My son (12) just got into IA. Playing the campaign and a few skirmishes under his belt. He wants to start playing in the competitive monthly local store tournaments. Doesn't want to get wiped but also doesn't like just playing the "meta". He really wants to use Vader and/or Bossk. Any ideas on a list we can build? I appreciate all of the help. Right now he has the core set, ig-88, bossk and agent blaise, but we can get whatever expansions we need (have a lot of store credit )

At the moment it is would be really hard to create a viable list around Darth Vader, but I expect him to see a lot more play when the Heart of the Empire wave hits shelves. The new upgrade for him should make him a top-tier figure.

In the meantime, I had a good experience with a list of IG-88 (with the Focused on the Kill attachment), Shyla Varad, Onar Koma, Jabba the Hutt, Vinto Hreeda, and an elite Jawa Scavenger at a tournament over the weekend. You could easily substitute Bossk in place of Shyla in that list. You would need to pick up Jabba's Realm, and the Jabba and Jawa figure packs to run it, though.

Depends on how competitive he wants to be. I'd suggest Bossk because even though he isn't really competitive he's not the bottom of the garbage bin either. If he's running Mercs basically anything elite from the Jabba's Palace box is strong.

Another option would be to Temporary Alliance Bossk into Imperials and run him with Captain Terro for large AoE damage. Take some Troopers/officers along and he should be all set.

The 'Focused on the Kill' fix for IG-88 is both strong and somewhat easy for new players. You can get that in the Jawa pack.

My son is also 12, and we got the game back in January and have been playing a TON since Bossk is also his favorite character. We have never played official tournaments, so I have no clue if this list is "competitive" - but he has been having fun with Bossk, (Temporary Alliance), BT-1, Grand Inquisitor, eOfficer, Stormies, 0-0-0 (We don't own Jabbas Realm).

I believe that for the official tournaments Jabbas Realm is needed as some of the maps that are played currently need the Jabba Realm expansion box tiles. From passively reading these forums it seems like Jabbas Realm is the best bang for your buck for getting useful Skirmish units, so you probably would want to purchase that regardless. There are plenty of super helpful folks on this forum that can give you the details on what is needed for playing in these tournaments (I have found the IA community in general to be really helpful and welcoming to new players - I mean just look at my username!!).

Glad your son is enjoying it, this has been such a great game for our family. My son and I play skirmish a few times a week in between our "family campaign" (with my wife and daughter). I love the fact that this is an option he is super excited to play/engage on - even when competing against time for iPad games, Xbox, mindless TV shows, YouTube, etc.

The Jawa also allows for easy activations and an elite Probe droid, which is still halfway decent imo.

Mercs have lots of goodies. Jawas allow for other goodies like rebel droids to jump into a list.

Jabba's Realm was designed with skirmish in mind, so most of the figures actually have a useful place in the game.

Most of the other box-sets don't have skirmish in mind or aren't balanced with skirmish/campaign, so there are some duds in box.

1 hour ago, totalnoob said:

My son is also 12, and we got the game back in January and have been playing a TON since Bossk is also his favorite character. We have never played official tournaments, so I have no clue if this list is "competitive" - but he has been having fun with Bossk, (Temporary Alliance), BT-1, Grand Inquisitor, eOfficer, Stormies, 0-0-0 (We don't own Jabbas Realm).

I believe that for the official tournaments Jabbas Realm is needed as some of the maps that are played currently need the Jabba Realm expansion box tiles. From passively reading these forums it seems like Jabbas Realm is the best bang for your buck for getting useful Skirmish units, so you probably would want to purchase that regardless. There are plenty of super helpful folks on this forum that can give you the details on what is needed for playing in these tournaments (I have found the IA community in general to be really helpful and welcoming to new players - I mean just look at my username!!).

Glad your son is enjoying it, this has been such a great game for our family. My son and I play skirmish a few times a week in between our "family campaign" (with my wife and daughter). I love the fact that this is an option he is super excited to play/engage on - even when competing against time for iPad games, Xbox, mindless TV shows, YouTube, etc.

So the other things needed to compete in a tourney is the tiles. One thing you could do is cal the TO and see if that's something that is going to be required for every person(Really you only need tiles/mats for every two people who come) often in my experience you can get away without everyone having tiles and people are generally happy to help if it gets new players into the game.

