Now that we have the official rulings on the Junk Droid, I think it's time to discuss potential Ugnaught lists. For those that haven't seen it, the Junk Droid can activate before or after each Ugnaught activation. This makes the elites way better, since the droid can get in position to be ordered to attack.

The main concept of any ugnaught list should be to take advantage of the extra safe attacks that you get to weaken the enemy and make it easier for the rest of your list to clean up.

Here is a list I've been toying with:

Ugnaught

2x Elite Ugnaught

2x Elite Nexu

Elite Tuskens

Gideon

3p0

Devious Scheme, Temp alliance, Beast Tamer

Command Cards with explanation:

Squad Swarm - Can activate 2 nexus or 2 ugnaughts in a row

Grisly Content - 2 unmitigated damage is good, helps the nexu or tuskens clean up

2x Parting Blow - obviously good with nexu and tuskens

Ferocity - obviously good with nexu

Change of Plans - can do funny things with nexus in round 1 to get more attacks, or reactivate a nexu if the tuskens are out of place

Pummel - good, maybe should find a spot for the 2nd one, beast tamer pummel is very powerful

Strength in Numbers - Can activate nexus/ugnaughts together

Single Purpose - double order junk droid to attack

Negation - obvious

Survival Instincts - nexu survivability

Element of Surprise -obvious

Take Initiative - obvious

Self Defense - junk droid can hit someone with this, sometimes hilariously finishing off a figure

Disorient - junk droid can remove focus/hidden with this before the opponent can use it

With 8 activations and devious scheme, you WILL go last on round 1 with a focused nexu to mess up your opponent and grab terminals. Potentially you can hit with both nexus if they're last group isn't too deadly or they're not in a good position.

Before that though, you send out the junk droid and they either have to waste actions shooting it, or you can safely plink away 1-2 damage multiple times.

You're also likely to go first in round 2 unless they get take init and you don't get negation.

I think any list trying to take advantage of the ugnaught needs 2 elites and 1 regular. The regular's job is to get the droid out there and into position, while the elites are there to maximize attacks.

In addition to be annoying at attacking, the junk droid also contests terminals and objectives.

The tuskens are there because I had 7 points left over after putting together the core list and nothing else seemed better. They can do objectives, but often they'll be needed to be in range to clean up after the nexus die.

This list is great on Cantina right now.

On Training Ground, it can be good, but if the opponent blows the door open early you can be in trouble.

On Nelvaanian B, it is really good. A, it's going to depend how the opponent plays and their list.

Other variations I've been toying with:

Bossk, 2x eWingguard, ug, 2x eUg, scheme

Bantha, hk, Gideon, 3p0, etusken, ug, eUg, scheme, alliance, beast tamer

I'm interested in seeing if anyone else has list ideas or command card suggestions.

Can Ugnuaghts be good?

You're almost always going to be doing 1-2 damage vs a black die thanks to the pierce 2 surge from the elite ugnaught. More often 2. Every now and then you'll do 3 and very rarely 0.

Vs white, you're going to do 1 or 2 about evenly, sometimes 0 or 3.

I don't understand how you think blast/trample/stampede is relevant, because the droid is almost always going to be in the midst of the enemy troops and not anywhere near your own. It is much more likely they'll shoot it with some figure, but that's also kind of the point - making them waste actions they could be doing other more useful things with.

This list is actually reasonably effective against trooper swarm thanks to junk droid's effectiveness vs black dice and the nexu cleave damage.

Against rebel lists, the nexu alpha strike can be extremely damaging and the junk droid can take out annoying rear line figures with basically zero risk.

Feel free to hop on Vassal sometime and I'll show you how it works.

This list is actually reasonably effective against trooper swarm thanks to junk droid's effectiveness vs black dice and the nexu cleave damage. Against rebel lists, the nexu alpha strike can be extremely damaging and the junk droid can take out annoying rear line figures with basically zero risk.

Feel free to hop on Vassal sometime and I'll show you how it works.

If the Ugnaughts hang out in your starting area for defensive reasons won't killing the Droid reset the next one because they'll have to spend actions spewing and moving back out?

Ideal scenario is if Ugs are in the mix so they can shoot something on top of getting the Droid activation. But if they're that close they're not hard to kill with 4 health (elites are tougher with 7 but cost 5 points; more than half of a Bantha, Wing Guard, Bossk).

I'm happy to be proven wrong and have another archetype but sadly don't have time for Vassal.

