Why So Few Unique Imperial Officers?

By jscott991, in Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Tagge is not a naval officer.

This is a pretty circular argument in a lot of ways. :)

More unique imperials would be great. Uniques that happen to be new sculpts of imperial officers would be even better to me. And I seriously doubt that a General Tagge, General Veers, or Admiral Piett figure would sell less than a General Sorin.

I want to see Emporer Palpatine, Darth Maul, Count Dooku, Agent Kallas, General Grevious, Kylo Ren & many others before I'd like to see a bunch more Imperial Officers.

Besides, Terro is amazing!

A bunch more?

We haven't gotten a single canon officer. :)

I don't think it's fair to bring Leia into this, considering in the franchise she's often already on the front lines anyway...

A more apt comparison would be Mon Mothma. Should she be in this game, as well?

Edited by subtrendy
26 minutes ago, subtrendy said:

I don't think it's fair to bring Leia into this, considering in the franchise she's often already on the front lines anyway...

A more apt comparison would be Mon Mothma. Should she be in this game, as well?

Mon Mothma's comp is quite obviously the Emperor.

We can all argue back and forth forever about how this example and that example isn't appropriate (I'm astonished that people think Gens. Sorin and Weiss make perfect sense, but it's ludicrous to imagine Gens. Tagge and Veers in the game). It doesn't seem to accomplish much.

They should make more canon imperials and they should make some more imperial officer molds (I don't really care, I guess, whether they have canon names or not) because that's what the Empire is: officers and troopers. They've stocked Jabba's goons to the brim, but completely ignored iconic imperials.

Regardless of what people have strangely argued here, if they did put out canon minis, I'm absolutely confident people would buy them (assuming the stats are reasonable) at just as fast of a rate as they buy Weiss, Sorin, and Blaise.

Edited by jscott991
21 minutes ago, jscott991 said:

Ragardless of what people have strangely argued here, if they did put out canon minis, I'm absolutely confident people would buy them (assuming the stats are reasonable) at just as fast of a rate as they buy Weiss, Sorin, and Blaise.

I don't want to belabour the topic, as I completely get why you'd want more officers and I don't have any problem with it at all. I'd buy them! :P

But I think the only reason that we've got Weiss, Sorin and Blaise as opposed to any already existing officers is for story purposes in the campaign. With any of these guys you can reasonably end a winning campaign by killing/capturing them and you've given yourself a nice little end to that story arc. With any of the canon guys, though, it wouldn't make sense for that to happen (since they've got to be back on the bridge of a star destroyer in time for the next movie).

Just like it was easier to write a campaign with newly created rebels than it would be to try to shoehorn in Han and Luke, it's easier to write a campaign story with newly created imperial villains.

... and easier to get LFL/Disney approval for the story arc.

11 minutes ago, ManateeX said:

I don't want to belabour the topic, as I completely get why you'd want more officers and I don't have any problem with it at all. I'd buy them! :P

But I think the only reason that we've got Weiss, Sorin and Blaise as opposed to any already existing officers is for story purposes in the campaign. With any of these guys you can reasonably end a winning campaign by killing/capturing them and you've given yourself a nice little end to that story arc. With any of the canon guys, though, it wouldn't make sense for that to happen (since they've got to be back on the bridge of a star destroyer in time for the next movie).

Just like it was easier to write a campaign with newly created rebels than it would be to try to shoehorn in Han and Luke, it's easier to write a campaign story with newly created imperial villains.

*Spoilers*

Killing sure, but there are other ways to defeat a character. One of the finale missions in the core box up against Vader for example.

All it takes is a few lines of text to explain what happens and the Emperor/Vader/villain isn't killed off but merely defeated.

Most of what is designed and presented is due to its inclusion in the campaign solely. Listen to the interviews with designers. Everything revolves around the campaign experience. Is it useful for campaign? if not, then you won't see it. " We need a figure that does this . . . Let's make a Weequay then, someone that can shoot well and would be seen around Jabba's court or on Tatooine, etc." Canon, named officers don't show up in the campaign missions.

Just now, Quigman said:

*Spoilers*

Killing sure, but there are other ways to defeat a character. One of the finale missions in the core box up against Vader for example.

All it takes is a few lines of text to explain what happens and the Emperor/Vader/villain isn't killed off but merely defeated.

That's true, but it's a bit of a lame way to end a story (or at least it is in my opinion). You go through 11 missions of campaign to finally confront and defeat the big bad you've been chasing the whole time, only to have it end with some throwaway line about how the general hits his secret trapdoor button or jumps in his rocket-powered ejector seat to escape? :P I think it's a lot more satisfying if you can actually wrap things up.

