Greetings! Now that my initial disappointment from not seeing Leia in the first expansion has passed, I decided to think about how I would handle her character as a game designer. So without further ado, I'll run down what I arrived at and what the thought process was:

Leia Organa - Leader - 9 Cost, 10 Health, 4 Speed

Passive 1 Evade, Surge : Pierce 1, Surge : +1 Accuracy

Ranged Attack: 3 Green Dice - Defense: 1 White Die

Action - Set for Stun : Your first attack this activation gains Stun . If this attack hits, gain 2 movement points.

Resolute : While an adjacent friendly figure is attacking, you may apply +1 surge to the attack result.

So what were my objectives in trying to create Leia's deployment card?

1. Potential for synergy with either Luke or Han, but plenty of punch on her own. As the heart and soul of the Rebellion, the Luke and Leia combination would make their comrades fight harder. Luke's Inspiring ability allows a figure within 3 spaces to reroll a die, and Leia would allow an adjacent figure to apply a surge. I wanted Leia's ability to require an adjacent figure to represent her leading the Rebellion from the front, while still allowing that figure to benefit from Luke as well if he were nearby. While Resolute would still benefit other figures, it also means Leia's potential synergy with Han involves them fighting side by side. While next to each other, Han adds an additional evade to Leia's passive and Leia provides an additional surge to Han's roll - making it much more likely that he have the opportunity to trigger both of his abilities.

2. Leia is a hero character and should hit like one. She thrives in harm's way across all three movies, whether that be taking the blaster from Han to create an exit in the Death Star prison block, sharpshooting Stormtroopers while escaping Cloud City, or fighting alongside commandos at the Endor shield bunker. A three-dice attack was a must, every other iconic hero character shares this characteristic save for IG-88, but it has the benefit of choosing its rolls. With even Fenn Signis throwing three dice, it felt like a slight for Leia to have any less. I chose three green, as it seems to represent the most balance in attack. Blue dice have too much range, red have too much damage, and yellow are too surge-reliant (more on this below). Her max roll is 6 damage at range varying from 3 to 9, which feels right for an iconic character.

3. Leia is the most levelheaded of the power trio. As such, I thought she should be individually much less dependent on surges and more resistant to them. Her surge abilities are intentionally not overpowering to allow for her passive evade - which is absolutely meant to strip options from opponents. Alongside Han, you could all but remove surges from the equation while targeting Leia. To emphasize her position as a leader, her Set for Stun action allows her to apply some control to the battlefield. She will have to sacrifice her movement initially, but if the attack lands it could allow her to take a potshot and escape out of line of sight. It also has the potential to allow her to take a shot and advance into a position where she could buff an ally's next attack.

I am obviously a big fan of Leia - but I tried my hardest to create a fair and balanced character. I think 4 speed is perfect, and her Action requires her to potentially leave herself in a vulnerable position. If it is successful though, recovering half of her movement potential created what felt like a thematically very measured risk vs. reward option. Imagine rolling six hits on Darth Vader with Set for Stun activated and the potential for a six block roll from the Dark Lord... Stunning him would be hugely impactful, but if it fails your hero is compromised. It represents putting it all on the line for the Alliance. I couldn't settle on a health or cost - I feel like either of these could be adjusted up or down by one. I wanted her in the Luke ballpark to justify her strengths, so perhaps 10 cost and 9 health is more appropriate.

So what do you think, does this look like a character you would want to play? What would you change, how would you put together a card of Leia? Or what other characters are we missing at the moment that you would want to see? I'd love to see a thread for 'Building Lando' or hell, 'Building the Emperor' for a ridiculous challenge.

Evade, do you mean surge cancel ? The semi circle icon ?

Dusksong, I really like what you've done here; I think it's got character and should balance pretty well. I'm building a Deployment and Command card pair (plus an old WOTC mini off eBay) as a gift for my wife, who is increasingly annoyed with FFG for not including her. It's based heavily on your work, which I hope you don't mind. I've made some adjustments that you may want to consider; the command card especially plays on your risk/reward ideas.

