After painting a bunch of my IA-minis, I'd love to dive in and play a few games. I've NO experience with playing (although I know the rules) and building a fun and moderately competetive squad, which is why I turn to you for advice. Please note that you do not need to provide me a complete squad and command card deck, a few pointers, suggestions, hints für identifying weaknesses and how to best deal with them and such stuff will be greatly appreciated.

Here are the basics of what I'd like to do with my squad and command card deck:

-include Ahsoka Tano

-include Chopper

-include Hera Syndulla

-I enjoy my playing pieces being mobile and able to pick the fights they want to, thus being mobile and possibly messing with the opponent's movement is the thing I'm looking for.

-I'd like to include some spy-capabilities

-I want Ahsoka to be very active. I realize that she will be on her own, most of the time, not near friendly figures, so how do I best or most cleverly protect her from accumulating too much damage?

I own:

-Core game

-Return to Hoth

-Twin Shadows

-Jabba's Realm

-Heart of the Empire

-various Ally and Villain Packs

Many thanks in advance!

Something like this?

Army for Fortytwo (15/15/40)
==========================
[12] Luke Skywalker
[8] Ahsoka Tano
[4] Hera Syndulla
[3] C1-10P
[5] Jarrod Kelvin
[3] Gideon Argus
[2] C-3PO
[3] 'Mak Eshka''rey'
[0] Heroic Effort

-------------------

[3] Son of Skywalker
[2] Comm Disruption
[2] Force Surge
[2] Heart of Freedom
[2] Prepared for Battle
[1] Intelligence Leak
[1] Right Back At Ya!
[1] Force Push
[1] Negation
[0] Devotion
[0] Officer's Training
[0] Planning
[0] Take Initiative
[0] Brace Yourself
[0] Cut Lines

All of your Fighters are also Leaders and you have several Spies to work with. This list will have trouble in the first round against snipers, but if you can survive the first round of fire and get into their midst they will have a lot of trouble. 8 activations is also great.

You could also try something like this:

http://tabletopadmiral.com/imperialassault/8e8105843e3d088f0000000000000005580194959e4977c3cfce1c359c87

Ohhh this sounds fun Ok so let's start out with what I think is the core of the list:

8 Ahsoka

4 Hera

3 Chopper

After this you probably want to include what many refer to as the "Rebel Care Package"

2 C3PO

3 Gideon Argus

Focus is a very important condition for Rebel figures to acquire as many of them tend to need a little more offensive "buff." C3PO is great because he also adds a free evade for the adjacent figures he stands by, and Gideon gives you extra movement. If you place Ahsoka next to Hera and within Gideon's line of sight, she becomes a great threat on round 1 since she can effectively move 11 spaces and still get off a free attack! On many maps that means it will be difficult for your opponent to keep all of their figures safe from her threat especially if they want to contest objectives. Typically you will want to start the first round focusing up your figures with C3PO and Gideon. Just make sure to not put them up to far- always be mindful of your opponent's positioning and try to estimate how far figures can get so you wont be these guys in line of sight for easy attacks. I have learned it's usually always better to keep gideon/3po out of harm so you can get more focuses out of them on round 2. resist the urge to move them forward just because it gives you a sense of progress.

so that gives us 20 points to work with. going for spy theme, here's a few things we can use (bearing in mind you dont have Bespin Gambit which is the Rebel spys expansion lol)

5 Jarrod

Jarrod can move far and attack (7 spaces effectively) so he does make your opponent consider positioning.

3 Mak

He's a cheap spy unit, and occasionally you can focus him up and pull off his critical strike to remove an all important command card from an opponent.

7 Rebel Saboteurs

They are speedy ( a theme for your list, I guess) and they can mess opponents up with the stun. They are a great candidate for focusing round 1, and then after they get off an attack you can use them to help claim objectives if they are still alive. Their attack isn't where their strength lies- you have to use their speed and stun capabilities to your advantage

5 Jyn Odan

Jyn's hair trigger ability can really mess with stuff. She's fast and she can stun, so another great candidate for the early focus.

Those are just a few ideas. Depending on what you have, you could sub out the sabs for loku and balance of the force and an alliance smuggler.

