Tips and Tricks for Skirmish 2.0

By TheUnsullied, in Imperial Assault Skirmish

Updated thread with all the great tips from here and from the Imperial Assault Reddit. Keep the ideas coming guys and I'll update when I can.

Link to the Reddit page.

https://m.reddit.com/r/ImperialAssaultTMG

- Large units can't move diagonally.

- Unless otherwise stated on their card, units can only ever attack once. If they have a special ability that says "perform an attack" that counts as their attack. So you couldn't have a Nexu attack, and then use their pounce ability to move and attack again in the same turn.

- You can discard a command card from the top of your deck to negate damage from strain.

- You can Move, Attack, Move. So a speed of 4 you can move 2 spots, attack, then move 2 spots.

- You can make one of your own figures harder to shoot by putting it behind your other figures, for example Darth Vader behind Royal Guards This is good for trying to keep a power figure or a damaged character alive longer.

- Study the 3 tournament legal maps and the 6 missions. Know the objectives. Find a preferred deployment zone for if you get the chance to decide. Some maps have one deployment zone that is slightly better than the other. (The better deployment zone may depend on your army as well.)

- When fighting against Stormtroopers, try to take out a whole deployment group in one round. That Reinforcements command card can be annoying.

- If possible, defeat units who haven't activated yet before ones who have already activated.

- Don't clump your units together when fighting against Rebel Sabs. Even though they can now (post errata) only do max Blast 3 (using two surge plus Explosive Weaponry), Blast can still do a lot of harm.

- If you're using troopers (storm, or rebel) the Grenadier command card is great. A well placed grenade can do a lot of hurt. You could take out a whole squad of regular stormtroopers with a 3 damage roll. (I once hit 6 figures for 3 damage each, it was glorious.)

- Anticipate which figures your opponent is going to target. If you only have one stormtrooper left in a group, you may want to just run it away so your opponent has to chase it down to get the points for the group.

- Learn the dice - know the minimum accuracy that you'll get from each die. (1 from a Green, 2 from a Blue, 0 from yellow and red.) But, don't be afraid of taking longer shots. You may get a lucky long range hit.

- Know your opponent's abilities. Does your opponent have a lot of brawlers? Watch out for Parting Blow. If the mission has something to do with controlling terminals (to get points or to open a door) and your opponent has R2-D2 - remember that R2 has a command card that lets him control both terminals no matter which figures are adjacent - try to keep R2 away from the terminals.

- You may want to take out that unit that can give a more powerful unit an extra attack before trying to take out the more powerful unit.

- If your opponent has a lot of melee units, try to stun them. Stun can shut down Wookiee Warriors.

- Stun and Blast are very important pieces of the meta. Try to have access to both in your list (Sabs are your friend here). If you can't have both, have at least one. If you can only have one, prioritise Stun over Blast.

- If you have conditional triggers in your list (Royal Guard Vengeance, eStormtrooper Last Stand, Trandoshan Relentless, Royal Champion Executor etc), REMEMBER to resolve them. Use post-it notes or write a memo on your hand if that's what it takes.

- Speed of five (or more) and movement shenanigans (Officers and Gideon) are mandatory to stay ahead in the mission VP race for every mission in the current map rotation other than Deception Game. If you can't have both, prioritise movement shenanigans over speed five, see next point for why.

- Have at least one Leader in your squad to make use of Leader command cards (Planning and Inspiring Speech in particular)

- Try to have at least six activations, if you cannot, do not go below five. If you have a smaller activation count REMEBER to use the pass rule, especially in the first round to see what your opponent is planning.

- An average tournament match between competent opponents with competitive lists ends in three rounds. You need to maximize your actions in that time to get the most bang for your points - ie. you need to be doing mission stuff or killing things from round one, and you need all of your guys actively doing stuff on rounds two and three. Reconsider taking very slow hitters (E-Webs, Wampas) that might need two rounds to get stuck in, especially if you don't have means to speed them up (officers, reliable draw of movement command cards). As an aside, this is also why I don't subscribe to the Leia bandwagon, three rounds is too little time to make use of her reshuffle gimmick.

- Study the maps in the current rotation. Spend the time to count spaces, imagine potential deployment setups for your list. Figure out which deployment zone makes it easier for your particular list to reach mission objectives and terminals, get advantageous lines of fire or reposition quickly to respond to threats. Count up the spaces to figure out what movement boosts you'll need to reach mission objectives on the first round and adjust your list (officer and movement command card ratios) accordingly. Figure out potential chokepoints to either avoid them or use them to your advantage. Think about best positions to block lines of fire.