The other option is the official FFG playmats that save you from buying the box expansions with the tiles. TBH these are more for convenience IMO because they still run 20-25 apiece and for a little more you could generally just get the actual expansion. But if you are playing a lot of skirmish they are quite a time saver and they look quite nice. If you don't want to fork 20-25 for each of the three official tournament maps in rotation(oldest leaves every three months and a new one comes in) then you could look into printing your own from a PDF file. If that's something you are interested in there are plenty of resources here to help with it.

3 hours ago, Leveton said:

At the moment it is would be really hard to create a viable list around Darth Vader, but I expect him to see a lot more play when the Heart of the Empire wave hits shelves. The new upgrade for him should make him a top-tier figure.

In the meantime, I had a good experience with a list of IG-88 (with the Focused on the Kill attachment), Shyla Varad, Onar Koma, Jabba the Hutt, Vinto Hreeda, and an elite Jawa Scavenger at a tournament over the weekend. You could easily substitute Bossk in place of Shyla in that list. You would need to pick up Jabba's Realm, and the Jabba and Jawa figure packs to run it, though.

With my reading I agree that Vader is going to be tough right now. That is a shame. So let's go with Bossk and IG-88. Do you have a list of the command cards you used?

30 minutes ago, TheUnsullied said:

So the other things needed to compete in a tourney is the tiles. One thing you could do is cal the TO and see if that's something that is going to be required for every person(Really you only need tiles/mats for every two people who come) often in my experience you can get away without everyone having tiles and people are generally happy to help if it gets new players into the game.

I too am happy that he is getting off the electronics and actually talking and playing with real humans in person! So I will support him with this. He is genuinely excited and a good way for us to spend time together.

The store provides the mats so the event runs faster So score there. So with an easy to run Bossk / IG-88 list I will need the Jabba Realms Expansion, Jabba and Jawas? Anything else?

I dont want him to be a loser as I fear he will lose interest but a respectable loss we can deal with. So again thanks for the help and the guidance on what is needed to get him started.

We are headed over there tonight to grab everything.

12 minutes ago, neozeric said:

Do you have a list of the command cards you used?

I ran Assassinate, Blaze of Glory, Heightened Reflexes, Tools for the Job, Bladestorm, Draw!, Extra Protection, Glory of the Kill, Negation, Primary Target, Disorient, Element of Surprise, Opportunistic, Take Initiative, and Toxic Dart.

If you pick up Jabba, Jabba's Realm, and a Jawa to run my list, you would have all of those command cards except Heightened Reflexes (Alliance Rangers), Negation (Return to Hoth), Primary Target (Greedo), and Opportunistic (Bantha Rider).

If you swap Bossk in for Shyla, you would take out Bladestorm (because only Shyla can use it). But between that and the other command cards to replace, you could fit in Trandoshan Terror for Bossk.

Edit: And the key to competitive play with this list is patience. Maybe you would think all the big hitters make it a really aggressive list, but it really isn't. It doesn't have figures it can afford to "throw away." On Saturday the list went 2-1, with the loss coming to a player who made the top 16 at worlds, and I lost that one because I got a little too aggressive and he pounced on it.

3 minutes ago, neozeric said:

I too am happy that he is getting off the electronics and actually talking and playing with real humans in person! So I will support him with this. He is genuinely excited and a good way for us to spend time together.

The store provides the mats so the event runs faster So score there. So with an easy to run Bossk / IG-88 list I will need the Jabba Realms Expansion, Jabba and Jawas? Anything else?

I dont want him to be a loser as I fear he will lose interest but a respectable loss we can deal with. So again thanks for the help and the guidance on what is needed to get him started.

We are headed over there tonight to grab everything.

I don't know how competitive people in your area are but I'd definitely make sure to run some practice games with the list before he goes to a tourney as well so that he has some practice with how everything works together. Most people I play with are really friendly and helpful when playing against new people with pointers and tips so he should be good after that.

4 minutes ago, TheUnsullied said:

I don't know how competitive people in your area are but I'd definitely make sure to run some practice games with the list before he goes to a tourney as well so that he has some practice with how everything works together. Most people I play with are really friendly and helpful when playing against new people with pointers and tips so he should be good after that.