In terms of keeping Ahsoka safe, I think first you must include her command card. For me, it's so good I consider it an auto-include in any list with her (the potential for 3 unmitigated damage is very powerful and can make almost dead units second guess whether to attack her). If you are going to move her in round 1 then I would wait till my last activation in most cases. Let her get off the early round 2 attack and then run her away from harm if possible. You could include some movement cards like Force Rush if you are running Luke/Davith (you don't own him though)/Obi Wan. Urgency and Advanced Warning would be great for this list to help with that too (you have a few good leaders to use it on and it's better than fleet footed for that). Other command cards like Brace for Impact, Stealth Tactics, and even Tough Luck (sometimes) can help with defense. I would include Tough Luck either way since it combos well with Ahsoka's abilities to remove your opponents die after forcing them to reroll it with twin sabers.

If you include stuff like Han Solo/ Jyn then cards like "slippery target" are an even better choice since they can help to get Ahsoka and your other smugglers to run away from Darth Vader. Hard to Hit can help you reroll and try to get a dodge.

You can also get in your round 2 attack and then play "Hide in Plain Sight" to keep her safe another round. Heart of Freedom gets her back some health and gives movement, so I would include that.

Other movement shenanigans:

force push, force surge, field tactician

for damage:

prepared for battle (also buffs her defense a bit), deathblow , tools for the job

Hope this helps get you off in the right direction Most of all, have fun!

First of all, thanks for the suggestions so far, especially yours, @TheWelcomeMat88 - you got it.

I've gone through my cards and for the time being came up with the following list. It's good to know that I already had quite a few of the cards you mentioned on my radar, like Hide in Plain Sight or Slippery Target, and of course, Right Back at Ya! is a no-brainer. Please note that I built the team to fit a theme, and I also put in a characters I simply like thematically and with regards to their figures, so bear with me. The list is not supposed to be hard as nails competetive, but competetive, fun and thematic. It's my current vision of a small elite team of operatives who accompany Ahsoka on secretive and dangerous special mission in the lead-up to the formation of the Rebel Alliance before they openly went to war against the Empire.

• Ahsoka Tano (8)
• Hera Syndulla (4)
• C1-10P (3)
• Drokkatta (9)
• Verena Talos (8)
• Ko-Tun Feralo (7)

• Right Back At Ya!
• Evacuate
• On a Mission
• Force Push
• Force Surge
• Force Rush
• Hide in Plain Sight
• Slippery Target
• Slippery Target
• Stealth Tactics
• Tough Luck
• Urgency
• Advance Warning
• Recovery
• Rally

I still have one point I could spend on the deployment section, and I was wondering if On a Diplomatic Mission is worth it, and if I include it, to which of my three Leaders I should best attach it. Suggestions?

Please tell me what you think.

Thanks for the kind shoutout and I like the idea of the theming- sound fun!

I think you could get more utility out of Trusted Ally on Chopper or Targeting Computer on Drokkata. You really want to be using On a Diplomatic Mission with figures that aren't going to be attacking (Gideon) and with a 6 figure list you will want Hera attacking. You could even include Smuggler's Run with Hera if you wanted to distract opponents from your bigger hitters. Any three of those should make things even better!

Here's a few suggestions and some reasoning behind them.

This is me personally, but I tend to avoid using a splash damage character like Drokkatta with characters who like to be up close and personal such as Ahsoka and Verena. Don't need to be helping your opponent by splashing your own melee figs. I would encourage going all ranged if you want to use Drokkatta. In light of your theme however, I think the better idea would be to replace Drokkatta. That's difficult to do considering the Wookiee's health, damage output, and the limited cast you're looking to use.

I would say Gideon is an auto-include. His ability to focus an ally and move them is very valuable and he's a great unit for On a Diplomatic Mission since he should be commanding and never shooting. In this list, I would always look to Focus Verena because she can do massive single-unit damage to a 3-dice opponent with Focus, Close Quarters and Fighting Knife.

I would then consider Jarrod for the Brawler and Spy traits to synergize the list and CCs. He also moves very well and is one of the few characters that can keep up with Ahsoka. Both Jarrod and Verena would be annoying to take down with their auto-evade, black die and the block power token from Ko-Tun if she can keep dishing them.

