Hi guys,

Getting more into Imperial Assault and love trying to quantify and qualify things so I've begun looking at comparing the numbers of various units (Imperial to start) to try and create a quick ranking of units based on their stats and abilities. The google spreadsheet I'll be keeping up to date can be found here, currently includes a Quick sheet, a Detailed sheet and a Dice sheet, all of which I plan on expanding on: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rFBUOVSZ7-kQTCd6XzfhnqGRfxVYoxk7WczEvt8xkDI/edit?usp=sharing

The quick and dirty version so far is an overall ranking based on Offensive capabilities (Max Damage per Activation), Defensive capabilities (Health per Figure Cost) and Mobility (Speed times a weight). Initially I've tried to weight all three evenly so given that the Offensive and Defensive stats averages at around 1.4 and speed averages at around 4, I've weighted the speed value at .33 for now. This gives us the following:

ISB Infiltrator       5.33
eISB Infiltrator      5.19
Royal Guard           4.91
Imperial Officer      4.83
Stormtrooper          4.83
Snowtrooper           4.76
Probe Droid           4.66
eStormtrooper         4.66
Heavy Stormtrooper    4.66
eHeavy Stormtrooper   4.5
Royal Guard Champion  4.46
eRoyal Guard          4.33
eSnowtrooper          4.33
eProbe Droid          4.13
SC2-M Repulsor Tank   3.93
eE-Web Engineer       3.87
E-Web Engineer        3.83
Agent Blaise          3.83
Darth Vader           3.22
eImperial Officer     3.13
Kayn Somos            3.13
AT-ST                 2.97
General Weiss         2.77
General Sorin         2.70

Thanks for sharing this!

My thoughts:

• Max damage is not a good measure of offensive capability; get mean damage against a black die and a white die instead. (If nothing else pierce needs to get credit).
• You're calculating (MD/A+HP)/Cost+Speed/3 not (MD/A+HP/Cost) +Speed/3
• You've determined your weighing of speed by comparing it to a mean, which in this case is a poor choice for average since high cost figures tend to have much lower (MD/A+HP)/Cost.
• The reason ISB enforcers are so high is this gives them credit for an ability that they only have when the entire squad is alive.
• This wildly differs from my experience: with officers, and stormtroopers being more efficient than elite stormtroopers and probe droids being more efficient than elites.
• One more thing: We should generally expect single figure squads to be less efficient than multi-figure squads since single figure squads don't loose efficiency as they take damage.

Great feedback @Norgrath, going to try and get the rest of the units in tonight and then I'll see about improving the formula

Pretty interesting! Now I'm interested to try putting a number on different traits and abilities, like Bleed or Cleave or Bonus movement abilities...

One thing you'll absolutely need to factor in is Ranged vs Melee. Melee figures should have significant stat bonuses over ranged figures, because they are much more restricted in their target selection. Maybe in the damage/activation calculation, you can factor in some % of their average range?

For the Imperial Officer, their attack is essentially replaced with that of an allied figure, so maybe make their damage/activation use the average of every other figure's attack value, or something like that?

Very nice.

Ya trying to figure out how I want to model Damage and Survivability better. I think ideally I want to do something like Offensive output and Survivability expected against two popular but different deployments, say a squad of Elite Stormtroopers and Luke Skywalker. In the meantime for something quicker I might just do average expected results as if they were attacking a unit with a white and black dice were combined into a single D12. This will probably make Pierce better or worse than it really is based on how much the Pierce value is.

Wrote a script last night so that the averages for units with rerolls (both offensively and defensively) now include the reroll based on a reroll priority I came up with for each unit.

Also need to prioritize the order of Surges which is always situational but I think it'd be pretty reasonable to order it: Damage, Pierce, Focus, Blast, Cleave, Recover, Hide, Accuracy, Stun, Bleed, Weaken. Then add some extra points ranked in the above order for flexibility for surge options that aren't being used with the average amount of surges.

For Range I plan on giving linear points based on their avg rolled range.

