Inferno Squad

By MagicSevi, in Star Wars: Imperial Assault

First of all, a huge thank you to Bitterman. I used his Card Editor for making my cards. Fantastic work!

Because I really like the Inferno Squad Book (more than the story in Battlefront II) I thought why not add them to Imperial Assault. We don‘t have any Imperial Special Forces yet and the characters from Inferno Squad were very fitting in my opinion. I have to warn you though, I am mostely a campaign player. I want to play more Skirmish in the future, so please go soft on me. :P

This is my very first time I write here in the forums and I‘m not quite sure if I‘m supposed to just open a new topic but because I have put somewhat of a big effort into this little project I thought this is the way to go to show you guys how I tried to adapt these cool characters for Imperial Assault. I structure this thread as following: I‘ll post an answer for each of the characters. Each of these answers will contain a picture of the Deployment Card of the character and a description of my thoughts while doing it. Finally I will post some basic thoughts about strategy for using Inferno Squad in Imperial Assault.

Two last things before we dive into the characters:

- All the characters I used are based on the work done by author Christie Golden in her book Inferno Squad and other official Star Wars sources like the game Battlefront II.

- This thread may contain spoilers for the book Inferno Squad as well as for Battlefront II‘s story mode, so enjoy on your own risk!

That‘s it for now, enjoy! :)

The main idea was to build a squad that works mostly together. So using an incomplete Inferno Squad won‘t be hardly as effective as a full one. This is reflected in the collective Skirmish Upgrade Card Inferno Squad . If you have at least 3 members of Inferno Squad in your list this upgrade unlocks the most powerful ability (called Best of the Best ) of each character. Also due to their status inside the Imperial Forces they won‘t take commands from everyday officers but only from high-ranking (high cost) characters.

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Iden Versio :

She is the commander of Inferno Squad. I wanted to show that in abilities which make her fellow soldiers more effective. While On my Command could technically affect any friendly figure, Move, move, move focuses fully on Inferno Squad allies, allowing them to gain additional movement points. Her Best of the Best-Ability called Hope cannot save them gives her the unique ability to completely take an enemy figure out of the round, exhausting it‘s deployment card. Even though this comes at the high cost of two actions it can be a very poweful tool to manipulate your opponents plans. With a Speed value of 5 she is the fastest of Inferno Squad and her 12 Health Points allow her to survive the first few attacks on her.

Finally, her Command Card Exploit their Weakness can help her out defensively by making it a risk to attack her, and offensively by focusing her if she can defeat the attacker. It comes at a cost of 2 and states: Use while a damaged hostile figure declares an attack targeting you. Interrupt to attack that figure. If you defeat that figure Iden becomes focused .

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Edited by MagicSevi

Gideon Hask :

Raised as an orphan in the Imperial Academy on Vardos, Iden’s childhood friend Gideon is a full-blood soldier. He has one of the simpler load-outs I made, but none the less he can be very effective, especially on close-range. Thanks to his Special Forces Training he is immune to harmful conditions. It even makes him stronger because Gideon would get focused instead. His Best of the Best -Ability allows him to get the best out of his Blaster (Red and Green) with Explosive Shots . At the cost of the 2 built-in Accuracy Points his attack gains Blast 3. In addition Gideon Hask is quite tanky. 14 Health-Points guarantee him a long survival even though he is quite slow due to carrying heavy weapons (Speed 3).

If you know his back-story it‘s not a surprise that Gideon is very Loyal to the Empire . At the cost of 3 his Command Card allows him and his fellow soldiers to eliminate a hostile figure very quickly: Use when d eclaring an attack. Every friendly figure with the Inferno trait within 3 spaces that has line of sight to your target resolves an attack on the same target. Your opponent decides about the order in which the attacks resolve .

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Edited by MagicSevi

Seyn Marana :

By far the youngest member of Inferno Squad, Seyn is a first-class marksman and because of her past in the ISB a very talented slicer. These qualities are reflected in her abilities. System Override makes her stronger if she is adjacent to a terminal. Maybe by getting access to enemy databases she gains up to two power tokens. Glory of the Empire , Seyn’s Best of the Best-Ability , represents her sacrifice in the Book. If she is defeated every figure with the Inferno trait gains an action. She compensates the lack of Health Points (7) with her ability Nimble thanks to which she gains to Movement Points for every Evade she gets while defending.