Deployment card: Leia Organa, Last Daughter of Alderaan

Cost 12

Health 10

Speed 4

Defense 1 White Die

Attack Ranged, 3 Green Dice

Leader

Passive: 1 Evade

Surge: Pierce 1

Surge: +1 Accuracy

Surge: Recover 1 Damage

All looks great - I wonder if it's 'correct' for her to have the same health as Luke though...?

Yeah, I'd suggest Cost 9 and Health 8, rather than Cost 12 and Health 10.

Also, 3 Green attack dice is better than Han's (Green/Green/Blue) so I think maybe she should be toned down to 2 Green dice instead...maybe with +1 Dmg and +1 Surge (rather than just +1 Surge) for her Resolute ability.

I had planned cost 10 and health 9 as Dusksong suggested in the discussion, so that she's not too physically weak. We do see her shake off a blaster shot in ROTJ. 8 or 9 is probably more appropriate than 10.

Not sure why I went for health 10 in the end, but that and the ability to recover damage on a surge (of which she will roll several) made me think of the 12 cost. Will revise down with the health.

I definitely agree with Dusksong's reasoning for three attack dice, but perhaps Green/Green/Blue would be more appropriate. I don't think there's anything in the movies to suggest that she's a worse shot than Han, and she's almost always armed identically when we see her in combat.

Thanks for the feedback!

I think she should use 2 green and 1 blue for attack. She was pretty accurate in the movies and it just seems odd seeing 3 of the same colored dice on an attack considering none of the other cards do it (yes it is possible with Focus), not even General Weiss can choose 3 of the same color dice.

I would make her a support character, granting a few buffs to nearby allies. Possibly even a high cost character since she would be a high-value target for the Empire. (Still don't understand why the Empire considers Chewie a bigger threat than Luke.)

This is where I ended up for now; thanks for everyone's help. I'll see how it goes after a few games and post some feedback. Thanks again to Dusksong.

Good looking card. Man this makes me wish there was a program for making custom cards.

...Besides photoshop.

Not sure about the 3 dice attack. She's should be a support ally, not a front line combat trooper. A blue and green attack should be good or 2 green.

Not sure she needs the Recover surge. She's giving a nice ability that's not once per turn/hero/attack. White die should be enough. She's an ally, not a hero.

The Command Card is a nice touch. I've not really thought to do that in the house rules I've come up with so far.

I think two attack dice would be plenty... it's not so much a question of whether she's as good a shot than Han in the movies, or carried a different gun. It's a question of her role, and her inclinations. She's tough and feisty and more than happy to pull out a blaster when the situation demands; she might be a fighter, but ultimately she's not a soldier... she's a diplomat.

I love the idea. Comparing her to other deployment cards near her price, I think the three dice are a good fit.

Every 9+ cost deployment card except for IG88 is able to bring 3+ dice to bear each activation and remember, IG88 can attack twice, potentially bringing 4 dice each activation. (3 to 6 dice are rolled each activation for 9+ cost deployments, depending on how many units are in the deployment card).

Comparing her to Fenn which shares her price, I think she fits well. Fenn is more offensive, getting a double attack, more damaging dice, blast, and the ability to buff troopers. Leia on the other hand is slightly weaker, but rolls a white die and has more powerful support abilities, buffing allies or stunning enemies.

Love the balancing here. Would be curious to hear how she plays!

The final cards actually look great; if anybody's interested in how to make your own, just get your spare saboteur cards or whatever you have doubles of, and print out images like this on a regular inkjet. Then, after gluing them together (I used a 3M glue stick), give them a coat of hairspray to fix the ink, and then a couple of coats of gloss varnish (as you may have used for your stormtroopers). Looks and feels just like the real thing. Really pleased with it.

So, after a few final tweaks the gift looked like this. My wife liked it a lot.

I should have made it clear earlier in the thread that I was building these purely for Skirmish; we haven't been able to get a group together for Campaign yet. In any case, as I said before I will let you know how she balances out.

Hi I was wondering if you had templates for the deployment cards. I'm considering making custom cards for some of my minis. Thanks

Hi I was wondering if you had templates for the deployment cards. I'm considering making custom cards for some of my minis. Thanks

We only got to play with Leia once so far, but she didn't throw the game off balance. Looking forward to getting some more testing done.