- As an added comment, I feel most strongly about the last point, and to an extent it informs all the others. Similarly to competitive video games (shooters, MOBA games, real-time strategies), I believe that what separates a good IA player from a great IA player is map awareness.

Over the last few days I've learned that movement points gained by a "special action" - see "urgency" command card - must be spent before anything else and do not go into a pool like a normal movement action. So if you gain 6 movement points from urgency, move 5, and then attack or some other action that sixth movement point is then gone. Don't remember what part of the rrg said it but it's not under movement where you'd expect it but actions I think. Check out the urgency command card discussion in the rules forum.

Anyways, I thought this was eye opening to me and many would not have read it that way.

Also, when retooling dice - each dice can only ever be rerolled one time - regardless of who made it get rerolled. Also, defense and offense die must be rerolled at the same time. Meaning - if I'm using HK's and I want to reroll an offensive die, I have to say I want them to reroll their defensive die at that point too, if that's what I want, I can't see how my die turns out and then make them reroll. I also think that means if they had a way to reroll their defensive die they have to declare that at the time you're saying you want to reroll your offensive die. Long story short - only one round of rerolls is allowed in any attack.

The rules don't say rerolls must occur at the same time. The "roll at the same time" rule is in step 2 of attacking. Rerolls are in step 3 and do not have anything about being at the same time.

It should be attacker abilities allow for rerolls, then defender abilities allow for rerolls. Of course, you can't break the "a die can only be rerolled once" rule.

Edited by DTDanix

Where in the RRG does it say a die can only be rerolled once? We were wondering about that the other day.

During the special rules after the Attack section.

Do we have an official ruling about the rerolling thing? I thought that both people had a chance to decide on rerolls and then both people rolled. So as Diala if the attacker has a reroll I can wait until I see what they reroll before I decide to reroll?

The player with initiative resolves their reroll first. The player w/o initiative resolves their reroll second, and cannot reroll the die that was already rerolled by the initiative player.

That doesn't make sense though in the RRG is says that in skirmish and campaign during an attack it is always attacker first and then defender. I'm just confused about whether they both decide first and then reroll or if attacker decides and rerolls and then defender decides and rerolls.

I haven't played enough tournaments to have a good feel for it, but if the 3 rounds thing holds, how many cards can you expect to get into your hand over the whole game assuming you don't have something special to give you draw power?

I haven't played enough tournaments to have a good feel for it, but if the 3 rounds thing holds, how many cards can you expect to get into your hand over the whole game assuming you don't have something special to give you draw power?

If you dont have rebel high command but are good at grabbing terminals (at least one) thats an average of 2 cards per round. So you draw 3 at the start of the game, 2 at the end of round 1, 2 at the end of round 2 (well and 2 at the end of round 3 but that doesnt matter if you dont start round 4)

So that's effectively 7 cards and possibly 9 if you draw Planning. If you manage to grab more terminals or play 4 rounds thats basically the whole deck.

Edited by Nitratas

I haven't played enough tournaments to have a good feel for it, but if the 3 rounds thing holds, how many cards can you expect to get into your hand over the whole game assuming you don't have something special to give you draw power?

If you dont have rebel high command but are good at grabbing terminals (at least one) thats an average of 2 cards per round. So you draw 3 at the start of the game, 2 at the end of round 1, 2 at the end of round 2 (well and 2 at the end of round 3 but that doesnt matter if you dont start round 4)

So that's effectively 7 cards and possibly 9 if you draw Planning. If you manage to grab more terminals or play 4 rounds thats basically the whole deck.

I like to play R2 and almost always get him to a terminal with an action left on the first round to scomp link for an extra card. So I often draw 3 each turn when I'm playing that list. So that can get you 9 in two full rounds. If he network terminal's that's another card. Also, I like to use devotion and that essentially trades the devotion for one more unique command card if it's left in your deck. You can almost get through an entire deck by the end of 3 rounds - but some of those cards are only for drawing more cards - but the ability to speed through and use almost your entire command deck in a tourney is huge. And then using Leia is actually worth it if she stays alive long enough to recycle - don't forget to use Luke's reroll when Leia is attacking to make sure she gets a surge!

Start of game: 3 cards

Maximum per turn is 5 (always 1 card, + 2 for controlling both terminals, +1 for Rebel High Command, + 1 for R2-D2), if you don't include Command cards that allow to draw more Command cards.

Including those Command cards: R2-D2 with Single Purpose can draw 1 additional card, Gideon with Planning can draw 2 cards, Terminal Network helps controlling both terminals, Devotion can draw 1 unique figure's card.

=> It is absolutely possible to draw your last Command card at the end of turn 2.