So I was wondering what everyone else opinions/thoughts were about new Luke.
I know we've discussed him in the past when he was first teased, but I want to see what people think about him now that he's out in the wild.

As someone who has successfully used a lot of RGC in the past, I was very interested when I first saw his card.

Now that I've played a few games with him, I'm quickly leaning towards the "borderline broken" camp.

So we all know he can move 4 and attack twice. Or move 8 and attack once. Or move 4, open a door and attack once etc....
Super handy, super flexible.

He's pretty tough, 16 health, white dice, built in evade.
Pierce 3 completely negates a black dice. And he's always rolling plenty of surges. Built in +1dmg basically changed the Blue die to a Red die (it's actually better than that).

Deflect is pretty cool. He's going to be soaking at least 3-4 attacks so he's probably dealing 3-4 free damage back. Some smart Greedo-like positioning can also net you more benefit if you hide Luke behind other figures like Obi-wan. I've seen players very quickly adjust how they move their attacking units when I started to deflect free damage into back line support units like officers for example. It forces moving out of position to block line of sight for Luke.

But ultimately, it's not even really the card itself. What makes it super strong is the combo with Son of Skywalker and a few of the force user cards.

If you're holding Son of Skywalker, Take Initiative, Negation or some combination of that, you're pretty much guaranteed 3 activations of Luke, in a row. Which is 6 attacks (or 5 if you're going to run across half the map first).

His double attack thing is flat out better than brutality since he can attack the same target or move between attacks.

And as with the Bantha combo, there's very little that your opponent can do about it.
There might be some rare sneaky command cards that could stop him temporarily. There's discarding Son of Skywalker with Agent Blaise or countering it with Comm Disruption if you have 3 spy groups. But I think those are pretty specific cases.

Spreading out doesn't help much. Killing him early is unlikely. Much like the Bantha he can easily sit back and make a late turn rush which turns into butchering half the opponents team.

And that's all before we throw in a few other force user or brawler cards. Grisly Contest is another free 2 dmg as is Force Surge. Yes that's a sizable command card investment, but two nights ago I hit Vader for 12 damage in a single activation (2 attacks, force surge and grisly contest).

my biggest problem with all this is that the opponent get's no response. If you can still kill Luke after I've had my 2-3 activation killing half your list, then you might still have a chance..... and don't forget you're still having to deal with the rest of my list (which will usually include at least Obi-wan).

I'd love to hear what people think about this very difficult to counter Jedi Bantha combo.

I played some games against him a while ago since he's been spoiled since the initial announcement. Back then I found that you can do a few things to decrease his effectiveness.

1. Play Zillo to negate some of his Pierce effectiveness when useful
2. Attack him with Melee Characters to avoid the Deflection
3. Block his LoS to your (more vulnerable) figures when possible
4. Kite him to prevent him getting 2 (good) attacks
5. Ignore him and kill other stuff or do objectives to put yourself ahead on points
6. Don't depend on surges to do work against him (eg red die stuff is going to work better)
7. Hit him with non-attack damage as much as possible from the likes of Bantha/Greedo/Cleave/etc (I've killed Vader with just Bantha Damage, including Crush, so you can do it too Jedi Luke)
8. Don't shoot him with weak attacks like Officers as you could end up taking just as much as you damage him (1 damage)

Still, if your opponent gets to play Son of Skywalker on him, he's going to wreck face. That's an OP card that they probably wouldn't print today.

Perhaps it's also the current tournament maps. Landfill is fairly open with lots of difficult terrain but the other two maps are very tight, close quarters combat. It's near impossible to stay way from Luke's kill zone if you still want to contest objectives.

The doors allow you to get melee characters really close to the action without any risk.

I'm sure his effectiveness will go down on bigger more open maps. But even sacrificing one of his potential 6 attack to move 8 means he should be able to easily reach most enemies. He rips through stuff like Weequays, HKs and troopers.

Zillo is great of course but only works once (and I happened to be running 3 Jedi the other night and 2 eSabs so plenty of pierce to go around).

I dunno if you can really ignore him. I feel like a good player will punish you for that. He's not like Boba with a single weak attack. He's much faster than Vader. He's closest to the RGC really, but cheaper.

Here is another strategy, deploy Darth Vader and for two actions, turn Luke to the dark side of the force

I've run Jedi Luke a few times. Zillo. Zillo hurts him big. Rolling 3 dice unfocused, I've found that while he can roll 3 surges for 2 damage, and he can roll max hits for 7 damage, he's usually rolling 5 damage. What makes him so good is that he will Always get his Pierce 3, so if you can Zillo one of those on a good block, it's deflating.

