Considering how many imperial officers there are in the four Civil War-era films (not to mention how many show up on Rebels), it's remarkable that so few have been made for Imperial Assault.

Is there a reason for this? I only recently starting purchasing IA stuff, but it's remarkable to me how few unique imperials there are. Why doesn't every box set include a character like Veers, Piett, Daala, or Tagge? Wouldn't that be a lot more fun for imperial players than just constantly reusing the generic imperial officers from the core set? In addition to getting new unique heroes with each box set, the Rebels have gotten a ton of their canon uniques (Luke, Luke 2, Han, Leia, Chewie, the droids, etc., etc.) as expansion packs, but the Empire really just has Vader in terms of the film, and precious few others even with characters created just for IA.

I find this a little curious.

I'm hopeful someday to get someone like Governor Pryce or Daala so we get a female imperial officer mini, but I'm not hopeful given the track record so far.

The problem is, a lot of these officers are high ranking officials who wouldn't be likely to be "boots wet", especially because a lot of them are in the Imperial Navy anyway.

It's easy enough to argue that Jabba doesn't really fit either, and maybe even Vader- but the thing is, they are both iconic and don't really have any stand ins that would work for them. The game already has Imp Officers in the core set, so there really isn't a huge need for them.

The Imperial unique Officers that we do get (Weiss, Somos, Sorin, Blaise, and Terro) are more combat centric than someone like Tagge or Piett. Both Weiss and Sorin are sort of a Veers type with a focus on being in the fight, while Kayn, Blaise, and Terro are stormtrooper commanders.

I'm not saying I wouldn't want Tagge, Veers, Piet, etc... just that I think the way officers are being handled right now is probably better for this particular game. It's kind of the same reason that we're getting Hera instead of Mon Mothma.

I understand the point that we wouldn't necessarily see Piett or Ozzel running around with stormtroopers to stop someone from hacking a terminal, but I don't quite get why we got Weiss and Sorin (both generals) instead of Veers (who is involved in actual ground combat in the films). Of course, a Veers mini would probably look identical to Sorin, so I don't know how much that really matters.

My broader point was more that I don't understand why the Empire doesn't get more uniques given how many imperial characters there are to draw from that are essentially ignored. I would think that skirmish players might want more variety in their imperial armies than just hordes of stormtrooper variants, and I personally would much rather be getting imperial officer variants than weird droids as an imperial expansion pack.

It's just disappointing and a bit boring to always be painting stormtroopers for the Empire.

30 minutes ago, jscott991 said:

I understand the point that we wouldn't necessarily see Piett or Ozzel running around with stormtroopers to stop someone from hacking a terminal, but I don't quite get why we got Weiss and Sorin (both generals) instead of Veers (who is involved in actual ground combat in the films). Of course, a Veers mini would probably look identical to Sorin, so I don't know how much that really matters.

Yeah, Veers could've made sense- but I think having the non-canon uniques allows us to have villains in the campaign that aren't restricted by canon, while still allowing for more iconic villains like Jabba, Boba, and Vader on the side

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My broader point was more that I don't understand why the Empire doesn't get more uniques given how many imperial characters there are to draw from that are essentially ignored. I would think that skirmish players might want more variety in their imperial armies than just hordes of stormtrooper variants, and I personally would much rather be getting imperial officer variants than weird droids as an imperial expansion pack.

It's just disappointing and a bit boring to always be painting stormtroopers for the Empire.

Yeah, I get that. But honestly, we'd just be tired of painting officers if that's all we got. Differentiating between Tagge and Piett minis would eventually become much more difficult than between Kayn and Blaise- and we wouldn't get the more interesting models like Terro and Weiss.

Because quite frankly, there are just so many ways you can do 'officer in a uniform commanding the troops' thing in a game expansion before it gets stale. In fact, I applaud FFG for being able to do fun, fresh and unique with all the unique imperial officer guys thus far - there's two flavours of a mechanized division commander, a lead-from-the-front stormtrooper dude, a sneaky military intelligence officer (I'm still unsure how sneaky that HMG is but oh well) and a cavalry officer.

I consider that much more fun and creative than having the same 'posh British gentleman in a uniform' miniature concept recycled for every expansion with slightly different 'commandey' abilities.