You're going to use something else for your first activations in round 1 besides gideon/3p0 or your officers? If so, that's even better since you probably put guys in range of the droid.

Most often, the ugnaught player would use 3p0, gideon, then reg ug to get in position, maybe tuskens to buy time since they won't do anything round 1 anyways. At this point, the other player is now at 4 groups left to activate, and so has to use important units now. Do you use them to shoot the junk droid, if you even can depending on the map?

After that, the elite ugs just target whatever is in range and generally be super annoying.

If they use shots on the junk droid, then the 1st elite can spawn it and get it back into position for the next activation. Then the other player has to either shoot it again with his next group, or leave it alone.

So then, the nexus come and wreck whatever you have at the end of round 1 and beginning of round 2.

I'm not saying it is super amazing or anything, but it is surprisingly effective.

NO

is the answer, unless they chop the cost of the Ugnaughts in half or allow the junk droid the ability to interact and contest objects, they really serve little to no purpose in skirmish. Also there (with mercs in general) needs to be a way to focus merc models, but junk droids especially and there needs to be the ability to have more than one junk droid on the map at a time. No, they are pretty worthless at this time. That's with half a dozen casual games under my belt. I only take them if I'm playing a child or new-learning player to weaken my own list considerably.

Except they can contest objectives.

Except they can contest objectives.

Currently companions can control objectives because it isn't explicitly disallowed by the companion rules. I expect it to be an omission in the companion rules though, so don't get too attached to it.

You're right, I was still seeing red bc I can't make more than 1 junk droid. I think you're going to struggle doing damage and keeping things alive. I think the Ugnaughts are grossly overpriced for what they can do and for even just basic stats.

Compare any of them to any of the other Bespin figures. They are woefully overpriced and under powered. Why do we need 3 of them again? All of the Bespin figures and expansions are great Except the ugnaughts. Wasted plastic in my eyes.

Greedo looks to be terribly poor as well. Scum keep getting kicked to the curb. I guess we got our knockoff troopers and decent bounty hunter finally.

You'd think mercy would have some tricky spies or smugglers, instead we just get incompetent rodians and robot tech flunkies. " how many ugnaughts does it take to make one junk droid..."

I think having 1 regular Ug just to sit on a terminal (and junk droid on the other terminal) is the best use of them. They are a pretty good 3 point filler for Mercs who didn't have one before.

They kind of do a similar role to Hired Guns but now you can get 1 regular Ug and a skirmish upgrade for the same price.

Elites are kind of good because you get more action efficiency (and more attacks) with the potential to bleed, but I don't think they are good enough for 5 points.

Greedo looks to be terribly poor as well. Scum keep getting kicked to the curb.

Greedo is good. Try him.

Beast Machines won a bunch of Regionals too, so I'm not sure about the 'keep' part.

1 Ugnaught can do nice things: Ugnaught moves, places a Junk Droid in front of him, then the Junk Droid runs and contests a terminal or Mission objective, you normally couldn't reach. And if the Opponent kills the annoying Junk Droid, you don't lose any points and just make a new one.

Greedo looks to be terribly poor as well. Scum keep getting kicked to the curb.

Greedo is good. Try him.

Beast Machines won a bunch of Regionals too, so I'm not sure about the 'keep' part.

I didn't say all of the Mercs are terrible, I think the Wing Guard and Bossk are incredible additions. I love playing HKs and I've enjoyed playing the Bantha Rider. I've even had success with IG, Wampas, Nexus etc. I'll take my Greedo discussion elsewhere to keep from derailing the thread. I've purchased 2 of all the big packs for the cards (except for Twin Shadows and Bespin) but can't bring myself to getting more ugnaughts. (I'm on the fence on whether I need more wing guard and I won't buy another twin shadows for the tusken raider card). I really don't think ugnaughts are good for the point cost. I don't know why we got 3 of them either. If I really have 3 points leftover, I'll probably take some attachments that I couldn't fit otherwise. I really think the opportunities lost on how the ugnaught and junk droid could have interacted in game play is the biggest loss.

Where are these official rulings as well? How can you create a junk droid and activate him in the same ugnaught activation? I guess our gaming group has a more conservative interpretation of the rules, which was removing a lot of the useful shenanigans you guys just described.

Scrap Battalion: The Junk Droid readies at the start of your activation. It activates as though it was part of your group and may use your surge abilites.

If you have one ugnaught, you activate that ugnaught, spot weld a junk droid, but how does the junk droid activate if the ugnaught has already completed or started his activation?

