Worth It? Kay Somos, General Sorin, Stormtroopers Packs?

By robertpolson, in Star Wars: Imperial Assault

I recently bought Star Wars Imperial Assault and liked it so much that I have already invested my $ into all of the main expansions and most of the smaller packs.

For now, I mostly play campaign and just played one skirmish game. I like both.

I am hesitant to purchase Kay Somos, General Sorin, and Stormtroopers Packs as I am not sure that they are worth getting based on some of the comments that I have read on the forums.

Can you please share your thoughts on these packs and let me know if they are worth getting?

I recently bought Star Wars Imperial Assault and liked it so much that I have already invested my $ into all of the main expansions and most of the smaller packs.

For now, I mostly play campaign and just played one skirmish game. I like both.

I am hesitant to purchase Kay Somos, General Sorin, and Stormtroopers Packs as I am not sure that they are worth getting based on some of the comments that I have read on the forums.

Can you please share your thoughts on these packs and let me know if they are worth getting?

It depends. There are some good upgrades for troopers in skirmish, and the map Training Grounds for Skirmish comes in the Storm Troopers pack, but if you aren't into Skirmish that much they might not be worth it if you are having fun with out them.

I mostly approach this game from the skirmish side, and have only played a couple of campaigns. I haven't drawn any of their campaign missions so I couldn't speak to them at all. Other than that, do you really mind using the cardboard tokens?

Kayn Somos:

In a skirmish he is there to help make troops better with a focus, and can give troops a better chance of killing figures with high health and/or defense with his Firing Squad ability. If he is ever away from a group of troops, he is far less effective and his own personal abilities aren't that great. Although I like him and play him for fun, I would rather bring two Elite Officers along for the same cost. They give me the abilities of extra movement, firing at different targets, causing other figures besides troops to attack, and give me an extra activation. On the Command card side he brings Squad Swarm and Rank and File. I have used Squad Swarm and Strength in numbers to great effect in many games and I love those cards. I have never used Rank and File to a significant effect in a game, but it does make me smile when I use it.

Personal Verdict: He is Fun, but you probably won't use him very often or even at all. One command card is good(Squad Swarm), but you need a squad composition that works well with it.

General Sorin:

Now here is a figure that I desperately want to love, but I have a hard time getting around his cost to deploy. His abilities almost necessitate his cost, but he really is fragile and really only causes damage by using other units. He is a beefed up Elite Officer, but loses the extremely valuable Order ability. The command cards he brings are Field tactician, Fuel Upgrade, and his unique Optimal Bombardment. Field Tactician is the most useful as it can let any figure order another figure to move. I have run him with AT-STs, Tanks, and lots of Droids and have had fun every time. If he can make Gen.Weiss Focused, say hello to Blast 3 pretty easily.

Personal Verdict: I love this figure, he is basically an alternate elite officer. His downside is that the units he works best with tend to take up a lot of your deployment points and he is already expensive for a single figure. If you like using vehicles/droids in skirmishes, take a good hard look at picking him up.

StormTroopers:
Getting this pack doesn't increase the number of storm troopers you are allowed to bring into the campaign. Personally I think the alt sculps are too similar to the base sculps to make it worth picking them up for something different looking. On the skirmish side of things the pack really did 4 things:

1) Let people who didn't buy a 2nd base set get more stormtroopers to field.

2) Give people trooper command cards if they were only buying figures from one faction, or if they didn't want to get the rebel troopers.

3) It gave us the Vader's Finest attachment card(whether it is worth it is up for debate).

4) We got a new skirmish map, that happens to be in the current rotation of maps competitively.

Personal Verdict: Overall I would say they are not worth it and you could get by just fine without them, unless one of the things listed above really tickles you.

I really like Kayn Somos, I would say no to the storm trooper pack unless you want the alternate sculpts, and I didn't see anything about General Sorin that interested me.

For campaign I'd skip all 3.

Weiss is common in the base campaign and is a massive figure. So even if you do unlock him, you can only use him in outdoor maps and even then some outdoor maps have indoor interiors limiting his usefulness.

Kayn requires too much support to be useful. He'd really only be good if you are playing Military might and doing a trooper spam strategy throughout the campaign. So thats only 1 Imperial Class deck he'd be good with and even then Blast/Cleave would demolish your trooper spam.

You shouldn't need more than 2 regular and 1 elite stormtrooper groups for campaign.

Edited by patrickmahan

Great write-up and summary HeliosLancer! I also was wondering whether to pick up any of those packs and this really helped. Thanks!

Edited by LegoMech

For campaign I would get both Sorin and Somos, if only to replace the tokens in the twin shadows and hoth campaigns.

As far as their agenda sets go, I found both Somos and the stormtrooper agenda sets to be rather disappointing, as they contained only single use cards in addition to the mission card. Neither of them had cards that allowed you to break the component limitations and bring in more stormies.

As far as General Sorin goes, his agenda cards are good... very good. The ace card is one that allows you to decrease the cost of vehicles. Drop a tank for seven threat? Yes please!

The stormtrooper pack was just super disappointing all the way around.

I think the negative comments about Sorin and Kayn were mostly regarding skirmish. They're okay in a campaign, and IMO worth it for their agenda sets and token replacement. Stormtroopers are more contested, I like their agenda set but other than that... They're nice to differentiate the elite group a bit but that's about it. I don't regret the purchase personally, but they're definetly the most skippable of the packs.

Edited by Don_Silvarro

Thank you for your comments. I have placed an order for the following packs based on the feedback.

  • General Sorin
  • Kayn Somos
  • Alliance Smuggler
  • Bantha Rider

So far, I have every expansion and every pack except for General Weiss and Stormtroopers packs, which I will skip.

If you plan on playing the Hoth campaign, then Sorin is a good buy. He is the main baddie and you just cant have him in token form. Also his agenda set is good with the Armored Onslaught class deck.

As said earlier, Kayn Somos is good in a trooper themed class deck. Military might, tech superiority, and precison training all work well.

Stormtrooper pack is completely skiplable for campaign. (Bantha Rider and Smuggler are too).

Edited by Deadwolf

Bantha rider brings in a new agenda set which is nice. It also seems like an interesting tool in the imperial player's arsenal, what with all the corridor blocking you can do. The smuggler is cheap enough in threat that I'd actually consider doing his sode mission. While I'd still prioritize red and grey side missions, that's still more than I can say for most other allies.

Edited by Don_Silvarro

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Edited by robertpolson