Team Covenant put out a video today talking with Imperial Assault designers. After they talk about some of the design choices in Jabba's Realm, we get clearer previews of some of the upcoming mini-wave, including a skirmish upgrade limited to IG-88 that appears intended as a straight-up fix. It comes up just before the 27-minute mark.

Focused on the Kill, 0-cost unique scum skirmish upgrade attachment

• IG-88 (Assassin Droid) only
• +5 Health
• At the start of your activation, gain 2 movement points. Before you declare an attack, you become focused.
• You lose "[surge]: Recover 3 [damage]." You gain "[surge]: Pierce 1."

Awesome!!!!!!!! Let the rebalancing commence!!!!!

-ryanjamal

This is a joyous day in the world of Imperial Assault skirmish!

I think my favorite part about that interview is listening to them talk about their favorite lists from worlds. They loved the guy who shows up with Boba in the warm up just running show using a wild out there list nobody saw coming. Then you get to the Worlds winning list and he is just like ya, you know, no surprises but a well chosen list. AKA it was the safe list, well thought out, but a very robotic safe list. You can tell from his reaction he much prefers the surprise crazy wow who would have thought that would work approach, which to me is good news for the game. I think we saw this already by them adjusting how points are scored and taking some power away from the Trooper lists.

The game seems to be in very good hands.

Side note, I get that Zach Bunn is the face of Covenant or the owner or whatever he is, but I can't help but feel this interview would have been wayyyy better with Vader's finest in control. Set the ego aside Zach let someone more qualified take the reins!

Edit: Wow Choppper looks cool, great support figure and maybe the anti-R2D2? 2 damage that can't be rolled against and a strain to make you either discard that next card or take the extra damage and he can do it to any terminal from any terminal. Then he can also attack or just knock you off of it. Can't wait to see the battle of the Droids at the terminals.

The IG-88 is a great buff, especially for the droid uprising that is coming with the new wave.

Confirmed the skirmish Jawa can gamble VP's with the surge ability same as the campaign can with threat. Also confirmed that they have the ability to bring in up to 3 droids from any other affiliation. That really opens up the door for droid lists in all 3 factions, well done. And as the designer said, you can run up to 2 elite Jawa's so you could technically bring up to 6 droids in.

Thanks for sharing, this was a great discussion video!

I’m a little disappointed IG-88’s fix is skirmish only, especially with the newly released Nemesis deck!

19 minutes ago, FrogTrigger said:

Side note, I get that Zach Bunn is the face of Covenant or the owner or whatever he is, but I can't help but feel this interview would have been wayyyy better with Vader's finest in control. Set the ego aside Zach let someone more qualified take the reins!

??? No, I disagree. I thought the video was excellent. Nothing against the Vader's Finest guys at all (I think I've listened to a couple of their podcasts and they do a good job). But I thought Zach is right on for this role as lead interview guy.

I agree 100% with the rest of what you said in your post, though.

Wow, I love how Iggy is going to work! Move, shoot with 6 dice, and move away.

I'm glad I already had my hands on an IG-88 promo card, because he's gonna start getting played now!

25 minutes ago, thereisnotry said:

??? No, I disagree. I thought the video was excellent. Nothing against the Vader's Finest guys at all (I think I've listened to a couple of their podcasts and they do a good job). But I thought Zach is right on for this role as lead interview guy.

I agree 100% with the rest of what you said in your post, though.

He says off the bat it is a post worlds interview, so I just thought maybe one of the guys who just finished top 4 and runs a podcast surrounding the game would have been better suited for interviews involving future content. But maybe that is an idea for them for a future show.

Terrible way to try and "fix" things. They should just release new cards, but instead lets complicate and bloat things more by adding more cards...

26 minutes ago, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

Terrible way to try and "fix" things. They should just release new cards, but instead lets complicate and bloat things more by adding more cards...

Yeah, I think a new deployment card would have probably been better, since this doesn't fix campaign Iggy, and seems kind of patchy in skirmish. But I guess, at least with this way, players can still use the original build if they want. Works pretty well with IG-88, as well, having multiple possible configurations.

I guess it would've been weird, too, to have a Jawa pack give players an unrelated deployment card. An unrelated command card is a little less weird.

They obviously don't consider IG-88 to be broken in the Campaign or they would have fixed him there as well. They see this as a straight up skirmish problem and adjusted it accordingly. I guess they could have released a pair of new cards one for campaign and one for skirmish, but then we still end up with the same amount of cards.

Further proof of this being that IG-88 is used in the Jabba's Realm campaign.

3 minutes ago, FrogTrigger said:

They obviously don't consider IG-88 to be broken in the Campaign or they would have fixed him there as well. They see this as a straight up skirmish problem and adjusted it accordingly. I guess they could have released a pair of new cards one for campaign and one for skirmish, but then we still end up with the same amount of cards.

Further proof of this being that IG-88 is used in the Jabba's Realm campaign.

Exactly: the strain that IG-88 causes is much more potent in Campaign than Skirmish.

Campaign pricing/costing is also much looser than Skirmish costs where 1-2 points can make a huge difference.

