Playing JR as the Empire and the Rebels got Luke with their first side mission. He's totally dominated the campaign (along with Shyla, who seemingly can move across the board at will). Do folks think he's overpowered? The boardwars guys don't, which I find astonishing. They gave him a 2/5 for campaign.

Luke has a speed of 4. That's comparable to most heroes. But, he has heroic for two attacks in addition to his move. And it's a three die attack, as well. With built-in damage, pierce 3, and deflect, how is he not better than any ally in the game? He averages five damage per attack.

He's like a really good fifth hero on the board that attacks twice and suffers no strain for additional movement. Or, he moves 8 and attacks.

I hate him. I wish Vader had finished him off in Cloud City.

I can see him being extremely powerful in campaign, especially early on.

There actually isn't much for 12 points that could counter him.

rebels always have initiative and generally have activation advantage too, which should easily let him get two attacks a round off after the first one

Jedi Luke is definitely a powerful ally and in most cases, will offset his cost. However, it is mission dependent. For example, taking allies on a mission with an aggressive timer is usually not good, since it takes extra actions to deal with the extra units (tho with Luke's 3 actions, who knows).

I've found that Jabba's Realm is also pretty one sided to the Rebels, so that definitely doesn't help.

I agree, he feels almost like having another hero on the board. He was MASSIVELY destructive in our campaign with Murn and her -4 cost reducer and bonus Waylay attack. Without her though, I'm not sure I'd play him at 12 points. Even with her taking C3-P0 and getting free evades and focus and not giving the Imperials 8 points may sometimes be a better choice.

Considering how often I've seen people saying they want to play a 5th hero, I think he's not a bad way of doing it, and a good option for a weaker player like a young kid. 2 strong attacks and a move makes him feel pretty close to a hero without all the complexity.

7 hours ago, Union said:

Considering how often I've seen people saying they want to play a 5th hero, I think he's not a bad way of doing it, and a good option for a weaker player like a young kid. 2 strong attacks and a move makes him feel pretty close to a hero without all the complexity.

With the added bonus that he's a cool character from the movies! You're right, I think that would be a great way to include someone who likes Star Wars, but maybe won't be there for every game and doesn't want to deal with buying items and upgrades and stuff.

try stunning and bleeding him. That said, I love putting cloaking devices on eHK units, with their accuracy they can usually get into position to hammer him twice before he can get in range and then twice again, and with two defense dice they usually survive his attacks pretty well, and then you usually have an HK or an HK and a half afterwards to mess with the heroes. Their unit is 11 points iirc and he is 12, so you actually get one threat which can make a difference.

Also yeah he is definitely undercosted in my experience by about 4 or 5 points, or everything from wave 1 is unbalancingly, unplayably overcosted. FFG should include re-costed versions of the old figures within the next big box expansion. Because honestly If Luke is 12, Vader should be 12, and RGC and Chewie should be 10 or 11. If not for campaign then definitely for Skirmish. I mean what kind of Imperial player doesn't want to use Vader, but if you do, you're def going to disappoint the Emperor for sure.

2 hours ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

try stunning and bleeding him. That said, I love putting cloaking devices on eHK units, with their accuracy they can usually get into position to hammer him twice before he can get in range and then twice again, and with two defense dice they usually survive his attacks pretty well, and then you usually have an HK or an HK and a half afterwards to mess with the heroes. Their unit is 11 points iirc and he is 12, so you actually get one threat which can make a difference.

Also yeah he is definitely undercosted in my experience by about 4 or 5 points, or everything from wave 1 is unbalancingly, unplayably overcosted. FFG should include re-costed versions of the old figures within the next big box expansion. Because honestly If Luke is 12, Vader should be 12, and RGC and Chewie should be 10 or 11. If not for campaign then definitely for Skirmish. I mean what kind of Imperial player doesn't want to use Vader, but if you do, you're def going to disappoint the Emperor for sure.

