I only recently got interested in Imperial Assault, but it has really grabbed me. To help pass the time until I can get my hands on it, I want to evaluate different units that are available in it. So that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t know how often I’ll be able to post, but I’m going to give my take on one unit’s strengths, weaknesses, synergies, and countermeasures per post. Without further ado, let’s start with probably the most iconic character in the Star Wars saga:

Darth Vader

Lord of the Sith

Darth Vader is the right-hand man and enforcer of Emperor Palpatine and supreme commander of the Empire’s military might.

Strengths: With 16 health, 2 black defense dice, and the ability to reroll a defense die, Darth Vader is a tough nut to crack. Even a strong attack might completely fail to deal damage to him. He also is a powerful attacker, with 2 red dice and 1 yellow die. As far as I know, that guarantees him at least 2 damage and a surge, with the possibility to be much more powerful. His surge abilities of Pierce 3 and +2 damage, each costing a single surge, are potent. And in the event that an opponent makes a mistake and leaves a couple of figures clustered, Darth Vader can attack 2 different figures as a single action. In the event that he can’t get close enough to use his melee attack, he can also use Force Choke to damage an enemy at any range in line of sight. Because it doesn’t use an attack roll or allow a defense roll, Force Choke can be an extremely consistent source of damage. And because it isn’t an attack, Force Choke appears to be usable for both of Darth Vader’s activations. In short, he is a nightmare for Rebel scum.

Weaknesses: The mere suggestion that the Dark Lord of the Sith might have a weakness is blatant Rebel propaganda, and therefore treasonous. However, Darth Vader is magnanimous and thus gives his foes a fighting chance by restraining himself from throwing his lightsaber to decapitate all his enemies at once. This means that if he wants to kill an enemy quickly, he has to move to engage them. And he refuses to sprint up to a foe, because that would be undignified of him. With a deployment cost of 18, Darth Vader is a bit of an introvert. He doesn’t like to spend time with large crowds of his friends, instead preferring small groups.

Synergies: Imperial Officers, regular or elite, are Darth Vader’s best friends, with their ability give him extra move actions to set up attacks, or extra attacks in the case of elite officers.

Countermeasures: Efforts to bring down Darth Vader need either strong dice pools or high-magnitude Pierce abilities to get through his 2 defense dice. On the defensive, it pays to spread out your figures to minimize the chance that Darth Vader can use his Brutality ability. Also, try to keep low-health figures out of his line of sight, so he can’t kill them with a double Force Choke.

Feel free to tell me if you see a unit's strengths or weaknesses differently than I do. This is mostly an excuse to get more discussion of specific units. And if you have a suggestion of what unit I should evaluate next, let me know.

Darth Vader

Lord of the Sith

Weaknesses: The mere suggestion that the Dark Lord of the Sith might have a weakness is blatant Rebel propaganda, and therefore treasonous.

And you, young Leveton ; we shall watch your career with great interest.

Vader cant double choke because its aspeacial action. I very much look forward to this thread. May the trolls live on

Vader cant double choke because its a special action.

I guess I hadn't read through the rules thoroughly enough yet. Hadn't yet seen where you couldn't take two of a special action. Oh well, it's still an excellent ability.

I would have loved the idea of Vader just standing in the corner of the battlefield dual choking ******* left and right

Stunning Vader would also be helpful (Gideon's Disabling shot is the first thing that comes to mind).

Heck, stunning any sort of figure with special actions/multiple attacks will always be a good thing.

Thanks for the write-up! I wonder if you could find a way to post a pic of his actual card, along with your write-up? Several times while reading through I was curious to check something with his card.

The thing is, I'm not even sure where to find pics of all the skirmish cards. FFG has posted some of them in their preview articles, but beyond that I wouldn't know where to look for good, high-quality card images.

Thanks for the write-up! I wonder if you could find a way to post a pic of his actual card, along with your write-up? Several times while reading through I was curious to check something with his card.

Consider it done! I'm going to try to have the writeup for both versions of stormtroopers up early this afternoon.

Up next, we have the ubiquitous, white-clad Stormtroopers.

Stormtrooper

Stormtroopers are the elite foot soldiers of the Imperial Military. They serve both aboard capital ships and planetside, but their chain of command is separate from both the Imperial Army and Navy. The Stormtrooper Corps grew out of the Grand Army of the Republic’s clone trooper units at the end of the Clone Wars with the Declaration of a New Order. In first few years of the Galactic Empire, clones continued to make up the bulk of the Stormtrooper Corps, but non-clone recruits eventually surpassed clones in numbers.

