Heart of the Empire

By EastCoast, in Star Wars: Imperial Assault

1 hour ago, neosmagus said:

Or there are 4 deployment cards? But we won't know till they say more. The deployment card looks very different from normal, meaning that there will be new rules around them.

Or they give 2 figures per Shapeshifter deployment card depending on which option you choose at the beginning of the match.

37 minutes ago, caseycheesecake said:

Or they give 2 figures per Shapeshifter deployment card depending on which option you choose at the beginning of the match.

All four minis are identical. Maybe it's something weird like there's two on the map but one is the enemy and the other is neutral... Hehe

1 hour ago, caseycheesecake said:

Or they give 2 figures per Shapeshifter deployment card depending on which option you choose at the beginning of the match.

You can see in this picture that deployment is one per card.

swi46_sample.png

Though, I don't know, maybe its assumed "transformation" brings in more for some reason. Doesn't seem all that shapeshifter-y, but maybe.

Honestly, every time I look at that picture I am under whelmed by the units they chose. Do we recognize that droid from anywhere? The AT-DP seems like such a waste of a massive unit, to similar to the AT-ST even if it plays differently. The massive units are among the most fun to paint, I would have loved to see something more unique.

The crowd control stormies are OK, it gives us a trooper melee unit and fleshes out more of the Storm Trooper family.. but still I feel like they used the B or C squad to fill out this expansion. Everything else has felt so thematic up to this point. I guess the real wild card here is the shape shifter.

Edited by FrogTrigger

I won't judge too hard until I have the box in my hands. For now, I'm just optimistic that the box is going to bring some balance, and that the new imperial vehicles, droids, and troopers might breathe some life into old characters like Somos and Sorin. Those uniques won't get fixes, so they'll need to be surrounded with more usable figures to be viable.

I'm okay with the figures/units other than the AT-DP. My reaction to the AT-DP was about the same as the Tank from Hoth. Smeh!

What I find most interesting is that this expansion brings in some more prequel movie figures/items, or at least items/figures that were introduced in those films. Shape shifter from CW film, Coruscant tiles that are super colorful, the Cerean alien hero (alien introduced in Phantom Menace).

FFG has such a vast pool to draw from. With the success of the OT, CW and Rebels series, and new films (even though I think Force Awakens was smeh), this game could go on for a loooong time!

1 hour ago, FrogTrigger said:

Honestly, every time I look at that picture I am under whelmed by the units they chose. Do we recognize that droid from anywhere? The AT-DP seems like such a waste of a massive unit, to similar to the AT-ST even if it plays differently. The massive units are among the most fun to paint, I would have loved to see something more unique.

The crowd control stormies are OK, it gives us a trooper melee unit and fleshes out more of the Storm Trooper family.. but still I feel like they used the B or C squad to fill out this expansion. Everything else has felt so thematic up to this point. I guess the real wild card here is the shape shifter.

Are you referring to the sentry droids? They're from Rebels. They're also an homage to Dark Troopers for the new canon. So I'm pretty excited about them.

I think the theme fits pretty well. Riot troopers in a city environment, essentially acting as militarized police. Clawdites on Coruscant, a nod to Zam Wessel. Sentry droids and AT-DP as a nod the Rebels fans. I'm actually more excited about this release than I was for Jabba's Realm, by far.

That being said, people who haven't watched or don't enjoy Rebels may have a hard time liking this one.

26 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

Are you referring to the sentry droids? They're from Rebels. They're also an homage to Dark Troopers for the new canon. So I'm pretty excited about them.

I think the theme fits pretty well. Riot troopers in a city environment, essentially acting as militarized police. Clawdites on Coruscant, a nod to Zam Wessel. Sentry droids and AT-DP as a nod the Rebels fans. I'm actually more excited about this release than I was for Jabba's Realm, by far.

That being said, people who haven't watched or don't enjoy Rebels may have a hard time liking this one.

I think that's probably the exact dividing line right there. I've seen a bit of rebels, but not a lot, and there's nothing in the units of this expansion that has me particularly excited as far as the characters go. The riot troopers are probably #1 in my books just because they're cool-looking and unique, but I wouldn't compare them to how excited I was for something like the Rancor or the Gamorreans from the Jabba expansion.

That's not to say that I'm not excited about the release, however. It's not only about the characters; I do really like the undercity theme of the expansion and I'm always interested to see what they've come up with mechanically, particularly whenever there's a new hero or imp class deck. Plus there's the campaign itself, and if Jabba's was any indication the missions are only getting more varied, interesting and fun.

I'm also looking forward to the trio of new blister packs (though again not quite as much as I was looking forward to Jabba/Luke).

If you're not excited about the box itself, I'd think you would be pretty excited about the packs. Ahsoka, Maul, and Palpatine looks like the best set of packs in a while. They look awesome, and being small single figure packs, they won't damage the budget like the Jabba/Terro/Rangers/Luke wave

Personally, im most excited about the new wookie hero. This game needs as many wookies as it can get. #TeamWookies

Edited by Fightwookies
Clarity

Any reference to Dark Troopers is a win, even if I'm not overly fond of their use in Rebels. And more droids for Imperials sounds great.