Honestly though, he's super good. I've Son of Skywalkered into Pummel. The speed. Goodbye lists with figures under 5 health.

Also worth noting that, according to math by theaficionado, his 5+ damage potential against black die drops off a lot with Zillo discards and exhausting. If you can make him take two swings at a stormtrooper then that's pretty good for the Imperial side (based on a effectiveness-per-deployment-point perspective) and cross-trained troopers will be happy rolling white against him all day...

Chance of 5+ Damage

• Black Dice 59.26%
• Black Dice w/Zillo Discard 45.45%
• White Dice 44.83%
• White Dice w/Zillo Exhaust 44.83%
• Black Dice w/Zillo Exhaust 39.20%
• White Dice w/Zillo Discard 32.56%
• White Dice w/Zillo Discard and Exhaust 21.53%
• Black Dice w/Zillo Discard and Exhaust 13.74%

Again thanks to the aficionado who did all the original math here in his article linked above.

I think we all agree that Zillo is good. But not every list has that benefit.

How would a non Imperial list deal with him? Rebels and Mercs can't take Zillo.... some rebel lists can take 3 spies but that's not common. Mercs don't get spies at all.

He is surprisingly consistent. Usually does 5 dmg per an attack. Brawler cards are pretty good too.

I'm happy to leave stormtroopers on 1 health btw.... they'll die next time someone shoots and Luke due to deflect. I'd rather leave 2 troopers on 1 health each than use 2 attacks to finish off 1 trooper.

In any case, my biggest issue is the triple activation. Zillo can only really protect you from 1 or 2 of those potentially 6 attacks.
And no back line support character is safe either. I'll happily use 2 full activations to go hunt down Sorin to neuter a droid list, or some of the merc hard hitters like HK's Bossk, Shyla etc... I'd happily use two activations to completely rip apart a rancor as well.

I think we all agree that Zillo is good. But not every list has that benefit.

How would a non Imperial list deal with him? Rebels and Mercs can't take Zillo.... some rebel lists can take 3 spies but that's not common. Mercs don't get spies at all.

He is surprisingly consistent. Usually does 5 dmg per an attack. Brawler cards are pretty good too.

I'm happy to leave stormtroopers on 1 health btw.... they'll die next time someone shoots and Luke due to deflect. I'd rather leave 2 troopers on 1 health each than use 2 attacks to finish off 1 trooper.

In any case, my biggest issue is the triple activation. Zillo can only really protect you from 1 or 2 of those potentially 6 attacks.

And no back line support character is safe either. I'll happily use 2 full activations to go hunt down Sorin to neuter a droid list, or some of the merc hard hitters like HK's Bossk, Shyla etc... I'd happily use two activations to completely rip apart a rancor as well.

Well, if you're taking Luke up against Sorin, you gotta get through his troops. On Landfill, that means an awfully long hallway sometimes, or through some difficult terrain. Sorin actually got beefed up a little with Jet Troopers (eJet Troopers). I was going to start running Sorin myself since I love the HKs. Use Sorin's surge to Stun Luke. HKs forcing him to reroll Dodges and then landing Stuns on him will go a long way towards neutering him. Focused HKs (through Jabba, or through Sorin surges) can hit Luke from impressive range, and stun him. Now Luke can only run 4. If you're rolling 4 dice at him, and forcing that white die to stay off Dodge, it's not impossible to do 5, 5, and 6 points of damage, destroying the figure. (or 4, 4, 4, 4... whatever). Admittedly, it's not guaranteed, you gotta roll enough surges to get through his white die plus 1 evade, but it's possible.

It's true that Luke vs a Rancor in a vacuum will go to Luke. Hey, he's a whole 2 points more expensive. (casts woeful eye upon Vader). However, it's not guaranteed. Would suck to have him Beast Tamer up to Luke, hit Luke for 7, hit someone else for 4 and Cleave 2 onto Luke, and then Ferocity and get 7. Unlikely, but possible. That would ruin your whole day.

However, you're not wrong. Jedi Luke is ridiculous... and I suspect he will find his way to tournament champion lists in a very short time.

