Against the odds .

-2 points. Attachment. Han solo (scoundrel) only.

You lose "distracting".

At the start of your activation you may perform an attack using one green and one blue die or gain 1 movement point and recover 1*.

while defending, if you haven't any evade result, you may retire all defense results and move up to 2 spaces. Limit once per round.

What do you think? It solves the major han's issues: mobility, action economy and he can trigger "return fire" more often if he moves correctly.

I like him at 12 points with distracting better.

All that other stuff is too convoluted in my opinion. I frankly haven't had any problems running Han as he is. The only problem I have is that if I play him, I don't have as many points for the rest of my team. If he was 8 pts, he'd be the best 8pts on the Rebels by far.

This one is easy in my opinion, just reduce his point cost. There's enough good Smuggler cards now that he's got the tools he needs. If I could run Han and Hera (8+4) or whatever other 4pt figure (2 allsmuggs, 1 esmuggler, Murne, Gideon +upgrade, etc.) This really is all I need. Too many fixes and ancillary card add-ons is what turned me off of X-wing.

I'd reduce his point cost.

Or, possibly give him an additional defense die (black) and the Lucky attribute. Staying power seems to be a big weakness of his, and that could probably help. RGC is only (well, "only") 4 pts more than Han, hits A LOT harder, and has plenty of abilities for multiple attacks. I don't think a black die will break Han. Lucky might be a bit much, though.

black die would help, but might make him really good too. What's the Lucky rule?

I'm afraid that once they start tinkering, they won't be able to stop and feel like they (ffg) have to change enough rules to justify printing a new card. I also disapprove of extra cards. There are enough cards, figures and tokens in the game that things get cluttered pretty quick already. Plus, it discourages new players to a degree I think as well. Just print a new card and you get it in "x" package or whatever, but don' make us have multiple attachments for each figure we want to play. Han still needs access to Smuggler's run or other attachments I think to keep the game open and fun.

38 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

black die would help, but might make him really good too. What's the Lucky rule?

See R2 for reference.

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I'm afraid that once they start tinkering, they won't be able to stop and feel like they (ffg) have to change enough rules to justify printing a new card. I also disapprove of extra cards. There are enough cards, figures and tokens in the game that things get cluttered pretty quick already. Plus, it discourages new players to a degree I think as well. Just print a new card and you get it in "x" package or whatever, but don' make us have multiple attachments for each figure we want to play. Han still needs access to Smuggler's run or other attachments I think to keep the game open and fun.

Like this

Thanks, I couldn't remember who it came on.

While Lucky would help him stay alive for sure, I think it doesn't fit thematically. Han was shown in the movies to be successful (sort of) despite his bad luck. (ie. His ship was always breaking down, he got boarded by the imperials and had to drop his cargo, etc.)

I don't think Han needs a major re-tooling, and I like him at 12 points. I think a couple of minor changes would get him value at that point cost, but I also don't mind a 1-2 point reduction.

My Han fix, for thematic reasons, would be to replace Return Fire with (jyn's) Hair Trigger. Han shot first, so getting a pre-emptive attack on an interrupt is more thematic. Also, that allows Han to more reliably get off a second attack every round which brings him more in line with other 12 point figures. Give him hair trigger, 5 speed, and a little more health or an inherent block and you have a pretty solid 12 point figure.

1 hour ago, buckero0 said:

Thanks, I couldn't remember who it came on.

While Lucky would help him stay alive for sure, I think it doesn't fit thematically. Han was shown in the movies to be successful (sort of) despite his bad luck. (ie. His ship was always breaking down, he got boarded by the imperials and had to drop his cargo, etc.)

I'd say his good luck bailed him out of his poor/rash/desperate decisions. He most definitely isn't unlucky.

1 hour ago, Fightwookies said:

I don't think Han needs a major re-tooling, and I like him at 12 points. I think a couple of minor changes would get him value at that point cost, but I also don't mind a 1-2 point reduction.

My Han fix, for thematic reasons, would be to replace Return Fire with (jyn's) Hair Trigger. Han shot first, so getting a pre-emptive attack on an interrupt is more thematic. Also, that allows Han to more reliably get off a second attack every round which brings him more in line with other 12 point figures. Give him hair trigger, 5 speed, and a little more health or an inherent block and you have a pretty solid 12 point figure.

Hair Trigger is too easily avoided unless you throw Han into the middle of their team, which nobody would want to do.

19 minutes ago, caseycheesecake said:

I'd say his good luck bailed him out of his poor/rash/desperate decisions. He most definitely isn't unlucky.

He's "swashbuckly". Kinda like Jack Sparrow.

Basically, he can kind of be a hot mess sometimes, but ultimately a combination of luck, skill, and improvisation end up letting him win the day.

Well... usually.

