You know, before this was released, I as well as others were in awe of the rancor, after playing against it, and then playing with it finally, I'd say it might be over-priced a little bit. I'm actually concerned about anything with black dice.

The Rancor is very underwhelming. I found it difficult to get in range of more than one figure (it's like everyone instinctively stays away from them) to use Brutality, and in most cases where I would want to use Brutality, I needed the extra defense die from Trained and didn't have it. Being a melee figure is a huge disadvantage since you have to put yourself in harm's way to deal damage, and you end up getting less attacks over the course of the game.

After playing melee-heavy lists for over a year, these new models seem to only reinforce the fact that melee is in a sorry state (unless you're a certain Jedi Knight). Which is really sad.

My thoughts with the Rancor include a slight re-write of "Trained" that removes all the start of round declaration nonsense. Let the Rancor roll two black defense dice all the time and Trained becomes:

"If you Interact during your activation, lose Brutality until the end of round. If you use Brutality during your activation, you may not Interact until the start of the next round."

On 2/10/2017 at 7:31 AM, Fizz said:

The Rancor is very underwhelming. I found it difficult to get in range of more than one figure (it's like everyone instinctively stays away from them) to use Brutality, and in most cases where I would want to use Brutality, I needed the extra defense die from Trained and didn't have it. Being a melee figure is a huge disadvantage since you have to put yourself in harm's way to deal damage, and you end up getting less attacks over the course of the game.

After playing melee-heavy lists for over a year, these new models seem to only reinforce the fact that melee is in a sorry state (unless you're a certain Jedi Knight). Which is really sad.

My thoughts with the Rancor include a slight re-write of "Trained" that removes all the start of round declaration nonsense. Let the Rancor roll two black defense dice all the time and Trained becomes:

"If you Interact during your activation, lose Brutality until the end of round. If you use Brutality during your activation, you may not Interact until the start of the next round."

My two cents - or should I say my two black defense dice - regarding the Rancor:

I haven't found it too much of a problem to find targets for Brutality. Between its size, Reach, Massive, and its extra movement from Beast Tamer (which I feel is an essential accompaniment), the Rancor can cover a pretty big range with its attacks.

Yeah it would be nice to have both the double black dice and Brutality, but I'm happy enough with the choice you have to make each turn. Sometimes I've Trained him and the second die hasn't been much use anyway. But I've been playing him with the approach that he will die, so I try to do as much carnage as possible in the meantime, and he presents an immediate threat that your opponent has to deal with, which can buy your other good units valuable time.