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Imperial Assault Skirmish Strategy 101

In general its quite nice, but here are some general remarks:

- Your Imp List has 7 Activations

- I'm sorry but I have never seen a working list with Fenn and Rebel Troopers

- The Imp Troopers only need to be together for attacking, in the right hands they don't stick next to each other AFTER their activations

- You usually won't see 3 health troopers in a skirmish list, especially because the blast point

- Protector works the other way round to, yes you have the opponent ready to get blasted but he has also the +1 block, so it makes it harder to get blast off.

- Celebration will be a dead card quite often, Imperial Lists have usually only few uniques.

- You describe Force Choke as it would just deal 3 dmg. But it does not, it deals 2 dmg and 1 Strain. If you force choke a normal Trooper I could still discard a command card to let the trooper stay alive.

- Single Purpose on R2 is quite a waste, it's only a tutoring effect to decrease your deck size by 1 for an action, there should be better options to use it.

- Bleed may not seem as powerful as Stun but it is a beast. If you manage to spread bleed on 2 or 3 figures and maybe even have relentless it just eats through the command deck. Bleed leaves the enemy with 3 choices :
a) 1 Action to discard it, in this case it is like stun

b) Take the strain and get a damage which will eat up health slow but steady

c) Take the strain and discard a command card from deck. You can play VERY different if you know that your opponent has "Take Initiative" already in his discard pile. You need to worry a bit less about saboteurs if you see "Maximum Firepower" being discarded. It's not just that they don't get the cards, you KNOW that they won't get the cards.

In general its quite nice, but here are some general remarks:

- Your Imp List has 7 Activations

- I'm sorry but I have never seen a working list with Fenn and Rebel Troopers

- The Imp Troopers only need to be together for attacking, in the right hands they don't stick next to each other AFTER their activations

- You usually won't see 3 health troopers in a skirmish list, especially because the blast point

- Protector works the other way round to, yes you have the opponent ready to get blasted but he has also the +1 block, so it makes it harder to get blast off.

- Celebration will be a dead card quite often, Imperial Lists have usually only few uniques.

- You describe Force Choke as it would just deal 3 dmg. But it does not, it deals 2 dmg and 1 Strain. If you force choke a normal Trooper I could still discard a command card to let the trooper stay alive.

- Single Purpose on R2 is quite a waste, it's only a tutoring effect to decrease your deck size by 1 for an action, there should be better options to use it.

- Bleed may not seem as powerful as Stun but it is a beast. If you manage to spread bleed on 2 or 3 figures and maybe even have relentless it just eats through the command deck. Bleed leaves the enemy with 3 choices :

a) 1 Action to discard it, in this case it is like stun

b) Take the strain and get a damage which will eat up health slow but steady

c) Take the strain and discard a command card from deck. You can play VERY different if you know that your opponent has "Take Initiative" already in his discard pile. You need to worry a bit less about saboteurs if you see "Maximum Firepower" being discarded. It's not just that they don't get the cards, you KNOW that they won't get the cards.

I agree with all points posted.

...Except for the bolded part (about Protector and Blast); I thought you could trigger Blast whether or not you got damage through on the primary target. You're not applying a condition, so that ruling doesn't come into play with Blast.

I have one other friendly critique to add about the article: It neglects to take into account the Pass Rule, which basically nullifies the Activation Economy section at the start of the article. Because of the Pass Rule, the player with fewer ready Deployment Cards can choose to simply skip their turn if they want to. This prevents the situation described in the article, where the player with more activations gets to "dictate the flow of the game." There is still an advantage to having more minis on the board (reaching objectives, terminals, etc), but this Activation Economy advantage has been removed.

RRG on Blast

The Blast keyword appears on some cards. If the target of this

figure’s attack suffers one or more H (damage), each figure and

object adjacent to the target space suffers H equal to the Blast

value. For example, “Blast 1H” causes each figure and object

adjacent to the target to suffer 1H.

I have one other friendly critique to add about the article: It neglects to take into account the Pass Rule, which basically nullifies the Activation Economy section at the start of the article. Because of the Pass Rule, the player with fewer ready Deployment Cards can choose to simply skip their turn if they want to. This prevents the situation described in the article, where the player with more activations gets to "dictate the flow of the game." There is still an advantage to having more minis on the board (reaching objectives, terminals, etc), but this Activation Economy advantage has been removed.

Yeah that's true. I actually wrote this article several weeks ago, and haven't much time to update it. Plus the word count was already fairly long.

In general its quite nice, but here are some general remarks:

- Your Imp List has 7 Activations

Simple mistake - article updated.

- I'm sorry but I have never seen a working list with Fenn and Rebel Troopers

I wasn't trying to claim that Fenn + Troopers was a competitive archetype. But you can't tell me that trooper lists don't exist

- You usually won't see 3 health troopers in a skirmish list, especially because the blast point

But...Stormtroopers and Rebel Troopers both have 3 health each. Unless you're trying to say they won't see much play? Maybe on the top tables sure.

