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just finished the Return to Hoth campaign, where I was playing Mak. The other heroes were Jyn (often our utility person, with high speed and free out-of-turn movement), MHD (entirely focused on healing), and Biv (tank build). MHD was probably our MVP for the entire campaign, but in the final missions Mak and Jyn were the ones who were really carrying the ball. I think Biv was only wounded once in the entire campaign (thanks to his droid friend). I play a lot of skirmish, as does my son, who was part of our group (playing Jyn), so our combat tactics were pretty good, even though our campaign tactics were sometimes lacking. However, the Imperial player was also excellent; we play at our LGS as one of 3 campaign groups, and he's known as the most skilled and challenging Imperial player of them all. For the first ... will do," and eventually that was right. lol We were 1-4 for our first missions because we quite simply didn't have the damage output that we needed; it was often taking us 2 or 3 attacks to kill a single figure, while the Imperial player was able to keep putting out more and more figures each round. It was actually quite discouraging at first. All of our money was being spent on Biv and Jyn as our main attackers, and we also weren't drawing enough rifles for purchase. About mid-way through the campaign we picked up enough weapons that Mak could start using the E-11 as a hand-me-down from Biv. Finally, things got absolutely SICK when we happened to draw and purchase the DXR-6 risruptor rifle with 3 or 4 missions left; we were undefeated after that, and only 1 of those -
just did it last night. I used Biv, Mak, Jyn, and Fenn. I was doing it so I could write about it in a fictional form. Anyway, as was said, you have to keep moving. The dice did go with me in the beginning and we managed to cripple the existing forces in round one and make big gains towards the door . The imperial countered by using threat to restore 1 trooper to the 1 remaining the squad. I managed to finish off the patrol, get the crate, and then be ready for the E-web. Biv got perforated by the E-web and the troopers coming out of the supply room. He was already damaged, and now he was wounded. Mak and Fenn moved foward. Make took a shot at the E-web, doing some damage, while Fenn began shot the terminal. The crate did give us the grenade ... that was good, as it would come in handy later. At the start of round 4, Biv charged the E-web and took it out with close and personal. I wish I would have been able to shoot a different target after that. The Stormtroopers "killed Biv off" Fen hit the group with blast, and Mak finished the terminal while Jyn fought a probe droid coming in from behind. Anyway, I killed the troops and Mak and Fenn rush in. It was in round six, after using a grenade in 5 to kill an officer and cause damage tot the terminal that Fenn and Mak were able to finish off the terminals. It came down to Fenn's final shot and managed to get the two damage he needed. I think it ended with Jyn having 5 damage. Mak having 4 and Fenn having 10. All were strained -
lost this mission as Imperial, but on the very last turn, and I honestly could have won it if I had paid better attention. Biv had the 'code' token, and had 1 health left, everyone else was wounded. I had stormtroopers and Boba bottlenecking the entrance to the Docking Bay for about 2 rounds, forcing people to pay dearly to get through. Biv went last, and used a double move and strain to get next to the terminal, but was out of actions, and the round ended. I had the Weary Target XP card, which makes 1 hero who isn't strained out take 2 strain. I THOUGHT Biv was strained out, so I just threw it to another hero... and all my friends started laughing and high-fiving. Apparently Biv only had 3/4 Strain tokens, and if I would have chosen him, he would have taken 1 strain -
Biv starts out a little rough, but he's got quite a bit of health, so that helps. With "Trophy Armor", he becomes rather beastly. He also had "Crushing Blow", "Shake it Off" and "Vibrobayonet" to help him out. So he basically was a melee fighter like Gaarkhan, but with the option for ranged attacks (which I know you can buy a gun for the Wookie, but "Charge" makes that mostly unnecessary). Now Biv worked out to position himself so that enemies didn't have line of sight to Mak. This allowed Mak to make the most out of "Ambush", "Target Acquired" and "Execute". Add Disengage along with Covert and Mak never got wounded the second half of the campaign. Biv had the Tactical Display for a for a free surge every round which always went to recover an endurance, so he could do "Close and Personal" every round (paired ... with "Shake it off". We gave Mak the "Valken-38 Carbine" (RtH) with the "Under-Barrel HH-4" (Rth) and from that point on, the Empire had no hope. Biv was used for cover and could take out most anything in 1 round, Mak could sit back, and routinely deal 6+ damage each shot. I had a similar experience with Fenn and Gaarkhan in a different campaign, but Fenn would usually get wounded and had to be closer to the battle -
