1 hour ago, Smashotron said:

Yeah I believe at the time of release, this might have applied to both versions of the Imperial Officer but the FAQ to regular Officers changed that. I don't know if I would pay 2pts if it only works with elite Officers, but then again, maybe elite Officers and Sorin are the way to go if you want to field the AT-DP. Assault plus the potential for three more attacks with +1 dmg each could be good. A Speed 5 move from an elite Officer wouldn't be terrible.

Agreed, but we should also look at the tradeoffs here: we're dedicating 16pts to the AT-DP combo (AT-DP 9 + Gen Rank 2 + eIO 5), is that really worth it? At 16pt I'd argue you might as well go with Vader 13 (maybe with Palpy & make it a combo too). I think that even Vader 13 + rIO 2 (15 pt) would be more flexible than the 16pt AT-DP combo

TL;DR: Gen Rank is weird and doesn't really mesh with any "good" units after the rIO nerf

I completely agree. I'm a big proponent of making the AT-DP work for its paycheck at 9pt without any support that you wouldn't typically bring. (Zillo, rOfficer, etc)

Bump!

I was going to start something similar but there’s already lots of good discussion in this thread.

The whole AT-ST vs. AT-DP aspect is probably my biggest negative about HOTE.

I thought the AT-ST (and other massive vehicles) were supposed to be getting a fix with this expansion but I guess that was just speculation.

From a campaign perspective, I suppose it’s not that bad. The AT-ST will still show up as a reserved group and there a few agenda cards that can help get it on the board.

Still, hoping for an errata at some point!

All of the above. The best use I can see for the AT-PT is to give it a really wild paintjob as a fun mercenary unit. Maybe Santhe Security forces.

An AT-PT as a large, not massive, figure would have been more in scale with the game.

43 minutes ago, Armandhammer said:

I thought the AT-ST (and other massive vehicles) were supposed to be getting a fix with this expansion but I guess that was just speculation.

It was. The vague language of "the game's iconic figures" spawned a lot of speculation when in reality it was the most obvious figures that got the upgrade.

I wonder if a 0 pt skirmish upgrade that's Massive only that allows the figure to gain Assault and "at the end of your activation if you didn't perform a move gain [1 or 2] movement points" would be enough. I mean, the AT-DP would still be able to use it for the MP, and the Tank would get the same and it could target two figures instead of just one. The AT-ST would get the full benefit, but it's still expensive.

A negative point card would need to be AT-ST only so you don't boost the AT-DP too much and if you look at the negative point cards so far they all take something away (Brutality, Distracting, dodge results). What do you take away from the AT-ST to make it negative points? Targeting computer is the one advantage it has right now (other than dice). I suppose you could extend Awkward to two spaces.

2 hours ago, Uninvited Guest said:

It was. The vague language of "the game's iconic figures" spawned a lot of speculation when in reality it was the most obvious figures that got the upgrade.

I claim my part in helping spin the idea that large vehicles might get a fix. Wishful thinking, obviously.

In my Skirmish Fixes thread , we've discussed two different kinds of fixes that would be helpful for AT-ST/Weiss/SC2-M figures. The first one was my original attempt to tweak deployment costs and increase each figure's inherent defense:

Quote

Unique Elite Skirmish Upgrade Card: Imperial Retrofitting

Cost: 0

Apply the following to each AT-ST, SCM-2 and General Weiss figures in your army:

Reduce the deployment cost for each AT-ST & General Weiss by 3, SCM-2 Repulsor Tank by 2. SCM-2 Repulsor Tanks also gain: Health +2.

After deployment, you gain 1 BLOCK TOKEN.

Once during your activation, you may perform an attack using one blue and one red die without spending an action.

A lot of discussion focused on making a "Beast Tamer"-like Skirmish Upgrade for Massive Imperial Vehicles, which lead to this suggestion:

Quote

Unique Elite Skirmish Upgrade Card: Imperial Retrofitting

Cost: 0

Reduce the deployment cost for each AT-ST & General Weiss by 3, SC2-M Repulsor Tank by 2.

SC2-M Repulsor Tanks also gain: Health +2. Focus Fire now requires only one Special Action.

AT-ST & General Weiss also gains: Assault: You can perform multiple attacks during your activation.

Exhaust this card at the start of a AT-ST, General Weiss or SC2-M activation. That figure may gain 1 BLOCK TOKEN or may perform a move.

1 hour ago, cnemmick said:

I claim my part in helping spin the idea that large vehicles might get a fix. Wishful thinking, obviously.

To be fair, when you think of "iconic figures" in this game the AT-ST has the best argument. If someone were to buy only the core box then Han and Chewie are these little tokens that show up in one or two missions each; but the AT-ST was this big, hulking center piece. So that kind of speculation can't be faulted

Note: I specify "only the core box" because everyone has them so you give a useful product to the largest percentage of your potential buyers.

