I've read a few threads on Saska and none seem overly enthusiastic about her. She got picked today for our latest campaign (Hoth) and I compared her to the other 3 characters and she seems like a real underperformer, particularly early. Once she gets some gear and a bunch of XP she seems like she'll be okay, but by that time every other character will have also improved and still be much better. Anyone have anything good to say about her?

She seems fragile, doesn't seem to have a way to get a bonus attack and doesn't seem to have a free way to get rid of strain. Considering a lot of characters can get an entire extra attack for 2 strain (Quick Draw, Close and Personal) and for the same cost she'd only give 2 surges, her ability seems to start off too weak to begin with and the boosts she can get with XP like Adrenaline Injector for 4 XP only seem to bring it up to par with the abilities other characters start with.

she has been using power converter quite successfully in my game.

she has been using power converter quite successfully in my game.

If you count surges as 1 wound, going from the worst die (blue) to the best (red) is only 0.83 more wounds on average for the cost of a strain. If that extra 0.83 wounds kills the target, it's completely worth it, if it doesn't, you've just hurt yourself for nothing.

It's not a horrible ability but for 3XP most other characters are getting something FAR better. It really needed to not cost strain to be comparable to other 3XP abilities.

You also NEED "Gadgeteer" *first* to get 2 tokens out per turn, as just getting 1 out isn't enough to make this ability trigger often enough to be any good.

Saska would be better if the power converter card stopped existing; then practical solutions would read "while attacking..." and be much more useful.

I think "unstable device" is her free attack.

I'm playing Saska in our campaign and I find her to be a good character. She can move 5 and her mechanical skill is high which makes her very good at going to objectives which usually require mechanics or insight skill. And she's not terrible at insight either. So skill checks are often her strong point.

I'm playing her with Gadgeteer and Unstable Devices skills and she's good now at dealing damage. Especially when paired with Verena. Build one device for her, one for Saska and then go. Free attack from the grenade and Verena can use her own device token to do a little bit of more damage and trigger her own ability. It works beautifully. In our last mission, I think Saska did about 20 damage when combining her shots and device tokens (counting the devices that other heroes used). Or pipe bombs as we call them now.

Against Subversive Tactics, her ability to build a device with one strain has proven to work well as she can often attack, recover strain, build a device, throw a "pipe bomb", do something with the second action. In a previous campaign where I played Jyn, I found her to be a lot more boring since I was quickly brought to 3 strain by the Imperial player (also playing Subversive Tactics) and she couldn't do anything. Plus I always rolled very, very badly on Jyn and I think I got like 5 damage done in total with Jyn's ability.

Saska can be a beast IF you can get her side-mission reward (Tech Goggles). But that's too big of a gambe to bring her to a campaign.

Otherwise I do agree she's a bit underpowered. Her primary ability surrounds giving Strain to other people and she only comes equipped with 4 Endurance.

I think if they gave her 5 Endurance she would be a much better character (better survivability and utility - rest to heal).

I really think they swapped her Speed and Endurance accidentally. What engineer can run that fast?!?

The biggest issue with Saska (other than the 4 Endurance) is Saska does not have an Action Economy. She has no abilities that can grant her extra action. She does have abilities that can make actions more efficient. But that is not always useful.

Gaarkhan: Charge

Mak: No Escape / Expertise

Diala: Way of the Sarlaac

Jyn: Quick Draw

Biv: C&P = 2 actions

Verena: Close Quarters

All these characters have abilities that grant them extra actions, which is the resource in this game (if you can get more actions than the IP you're doing well).

Saska can make the actions more efficient, but maximizing the utilization of this effect can be difficult. On the flip-side, other characters have abilities that make actions more efficient too. Whether Saska is truly better at it is debatable.

I'm playing Saska in our campaign and I find her to be a good character. She can move 5 and her mechanical skill is high which makes her very good at going to objectives which usually require mechanics or insight skill. And she's not terrible at insight either. So skill checks are often her strong point.

Saska looks good if you compare her in a vacuum.

But Jyn has 5 speed, just as good at checks (1XP reroll any number of dice on a check), and has far more killing power (Quick Draw makes the IP think about their moves a lot harder than Saska's abilities). Also, Gunslinger effectively gives Jyn saska's ability (trade 1 Strain for Surge).

That said, Gadgeteer + the T-21 could make Saska a formidable character early on.