Ya trying to figure out how I want to model Damage and Survivability better. I think ideally I want to do something like Offensive output and Survivability expected against two popular but different deployments, say a squad of Elite Stormtroopers and Luke Skywalker. In the meantime for something quicker I might just do average expected results as if they were attacking a unit with a white and black dice were combined into a single D12. This will probably make Pierce better or worse than it really is based on how much the Pierce value is.

Wrote a script last night so that the averages for units with rerolls (both offensively and defensively) now include the reroll based on a reroll priority I came up with for each unit.

Also need to prioritize the order of Surges which is always situational but I think it'd be pretty reasonable to order it: Damage, Pierce, Focus, Blast, Cleave, Recover, Hide, Accuracy, Stun, Bleed, Weaken. Then add some extra points ranked in the above order for flexibility for surge options that aren't being used with the average amount of surges.

For Range I plan on giving linear points based on their avg rolled range.

I think that Offensive Output is simply best measured as being against a single Black and a single White die. (That is, show 3 columns: the basic offensive output on attack dice alone, and then a column for "vs Black" and one for "vs White").

As for Survivability, I think that the results will be largely meaningless once you start to add different deployment groups into the picture. Yes, eStorms and Luke are very popular, but also highly subjective...what about rHKs or eHKs or Bossk or eISBs? I'm not even sure it's possible, but it would be cool if you could input any Deployment Group into a field, and have the spreadsheet calculate this figure's survivability vs that Deployment Group's Offensive Output. That very well might be over the top and highly complicated (and perhaps also prone to subtle errors that might not get caught), but it would be valuable if you wanted to arrive at a value for a figure's Survivability vs a specific group.

Really, I'm thrilled that you're sharing this with the community! A spreadsheet like this something that I've wanted to do for a while, but I quickly discovered that I didn't have the programming skills that I needed for it. Huge +1 to you, man!

There's some great work here.
Just looking at elite stormtroopers vs regular stormtroopers, your "quick" calculations seem a bit off but the "detailed" ones are more accurate.

It's always hard to quantify things like re-rolls but ultimately elites are immensely superior to regular stormtroopers.
They do better damage, they benefit more from the re-roll because their surge is better, they have more health.

I don't think the extra points cost impacts them as negatively as your spreadsheet suggests.

another example is elite ISB vs elite Stormtroopers. (quick tab)

They are more expensive per figure, have a tiny bit more health per figure, do less damage per activation and yet are scored higher than the stormtroopers. And that's before re-rolls.

Having an extra body is a huge benefit. Harder to focus the group down, more actions, more people to hold objectives and open doors etc.

Again in this case your "detailed" tab does a much better job showing that.

On the other hand you got lots of other anomalies too... Hired guns shouldn't have an attack score that high. They are cheap and good but not the 2nd best unit in the game. I agree that wing guard should be up there.

Though again, it should be the elites not the regular ones. How come the regulars are 55 vs 36? That's a huge difference. Recover 1 on a 3 health figure is so much worse than recover 2 on a 5 health figure. The regular ones don't get attack re-rolls.

I think the group/unit cost factor is skewing your results. I know it's important but a unit's "value" isn't just it's raw defense or offensive numbers.

Perhaps try to do a list without factoring cost.
Do a ranking based just on attack/defense numbers, taking into account the number of figures per activation.... then apply a cost comparison afterwards. I wonder if the results will change.

Again it's hard to quantify those things but perhaps you need some other factor for 1 vs 2 vs 3 group figures.

Also cards like Reinforcements basically give you an extra 5-10 health for an elite trooper group. That's a pretty significant bonus, not just for the extra health but also for wasting your opponents' attacks. But that's adding command cards which gets even messier.

I've done similar calculations and come to similar results.

There's some great work here.
Just looking at elite stormtroopers vs regular stormtroopers, your "quick" calculations seem a bit off but the "detailed" ones are more accurate.

It's always hard to quantify things like re-rolls but ultimately elites are immensely superior to regular stormtroopers.
They do better damage, they benefit more from the re-roll because their surge is better, they have more health.

I don't think the extra points cost impacts them as negatively as your spreadsheet suggests.

Actually, try to play with 3 units of regular Stormtroopers vs. 2 units of elite Stormtroopers. It's quite likely, that the regulars will win the game. Especially, if (for testing purposes) you don't use more than 18 deployment points and you don't use Command cards.

