Why not start every Imperial list with quad officer, quad probe droid? It's only 20 points for 8 activations, and officers seem somewhat efficient for their cost, you could just use them as combat units instead of support units.

From there you can add 2 elite Stormtrooper squads and some attachments.

And what about spamming probe Droids with Sorin? Why not 6 probe droids (2 elites of course) next to him?

Groups with multiple figures have much more power than single figures. When you can only activate one figure at a time, you don't have the same attack power or maneuvering power.

A1bert is right. Also: the value of additional activations plateaus off once you've got 1-2 more activations than your opponent assuming they pass correctly.

Groups with multiple figures have much more power than single figures. When you can only activate one figure at a time, you don't have the same attack power or maneuvering power.

A1bert is right. Also: the value of additional activations plateaus off once you've got 1-2 more activations than your opponent assuming they pass correctly.

Hired Guns aren't exactly 'power dense' activations either but they're still good. If you need a power dense activation you can use one of your power pieces like focused Bossk or focused Greedo. Same with your 20 points for 8 activations bargain squad. Sometimes it's late in the game round and your opponent will be out of activations and you'll be free to use your less power dense units.

If you went with 4x Probe Droid, 2x Elite Probe Droid, Sorin with the attachment that spreads his aura out to 3 spaces away, and Temporary Alliance for a squad of HK's that seems pretty good. Maybe drop the 2 elite probe droids for another squad of HK's and a regular officer for terminal duty.

So ... give it a try and see how it works.

So ... give it a try and see how it works.

That seems to be one thing about this game, is that there aren't as many people that play it as X-Wing or discuss strategy or lists, so there seems to be a bunch of good stuff that's worth trying that I haven't seen talked about. It gives you the incentive to try things out as there isn't really a Palp Aces for this game.

Like this?

Works OK for me, is at least worth considering

Rich

In that first video, you rerolled a regular probe droid attack at least once.

Also, you started your deployment on the right 1 extra square down. You can't deploy on the cross shaped tile.

One comment made it sound like you didn't realize you can move then interact so the speed penalty doesn't really matter on the turn you pick up the crate.

I liked how int he 2nd video you could see the deployment cards.

Cool videos. Thanks for posting.

You should get on Vassal if you want to playtest stuff. I try to be on most evenings from like 7-10PM PST.

Thanks DT, yea it was my first time using regular probe droids and I was using the rerolls from the Elite out of habit!

No excuse on the starting out of deployment zone, obviously still getting used to the new map, and we've figured out the I've action then intact and move since, much better!

I'll figure out what PST is compared to GMT and get back to you, I generally spend most evenings painting and play wed/sat but I think maybe our time zones may be an issue.

Up for doing it if we can work that out though

Rich

In my experience, for a succesful skirmish list you need to balance three areas: activation count (ie. chaff drops, to use a Warhammer term, that pad out activations and help with mission objectives), support and toolbox elements (the Officers, Gideons, Threepios, Blaise and the like) and punchy units (ie. units that deliver the most DPA - damage per activation).

Naturally, some units overlap these categories, venn diagram style. Officers are support pieces, but they're so cheap and so easy to fit in a list that they pull double duty as chaff. eSaboteurs pack a mean punch, but being the only piece in the game with access to both Stun and Blast, they're also a great toolbox unit. Blaise is a control and support piece, but he packs a three-die attack with reasonable surges, so can do respectable singe-target damage in a pinch. eStormtroopers are one of the best DPA punch units, but they're so numerous that they can pull objective duty occasionally. Etc.

In a typical list, I try to have 6+ activations, 3+ dedicated punch units, 2-3 support pieces and fill any spare points with chaff.

My gut tells me that 4 rProbes and 4rOfficers would be frontloading one of the three areas too much, leaving you no room to do sufficent punchy stuff. With 20pts spare most you can do is two eStormtrooper groups. I'd prefer to have a third dedicated punchy group over having 10 activations, which, as was already observed, offers diminishing returns at that point.

Hired Guns aren't exactly 'power dense' activations either but they're still good. If you need a power dense activation you can use one of your power pieces like focused Bossk or focused Greedo. Same with your 20 points for 8 activations bargain squad. Sometimes it's late in the game round and your opponent will be out of activations and you'll be free to use your less power dense units.