- Celebration will be a dead card quite often, Imperial Lists have usually only few uniques.

It is bad against Imperials sure. But I still think it's to be considered.

- You describe Force Choke as it would just deal 3 dmg. But it does not, it deals 2 dmg and 1 Strain. If you force choke a normal Trooper I could still discard a command card to let the trooper stay alive.

I totally get how damage/strain works rules wise. I don't have the word count to explain everything exhaustively. But there's also the small chance that a player doesn't want to lose a powerful card and there's the bigger chance that the trooper has taken a least 1 damage before Vader chokes it.

- Single Purpose on R2 is quite a waste, it's only a tutoring effect to decrease your deck size by 1 for an action, there should be better options to use it.

Yes, it's not the best use of it sure. But it's still OK. And I included a list of better options in the article:

• Double force choke for Vader, killing those last two troopers and gaining 6 points? Double choke to a strong unique like Chewie, Han or Luke, finishing them off with an unanswerable 6 damage out of nowhere?
• How about double order from an Officer? Or double ‘Executive Order’ from an Elite Officer?
• Double Slam from Chewie?
• Double Scomp link from R2-D2, drawing you 2 cards during the round?
• Focus two figures with C-3PO or Gideon?

Thanks for reading!

RRG on Blast

The Blast keyword appears on some cards. If the target of this

figure’s attack suffers one or more H (damage), each figure and

object adjacent to the target space suffers H equal to the Blast

value. For example, “Blast 1H” causes each figure and object

adjacent to the target to suffer 1H.

Same as with Cleave

Wow, I have been misplaying that one for a while. Thanks for correcting me! So basically, you're taking a gamble when you try to use Protector against Saboteurs or other Blast units. If your defense is solid enough, you don't have to worry about Blast so much.

Ah okay, didn't know about a character limit.

I think better example targets for Blast are Officers and C-3PO, the normal troopers .... they are just not playable. The dmg and health increase you get with elites is just HUGE for the point difference. There is also about no loose if you change a regular trooper with regular heavys or 3 officers.

@thereisnotry

Yeah, with +1 and black you have an average of 2.5 block. Elite Sab attack with red and yellow have an average dmg output of 3. In the rare case where you get less then 3 blocks you either are very unlucky (1 block) or got the evade which helps preventing blast. If you on the other hand rolled 2 or 3 blocks (50% chance) then you have 3 or 4 armor and they have an average dmg of 3. So they need to spend an surge to get dmg through with pierce 2. that leaves them with the need of getting 2 surges with Red/Yellow.

Ah okay, didn't know about a character limit.

I didn't have one per se, but the aim of this article was to be a very simple, but reasonably comprehensive look at the strategy needed for skimish - broad but shallow.

So in order to make it a readable/accessible article I didn't want it getting too long

First off, good article.

Secondly, I'm really confused. I thought direct damage coming from a source other than an attack (cleave, blast) is completely unblockable. As in, no "auto-block" or inherit block or protector ability can come into play.

What's the deal?

The blast dmg is not blockable. But it is about the point of getting to activate blast. You need to make at least 1 dmg on the original target so blast can trigger

Thats where protector helps.

Love it, can't wait for the updates!

I have one other friendly critique to add about the article: It neglects to take into account the Pass Rule, which basically nullifies the Activation Economy section at the start of the article. Because of the Pass Rule, the player with fewer ready Deployment Cards can choose to simply skip their turn if they want to. This prevents the situation described in the article, where the player with more activations gets to "dictate the flow of the game." There is still an advantage to having more minis on the board (reaching objectives, terminals, etc), but this Activation Economy advantage has been removed.

Yeah that's true. I actually wrote this article several weeks ago, and haven't much time to update it. Plus the word count was already fairly long.

From what I've seen, the rule change only really affects the first round. This is still helpful, because it avoids situations where figures have to wander out into getting attacked on the first turn, but I've never seen anyone pass after the first activations of the game. There are situations it could be useful of course, but more often than not, once the battle is joined and you're in those decisive 2nd and 3rd rounds, people shoot things. This means the list with more activations is still getting some 2-3 activations at the end of a round knowing nothing can happen in between. It's not as bad as it was, but I'd say it's still an advantage.

I can tell you that I have used the pass rule to beat lists like 4x4 by playing patiently in many rounds. There is strategy in knowing when to pass and when not to pass

- You usually won't see 3 health troopers in a skirmish list, especially because the blast point

But...Stormtroopers and Rebel Troopers both have 3 health each. Unless you're trying to say they won't see much play? Maybe on the top tables sure.

Regular Troopers have 3 health, but the Elite versions of both have 5.

I can tell you that I have used the pass rule to beat lists like 4x4 by playing patiently in many rounds. There is strategy in knowing when to pass and when not to pass

And that I would say this is "the Ace that I could keep"............., Thanks Jesper (I hope you like the clip)