Strengths: Stormtroopers showcase the maxim of strength in numbers, coming three to a squad. This is their biggest strength, because they provide up to six actions in a single activation. For example, one figure can seek to complete an objective while the other two move to block line of sight and/or attack enemy units. Their numbers also mean that they have three health pools to take out in order to kill them all. A single attack that deals 9 Damage (unlikely, but possible for high-damage units that are focused) to a Stormtrooper wastes 6 Damage. Stormtroopers’ surge abilities (+1 damage, +2 accuracy, each for a single surge) improve their consistency. Finally, Squad Training further improves Stormtroopers’ consistency on attack.

Weaknesses: While Stormtroopers provide a lot of actions for their cost, they aren’t nearly as potent on a per-action basis as more expensive units. Rolling a blue and a green die for attacks, their maximum damage output is 4 (because no face of either die has 2 damage and a surge). And with only 3 health and a single black defense die, Stormtroopers aren’t likely to last long when blaster bolts start flying.

Synergies: Because of their Squad Training ability, Stormtroopers synergize well with other troopers, including E-Web Engineers and additional Stormtroopers.

Countermeasures: Figures with Blast or Cleave effects can either damage multiple Stormtroopers at once, if they’re bunched up to take advantage of Squad Training, or force Stormtroopers to spread out, thus denying them of the benefit of that ability. Figures whose attack dice include one or more red dice, as well as those with three or more of any color, stand a decent chance of killing a Stormtrooper in a single hit.

Elite Stormtrooper

Even in the Stormtrooper Corps, there are some units that are more distinguished than the rest. One such notable unit is the 501 ^st Legion, under Darth Vader’s direct command.

Strengths: Elite Stormtroopers mostly have the same strengths as regular Stormtroopers: strength in numbers and consistency. Their surge abilities are a step above regular Stormtroopers, improving their accuracy and damage. Their increased health (5) makes them unlikely to be one-shotted. And they have the additional Last Stand ability, to give them a one-time boost when a member of their squad is defeated.

Weaknesses: Elite Stormtroopers still provide relatively little punch with their attacks, outside of when they are focused thanks to Last Stand.

Synergies: Elite Stormtroopers have the same synergies as regular Stormtroopers, partnering well with other figures with the “trooper” trait.

Countermeasures: Blast and Cleave effects still force Elite Stormtroopers to decide whether to risk area-of-effect damage or forgo the benefits of Squad Training.

Keep it up. I like where this is going. Maybe we could keep this updated after the game releases for new players etc.

Officers next pls!

Thanks. I was trying to decide between the E-Web Engineer and Imperial Officer for the next write-up, and the request makes it an easier decision. I'll plan to get that one up sometime tomorrow.

Heres some statistics I made up on every unit, I need to go back and do a surge range with the Eweb, and I also got allot of great information from Johnny for the Rebel stuff that I need to go back and add stats for (working on Finals atm)

feel free to use them

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/125227-imperial-assault-mathing/

The evaluations continue today with both versions of the Imperial Officer. Going forward, I don’t think I’ll recap all of the same strengths for the elite versions that regular versions have, focusing instead on the upgrades.

Imperial Officer

Among the Empire’s political elite, military service is seen as a worthwhile and respectable calling. But no senator would allow their child to enlist; instead, they receive training as Imperial Officers, commanders and tacticians who make sure the rank and file of the Imperial Military get the job done.

Strengths: Imperial Officers are unabashedly support pieces, and nowhere is this clearer than in their strongest ability, Order. With a single action, an Imperial Officer can help set up another figure to deal out a devastating attack. Imperial Officers have the same surge abilities as a regular Stormtrooper (+1 damage, +2 accuracy), and an additional ability to focus for a single surge. With a blue/yellow attack, they are more likely to get the surges needed to activate those abilities, as well. When adjacent to a friendly figure, Cower can give an Imperial Officer an approximately 30 percent chance to completely dodge an attack.

Weaknesses: Imperial Officers depend heavily on other figures to get the most out of them. If there is no friendly unit within two spaces, or none that needs to move, Order is a waste. And if there is no adjacent ally, its single white defense die and 3 health make an Imperial Officer relatively easy to dispatch (which also makes it harder to keep it around long enough to benefit from focusing with a surge). Its blue/yellow attack has a maximum damage of 4, since neither die has 2 damage and a surge on the same face.

Synergies: Imperial Officers synergize with everything. But their strongest synergies are with figures that need help getting into position to make best use of attacks. In particular, that means melee attackers, as well as figures with Assault. E-Web Engineers get the most benefit from Order, because they can’t move and attack on the same turn.

Countermeasures: Imperial Officers are very vulnerable to “assassination.” A highly mobile figure, such as a Nexu, can easily chase down and kill an Imperial Officer, if it is the highest priority target. Darth Vader’s Force Choke ability can kill an Imperial Officer at any distance in line of sight (although the defending player can discard a command card to prevent the strain portion of Force Choke from turning into damage).

