2 minutes ago, Rikalonius said:

System shock is quite clever, but what in the heck, and I've watched Rebels, does Chopper have that rates a pierce 2? Also, I can see where this would rub players the wrong way. The fix to IG88 removes his recovery, but Chopper is given Recovery 2 and more pierce than IG-88? It makes me question the designers a bit, but we'll only know from play testing.

I love system shock I'm thinking single purpose end of a round - you only thought you were drawing an extra command card!

On the recovery and pierce topic. I don't think it's so much flavor as balance. Pierce 2 isn't as strong as plus 2 damage. Iggy has the stronger. Then recover 2 on chopper is recover on a 5 health figure. We've seen this on e wing guards and plenty of people wrote it off as so what, not that great. How often can we really get off a recover on a 5 health character - that has recover and your opponent knows it so they go for the kill confirmed?

So, I think chopper will be well balanced. I feel he is the dark (or shadowy) to R2's light R2 buffs you on a terminal. Chopper punks your opponent. R2 is a pain to kill. Chopper can heal if he's lucky. Chopper can deal some damage but will die easier. R2 can be annoying (but focused R2 is interesting when all the other good focus people are gone, lol been there).

Last week I ordered IG-88 when he finally came back in stock, just cause I wanted a mini of such a cool character.

Very happy that he might actually be competitive too!

Especially since the only time his token was ever played in one of our games, I one-shotted him with Royal Guard Champion, Element of Surprise and Wild Attack :|

6 hours ago, Masterchiefspiff said:

Tomkat, I get the frustration with the terms. I really do. Maybe this will help?

If we imagine that all core set and wave 1 and 2 uniques didn't exist (except Gideon 3P0/R2 and Luke - maybe RGC he's kinda fringe). Then we have Hoth and bespin and jabba stuff. Would Chopper be blatantly better (without some positives and negatives) compared to other stuff? Or BT-1? Or an imaginary first release of IG-88 that is 15 health, 5 speed, inherent block 1, surge for plus 2 damage, surge for pierce 1. Gets an auto focus on his two die (of his choice) assault attacks (rather than having a three die attack and being able to be focused on top of that). With relentless for strain when he attacks (multiple times in a turn). And has son of skywalker but you take two damage to do it. He's arguably right around being a Jedi luke. (Edit- I forgot to include having an auto two movement points)

I don't know what we'd all think of the skirmish half of this game if that thought experiment were real. But I do think it helps get to the point that the designers are trying to put out new stuff that follows a power curve they intend. And yes, a lot of old stuff is crap compared to that curve. But it's being fixed not sent to the junk heap to rot forever - that would be power creep vs bringing things in line with the desired power curve (as much as humanly possible in an ever expanding game). I know I can't even begin to imagine the complexity of trying to balance all these figures but I really like what they're doing and how they keep getting better at it.

I can totally get on board with your statement. I'm not arguing against fixing the old stuff, but if they are designing things along a "power curve", then I think that is the essence of what people are complaining about. Those who use "power creep" in what is viewed as an inappropriate fashion are really complaining about getting less utility (regardless of how little utility existed originally) from older figures as they get more and more obsolete. If we can all agree that this IS happening, and if we all support the concept of FIXING the older figures, then I think we are all fighting the same fight. Getting bogged down on the difference between a "power curve" and a "power creep" is somewhat pointless, IMO.

6 hours ago, Masterchiefspiff said:

Jeez, this new system is strange. Just leaves your post up there and doesn't show that it was posted. Just asking for double posts.

6 hours ago, Masterchiefspiff said:

Or triple posts.....

7 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

System shock is quite clever, but what in the heck, and I've watched Rebels, does Chopper have that rates a pierce 2? Also, I can see where this would rub players the wrong way. The fix to IG88 removes his recovery, but Chopper is given Recovery 2 and more pierce than IG-88? It makes me question the designers a bit, but we'll only know from play testing.

I'm not a fan of things like Ugnaughts being tougher than armored storm troopers etc. They are completely ignoring the universe for things like this and just basing stuff off points. We could have gotten a 20 point Chopper with 30 health for instance.