Read the companion rules that came with Bespin.

The junk droid enters play Ready, and so can activate as soon as you create it after the ugnaught finishes his activation. After you finish activating a figure in a group, you can activate the next figure in the group - in this case, the junk droid.

Also, two figures cannot be activating at the same time. The Junk Droid does not activate during the Ugnaught Tinkerer's figure activation. The Junk Droid activates during the Ugnaught Tinkerer's group activation, before or after the Ugnaught figure.

Greedo looks to be terribly poor as well. Scum keep getting kicked to the curb.

Greedo is good. Try him.

Beast Machines won a bunch of Regionals too, so I'm not sure about the 'keep' part.

I didn't say all of the Mercs are terrible, I think the Wing Guard and Bossk are incredible additions. I love playing HKs and I've enjoyed playing the Bantha Rider. I've even had success with IG, Wampas, Nexus etc. I'll take my Greedo discussion elsewhere to keep from derailing the thread. I've purchased 2 of all the big packs for the cards (except for Twin Shadows and Bespin) but can't bring myself to getting more ugnaughts. (I'm on the fence on whether I need more wing guard and I won't buy another twin shadows for the tusken raider card). I really don't think ugnaughts are good for the point cost. I don't know why we got 3 of them either. If I really have 3 points leftover, I'll probably take some attachments that I couldn't fit otherwise. I really think the opportunities lost on how the ugnaught and junk droid could have interacted in game play is the biggest loss.

Where are these official rulings as well? How can you create a junk droid and activate him in the same ugnaught activation? I guess our gaming group has a more conservative interpretation of the rules, which was removing a lot of the useful shenanigans you guys just described.

Scrap Battalion: The Junk Droid readies at the start of your activation. It activates as though it was part of your group and may use your surge abilites.

If you have one ugnaught, you activate that ugnaught, spot weld a junk droid, but how does the junk droid activate if the ugnaught has already completed or started his activation?

As someone else just said it enters play ready to go per companion rules. Then, after its activation is over it exhausts. Now, it can ready at the beginning of any and all other ugnaught's activations. The wording is there to tell you when the junk droid can ready again, which isn't at the end of a round but at the beginning of any Ugnaught activation. Really the only way to make it less confusing would be to say on the card that the junk droid comes into play ready, but that's in the companion rules and therefore the way all companions come into play regularly. And doesn't need to be on the card. It's confusing because it's new and we aren't all familiar with it yet.

These should have cost 2 and 4 (like the Alliance Smuggler).

~D

I 2nd that, I'd also kind of wish the smugglers were double agents and could play both mercs and Rebs.

People who are dismissing it are the ones that are going to get run over by it... and be left going WTF.

The most efficient way to remove the droid is Davith.

Other than that, you are generally wasting an action.

And BTW- a single green die with +1 innate damage is at LEAST 2 damage vs a white or black die 58 or 53% of the time, respectively.

Not bad for a 0 point figure that just keeps coming back.

People who are dismissing it are the ones that are going to get run over by it... and be left going WTF.

The most efficient way to remove the droid is Davith.

Definitely let us know when this list wins a tournament.

Yeah, if someone is using a Bantha's Trample or Stampede to remove a junk droid, then that's either a win for the junk droid player or the droid isn't being played right.

On 6/30/2016 at 5:11 PM, nickv2002 said:

Bantha's Trample or Stampede will work well to remove a Droid too.

Definitely let us know when this list wins a tournament.

Raising a dead thread----
I just remembered this thread and comment while trying to think outside the box for a list to build....

An ugnaught list won the world's warm up tournament.

1 hour ago, NuSair said:

Raising a dead thread----
I just remembered this thread and comment while trying to think outside the box for a list to build....

An ugnaught list won the world's warm up tournament.

Yep. Ugnaughts lists were really good.

And I say were because Jabba counters them hard. Every time you kill the droid you earn 1 VP... so they cannot be played like before.

Daniel Taylor--the same world champ who brought that list to worlds--won our regionals with it. That said, that was pre-Jabba. The efficacy of the list is a little more suspect now that you get a point every time you kill the droid.

I didn't win the warmup tournament, but I did go 4-1. That was with the Boba Fett version.

The bantha version I took to Salem, OR and Vancouver BC and won both.

With the coming errata to the junk droid, it is actually maybe still viable even with Jabba. Being able to use the droid, make a new one, then use it immediately is pretty good.
If I'd had this ruling for Worlds, I would have seriously considered playing them in the main tournament.