Anyway, I think it works well thematically. I'd just be worried about how potentially broken that combo (BW, Lucky) might be. He'd end up being really, really hard to get damage on. 2 defense dies, and 1/3 chance of an entire miss might be too much.

13 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

Anyway, I think it works well thematically. I'd just be worried about how potentially broken that combo (BW, Lucky) might be. He'd end up being really, really hard to get damage on. 2 defense dies, and 1/3 chance of an entire miss might be too much.

I'd say +1 blk and +lucky would be enough to trigger Return Fire which can only happen 1x per round. However the trend of these super expensive units is they can attack multiple times. If Han only shoots once on his activation, it better be a crap-ton of damage or else the enemy would just ignore him and his Return Fire would never trigger.

It's a hard balance without making him too similar to other characters.

Heterosexual Life-Partners (working title), -2 points

Once per round, when Han Solo or Chewbacca finish an activation, you may ready the other's deployment card.

I appreciate that there's so much more discussion about skirmish fixes nowadays! For me, it's really fun to dive into game mechanics and see if tweaks I come up with fit with this new (fun!) direction Skirmish is going.

Here's what I think are Han's major problems at cost 12 in the post-Jabba's Realm Skirmish game:

1) Return Fire is only going to happen on DODGE rolls. While I think it's thematic to have Han's success driven by some luck -- *Obi-Wan smiles knowingly* -- a good Skirmish figure should have its special abilities trigger consistently. So Return Fire is really just a happy accident second attack -- and for 12 points nowadays, Han needs to have an always-happening second attack.

2) Distracting is great for Threepio, because he can't attack and it forces him to keep up with the battle. Distracting is not-so-great for Han. It doesn't help his own Cunning ability to increase his defense. It makes you want to keep Han adjacent to friendly figures, which restricts the movement of one of the best 3-dice attacks of the game.

3) Without a built-in BLOCK or EVADE, Han's 12 health won't last against Hunters and the other figures that are seeing an increase in damage. For his cost, he should be able to have a little more staying power than "you rolled a bunch of DODGEs".

My latest attempt at fixing Han addresses these issues:

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Unique Skirmish Attachment Card: Who's Scruffy-Looking? (Han Solo only)

Cost: -2

Increase Health +2. You lose "Distracting".

Never Tell Me The Odds: When defending, if you roll a blank result, roll one additional white die and add it to your defense results. Limit one additional die per attack.

Heroic: During your activation, you may perform one attack without spending an action.

It was pointed out to me by a friendly soul on reddit that having Han do two 3-die attacks per turn at deployment cost 10 may be too powerful. If I kept Han at 12, that dual attack would probably be just right. But I think putting Han down to cost 10 (making him affordable enough to run with Leia) is more important than him having two 3-die attacks. So I'm currently testing the following version of Han:

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Unique Skirmish Attachment Card: Who's Scruffy-Looking? (Han Solo only)

Cost: -2

Increase Health +2. You lose "Distracting".

Never Tell Me The Odds: When defending, if you roll a blank result, roll one additional white die and add it to your defense results. Limit one additional die per attack.

Scoundrel: During your activation, you may perform one attack using one green die and one blue die without spending an action.

Never Tell Me The Odds keeps the "luck" aspect of Han's character but normalizes the results a bit more in Han's favor. Here's my explanation on Reddit for more details.

Hmm. I agree that 2 3-dice attacks for 10 is probably a bit too much, but I don't really see how the B-G attack really communicates "Han Solo"

I like Never Tell Me the Odds though. I think that's an important aspect of Han's character that should be communicated.

If you wanted to improve his action economy without just giving him a free extra attack, you could replace his Return Fire with the opposite of Greedo's Slow on The Draw - let Han attack someone who declares an attack against him, once per round. That would be quite strong, but like Greedo's ability there are ways to play around it (maybe it could be restricted to only ranged attacks too).

I think my imagine fix is also themathic. What things han do?

-He pointed people with his blaster and if the situation go wrong he shoot (so he can shoot at the start of his activation) or flee to fight in a more adventage situation (1move and 1 recover)

-he is a slippery guy if the things don't go as he wish (so if he doesn't roll evades that let him use cunning, he may prefer running away 2 spaces) come on how many times we have seen han running and shooting the enemy back? He does this all time. Perfect situation to trigger return fire more thematic than dodge and stay frost. This is han solving troubles haha

Also the fix contains all @cnemmick said (10 points figure, 2 attack but don't 2 of 3 dies and his hability trigger more offten, about 50% of times if he receives close combat attacks)

19 minutes ago, cnemmick said:

Never Tell Me The Odds: When defending, if you roll a blank result, roll one additional white die and add it to your defense results. Limit one additional die per attack.