There are no super bad combos. Biv, Gaarkhan, Mak, and Jyn will serve just fine. Pros of this team: High Damage output, you'll be removing figures fast. Gaarkhan is probably the strongest there until you get Biv his Vibrobayonet and Crushing Blow (one of which I recommend as his first purchase because until then his C&P kinda blows). Mak gets the Pulse Cannon eventually. Jyn likes the Deathhammer and Sporting Blaster naturally. You don't have any support characters and Jyn is your tricky speedy girl, and Gaarkhan can be speedy and still attack with Charge. This team likes to mow down enemy figures on a steady walk towards the objectives. Move, shoot. Move, shoot. You're half fragile but half tanky, and it's easy enough to shore up the white die rollers. You will rock Strength and Tech tests. Cons of this team: There ... weapon sharing. Biv can get Mak's hand-me-downs, but you're splitting your credits on three different weapon types; however that's not really too much of a concern. Insight tests are going to be an issue, but that comes up on ... maybe two missions? It's a good team that hits hard and keeps rolling. Just make sure to keep rolling. P.S. All characters are weak in the beginning, and all characters are strong in the end. Most characters exhibit traits that are better for some players and the way they play. Diala has her uses. In the beginning with Precise Strike, she can one shot Stormtroopers and especially Imperial Officers to get rid of that nagging reroll of theirs. By the end? She's got Defensive Stance to keep herself focused, Battle Meditation to keep others focused, and my personal favorite build she's whipping around -
Entanglements mission is a keeper! It's essentially just capture the flag, campaign style. Basically, there are terminals at both ends of a long narrow map, and each side needs to retrieve something from the opposite terminal and bring it back to their terminal. I didn't bother with the 0 XP level and went right ahead with the same heroes and purchases I had done for the IG-88 mission (Twin Shadows setup, Biv, Davith, Mak, and Murne with the same gear and class card purchases as last time). The only change-up was Lando instead of the Alliance Smuggler to make it a legal list. What a close game! In the end, both Han and Lando were killed and every hero except Biv was wounded. At the top of turn 9 Biv sprinted the token to the terminal for the win. The token kept changing hands -
heroes to be fighting bounty hunters. I also managed to set up Dengar if the continue the hoth mission The finale was Great. the heroes started off strong. Diala with the Ancient lightsaber can 'way of the sarlac' a full group of reg stormies with ease. as they progressed, i slowed them down with Royal guards and their stunn ability. the final fight with Vader was awesome. Vader sealed the doors, splitting Biv from the party, and all he could do was watch. Diala ran into combat her masters killer (which i set up with some back story beats.) their duel was stuff of legend. she managed to Super dodge on the white dice 4 times in a row. and Vader got 6-8 defense on occasion. i think she managed to block 24-26 damage. the group were cheering. Jyn was wounded chasing crates, and Mak kept getting force ... choked. Biv managed to break down the door and help out all his wounded friend by dealing the final blow to Vader, with a vibro blade into his chest piece, forcing Vader to retreat. the gang encountering Darth Vader in the final mission last stand, Biv got seperated behind a door and had to watch the group fall.Group shot of the gang, took down their first At-ST you can see more of my stuff Here the heroes were victorious, so i didn't get to try my Hoth campaign bridging side mission which you can read about Here if you have any questions let me know -
