Character Review: Onar Koma

As we look at the tank characters in Imperial Assault, we turn our attention today to the mercenary bodyguard Onar Koma – the character with the most health in the game and NO starting defense die. Even when he’s fully upgraded defensively, Onar gets very little defense results and must rely on having more health (and getting more out of rest actions) than other characters. This can make Onar tricky to use, but he’s a valuable Tank character none the less. Unlike Biv Bodhrick who we viewed last week, Onar is in many ways the best at playing the tank role, as Imperial figures are rewarded the most by shooting at him (since he will stop almost nothing of what they throw at him). While Onar isn’t as survivable as Biv, he draws agro far faster than Biv does. In this realm, Onar is king.

Onar Koma: The Rule of Three Red Dice

Onar has an amazing upgrade with Don’t Make Me Hurt You – exhaust the upgrade to add a Red die to one of your attacks (with the option to damage yourself if you killed your target in order to ready it again). While there are many ways to make this powerful (we’ll highlight a few in this post), in general I recommend that your goal with Onar is to find ways to roll at least three Red dice when attacking. The reason? 

Red dice can be unreliable. 

We’ve all had times when we really needed a good roll and our Red die (our one power die!) got a measly Damage 1. Even with two Red dice, you will occasionally get a single Damage out of each of them. With three Red dice, however, your reliably is kept high – AND if all three do get a single Damage result, you’ll still break through the vast majority of defense rolls.

Getting the required three Red dice can be achieved most easily by purchasing a weapon with two Red die in its attack pool. Because we’ve talked about weapon builds for the Polearm and the DXR-6 in one of our previous posts, you won’t see either of those weapons featured in this post (though I will admit they work really well with Onar). Thanks to certain weapon mods you can take, you can change an attack dice (or two, if you have the right weapon/mods) into a Red die if you want – which might cost more money in the long-run than buying a weapon that has the double-Red dice attack pool normally OR might limit you to one attack with a double-Red attack pool. Either way, once you have two Red dice in your attack pool the third is easy in coming with Don’t Make Me Hurt You.

Besides this upgrade, the only other upgrade Onar has that works offensively is Mutual Destruction – while this has distinct benefits when using Rush, the greater benefit is that in any attack you perform, you can suffer 1 Damage in order to add 1 Damage to the attack results. Taken with Don’t Make Me Hurt You, you can do even more damage than you otherwise would. For 6 XP together, you’re not spending that much to make your offensive game stronger. With that, let’s look at what we can do with Onar.

End-Game Weapon #1 – Point Blank Cannon Blast: Hand Cannon with Plasma Cell OR Under-Barrel HH-4

The Hand Cannon not only comes in the Jabba’s Realm expansion (along with Onar), but it’s the upgraded version of Onar’s starter weapon, the Bodyguard Rifle. Key differences between these two weapons include a Red-Red attack pool with a static +1 Accuracy (instead of a Red-Green attack pool) and the presence of a Mod slot. Since neither weapon begins with any innate benefit to rolling Surge results (besides recovering Strain), the presence of the Mod slot makes the Hand Cannon far better as a weapon, since you can turn your Surge results into something useful (at least, from a damage output perspective). With either the Plasma Cell (which gives a static Pierce 1 + surge-for-Damage) or the Under-Barrel HH-4 (which gives a static Accuracy 1 + surge-for-Blast), you can increase the damage you do AND give some kind of static bonus (either taking away enemy Block or hitting targets that are slightly farther away).

To supplement this weapon (which you can have kitted out at Tier 1 if you go with the Under-Barrel, and Tier 2 if you go with the Plasma Cell), we’re adding both Mutual Destruction and Don’t Make Me Hurt You. Regardless of whether you intend to do precise damage to your target with the Plasma Cell or spray damage with the Under-Barrel, the extra Red die and the additional Damage 1 is quite helpful (though the Under-Barrel certainly benefits more from the investment as it more reliably guarantees that you can Blast provided you get a Surge result on at least one of those Red dice). To balance out Onar, we’re taking the Black Sun Armor (to give some kind of defense, not to mention increase the health of our hero as we’re going to be damaging ourselves quite a bit) and Keep Up, as getting a free point of movement is quite valuable when your range is going to be low (1 Accuracy with the Plasma Cell, 2 Accuracy with the Under-Barrel).

Perhaps the best thing about this build, is that your weapons will cost you 850-900 credits, which saves you a little room to buy additional gear (I like the Portable Medkit the best, though the Personal Shields is good to supplement your defense and Extra Ammunition is great for offense). Your choice as to what you want to do.