Elite Imperial Officer

Some commanders’ tactical skills are even greater than the average Imperial Officer. Able to give allies additional attacks, Elite Imperial Officers take command to the next level.

Strengths: If Order is good, then Executive Order is amazing. Do you want Darth Vader, Elite E-Web Engineer, AT-ST, or General Weiss to take extra attacks? Of course you do, and Executive Order is the way to do it. Its improved health makes it better able to stick around. Its accuracy surge ability is improved, but more importantly it gains the ability to stun an enemy for a surge.

Weaknesses: Same as a regular Imperial Officer.

Synergies: Elite Imperial Officers synergize best with figures that have powerful attacks. Anything that rolls three attack dice is a good pairing, as are figures with powerful two-dice attacks, such as IG-88.

Countermeasures: Elite Imperial Officers are a bit tougher than their regular counterparts, but the same tactics of assassination and sniping may remain effective.

This time, I’ll be taking a look at E-Web Engineer.

E-Web Engineer

When the Imperial Military needs a lot of firepower in a compact package for planetary work, it turns to the Emplacement Weapon, Heavy Blaster, commonly called the E-Web. Compared to blaster rifles, E-Webs pack a lot of punch (even being appropriate for use against light vehicles), but an even bigger selling point is their high rate of fire, and this all comes in a man-portable package.

Strengths: With 3 attack dice (blue/red/yellow), +3 accuracy, and the ability to surge for an extra damage, a single attack from an E-Web Engineer is enough to drive enemies into cover. It is accurate at most ranges and packs a powerful punch. But single attacks from an E-Web Engineer are exceedingly rare: thanks to its combination of Assault and Tripod abilities, it can normally make 2 attacks or none at all. The E-Web Engineer’s second surge ability, to recover 2 damage, gives it more staying power than its 5 health would suggest.

Weaknesses: While they have powerful attacks, E-Web Engineers have some difficulty setting themselves up to make the best attacks. With speed 2, they struggle to get to key spots, and with Tripod, they can’t move and attack.

Synergies: E-Web Engineers synergize very well with friendly figures that allow them additional movement or attacks. Notably this includes both versions of the Imperial Officer.

Countermeasures: Cover is especially useful against E-Web Engineers. If they don’t have line of sight to you at the start of their actions, they can’t shoot you that turn, even if moving a singles space would give them line of sight. With their ability to remove damage from themselves, it is a good strategy to focus attacks on an E-Web Engineer to bring it down quickly.

Elite E-Web Engineer

Strengths: For 2 points more, an Elite E-Web engineer gets somewhat better damage, thanks to an improvement in its +damage surge ability. It’s much more durable, with +1 block and 2 more health. An improvement to 3 speed has the possibility of being very significant.

Weaknesses: It’s still slow, and it still has Tripod.

Synergies: Imperial Officers are even better with this version, because of its higher speed.

Countermeasures: Don’t fool around with it. Bring it down quickly, or it can quickly wreck your day.

I love these but really without seeing all the command cards and missions its kind of hard knowing the full power of characters till we know all the data.

Yeah, it's definitely only a partial picture of what they'll be like until we have the full game and all the info. But this is mostly an exercise in passing the time until then, trying to get people talking about the different figures, etc.

AT-ST

Strengths: An AT-ST has a strong combination of offense and defense. With a blue die and +3 accuracy, it is assured of hitting targets 5 spaces away and has a good chance of hitting targets even farther away than that. Its 2 red dice give it significant damage, while its pierce 2 for 1 surge ability helps make sure the damage gets through blocks. Blast 2 for 1 surge also allows it to soften up clusters of enemy figures. With Targeting Computer, it will be rare for an AT-ST to have a truly bad attack roll. And with 2 black defense dice protecting 15 health, it will take a while to knock off an AT-ST. The Massive keyword makes it harder for enemies to hide from an AT-ST and lets it ignore lots of obstacles to movement.

Weaknesses: Awkward is a very well-named ability. Enemy figures can force the AT-ST to move before attacking by moving adjacent to it. Massive also makes it so the AT-ST can’t hide from enemy shooters. And it’s all in a pretty costly body at 14 points. For the same cost, you can get a regular E-Web Engineer and an Elite E-Web Engineer.

Synergies: Its big gun make an AT-ST a good figure to pair with Elite Imperial Officers (although that’s nearly half your squad). It really doesn’t have all that many other synergies.

Countermeasures: Strong pierce abilities will help get through AT-ST’s 2 black defense dice. Rebel Saboteurs, with their chance to pierce 4, have a chance to hit an AT-ST pretty hard (and you can get 6 Rebel Saboteurs for just a point more).

Today I’m going to take a little bit of a break from the Imperials to look at one of the Mercenary units, the Trandoshan Hunter.

