"We all have things we don't forget." - Alexsandr Kallus.

Welcome to card of the day!
Today's card is another Crew Upgrade, Agent Kallus.
This crew card reads:
- IMPERIAL ONLY.

At the start of the first round, choose 1 enemy small or large ship. When attacking or defending against that ship, you may change 1 of your focus results to a hit or evade result.

What do you think of him? Is he weak or strong in this meta? What squads would you use him in? Any neat interactions to note? What strategies should you use in a game? Any rules questions you have? Do you think we'll ever see a rebel version of Kallus? Anything at all you want to say about him, this is the place!

He's pretty nice in a 2 ship meta. TIE Phantoms are the classic choice. Any ship with an EPT can take Predator + Kallus and enjoy pretty good actionless dice modifiers. Kath Scarlet is a lot of fun with these two upgrades and a Mangler Cannon since she can evade each turn and stick around a little longer.

Pretty keen to test him on the new TIE Reaper pilot Major Vermel - as his ability lets you change a blank or focus to a hit vs a target with no focus/evade token. That's pretty much full mods vs a ship (after you jam them). You could throw Opportunist on there for a 4/5 dice attack. Not world breaking, but it'll be fun.

46 minutes ago, Bonza said:

Pretty keen to test him on the new TIE Reaper pilot Major Vermel - as his ability lets you change a blank or focus to a hit vs a target with no focus/evade token. That's pretty much full mods vs a ship (after you jam them). You could throw Opportunist on there for a 4/5 dice attack. Not world breaking, but it'll be fun.

And you could add Krennic and his Prototype mod...

Still waiting for the Rebel version.

19 minutes ago, Hawkstrike said:

Still waiting for the Rebel version.

You shut your mouth. Rebel Scum have plenty of awesome unique crew. Palpy can’t fit on a TIE shuttle and he got nerfed. Kallus is practically all we got left until the Reaper.

32 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

You shut your mouth. Rebel Scum have plenty of awesome unique crew. Palpy can’t fit on a TIE shuttle and he got nerfed. Kallus is practically all we got left until the Reaper.

Aww, poor Impy Palp got nerfed! Whatever are we to do?

2 hours ago, Bonza said:

He's pretty nice in a 2 ship meta. TIE Phantoms are the classic choice. Any ship with an EPT can take Predator + Kallus and enjoy pretty good actionless dice modifiers. Kath Scarlet is a lot of fun with these two upgrades and a Mangler Cannon since she can evade each turn and stick around a little longer.

Pretty keen to test him on the new TIE Reaper pilot Major Vermel - as his ability lets you change a blank or focus to a hit vs a target with no focus/evade token. That's pretty much full mods vs a ship (after you jam them). You could throw Opportunist on there for a 4/5 dice attack. Not world breaking, but it'll be fun.

There's currently a Kallus Kath on the German System Open live stream: https://www.twitch.tv/firstearth

Edit: now 3-0!

I like him because he has a good ability and creates a nice narrative element to a game ("I want that ship!"). I wish there were more cards like it.

Ffg op made some cool oversized Kallus tokens for last season’s store championships!

One of the few Imperial crew worth playing.

3 hours ago, Celestial Lizards said:

And you could add Krennic and his Prototype mod...

Would be sexy indeed.

I really like kallus' design and he'd be perfect for the current ghost Fenn problem, as well as against any TLT bearing list

Only issue is there aren't a lot of 2/3 agility ships with crew (outside of LWF TIE shuttle) to maximize his impact

If the phantom ever gets revisited, removing the cloak agility bonus (so it's reposition only) and bumping it to 3 agility to abate its obscene ps dependency, he'd be amazing

Maybe Krennic will help out. Maybe even a LWF reaper could end up benefiting greatly (though I predict a pretty bad dial without the use of advanced ailerons)

In any non-phantom case, we'd need another great 1-slot crew to make Kallus' carriers really potent

He's pretty decent, though there are not a lot of contexts where he fits - he needs a ship with a crew, that needs offensive mods, and doesn't want something else.

So, it's mostly just Whisper and Echo. Everyone else either has better options (Decis, TIE Bomber shuttles/reapers/lambdas, even Phantoms like Intel Agent), doesn't want to equip crew at all (potentially Phantoms too), or is just plain terrible (Firespray).

Plus, he's fairly meta dependent - he's much better in 2-ship metas. Very nice against Ghost/Fenn, for instance.