They made a common mistake of limiting their design space when they made the game. Making an elite soldier like a Storm Trooper 2 points doesn't give them a whole lot of room to work with to put weaker units in. So now we have armored soldiers with heavy military weapons on the same footing as rent a cops in sailor suits and mechanics with a wrench.

14 hours ago, buckero0 said:

Saska gets lots of jokes thrown her way, unfortunately, she often is defeated by bombs blowing up in her face.

I still fail to see how this is a fix on IGGy, it looks at best a lateral move, but really limits his movement and still leaves you with an overpriced, easily defeated figure that doesn't hit much harder and loses a surge ability. Hopefully, they are still figuring "fixes" out, so poor Dengar and Boba Fett get the good fix and we actually want to play them.

I'm confused as to what you are reading....

15 Health with a built in block for survivability.

On the attack he rolls Red, Red, Green and adds a Strain...Twice

He Surges for +2 Damage, +1 Pierce, and he has an inherent +2 Accuracy.

He can easily do 14 Damage and 2 Strains each activation at Range 3.

On top of that, he has 2 free movement to get into position to fire his volleys.

Oh, and he can work with Sorin and throw Red, Green, Yellow three times a round.

Basically, I shouldn't post things after a full day's work, my mind took a system shock from CHOpper

I thought after hearing the Covenant Interview that the focus only happened once, and I thought you gave up movement points for the extra attack.

I still question whether 15 health behind a black die is worth it over Recover, like he said in the interview, it removes the chance part of recover or being in a bad activation spot if you've already spent your activation, you're basically a sitting duck. Overdrive and IG's command card are still bleh though. I guess we'll see. I just feel the amount of hard-hitting stuff makes most 12 pt figures obsolete to a certain degree. I'm still worried about Dengar and Boba Fett (more so the Fett, as he's 13/40 pts and will still have a hard time doing enough to justify his cost)

36 minutes ago, Daner0023 said:

Oh, and he can work with Sorin and throw Red, Green, Yellow three times a round.

No he can not work with Sorin as IG's skirmish upgrade is merc only.

16 hours ago, tomkat364 said:

I'm having a hard time figuring out why I would take Gaarkhan over Chopper, but I know I DON'T wanna call this power creep, because that would obviously be incorrect usage of the term.

Gaarkhan sucked when he was brand new. There has never been a meta where Gaarkhan mattered. Chopper might be power creep, but don't use Gaarkhan as your measuring stick. That's like a Magic player saying Grayscaled Gharial was powercreep because it's better than Fugitive Wizard.

1 hour ago, Union said:

I'm not a fan of things like Ugnaughts being tougher than armored storm troopers etc. They are completely ignoring the universe for things like this and just basing stuff off points. We could have gotten a 20 point Chopper with 30 health for instance.

They made a common mistake of limiting their design space when they made the game. Making an elite soldier like a Storm Trooper 2 points doesn't give them a whole lot of room to work with to put weaker units in. So now we have armored soldiers with heavy military weapons on the same footing as rent a cops in sailor suits and mechanics with a wrench.

I agree with you. It is one of the problems of IP based games. Does a Jawa belong on the battlefield? Probably not anymore than a patron in the Anchorhead Cantina scenerio. But plastic figures sell. One problem is, due to years and years of memes, and Rebels, Stormtroopers are looked at as about as deadly as Keystone cops.

45 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Basically, I shouldn't post things after a full day's work, my mind took a system shock from CHOpper

I thought after hearing the Covenant Interview that the focus only happened once, and I thought you gave up movement points for the extra attack.

I still question whether 15 health behind a black die is worth it over Recover, like he said in the interview, it removes the chance part of recover or being in a bad activation spot if you've already spent your activation, you're basically a sitting duck. Overdrive and IG's command card are still bleh though. I guess we'll see. I just feel the amount of hard-hitting stuff makes most 12 pt figures obsolete to a certain degree. I'm still worried about Dengar and Boba Fett (more so the Fett, as he's 13/40 pts and will still have a hard time doing enough to justify his cost)

One thing to keep in mind with Iggy is that he has a built in block as well, that is pretty significant. How many figures in the game have that?