Well, except that we've gotten hardly any "posh British gentlemen in a uniform" minis.

That's what the Empire is in the films, Rebels, etc. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't do other things, but it's remarkable how few of the actual iconic Empire characters we've gotten. When you see the Empire in the films and in Rebels, it's a bunch of officers and troopers. We're getting the troopers (boy are we getting troopers) but they basically have ignored the officers. I find it weird because of how many canon Rebel uniques we've gotten (and are constantly getting).

To me, as a major fan of the Empire, I feel as though the imperial faction in IA has been a little neglected in terms of its characters. We've almost filled out Jabba's entire palace crew, whereas we have essentially one film imperial (Vader). Would it really be so awful to get some imperial officers in different poses (without a hat for example; or arms behind their back, like Sorin but without the armor)? That would make the imperials look a little more, well, Imperial.

If they ever do Rogue One, I guess we'll eventually get Krennic, ridiculous cape and all. But I suppose that's still something that looks imperial.

@jscott991 I'm with you. And it doesn't matter to me personally if Veers, Piet or whomever wasn't getting down and dirty in the films. Having a high ranking officer like that appeals to me despite not being highly film or "canon" accurate. I would suggest that Agent Kallus would be a good contender for a new officer, especially now, considering we're getting Hera and Chopper.

Just please FFG, DO NOT introduce Palpatine into IA. He's too powerful in X-wing and I wouldn't want a character like that to unbalance this game either.

To be fair, the Empire also has more minis in general. I don't think it's fair to say that they're "neglected, by any means. Just that they don't have these specific characters.

I always thought it was because the Rebellion and the Mercenaries are made up of named heroes and the Empire is comprised of the Emperor's faceless minions/hordes. To that extent, I thought FFG has handled that pretty dang well. We weren't battling TK-422, 423, 424.... we were battling Elite Stormtroopers, Heavy Stormtroopers, and now Jet Troopers. Why doesn't the Empire have names on the IA board aside from Vader? Because if you watch those movies, there are exactly Two Imperials with names that actually have boots on the ground, Vader and Veers. And Veers.... well, how are you going to put Veers out without opening your inbox to a flood of "Where's the AT-AT?" emails?

Jokes aside, the Empire is full of faceless minions who are more known by their job description than their name, and I think IA delivers this perfectly.

Those faceless minions are commanded by somebody in the source material though. The Empire in IA doesn't look much like the Empire in Rebels or Rogue One, for example. It's just a bunch of troopers . . . and Vader.

20 minutes ago, jscott991 said:

Those faceless minions are commanded by somebody in the source material though. The Empire in IA doesn't look much like the Empire in Rebels or Rogue One, for example. It's just a bunch of troopers . . . and Vader.

I guess you could name your officers. Toby seems like a good name.

I think the main trouble is that there's not a whole lot to distinguish one officer from another to a casual fan. Which one was Veers and which one was Tagge? 99.9% of people who have seen the movies probably don't even know those names, let alone what any characteristics of them are - they're basically just interchangeable British guys with hats. As a result, building figures based on them is probably not going to be a big draw for a lot of people - for most, their role is already filled by the generic officer (or by one of Weisse, Sorin, etc.)

Contrast that to the rebel uniques who are in the game, who are mostly main movie characters. Even the mercenary faction has more recognition - sure the casual viewer probably can't name Bossk or the Gamorrean guards, but they'll likely remember seeing "that lizard-man bounty hunter Vader was talking to" or "those pig-guys at Jabba's". The other advantage these figures have going for them is that they're distinct - it's easier to come up with different abilities for IG-88 vs Bossk than it is for Veers vs Piet.

None of this means that I don't like the idea of having them added, though, and they very well could be at some later time once they've run through the more visually distinct characters. But I can see why FFG might not have them at the top of the priority list.

I think most Star Wars fans are familiar with at least a few more imperials than just Vader.

And no one who watches Rebels doesn't know the names of at least a couple of imperial characters. It's not all just Vader and a bunch of guys in white.

1 minute ago, jscott991 said:

I think most Star Wars fans are familiar with at least a few more imperials than just Vader.