Some interesting considerations would be that Hired Guns are good, because Mercs doesn't have a better unit to fill that particular category, ie. Speed 5 unit that can grab objectives. That doesn't make them good in a fight, far from it in fact. It's also why you'll see diminishing returns when you take more than 1-2 Hired Gun drops - you sink too many points into a chaff unit.

Also, focused Bossk and focused Greedo are both pretty good DPA units, with two quite big BUTs.

1. A focused Bossk or focused Greedo is in fact two drops out of your list - the Bossk/Greedo piece and a support piece that makes them focused. They are therefore much less efficient than units that can deal good/comparable DPA without needing to get focused first.

2. In video game strategy, specifically MMOs from which the term "DPS" originates, there are two* kinds of DPS flavours: attacks that deal lower damage but in rapid succession, and big slow chunky attacks that do a similar amount of damage in one swing that takes roughly the same amount of time to execute. If given a choice and all things being equal, as a general rule you should always choose the 'many-small-packets-of-damage' option. This is because with many small attacks, you have more control over where the individual packets of damage go and there is less risk of 'spilling' overflowing damage. Consider an enemy Stormtrooper with 1 health left. You probably could shoot him with a focused Luke and kill him really, really dead, but that would be a suboptimal decision that's wasting the farmboy's potential, to put it mildly. OTOH, you can shoot him with one of your Troopers with a reasonable chance to off him, and then have the two other Troopers of the group gang up on another Stormtrooper, with a reasonable chance of fragging him even if he's full health. Also, for quite obvious reasons, the 'many-small-packets-of-damage' approach is even more beneficial in games that feauture a total-damage-packet-mitigation defence mechanic. You know, like IA's wite die dodge thing.

The many-packets-of-damage consideration is one of the chief, though not only, reasons that in Imperial Assault, 2- and 3-figure 'no-name' groups will 99% of the time be better for DPA than equivalent cost uniques (barring of course any exotic abilities that wreck the basic attack math, the easiest example to visualise being the Bantha).

*in fact there's three, but there are not Damage-over-Time effects in IA yet, so let's skip that.

In my experience, for a succesful skirmish list you need to balance three areas: activation count (ie. chaff drops, to use a Warhammer term, that pad out activations and help with mission objectives), support and toolbox elements (the Officers, Gideons, Threepios, Blaise and the like) and punchy units (ie. units that deliver the most DPA - damage per activation).

This basically

I used the following list on a recent tournament and some training games:

4 Probes

2 eProbes

Sorin + Advanced Com

eOfficer

Officer

Rule by Fear

This list has some strenghts, other Imperial lists don't have (a lot of Mobility, Focus and Stun). But it also has some weaknesses, only an experienced player can manage (positioning, only 6 attackers, no multifigure activations, low overall health, ...).

Also, for quite obvious reasons, the 'many-small-packets-of-damage' approach is even more beneficial in games that feauture a total-damage-packet-mitigation defence mechanic. You know, like IA's wite die dodge thing.

The many-packets-of-damage consideration is one of the chief, though not only, reasons that in Imperial Assault, 2- and 3-figure 'no-name' groups will 99% of the time be better for DPA than equivalent cost uniques (barring of course any exotic abilities that wreck the basic attack math, the easiest example to visualise being the Bantha).

I think the many-packets-of-damage strategy is currently favored because of the popularity of low-health black die figures and high-health white-die figures. The high-health white die figures, as you said, are much easier to take down with many small amounts of damage, because it's so risky to commit a lot to an attack against them, but the white die on average won't do much vs a small attack. And the low-health black die figures, while more resistant to small amounts of damage over time, are so weak that committing a lot to kill them results in overkill. So if high-health, black die figures (which, coincidentally, are the ones that do a lot of damage in one attack - go figure) became more popular, then more powerful single attacks might too.

Of course, you also have to consider objectives: the Diagona, with its automatic +3 block and VP granted for the amount of damage you deal in each attack, is probably going to favor units that can deal a lot of damage in one hit (as a group of many small attacks are going to be punished by that high innate block value).

In my experience, for a succesful skirmish list you need to balance three areas: activation count (ie. chaff drops, to use a Warhammer term, that pad out activations and help with mission objectives), support and toolbox elements (the Officers, Gideons, Threepios, Blaise and the like) and punchy units (ie. units that deliver the most DPA - damage per activation).