No doubt I'll be shot down (and yes, I occasionally watch Rebels) but the ATDP just looks......rubbish. Looked stupid in Rebels too. The AT-ST should be far superior, it is military grade and looks iconic compared to its spindly legged brethren. But thats power creep in the expansion boxes I suppose. The AT-DP model is actually putting me off HotE a bit as a campaign player, although I'll probably still pick it up so I have the tiles to recruit the Emperor in all campaigns when I get his Agendas in his Villain pack.

7 minutes ago, Gallanteer said:

No doubt I'll be shot down (and yes, I occasionally watch Rebels) but the ATDP just looks......rubbish. Looked stupid in Rebels too. The AT-ST should be far superior, it is military grade and looks iconic compared to its spindly legged brethren. But thats power creep in the expansion boxes I suppose. The AT-DP model is actually putting me off HotE a bit as a campaign player, although I'll probably still pick it up so I have the tiles to recruit the Emperor in all campaigns when I get his Agendas in his Villain pack.

To each their own.

I've grown to like it quite a bit, and I think it's neat that it's basically an homage to the concept art for what eventually became the AT-ST.

I guess I'm also just glad to get more vehicles in the game.

The AT-DP looks like a Zentraedi battle pod. I'd like it more if it didn't render obsolete the already rarely-played AT-ST. Please give us a fix for the AT-ST.

More importantly.. give us a squad of the midget snowtroopers like the one in the hovertank.

2 hours ago, Gallanteer said:

No doubt I'll be shot down (and yes, I occasionally watch Rebels) but the ATDP just looks......rubbish. Looked stupid in Rebels too. The AT-ST should be far superior, it is military grade and looks iconic compared to its spindly legged brethren. But thats power creep in the expansion boxes I suppose. The AT-DP model is actually putting me off HotE a bit as a campaign player, although I'll probably still pick it up so I have the tiles to recruit the Emperor in all campaigns when I get his Agendas in his Villain pack.

I know FFG dropped time period and I have not watch that many episode of Rebels (not enough to have seen the AT-DP in the show) but I suppose it's fair to speculate that the AT-ST was probably manufactured as an upgraded version of the AT-DP (but I could be wrong). But I agree with you, the AT-ST should have been more powerful but its main default was to be included in the core set.

2 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

To each their own.

I've grown to like it quite a bit, and I think it's neat that it's basically an homage to the concept art for what eventually became the AT-ST.

I guess I'm also just glad to get more vehicles in the game.

It's nice to have more vehicles in the game but if it means that they are just replacing the older ones then it's not that good. For me it's not going to be a problem since I follow "time period" even if it's a defunct concept in later expansions. But for someone who does not, I wonder why would you save threat to deploy the AT-ST (besides playing thematic) when you can get an AT-DP early or an AT-DP and 2 regular officers on the board during end of round deployments for 1 less threat and possibility the ability of moving your AT-DP quite a bit for the next round.

I think, as others have already said, what's really needed is a fix. The main reason the DP "replaced" the ST was because the ST was garbage to begin with.

I'm happy that the DP is somewhat viable, not mad that it's not as underpowered as what we already have.

So here's my issue with all this. When compare AT-DP to the AT-ST, the AT-ST comes out looking like it should maybe cost about 10 points. I'm sure others will arrive at slightly different numbers, but you get the idea. Then, you compare the Repulsor Tank to the AT-DP. It's clear that the tank should be around 7 points due to its massive loss in durability and firepower flexibility. The only gain for the tank is +1 speed. So if you put Repulsor at around 7 and AT-ST around `10, they start looking fine next to the AT-DP. But then elite Ewebs start looking like crap compared to the tank (especially the tank) and walkers. By extension so do other units.

It looks to me like a lot of units are terrible compared to the AT-DP which to me says that the core issue here is that the AT-DP is overpowered. Sure, some of these other units were already crap, but I'm really tired of doing homebrew buffs just to make old stuff kind of match new stuff. Could FFG maybe just stop releasing overpowered new units? Please?

willange, you are looking at it the wrong way! newer things are on the correct powercurve, where the older stuff was WAAAAY overcosted. Lets just compare the at-dp to a set of elite stormtroopers for a moment (elite stormtroopers are a solid baseline overall). Both can put out roughly the same amount of damage, and they have similar health. They both offer different things though. Some units were just poorly costed to begin with and I wish we could see a change on them, but I like where things are going. Nothing in HotE seems stronger (or necessarily weaker) than jabba's realm, which I think is a good thing.

