This weeks cards!

Deployment Cards - Trandoshan Hunters, Diala Passil, E-Web Engineer

Command Cards- Expose Weakness, Element of Surprise, Deadeye

Also here are the links to our previous WSS threads

Week 1 - Stormtrooper, Gideon Argus - Urgency, To the Limit

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/203235-weekly-skirmish-strategy-1/

Week 2 - Nexu - Take Intiative, Take Cover

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/204065-weekly-skirmish-strategy-2/

Week 3 - Probe Droid, Fenn Signis - Recover, Rally

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/204822-weekly-skirmish-strategy-3/

Week 4 - Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker - Planning, Fleet Footed

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/205606-weekly-skirmish-strategy-4/

Element of Surprise is a Command Deck mainstay. Zero points to remove a defense die is just too good to leave out of any list I can think of. The start-without-line-of-sight makes it challenging to use in some cases, i.e. against massive figures, and sometimes with melee fighters already on the front lines, but it's generally not difficult to find a figure that meets the requirements. It also works well with figures that have Priority Target (like Saboteurs) so that figures don't block their line of site (because figures will generally still block the enemies line of sight).

I really enjoy using the Trandoshans and Eweb in campaign, but in Skirmish I don't think they do enough to justify their cost. The built in damage when adjacent is nice, but with bad surges and just a standard blue green attack, it's not enough. Maybe if it was on top of a red green or something then it would be worth it.

Element of Surprise is always in my command deck, it's a great card. I've never been able to use the other cards effectively though.

Trandoshan Hunters were for a long time, and arguably still are, the mainstay Scum unit. Their most interesting benefit is of course Relentless, which inflicts Strain on targets within 3 squares. Combined with Scattergun that inflicts +1 damage if adjacent to the target, this makes them devastating at short range. The Elite variant is even better, with +2 damage for ACP Scattergun, and a surge for Focus - two Focussed Elite Trandos can dish out up to 18 damage in a single activation, which is not to be sniffed at.

Strain is an uncommon sight in Skirmish, so it's worth considering it in detail here. While the choice of taking a wound or losing a Command Card will often be an easy one ("oh, you're shooting my Stormtrooper with 1 Health left so he's almost certain to die no matter what I do? I think I'll keep the Command Card, thanks") at other times it can give your opponent real headaches. Combined with Command Cards that also inflict Strain (and are often limited to the Hunter trait, which Trandoshans have - Capture the Weary being one example) you can rapidly force the opponent to lose their whole Command Deck, which not only denies them useful cards, but once they're all gone, there will be no choice but to suffer damage - meaning a list with several Trandos and synergistic Command Cards gets more devastating as the game goes by.

...as long as they're in position and not dead, that is. Counting against Trandos are their unimpressive Speed and ordinary Health. Points costs are also a problem - two units of eTrandos take up half your points, for only four models and two activations. One unit of eTrandos might be worth taking; I think you need two units of rTrandos to be effective. Then they need Command Card support, and it starts to sound like a big investment. They're threatening, there's no doubt about it, but they're slow and (given how close they need to get to the enemy, and thus how exposed to incoming attacks) not very tough, which all too often makes them feel a bit underwhelming. Since they are such a core unit for Scum, this goes some way to explain why Scum suffered in the early meta.

(Good point from CalebML, though. In campaigns, the heroes soon learn to hate them. Strain is nasty in campaign).

Diala Passil is fast and (with the ability to remove an enemy's defence dice, at the cost of a Command Card) able to put out a fair bit of damage, but with only 8 Health her life expectancy is not high. She does have Recover as a Surge, along with an excellent Pierce 3 and a good Cleave 2, but on a Red+Green attack, she won't often get many Surges. For these reasons, I rarely take her - and also because given the choice of her or a unit of Elite Rebel Saboteurs for the same points, there's just no contest. I don't really see what Diala can offer that I couldn't get better or cheaper elsewhere.

The Regular E-Web Engineer is quite unimpressive, being unable to move and fire in the same activation, and with only 2 Speed (i.e. four squares in total) to get into position when it can't shoot. Novice players do seem to be scared of them (perhaps because not much in the game can fire twice in the same activation), and two Blue+Red+Yellow shots with +3 Accuracy mean they can put out a decent amount of damage at a decent range, but they're all too rarely in a position to make best use of those two shots; perhaps in a scenario where you can deploy them in position, and they just keep shooting. Most scenarios require at least some movement, though.

The Elite version is rather better IMO. +2 points gives it better Speed, better Health, a free Block (effectively further boosting Health), and better Surges (for more damage). 8 points is a lot for one model, but the opponent can't afford to ignore it if it's able to get into a decent firing position - up to 8 damage per shot, with two shots, is pretty deadly.

Both variants of the E-Web, of course, benefit greatly from Officer support (particularly eOfficers that can order them to fire as an interrupt). The movement restrictions are greatly mitigated if they can move outside their activation. This does require a greater investment of points, though, so some players may question whether putting more points into a unit of questionable utility is a good trade-off.

Expose Weakness has always seemed to me to be a hugely situational card. The ability to effectively negate a black defence dice is pretty handy, but the fact you either have to be already adjacent to the target, or within a single Move action and then follow up the Expose Weakness with an attack from another model, is a nasty restriction. (How often does the former case happen, and in the latter case, why not simply get both models to attack normally?) Sure, it can make even Darth Vader and AT-STs vulnerable to a weak attack that they'd ordinarily shrug off, but is one weak attack ever going to make that much difference on Darth Vader anyway? I can't recommend this.

