I'm having a hard time wanting to ever use these at all. I know armor is powerful, but the ion weapon seems terribly weak and horribly overpriced. I understand that the cost is based on the figure (added health) to the unit, but an additional 32 or 34 points (why are the slower Snowtroopers' weapons even more expensive).

they only have 2 red dice and impact 1, against anything with armor, they can barely do damage much less pull off the ion effect. They also cost an action to recover the ion gun to use it again.

Against a T47 for example that has Cover 1, this is nearly impossible to do.

Anyone else seeing value in theses?

Remeber, the ion ability applies to the entire attack pool, so if your whole unit fires you have a greater chance of causing at least 1 wound (and thus giving an ion token).

17 minutes ago, Ghost Dancer said:

Remeber, the ion ability applies to the entire attack pool, so if your whole unit fires you have a greater chance of causing at least 1 wound (and thus giving an ion token).

This. Combining weapons into a single pool is going to be a big part of strategy in many cases.

As far as the price for the ion weapons goes... Getting a 200+ point ISD ioned really sucks (As anyone who has played the challenge duel this weekend can attest to). And since ion tokens stack, 2 units of troopers can completely shut down a vehicle.

Yeah, remember that Ion weapons give an Ion Token if any part of their attack pool deals damage. If you lob a bunch of DH-280's at a Snowspeeder, it's Cover 1 gets to cancel ONE hit. Then the Impact 1 from the Ion Trooper gets to convert any one of the other remaining hits (and black dice create hits pretty well) into a crit, not just the red dice.

Taking actions away from vehicles can be a serious hindrance.

I'll admit, going into this weekend, I was thinking the same thing. My vehicle challenge during the Launch Event changed my mind. The Ion and the Z-6 are similar in damage output, and the Z-6 is better at generating natural crits (and can be quite effective with Aiming and Scopes by dint of raw volume of fire), but the Ion weapon is worth the extra ten points against vehicles. So, as expected, the Z-6 shoots dodgy troopers in cover more effectively (more natural crits that can't be cancelled), but the Ion Rifle really jacks up vehicles well. They both do what they say on the tin, in other words.

Whether the meta evolves to be Armor-heavy or not is the mysteries of the meta, but if it does, those ten points are well-spent on the Ion damage.

okay, I'm converted now. I didn't play any of the challenges, we just played a regular game and the biggest gripes we had after were the range on the weapons was really generous (we're going to have to get more LOS blocking terrain, large buildings, rocks, etc) and the snowspeeder was nigh un-killable. Once my units were depleted, they really couldn't generate enough hits to make enough crits. The Missile Launcher on the storm troopers looks much better now as well. 2 of those with aim ought to take an AtRt down a notch and possibly kill the thing outright. Bring on Veers!

Don't forget Ion tokens remain until the unit finishes an activation. So if an AT-ST goes at the top of a round and you ionize it, the tokens remain until the next round. Great way to mess up an Ambush play.

Ions worth it? Let me work it. Pew your AT-ST twice and then I nerf it.

Having played the Heavies duel twice I agree that the Anti-vehicle weapons needed the Exhaust to be balanced without some massive points cost.

1 hour ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Having played the Heavies duel twice I agree that the Anti-vehicle weapons needed the Exhaust to be balanced without some massive points cost.

The weapons for the stormtroopers is almost a no brainer on which is better on the DLT-19 vs the launcher,

DLT-19 pros:
Doesn't exhaust
impact 1
range 1-4
red dice
10 points less than launcher

cons:
'only' impact 1
only 2 dices

Launcher pros:
3 black dice
impact 3
Range 2-4

Cons:
has to exhaust
has to reload
can't move and fire
10 points more then dlt-19
no range 1

To be

8 minutes ago, Oberron said:

The weapons for the stormtroopers is almost a no brainer on which is better on the DLT-19 vs the launcher

To be fair, the Ion launcher can only move and fire on the first shot, or if you otherwise were able to previously Refresh.