Upgrades to purchase - 11 XP: Keep Up (1), Mutual Destruction (2), Don’t Make Me Hurt You (4), Black Sun Armor (4)

End-Game Weapon #2 – Defensive Powerhouse: Gaffi Stick with Energized Hilt

Let’s face it, Onar is a tank – if we’re going to take damage, let’s mitigate it as best we can. One of the ways we can do that is by spending less for our weapon, plan on only attacking with one of our actions each turn, and then RESTING. Since Onar heals an additional 2 Damage after each rest, any amount of resting is valuable. To that end, our cheap weapon today is the Gaffi Stick. I’ll just say that I played a short campaign with Onar and all I had was the Gaffi Stick until . . . basically the end of the campaign (when I finally swiped the 434 Deathhammer from another hero – a weapon which we won’t be covering in this post, much to pity). With a static Pierce 1 and a wasted Yellow die, the Gaffi Stick is one of the cheapest weapons in the game and one of the most deadly when you get to the end-game. Onar can make this a Red-Red-Yellow weapon with Don’t Make Me Hurt You, but if you’re only planning on attacking once, you can spend 250 credits on the Energized Hilt to roll a Red-Red-Red – fabulous! For 450 credits, this is a one-action-per-turn-mega-bashing-stick with an automatic Pierce 1 (and the ability to turn your surge results into Weaken, recovering Strain, and . . . well, regret).

If you’re worried about the incredibly unlikely event where you get surge results you don’t like, you can bail yourself out by purchasing the Power Charger. This not only gives Onar access to Damage Power Tokens, but also makes him essentially surge for 2 Damage (just that you get the Damage on the NEXT attack, not this attack). Pretty cool, no? Since you’re not spending anywhere near the amount of money a regular person is, you can also pick up all of the gadgets we mentioned in the previous build (though I would skip the Extra Ammunition as you’re not running a blaster and instead take the Bacta Pump – this enables you to strain during the end of your activation for movement and not have to recover that when you rest).

As I mentioned at the start, we’re choosing to favor a cheaper weapon so we can focus on defense. Apart from the equipment you choose to take, we’re purchasing both the Black Sun Armor (something is better than nothing) and Stay Behind Me – a great little pip to your health and the ability to add a Block to an adjacent friendly figure who is defending at the cost of 1 Damage to yourself. The free health allows you to do this twice without any real penalty and if you’re not near any of your friends (or just don’t feel like saving them), you have a nice little health pip all to yourself. J

As a flexible option to either protect other people or yourself, we’re also taking Get Down – gonna admit the biggest pull for this upgrade is that you can give yourself more than one defense result – you want that Block, man. While this can be used to protect other people, you’re going to be a big fat target with that beat stick you’re carrying and very little defense to reduce the damage you’re taking. Use it for yourself (like any good tank).

Upgrades to purchase – 11 XP: Get Down (1), Stay Behind Me (2), Don’t Make Me Hurt You (4), Black Sun Armor (4)

End-Game Weapon #3 – Rapid Fire: DDC Defender with Disruption Cell

Alas, we’re going to break our “Rule of Three Red Dice” with this build – we’ll only be using two dice. When I looked at Onar, I had a semi-conversation with myself that went something like this:

Initial thought: “Self, do we really need to rest?” Answer: Yes.

Next thought: “Self, if everyone around me is dead, do I really need to rest?” Answer: No.

Follow-on thought: “So self, if I don’t need to rest if there’s no one around me, then getting multiple attacks into my activation removes my need to rest, right?” Answer: Correct.

Conclusion: “Glad we agree – what did we do with that DDC Defender?”

Alright, so my conversations don’t usually happen like this (and NEVER happen out loud . . . obviously . . . why are you looking at me like that?), but the fact remains: because Onar has the ability to ready Don’t Make Me Hurt You, it makes sense that you’d want to be able to use your weapon as much as you can to do as much damage as you can. We’ve talked about this weapon three times already: first with Vinto Hreeda (as a means of maximizing his special splash damage rules), again with Loku Kanoloa (as a means of getting the greatest opportunity to recover strain), and most recently with Jyn Odan (as a means of getting the most attacks and movement out of your character). For those keeping score at home, each time we’ve reviewed this weapon, we’ve chosen a different modification to go with it:

·         For Vinto, we chose the Under-Barrel HH-4, since our objective was to do as much splash damage as we could;

·         For Loku, we chose the Plasma Cell, since we knew we wanted precise damage against our targets with the end-goal being recovering strain;

·         For Jyn, we took the Charged Ammo Pack, looking for cheap damage options instead of expensive direct damage options

Today, we introduce a fourth upgrade: the Disruption Cell. In the interest of getting close to three Reds, we’re instead going with a Red-Red-Green combo. Thanks to the Disruption Cell and the Green die, we’re guaranteed at least 3 Accuracy, which makes this a more reliable range weapon than the Hand Cannon we viewed earlier (and only marginally more expensive). Until you get to Tier 3, you can go with any of the mods listed in the bullets above (the Plasma Cell will be the most like the Disruption Cell), but once you hit Tier 3, you’re in business with LOTS of damage.

