I haven't seen any discussion of the preview of Kayn Somos,

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/8/4/serve-the-empire/

Seems like quite a powerful piece for both campaign and skirmish, some of the command cards look useful too.

I think the clear set up for him is to have him with two heavy troopers, ideally have him shoot first, hope for two surges focus both troopers and then fire them with his second action, that's a fair number of dice but I am not sure how well that will work in practice, and clearly on his own with no body to boost he isn't worth the points, which I think is an interesting development, he shares more characteristics with the rebel support characters.

You can't use the surge ability to focus more than one adjacent trooper on a single attack. Unless a surge ability is printed multiple times or the card text says otherwise, you can't use the same surge ability more than once on per attack.

But he's definitely an intriguing figure. He does one thing really well, playing with adjacent troopers. But he isn't very good at anything else. His attack is OK, but unless he's adjacent to a friendly trooper the surge abilities are bad for the cost. He's also a little bit squishy for his point cost. He has 2 more health than Luke Skywalker, but Luke gets an automatic block and can recover from damage. And needing to be adjacent to his troopers for his abilities can come back to bite him if the opponent has a lot of blast, cleave, or brutality abilities, and Rebel Saboteurs are already popular.

He'll definitely make it worth trying out a trooper list, but I don't know if it will work.

He looks like he is born to wander with heavy troopers and if he stays adjacent to them then he will get blasted to pieces eventually.

I'm not sold on him :/

And needing to be adjacent to his troopers for his abilities can come back to bite him if the opponent has a lot of blast, cleave, or brutality abilities, and Rebel Saboteurs are already popular.

Yeah, rebel players are gonna love this guy.

And needing to be adjacent to his troopers for his abilities can come back to bite him if the opponent has a lot of blast, cleave, or brutality abilities, and Rebel Saboteurs are already popular.

Yeah, rebel players are gonna love this guy.

Remember you can save movement points to move after you've completed your action, so you don't have to end your activation beside an allay. But in saying that it means he won't be shooting and Using firing squad in the same turn, which limits his effectiveness.

I'm not sure how good he will be. With 2 blue and a green he's got crazy range. But for 10 points I'm not quite sure he's worth it. Look forward to trying him out with a couple squads of elite storm troopers though.

When the Stormtrooper pack comes out and it becomes more practical for people to field 4 units of Stormies, he'll come into his own.

Kayn Somos

Elite Stormtrooper

3x Stormtrooper

Imperial Officer

Use the Officer to keep Kayn moving along and attack your target of choice. Use the surge to Focus an Elite trooper along for the ride, then use his special action to get 2 Elites to pump more damage into whatever Kayn just shot at. Elite Stormies are no joke, and with a Focus, you can do some decent damage at a good range.

Then you still have 3 squads of Stormtroopers out and about doing their thing. 2x Reinforcement cards allows you to keep Kayn's Elites alive. It'll be pretty cool to see a solid Stormtrooper legion on the tabletop.

True he can only use that surge ability once a shot I had forgotten that but his odds of getting excess surges are quite low to start with.

Agree he is going to be a magnet for blast which is why I would combine with heavy troopers (better offence those shots are worth more, better defence at range, slightly better range with the +2, and with more health and their own blast more likely to last long enough to use this effect), the same points in Ewebs might work a little easier.

I like the idea that taking a squad of troopers is more viable and has choices, will look good on the table and be very fluffy.

Can't wait to field this guy in campaign. He might not be the best unit and me might require some fiddling to his value out of, but he's so cool

E-Webs are Troopers. Use E-Webs!

2 Elite E-Webs

Kayn Somos

4 Officers (moving the E-Webs)

(Heavy) Stormtroopers

Don't Forget: Single Purpose works on Firing Squad.

Oh gods. Four E-web shots on one activation?

Oh gods. Four E-web shots on one activation?

No, firing squad would result in 2 eweb shots, one from each eweb. assault just allows you to attack multiple times it still takes an action per attack.

Oh gods. Four E-web shots on one activation?

No, firing squad would result in 2 eweb shots, one from each eweb. assault just allows you to attack multiple times it still takes an action per attack.

I think he's talking about single purpose.

With regards to E-WEBs I feel like that would be a bit of a waste given the "same target" clause. Most of the time you won't get much additional value out of the extra dice when compared to Heavies (especially elite ones).

Oh gods. Four E-web shots on one activation?

No, firing squad would result in 2 eweb shots, one from each eweb. assault just allows you to attack multiple times it still takes an action per attack.

I think he's talking about single purpose.

With regards to E-WEBs I feel like that would be a bit of a waste given the "same target" clause. Most of the time you won't get much additional value out of the extra dice when compared to Heavies (especially elite ones).

Right. Single Purpose into Firing Squad while next to two E-webs.

And that is a good point, against anything but one of the movie leads or RGC (or a walker I guess) it would probably be overkill, but remember, since you're using Firing Squad twice, you'd get to change targets between the first and second barrage. Good chance of taking, say, two Royal Guards from zero to dead in one turn.

Ah sry my bad.

I'm going to be playing some Twin Shadows this week - can wait to put a Cloaking Device on Kayn! He's a trooper, so we can put that on him!

Kayn Somos

[surge] Squad Command: Choose an adjacent friendly Trooper. That figure becomes Focused.

Does the attack have to deal damage in order for Kayn Somos to use Squad Command and focus and adjacent friendly Trooper?

This is what I can find in the Rules Reference:

Conditions are sometimes used as keywords. When an attack uses a condition as a keyword, the condition is applied using the following rules:

- The target of the attack must suffer one or more [damage] for the condition to apply.

- The condition is applied after the attack resolves.

- If it is a Beneficial condition, it is applied to the attacker. If it is a Harmful condition, it is applied to the target figure.

I'm not sure if this applies in this situation. The surge ability is not a condition keyword (i.e. Focus) it is Squad Command and it affects an adjacent Trooper, not the attacker.

From this thread:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/186124-kayne-somos-squad-command/

I really wish ffg had included a generic unnamed stormtroopers leader card with this character.

Salcor