Howdy folks,

disclaimer, I'm a total Imperial Assault noob. I'm planning to get into the game, although my local store is a bit lacking on players for it (it's pretty much only X-Wing), but there are some skirmish tournaments from time to time which I would like to go to.

Having said that, being a scum player and a guy who just can't take the usual stuff to the game (Manaroo build in X-Wing, Poison deck in Magic, Shenanigans in Malifaux) I was wondering how good is strain in the game right now? I love Boba Fett, and I would definitely want to field him. Can he be coupled with anything except for Slavers and IG to give the ultimate Strain build to make the enemy ragequit life? (exagerating, but you get the point)

Any build ideas are welcome! (especially command deck)

A lot of the new stuff that came out in Bespin has some strain focus. Wing guards next to any other non guardian can produce strain, Trandoshans, Bossk, and two new skirmish upgrade cards. There are even some command cards that can deal lots of strain.

to add to Kowagaru's post: with the release of bespin, strain can really be used to it's fullest potential. giving your opponent a very tough choice. either lose your command deck very quickly (especially with under duress) or take extra damage and keep your command deck going strong

either way, it's a win scenario for the scum player

Yep - people were struggling (heh) with strain before Bespin, it was hard to commit to it sufficiently to make it a viable approach, but I think that's changed.

Boba's a tricky one though- His strain power requires him getting all up and personal with the enemy, which (despite his great speed) I've found rather situational. He's tough but not immortal and running him forward seems a great way to get him killed.

I've seen Boba standing in a crowd of enemy Stormtroopers for several turns absolutely unscratched. His defense is just too good for Troopers to really hurt him.

He's usually fine against any attack with 2 dice, but any attacks with 3 dice are going to hurt him. When he has such good range and mobility, putting him right into the fray just to get a few extra strain off doesn't seem justifiable...

I've seen Boba standing in a crowd of enemy Stormtroopers for several turns absolutely unscratched. His defense is just too good for Troopers to really hurt him.

Agreed.

I think it's helpful for players to recognize that Boba's automatic Block and Evade equate out to 3 damage automatically blocked on an Elite Stormtrooper attack. That's because the Stormies rely on their Surge: +2 damage to get to their maximum of 5 damage per attack (and that's usually fairly easy to do with their reroll and the faces on the Blue and Green dice). And then Boba's Black defense die will either result in another Evade (so no +2 from the second surge) or at least 1 Block, which means that the best an Elite Stormtrooper can hope for is 2 or at best 3 damage when it attacks Boba, and that can only happen in 1 of 2 scenarios:

Scenario 1: 3 damage

Trooper: (blue) Damage Damage + (green) Damage Damage (...2 chances on the Blue die, and 3 chances on the Green...I'm not a mathematician, but I think that's a 5/36 chance? someone please correct me)

Boba: Evade (...only 1/6 chance of this on a Black die)

Result: 3 damage (after Boba's automatic defense)

Scenario 2: 2 damage

Trooper: (blue) Damage Surge + (green) Damage Surge (...1 chance on the Blue, and 2 chances on the Green)

Boba: 1 Block (...2/6 chance of this on a Black die, and a 3/6 of rolling more Blocks)

Result: 2 damage (after Boba's automatic defenses are applied and after the remaining surge is spent to apply the +2 Damage)

So it's helpful to recognize that Boba has a 50% chance or avoiding BOTH of these scenarios, simply by rolling a 2 or 3 block result...and these are on ideal dice results for the Troopers. So he's often taking just 1 or 2 damage at most.