I'm just curious, why the add the extra white die instead of simply allowing a re-roll? Is it to account for other characters that may have re-rolled the first die already? To allow him to re-roll the first die if he can find some way to do it?

On 5/6/2017 at 8:21 PM, Stompburger said:

Hmm. I agree that 2 3-dice attacks for 10 is probably a bit too much, but I don't really see how the B-G attack really communicates "Han Solo"

I like Never Tell Me the Odds though. I think that's an important aspect of Han's character that should be communicated.

If you wanted to improve his action economy without just giving him a free extra attack, you could replace his Return Fire with the opposite of Greedo's Slow on The Draw - let Han attack someone who declares an attack against him, once per round. That would be quite strong, but like Greedo's ability there are ways to play around it (maybe it could be restricted to only ranged attacks too).

Just that you say was my previous homemade fix for han:

The main problem with this, after months of plays is that simply people don't shoot han.

16 minutes ago, ManateeX said:

I'm just curious, why the add the extra white die instead of simply allowing a re-roll? Is it to account for other characters that may have re-rolled the first die already? To allow him to re-roll the first die if he can find some way to do it?

Rerolling a blank means it is susceptible to Tough Luck. In this version, Han keeps the blank and rolls a new die. If the attacker can force defender rerolls, he can still force Han to reroll the new die; if Han is allowed to reroll a die, he can reroll EITHER RESULT.

It increases Han's chance to DODGE but not at an incredible amount, and it doesn't completely take away an opponent's ability to modify that DODGE.

(Reworking DODGE and the blank result to make the skirmish game less random is a discussion I'd like to have at another time.)

I hate having to take chewbacca and han together, so I would prefer an individual fix regardless. I'd like them to be able to function in a list on their own and not have to eat up 70% of your points like they do now.

31 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

Hmm. I agree that 2 3-dice attacks for 10 is probably a bit too much, but I don't really see how the B-G attack really communicates "Han Solo"

I'll admit that it's not the best theme ability, but my goal was to make Han Solo fit better in the evolving skirmish game.

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If you wanted to improve his action economy without just giving him a free extra attack, you could replace his Return Fire with the opposite of Greedo's Slow on The Draw - let Han attack someone who declares an attack against him, once per round. That would be quite strong, but like Greedo's ability there are ways to play around it (maybe it could be restricted to only ranged attacks too).

That's something I've considered before. The big problem is your opponent will just ignore Han until he's the last figure on the board. The same can be said about putting R2-D2's Lucky ability on Han. If Han has just one attack per turn, your opponent doesn't suffer really any significant consequences.

18 minutes ago, cnemmick said:

That's something I've considered before. The big problem is your opponent will just ignore Han until he's the last figure on the board. The same can be said about putting R2-D2's Lucky ability on Han. If Han has just one attack per turn, your opponent doesn't suffer really any significant consequences.

That's a good point. Maybe you could make it a much more powerful, but single-use version of Jedi Luke's ability: "When a hostile figure declares a ranged attack targeting you or an adjacent friendly figure, you may interrupt to perform an attack targeting the hostile figure. Limit once per round."

Edit - you could also have it happen after the attack resolves, to make it less powerful.

3 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

Hair Trigger is too easily avoided unless you throw Han into the middle of their team, which nobody would want to do.

Nah, you don't have to run him up anywhere. lots of hallways and open spaces in the current maps. Accuracy on his current attack should be pretty solid from 6-8 spaces. there are ways to minimize hair trigger, but it's still stronger than return fire imo. I think his attack is fine, probably better than Jedi Luke's (especially when you factor range, he just needs a more reliable way to get it off a second time in the round.

I'm not stuck on it being called hair trigger, but I think he should replace return fire with a way to interrupt either at the start or an activation or when an attack (han or other friendly) is declared. Also wouldn't be opposed to a couple movement after that interrupt. (thematically, firing and retreating to hide)

16 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

That's a good point. Maybe you could make it a much more powerful, but single-use version of Jedi Luke's ability: "When a hostile figure declares a ranged attack targeting you or an adjacent friendly figure, you may interrupt to perform an attack targeting the hostile figure. Limit once per round."

Still, he would need to cost a lot less than 12 because people would ignore him.

Maybe if he was themed to be a super-smuggler-objective-getter somehow. Like "while on or adjacent to an objective token, gain mobile/+1 speed/+1 blk/+1 evade or something. He's not really about killing guys anyway. Chewie on the other hand...

6 minutes ago, caseycheesecake said:

Still, he would need to cost a lot less than 12 because people would ignore him.

I don't think they would be able to ignore that... you can position to defend adjacent figures.

I like the ability on Vinto's Rapid Fire card (in campaign): "While attacking you may reroll all attack and defense dice." Han could get that as "Never Tell Me the Odds."