And no one who watches Rebels doesn't know the names of at least a couple of imperial characters. It's not all just Vader and a bunch of guys in white.

In the original trilogy, though, it pretty much is. Vader, Tarkin, the Emporer - to me those are the three that stand out. Add Bobo Fett and Jabba to the list for the mercenary faction. On the rebel side you've got Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Lando, Obi-Wan and the droids.

I think that outside of those characters most casual star wars fans would be hard pressed to name any of the other characters in the movie. Sure you could make a figure out of a Veers (or something like a Crix Madine on the rebel side) but they're just not going to have the same mass appeal.

You also have to remember the model that these releases typically get. If we're getting Veers, Tagge, Piett, and Jejerood, then we're looking at 4 packs running at least roughly 10 bucks a pop.

That's tough to do. I'd buy a Tagge or a Motti, sure. But I think that in general, they'd be a pretty hard sell.

I just think it's easier to sell ISB agent Blaise, Dewback Rider Terro, and giant freaking modified walker Weiss. To be honest, I think Sorin and Kayn are almost too vanilla in flavor, kinda surprised even they sold.

2 hours ago, Force Majeure said:

@jscott991 I'm with you. And it doesn't matter to me personally if Veers, Piet or whomever wasn't getting down and dirty in the films. Having a high ranking officer like that appeals to me despite not being highly film or "canon" accurate. I would suggest that Agent Kallus would be a good contender for a new officer, especially now, considering we're getting Hera and Chopper.

Just please FFG, DO NOT introduce Palpatine into IA. He's too powerful in X-wing and I wouldn't want a character like that to unbalance this game either.

I think Palpatine is a must along with Yoda but for different reasons.

Palpatine I see as more of a bad guy in the next mini campaign where you steal his lightsaber, hence why he doesn't use one in ROTJ

If you're worried about power, that can be rectified with a campaign and toned down skirmish version.

Yoda I see more just for skirmish, kind of like Obi-Wan. I'd probably have 2 minis and 2 deployment cards though. One for the campaign (force ghost version) and one for skirmish ( lightsaber wielding bada$$).

At first I wasn't too impressed with any of the officer figures. Haven't bought Weiss or Sorin (and probably won't as I just use a proxy) but I did get Blaise, Somos, and Terro as their packs also contain some great goodies. This is also mainly because I originally bought for campaign and now find myself playing skirmish just as much.

Who knows what the future holds though!?

Goodness, my argument became a straw man really fast.

I'm not saying we should get EVERY unique imperial officer. But maybe we could get a few (or, heck, even one film imperial).

Anyway, I'm surprised so many argued against getting iconic imperials. I would be shocked beyond belief if an expansion pack labeled "General Veers" didn't sell better than a "General Sorin" (cards and stats being equal, of course). Or if an Admiral Piett didn't sell better than "Agent Blaise." Etc., etc.

At this point, I'd settle for one decent mold of an imperial officer other than the three clones in the Core Box. And if that one could NOT have a cape, I'd be even more appreciative.

18 minutes ago, Quigman said:

I think Palpatine is a must along with Yoda but for different reasons.

See, here's where I get hypocritical. I know that I've argued against specific Imperial Officers because, in part, they wouldn't find themselves in these types of situations. And I stand by that. But I also agree that Palpatine and Yoda are likely, for better or for worse, to appear, probably in Wave 10.

Why? Because they're too iconic to not. Now, we can say that Piett and Motti are also iconic, and as big fans of the series I think we'd all mostly agree on that. But open that up to more casual fans, and you're likely to get funny looks for even dropping a relatively well known name like Veers pretty often. But Yoda and the Emperor? We're kidding ourselves if we think that the disposable gents in officer's garb are more iconic than them.

21 minutes ago, jscott991 said:

Goodness, my argument became a straw man really fast.

I'm not saying we should get EVERY unique imperial officer. But maybe we could get a few (or, heck, even one film imperial).

Anyway, I'm surprised so many argued against getting iconic imperials. I would be shocked beyond belief if an expansion pack labeled "General Veers" didn't sell better than a "General Sorin" (cards and stats being equal, of course). Or if an Admiral Piett didn't sell better than "Agent Blaise." Etc., etc.