Shyla, eGamorreans, eEcho Base, eJet Trooper, Bantha, and Hunter/Smuggler command cards are all very strong against Luke. When playing against Luke, just as you would Vader, you have to decide how you want to deal with him from the start of the match. Once you start going after him, you have to finish it or you will have wasted too much effort trying to kill him while the rest of his list goes unfettered. Luke is particularly vulnerable to the red die, since his innate defense doesn't do much against it and the white die doesn't offer the blocks necessary to mitigate it's damage. Out of everything in the newest wave, I've found the eGamorreans to be the most deadly in dealing with Luke, since they can fairly consistently hit 5 damage without any surges. Obviously the X-man is a concern, but that doesn't set Jedi Luke apart from any other white die character. If your opponent plays carelessly with him, even with Son of Skywalker, Luke can get knocked out pretty easily. He takes a lot of finesse to do well, and the list has to be built to support him in some capacity (either by giving him dive buddies or ranged support to pick off whatever comes for him).

This thread makes me want to try a Luke/Obi/Bantha list...; )

Ironic that e gamorreans do well against him

What about focused hks?

Say between tools for the job, assassinate, element of surprise, heightened reflexes, tough luck, and primary target? Obviously not all together but even just having two of those at once and two (or one with primary target) focused hks goes a long way towards killing luke. Put a second set in or have gamorreans or both... could be fun

Luke is strong but not that strong. Focused fire, rerolls from HKs, hunter cards, element of surprise, and making Luke go extra distance are all strong against him if you play well.

his deflect probably should have had a range modifier, but he can be killed, that's what some of those new auto add-on damage are for, you're probably not going to get many surges through, but he can roll a blank now and then, and if you're rolling the damage sides of dice, it will start to add up. Grenadier and Indiscriminate Fire, Flamethrower, etc are also useful for this because they are not ranged attacks.

You can actually make this list:

Rancor

Bantha

Beast Tamer

Temp. Alliance

Luke Jedi Knight,

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Prolly bad, but weird

I feel like he could have been priced at 14 over 12, it does feel a little cheap for what you get. But as others have said, he does have counters. In addition to what was listed, stun is his enemy, stun hurts most units as it cuts their activation in half, but with Luke you are paying extra points to get that extra attack that is now being removed. One attack Luke is half as effective as two attack Luke. (as others have said he doesn't hit THAT hard for a 12 cost unit) Or he can still attack twice, but can't move out of range or into safety. I haven't done a ton of testing against it, but the limited I did it seemed like stun was pretty darn effective in bringing him in line with other units.

Send Dengar after Luke.

This is a good discussion!

I've played Jedi Luke in my 2 local Regionals (NJ and CT). I went 1-3 in NJ (worst performance ever!) and then 3-1 in CT (I went on to win my semi-final playoff game and lose in the finals).

I found that when I lost Luke in the first few rounds, I lost the game; when he survived the first few rounds, I won. In the end, it worked out as simple as that. Your results may vary, but that was what I found to be true in every case.

My semi-final game last weekend was against a skilled dual-Bantha player. After some nasty end-of-round Bantha squashing with Jundland Terror, and then beginning-of-round squashing again, Luke was down to 2 Health. Stampede would only do 1 damage, so my opponent had to attack for his second action. His attack dice were solid, and I knew I'd lose the game unless I rolled a Dodge. Dodge it was! Massive sigh of relief. Luke responded by heavily damaging the Bantha and then moving out of LOS where he could hide and force my opponent to chase him. Then Obiwan moved up there to soak up attacks too, and Luke ended up living long enough to move and kill some stuff the next round before finally being hunted down the round after that. But by that point he had done enough damage and absorbed enough damage himself, that I was able to squeak by with a win in the last round. Extremely close, and without that Dodge I would've been blown out.

Then in my final game (Dianoga) I was too aggressive with him: I moved him in for 2 attacks on the Dionaga, which resulted in Luke taking about 7-8 dmg from my opponent's figures at the end of that round, and a bit more to start the next round (would've been worse but I got a Dodge on one attack). Luke died shortly after that and I didn't have enough damage output to keep up with my opponent after that.

So in short, Crabhand is 101.7% right:

If your opponent plays carelessly with him, even with Son of Skywalker, Luke can get knocked out pretty easily. He takes a lot of finesse to do well, and the list has to be built to support him in some capacity (either by giving him dive buddies or ranged support to pick off whatever comes for him).

If you play carelessly using Jedi Luke, you will lose. That is almost guaranteed (especially if you are playing against a skilled opponent). Luke takes a lot of skill and good timing to use well.

After these games I was wondering if it would be wiser to NOT commit him to combat until you have Son of Skywalker in hand. Maybe that's too restrictive, but SoS is also your insurance that you'll either be able to either get him back to safety again, or else do enough damage before he dies. Regardless, 16 Health on a White die with a free Evade is NOT all that survivable. Luke will go down if you're not careful (and at least a little lucky).

