Help with Deciding on and Tweaking an Army

By Lotr_Nerd, in Imperial Assault Skirmish

Posted at

Greetings Imperial Assault players I have had the game for almost a year now and will cut my teeth on competitive play at Regionals this year but I need help deciding and enhancing one of these three armies.

List One Scum:Boba Fett,HK Assassin Droid,2 Trandoshan Hunters, Nexu, Explosive Armaments

List Two Empire: Darth Vader, Elite Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper

List Three Rebels:Han Solo, Verena Talos, Saska Teft, Jyn Odan, Mak Eshka'rey, Rebel Trooper

Help me Imperial Assault Players you are my only hope.

Posted at

Here is my quick advice, so take it for what it's worth:

1. It might be worth using elite HK droids if you can fit them in. Their Priority Targeting means that they can shoot through other figures, which is a big deal since the HK droids have so little health. Explosive Armaments should go on the HKs, not on Boba. They roll more surges and they have more range. Personally, I prefer the Elite Nexu over the regular, because the automatic Cleave 2 is pretty awesome. Some people pay 6pts to get Gideon and C3P0 into Mercenary squads via Temporary Alliance.

2. Vader needs at least 1 officer, preferably 2, in order to get around effectively. Also, since he's such an important part of your squad, it would be good to give him some added protection. Therefore I'd suggest Vader, Royal Guards (8pts), elite Stormtroopers, and 2 regular officers. My son (9 yrs old) played that at a Regional a few weeks ago and got 2 wins with it. It's pretty solid vs trooper squads.

3. Dude...so many of the rebel unique figs are inefficient. Han is cool but he isn't worth 12pts. Verena is cool if she can get in there and pour out a lot of damage (especially against the big 3-dice attackers), but I haven't used her yet. Saska is pretty much a waste of space...if you want to bring in Boba Fett to your Rebel squad then she might have a role, but even then she's still extremely weak. Jyn can be solid. Mak really struggles to get damage through on his targets.

No matter how strong or weak a squad is, one of the most important things is practice. So my suggestion would be to pick a squad that you enjoy and test it out on all 6 of the current missions, just to see how it plays. You might find that you want to change up some figs (or perhaps an entire squad) based on your experience with that. If so, then you're already in a better place than you were before the testing.

I hope you have fun! I've found that the IA skirmish groups have some of the friendliest and most enjoyable gamers around. :)

Posted at
Probably going to reitterate most of what "thereisnotry" said but I'll drop my 2c in anyway.
List One Scum:Boba Fett,HK Assassin Droid,2 Trandoshan Hunters, Nexu, Explosive Armaments
Not a bad list but be aware that Boba and Trandoshans are very hard to play efficiently. They are a bit over-costed and thus can be trick to get enough value out of them. Boba especially. I'd take something like devious scheme instead of explosive armaments. It's a very useful card. Also if you can squeeze in an elite nexu somehow... those guys are much much better than the regular ones.
List Two Empire: Darth Vader, Elite Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper
Pretty standard list that's been around for ages, but you'll really want at least 1 officer. Preferably an elite one. Lists like these (with 1 super expensive strong figure) are all about getting the most value out of that figure. In this case, you have a great solid base of stormtroopers, but nothing to really boost and support Vader.
Also... the regular troopers, with 3 health, are very fragile. I'd drop one unit for an elite officer, or regular officer and a probe droid or 3 officers. First 2 options leave room for something like Rule by Fear if you have it.
List Three Rebels:Han Solo, Verena Talos, Saska Teft, Jyn Odan, Mak Eshka'rey, Rebel Trooper
I like Verena and Jyn. The rest of that list is quite weak.
Mak is pretty terrible especially when you compare him to Gideon or R2D2 for the same price.
Saska is probably one of the worst heroes in the game (next to Mak). He bomb is horrible and the only reason you take her is as a mercenary tax.
Han Solo is ok, but he just doesn't really mix well with other units (maybe Jyn). His damage is OK but he's expensive for only having 1 attack.
In general anyone over 10 points really needs the ability to attack twice or some other strong skill (like rerolls or 2 defense dice) to make them worth while.
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Why do all scum players use the devious scheme card? I have only played two skirmish games so I don't have any experience but I really dont see why it is so useful?

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It has some generally very useful abilities. 1) The deployment zones are not necessarily equal - some a better positioned than others, also depending on the army you bring. 2) Having initiative in the first round is generally not as good as in the second round when your figures are in position against each other. 3) along the same lines, if you have equal activations you get to go last in round 1, and first in round 2 (baring Take Initiative).

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Basically what aermet69 said...

It lets you choose deployment zones.... It forces the opponent to deploy first..... and it gives you turn 2 initiative (if they don't use Take Initiative).

What this means in practical terms is this...

On some maps (like the current rotation Cantina map) there are good and bad deployment zones.
For example on Cantina, the right deployment zone (the one near the room with the the table in it) is annoying because it forces you to split your army and it also doesn't have an easily obtained and protected terminal.
So with devious scheme, I force you to take the bad deployment zone, and then I force you to deploy first, which means I get to see your setup and your plan and thus can deploy accordingly. And then on top of all that, I get turn 2 initiative most of the time.

Turn 2 initiative is important because that's when the fighting starts. Turn one is usually people getting into position, so it doesn't matter as much who goes first. But going first in turn 2 can give you the chance to knock out one of their activations early or stunning their high value target or getting a good blast off etc...