She can use GGY dice to recover Strain from attacks and she can add a much-needed modification (Plasma Cell for pierce 1 and surge: +1 or HH-3 for +1 acc and surge: Blast 1) to it to turn the T-21 from a mediocre weapon into a formidable Tier 3 weapon that you can get insanely early in the campaign.

I'm playing her with Gadgeteer and Unstable Devices skills and she's good now at dealing damage.

Maybe Unstable Device is better than I'm thinking. It seems like a strain+wound (effectively half an action) to do 5/6 avg. AE damage is a bit weak, especially when you have a 1/3 of doing 0, but I guess I'll see. I'll recommend to the Rebel scum that he give it a try. At least it's only 1 XP.

In our Twin Shadows campaign, she was used as a support class and rarely attacked. The gadgeteer, defensive ability, and adrenaline surge served to make everyone better. Most of the time her two actions consisted of move, rest, and/or skill check. Two device tokens per turn keeping the other three heroes well supplied and herself when possible. Her means of beefing up the other heroes made her a target but I, as the imperial player, often had to put groups in compromising positions in order to try and take her out. She's severely nerfed when wounded but the heroes made it difficult to get to her with frequency. the player using her understood the character for what she is and played her accordingly.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the unstable device and neither was the player using her. The strain/health sacrifice for the possibility of doing a point or two just isn't worth it unless the imperial player is playing poorly.

If you want to counter Subversive Tactics, Saska is the way to go. Device tokens = surges which = strain recovery. We countered that deck very well in one of our campaigns and I owe that to Saska.

I personally think she is great. Tool kit is without a doubt the best attribute test ability in the game, and story missions always have tests. Allowing anyone to have a free +1 surge by exhausting is amazing (assuming they have a device token).

Saska strength comes in flexibility of the other Rebels. Ability to recover strain, make using your surge abilities more consistent, block attacks or more importantly evade tougher guys, the level 4 that allows additional movement and focused is amazing! I am not a fan of the replace die ability, too much randomness in it.

So, yes if you look at action economy for Saska, she doesn't have a ton, but if you look at the overall success of the team, you gain a lot from her, enough that warrants considering her as your support character in every campaign you play. You can recover more strain over the course of missions to use on Rebel abilities, you can use your surge abilities more often which leads to better attacks, you can have stronger defense, you can focus yourself for again more powerful attacks.

She is not as drastic in her power as say Gideon, issuing powerful commands. But, I would say she is equivalent, her talents are just not as easily recognized and more spread among all the rebel players.

Okay, I admit that we got lucky with the Unstable Devices. None of them were duds. And we got them always to a point where they dealt damage to at least two figures. That was a huge bonus. And if it makes the Imperial player change his ways on deploying units, then I call that a partial victory too. It opens up new avenues for us.

The biggest problem for us in our current setup: Verena, Loku, Saska and MHD-19 is that Verena is the only one half-decent in physical skill checks. Others excel in insight and mechanical. Second smaller problem is that Loku and Saska are a bit frail.

I agree that Jyn is probably better than Saska in most campaigns but if you block her line of sight, it is possible to activate figures so that Jyn cannot use her ability. In our games, the Imperial player focused on killing her like that. She's just as frail as Saska. And the Subversive Tactics can cripple Jyn a lot easier than Saska in my opinion. So I like Saska more.

That said, her biggest fault is the lousy recovery. Building devices, strain moving, attacking...she's very quickly at max strain and then resting becomes an issue as there's often no time for it.

I agree that Jyn is probably better than Saska in most campaigns but if you block her line of sight, it is possible to activate figures so that Jyn cannot use her ability. In our games, the Imperial player focused on killing her like that. She's just as frail as Saska. And the Subversive Tactics can cripple Jyn a lot easier than Saska in my opinion.

All of these are very much true. In the late game Jyn is a lot more powerful than in the early game. Saska is a bit of the opposite, she's very useful in the early game and lags behind in the late game (unless you get her reward).

As for blocking Jyn's Quick Draw, that's virtually impossible if you buy Jyn's Trick Shot (though Subversive Tactics can nullify that a bit).

Believe it or not but Saska with Pulse cannon plus 2 mods (like tac display+plasma cell) beats Jyn with Sporting Blaster, mod, gunslinger, and DL-44. This doesnt factor Quick Draw of course.

Saska works best as a hybrid dps/support.

