Playing tonight as the Empire I did what they do best, panic Rebel Scum. Well my opponent and I both agreed that this seems broken. The main question is, what is a core units courage value? It says 1 on the card, but is that for the unit as a whole or is that per mini in that unit? A unit is defined as: a miniature or a collection of minis that function as a single fighting group. Now with some command cards that say unit. Now if a single mini has 1 suppression, then why can't I activate 1 mini in my core group?

One of the guys who was helping us along the way also pointed out an article where Alex Davies said that each mini added to the suppression. He said he found it on the Reddit page but I have been unable to find it. Other guys have said it's on the card. To me this is very important and a complete game changer.

Value is 1 per group, 2 to go panic. You can superseed this value with a Commander in range, close to Luke a unit needs 6 tokens to get into panic and fail all the dice roll when rally step. Close to Vader a troop group will never goes into panic.

See that's what I thought to but was told wrong because the game designer said it somewhere.

And this is why you always go RAW over RAI when possible, because "as written" is usually pretty clearly posted somewhere.

10 hours ago, Hijodecain said:

Value is 1 per group, 2 to go panic.

Initial post which was wrong...

Note also that panic is evaluated after the rally step of the activation. Given that rally removes at least one suppression token, you'll need three at the start of your activation to have a chance of panic. Even then the other two could be removed at a 1/3 chance each.

For a courage 1 unit not near a leader:

0-2 suppression - no chance of panic

3 suppression - 44% chance of panic

4+ suppression - likely to panic

Edit...

2 suppression tokens won't automatically fail as you get to roll to remove during the rally stage. Also, with a token removed at the end of the round, it's easier to panic units which haven't yet activated than ones who have.

To further clarify....a rebel trooper unit has courage 1. This doesn't change, no matter how many minis you add to it.

One suppression token means they're suppressed, so they lose an action, and gain one cover. Two suppression tokens means that, if they don't get rid of at least one, via rally, they are going to panic. If Luke is nearby, they can use his courage instead, so they'll only panic once they have six tokens, BUT they are still suppressed, as the leaders courage only helps to avoid panic, not suppression.

Vader has infinite courage, so never gets suppression tokens, and troops nearby will never panic.

Hope that clarifies it even more!

It's actually a finely balanced system. You need to roll damage in order to suppress, but reducing damage to 0 is very easy to do. So instead of making this game a kill fest, suppression can effectively remove a unit for a round. It's also thematic, so that's a nice bonus. When the unit activates, it has the chance to remove suppression tokens via Rally, where it rolls a white defense die per token and removes it on a symbol. Suppression also grants light cover, further making it harder to kill a unit.

I really like the system. I thought it was OP at first, but after playing a bit I found the tactical advantage to suppressing key units.

I thought you just had to roll damage not actually cause it. So even if the damage was blocked you still were suppressed

2 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

I thought you just had to roll damage not actually cause it. So even if the damage was blocked you still were suppressed

That's correct and I believe that's what Undeadguy was saying, just with some odd phrasing. Basically even if you do no damage or it's entirely blocked by cover, as long as you rolled at least 1 hit, you still throw out suppression and potentially limit actions.

Yea, roll damage. Hit or crit in the attack pool. Nothing else matters.

See now that's what I thought. My Rebel opponent kept getting pissed at me, and his dice, because after you kill Luke, every Rebel unit is basically screwed.

Suppression/Panic is what essentially won me my second game against @Crit Happens where I went all in on his vader, trading my AT-ST for him. But after that I got a squadron to flee the battlefield and had another squad disengage enough that I was able to take the objectives even though I was beaten and bruised pretty badly.

2 hours ago, AndyNichols said:

Note also that panic is evaluated after the rally step of the activation. Given that rally removes at least one suppression token, you'll need three at the start of your activation to have a chance of panic. Even then the other two could be removed at a 1/3 chance each.

For a courage 1 unit not near a leader:

0-2 suppression - no chance of panic

3 suppression - 44% chance of panic

4+ suppression - likely to panic

Panic occurs at suppression equal to or greater than twice the courage value.

2 hours ago, AndyNichols said:

Note also that panic is evaluated after the rally step of the activation. Given that rally removes at least one suppression token, you'll need three at the start of your activation to have a chance of panic. Even then the other two could be removed at a 1/3 chance each.

Every unit loses one suppression at the end of the round; you don't take one off automatically during the rally step.

57 minutes ago, AintNoPoser said:

See now that's what I thought. My Rebel opponent kept getting pissed at me, and his dice, because after you kill Luke, every Rebel unit is basically screwed.

Yeah, tell him not to get his commander killed ?

when done correctly and a commander is around (even Leia with courage of 2) its incredibly difficult to cause a unit to panic.

After they rally, if they have double or more their courage value (if commander is in range, double or more his/hers which is why Vader makes them immune to panic), they panic and flee with their 1 action.
Two reasons why this is really hard to do unless your commander isnt around.