Naturally, some units overlap these categories, venn diagram style. Officers are support pieces, but they're so cheap and so easy to fit in a list that they pull double duty as chaff. eSaboteurs pack a mean punch, but being the only piece in the game with access to both Stun and Blast, they're also a great toolbox unit. Blaise is a control and support piece, but he packs a three-die attack with reasonable surges, so can do respectable singe-target damage in a pinch. eStormtroopers are one of the best DPA punch units, but they're so numerous that they can pull objective duty occasionally. Etc.

In a typical list, I try to have 6+ activations, 3+ dedicated punch units, 2-3 support pieces and fill any spare points with chaff.

My gut tells me that 4 rProbes and 4rOfficers would be frontloading one of the three areas too much, leaving you no room to do sufficent punchy stuff. With 20pts spare most you can do is two eStormtrooper groups. I'd prefer to have a third dedicated punchy group over having 10 activations, which, as was already observed, offers diminishing returns at that point.

Hired Guns aren't exactly 'power dense' activations either but they're still good. If you need a power dense activation you can use one of your power pieces like focused Bossk or focused Greedo. Same with your 20 points for 8 activations bargain squad. Sometimes it's late in the game round and your opponent will be out of activations and you'll be free to use your less power dense units.

Some interesting considerations would be that Hired Guns are good, because Mercs doesn't have a better unit to fill that particular category, ie. Speed 5 unit that can grab objectives. That doesn't make them good in a fight, far from it in fact. It's also why you'll see diminishing returns when you take more than 1-2 Hired Gun drops - you sink too many points into a chaff unit.

Also, focused Bossk and focused Greedo are both pretty good DPA units, with two quite big BUTs.

1. A focused Bossk or focused Greedo is in fact two drops out of your list - the Bossk/Greedo piece and a support piece that makes them focused. They are therefore much less efficient than units that can deal good/comparable DPA without needing to get focused first.

2. In video game strategy, specifically MMOs from which the term "DPS" originates, there are two* kinds of DPS flavours: attacks that deal lower damage but in rapid succession, and big slow chunky attacks that do a similar amount of damage in one swing that takes roughly the same amount of time to execute. If given a choice and all things being equal, as a general rule you should always choose the 'many-small-packets-of-damage' option. This is because with many small attacks, you have more control over where the individual packets of damage go and there is less risk of 'spilling' overflowing damage. Consider an enemy Stormtrooper with 1 health left. You probably could shoot him with a focused Luke and kill him really, really dead, but that would be a suboptimal decision that's wasting the farmboy's potential, to put it mildly. OTOH, you can shoot him with one of your Troopers with a reasonable chance to off him, and then have the two other Troopers of the group gang up on another Stormtrooper, with a reasonable chance of fragging him even if he's full health. Also, for quite obvious reasons, the 'many-small-packets-of-damage' approach is even more beneficial in games that feauture a total-damage-packet-mitigation defence mechanic. You know, like IA's wite die dodge thing.

The many-packets-of-damage consideration is one of the chief, though not only, reasons that in Imperial Assault, 2- and 3-figure 'no-name' groups will 99% of the time be better for DPA than equivalent cost uniques (barring of course any exotic abilities that wreck the basic attack math, the easiest example to visualise being the Bantha).

*in fact there's three, but there are not Damage-over-Time effects in IA yet, so let's skip that.

Wouldn't 4 officers and 4 probe droids be good at the many packets thing though?

Wouldn't 4 officers and 4 probe droids be good at the many packets thing though?

3 Stormtroopers have more attacks than 2 Probe Droids. Also, you need to move them one at a time, so the opponent can also move their groups or important figures away or block your line of sight when your first move indicates your intentions. Or they concentrate on your non-activated units, trying to wipe them out before they can activate.

Also, regular Probe Droids don't have rerolls, Stormtroopers have Squad Training, which makes their attacks more consistent.

Well, try it and report and change our minds.

4x Stormtrooper

4x Officer

1x Snowtrooper

The problem is, that they often die on one shot.

In my experience, for a succesful skirmish list you need to balance three areas: activation count (ie. chaff drops, to use a Warhammer term, that pad out activations and help with mission objectives), support and toolbox elements (the Officers, Gideons, Threepios, Blaise and the like) and punchy units (ie. units that deliver the most DPA - damage per activation).