If you want to counter Subversive Tactics, Saska is the way to go. Device tokens = surges which = strain recovery. We countered that deck very well in one of our campaigns and I owe that to Saska.

I absolutely brutalized the Rebels last campaign with Military Might, so I steered away from Subversive which doesn't seem as strong as Military Might but still fairly potent. I picked Precision as it seems like a relatively weak deck but still goes well with Hoth and it's Snow Troopers. I also didn't take the Industry agenda set as that reward card is completely busted. Hopefully the Rebels can give me a bit of competition this time.

In addition to Saska the Rebels have Biv, Venera and Gaarkan, all of which are fairly strain heavy and all want to be adjacent to enemies, so I'm hoping Saska just passing out devices just as a way to shift strain around will be effective enough that she won't really need to do much damage.

How does she acquire the device tokens? Does she have to pick them up off the map ? If so, how are they placed?

Saska has a supply of 8 device tokens. If she has any remaining, she can distribute it. When a device token is spent, it returns to her supply.

The device tokens are passed using Saska's hero ability named Battle Technician (suffer 1 strain to pass one to herself or to an adjacent friendly figure) and she has a few class cards that make the ability better (being able to distribute further away and being able to do it twice per activation). She has other abilities that allow the device tokens to be spent for various effects.

Saska is essentially the 'Bard' class. She's okay at everything, but isn't going to really to excel at most things. Which often makes her contributions hard to recognize - she's probably not going to be taking out Darth Vader in one attack, or wiping out squads of Stormtroopers single handily. But she can help out with that extra damage, save turns by helping the team pass attribute tests etc, while still contributing as an attacker if she gets Gadgeteer and some decent equipment.

The question then becomes 'do you want a character like that', which I think for a lot of people the answer is no. But some people like being the all rounder.

Saska is essentially the 'Bard' class. She's okay at everything, but isn't going to really to excel at most things. Which often makes her contributions hard to recognize - she's probably not going to be taking out Darth Vader in one attack, or wiping out squads of Stormtroopers single handily. But she can help out with that extra damage, save turns by helping the team pass attribute tests etc, while still contributing as an attacker if she gets Gadgeteer and some decent equipment.

The question then becomes 'do you want a character like that', which I think for a lot of people the answer is no. But some people like being the all rounder.

Speaking from experience, having a team that can't do attribute tests makes some missions impossible. Doesn't matter if you can wipe out a whole squad of troopers in a single action if you have to spend 3 opening a door

Does it require an action? I didn't see the little action arrow. So she can do it once per turn normally? Can she stock up and save them ?

In one of the missions, it had 2-[ (2 the wrench attribute test) does that mean I have to take the test twice or that I need 2 surges to pass the test?

By the way - thank you for your help.

Battle Technician costs 1 strain. It does not cost an action.

See Saska's hero sheet. Whoever she has given a device token can spend one when declaring target to add a surge to the attack, or if Saska has Tool Kit, spend one to reroll a die in an attribute test plus add one success automatically. The tokens stay with the figure until used (cleared between missions).

An attribute test with 2 requires 2 successes from any combination of the specified tests performed. If a test fails, the successes are saved for the next try. Elite allies get one success for an attribute test. (See Attribute tests from the RRG.)

How does Tech Goggles work?

If Saska uses a Token, does she immediatly reclame another one? (since she is friendly to herself).

Yes, but 1) Tech Goggles is a reward card and needs to be earned as mission reward, 2) Tech Goggles exhausts, so it won't be always available. (Class and item cards ready at the start of the hero's activation.)

Does it require an action? I didn't see the little action arrow. So she can do it once per turn normally? Can she stock up and save them ?

In one of the missions, it had 2-[ (2 the wrench attribute test) does that mean I have to take the test twice or that I need 2 surges to pass the test?

By the way - thank you for your help.

Two surges. Remember though that surges carry over to future tests. Also Elite allies also automatically get 1 surge so they can always succeed on anything given enough time, assuming the test doesn't say "hero" on it.

I actually like Saska, I just wish her abilities were a bit better, and tokens easier to distribute. That said, I always recommend tool kit as the first purchase. Don't forget you can use them for when the heroes have abilities that require attribute tests too!

Probably my most annoyed gripe is that you will never get her second 4xp ability - adrenaline injector I think? - because it is awful. It would have to be like 2xp to be worth considering. Now if you could use it any time you gained movement points rather than requiring a move action specifically, then you would have something.