That mission went pretty well for us if I remember, and it was swingy in a good way. The first part of the mission was similar to what you described - the rebels had the three new heroes and Biv, and all four were built for maximum damage output. It was really tough for the imperial to keep anything on the board, and like you the board was clear when we opened the door to Jabba. Once we fell into the Rancor pit it seemed like it would be more of the same. Only Vinto stayed above ground, with the other three in the pit. The rancor managed to wound Biv, but then Onar rolled really well and, combined with Don't Make Me Hurt You, ended up killing the rancor on either the turn it came out or one turn afterwards before it could activate. Meanwhile, Vinto did some ... down Jabba - there were still a few strong imperial figures in the pit, though, so the rebels wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. So Onar rolled his YYB strength - failure. Well that's okay, he had the Survival Gear so we'll just reroll a yellow - failure. Second action, try again - failure. For those keeping score at home, that's five yellow dice and two blue without a surge. Oi. Biv and Shyla got out, but Onar was stuck in the ground and got absolutely wrecked by the remaining ePigs down there. That left us with just Shyla as our final healthy hero, with a door and Jabba to get through. The details are kind of fuzzy from there, but we ended up finishing Jabba off with a 1-damge bolt from Vinto's blaster. I think Shyla had around 6 health left and had already -
know many are not wanting simply deployment point fixes for characters like Fenn, Loku, Biv, etc. I, on the other hand, don't mind a simple tweak to make a character playable and I'd like to get all of my core and expansion figures on the board...or at least able to be on the board. I don't have enough patience to wait for errata or official fixes, and I don't have confidence that all the "fixes" will be made. I've adjusted images of the cards with the new points and will print them off for my own use, but I don't think FFG would appreciate me posting those here, so I'll just say what I changed and why. I haven't play tested anything yet, but I'll update the thread when that happens. I've made the following changes. Saska costing ... line. Gaarkhan I decided to change to 5. That's a big change for him, but considering Wookiee Warriors are 8(4 each), I felt it would be okay as his abilities make him better than a single WW. Verena I had originally decided to change to 5, but then looking at her and how much she compared to Diala, I decided that 6 was best. Jyn I changed to a cost of 4. Biv I changed to 6. He's pretty squishy with 8 health, but his Hunter trait really gives him some options. Fenn I also changed to 6 as he was quite over costed. It'll be interesting to see how these changes work...or if they do, especially with HotE coming out. Interesting enough, 6, 5, and 4 seem to be the sweet spot with the occasional 3. I think this range for heroes works well -
Biv - Biv is... not that great. He doesn't get the same vicious hatred on the forums that he used to, or that Loku currently does, but that doesn't change the facts. Both of his 4 XP cards are overpriced. Unless the Rebel player knows you are going to be bringing in a villain unit with lots of health or multiple defense die, neither one is worth it. And even then, you could just avoid him and let other units take him down. You might be intimidated by the fact that he gets an extra attack through Close and Personal. Don't be. Consider that it costs 2 XP just for that extra attack to get any surges. It'll only be doing 2 - 3 damage per round. His "melee character with a ranged weapon" design means that he'll frequently be farther away from support units that might ... surges , which means he won't be using surges to get extra damage or range that he spent that 2XP for. Long ranged units work best. Think Probe Droids. Jet troopers can also work wonders as they can generate evades and get movement points. I don't want to assume you own Jabba's Realm though, so also consider stormies flanked by Royal Guards to give them a defense bonus. Yes, Biv does have a buff against troopers in the form of Hunt Them Down, but if you have Royal Guards next to them, the chance to get in close and stun him is worth the 2 threat of a stormtrooper -
could use the number tokens. Everyone gets a number- red numbers dropped where the bodies would be, blue numbers set to the side next to item piles. For instance, if Biv gets killed, take his items and put them to the side. Let's say Biv's number is "7". Put the red seven where he died, and the blue seven on top of his item pile. You should probably always have enough tokens for this, regardless of which expansions and packs you have. edit: And if, for whatever reason, you do run out, create another group who use the blacks as body markers and the purple as item markers. That'll double how many people you can account for. So, for instance, Biv can be the blue/red 7 and Shyla can be black/purple 7. But I honestly don't see that being an issue anyway. Edited February -