For upgrades, we’re purchasing two offensive and two defensive upgrades: for offense, we’re using Don’t Make Me Hurt You and Mutual Destruction, and for defense we’re using the Black Sun Armor and Get Down. You’ll want to rest every other turn in order to keep your damage intake down (or you can just blaze forward towards getting wounded and have a good time), but every time you attack you’ll be able to damage yourself to add +1 Damage and damage yourself again to reset your Red die. Against most figures, you’ll blow three of them to pieces with this. Assuming there aren’t too many more than three hostile figures nearby, you should be fine.

Upgrades to purchase - 11 XP: Get Down (1), Mutual Destruction (2), Don’t Make Me Hurt You (4), Black Sun Armor (4)

Onar in the Skirmish Game

In the skirmish game, the biggest draw for Onar Koma is that he’s got a massive amount of health for only 6 points – that’s the same cost as basic units. As a Hunter, Onar can get huge benefits to his offense with the usual cards (Tools for the Job, Assassinate, Primary Target) and he gets HUGE benefits from Glory of the Kill. In many ways, his Guardian attribute works against him – since he doesn’t have a defense die, he can’t benefit as well from some Guardian cards (Defensive Stance) though he does benefit a lot from Parry. Additionally, if you ally him into an Imperial force, he can’t benefit from the static Block from Royal Guards because of his Guardian status and he can’t be shielded by Wing Guard either.

Besides these unfortunate circumstances, Onar is one of the finest bounty hunter characters they’ve released to date – with plenty of health and the ability to get a free attack via his Extra Protection Command card, Onar is a power-house. Use him with any bounty hunters (Jabba is great, so is Bossk) and other Guardians (Elite Gamorrean Guards for example) OR ally him into a Rebel (with Saska Teft) or Imperial list (with Temporary Alliance) if you want a little extra power for not a lot of cost.

In our last post on Rebel heroes, we’ll be covering Jarrod Kelvin. Jarrod is the only hero who always comes with a Companion to aid him and is not only (in my view) the best tank available in the game, but also has incredible offensive potential. Until next time, happy hobbying!

IP Class Deck Review: Armored Onslaught

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

Armored Onslaught: Adding Some Steel To Your Army

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best IP Units:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best IP Units:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best IP Units:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Character Review: Biv Bodhrick

In this our last series on heroes, we look at the unappreciated but incredibly fun group of characters who form the tank class of Imperial Assault. While tanks are often critiqued for being limited in their damage output, you won't find that to be the case for these gentlemen, and this is particularly true of today's hero, the mighty Biv Bodhrick.

Biv Bodhrick: It's Not Personal, It's Business

Let's sort out two things before we begin: first, on some level and at some point, you will need to spend XP to buy an upgrade that relies on Close and Personal. At the cost of 2 Strain, getting a free melee attack with a Red-Yellow combo and NO surge abilities has debatable utility. While you can spend up to 9 XP on upgrades that don't rely on Close and Personal, you'll eventually need it. So, the big question is: how much do you emphasize Biv's signature skill?
The second thing you'll need to know about Biv is that no matter what weapon you use, Biv SHOULD (dare I say MUST) use his first Surge result to recover Strain. As great as Close and Personal is, Biv gets far more utility out of being able to Strain to reroll an attack die with Deadly Precision. With one of the best starter weapons available to any hero, getting to reroll the Red when it gives you Damage 1 or reroll the Blue when it doesn't give you enough Accuracy (or when it only does Damage 1) is critical to getting the most out of your actions.
With the need to recover Strain for rerolls AND the need to spend 2 Strain to perform Close and Personal, recovering Strain is key to using Biv effectively. Our builds today will keep this in mind and we'll be looking for ways to recover Strain in each of them (though recall we talked about equipment you can buy to manage strain in our post on Verena Talos).