Seyn Marana’s Command Card Eidetic Memory represents another very special ability. Because she remembers everything about her enemies from the ISB-dossiers she can predict their behavior and make it impossible for them to attack her. At the cost of 2 it states: Until the end of the round you cannot be the target of an attack .

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Del Meeko :

Del is the engineer of Inferno Squad. This is represented in his abilities which focus strongly around his little buddy, an ID10 Seeker Droid (see below). Thanks to his technical knowledge Del can call in a powerful orbital attack from the base of operations of Inferno Squad, the Raider-Class Frigate Corvus ( Corvus Turbolaser Strike ). For 2 actions he sends coordinates to the ship and at the end of the round a figure on a selected space suffers considerable Damage while every other figure on the tile suffers Strain. His great synergies with ID10 come into play with his second ability Situation Analysis . If an attack is declared on him by an enemy figure with a recon token he will be prepared. His Best of the Best -Ability ID10 Seeker Droid allows Del to field the droid which activates at the start or end of Del‘s own activation. Del Meeko is designed to be average in Health (8) and Speed (4).

While Del is not exactly an offensive character his Command Card called Imperial Reconnaissance can give him a great advantage if used at the right time. At the cost of 1 and an action it states: U s e if you have line of sight with at least two hostile figures with recon tokens. Declare an attack on two of them .

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ID10

The small reconnaissance droid was heavily improved by Del Meeko. Besides its standard Scan-Pulse , with which ID10 can place recon tokens on enemy figures, it is able to project an Energy Shield . This allows it to block Line of Sight between itself and its opponents. Since like this ID10 can only take damage if the attacker is in the same space , this compensates the lack of a defence die. Its last ability called Medical Loadout gives it an opportunity to be helpful for all its allies. At the end of every round an adjacent friendly figure can recover up to 3 Damage. ID10‘s Speed value is 4 and it has 6 Health Points.

ID10 should actually be a companion card. But for the ease of creating it I decided to have him as a regular deployment card.

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Edited by MagicSevi

Garrick Versio

Last but not least I had a shot at Admiral Versio, Iden‘s father. He is the founder of Inferno Squad and a well respected officer within the Imperial Navy and the ISB. His abilities differ in many ways from the ones of the other Inferno Squad members since he is a very passive character. Nevertheless, he can make the difference in a battle by his ability to manipulate the way you get access to Command Cards. Military Efficiency allows him to re-use certain Command Cards while Direct Orders , even though quite expensive at a cost of 2 actions, gives him the ability to look for a certain Command Card in your Command Deck. Admiral Versios influence on the battlefield doesn’t end here. With Arms Distribution he hands out attack and defense tokens and his last ability, Best of the Best - Emperor‘s Sentinel Droid , gives him the very powerful ability to activate another friendly figure twice in one round. Though he has only 6 Health Points Garrick Versio might be harder to kill then you may think. In addition to his black Defence Die he always has +1 Block and +1 Evade while defending.

Admiral Versio may seem slow with a Speed value of only 2 but consider that moving (or attacking obviously) is not his role in a battle. If threatened he can make use of his Command Card called Command Shuttle . At a cost of 2 it states: Use when a hostile figure enters a space on the same tile as you. Place Garrick Versio on another tile .

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Basic Strategy

After testing Inferno Squad in random Skirmish Missions against more or less random lists I can say that they need quite some strategy to be effective. There are a lot of synergies that are going on in some aspects of the game while other parts aren‘t that elaborated. This means that while fielding an Inferno Squad list (all characters together including the Skirmish Upgrade sum up to 40 points) you should fully play to their strengths. In my opinion these strengths lie in the ability to manipulate an opponent’s plans with Iden and Garrick Versio. Lure your opponents into traps and finish them with devastating attacks from Gideon. Also Seyn, even though valuable when alive, can make the difference in a close game if you sacrifice her at the right moment. In contrast to that you should be careful against very fast Melee lists because ID10‘s defensive shield ability is least effective against them and Admiral Versio will be in serious trouble if he gets caught.

Again, big thank you to Bitterman and to all of you who chewed through this and maybe will give me some feedback. I assure you that this would be much appriciated!

Edited by MagicSevi