20 minutes ago, Oberron said:

The weapons for the stormtroopers is almost a no brainer on which is better on the DLT-19 vs the launcher,

DLT-19 pros:
Doesn't exhaust
impact 1
range 1-4
red dice
10 points less than launcher

cons:
'only' impact 1
only 2 dices

Launcher pros:
3 black dice
impact 3
Range 2-4

Cons:
has to exhaust
has to reload
can't move and fire
10 points more then dlt-19
no range 1

They are both equal. DLT is more of constant damage with the best range, while the HH-9 is great at burst damage. It does have serious constraints, but with Veers and a full squad, Impact 3 is almost always going to trigger with those free Aim tokens.

Don't under estimate Impact 3. Pushing more dice will let some get through defense rolls. With Impact 1, you have a 66.66% chance to deal damage against an AT-ST. With odds like that, you may reconsider wasting an attack against it when you will only get 1 guaranteed crit.

Both have their place, and I expect HH-9 to be played more. At the very least, it's an additional 3 dice to the attack pool.

53 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

They are both equal. DLT is more of constant damage with the best range, while the HH-9 is great at burst damage. It does have serious constraints, but with Veers and a full squad, Impact 3 is almost always going to trigger with those free Aim tokens.

Don't under estimate Impact 3. Pushing more dice will let some get through defense rolls. With Impact 1, you have a 66.66% chance to deal damage against an AT-ST. With odds like that, you may reconsider wasting an attack against it when you will only get 1 guaranteed crit.

Both have their place, and I expect HH-9 to be played more. At the very least, it's an additional 3 dice to the attack pool.

I don't think they are equal when compared to each other at all because of those constraints, the empire has a solid amount of impact on their weapons as is witch makes the need of impact on troopers less useful. The impact 3 is good (which is why i added it to the pros) but with the option to split fire it isn't really a waste to shoot at armor with the dtl Since you'll be able to get two shoots compared to the hh-9 on at least the first shot (unless your opponent purposely moves into range 4 before you activate for some reason) and the black die has 37.5% chance of missing compaired to the 12.5% on the red meaning you'll have roughly have 2 damage from 3 black die without aim (with without veer since he isn't out yet its unlikely to have aim with hh-6, and the DLT doesn't need veer to be able to aim and fire since it doesn't need to take an action to reload). The burst from the hh-6 only works if it can keep firing at a target that wants to stay within range 4 of it since it can't move and fire. So without veers the DLT realistically breaks even with the hh-6 at range 4 and be able to edge out later on with the ability to keep up with its target, at closer range (2-3) the hh-6 could edge it out but at that point it is likely going to focused fired down, which means suppression and that means no firing it at all if it has to reload in between rounds, the DLT easily wins out at range 1 since it can actually fire at that range.

HH-6 might be more useful when veers comes out but until then the DLT imo is easily better overall than the hh-6.

Ion weapons from what I have seen are very worth it on a heavy armor based army. Shutting down an at-st or crippling speeders actions is huge.

The specific ion rifle available atm is situational, but not bad by any means.

Best use for it would be to hinder a vehicle that is about to be in a really bad for you position. Preventing a speeder bike unit from Aiming before they shoot at your ATRT or double-moving to get out of danger while still shooting at something would be ideal. Or zap a damaged vehicle, it only had 1 action anyway and you just took it away lol (the rolled a defend result of damaged anyway)

9 hours ago, Oberron said:

I don't think they are equal when compared to each other at all because of those constraints, the empire has a solid amount of impact on their weapons as is witch makes the need of impact on troopers less useful. The impact 3 is good (which is why i added it to the pros) but with the option to split fire it isn't really a waste to shoot at armor with the dtl Since you'll be able to get two shoots compared to the hh-9 on at least the first shot (unless your opponent purposely moves into range 4 before you activate for some reason) and the black die has 37.5% chance of missing compaired to the 12.5% on the red meaning you'll have roughly have 2 damage from 3 black die without aim (with without veer since he isn't out yet its unlikely to have aim with hh-6, and the DLT doesn't need veer to be able to aim and fire since it doesn't need to take an action to reload). The burst from the hh-6 only works if it can keep firing at a target that wants to stay within range 4 of it since it can't move and fire. So without veers the DLT realistically breaks even with the hh-6 at range 4 and be able to edge out later on with the ability to keep up with its target, at closer range (2-3) the hh-6 could edge it out but at that point it is likely going to focused fired down, which means suppression and that means no firing it at all if it has to reload in between rounds, the DLT easily wins out at range 1 since it can actually fire at that range.

HH-6 might be more useful when veers comes out but until then the DLT imo is easily better overall than the hh-6.

Ion weapons from what I have seen are very worth it on a heavy armor based army. Shutting down an at-st or crippling speeders actions is huge.

What do you mean by this?

9 hours ago, Oberron said:

(with without veer since he isn't out yet its unlikely to have aim with hh-6, and the DLT doesn't need veer to be able to aim and fire since it doesn't need to take an action to reload).

Veers gives out Aim tokens for free, and with Precise on Stormtroopers, you can reroll 3 dice. So every round, you can give 2 squads Aim, Recover to get HH-9, and then attack with 3 rerolls. It's effectively 6 additional dice to the attack pool.

Imps do have a little more Impact, but Vader and an AT-ST also cost 395 points. So loading up on high Impact will be hard until Veers comes out, and by then HH-9 will be much better.

I think both weapons will be seen in equal amount. Being able to down an AT-RT with 2 attacks is pretty good, but DLT can act as snipers picking squads off and contributing some damage to Armor.

The way I look at the DLT-19 vs the HH-12 is simple.

Use the HH-12 when you need 1 big thing to die quickly.

Use the DLT-19 when you need multiple smaller things to die further away.

1 hour ago, Indy_com said:

The way I look at the DLT-19 vs the HH-12 is simple.

Use the HH-12 when you need 1 big thing to die quickly.

Use the DLT-19 when you need multiple smaller things to die further away.

But you have to construct your army before hand, so you need to consider both options. If you run into heavy armor, you'll want HH-12. If you run into corps, you'll want DLT.

The tactics of both are quite simple. It's the army building that we are discussing.

Just now, Undeadguy said:

But you have to construct your army before hand, so you need to consider both options. If you run into heavy armor, you'll want HH-12. If you run into corps, you'll want DLT.

The tactics of both are quite simple. It's the army building that we are discussing.

Don't you need at least 3 Corps units for a tourney list?

Probably add 2 DLT-19 and 1 HH-12.

At this stage, you'll probably encounter more infantry swarm lists than heavy armour.

And that's why we have a thing called a metagame. It will vary from event to event and group to group.

1 minute ago, Indy_com said:

Don't you need at least 3 Corps units for a tourney list?

Probably add 2 DLT-19 and 1 HH-12.

At this stage, you'll probably encounter more infantry swarm lists than heavy armour.

You do need 3. If I were running Imps, that's what I would do.

As Rebels, I'm thinking 2 Z-6s and 1 Ion for a minimum. Probably 3 Z-6s and 2 Ions with 2 Cannon AT-RT and 1 Flamethrower.

There’s a lot of hate for the HH9. Same with the Ion. The idea of losing an action to ready isn’t as grave a loss as people think, everything is situational of course but there’s plenty of times where with their range it’s effective.

HH12 especially, adding that impact 3 to the whole attack pool is insane (if you’re using the HH12 for the attack I’m assuming you aren’t split firing in the first place, as what’s the point in split firing rather than focus firing a vehicle with armour).