End-Game Weapon #1 – The Melee Approach: Vibro-Knucklers and Repeating Blaster with Vibrobayonet

We've talked about this weapon in many of our posts for good reason: you reliably get Surge results (and you can turn them into good offensive bonuses). For Biv, generating Surge is a must and could be the difference between being able to perform Close and Personal in a given round.
With the Vibrobayonet, you aren't tempted to use your Surge to do Damage during the melee part of Close and Personal, and you're all but guaranteed to do Damage to the target AND apply a Bleed condition. In your follow up attack, you're rolling a Red-Blue and are again not tempted to surge for anything other than recovering Strain.
If you kill the target, not only do you have a good chance of recovering the Strain you used, but you also get to move a bit with Advance. The benefit of the Vibro-Knucklers is that until you get the Vibrobayonet, you don't need to use Close and Personal and you'll still be able to cut through nearby figures. While Close and Personal is good against high-health figures, it's not good against low-health figures. This is where the Vibro-Knucklers shine.
Most of our XP will be dedicated to defense boosts - we are a tank after all. Biv's Trophy Armor is one of the best upgrades in the game, granting +4 Health and a reroll of your defense die. Add in a static Block from Into The Fray and you're one tough nut to crack. But just when you think there's no way you could get stronger, you add in Shake It Off to give you a shot at recovering Strain or removing a harmful condition at the start of your turn.
Perhaps the best thing about this build is that besides the Vibro-Knucklers (though you can use the Armored Gauntlets at Tier 1), you haven't spent any cash. Since you won't be buying armor with your credits, consider picking up the Cybernetic Arm, the Survival Gear, and the Emergency Injector. 

Upgrades to purchase – 10 XP: Advance (1), Shake It Off (1), Into The Fray (2), Vibrobayonet (3), Trophy Armor (3)

End-Game Weapon #2 – Rifle Approach: A280 with Vibrobayonet and Plasma Cell

Alright, let's be honest: Biv should be running around with the world's biggest gun making everything blow up. If we're going to do that, let's find a gun that allows us to take 2 upgrade slots so we can have the Vibrobayonet and something else. Enter the A280.
This list uses Close and Personal to the limit, so Surge is everything. Prior to hitting Tier 2, you can keep your Repeating Blaster (it's good). Thanks to your Vibrobayonet and Plasma Cell, you'll always get a static Pierce 1, no matter which part of Close and Personal you're doing. We've chosen Crushing Blow to supplement the Vibrobayonet, but realize that by giving ourselves something to Surge for in the melee part of Close and Personal, we're not going to be recovering Strain as often. Therefore, this strategy doesn't even try. We've decided with this build that we're going to rest once per turn instead of attacking with our second action.
In this build, we wrap up with one of Biv's 4 XP upgrades (Stay Down) which allows him to perform part of Close and Personal again at the cost of 2 more Strain. Since this doesn't take an action, you can still do 3 attacks in an activation AND REST. With only 9 XP spent, you should have some extra XP to buy odds and ends to flesh out your character (Advance is good, as is the Trophy Armor if you have 12 XP total). In general I don't think Biv's 4 XP upgrades are all that great, but this Stay Down works alright with Crushing Blow (exhaust it during any one of the melee attacks) and the Vibrobayonet (applies to both melee attacks).

Upgrades to purchase – 9 XP: Crushing Blow (2), Vibrobayonet (3), Stay Down (4)

End-Game Weapon #3 – The Pistol Approach: 434 Deathhammer with Vibrobayonet

While having a bayonet on the end of a pistol is unconventional to say the least, you can't argue with this one: a static Damage 1 in both parts of Close and Personal, guaranteed 2 Accuracy, and a solid Red-Blue is great. With Crushing Blow, we're relying on doing lots of Damage to the target, while Advance gives us some movement for free. We'll need to rest from time to time, but since you are spending so little on your weapon, pick up some of the equipment we mentioned previously (I'll add the Bacta Pump for this build, maybe even the Reinforced Helmet or Personal Shields for defense pips).
Speaking of defense, we've chosen again the dual pairing of Into The Fray with the Trophy Armor - there's no reason not to take both. Biv Bodhrick should be able to endure the worst punishment with this build and if you're facing low-health figures, you'll be able to chomp right through them with the 434 Deathhammer. Very straight forward and not much else to say.

Upgrades to purchase – 11 XP: Advance (1), Into The Fray (2), Crushing Blow (2), Vibrobayonet (3), Trophy Armor (3)

Biv in the Skirmish Game

If you're looking for a power character, Biv Bodhrick is your man: as one of the most expensive Rebel Heroes you can bring to a skirmish match, his health and defense are fine but not stellar. Where Biv comes into a realm all his own is on offense: with a Red-Yellow-Blue attack pool and the Close and Personal ability, he can perform multiple attacks in a single action (turning up to 2 Surge into Damage) AND he can still move or trigger a Command card special ability (I like Merciless).