You would have 2 points left with those changes. If you want to stay away from Alliance Smugs, I love the Balance of the Force upgrade for the 3 extra Command Points. On a Diplomatic Mission is great on Gideon for reasons already stated.

In terms of the CC deck, I don't like to include trait-specific cards unless I have multiple characters of that trait in my squad that can use them. The only exception are character-specific cards. For instance, I noticed a lot of Force cards in your CC deck, but only have Ahsoka with the ability to use them. I would consider adding at least one more Force User or subbing the CCs out because those are dead cards once Ahsoka goes down. My only exceptions are powerful character CCs like Son of Skywalker or Blaze of Glory. Right Back at Ya! is cheap enough that I like to include it in my Ahsoka lists. Otherwise, everyone has their favorite auto-includes. I always take Element of Surprise, Take Initiative, Negation, and Urgency. They're all general cards that any character can use. EoS would be especially good in your list because of Ahsoka's (and Jarrod's) speed.

Since I've been following your awesome painting work, I know you're partial to your Fulcrum crew. My suggestions also makes your list primarily melee, so that can be difficult if that doesn't fit your play style. That's my two cents though! I hope that helps in some way.

If you want to keep to an all-female-and-cantankerous-droid build I'd recommend exchanging Verena for Leia. Since you're not working with Verena's Brawler trait in your command cards, she's not really going to produce the kind of offensive output you'll need from her 8 deployment points. (Close Quarters seems really great but Verena's regular speed really keeps her from getting adjacent to an important hostile figure before she gets sniped.) With Leia, you'll have her Battlefield Leadership ability to help you get an extra attack out of Drokkatta or Ahsoka.

Since you have so many Force User cards in your command deck, you could also replace Verena with Obi-Wan Kenobi. You'd lose some Spy synergy but you'd gain another 3-die attacker that can take a few hits before getting eliminated. You'd also have a free Deployment point for Rebel High Command, which would either free up Chopper from terminal-sitting the whole game and give you potentially a 3-card draw at the end of each round.

Taking your suggestions to heart and keeping the theme of special operatives working with 'Fulcrum' at the same time, I tinkered a bit with the deployment cards and command cards and had quite a few games, and I finally settled on the following selection, which is thematic, fun to play, and has proven to be a little bag of tricks with some bite to them:

Ahsoka Tano (8)

Hera Syndulla (4)

C1-10P (3)

Verena Talos (8)

Ko-Tun Feralo (7)

Loku Kanoloa (4)

eAlliance Smuggler (4)

Balance of the Force (1)

Right Back At Ya! (1)

Hide in Plain Sight (3)

Slippery Target (2)

Slippery Target (2)

Advance Warning (0)

Heart of Freedom (2)

Comm Disruption (2)

Stealth Tactics (1)

Brace for Impact (1)

Tough Luck (1)

Hit and Run (1)

Element of Surprise (0)

Urgency (0)

Recovery (0)

Rally (0)

I didn't taylor this team and command deck to deal with a specific sort of opponent, because I find this sort of building a force somewhat lame. I rather selected characters I like and whose minis I like, and who create some synergies across the team. I really dig the spy-theme, which is so in keeping with Ahsoka's role in the early rebellion.

Thanks to your suggestions and pointers!

I am a big fan of @ThatJakeGuy 's list. Very solid. A bit melee focused, but Rebels don't have too many great ranged units (Han and Rangers are the best).

I'm building a similar list (I'm calling it "Three Musketeers" with Leia, Ahsoka, and Verena) and stumbled on this topic. Quick question about Verena: which surges does she use with "Close Quarters?" It says to use the defenders attack type and attack pool ... but that means the dice and the melee/ranged designation, right? So Verena can still trigger her own surges (+2 dmg, pierce 1, and Fighting Knife ), even though she's swinging with her opponent's weapon, correct?

The appeal of grabbing Darth Vader's lightsaber and swinging it into his kneecap, then shoving a knife into his chest is more than a bit irresistible, friends!

Yes, so if adjacent toDVader she would make an attack with Red, Red, Yellow dice but only be able ro use her surge abilities, not Darth's

Note that you wouldnt get the +1 damage from Driven By Hatred.