Element of Surprise, by contrast, is fantastic. It works better than Expose Weakness against black dice (works at any range, removes the 1/6 chance of an Evade as well), but is also incredible against white dice. About to attack Luke Skywalker and really, really, really want to make sure he dies rather than Dodges? This card is perfect for that. How many times have you rolled huge amounts of devastating damage on the attack dice, only to see that heartbreaking Dodge symbol on your opponent's white dice? All the time, if you're anything like me! At the not-particularly-strenuous cost of being out of LOS at the start of the activation - and, of course, using it when the attack is declared, before dice are rolled; they might have rolled a Dodge, but they might have rolled a blank - you can guarantee that doesn't happen. When you absolutely, positively need a target to take damage, no matter what... Element of Surprise is your friend.

I've just re-read Deadeye and, actually, it's better than I thought it was - I thought you had to use it when the attack was declared; instead, you can use it after dice are rolled, to turn a miss into a hit. On that basis, it's not bad. It could turn a model's precious attack from nothing to damaging, or spare your blushes if you swapped out your Echo Base Trooper's blue dice for a red and got left with insufficient range. Yeah... not bad. But not great; I'd have to be scraping the barrel of Command Cards before I decided this was the best available, even at zero points.

Since we've been talking about the Trandoshan Hunters: Strain is a much more powerful ability against the heroes in the campaign (similar to Stun) as Caleb and Bitterman have touched on. This is for 2 reasons:

1. In the campaign Heroes best abilities are limited by strain and the only generally reliable way to remove strain is to rest. So strain is kind of a fractional Stun which is huge when you only have 4 figures (8 activations) per turn but can attack twice. This also illustrates why Stunning figures with Assault (like our other card for the week, the E-Web) is usually pretty good: you're removing 3-die worth of attack power.
2. In the campaign Heroes don't get a choice when they suffer strain, but in Skirmish you do, and giving your opponent choices isn't a good strategy because your opponent should usually be able to choose the one that hurts them less (see lots of discussion of this for Magic cards with similar opponent's choice options).

So with that in mind: I feel that the Trendos, both regular and elite, are well-costed for Campaigns but over-costed for Skirmish. (Which is compounded here by their average speed which hurts their skirmish prospects even more thanks to objectives and round time limits.)

Diala:

I think she is a solid 5 point model. Great way to get some pierce and a melee threat into your list. has an ability that turns all of your command cards into "element of surprise".

Unfortunately, she is 7 points... so she's pretty much worthless after you buy Echo Base Troopers, Leia, or elite Sabs, which all do what she wants to do, but better, and with more utility (stun on the Sabs, option for Range and efficient travel on the troopers, and Leia's 3 dice + buddy attack). oh, and they all have range and better surges.

Throw her in the trash.

Trandoshans:

I want to like them: they can do tons of damage, but that speed 4 hurts so bad. I can see taking them in an imperial list with officers, but then you could just take a unit of Elite Stormtroopers instead, who do similar damage, but have range and don't have to expose themselves.

Strain is almost worthless: you don't get anything out of it unless you do it more than 5-6 times (you aren't going to draw all of your command cards anyways, unless you are combing with Leia).

These would be really cool if they were speed 5, or had some way to rush up the field. Kite them.

Element of surprise is great: you get that guaranteed hit that you absolutely need.

Deadeye:

Not bad, but I've rarely found a need for it. Most of the time I move my models to guarantee a hit. Missed hits are wasted actions which is a huge deal in this game. Sometimes you take a long range shot because you have nothing else to do, that's fine, but when you're planning a proper coordinated attack, you shouldn't rely on surge for range or command cards like this. It's a nice backup but there's plenty of better 0 cost cards that compete with it. I don't think it's really worth taking unless you're building some very specific long range list or have some things that can shoot through figures.

I hear you, but it is nice to have Deadeye in my hand. If it's in my hand, then I can set up my shot from 2 squares further out, knowing that if my dice roll enough Accuracy it won't matter, but that if they fail me then the attack will still hit because I can play Deadeye. Basically, it gives you options when you're holding it in your hand. Those 2 movement points can then be spent moving away again (and forcing your opponent to close that gap) or positioning yourself more effectively (like next to a Royal Guard, for example).

But overall I agree with you: Deadeye is usually one of the last 0-cost cards to go into my deck.

Urgency, Take Initiative, Element of Surprise, Rally, Fleet Footed...those ones are in there every time.

Diala, I still use her thanks to her being a Jedi mostly, the thing is, if she is focused she becomes a killer of ultra power, this is where she shines. I still like her even with much other stuff out. She has a lot of positive things about her.

Trandoshans, I like these guys to. Strain is a good mechanic and if you build around it with command cards you can burn trough them really quickly. The elites hit like a ton of bricks but you have to build around mobility with command cards.

E-web, dont use them so much in skirmish, not because they are not good but simply they dont appeal to me. They are awsome for denial like any unit with assault.

Expose weakness, used it in the start of the game but never now, pierce3 that takes and action vs removing a dice for no action with Element of surprise, such a superior card.

Deadeye, if I have room for it i use it as often as I can. Instead of movment it gives range which means I can use the movment to get back into cover. Think of it as a 2 MP card.

Diala is important to me for 2 reasons: Her ability to get use of Command cards that would otherwise just be sitting in my hand and her ability to use Jedi cards. She pairs really well with Luke. His attack reroll makes her damage better, they can both use force cards (many of which are fantastic) and if Luke is killed you'll still get use out of Son of Skywalker by discarding it for her ability.

If I am not using Luke her value drops as I don't like including Force cards without two Force users (for the very reason she negates - useless cards sitting in my hand when one model gets killed). I tend to pick models with similar keywords like Brawler and Hunter to maximize use of my cards, so maybe when the new Jedi comes out for Bespin I'll try a real Jedi team.