One of the best things about Biv is that he's a Hunter-Brawler, which makes him an excellent ally to a Mercenary list with Temporary Alliance OR he can synergize with most Jedi or Wookiees. If you use Saska Teft, you can pick a good Mercenary figure to join you - Shyla Varad is a good choice, though Bossk, Vinto Hreeda, and Jabba the Hutt are excellent alternates.

In our next post, we’ll be delving into the hero with the highest possible health: Onar Koma. What Onar gains in ridiculous health, he pays for with absolutely no defense die. Is he worth it? Find out next time!

IP Class Deck Review: Nemeses

When you think of the antagonists in Star Wars – be they grand organizations like the Galactic Empire, the Separatist Confederacy, or the First Order, or perhaps less-grand organizations like the Hutts of Tatooine or rogue bounty hunters roaming the galaxy for hire – it’s pretty easy to pick iconic characters that you wouldn’t mind having at your beckon call. In Imperial Assault, many missions give you these kinds of heroes for free (either in your starting groups or reserved groups). But what if you could take the villains you like in open groups, instead of only getting them in select missions? If you want to do this, the only reliable way to do it is with the amazing Imperial Class deck: Nemeses.

Nemeses: Picking Your Champion(s)

The Nemeses deck allows you to focus on the one thing that makes an Imperial Player’s life wonderful: the villains of the galaxy. If you play with any other Imperial Class deck, you need to spend your very-rare Influence points to purchase side missions that will give you the Villain as a reward. This not only keeps your Influence from getting you other bonuses, but also requires that you use an Open Groups slot to field them AND the deck does nothing to help you buy that Villain in the mission you want to use them in. It’s a pain.

In this respect more than anything else, Nemeses is fantastic: not only do you get to keep your Influence to buy other things, but you also get to pick two Villain units for use in the mission (automatically getting to add one of these Villains to your hand WITHOUT taking up an Open Groups slot). You can also change which Villains are being used in each mission – changing from very cheap Villains early on to more expensive ones later. The balance to be sought, therefore, is how much you care about Villains – are they a supplement to your overall plan? Or are they the centerpiece of your army? All of our lists today will focus on Villains that you can bring – because you’ll always have Inspirational as one of your upgrades, you’ll want to bring Open Group units that match at least one attribute of the Villain you choose to add to your hand (or any Villains provided by the mission).

One last note: we’re not going to recommend two very good Villains in this post that you could choose to take: the Grand Inquisitor and Greedo. The reason we’re omitting these guys is because you can get the Grand Inquisitor FOR FREE by purchasing Targeted By The Empire or take Greedo FOR FREE by purchasing Hunter For A Fee. These cards allow you to bring non-Villain figures AND several Villains, for a relatively small Influence cost. So - don't use them as your Villain with Nemeses - ADD them to your Villains with Nemeses. Without further ado, let’s look at some lists, shall we?

End-Game Build #1 – Maximizing Team Firepower: Powerful Foes, Inspirational, Fearsome Presence, I’m On The Leader, Punishing Force, Devastating Legion

I’ll start off by saying that this is the only build we’ll be viewing that brings only one of your two Villains to the table. This deck focuses less on bringing Villains to the fight and more on making your team as a whole more dangerous. With cards like Fearsome Presence, you’re rewarded for having expensive figures on the board (such as Villians) in order to spam Strain against the Rebel heroes. This is complemented quite nicely by Devastating Legion – why not also apply a -1 Block or -1 Evade penalty to Rebel figures while you’re attacking them (so long as there’s a Villain around to watch the carnage)? To polish off the general benefits, we’ve taken I’m On The Leader, which is a great way to get static damage when attacking someone healthy – so good.

The capstone of this build, however, is Punishing Force. This card is rare for an Imperial Player and is easily the best card available to the Imperial Player in the Nemeses deck: each time a Rebel finishes activating, this card readies, allowing the next Imperial deployment card to benefit from it (and it allows rerolling any number of attack dice) – perfect for ensuring that your units have the best shot they possibly can of doing LOADS of damage. Like most of the other upgrades, you don’t need Villains around to make this upgrade useful.

Best IP Units:

·         0-0-0 (BT-1 and 0-0-0 Villain Pack) – There are few Villains as cheap as 0-0-0, but he’s not just a cheap unit: if you begin by performing an Invasive Procedure, you can then attack your foe with a Red-Yellow-Green and the ability to surge for Pierce 2 and Recover 2. While 8 health with a Black die isn’t great, it’s not bad either (especially for 4 points). By using Powerful Foes, you can get 0-0-0 for 1 Threat once you hit Threat Level 4. In missions before that, it’ll cost you 2-3 Threat. The downside to running 0-0-0 is that you can only synergize with Droids, so consider pairing him with Probe Droids and Sentry Droids.

