The recent pages of the Bespin! topic have centered around unique figures and how they cost so much more than the equally powerful - and yet still cheaper - Bossk. The costs of unique figures is a rather complex topic, and I wanted to address it more fully here and see if something can be done about that, without directly address the specific costs of any on unit (that's another topic for another day!).
Many problems with unique figures aren't simply ... unique ... to them, but rather exist for any single figure deployment group. For purposes of discussion, I will be comparing the regular Stormtrooper group with a single figure group that costs 2 points, and consists of only a single regular Stormtrooper, this way the only variable in play is the number of figures in the group (since 3 instances of our single figure group would be equivalent to the standard deployment group).
When compared to the multifigure deployment group, the single figure deployment group falls short.
- No Reinforcements. A single figure group can't be reinforced, only redeployed. While in our given example this is a minor issue, there are two cases where it becomes an important distinction: cases like Tusken Raiders where the reinforcement cost/figure is less than the deployment cost/figure, and cards that require reinforcement to trigger such as the Agenda card “Perpetual Reinforcements” or require you to place a figure near others of its deployment group.
- Less effective activations. If you are attacking with a multifigure group, you make multliple attacks, or you can move to different locations, rapidly reinforce a location, and generally do more in a single activation, which means your opponent can't react to it. Consider the scenario where you can interact with a token to get points, but the token is behind a door. Our single figure group can’t do that in a single activation, which means he would open the door but not be able to reach the token, giving the opponent an opportunity to react and even prevent it, but a multifigure group could have one figure open the door, and another figure move and interact with the token, all before the opponent can react to it. Which brings me to the next point, telegraphing.
- Telegraphing your moves. The nature of any turn based game is that every move you make gives your opponent more information about your overall strategy, knowledge they can then use to stymie you. With a multifigure group you can enact plans while giving your opponent fewer opportunities to react.
- Losing the single figure costs you the whole group. Admittedly this is obvious but it has severe consequences. In skirmish, it means that the moment that one figure is defeated, your opponent gains the points for it. A multifigure group requires all of the figures to be defeated, allowing for tactics such as splitting up the group to prevent TPK if an engagement goes bad, or sending the last member of the group running away so they can’t be killed. Rather than taking out two Stormtroopers and still having nothing to show for it, you would have gotten points for the two figures you defeated. My last skirmish game I played a trooper squad and ended the game with 3 groups that had only one trooper left. My opponent had defeated 6 Stormtroopers (two of them elites) and had nothing to show for it. Additionally, when combined with the lack of reinforcements, it gives your attachments a more limited life span in skirmish, while in campaign, agenda cards that grant a special ability, and discard after a group is defeated are much more risky and prone to failure – even if you had three of the same upgrade, if you lose, then redeploy two figures, the newly deployed ones will not have the upgrade. Meanwhile, if you have a group and can reinforce, you could reinforce that group to keep from losing the upgrade.
- They still cost an entire open group. This is only for campaign, but the IP only has a limited number of open groups. A single figure deployment group takes up the same number of open groups as an entire squad of Stormtroopers (the number is 1). Especially on missions with a small number of open groups, this can be a real problem.
In addition to the weakness of single figure deployment groups, unique figures have one extra weakness: No redundancy. If you have two Imperial officers, and lose one, you’ll be weaker but you at least have an officer around to command. In campaign, you could even redeploy the officer you lost for 2 Threat and you’re back in action. Unique figures cannot do that. You have one chance to make a unique figure worthwhile, and if they are defeated before that, you can’t get them back. This makes uniques even riskier than other single figure deployment groups simply on the basis of what they are, even before you get into whether they are overcosted or useless.
In fact, far as I can figure it, the only situation where single figure deployments have an advantage is in the number of activations they have available, but in skirmish, that doesn’t matter as much due to the pass rule, and in campaign there are other limiters, like threat and the previously mentioned open groups.
For this reason I contend that unique figures should all be cheaper than equally powerful multifigure groups. Consider that the most commonly used single figure groups are either cheap (Imperial officers, Gideon, C3PO), have some unique ability and enough survivability to make it worthwhile (Leia), or are the right balance of everything –including cost! – to be worthwhile (Luke). As an aside, this is part of why I think mercenaries struggle: Rebels and Imperials both have 3 figure groups to fill things out, and solid, reasonably cheap 2 figure groups. Most mercenary groups are 1 or 2 figures so that even with the same number of deployments, they have only a fraction as many figures.
This is part of why arguments about how much so-and-so should cost tend to go nowhere conclusive: They often don’t acknowledge the inherent weakness in the figure simply because it is a single figure deployment. This is also why I’m not worried about Bossk being OP: He’s starting out with such a serious disadvantage to begin before points and abilities and stats are assigned that he needs to be awesome to make for it. Or, you know, pretty good and dirt cheap. One of those two.
The rule of thumb I’ve being thinking about is that single figure deployments they should cost no more than their health, and often dramatically less.
Being a lover of the campaign, which is my main draw to the game, allies and villians are near and dear to me. I want them to be brought in. It makes it more fun and interesting. However, especially for villains, the cost to use them is often too much. You have to spend Influence to buy a mission, then you have to win the mission (by no means guaranteed), then you have to spend an open group on them (remember they are unique and so the troubles with single figures and open groups is made worse), then get the threat to deploy them, and then use them trying to get their worth. Or just deploy a squad of elite stormies and call it a day. Let us assume a villain with an appropriate cost is created. That takes care of the threat problem, at least he’s worth his points now but that still a lot of effort to go through to bring him in. What of existing villains and allies? What can we do now ?
I’ve been thinking that perhaps the campaign should reward you for bringing a villain or an ally. If the IP brings a villain and wins, he gains an influence point and maybe a point reduction in bringing that villain in future missions. But if the rebels manage to take out the villain, they get a bounty of, say, 100 credits per hero, even if they lose the mission. If the rebels bring a unique ally, simply reverse the rewards. This provides an interesting risk/reward mechanic to it beyond the simple “Is this guy worth the cost” question that will often be “no” for many existing villains and allies.
I’m not intending to get into a discussion on specific figures, but more wanting to address the inherent imbalance caused by the number of figures in a group, which I’ve not seen any serious discussion of. Do you guys think I’m off base? Am I exaggerating the trouble with single and unique figure groups?