At this point, I'd settle for one decent mold of an imperial officer other than the three clones in the Core Box. And if that one could NOT have a cape, I'd be even more appreciative.

Hey, no need to take offense. Like I said, I'd buy them. I just don't see them as all that likely.

Just curious, what are your thoughts on Agent Kallus? Because, honestly, if we get any more canon officers, I'd bet that he's top of the list.

First off, I think you've got to consider how the game works. Rebels get lots of unique characters because that's how the Campaign is set up. Unique Imperials don't work very well for that. The reason we get 'boss' generics is to fit the campaign structure without impacting the movies etc. It's not really fair to compare the two sides, or even Scum which gets used a bit differently in campaign. Also, for a similar reason, complaining about 000/BT is kind of silly. The wave is clearly designed to improve the Droid keyword in Skirmish, so each faction gets something for that. Saying you'd prefer an Officer (Or anything else that's not Droid related) is irrelevant because that's not the point of the wave.

Anyway, I don't think we need any of the 'unique' movie Imperials. None of them really look combat capable in a Skirmish game, with most of them being from the Imperial Navy. It's a similar reason to why I don't want to see pilot characters 'just because'. I don't need a Tarkin mini just because it's Tarkin. But if we get Rogue One content, super sign me up for some Krennic action. I've not watched Rebels, but if there are some more 'hands on' types in that, I'd be happy to see them.

Having said that, I do agree that having more generic Officers would be a nice change from yet another Stormtrooper variant. I think the real issue is making them mechanically distinct - how do you represent them providing battlefield command without being a do over of the original officers?

1 hour ago, subtrendy said:

Just curious, what are your thoughts on Agent Kallus? Because, honestly, if we get any more canon officers, I'd bet that he's top of the list.

I don't really like his outfit or his weapon, but I wouldn't mind seeing him.

Obviously the show has taken him in a very odd direction.

39 minutes ago, Abyss said:

Having said that, I do agree that having more generic Officers would be a nice change from yet another Stormtrooper variant. I think the real issue is making them mechanically distinct - how do you represent them providing battlefield command without being a do over of the original officers?

Ooh, now that's an interesting idea. Maybe a scum officer variant- EV droids, Twi'lek majordomos, or something- that can order units to attack or interact, but not move. That's probably a discussion for a different thread, though.

2 minutes ago, jscott991 said:

I don't really like his outfit or his weapon, but I wouldn't mind seeing him.

Obviously the show has taken him in a very odd direction.

Ooh, don't tell me! I'm still pretty behind.

On 2/24/2017 at 11:24 AM, jscott991 said:

Considering how many imperial officers there are in the four Civil War-era films (not to mention how many show up on Rebels), it's remarkable that so few have been made for Imperial Assault.

Is there a reason for this? I only recently starting purchasing IA stuff, but it's remarkable to me how few unique imperials there are. Why doesn't every box set include a character like Veers, Piett, Daala, or Tagge? Wouldn't that be a lot more fun for imperial players than just constantly reusing the generic imperial officers from the core set? In addition to getting new unique heroes with each box set, the Rebels have gotten a ton of their canon uniques (Luke, Luke 2, Han, Leia, Chewie, the droids, etc., etc.) as expansion packs, but the Empire really just has Vader in terms of the film, and precious few others even with characters created just for IA.

I find this a little curious.

I'm hopeful someday to get someone like Governor Pryce or Daala so we get a female imperial officer mini, but I'm not hopeful given the track record so far.

Piett and Tagge are not squad level commanders. It's like playing Axis and Allies and saying "Where is Goebbels and Himmler? "

7 minutes ago, Rikalonius said:

Piett and Tagge are not squad level commanders. It's like playing Axis and Allies and saying "Where is Goebbels and Himmler? "

But Generals Sorin and Weiss are?

Princess Leia is?

Piett and Tagge. As mentioned earlier are imperial navy officers. That's why they feature in xwing and armarda. Sorin and Weiss were on the battlefield leading troopers or walkers.

13 hours ago, jscott991 said:

But Generals Sorin and Weiss are?

Princess Leia is?

Princess Leia is obviously a very active Rebel agent, so not exactly odd for her to show up in some missions...