1) Even with Leia, thats 4 tokens required to panic. Leia/Veers remove suppression tokens on their own to make it even harder, but you lose 1 at the end of the round as well. This combined with a total of 6 wounds and you must take damage to gain a suppression token....odds are the unit dies before they panic
2) Before they panic you roll a white def die per token and remove 1 on each shield/surge icon. This is only a 1/3 chance, but between the 4 tokens you are very likely to remove at least 1 and avoid the panic.

Of course, no commander around, stupid stupid easy to cause it. Thats one of the reasons people really want a cheaper commander (leia/veers) because they can actually stay with the troops, luke/vader are useless if they dont charge in and tend to sometimes get out of range of a unit and it flees (done it several times, irritating as **** to notice im slightly out of range and they panic). This is one of the reasons losing your commander or having bad placements with him/her is insanely bad, but not as bad as losing your warlock in Warmahordes so you can atleast still attempt to win in the end.

2 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

That's correct and I believe that's what Undeadguy was saying, just with some odd phrasing. Basically even if you do no damage or it's entirely blocked by cover, as long as you rolled at least 1 hit, you still throw out suppression and potentially limit actions.

How does the modification step affect this? Can you roll all blanks and change one with an upgrade and it provide suppression? I had thought that cover and modification happened before you determine if suppression is gained. The way my group has been playing it is that if you have to roll defense dice, you get suppressed.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

Every unit loses one suppression at the end of the round; you don't take one off automatically during the rally step.

Thank you. I thought I had missed something big.

It's absolutely the game's most important system that makes it otherwise largely borrowed game mechanics shine. It disincentivizes focus fire and makes alternating activations a lot more interesting by giving players options to reduce the effectiveness of units that are waiting to activate without having to be able to kill them. It also makes the Commander a lynchpin to give ways to swing attrition. When I read the rules I thought the game seemed largely okay, but the suppression mechanic is what actually makes it something special.

13 minutes ago, Cade Bulkin said:

How does the modification step affect this? Can you roll all blanks and change one with an upgrade and it provide suppression? I had thought that cover and modification happened before you determine if suppression is gained. The way my group has been playing it is that if you have to roll defense dice, you get suppressed.

RRG pg 15:

During an attack, if at any point the attack dice in an attack pool produce at least one hit (?) or critical (?) result and the defender is a trooper, the defender gains a suppression token.

It's also what keeps vehicles from being useless as they are by and large much harder to "suppress" (need ion).

42 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

okens on their own to make it even harder, but you lose 1 at the end of the round as well. This combined with a total of 6 wounds and you must take damage to gain a suppression token....odds are the unit dies before they panic

Units don't need to "take damage" to gain suppression tokens, you merely need to roll a hit or crit.

21 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

It's absolutely the game's most important system that makes it otherwise largely borrowed game mechanics shine. It disincentivizes focus fire and makes alternating activations a lot more interesting by giving players options to reduce the effectiveness of units that are waiting to activate without having to be able to kill them. It also makes the Commander a lynchpin to give ways to swing attrition. When I read the rules I thought the game seemed largely okay, but the suppression mechanic is what actually makes it something special.

Totally agree, and in actuality, this game has already been around since 2011/2012. Most of what makes this game tick was lifted directly from Dust Warfare, and this suppression/panic system was what made that ruleset one of my favorite ever. Being able to have a psychological effect on an otherwise dug in enemy by spraying them with volume of fire is really cool. But as has been said, a good commander mitigates that effect as they would in real life, so protect them or your troops will run away screaming

5 hours ago, AndyNichols said:

Initial post which was wrong...

Note also that panic is evaluated after the rally step of the activation. Given that rally removes at least one suppression token, you'll need three at the start of your activation to have a chance of panic. Even then the other two could be removed at a 1/3 chance each.

For a courage 1 unit not near a leader:

0-2 suppression - no chance of panic

3 suppression - 44% chance of panic

4+ suppression - likely to panic

Edit...

2 suppression tokens won't automatically fail as you get to roll to remove during the rally stage. Also, with a token removed at the end of the round, it's easier to panic units which haven't yet activated than ones who have.

So I did the math for a unit with courage of one and I got:

2 suppression - 44% chance if fleeing

3 suppression - 74%

4 suppression - 89%

I think it is interesting that there is still a 26% chance of not fleeing at 3 tokens. I had a game of Intercept the Transmissions where I was counting on my opponent's troopers with 3 suppression to run off the board so I could score the point. I thought he was so lucky when he dropped 2 of them rallying. Looking back 26% is lucky but not crazy lucky.

1 hour ago, Vineheart01 said:

when done correctly and a commander is around (even Leia with courage of 2) its incredibly difficult to cause a unit to panic.

I also did the math for a unit with 2 courage:

4 suppression - 19% chance of fleeing

5 suppression - 46%

6 suppression - 68%

So like you said much more difficult. You have to have 6 on the unit before it is more probable that they will panic than not panicing. Even then they have almost a 1 in 3 chance of rolling off enough. Vader with Master of Evil might be able to do it, but even then it will be tough.