·         BT-1 (BT-1 and 0-0-0 Villain Pack) – If you want to pack more firepower than 0-0-0, you can take his counterpart BT-1. With the option of either attacking with a Red-Yellow-Green-Blue attack pool or three attacks with Red/Yellow/Blue and a Green attack die, you can do lots of light damage or a ton of big damage. If you use Powerful Foes with this figure, you can field him for 4 Threat once you hit Threat Level 3 (which is automatically in a short campaign and after the first two missions in a long campaign). BT-1 also has synergies with Droids (recommending Probe Droids again), Heavy Weapons (Heavy Stormtroopers are good), and Hunters (Weequay Pirates are a good bargain), which gives you many choices for Open Groups.

·         Jabba The Hutt (Jabba’s Realm) – For the same cost as BT-1, you can get Jabba the Hutt. We’ve talked about Jabba TON on this blog and for good reason – he’s good. While his inability to surge for damage – for anything actually – is regrettable, you can do excellent damage with his Bully special ability, gain Threat with Plot (invaluable for keeping your reinforcements coming), bolster friendly figures with Financial Incentive), and calling in a strike with a Mercenary figure thanks to Executive Order (best preceded by Financial Incentive unless the Mercenary figure is already Focused). As both a Smuggler and Hunter, he can synergize with many Mercenary figures, but most notably Trandoshan Hunters, Clawdite Shapeshifters, and Weequay Pirates.

·         Captain Terro (Jabba’s Realm) – Captain Terro is one of the most powerful Imperial Villains you’ll be able to purchase with this build. With a free 3 movement points at the start of his activation, he can move a little to re-position himself, use his Flamethrower to do some damage and weaken a few nearby foes, and then perform an attack with a Yellow-Green-Blue (with the ability to get Damage 2 or Pierce 2 on your Surge). For only 7 points, you can get him for 4 Threat once you hit Threat Level 4. Unlike our previous two heroes, you can synergize with Troopers (tons of options there, but my favorite are Riot Troopers and Heavy Stormtroopers) and Creatures (Nexu are decent, though if your Habitat allows, you should get a Wampa instead).

·         Dengar (Return to Hoth) – Dengar stands out as the only character who is flexible in the kinds of harmful conditions he can apply. If Dengar is attacking someone without a harmful condition, he adds a static +1 Surge to his attack results (which joined with his static +2 Accuracy gives him the equivalent of a Blue die when it rolls an Accuracy 2 + Surge 1 face). Being able to turn one surge into Damage 2 and any additional surge into harmful conditions, Dengar can reliably break through a Black die and leave the target reeling. With only 8 Health, he’s quite a bit less resilient than Captain Terro, but not TOO bad for his cost. With only the Hunter keyword, you'll want to pair him with Trandoshan Hunters, Clawdite Shapeshifters, and Weequay Pirates.  

End-Game Build #2 – Big Dang Bosses: Powerful Foes, Inspirational, Fearsome Presence, Ringleader, Leave Them To Me, Indomitable

While you can definitely use Villains to support your other units, sometimes we want our Villains to be the centerpiece of our army. If you read through all of the Nemeses upgrades once, you’ll notice immediately that many of them focus on making your Villains stronger. Two upgrades pair well together: Powerful Foes and Leave Them To Me. While you start with Powerful Foes, Leave Them To Me allows you to take both of the Villains you select during setup – one Imperial and one Mercenary. Both upgrades also have means of getting those Villains deployed with a reduced cost, allowing more expensive Villains to be brought to the fight.

There are two auric upgrades we’ve chosen to take: Ringleader gives your Villain additional movement points at the start of his activation and boosts the strengths of adjacent friendly figures (who wouldn’t want an additional Accuracy and Damage to their attacks?). Fearsome Presence is a bit more difficult to use (as we’ve seen above), but since you can deploy expensive Villains more easily, triggering this ability remains easy as the campaign progresses. We’ve also chosen to boost the defense of our Villains by taking Indomitable – capable of adding a Black die to your Villains whenever they’re attacked, preventing them from receiving harmful conditions, and the ability to spend 1 Threat in order to ready the card when the Villain is attacked again.