liked Endless Ranks in the Twin Shadows mini campaign. It gave me a full stormtrooper squad / turn or a E-Web etc. I would have had to wait for an extra turn for more threat if I hadn't had it. The heroes I was facing were Biv, Gaarkan, Jyn and Gideon. Biv was really effective dishing out massive damage to a single figure while Gaarkhan got easily close and dealt damage to few figures. Reach and Cleave 2 is a combo I really hate to see on Gaarkhan. And who's by crazy luck got those in every single campaign I've played with the accursed wookie in it. So in the campaign I treated my stormtroopers like they were cannon fodder that was cheap to replace. It worked well for me as Biv couldn't get full benefit from his hero skill and I could flood -
plan on writing an article about Biv at some point here. He can be really strong, you just have to jump through several hoops. The key is leveraging his strong ability to the max. The main hoops are : 1. Bacta Pump: This new tier 1 item is HUGE on Biv 2. Have MHD as your support. These 2 heroes go really well together, the new medical card, painkillers is amazing along with the other strain mitigation cards. 3. Biv really wants high surge gear. DL-44 into Pulse Cannon is my prefered gear path. With those he is decent. I went a step further and made a couple of very simple houserule tweaks to his 4 xp cards (On Final Stand, he is weakened at end of activation instead of stunned and Stay down costs 1 strain) and he was very solid. Edited February 21, 2017 by Deadwolf -
IG88 12->8. Weiss 16->12. RGC 15->12. Boba Fett 13->10. Kayn Somos 10->7. Dengar 7->6. Sorin 8->6 Of course I noticed these calls for a whole new round of adjustments: How much should these units cost so that you'll want to use them again? The units after ‘;’ are the ones I’ve used for comparison Loku 4->3; eAlliance Smuggler Mak 3->2; rAlliance Smuggler Biv 9->5; eProbe DroidBRY ranged attack but fairly average surge abilities. His "close and personal" requires melee and triggering his bonus +1 block means you're not far from dead. Even with a 4-point reduction to 5 I’m still tempted to take eProbe due to its sweet pierce, +dmg and recover 2 means it can take much more than 7dmg to kill Gaarkhan 8->6; Biv Fenn 9->6; rEcho Base Trooper, rAlliance Rangers Verena ... eStorm, Leia, Davith, Shyla Diala 7->6; Obi-wan, Biv, Gaarkhan, VintoI was going back & forth between 5 or 6. Her recover 2 and pierce 3 should be costly but she doesn’t roll that much surge on Red+Green vs. Obi. Her ability to reroll white and remove opponent’s defense dice makes her stronger than Vinto imo Wampa 6->4; rNexu, Dewbacks, TerroI’m not even sure what FFG’s original intention was: we got a 1x2 figure with dwarf movement and no mobile, high damage means nothing if you’ll be shot dead before you even attack. The bonus 2MP from Hunger helps very little on a melee figure. Nexu costs 4, can jump, can roll dodge and comes with free bleed and cunning (+1 block for each evade results) eWampa 8->6; eNexu, Dewbacks, Terro Saska 6->4; Greedo, eHired Gun, rHired GunUnfortunately the current meta -
really wish Biv was better in Skirmish (and in campaign, but that's a different project).Trophy Armor0 pointsAttachmentBiv Bodrhik only.+5 health.Exhaust this card when defending to reroll 1 defense die.This one is just stealing a campaign class card. Biv only having 8 health was a crime, even when he has a decent defensive ability built in. Having good offense already as well, I think Biv just needs a boost in survivability to start seeing play -
figure out how to get a character into melee, then no melee in your game works, not just Biv. Of course Loku should be the number one target because he is easy to wound. It can be easier to kill him than it is to wound Biv. You save Biv for later when you have enough units on the board to focus him down, although if you're putting out overpriced HKs then that isn't likely to happen. Loku increases the damage of the party because he is support. He's just a worse support than all the others. Trying to make him a DD though dosn't work, he doesn't have the abilities -