Naturally, some units overlap these categories, venn diagram style. Officers are support pieces, but they're so cheap and so easy to fit in a list that they pull double duty as chaff. eSaboteurs pack a mean punch, but being the only piece in the game with access to both Stun and Blast, they're also a great toolbox unit. Blaise is a control and support piece, but he packs a three-die attack with reasonable surges, so can do respectable singe-target damage in a pinch. eStormtroopers are one of the best DPA punch units, but they're so numerous that they can pull objective duty occasionally. Etc.

In a typical list, I try to have 6+ activations, 3+ dedicated punch units, 2-3 support pieces and fill any spare points with chaff.

My gut tells me that 4 rProbes and 4rOfficers would be frontloading one of the three areas too much, leaving you no room to do sufficent punchy stuff. With 20pts spare most you can do is two eStormtrooper groups. I'd prefer to have a third dedicated punchy group over having 10 activations, which, as was already observed, offers diminishing returns at that point.

Hired Guns aren't exactly 'power dense' activations either but they're still good. If you need a power dense activation you can use one of your power pieces like focused Bossk or focused Greedo. Same with your 20 points for 8 activations bargain squad. Sometimes it's late in the game round and your opponent will be out of activations and you'll be free to use your less power dense units.

Some interesting considerations would be that Hired Guns are good, because Mercs doesn't have a better unit to fill that particular category, ie. Speed 5 unit that can grab objectives. That doesn't make them good in a fight, far from it in fact. It's also why you'll see diminishing returns when you take more than 1-2 Hired Gun drops - you sink too many points into a chaff unit.

Also, focused Bossk and focused Greedo are both pretty good DPA units, with two quite big BUTs.

1. A focused Bossk or focused Greedo is in fact two drops out of your list - the Bossk/Greedo piece and a support piece that makes them focused. They are therefore much less efficient than units that can deal good/comparable DPA without needing to get focused first.

2. In video game strategy, specifically MMOs from which the term "DPS" originates, there are two* kinds of DPS flavours: attacks that deal lower damage but in rapid succession, and big slow chunky attacks that do a similar amount of damage in one swing that takes roughly the same amount of time to execute. If given a choice and all things being equal, as a general rule you should always choose the 'many-small-packets-of-damage' option. This is because with many small attacks, you have more control over where the individual packets of damage go and there is less risk of 'spilling' overflowing damage. Consider an enemy Stormtrooper with 1 health left. You probably could shoot him with a focused Luke and kill him really, really dead, but that would be a suboptimal decision that's wasting the farmboy's potential, to put it mildly. OTOH, you can shoot him with one of your Troopers with a reasonable chance to off him, and then have the two other Troopers of the group gang up on another Stormtrooper, with a reasonable chance of fragging him even if he's full health. Also, for quite obvious reasons, the 'many-small-packets-of-damage' approach is even more beneficial in games that feauture a total-damage-packet-mitigation defence mechanic. You know, like IA's wite die dodge thing.

The many-packets-of-damage consideration is one of the chief, though not only, reasons that in Imperial Assault, 2- and 3-figure 'no-name' groups will 99% of the time be better for DPA than equivalent cost uniques (barring of course any exotic abilities that wreck the basic attack math, the easiest example to visualise being the Bantha).

*in fact there's three, but there are not Damage-over-Time effects in IA yet, so let's skip that.

Wouldn't 4 officers and 4 probe droids be good at the many packets thing though?

No, because they deliver their weak packets of damage one at a time. We're coming around to the beginning of the conversation. Just like video games consider DPS - Damage Per Second, you need to consider DPA - Damage Per Activation in Imperial Assault. Four Officers cost 8pts, a group of eStormtroopers costs 9pts, let's for the sake of argument call them roughly equal value for a second here. While it's true that four Officers will deliver four attacks compared to the Stormtrooper's three, they need a grand total of four activations to do so, compared to Stormtroopers who can unload all their damage potential in just one activation. This means that the Officers deliver damage over three times slower than the troopers (and Troopers have a stronger attack anyway, but that's beside the current point).

The goal of doing damage to opposing figures in IA (and in any confrontational strategy game for that matter) isn't only to score points. You also deal damage as a defensive measure. To put it simply, a large chunk of strategy in war games boil down to "shoot them dead before they can shoot you". In order to do that, you need to apply the maximal amount of force in the minimal amount of time towards either the pieces that are most vulnerable or the most dangerous (and preferably pieces that are both, we're touching on Target Priority 101 here too). In IA, this boils down to the crucial mid-game period, usually early second round, when you start engaging each other's pieces. When that happens, you want to pounce on as many of your opponent's guys as possible and take them out before they fight back.