Trandoshan Hunter

Strengths: For starters, Trandoshan Hunters benefit from deploying in groups (in this case, 2 figures to a group). This allows a player to activate 2 figures in the time that their opponent activates 1, an advantage I discussed earlier with Stormtroopers. On offense, Relentless and Scattergun can give them some guaranteed benefit, provided they’re in the right place to use them. An attack of 1 blue and 1 green is just fine for Trandoshan Hunters’ point cost, with results of 3 damage and 8 accuracy; 3 damage, 6 accuracy, and 1 surge; or 4 damage and 7 accuracy all possible on a good roll. And surge abilities of Pierce 2 and Bleed are both useful. Relentless can reduce an opponent’s options through discarding command cards. On defense, there aren’t many figures that can top Trandoshan Hunters’ ratio of health to cost.

Weaknesses: With no direct bonuses to accuracy or damage, either as constant effects or surge abilities, every attack with a Trandoshan Hunter is a literal roll of the dice. They can come up with no damage, or with as little as 3 accuracy. All else being equal, Relentless is worse than a constant +1 damage within 3 spaces (or forced discard when attacking an enemy at the same distance), because it allows the opponent to decide which option they want to take.

Synergies: Based on what we’ve seen so far, Trandoshan Hunters don’t have a lot of obvious synergies, so most synergy will have to come from their player’s command deck.

Countermeasures: Just as it’s hard to pick out any specific synergies they have, there aren’t any apparent countermeasures for Trandoshan Hunters. Because they favor close combat, it may be best to take them out with figures that have strong accuracy from a distance.

Elite Trandoshan Hunter

Strengths: When an Elite Trandoshan Hunter becomes focused, it becomes significantly more powerful. A third attack die is just such an improvement. And once it becomes focused, it has a good chance to stay that way. A blue-green-green attack pool has an 83.3 percent chance to generate at least 1 surge. They also have an improved version of Scattergun, dealing +2 damage instead of +1 damage to adjacent enemies.

Weaknesses: Elite Trandoshan Hunters don’t really shore up any of their regular counterparts’ weaknesses or add new weaknesses.

Synergies: Anything that can help an Elite Trandoshan Hunter get focused the 1st time, whether it’s directly making it focused or giving it a surge it can spend to focus, really helps pump it up, because of the likelihood of a focused figure staying focused.

Countermeasures: Figures that have white defense dice, which have 3 evade results to cancel surges, have the best chance to keep an Elite Trandoshan Hunter from becoming or staying focused.

Can you spend your surge focus on the same attack?

Can you spend your surge focus on the same attack?

No, you have to wait until the next attack.

This may be a silly question (I may be over thinking because it's late after working a 12 hour shift). If you only have Mercenaries in your group/squad do you need to have (I forget the actual name) that command card allowing you to play Mercenaries?

This may be a silly question (I may be over thinking because it's late after working a 12 hour shift). If you only have Mercenaries in your group/squad do you need to have (I forget the actual name) that command card allowing you to play Mercenaries?

No, because mercs are their own faction. If you want mercs with your imperial squad you would need the Temporary Alliance card, though.

Sorry about no posts the past few days. I'll get one up later today. This week has been very busy.

Royal Guard Champion

Emperor Palpatine’s Royal Guards are elite fighters, protecting him from those deranged or malevolent individuals who would see the galaxy returned to chaos. Even among those elite protectors, there are those who stand above the rest, champions like Carnor Jax and Kir Kanos.

Strengths: The Royal Guard Champion combines melee strength, defensive resiliency, and mobility into a well-rounded package. His 3 attack dice are enough on their own to make him a top-flight fighter, but he also has strong surge abilities to drive up his damage output, as well as Brutality and Executor to occasionally get extra attacks. He is, I believe, the first character we’ve seen that rolls 1 of each type of defense die. The black die should give him fairly consistent blocks to keep his health up, and sometimes the white die will save him from an attack entirely. And speed 6 gives him a lot of mobility for such a strong figure. In a perfect situation, with Brutality and Executor going off in the same round, the Royal Guard Champion can move up to 8 spaces and make 3 total attacks. Wow.

Weaknesses: The only weakness I can detect is his inability to attack enemies at a range, and even that is mitigated somewhat by his high movement.

Synergies: Imperial Officers can send him zooming across the map to kill the emperor’s enemies. Cheap, disposable allies like Stormtroopers can allow him to use Executor more often.

Countermeasures: If Royal Guard Champion is the first enemy figure to die, he won’t ever get to activate Executor, although this may leave more attack dice on the table for longer. Spreading out enough to avoid his Brutality is also advised. It’s OK to bunch up, as long as you have a reason, but try to avoid it when practical.

Wow, he's vicious! But I guess he'd better be that way, since he's only 3 pts less than Darth Vader himself.