This is in the IG-88 forum, but figured I'd post this here too, this is a version of IG-88 with the new skirmish card information added to it.

17 minutes ago, Leveton said:

Gaarkhan sucked when he was brand new. There has never been a meta where Gaarkhan mattered. Chopper might be power creep, but don't use Gaarkhan as your measuring stick. That's like a Magic player saying Grayscaled Gharial was powercreep because it's better than Fugitive Wizard.

Would you say that Gaarkhan is even LESS useful now than he was when the core box was the only source of figures? This focus on the meta, which includes very few lists which are considered to be the creme de la creme, is like saying you cannot make the statement that "cars have gotten a lot better in the past 30 years" by comparing the 2016 Honda Civic to the 1986 Gremlin, because the Gremlin was never a particularly good car. It existed, people drove it. It may have sucked then, but it sucks more now. Right?

19 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

This is in the IG-88 forum, but figured I'd post this here too, this is a version of IG-88 with the new skirmish card information added to it.

Love it. So let me get this straight. He gets focus on both attacks (if he chooses to attack twice) per turn. Or just one focus per turn?

13 minutes ago, Rikalonius said:

Love it. So let me get this straight. He gets focus on both attacks (if he chooses to attack twice) per turn. Or just one focus per turn?

I just quoted it from the card, but I believe that he gets focused for each attack, so he will always be throwing three dice per attack. Which means that if you are close and choose two reds he could easily dish out twenty damage per activation.

Good catch. I wonder if IG88 is worth taking over the HK now. His shot is better against white dice (90% of the time you're going to be double red now when in range) his health is better but he's still 50% of the cost of regular HKs and can only be in one place at a time.

eJawa 3

eJawa 3

BT-1 6

R2D2 3

C3PO 2

Chopper 3

MHD 5

HK 8

eProbe 5

Explosive armaments 1

Devious Scheme

I wonder if MHD will be able to heal enough to be useful, if not you could sub another HK unit or eProbe if you want to keep your armaments. This still looks more powerful with HK and something else than Ig88 though

or something like this

eJawa 3

eJawa 3

BT-1 6

R2D2 3

C3PO 2

Chopper 3

HK 8

HK 8

0-0-0 4 whatever he does

1 hour ago, FrogTrigger said:

One thing to keep in mind with Iggy is that he has a built in block as well, that is pretty significant. How many figures in the game have that?

I know this is good vs trooper shots and small fries, I don't think it holds up against the new lot of unique figures though. Mercs don't have Zillo Technique to mitigate pierce 1,2,3 or whatever. I think this is basically the same health as a year ago (before Bespin) when basically he lived through 3 attacks. Jedi Luke, Bossk, Capt Terro and most newer stuff or Jedi will take him to task. He'll average 2.5ish blocks but against anything with Pierce 2, he's going to take some pretty serious damage. It seems we have way more beat-stick figures in the game than a year ago.

20 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

I just quoted it from the card, but I believe that he gets focused for each attack, so he will always be throwing three dice per attack. Which means that if you are close and choose two reds he could easily dish out twenty damage per activation.

That's the way I misread it before. Animewarsdude is right, like BT-1 when he "declares" an attack, so using Assault - he would declare 2 seperate attacks. Basically getting a free green die for each attack, but not benefiting from being focused by 3PO according to the designers.

BTW how do you redo the cards like that? is there a template or did you make up a font to adjust that? It looks really smooth. I'd love to HouseRule print some of my cards for Han, Chewie, Saska, Vader, Biv, etc or just make my own figures (who doesn't want Kyle Katarn or Jan vs. some Reborn Imperials or Swamptroopers. We just got some more swamp tiles from Jabba's realm, so the Swamptroopers would fit right in.

7 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

BTW how do you redo the cards like that? is there a template or did you make up a font to adjust that? It looks really smooth. I'd love to HouseRule print some of my cards for Han, Chewie, Saska, Vader, Biv, etc or just make my own figures (who doesn't want Kyle Katarn or Jan vs. some Reborn Imperials or Swamptroopers. We just got some more swamp tiles from Jabba's realm, so the Swamptroopers would fit right in.