One other thing to take notice of is that with this wave there are now a lot more heavy-damage command cards: Assassinate (+3 dmg), Tools for the Job (add a Red die), Heightened Reflexes (use AFTER rolling to remove a Dodge or ensure that a key attack is successful), Positioning Advantage (+1 dmg), Blood Feud (Jabba only: Luke takes 1 damage every time an attack is declared against him...regardless of Dodge results)...all of these things mean that the Health pool of a key figure no longer goes as far as it used to. It used to be that Vader would rarely die...but with these new command cards, you can bet that he will. The same goes for Luke. As an example, during one match of my NJ Regional my opponent had good rolls, strong command cards, and my defense rolls were weak...the result was that I lost both Obiwan and Luke before my first activation of Round 2. More than ever before, extra damage from command cards is now a huge factor that we need to take into account when estimating a figure's survivability in a given scenario.

Counters to Jedi Luke:

--HKs and Weequays: Yes, they are very strong counters because they force him to reroll a Dodge. But be careful, because they also usually die in just 1 attack from him (and he gets to make 2), so you need to be careful with them or you could lose the entire group in one activation.

--Harmful Conditions: Stun especially, but Bleed too, are powerful. Weaken is golden if you have the rest of the round to shoot at him, because it negates his free Evade (that is HUGE for troopers!). But really, if you have a whole round to shoot at him then he's probably dead anyway, so the conditions probably won't be too important. If it's an end-of-game situation with few units left on the board, then harmful conditions will be extremely valuable. In the beginning of the game, just pour the damage on and you'll be fine.

Blood Feud (Jabba only: Luke takes 1 damage every time an attack is declared against him...regardless of Dodge results)...

Thats not true - Blood feud adds to the attack results (and it specifically states when the attack is declared) and thus is cancelled when Luke rolls a dodge.

I'm trying pairing Luke with Gaarkhan, since they have similar mobility and attack threat. What I've found is that it creates a difficult choice for your opponent when they are paling around. Either they go for Luke, typically taking more attacks to get the kill and softening up targets for Gaarkhan, or they go go for Gaarkhan since he is easier to kill, giving Luke some breathing room. Going after Luke first and making sure not to put any damage on Gaarkhan is probably the way to go, since Gaarkhan doesn't have strong surges (but can remain focused throughout the game in a lot of circumstances), but proper positioning could force your opponent to play it wrong or hit Gaarkhan hard enough to trigger his command card. I've only played one game with this dive team, in a list that isn't really optimized to support it, but I found it to be a potent combo. I'll have to test it more to see if Gaarkhan is really worth the points, or if I can effectively use his card. Given the new scoring, it's possible he could slot more effectively than eEcho Base Troopers.

I've used the Beast Tamer with Rancor for triple move and Crush, then focused Ferocity (Thanks Jabba). Then, with initiative, pummeled with grisly contest and he was toast. That's not even mentioning the cleave damage the Rancor was pulling off on the poor Wookiees!

If anything is too strong, I'd say it's the Rancor with Beast Tamer combo. I mean, the Rancor can be trained, so shouldn't he already be tamed? Beast Tamer shouldn't work on him!

In defense of Jedi Luke, you pulled three of the best cards for the rancor in your starting hand, so that's hard to counter with any unit. If the other player had drawn Son of Skywalker and Take Initiative it might have been a different story.

-ryanjamal

I think a small errata would at least make Rebel players question Jedi Luke's inclusion:

Last of the Jedi: If you select Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight in a skirmish list you may not select any other deployments with the Force User keyword.

Jedi Luke is still scary, but will not be supported by other potent melee deployments like Davith and Obi-Wan. Also constructing the Command Deck has a more tactical element; weight it towards Force User cards to get the best out of Luke, or try to support the rest of your list. Most importantly it fits the cannon (any Star Wars fan selecting Jedi Luke and Obi-Wan should know better).

On 2/11/2017 at 6:31 AM, Alastairk said:

I think a small errata would at least make Rebel players question Jedi Luke's inclusion:

Last of the Jedi: If you select Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight in a skirmish list you may not select any other deployments with the Force User keyword.

Jedi Luke is still scary, but will not be supported by other potent melee deployments like Davith and Obi-Wan. Also constructing the Command Deck has a more tactical element; weight it towards Force User cards to get the best out of Luke, or try to support the rest of your list. Most importantly it fits the cannon (any Star Wars fan selecting Jedi Luke and Obi-Wan should know better).

Hmm, I don't think that's necessary, to be honest. There are a limited number of force users as is and while Jedi Luke synergizes well with some force users, there are arguably better choices.

Has anyone seen good use of eISB agents against Luke? They have deadly, and if well positioned you could get 3 attacks in an activation against him.