Within a loose framework of - not all melee/ranged - we pick the characters we want to play. Last campaign - Hoth, rebels used Murne, Loku, Davith and Biv. Murne with False Orders, Waylay and Lead from the Front was brutal and became Imperial target #1. Loku with Combat Spotter made three missions a breeze. Davith was almost always hidden and his Shrouded Lightsaber was very effective. Biv, was ... Biv. He was better once we found out his Bayonet didn't need to be attached to anything -
brave Imperial Player to do that. Between Rage and Unstoppable I never would have done that in my last Core campaign. On Biv - He was used when we played the Twin Shadows campaign and he really wasn't terribly impressive. He killed everything he hit, but he didn't hit much. I don't know. Into the Frey and Trophy armor make Biv pretty tanky but I always think of Saska with Gadgeteer, the DXR, and Tactical Display later in the campaign. She just annihilates everything with that set up. Plus she can take Energy Shield for 2 XP, that should help mitigate some damage be it on her or on other heroes. I just feel like it's hard to take Biv over that. I'd say he's much more viable with new items, I'm worried that most people won't give him a chance though -
think the problem I would foresee with this squad is "Too much trickery and not enough straight killing." Depending on certain Command Cards can be tricky, especially if you don't have some way of culling or searching through your deck. All too often you may find yourself with Diala in a perfect place, only to have only Biv's cards in your hand. Or you're going to pull Biv's perfect card only to watch him get stunned, or defeated. Outside of your Command Cards, how do you see this squad performing? Biv and Wookiees get the job done, I haven't really seen Echo Base Troopers in action yet. But is that enough? Let us know how it pans
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Alright so here is Biv after trying to save the mistake I did with the Matt varnish. I applied a great deal of gloss varnish and then resprayed with Matt. Maybe can't tell by the pictures but his front is acctually okay, some small grey on the glove and boots. His back is still "snowy". Especially his boots and trousers but also hair and shoulder. While going through here you might think why/how I could fail with so many, especially after doing the mistake with the ISB infiltrators above. Well the ghosting on them were not so prominent and all the models in this post was sprayed with varnish at the same time, one after the other and I didn't see the mistake until they were dry. I tend to spray models when several are done instead of just one. After painting Biv I made Saska Teft ... same problem with her after putting on varnish although not as bad as Biv. In her case the front was hit worst and is not as great in coloration as before. My wookie elite... had to check, haven't even posted my regular ones will do... was also a bit grey but here no trace is left with the method mentioned above with gloss and reapply Matt. The weapons are from my Games Workshop Wood Elves. BT1 and 0-0-0 was also hit bad and BT1 is by far the worst one. I'm thinking of buying a new pack and remake him and use this one as a junk droid or something. I also had this problem with my Tusken raiders but except the gaffi sticks it's not a big show Regular on dune sea base (dark picture, sorry) Elite on cracked desert. Finally here -
Gaarkhan and Verena are both (typically) melee characters that like to be beside multiple enemies. So they'll be competing for space and melee weapon cards/mods from the supply deck. Gaarkhan also has strain issues so simply isn't as good as Verena, so there is that too. Biv and Saska are tier 2 heroes, Gaarkhan is too. They're not bad, they're just not as good as alternatives. Biv can do some great burst damage and hit single targets REALLY REALLY hard and if there were more really hard to kill enemies in the game he'd be better, but hitting a 3 wound trooper for 9 damage isn't really as useful as hitting 3 troopers for 4 at the same time. Biv can also have some strain issues. Saska's extra damage ability is probably a bit too weak and unreliable, and she's sort