Let's walk through a situation that illustrates the point. It'll be very rough and very simplified, bear with me. Consider four officers fighting three troopers, and for the sake of argument let's imagine they are fighting in a vacuum with no other pieces on the board. It's the second round and the little plastic dudes are poised to engage after first round manouvering. The officer player (let's call him James) has initiative (we'll give him that since technically he's one point short, imagine he got Devious Scheme). He can activate ONE of his officers and shoot one of his opponent's (let's call her Judy) troopers. At best, he'll do just over half damage to the poor grunt. Then Judy gets to go and activate THREE of her troopers and shoot James' officers. Each trooper attack has a reasonable chance to off a 3HP officer, but to make things interesting and even out James' point handicap let's say two of them die and one of them dodges or the grunt fluffs his roll and Judy chides the poor sod. It is now James' go and all he can do is activate his only remaining officer and shoot the wounded trooper. Let's say the officer is lucky (maybe he finally figured out to shoot his blaster and not his finger) and offs the buckethead. It's now 2 officers vs. 2 troopers. Next round, it's Judy's go first and she activates both of her troopers. She now stands a reasonable chance to frag both officers and win the match, but even if she fluffs her rolls and gets just one, the single remaining officer doesn't have enough bullets in his finger to shoot a trooper dead. Judy wins, and it's not just because girls rule and boys drool. It's because Judy's pieces, while outclassed in the total amount of 'damage packets' present on the field, could deliver their damage faster. They had higher DPA on account of being a single multi-figure drop.

People on the boards here post up different considerations for list building when talking 'strategery'. The thing to understand is that there is no single consideration or point that's more important than all of the the others. If DerBaer or anybody else says that a lot of activation is good, that doesn't mean that filling your 40pt list to the brim with 2pt drops is automatically better than doing anything else. If I say multiple figure groups are good for DPA, that doesn't mean that taking four elite trooper groups and nothing else is automatically better than doing anything else. If Fancy McFancypants tells you that high speed figures are good for mission objectives, that still doesn't make six groups of Hired Guns a good idea. Yet those are still all valid points that you have to balance when making a skirmish list, 'balance' being the operative word. Put too much on one end and you might end up with something that just keels over.

Then again, if you feel like experimenting, go for it. Tried and true opinions may be tried and true, but if everyone always listens to them with no exception, things stagnate. Part of the march of progress is experimenting with the boundaries and seeing how many crazy angles you can bend stuff into before they break. And that's true with everything in life, not just pushing plastic dolls around make-believe battlefields. There's always a chance that all of us wiseguys missed something, no matter how many of those glass trophies we keep on our mantelpieces.

True - but you don't take officers to shoot things themselves; that's not where their value comes from. You take them to give you more options on your turn, and to enable other units that, by themselves, are too slow (in terms of movement and activation efficiency).

I was testing this out a bit with myself on Vassal.

When you have this many activations, you can actually get some pretty interesting behavior on round 2.

If you can force the opponent to spend their "good" activations killing your "bad" activations (especially if you can use them first), you can effectively get 3 or 4 activations after your opponent has used all of his "good" activations.

Granted, it doesn't always work like that, but it is something interesting to think about.

Too often, lists like this just give up points earlier and more often.

First of all: You can pass if your opponent has more active deployment cards than you.

So you can stuff around with 4 officers all you like, but you'll always be doing that before I commit any of my stronger units.
Unless you want to strike hard and finish something off, it's generally best to save your strongest units till last.

Secondly (and I mean this with complete respect) you need to play the game some more.
After 3-4 games you'll start to answer all these questions yourself. Play some games with regular stormtroopers, regular probe droids or 4 officers.

You'll very quickly start to see why a more balanced list is more useful.

There's certainly niche situations where any crazy list will perform well. Anything is possible. But if you're going for a competitive, all-comers list then you need to consider more than just model count or activation count.

There's no doubt that officers are great. You'll rarely see an imperial list without them. Just like you'll rarely see a rebels list without Gideon. They are very handy and cheap. Same with hired guns. But that doesn't automatically mean that 20 points worth of the cheap units is any good.