Agreed. There are two local guys that are meeting us this week and next to go over everything with both of us. Part of the reason he likes it (me too) the people are super friendly and helpful as they want the community to grow. Heck, I'll probably end up playing too

1 hour ago, neozeric said:

Agreed. There are two local guys that are meeting us this week and next to go over everything with both of us. Part of the reason he likes it (me too) the people are super friendly and helpful as they want the community to grow. Heck, I'll probably end up playing too

Plot twist, you end up playing in the tourney, face your son, destroy him.

46 minutes ago, taylorcowbell said:

Plot twist, you end up playing in the tourney, face your son, destroy him.

yes! this! Then I will post his army for sale here..... muhuhaha

On 7/25/2017 at 1:22 PM, Leveton said:

I ran Assassinate, Blaze of Glory, Heightened Reflexes, Tools for the Job, Bladestorm, Draw!, Extra Protection, Glory of the Kill, Negation, Primary Target, Disorient, Element of Surprise, Opportunistic, Take Initiative, and Toxic Dart.

We picked up everything and are running:

Assassinate, Blaze of Glory, Tools for the Job, Draw!, Extra Protection, Glory of the Kill, Disorient, Element of Surprise, Take Initiative, Toxic Dart and Trandoshan Terror. Total of 11. Which other 4 should we put in?

22 minutes ago, neozeric said:

We picked up everything and are running:

Assassinate, Blaze of Glory, Tools for the Job, Draw!, Extra Protection, Glory of the Kill, Disorient, Element of Surprise, Take Initiative, Toxic Dart and Trandoshan Terror. Total of 11. Which other 4 should we put in?

2points Heightened Reflexes if you have the Alliance Ranger blister pack.

1 point Negation if you have Return to Hoth box set.

1 point Primary Target isn't bad if you have Greedo(I think)

Other solid 0 point cards are Fleet Footed, Urgency, Planning(if you are running any leader, Celebration

4 hours ago, TheUnsullied said:

2points Heightened Reflexes if you have the Alliance Ranger blister pack.

1 point Negation if you have Return to Hoth box set.

1 point Primary Target isn't bad if you have Greedo(I think)

Other solid 0 point cards are Fleet Footed, Urgency, Planning(if you are running any leader, Celebration

Heaightened Reflexes i took for my list

No hoth box set. Does it come with 1 or 2 of these? We both need one...or can you buy just the card somewhere?

No Greedo....

I have these 0 point cards.

Should we just buy the above?

51 minutes ago, neozeric said:

Heaightened Reflexes i took for my list

No hoth box set. Does it come with 1 or 2 of these? We both need one...or can you buy just the card somewhere?

No Greedo....

I have these 0 point cards.

Should we just buy the above?

Well for New orders you'd need Weiss. Who is pretty trash aside from that one card unfortunately. There's probably some other point cards that you could throw in instead if you need replacements. What sets do you have and what cards is your son using?

1 hour ago, neozeric said:

Heaightened Reflexes i took for my list

No hoth box set. Does it come with 1 or 2 of these? We both need one...or can you buy just the card somewhere?

No Greedo....

I have these 0 point cards.

Should we just buy the above?

If you are at all interested in Weiss, i recently snagged him pretty cheaply from here. I pulled the trigger because who knows how long some of those wave 1 packs are going to be available.

https://www.bookdepository.com/search?searchTerm=imperial+assault&search=Find+book

Greedo is fantastic. He's an auto include in any merc list for me.

5 hours ago, TheUnsullied said:

Well for New orders you'd need Weiss. Who is pretty trash aside from that one card unfortunately. There's probably some other point cards that you could throw in instead if you need replacements. What sets do you have and what cards is your son using?

I'll grab Weiss. We have the core set, jabbas realm, ig-88, bossk, agent blaise, jabba, alliance rangers, alliance smugglers, hera, jawa

Son is using Assassinate, Blaze of Glory, Tools for the Job, Draw!, Extra Protection, Glory of the Kill, Disorient, Element of Surprise, Take Initiative, Toxic Dart and Trandoshan Terror

Try this. With your currents packs I didn't have much to do with the last two points. If you grab anything new you might be able to find something that fits better than grisly contest.

Thank you all. More buying this weekend