Luke has a white dice, Vader has 2 black dice (more reliable defense) and a reroll on defense. Same health. Luke can do a point of damage each time he or an adjacent friendly figure are attacked, Vader can do 3 on his activation (Luke's is much more situational). They both have 2 attacks, though Vader needs to be against a second figure. But Vader is rolling red red yellow vs Luke's Blue Green Yellow. They both have pierce 3. So maybe 18 is a bit much, but Vader should definitely cost more than Luke. The Royal Guard Champion is faster, is rolling a white black, a red green yellow attack, and has the possibility of doing 3 attacks a round. So he's also worth more.

I think in terms of abilities, the figure costs feel right to me. I think the issue is more that you can do much better with 18 threat than Vader, for example, several squads of troopers for a lot more activations, than sticking everything in one basket. In order to re-cost them, they would have to make completely new cards with new abilities and reduce what they can do, to bring them more in line with the other figures.

3 hours ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

Also yeah he is definitely undercosted in my experience by about 4 or 5 points, or everything from wave 1 is unbalancingly, unplayably overcosted. FFG should include re-costed versions of the old figures within the next big box expansion. Because honestly If Luke is 12, Vader should be 12, and RGC and Chewie should be 10 or 11. If not for campaign then definitely for Skirmish. I mean what kind of Imperial player doesn't want to use Vader, but if you do, you're def going to disappoint the Emperor for sure.

or...you know you can nerf Jedi Luke. The issue I see with him in campaign (and in tournament skirmish) is the double attack = potentially 4 attacks if you activate him last + you get initiative next round, potentially 6 attacks(!!) if you also have SoS, AND opponent can't react to it unless you play steal initiative or something

My idea (not playtested): remove "Heroic", done. His auto+1 dmg AND deflect 1dmg to anyone in LOS is already good enough. This way (as your opponent) I'm usually expecting 2 attacks rather than...say 4 or 6

23 hours ago, neosmagus said:

Luke has a white dice, Vader has 2 black dice (more reliable defense) and a reroll on defense. Same health. Luke can do a point of damage each time he or an adjacent friendly figure are attacked, Vader can do 3 on his activation (Luke's is much more situational). They both have 2 attacks, though Vader needs to be against a second figure. But Vader is rolling red red yellow vs Luke's Blue Green Yellow. They both have pierce 3. So maybe 18 is a bit much, but Vader should definitely cost more than Luke. The Royal Guard Champion is faster, is rolling a white black, a red green yellow attack, and has the possibility of doing 3 attacks a round. So he's also worth more.

I think in terms of abilities, the figure costs feel right to me. I think the issue is more that you can do much better with 18 threat than Vader, for example, several squads of troopers for a lot more activations, than sticking everything in one basket. In order to re-cost them, they would have to make completely new cards with new abilities and reduce what they can do, to bring them more in line with the other figures.

This sounds an awful lot like people defending the earliest armies released in an edition of warhammer compared to the armies released towards the end of an edition. Or someone trying to defend the oldschool Man O' War fleets that were released in the beginning towards the ones at the end. You're listing off their abilities in comparison, trying to provide equivalency. Compare their performance instead of their cards, that's how the Royal Guards and Sabs got errata. Look we all know power creep is a problem in just about every game (especially the ones like this one), it's almost what fuels the Skirmish scene in some ways, it's what forces strong lists to change and people to run different stuff, it's what fueled Star Wars Miniatures. It's an excellent idea from a marketing perspective, I would do it, providing a built in edge to anyone who consistently buys the newest stuff, and gaming incentive for all players to do so.

But, here's the thing, if you care about game balance enough to release errata for the game, maybe update figure costs too. That would pretty much be errata anyway. And, honestly, I think Vader is balanced at 18 points; IF you ONLY own the core box and no other supplements and only face other core sets with no additional supplements. And even then, you can throw in one or two of the earlier ally/villain packs, and Vader's probably still balanced, but just starts to become a worse and worse choice. Then, by the time we are where we are now, well... You yourself even said 18 is a bit much. Obviously I think that's an understatement.

Now, all of that said, I would like to say FFG is doing a MUCH better job than WotC did. And Warhammer. WAAAY better than Man O' War.

And FFG does a fantastic job, and releases an A-1 product. That's more than half the reason I actually play this game instead of just use the miniatures for the RPGs like I had intended to do with it when I bought it.

