I have been playing for a couple of weeks as my flgs is hosting our regionals in a month or so, however I'm struggling to come up with a themed imperial or scum list which is competitive.

Other than imperial troopers and Tuskans & Banthas, I'm struggling to find anything. Call it ocd or whatever but I like my lists to fit in the Star Wars Galaxy. Is it me or does IA suffer from a lack of options at the moment? I never struggle to theme a list in X-wing but I am here.

Everyone locally either runs troopers or Banthas and I'm reluctant to jump on that bandwagon.

RGC and Royal guards is a sweet theme build. You lack range, but have speed and reach to help make up for this. This build has obvious weaknesses, but you get your theme.

Scum dies have Droids, and you could always Alliance R2 and 3PO for utility. Trick is that IG-88 is not worth his points, or you need to have multiples of the Hoth set for the HKs.

Just some thoughts to get you going, but you are right about not having good theme options that are competitive.

I want to try:

RGC (15)

eStormtrooper (9)

rRoyal Guard (8)

rImperial Probe Droid (3)

rImperial Officer (2)

rImperial Officer (2)

Rule by Fear (1)

Im curious how well RGC will do in the current meta...

~D

The thing with theme lists being possible in X-Wing but not in IA is that X-Wing is about 4 years old, while IA is less than a year and a half. Give IA some time and you'll find the flexibility that you're looking for.

One option is to use Weiss and an AT-ST and some Stormtroopers and Officers. That's the Battle of Endor right there.

Or you could do a smuggler-themed squad. Han, Chewie, Jyn, Alliance Smugglers.

Or a Rescue Mission (ie, Episode 4) squad: Han, Chewie, Luke, R2, 3P0.

You could even do a furry-fury squad: Chewie, Garkhaan, Wookiee Warriors.

I'm not saying that all of these will be incredibly competitive, but they do have some serious thematic flavor going on.

Im curious how well RGC will do in the current meta...

I don't know how well it would work in your proposed list, but RGC is one of the high-cost figures that I actually like. With his great speed, brutality, and executor, he can actually do quite a bit in a round, provided the situation is right. However, I think the current meta is very unkind to him, with so many Bantha Riders roaming around. A stampede, crush and average trample takes off half the RGC's health without rolling defense. (On the other hand, nothing will melt a Bantha Rider's health pool faster than a Flurry of Blades.)

RGC is amazing. And because he doesn't get used much, most people don't know how to deal with him.

When Vader was popular and people used lots of stun, RGC was a little worried.... but he's cheaper, just as hard to kill and most importantly faster than Vader.

I've also seen Wookie lists and Droid lists do very well.

And there's lots of options there....

You can take IG-88 + HKs with lots of probe droids. Or Ig-88 with 2x HKs and RD2D/C3P0

Even trooper lists can have lots of variety. Take the mandatory base of 2x eStormtrooper.... and then you can add almost anything else that you want. Vader, AT-ST, RGC, Royal Guard, lots of probe droids etc....

All of these will be pretty competitive if used correctly. Some are easier than others of course but none of them are outright bad.

I prefer the to take the hard hitters with some stormtroopers rather than more stormtroopers or snowtroopers.

You could go Sorin w/ HK47r, 2 officers and Probe droid swarms (2 elite, 3 reg). It comes out to 9 activations, it has surprisingly high damage output even if everything is overall a bit weak, but with Hunter Protocol you can recover like a mad-man.

Take the theme as: Sorin is scouting for a new area of operations with his two trusted advisors and personal bodyguard drops when his probes pick up a hostile force.

You could also run:

There are Tier 1 competitive lists for each faction right now based on the following archetypes:

Rebels: Twins or Troopers

Scum: Beast Machines (Bantha & HK)

Imperials: Troopers

That's 4 different archetypes spread across 3 factions, which seems like plenty of options to me considering that:

1. Each archetype has 20-30 points dedicated to it in a list, leaving you with 10-20 points of customization to adapt to the metagame and express yourself
2. The game is only 1.5 years old at this point with only 5 waves and underwent a big errata to fix the stagnant metagame at the begging of the year

As for thematic options: swarms of Imperial Troopers seem pretty thematic to me. You shouldn't play them if you don't enjoy that, but it's a bit silly to complain about lack of competitive options when you rule out so many good lists (and consider the 2 points above).

I'll give it a try:

Somos + ISB + Heavy Troopers + Advanced Com Systems | 40 points

• Kayn Somos
• Elite ISB Infiltrator
• Elite ISB Infiltrator
• Elite Probe Droid
• Heavy Stormtrooper

Skirmish Upgrade

• Zillo Technique
• Vader's Finest
• Targeting Computer
• Advanced Com Systems

• Element of Surprise
• Grenadier
• Hunter Protocol
• Recovery
• Reinforcements
• Reinforcements
• Take Initiative
• Urgency
• Maximum Firepower
• Jump Jets
• Cruel Strike
• Set a Trap
• Negation
• Comm Disruption
• Wild Attack

The ISB boys aren't troopers. Seems like you don't get much mileage out of Kayn here.

i dont think advanced comm systems is going to be released in the next 2-3 weeks when the OP's regional is being held.

I've run imperial droids with HK alliance to some success. Have you tried super duress with Bossk, 2 Trandos and eWing Guard (Gideon & whoever to fill out points)?

Force users/abusers with Rebels

Smugglers with Rebels

I've even run an all Spy list with Rebels, I found some of the command cards to be lacking, but it could have been my poor usage. There are all kinds of themes, the only thing I would realistically whine about is overcost on a few popular characters (IG, Han, Chewie, Vader, BIV) and overuse of Gideon in all Scum and Rebel lists (He's almost too effective for his points)