The Ion? For me, activation denial seems to be getting disregarded. Again, giving that effect to the entire attack pool. Even in isolation of your other units, landing an Ion on an AtSt is giving him the option of either attack OR move next turn. With that in mind all your units can move into positions to take advantage of that + the rear arc. Landing one hit with the Ion makes it worth the points for me completely.

(I’m assuming we rebels aren’t fools and have timed it and placed our units in positions to make most advantage of that.)

I think there is a place for all the stats & percentages that people are throwing out here about dice and cards but it undermines/disregards a big part of the strategy that these games/upgrades are build around.

As of right now, the anti-armor weapons are probably the most viable. Rebels and Imps are hard pressed to build lists without vehicles because that's really all there is outside of your one named commander and vanilla troops. Rebels also are pretty hard pressed to build lists without multiple models with the armor keyword.

Wave 1 has Leia, Veers and more troops, Wave 2 has Han, Commandos and probably their imp equivalent. Unless more vehicles populate the release schedule, it's likely the AT weapons will get mostly removed from lists in favor of things with higher shot volume or units with abilities like blast or sharpshooter to take down units in cover. It's not even really that the vehicles are bad, but trooper units can accomplish any objective, get cover more easily, hide more easily and give you more activations for the points generally.

That being said, even now I don't find the AT weapons super compelling. As soon as the unit gets suppressed, it's a tall order to find the actions to reload the weapon, whereas a Z-6 or DLT still operates at full speed and both still do at least some work against armor whether it's the pile of dice from the Z-6 that'll crit eventually or the DLTs good dice and Impact 1.

TLDR: Even with an artificially high number of preferred targets due to limited units right now, I still don't find the extra cost for the anti-armor weapons to be worth it.

7 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

As of right now, the anti-armor weapons are probably the most viable. Rebels and Imps are hard pressed to build lists without vehicles because that's really all there is outside of your one named commander and vanilla troops. Rebels also are pretty hard pressed to build lists without multiple models with the armor keyword.

Wave 1 has Leia, Veers and more troops, Wave 2 has Han, Commandos and probably their imp equivalent. Unless more vehicles populate the release schedule, it's likely the AT weapons will get mostly removed from lists in favor of things with higher shot volume or units with abilities like blast or sharpshooter to take down units in cover. It's not even really that the vehicles are bad, but trooper units can accomplish any objective, get cover more easily, hide more easily and give you more activations for the points generally.

That being said, even now I don't find the AT weapons super compelling. As soon as the unit gets suppressed, it's a tall order to find the actions to reload the weapon, whereas a Z-6 or DLT still operates at full speed and both still do at least some work against armor whether it's the pile of dice from the Z-6 that'll crit eventually or the DLTs good dice and Impact 1.

TLDR: Even with an artificially high number of preferred targets due to limited units right now, I still don't find the extra cost for the anti-armor weapons to be worth it.

After they get the Spec-Ops out of the way we will probably get another unit for the Support Slot.

If the Facebook leaks are anything to go by, the Rebels will be getting bikes.

There will be more vehicles soon, we just need to prepare for everything.

That includes the unholy list involving 3 AT-RTs.

Here's the other factor to be considered, which will vary from getting too group (and in competitive play might hinge on the OP document) -- terrain.

If battlefields have sparse cover, it will favor stationary units that quickly find the best cover and hole up there the rest of the game. Units that do this will favor the heavier weapons that require readying.

The lighter weapons that can be fired on the move will be there favorite in regions that hop around cover a lot more.

Two rebel trooper units with the ion rifle can pretty much shut off of AT-ST every turn.

1 hour ago, Hrathen said:

Two rebel trooper units with the ion rifle can pretty much shut off of AT-ST every turn.

Keeping somewhere between 33% - 66% of their corps units (at minimum) engaged in stopping one AT-ST seems like a relatively lousy deal for the Rebels. Sure the Imps will be sad that the big pew isn't pewing but I'd imagine they'd have a much better shot at snagging objectives.