The regular Stormtroopers have 27 health, plus 9 times the possible overkill damage.

The elite Stormtrooper have 30 health, plus 6 times the possible overkill damage.

The regular Stormtroopers deal 9 times max 4 damage per turn, plus have more friendly Troopers for rerolls = max 36 damage per turn.

The elite Stormtroopers deal 6 times max 5 damage per turn = max 30 damage per turn.

The regular Stormtroopers are more activations and more figures => more activation economy, more board control.

Hired guns shouldn't have an attack score that high.

Indeed, they should. I came up with an even higher score. For 2 points, it's great what they do with their regular attack. And then they have one additional attack for parting shot.

I think that Offensive Output is simply best measured as being against a single Black and a single White die. (That is, show 3 columns: the basic offensive output on attack dice alone, and then a column for "vs Black" and one for "vs White").

I made a theoretical "grey" die for my scores. It's a twelve-sided die with all the sides of one black die and all the sides of one white die. It's not perfect, but it gives a good estimate.

I've done similar calculations and come to similar results.

There's some great work here.

Just looking at elite stormtroopers vs regular stormtroopers, your "quick" calculations seem a bit off but the "detailed" ones are more accurate.

It's always hard to quantify things like re-rolls but ultimately elites are immensely superior to regular stormtroopers.

They do better damage, they benefit more from the re-roll because their surge is better, they have more health.

I don't think the extra points cost impacts them as negatively as your spreadsheet suggests.

Actually, try to play with 3 units of regular Stormtroopers vs. 2 units of elite Stormtroopers. It's quite likely, that the regulars will win the game. Especially, if (for testing purposes) you don't use more than 18 deployment points and you don't use Command cards.

The regular Stormtroopers have 27 health, plus 9 times the possible overkill damage.

The elite Stormtrooper have 30 health, plus 6 times the possible overkill damage.

The regular Stormtroopers deal 9 times max 4 damage per turn, plus have more friendly Troopers for rerolls = max 36 damage per turn.

The elite Stormtroopers deal 6 times max 5 damage per turn = max 30 damage per turn.

The regular Stormtroopers are more activations and more figures => more activation economy, more board control.

Except that's not how it works.

You need a minimum of 2 regular trooper attacks to kill one elite trooper. So one regular activation kills 1 elite, and wounds a second one. Where as 1 elite activation kills 3 regulars.

Regulars do about 2.5 dmg against a black dice (with rerolls). Elites do a bit over 3.

So you literally need twice as many regular attacks when shooting at elites to do the same amount of damage. Except you're playing 9 vs 6 not 12 vs 6.

If regulars go first, then the elites might struggle a bit, if the elites shoot first then the regulars have no hope.

And that's without factoring in the slight range bonus that elites get and without factoring the last stand focus which is fairly irrelevant in this case (apart from increasing the chance to one shot and providing greater range).

The extra bodies is a valid point but the 3 health is why no one plays regular troopers. They just die too easily.

If the above rankings were correct then we should all be running 12 regular troopers and/or 8 hired guns. But we don't because they have significant downsides. Just because they are cheap and expendable doesn't automatically make them great.

I like hired guns a lot.... but it isn't for their attack. It's the speed and the disruption they cause, blocking LOS and wasting enemy attacks. But I don't pretend their attack is on par with elite HKs, Bossk or General Weiss like this spreadsheet indicates.

I'm just pointing out the some of the weighting, especially the points/cost heavily skews the results of the 2 and 3 point figures.

EDIT:

Also, how come the attack score is calculated using "Max attacks" not "Actual attacks"? Is the attack score supposed to be an indication of absolute maximum power or a weighted average power?

Actually, regular Troopers see a lot of play here and won some bigger tournaments.

Actually, regular Troopers see a lot of play here and won some bigger tournaments.

I'd be interested to see that.

I haven't heard of any lists like that doing well, and there don't seem to be many in the various "results" posts.

Obviously it depends on the local meta. The only ones I've seen locally stopped playing regulars very quickly once they got hit by a grenade =)

My point was, the results are incredibly different depending on who goes first, in the case of elite vs regular stormtroopers, and that cost itself shouldn't be the most important metric.

