the more I’m impressed with them: at 6 points a model, they’re kind of expensive, but with a Red-Yellow-Green attack pool (my personal favorite in the game) and the ability to become long-range killers, up-close killers, or self-healing token-distributors, they’re fantastically flexible. I’ve not included the Scout form because I don’t think it needs the Accuracy buff (though the automatic Pierce 1 certainly makes up for swapping the Red die for a Blue die), so we’ll just be looking at the Senator and Streetrat forms today.

Both of these forms have great surge abilities (which of course only trigger if you get enough damage to breach the target’s defenses). With a figure cost of 6, pretty much any unnamed character is a fair target and you’ll be getting at least 1 Accuracy from Prey On The Weak and at least 1 Accuracy from the Green die. For a Streetrat, this means you will definitely hit someone adjacent to you (though minimum range is technically 2 spaces away) with a maximum range of 6 (which is kind of hard to hit seeing as how you can’t surge for Accuracy). The Senator also can’t surge for Accuracy, but does get a static +1 Accuracy, changing the range to Min 3/Max 7 (bonkers).

For both of these characters, you should be able to break through the toughest Black die (thanks to the free Pierce 1 and the Green die), drilling into the target with the full weight of the Red and Yellow – both forms can surge for Damage 1, so most of your surge is going to be dedicated to other endeavors (like sneaking out your knife or Recovering health). Whichever form you’re using, Prey On The Weak opens up your options and gives you the boost you need to be great - all for a single deployment point.

Bronze Medal: Biv Bodhrick (with Temporary Alliance skirmish upgrade)
I’ll admit, Biv is one of my favorite characters (we’ll write up the post on him when we talk about tanks): Biv in the skirmish game has a decent amount of health and the ability to perform more than one attack in a given turn (although both must be directed against the same person). Biv is great for tearing down heavy units and with his high figure cost (a whopping 9 – just made it under our limit), he can use his brutal attacks against basically any unnamed character and many named characters (which you won’t see from anyone else in this post). Since you purchased the Temporary Alliance upgrade to bring Biv in, you might consider also bringing another Rebel character to supplement Biv (and the rest of the army) – Gideon Argus or C-3PO come to mind, though if you want Hunter/Brawler synergies, Jarrod Kelvin is a good choice too.

Silver Medal: BT-1
Ah yes, we view yet another non-Mercenary figure. Unlike Biv, you can’t ally in Imperial figures into a Mercenary force UNLESS they’re Droids and you have an Elite Jawa Scavenger. This increases the overall army cost from 6 points to 9 points (which is slightly lower than Biv), but you get a lot out of this guy. First off, BT-1 always becomes Focused right before attacking (ouch). While he can shoot with his traditional arsenal (Red-Yellow-Green-Blue including the Focus die), you can alternatively fire three times with a single Red, Yellow, and Blue die (each of those getting the benefit of the Green as well). Like we said with Biv’s Close and Personal attacks, each of these attacks would benefit from Prey On The Weak, giving each not only a free Focus, but also a free Accuracy 1 + Pierce 1 (more ouch). You’re not going to find any other figure (besides Boba Fett in the turn that he gets to use Mandalorian Tactics) who can push out 3 attacks in a given round to benefit from this card (and most Hunters are hard-pressed to get 2 attacks out). As such, I feel that BT-1 must be granted some measure of respect for the sheer volume of attacks he can deliver with the card and so he claims second place today.

Gold Medal: Onar Koma

Onar has shown up before on our blog in our discussion of best figure to use To The Limit and in that post, I gave him the silver medal but admitted he could have won the gold. Today, Onar finally gets the coveted gold for several reasons. First and foremost, he’s cheaper than most of your other Hunter options. “Cheap” here is a relative term – costing too little (4 or 5 points) makes you more expensive than most units, but certain elite units (and most named figures) will be more expensive than you or at the same cost, which means you don’t get a bonus against them. Very few elite units cost 6 points or more, so you’ll be able to use Onar to focus on the chaff of the army (leaving his compadres to take care of the more elite and heavy models).

Even if you ignore the cost advantage of using Onar, there is another boon to putting this upgrade on Onar: there is a non-zero probability that you will get both the “Accuracy 1 + Surge 1” face on your Green attack die and the “Accuracy 2 + Surge 1” on the Blue attack die. When this happens (assuming your opponent gets no Evade results), you can’t use both of your surges for damage because you have to sacrifice all the Accuracy you gained (and range attacks without any Accuracy miss). With Prey On The Weak, Onar automatically gets +1 Accuracy, guaranteeing maximum damage from his surge results against the person he shoved with Rush. While the other characters get great bonuses from Prey On The Weak, it is most beneficial to Onar because it guarantees he does stuff.

In our next post, we'll be switching gears to non-attachment skirmish upgrades and viewing the Imperial ugprade Zillo Technique. I consider this to be the most powerful Imperial skirmish upgrades (and quite probably the most powerful of all skirmish upgrades) available to date. Until then, happy gaming!