My name is Colby Chappell and I've recently started a blog for Imperial Assault skirmish, hoping to fill the gap of written analysis that there seems to be. I've just finished the second of three faction analysis articles, having completed Scum and Rebels. I hope that you all will find it useful.
Great start! Congrats.
I noticed you didn't talk about the elite Sabs, elite Echo Base Troopers, or elite Tuskens, all of which are somewhat popular and (varying degrees of) good in Skirmish. Unless your discussion on the regular version was meant to cover this?
In general, the Elite Units are more aimed at Skirmish play than the regular versions, so it's well worth reviewing the Elites.
Great start! Congrats.
I noticed you didn't talk about the elite Sabs, elite Echo Base Troopers, or elite Tuskens, all of which are somewhat popular and (varying degrees of) good in Skirmish. Unless your discussion on the regular version was meant to cover this?
In general, the Elite Units are more aimed at Skirmish play than the regular versions, so it's well worth reviewing the Elites.
I chose to try to give a more general discussion of units, trying to cover both basics and elites when possible. Sometimes I had to cover both to make some point specific to the elites. I'll eventually go back and write articles on specific units, covering both versions, command cards, etc., but this was meant to be more of an overview.
You said hired guns weren't worth it but most scum top tier lists will have a unit to grab objectives and terminals.
Hey Colby, great work, we need more of this in our lives.
Slightly off topic question, I noticed you've done the thing where you limit the length of the post (page break?). As a blogging noob is there an easy way to do that? My blog posts tend to go on for ages...
You said hired guns weren't worth it but most scum top tier lists will have a unit to grab objectives and terminals.
The way I rated units doesn't represent specifically Hired Guns very well. They are bad at everything and good only for doing nothing. But they're very good at that. That doesn't make them a good unit, but a good option, if that makes sense.
Hey Colby, great work, we need more of this in our lives.
Slightly off topic question, I noticed you've done the thing where you limit the length of the post (page break?). As a blogging noob is there an easy way to do that? My blog posts tend to go on for ages...
Blogger (and other options, I assume) has a neat little page break option to make your main page look neat and tidy.
For four points. You get two models to run around grabbing terminals/objectives while your bantha/hk does the damage and you get cards and extra points. Last resort on them is always a good option.
I think he's using some other way or word choice for gauging the quality of the figure. He's got Dengar rated way too high as well and stuffs the tusken raiders out the door. ETuskens are fine, regular tuskens are garbage. But I'm with you dobby, I'm not sure exactly what criteria he's using as he hasn't stated it as of yet.
He doesn't rate the Ugnaught very high either and I'd wager that's one of the strongest builds out there at the moment.
Edited by buckero0I think he's using some other way or word choice for gauging the quality of the figure. He's got Dengar rated way too high as well and stuffs the tusken raiders out the door. ETuskens are fine, regular tuskens are garbage. But I'm with you dobby, I'm not sure exactly what criteria he's using as he hasn't stated it as of yet.
He doesn't rate the Ugnaught very high either and I'd wager that's one of the strongest builds out there at the moment.
I get what you're saying about the Ugnaught, but it's only good if you spam it. One or two Ugnaughts is arguably a waste of your points, unless you're just wanting to use it for terminal control and a tiny bit of harassment - i.e. similar to Hired Guns. So I don't have any problem with his assessment of Ugnaughts. You have to make an entire list built around them to make them worth playing. and we don't know if that's only worth playing because people aren't used to it. And as soon as Jabba comes out, bring on the Uggies, I'm gonna enjoy getting free VP's for that junk droid 
My biggest question mark was how the OP didn't really talk about the elite versions of a lot of the units. But that's been addressed so I'll leave it alone
All in all, I enjoy reading people's thoughts on units/skirmish and kudos to you Colby for putting it out there! Keep on writing and refining and adding to the conversation!
yeah, I don't have a problem with any of it. I think its all based on his experience which may be limited or skewed based on who he plays. I play against the same kinds of list because I play against the same small group of people routinely, except on Vassal where you theoretically have the whole world that can connect and play, there should be some variance in what you run up against.
I think he's using some other way or word choice for gauging the quality of the figure. He's got Dengar rated way too high as well and stuffs the tusken raiders out the door. ETuskens are fine, regular tuskens are garbage. But I'm with you dobby, I'm not sure exactly what criteria he's using as he hasn't stated it as of yet.
He doesn't rate the Ugnaught very high either and I'd wager that's one of the strongest builds out there at the moment.
The word choice is... meant to describe how good the unit is, I guess. It doesn't place any value on a unit that has no purpose but doing nothing (although that has its uses). Comparing it to, say, Jet Troopers, two Officers, or Gideon-C3PO, there's almost no merit to Hired Guns. They fill a role in Scum, but they aren't inherently good.
The criteria is my personal speculation. I've played around with most everything at least a little, but for the most part it's just how I feel about them looking at their card. Of course I've put some thought into it, but it's not the end-all-be-all of analysis. What is, though?
And everything on the blog is going to be my personal opinion. I'm not planning on becoming the word of god anytime soon, so there'll be plenty of time to discuss and debate. Which, honestly, is the reason I started the blog.
(Note to self: ponder Dengar some more)
Sounds like good criteria to me. The only thing I would say is that I evaluate units according to what is available. So I tend to dislike Davith a bit more because I think Lando is a better use of 6 points (to use an example from a recent thread). So, the benefit of hired guns should be evaluated (according to my criteria) against the backdrop of what else Skum has to offer. Claiming objectives is important in skirmish (why I like figures like the Alliance smuggler), and so if Skim doesn't have cheap units like officers for this role, that would make me like hired guns more.
Just my two cents. Thanks for starting the blog!
-ryanjamal