RGC is generally considered overcosted but he's an amazing figure and very difficult to deal with if used correctly. His dmg output is great and his native speed 6 is amazing. Only him, Boba and a nexu are that fast. And compared with Boba, for 2 points extra his damage is much greater, and he has better access to command cards.

Damage wise RGC has probably the strongest attack in the game apart from Vader (when both use brutality).

But according to this spreadsheet he isn't even in the top 20 even though he has great health, great speed, great attack and solid defense. And that's before factoring in Executor.

His attack score is the highest which makes sense, but then he drops to number 24 just because of his cost....

I know cost is important and very difficult to calculate properly. I'm just suggesting that perhaps the deployment cost weighting is a bit too harsh

Actually, regular Troopers see a lot of play here and won some bigger tournaments.

...

I know cost is important and very difficult to calculate properly. I'm just suggesting that perhaps the deployment cost weighting is a bit too harsh

I'm actually suggesting that ANY weighting is unhelpful. A group might be weak in one area, but strong in another. Any sort of weighting applied to that group will inherently skew its perceived usefulness, either too high or too low. I think the real value of spreadsheets like this is that they compile basic data (without interpretation of any sort) into a usable format, so that players can make their own decisions about what to use.

Perhaps I'm looking for a group that has good durability or survivability for its cost, and I'm not really looking for damage output from that group. If so, then I'll look through the stats on survivability to find a group that would fit my need. But the only way I can do that with any confidence is if I know that none of the numbers have been adjusted due to any sort of weighting.

Actually, regular Troopers see a lot of play here and won some bigger tournaments.

...

I know cost is important and very difficult to calculate properly. I'm just suggesting that perhaps the deployment cost weighting is a bit too harsh

I'm actually suggesting that ANY weighting is unhelpful. A group might be weak in one area, but strong in another. Any sort of weighting applied to that group will inherently skew its perceived usefulness, either too high or too low. I think the real value of spreadsheets like this is that they compile basic data (without interpretation of any sort) into a usable format, so that players can make their own decisions about what to use.

Perhaps I'm looking for a group that has good durability or survivability for its cost, and I'm not really looking for damage output from that group. If so, then I'll look through the stats on survivability to find a group that would fit my need. But the only way I can do that with any confidence is if I know that none of the numbers have been adjusted due to any sort of weighting.

Yep I agree with that too. I was only justifying my previous comments because I felt I was being attacked a bit.

That being said, I think the purpose of this spreadsheet is a final weighted ranking. What your suggesting is great too but slightly different.

The table lists efficiency. In Imperial Assault that means usefulness per point. Damage per point / health per point, etc. How could deployment cost weighting be too harsh? Deployment cost is the main factor of this table.

I don't want to attack you. Don't take this personally.

But what you are saying is basically the same as if you'd make a dragster race and then, when the final ranking stands, tell everyone, that speed alone should not be the most important factor...

The table lists efficiency. In Imperial Assault that means usefulness per point. Damage per point / health per point, etc. How could deployment cost weighting be too harsh? Deployment cost is the main factor of this table.

I don't want to attack you. Don't take this personally.

But what you are saying is basically the same as if you'd make a dragster race and then, when the final ranking stands, tell everyone, that speed alone should not be the most important factor...

No offense taken.

But I don't think it's as straight-forward as you're suggesting, even though the sheet does also contain the most relevant information.

Rather, my comments are about the matter of giving weight to certain elements or attributes. According to the first post of this thread, there is indeed weighting involved, and part of it is indeed arbitrary:

The quick and dirty version so far is an overall ranking based on Offensive capabilities (Max Damage per Activation), Defensive capabilities (Health per Figure Cost) and Mobility (Speed times a weight). Initially I've tried to weight all three evenly so given that the Offensive and Defensive stats averages at around 1.4 and speed averages at around 4, I've weighted the speed value at .33 for now. This gives us the following: ....

The bolded sections are the parts where interpretation has been added to the mix, and what I'm suggesting is that this interpretation itself is just as likely unhelpful as helpful.