Best IP Units:

·         Darth Vader (Core) – If you’re going to be able to deploy someone cheaply, you want it to be Darth Vader – there are some figure who do almost as much damage as he does, but no one reliably resists damage like Vader does. With Indomitable, Vader is all but unstoppable – taking very little damage and dealing loads of damage on offense. At a whopping 18 points, he easily triggers Fearsome Presence and since he’s a melee figure with Brutality, you want him to end adjacent to at least two figures. Given his VERY high cost, you’ll want to pair him with a cheap Mercenary Villain (Greedo or Jabba The Hutt for example), allowing you to focus both Powerful Foes and Leave Them To Me on Vader (it costs a total of 9 Threat to play him at Threat Level 5). Because this is virtually at the end of a long campaign (and is the end of a short campaign), you’ll want to buy Leave Them To Me late in the game, focusing on the other upgrades first. As both a Leader and a Brawler (and an expensive one), you'll want to pair him with Imperial Officers and Gamorrean Guards, though Tusken Raiders are great if your map has at least one desert tile.

·         Emperor Palpatine (Heart of the Empire) – Palpatine comes in at less than half what Vader costs, making him an easy Villain to purchase alongside another decently-high costed Villain (or you can get him with a dirt-cheap Villain and just save a ton of Threat). Using Leave Them To Me isn’t that great with Emperor Palpatine, as you want him to be able to use Emperor and Force Lighting each round if you possibly can (though if you deploy far from the Rebel Heroes, you can do it to save some cash). I recommend using Powerful Foes to deploy him for only 6 Threat at Threat Level 3, which allows you to use Leave Them To Me on another hero (like Maul, who we’ll look at next) OR you just delay on buying Leave Them To Me until late in the campaign and buy Vader with it. With only the Leader trait to synergize with the rest of your team, you're basically limited to Imperial Officers, so pick your open groups based on your other hero (or just bring a lot of IOs).

·         Maul (Heart of the Empire) – Maul is not only one of the most powerful Mercenary Villains they’ve come out with so far, but he’s incredibly good when deployed with Leave Them To Me. If you use this upgrade to deploy him at the start of a mission, he only costs 2 Threat and cannot be defeated until he activates in Round 2 (no matter how much Damage he takes). With Indomitable, he can get a double-Black die to keep him alive even longer (which is good since he can’t recover Damage). As a cheap Brawler, you can pair him with Elite Gamorrean Guards, Royal Guards, or Trandoshan Hunters.

·         IG-88 (Core) – Though more expensive than Maul, you can by him for 5 Threat at Threat Level 3 if you use both Powerful Foes and Leave Them To Me. IG-88 is incredibly good on offense (multiple attacks with any two-die attack pool you want), but lacks a bit in the defense department (though it’s nothing Indomitable can’t fix – two Black dice with a static Block 1 is great). With the ability to recover up to 6 Damage in a given turn (assuming you can shoot twice), you can get a bit more survivability out of him than you can with Maul (though Maul’s higher base health and guaranteed activation each round might tip the scales in the sith's favor). As both a Hunter and a Droid, IG-88 allows you to synergize with Probe Droids and Sentry Droids, as well as Clawdite Shapeshifters and Weequay Pirates.

·         Boba Fett (Twin Shadows) – At 1 point more expensive than IG-88, you can get Boba Fett at Threat Level 3 for 6 Threat, which allows you to use him early in any campaign. With Indomitable giving him two Black dice on defense with a static Block 1 + Evade 1, Boba Fett is great. Unlike the other Villains we’ve looked at so far, Boba Fett benefits from being Mobile, allowing you to place him better for Fearsome Presence than anyone else. On offense, Boba Fett is fantastic – the ability to Recover 2 when you can reduce the damage he takes via Indomitable makes him incredibly good. Finally, Boba Fett is a Hunter - this means Trandoshan Hunters, Clawdite Shapeshifters, and Weequay Pirates are where it's at.

End-Game Build #3 – Flexible Build: Powerful Foes, Inspirational, Prepare The Ambush, Fearsome Presence, Ringleader, Leave Them To Me, Punishing Force

We’ve seen a build that focuses on doing damage to the Rebels as fast as possible with your entire team and we’ve seen one that glorifies your Villains to incredible heights. Now we’re turning our attention to a more flexible build that provides more tactical benefits (often static benefits) to your units. In addition to the standard abilities of Powerful Foes and Inspirational, we’re adding Prepare the Ambush to our deck, allowing us to delay activating a group so we can wait and see where a Rebel hero is going to be before we are forced to move. This is a niche ability and I’ve found it to be only marginally useful – most times, you want to get use out of a deployment card as fast as possible before it dies. However, there are times (usually with E-Web Engineers) where you want to see where a Rebel hero ends up BEFORE you activate one of your groups. Because you’re not allowed to pass in Campaign mode, sometimes you just want one additional turn of information before you activate someone. This ability gives you that (as well as some extra movement for the first group you activate.