****Spoilers Below****

And yes they did do that with Vader, but that's a bit of a special case. For one, the campaign bad guy, Weiss, is killed by Vader when he shows up. Secondly, there's an inherent "cool factor" in having Darth Vader show up and go all "you've failed me for the last time" on an imperial general. It still feels like a nice conclusion to the story.

2 minutes ago, ManateeX said:

That's true, but it's a bit of a lame way to end a story (or at least it is in my opinion). You go through 11 missions of campaign to finally confront and defeat the big bad you've been chasing the whole time, only to have it end with some throwaway line about how the general hits his secret trapdoor button or jumps in his rocket-powered ejector seat to escape? :P I think it's a lot more satisfying if you can actually wrap things up.

I mean, that doesn't have to be the case. The villain could be captured, for instance.

Or, even if they do escape, their base or project could be destroyed. Just because an officer doesn't die doesn't mean the campaign can't be satisfying. I mean, hey, Batman comics are great too, but he almost never kills off his villains.

But yeah, seems we've gotten pretty far off topic by now.

id quite like Tarkin to show up in IA. There is a precident set for him to be involved in ground combat and space combat alike. Anyone who has read the book Star Wars: Tarkin will know this (a fantastic book by the way and I recommend everyone reads it or gets the audio book.)

I would like to see some additional Officer Villain packs. even if it's just a generic. I know we get the few from the core set, but sometimes I wish they would stop pointing at things. we could even have a couple of 0 point skirmish cards for altering the special ability, or something to create the illusion of a unique character.

Just a thought.

How's about thinking outside the box a little? What if a hypothetical Unique Villain Officer, like Tarkin for instance, simply had a Deployment Card, but not necessarily a figure? Effectively making him a Class Card, existing outside the actual combat zone (like sitting on his Destroyer), but still giving him some influence over the events. And then give him appropriate abilities to match, mirroring some of Jabba's?

Grand Moff Tarkin (Leader) (unique villain) (COST: 7?)

"[special action]; Each friendly figure gains 1 movement point."
"[special action]; Choose a space within 3 spaces of a [IMP SYMBOL] figure and roll a [color?] die. Each figure on or adjacent to that space suffers [damage] equal to the damage result, and [strain] equal to the surge result."
"[special action]; Remove a friendly figure from the map. You gain threat equal to the figure cost of that figure."

And maybe a "defeat trigger", like "If there are no [IMP SYMBOL] figures on the map, Tarkin is defeated." (because he can't send down his order to non-Imperials?)

Dumb idea?

Edited by GyldenDamgaard

not a terrible idea, I actually quite like it. I don't know if you want it to totally take over a game though. A 2pt attachment or skirmish upgrade card with a balanced cost-wise ability would be worthwhile though. Similar to Rebel High Command in ability, strength and game intrusion. (a 7pt card really dents your army build and the gameplay on the field in my opinion, I'd rather it had a less impressive mark on the actual game being played, so figures and points feel balanced)

Some examples: Black Market - 1pt has some nice benefits, but also some serious downside, a decision has to be made and can only be used once per round

Balance of the Force - 1pt but you effectively pad your Command Card deck with a 2-3 pts extra. Rebels are usually more Hero-centric so they need a little more punch in their command card deck

Edited by buckero0
5 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

not a terrible idea, I actually quite like it. I don't know if you want it to totally take over a game though. A 2pt attachment or skirmish upgrade card with a balanced cost-wise ability would be worthwhile though. Similar to Rebel High Command in ability, strength and game intrusion. (a 7pt card really dents your army build and the gameplay on the field in my opinion, I'd rather it had a less impressive mark on the actual game being played, so figures and points feel balanced)

Some examples: Black Market - 1pt has some nice benefits, but also some serious downside, a decision has to be made and can only be used once per round

Balance of the Force - 1pt but you effectively pad your Command Card deck with a 2-3 pts extra. Rebels are usually more Hero-centric so they need a little more punch in their command card deck

Ooh, I actually really like the idea of "Identity Attachments". Adds flavor and abilities.

We could get a whole group of officers as Uniques. Maybe add in Carnor Jax as an upgrade for ROGO. Bring in a specific Wookie or two, maybe even an HK-47 upgrade for the Assassin droids. Nothing that would have any potential in future releases, of course, but things that gamers still might want to see.

The best part is, they'd only affect skirmish, where people tend to care a lot less about continuity and canon.