I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of shenanigans the riot troopers can get up to. I mean, those shields MUST do something, right? Since their armor clearly doesn't...

I assume the Clawdite just has two stat lines, so it can be versatile. Either a different set of stats, or a ? ? ? ? ? that you get to assign based on whomever your copying. Either way, could be interesting.

But, seriously, Maul, Ahsoka, and Palp? Shut up and take my credits!

While I dig getting Maul, he doesn't seem nearly as good as the other two. Not dying on his last round is probably good, but otherwise he doesn't seem particularly good.

5 minutes ago, aermet69 said:

Not dying on his last round is probably good, but otherwise he doesn't seem particularly good.

Just to clarify: If Maul has suffered damage equal to his Health, he will be defeated as soon as he has ended his activation.

Edited by a1bert
2 hours ago, a1bert said:

Just to clarify: If Maul has suffered damage equal to his Health, he will be defeated as soon as he has ended his activation.

Does an ability that grants him recover prevent this?

3 minutes ago, Majushi said:

Does an ability that grants him recover prevent this?

No, because Sustained by Rage als has "you cannot recover damage", which overrides any recover ability (such as Restorative Supplies in campaign).

swi47-maul.png

Edited by a1bert

Ah yes, I forgot that was on his card.

4 hours ago, aermet69 said:

While I dig getting Maul, he doesn't seem nearly as good as the other two. Not dying on his last round is probably good, but otherwise he doesn't seem particularly good.

Well if you were sliced in half and then fell into a bottomless pit, you'd probably be a little less spry too.

35 minutes ago, Pollux85 said:

Well if you were sliced in half and then fell into a bottomless pit, you'd probably be a little less spry too.

Personally, I think I'd be breathing a lot less. But I don't want to speak for everyone on that...

I agree, I think maul is going to be a bit too easy to kill, even though I don't recover on a lot of my figures anyway. But he looks to hit pretty hard if he had a token and reroll somehow.

Clawdite shapeshifter I'm hoping gets to use the abilities of his target, so you target Onar you get +1dmg/-1acc and +2dmg/-2acc or if you target Leia, you get +2dmg, recover 2 and +3acc.

Maul would be disappointing if he was more expensive, but I don't think he's all that bad for 7 threat. He might be better if his movement mitigation was before an attack instead of after, but Reach should help- just wish Reach and Focus could be used at the same time.

34 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

I agree, I think maul is going to be a bit too easy to kill, even though I don't recover on a lot of my figures anyway. But he looks to hit pretty hard if he had a token and reroll somehow.

Clawdite shapeshifter I'm hoping gets to use the abilities of his target, so you target Onar you get +1dmg/-1acc and +2dmg/-2acc or if you target Leia, you get +2dmg, recover 2 and +3acc.

In any case, the Clawdites seem to be Hunter - Spy. If they're just half-decent, you could make the sickest command deck to date. Though I do guess that other traits will be high up at that point as well.

51 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

Maul would be disappointing if he was more expensive, but I don't think he's all that bad for 7 threat. He might be better if his movement mitigation was before an attack instead of after, but Reach should help- just wish Reach and Focus could be used at the same time.

It's basically - do you want to do ~2 more damage to your primary target? Or exactly 2 damage to something else? Reach + Cleave 2 is really strong...

1 hour ago, Stompburger said:

It's basically - do you want to do ~2 more damage to your primary target? Or exactly 2 damage to something else? Reach + Cleave 2 is really strong...

That's true- I do love me some cleave.

edit: Whoops, that sounded kinda dirty. :P

Edited by subtrendy2

I think Maul could be very interesting in Skirmish with the right command cards. If I'm reading his ability right, he doesn't die if you exhaust his card without activating him, such as with Take Initiative or Change of Plans. Could be a way to deny points if time is almost up and you only have one round left (though TBH there aren't that many good Change of Plans targets for him, unless you import Obi Wan).

7 hours ago, a1bert said:

Just to clarify: If Maul has suffered damage equal to his Health, he will be defeated as soon as he has ended his activation.

I really like this. I've deployed villains before where they never really got to do much (maybe one activation) before they were focused-fired down. Especially since the recent villains have been lower cost and lower health (Dengar, Bossk, Greedo). This way you are guaranteed at least one activation but will probably get 2 or 3 even if they are gunning for him.

25 minutes ago, turkishvancat said:

I think Maul could be very interesting in Skirmish with the right command cards. If I'm reading his ability right, he doesn't die if you exhaust his card without activating him, such as with Take Initiative or Change of Plans. Could be a way to deny points if time is almost up and you only have one round left (though TBH there aren't that many good Change of Plans targets for him, unless you import Obi Wan).

That's really funky. I love it. The more this game grows, the more crazy combos start emerging.