51 minutes ago, subtrendy said:

Yeah, I think a new deployment card would have probably been better, since this doesn't fix campaign Iggy, and seems kind of patchy in skirmish. But I guess, at least with this way, players can still use the original build if they want. Works pretty well with IG-88, as well, having multiple possible configurations.

I guess it would've been weird, too, to have a Jawa pack give players an unrelated deployment card. An unrelated command card is a little less weird.

They stated in the video that their reasoning for this was to lock him into Scum, which makes sense to me.

Regardless, the key here is that he's getting fixed. Hopefully that means that Chewie, Han, and Vader will get nerfed with the Endor wave.

-ryanjamal

I'm sorry if this has been covered, but how do you get the upgrade card for IG-88?

it comes in one of the new packs of figures (most likely Jawa Scavenger, maybe the BT-1 or 0-0-0)

I'm not sure this is a fix for Iggy though. 5 health is nice, but losing a surge ability is crippling. Especially the recover, I don't think Pierce 1 is going to make up for it, otherwise you'd see IG running with Prey On the Weak all the time. I know it's not favorable, but I'd have rather seen health boost and a -2 point cost upgrade for him. Leave the surges alone. I don't feel like he is any better than focused HKs which everyone always took over him because they were cheaper and more powerful. This almost "makes" his Arsenal attack double red dice, because why do you need more than one surge? I think adding the blue die would have been better.

I do think I'll be getting 4-5 jawas otherwise though. They are exactly what I was looking for. A big step up from the Ugnaut.

Should have just been a skirmish only deployment card just like other characters get two versions.

Locking him into scum only seems like a weird excuse. If the empire can ally in everything else why not him?

I like what they did with him tbh, but I wish that it wasn't an attachment as that locks out other attachments for him.

Probably in the Jawa Villain Pack

I too think he just needed a skirmish-only configuration. As does B-Fett. I hope he gets some love too.

4 hours ago, FrogTrigger said:

Further proof of this being that IG-88 is used in the Jabba's Realm campaign.

Fair point.

But I think it’s important to distinguish between a reserved group deployment vs. spending threat to deploy a group/figure.

Is IG-88 a worthy figure to face when he enters play due to a mission trigger? Sure.

Is it worth spending 12 threat to bring out IG-88? No.

Especially when you compare him to alternatives:

eStorm’s + probe

eTrando’s + officer

Repulsor tank + officer

Grand Inquisitor + probe

etc.

Let’s not forget how powerful the Rebel Heroes get later on in the campaign. They’re going to melt him like butter. He won’t even get a chance to use his surge ability to recover 3 damage.

Skirmish upgrades are needed because we have to have a single baseline cost for tournaments. But for campaign, if you're not happy with the threat cost to deploy IG-88, then it's your campaign: make some house-rules. You could reduce his cost or just assume he's deployed with this new attachment. There are several threads full of suggestions for reducing costs on this forum. It's your game, play it the way you want.

Making the IG upgrade skirmish only means you don't have to worry about balancing for all the different imperial player decks.

Making it scum only keeps from having to worry about balance with the empire stuff in skirmish - Sorin?

Could have been nice to get a "skirmish version" but the reality is we just got a direct upgrade to a previously not competitive deployment card. That bodes well for others being updated. Will they all take the same tack? Probably not. But I'm pretty confident the designers have shown they want to bring original deployment cards into their desired power curve.

We also have to remember if we make him cheaper he has a card almost exactly like son of skywalker. So he's not like focused HK's. And he has the health of three of them for the cost of three of them. He can shoot 2 times and a third with jabba. Two more with his command card. Overdrive would let him shoot one more time in a round if you wanted to take the damage. And I feel like a red red green with surge for +2 damage and surge for pierce 1 hits harder than blue blue yellow green with surge for 1 damage and surge for 1 pierce. Iggy also has inherent one block and relentless.

If I'm going to play iggy im going to likely bring in hks too. But I don't they're as strong as he is. Only thing I wish were different was that he could have another attachment. But maybe that's too op. I'd like to run targeting computer or prey on the weak with him.

Love the callout about the Boba/Ug warmup list. It was Boba Fett, 6 ugs, hired guns, prey on the weak on boba.

7 hours ago, FrogTrigger said:

They obviously don't consider IG-88 to be broken in the Campaign.

If that's the case then they're stupid. I play IG-88 as Imperials to intentionally lose. He's ridiculously bad.

This isn't a fix.

7 hours ago, ryanjamal said:

They stated in the video that their reasoning for this was to lock him into Scum, which makes sense to me.

Regardless, the key here is that he's getting fixed. Hopefully that means that Chewie, Han, and Vader will get nerfed with the Endor wave.

-ryanjamal

I know what you meant, but I still laughed so hard when I saw this, hahaha

This is a nice move. He'll definitely be worth trying out. It makes a lot of sense for IG-88 to get this kind of upgrade, as there is no reason to really print a new IG-88 (as with Luke). I could see Chewie and Han just get new versions and be done with that as they evolve during the story. I agree with others, that this really shows that they listen and care. Not just about pushing out new product.