There is a template out there someplace. When I make a card I built a Photoshop template for the lines, but then I use power point for the text. His IG-88 is particularly good.

18 hours ago, KnightHammer said:

UPDATED RULES FOR

Jawa Elite - (3 points) Leader, Smuggler , 5 health, 4 speed, white def, 2 yellow attack

+2 acc, surge for + 2 damage, surge for pierce 2, surge for +2 acc

Surge (bargain, roll 1 green die and for each hit result gain 1 victory point)

Take Cover (same as basic Jawa)

If your army affiliation is Mercenary, you can add three Droid Groups to your army FROM ANY OTHER FACTION!!

I'm super excited (probably more than I should be) about the Jawa figure. I think you have to spend a VP to gamble for more VP with Bargain. It should read spend 1VP to roll a Green die, gain VP = to the amount of Damage on the Green die, so 16.7% of wasting a VP, 33.3% of no loss of VP, 50% of gaining a VP.

Getting him in position to hit is going to be a challenge, like R2 likes to miss his shot a lot. White dice will eat his surges as well as several figures that evade for free (like Luke, Obiwan, Leia, etc.

The combined card should also say "Cannot have Skirmish Attachments with this version".

43 minutes ago, Rikalonius said:

There is a template out there someplace. When I make a card I built a Photoshop template for the lines, but then I use power point for the text. His IG-88 is particularly good.

I just used the card files online, put them in a cheap photo shop and messed with it a little. FFG uses the Agency font for a number of their Star Wars games for the bold words while they use Times New Roman for the rest of the text more often then not.

1 hour ago, tomkat364 said:

Would you say that Gaarkhan is even LESS useful now than he was when the core box was the only source of figures? This focus on the meta, which includes very few lists which are considered to be the creme de la creme, is like saying you cannot make the statement that "cars have gotten a lot better in the past 30 years" by comparing the 2016 Honda Civic to the 1986 Gremlin, because the Gremlin was never a particularly good car. It existed, people drove it. It may have sucked then, but it sucks more now. Right?

I get your argument, but the problem is that no one drove this Gremlin to start with. Ghaarkhan was rolled out of the factory, but he was only a nice heap of plastic that everyone ignored from the beginning.

Regardless, this is an argument that can keep us spinning without going anywhere, so it's probably best to let it drop. Loving the discussion of IG-88 and the new figures!

-ryanjamal

3 hours ago, tomkat364 said:

I can totally get on board with your statement. I'm not arguing against fixing the old stuff, but if they are designing things along a "power curve", then I think that is the essence of what people are complaining about. Those who use "power creep" in what is viewed as an inappropriate fashion are really complaining about getting less utility (regardless of how little utility existed originally) from older figures as they get more and more obsolete. If we can all agree that this IS happening, and if we all support the concept of FIXING the older figures, then I think we are all fighting the same fight. Getting bogged down on the difference between a "power curve" and a "power creep" is somewhat pointless, IMO.

The thing is: "power creep" implies to me, and I think most people, that the problem is with the new figures rather than the old which is rather counterproductive.

2 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

I agree with you. It is one of the problems of IP based games. Does a Jawa belong on the battlefield? Probably not anymore than a patron in the Anchorhead Cantina scenerio. But plastic figures sell. One problem is, due to years and years of memes, and Rebels, Stormtroopers are looked at as about as deadly as Keystone cops.

A lot of the mercs feel weird in certain scenarios, so I do get what you mean. Why are wampas helping the Empire? Why are Ugnaughts fighting alongside rank and file units?

Of course, the term "merc" pretty much answers this question. These units are local troops hired to fight alongside the Empire. So no, it's not as if the Jawas are fighting rank and file with the Stormtroopers, but rather that they're offering support to the Empire- and though we mainly just see Jawas on Tatooine, they do travel, so it's possible we'd see them elsewhere.

Regarding stormtroopers- I really don't think that they're terrible units in the game. They're pretty equal with Rebel troopers, and the Elite versions are downright dangerous. Also, with certain decks (especially Military Might) stormtroopers become a truly terrifying force to be reckoned with. They're clearly not the strongest Imperial unit, but they're solid, and they come in numbers.