In addition, we’ve added Ringleader and Punishing Force, which provide good offensive benefits that are (at least sort of) static. We’ve talked about these a lot (and we’ll talk about them some more), so we’ll move on to the last upgrades: Fearsome Presence and Leave Them To Me. Getting Fearsome Presence to work requires that you have kind of expensive units (or single-figure deployment cards that you keep putting on the board). This can be hard to use effectively, but your goal is to hit at least one figure with it. Using Leave Them To Me enables you to get more expensive figures (Villains or grunts) onto the table, making this card much more effective. It’s best done when the Rebels need to pass through a deployment zone, as you can deploy someone near Rebel figures (or where they’ll be), giving you some extra oomph out of Fearsome Presence without activating the card.

Best IP Units:

·         Agent Blaise (Bespin Gambit) – Agent Blaise is the lowest end of heroes you want to bring, since his cost will just barely be above or at the threat level (necessary for Fearsome Presence). Blaise is pretty straight-forward to use: shoot at someone (and generate 1 Threat when he attacks), perform your Activate Agent special action, and watch the Spy/Trooper unit you deploy do awesome things. Blaise benefits greatly from Punishing Force (to make sure you get at least 1 Surge past the defense results), but don’t EVER use Leave Them To Me with Blaise – you want every activation you can with this guy. Blaise is hard to synergize with, seeing as how he's a Leader (Imperial Officers) and a Spy (ISB Infiltrators).

·         Bossk (Bespin Gambit) – Of all the bounty hunters available in Imperial Assault, Bossk is one of the best – with a static Damage 2 + Accuracy 2, a Red-Green combo, and a static Block on defense, Bossk is a boss (see what I did there?) wherever you put him. What makes him even better, of course, is his ability to heal himself at the end of each round – see our post on To The Limit or more info on this incredible skill. For this Nemeses build, you can get Bossk for 5 Threat at Threat Level 4 or for 4 Threat at Threat Level 5 – which is kind of a lot, to be honest. Bossk is both a Hunter and a Brawler, so any of the previous Hunter/Brawler units we've talked about are fair game (see our last section, since most of those guys were Hunters or Brawlers).

·         General Sorin (Return to Hoth) – Sorin, on offense, isn’t much to look at – he’s basically an Elite Imperial Officer who can’t surge for Accuracy. You don’t take Sorin, however, to fight – you take him to make Droids and Vehicles better. We’ve talked about Sorin already in our post on Advanced Com Systems, and most of what was shared in that post applies here. With Ringleader as an upgrade, you can not only enable friendly figures to attack, but you can also boost their abilities. As great as Sorin is, he only has the Leader trait, so bring along some Imperial Officers and an Elite Imperial Officer to synergize.

·         Kayn Somos (Twin Shadows) – Similar to Sorin, Kayn gives adjacent friendly figures bonuses as well (and we talked about him also in our posts on Advanced Com Systems). Unlike Sorin, Kayn can make adjacent friendly figures Focused when HE attacks (not when THEY attack), which is great if you’re adjacent to figures who don’t surge very reliably. With Ringleader supporting Kayn’s Firing Squad ability, you can allow two friendly figures to interrupt to perform an attack against the same figure with a static Damage 1 + Accuracy 1 added to their attack results. For unit syerngies, I recommend Riot Troopers, Heavy Stormtroopers, and E-Web Engineers, though Stormtroopers are just fine too.

·         General Weiss (Core) – If you want to get the most out of Fearsome Presence, you want a large base. You also get more out of Ringleader if you have a large base. There’s no Villain with a larger base than General Weiss – and with Leave Them To Me and Powerful Foes, you can deploy him for -8 points at Threat Level 4 (making his final deployment cost 8 points, though he starts exhausted). This is a great way to get him out at the start of a side mission when at Threat Level 4 or higher. While the AT-ST starts with a Targeting Computer, Punishing Strike gives General Weiss the same rule (basically). Weiss has Heavy Weapon and Vehicle synergies, so bringing along some Heavy Stormtroopers or Jet Troopers are always welcome (most other vehicles are hard to field).

In our next post, we’ll be turning our attention to one of the Imperial Class decks released in Return to Hoth: Armored Onslaught. This deck rewards the IP for having vehicles in his deck which can not only be REALLY fun for the IP, but also makes for a very different game play than other IP Class decks. Until next time, happy gaming!