23 minutes ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

This sounds an awful lot like people defending the earliest armies released in an edition of warhammer compared to the armies released towards the end of an edition. Or someone trying to defend the oldschool Man O' War fleets that were released in the beginning towards the ones at the end. You're listing off their abilities in comparison, trying to provide equivalency. Compare their performance instead of their cards, that's how the Royal Guards and Sabs got errata. Look we all know power creep is a problem in just about every game (especially the ones like this one), it's almost what fuels the Skirmish scene in some ways, it's what forces strong lists to change and people to run different stuff, it's what fueled Star Wars Miniatures. It's an excellent idea from a marketing perspective, I would do it, providing a built in edge to anyone who consistently buys the newest stuff, and gaming incentive for all players to do so.

But, here's the thing, if you care about game balance enough to release errata for the game, maybe update figure costs too. That would pretty much be errata anyway. And, honestly, I think Vader is balanced at 18 points; IF you ONLY own the core box and no other supplements and only face other core sets with no additional supplements. And even then, you can throw in one or two of the earlier ally/villain packs, and Vader's probably still balanced, but just starts to become a worse and worse choice. Then, by the time we are where we are now, well... You yourself even said 18 is a bit much. Obviously I think that's an understatement.

Now, all of that said, I would like to say FFG is doing a MUCH better job than WotC did. And Warhammer. WAAAY better than Man O' War.

And FFG does a fantastic job, and releases an A-1 product. That's more than half the reason I actually play this game instead of just use the miniatures for the RPGs like I had intended to do with it when I bought it.

Firstly my comment was directed to campaign and not skirmish, as this topic (and forum category) is related to the campaign. And second my point was that specifically in terms of comparative card abilities the points seemed accurate. That the issue was the high value of the card made it worse because more cheaper units generally out perform fewer more expensive units. That the solution of just dropping the cost isn't good enough, you need to completely rewrite the card to bring it in line... Or just leave it as is and have it as a strong unit that works great when the mission gives it to you for free.

Skirmish is a considerably different situation best left for the skirmish forum.

1 hour ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

This sounds an awful lot like people defending the earliest armies released in an edition of warhammer compared to the armies released towards the end of an edition. Or someone trying to defend the oldschool Man O' War fleets that were released in the beginning towards the ones at the end. You're listing off their abilities in comparison, trying to provide equivalency. Compare their performance instead of their cards, that's how the Royal Guards and Sabs got errata. Look we all know power creep is a problem in just about every game (especially the ones like this one), it's almost what fuels the Skirmish scene in some ways, it's what forces strong lists to change and people to run different stuff, it's what fueled Star Wars Miniatures. It's an excellent idea from a marketing perspective, I would do it, providing a built in edge to anyone who consistently buys the newest stuff, and gaming incentive for all players to do so.

But, here's the thing, if you care about game balance enough to release errata for the game, maybe update figure costs too. That would pretty much be errata anyway. And, honestly, I think Vader is balanced at 18 points; IF you ONLY own the core box and no other supplements and only face other core sets with no additional supplements. And even then, you can throw in one or two of the earlier ally/villain packs, and Vader's probably still balanced, but just starts to become a worse and worse choice. Then, by the time we are where we are now, well... You yourself even said 18 is a bit much. Obviously I think that's an understatement.

Now, all of that said, I would like to say FFG is doing a MUCH better job than WotC did. And Warhammer. WAAAY better than Man O' War.

And FFG does a fantastic job, and releases an A-1 product. That's more than half the reason I actually play this game instead of just use the miniatures for the RPGs like I had intended to do with it when I bought it.

This isn't point creep, 12 for Luke means he's playable, not great, and without Murn I wouldn't play him even at 12. Vader is garbage at 18.

Also I'm aware @neosmagus that you weren't commenting on Skirmish, but to make the point I was making, I did. These two games are inherently intertwined I think it's probably detrimental to try and separate them on the topic of balance between card abilities on figures that use the exact same deployment card for both games lol. Both games affected what was printed on the card, probably Skirmish more so than Campaign, obviously it would be better suited if it had one card tailored to Campaign and one tailored to Skirmish (which is becoming the case more and more often, which I am v happy for)