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effective. It's the difference between making two average attacks or one very powerful attack. Both can mean defeating a figure (or two) for the cost of one action, but which one is better depends on the situation and your overall strategy. Loku's and Saksa's tokens can keep you from having to use your "free" action to take a second attack at a figure who didn't quite die, for example. Consider Biv and Gaarkhan - all other differences aside, if you compare Charge and Close and Personal, Charge seems a lot better. But they both take 1 action and 2 strain. If Biv uses a move to get to his target, and then uses Close and Personal to defeat his target, that's essentially the same as Gaarkhan using Charge and another attack to defeat the same enemy. There are differences of course, and I'm not arguing ... that Biv is as good as Gaarkhan - just that I don't think he's as bad as you think -
Pike you simply give the BD-1 to the other. And woe is the Imperial player who allows Diala to have her lightsaber (choose Temptation as soon as you can), because that thing hurts. Gaarkhan is good. Against Subversive Tactics I take Loyalty, then Ferocity, then Unstoppable. Against anything else it's Fortitude, Brutal Cleave, Unstoppable. That's just my take on it, your opinion may vary. I'm still not sold on Biv. He's a bit too specialized, almost everything he gets is made to supplement C&P it seems. He hits a ton, yes, and he's not Bad, but since I also lump him into the melee characters, I would just rather take the other two. Mak every single day and twice on Sundays, mostly due to that through the roof damage. Jyn's ability to interrupt is annoying... when it goes off. Unfortunately ... powerful, and Havoc Shot is easy to avoid, except for first turn starting positions, which can be awful. He can get quite tanky, but even with Trench Fighter I don't really fear him as an Imperial Player, which is all I need to know about deciding on whether to take him as a Rebel. Now that I have offered counterpoint to ...uhh... practically every single point, I just wanted to again emphasize that Biv can be good, that Saska can be good, that Jyn and Fenn can be very good. Win their side missions, give them good equipment, get those high XP class cards, every Rebel has the potential to be an unstoppable force of pain for the Imperial player. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find an Imperial player so I can run Jyn, Fenn, Saska, and Biv. "Use Adrenaline Injector to move into
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pull information from the side missions as much as I could - I didn't incorporate everything, but I tried to link each character's story to their side mission in some way, so players could see connections when they play their mission. As for Biv, the one stormtrooper that remained and beat him is Kayn Somos, I just didn't name him because I figured Biv wouldn't know his name at that point. Maybe I should make that connection more obvious... I didn't get the sense that Biv might have been a stormtrooper; where do you see hints toward that? Also, these stories are just my interpretation of course, and there are definitely other ways of imagining each hero's past
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What I meant by "Biv has more straight-up damage potential" is "Biv rolls more dice and has more +Damage surges, so will net you more damage icons on average in a turn of attacking". I'm not taking Cleave or Pierce or Dodge mitigation into consideration, only straight-up damage, because that would increase the number of variables exponentially, including target health, type of defence, innate defence abilities, actual defence result, number of surges rolled and figure positioning, therefore making the comparison unfeasible. For example, if your enemy is defending black and rolls three blocks and your Inquisitor rolls a surge, you just broke the bank and that would make your surge ability very powerful and worth a bunch of points. If your enemy defends white and rolls up a blank, both your dodge and your dodge mitigation thing are worthless, and you might have not rolled ... flat damage. OTOH, if Biv goes all close and personal on a white defence and your opponent rolls up two blanks in a row, he can easily deal more damage than the Inquisitor can possibly produce. Taking only damage icons into consideration a simplification, but IMO a necessary one to make so that the comparison has any meaning to it in the first place - otherwise the number of variables present in the attack framework make any figure comparisons meaningless, because you always wind up answering with "it depends". Personally, I find that simply counting the max amount of damage you can roll is a good quick and dirty way of assessing the 'killyness' of a figure, because it allows you to easily gauge one very important consideration: what is the beefiest enemy it can possibly kill in one shot. I want to stress that I do believe that the Inquisitor