13 minutes ago, MadFuhrer said:

willange, you are looking at it the wrong way! newer things are on the correct powercurve, where the older stuff was WAAAAY overcosted. Lets just compare the at-dp to a set of elite stormtroopers for a moment (elite stormtroopers are a solid baseline overall). Both can put out roughly the same amount of damage, and they have similar health. They both offer different things though. Some units were just poorly costed to begin with and I wish we could see a change on them, but I like where things are going. Nothing in HotE seems stronger (or necessarily weaker) than jabba's realm, which I think is a good thing.

You're right, but either way I still have a lot of units to buff in our home games. I don't like it when games make me work to make things fair. That said, I've loved the 4 fixes we got so far! I just wish they would get to printing these fixes a bit more quickly.

(I haven't played Descent yet, but) perhaps we'll get an Imperial Assault Second Edition that addresses balance issues at some point?

10 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

(I haven't played Descent yet, but) perhaps we'll get an Imperial Assault Second Edition that addresses balance issues at some point?

I really hate the idea of second editions, unless they also release conversion kits.

Honestly, though, the game is still getting expansions. If Skirmish Upgrades are good enough for the Skirmish players, just throw in updated deployment cards (including the erratta'd ones and rebalanced ones) in the next boxed release. Plus, if the only change that is made is points cost, this won't break Initial or Reserved groups, either. Win/win.

Edit: I guess technically there could be a slight balance issue in that any generic groups could be redeployed for less than what they originally would've cost, but I'm not even sure if that's a factor they really look into much during playtesting.

6 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

I guess I'm also just glad to get more vehicles in the game.

I'm just getting an X-miniatures game kinda vibe and it sucks (the T-65 being "replaced" by the T-70 and the ARC-170).

It doesn't help that that it's the centrepiece massive model in this expansion, casting it's overpowering shadow over the other big piece of plastic.

On the plus side, if it's only an aesthetics thing, one could simply swap the DP model for the ST model. They are both massive figures after all. But I know a lot of people hate that idea...heck, I'm one of 'em!

But It's no reason to get turned off by HOTE. It only shows up in a few missions as an initial/reserved group.

(I'd post the exact amount in spoilers but I don't know how to do the tags!)

3 minutes ago, Armandhammer said:

I'm just getting an X-miniatures game kinda vibe and it sucks (the T-65 being "replaced" by the T-70 and the ARC-170).

It doesn't help that that it's the centrepiece massive model in this expansion, casting it's overpowering shadow over the other big piece of plastic.

On the plus side, if it's only an aesthetics thing, one could simply swap the DP model for the ST model. They are both massive figures after all. But I know a lot of people hate that idea...heck, I'm one of 'em!

But It's no reason to get turned off by HOTE. It only shows up in a few missions as an initial/reserved group.

Yeah, I get that. Obviously the ST is more iconic than the DP, and it's a shame that the DP is now more viable. I'm just glad that we're not getting a hunk of plastic that we're never going to seriously use again.

Quote

(I'd post the exact amount in spoilers but I don't know how to do the tags!)

You write the word "spoiler" with a "[" in the front and a "]" in the back. At the end of the quote it's the same thing but it has a "[/" in the front instead.

I'm trying to balance the old vehicles for home games. What are people's thought on giving the hover tank mounted? Then it costs more than the AT-DP and has worse attack and survivability but fills a hyper mobile vehicle role(which makes sense that a tank would let you move faster than walking), and it would synergize with focus fire.

4 minutes ago, sabsben said:

I'm trying to balance the old vehicles for home games. What are people's thought on giving the hover tank mounted? Then it costs more than the AT-DP and has worse attack and survivability but fills a hyper mobile vehicle role(which makes sense that a tank would let you move faster than walking), and it would synergize with focus fire.

uh not sure what you mean by "mounted", is that a keyword or ability?

for at-home casual games I think @cnemmick did an amazing job over here

Mounted is an ability the dewback rider has. "Mounted: At the start of your activation gain 3 movement points." While I like @cnemmick 's idea especially for Weiss and the AT-ST, I'm a little worried it gives all of the vehicles a very similar feel. So while I think it makes total sense for an all the AT's to feel similar I wanted the tank to play slightly differently than the big hulking walkers.

6 hours ago, sabsben said:

Mounted is an ability the dewback rider has. "Mounted: At the start of your activation gain 3 movement points." While I like @cnemmick 's idea especially for Weiss and the AT-ST, I'm a little worried it gives all of the vehicles a very similar feel. So while I think it makes total sense for an all the AT's to feel similar I wanted the tank to play slightly differently than the big hulking walkers.

That's fair. My goal was to get a simple fix out for all the existing Imperial large vehicles.

For the SC2-M, I kinda want to make it an Imperial Bantha Rider -- gain a Stampede-like feature, some sort of built-in movement bonus (Mounted would be a good template).

Also, thanks @ricope for your praise!

@sabsben , I like the "Mounted" idea. Maybe they could change the # of movement points and call it something else, though, since "mounted" is a bit weird for a tank.