But yeah he's a nice card which is just outdone in most contexts by non-faction-limited stuff or Palp.

given the state of affairs, I don't we'll ever not see a 2-ship meta

we might go up to a vaunted 3-ships occasionally, but even then you got an easy Kallus target in Quickdraw or Miranda 9 times out of 10.

a good use of Kallus MAY be on the LWF Reaper alongside Krennic. Both crew give you benefits while leaving your action open to Jam or evade

now the Reaper dial could make the Lambda overjoyed at finally finding its long lost brother, but we believe from an article that it has sloops and a stop maneuver. The Sloop itself might be all it needs to be decent with kallus

it's going to heavily depend on the rest of the dial, but it's certainly an option provided Krennic's benefit is significant enough (either on another ship or maybe even the reaper itself)

if the Reaper is costed parallel to the lambda (the ps 6 costs the same as jendon), you're looking at palpatine costs (2 kallus, 2 LWF, 5 Krennic = +9 points, 1 point more than palp). Should be 30 points at most.

Kallus + LWF will make it a lot more combat capable than a palp reaper. But it still all comes down to whether or not Krennic makes it worth it.

another issue , however in that Krennic Reaper is lower priority because Krennic's benefit doesn't go away if he dies (it's tied to a condition card rather than the upgrade card). This makes the defensive portion of Kallus potentially less valuable

My superpower is never forgetting his ability. You heard it right... I am more than mere mortals.

5 hours ago, Hawkstrike said:

Aww, poor Impy Palp got nerfed! Whatever are we to do?

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

another issue , however in that Krennic Reaper is lower priority because Krennic's benefit doesn't go away if he dies (it's tied to a condition card rather than the upgrade card). This makes the defensive portion of Kallus potentially less valuable

Krennic can make his own ship into the Prototype to get around that.

Major Vermeil (26)
Juke (2)
Director Krennic (5)
Agent Kallus (2)
Lightweight Frame (2)

"Quickdraw" (29)
Veteran Instincts (1)
Fire-Control System (2)
Advanced Optics (2)
Lightweight Frame (2)
Special Ops Training (0)

"Omega Leader" (21)
Juke (2)
Comm Relay (3)
Guidance Chips (0)

Total: 99

Idk about juke. Vermeil is going to want jam for his ability or will be evading defensively

Otherwise looks lovely

I figured sometimes the jam wouldn't be removed. It never hurts to have extra options.

Not sure what other 1-2 pts EPT i should use. Any ideas?

Vi isn't the worst. Let's you alternate activations with OL, beats out dash (10,000% essential to even have a prayer), norra/wulf to a lesser extent, ties with Miranda and Rey . 2 point bid lets you probably beat those ties

Forgot Asajj, if you ever run into her

Crackshot is also a fine ept whenever you got the slot open

Lone wolf would be hilarious but probably not practical

You know, it's funny I never thought you'd see the reaper as anything more than a Palp shuttle. You probably still won't, but kallus + lwf + vermeil + jam (to facilitate vermeil) isn't that bad on a joust

I just remembered... We don't know if Advanced Ailerons has a cost or not... So its probably a good idea to have some points floating around.

59 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Vi isn't the worst. Let's you alternate activations with OL, beats out dash (10,000% essential to even have a prayer), norra/wulf to a lesser extent, ties with Miranda and Rey . 2 point bid lets you probably beat those ties

Forgot Asajj, if you ever run into her

Crackshot is also a fine ept whenever you got the slot open

Lone wolf would be hilarious but probably not practical

You know, it's funny I never thought you'd see the reaper as anything more than a Palp shuttle. You probably still won't, but kallus + lwf + vermeil + jam (to facilitate vermeil) isn't that bad on a joust

I'm expecting quad reapers to be one of those infuriating lists (or even 5 reapers if they're sub 20 points) if you ever use tokens for anything but trivial if you don't.

It will all depend on what Jam actually does. If it just puts a single token on them, as many reapers as you can bring will be EVIL. If it does what I'm expecting (apply tokens until they are Jammed, then stop), a lot less so.

If it's what I fear, roll a red die on hit/critical jam, then **** the reaper

Giving it a flechette Cannon type limitation is very reasonable, hopefully ffg does the right thing

6 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It will all depend on what Jam actually does. If it just puts a single token on them, as many reapers as you can bring will be EVIL. If it does what I'm expecting (apply tokens until they are Jammed, then stop), a lot less so.

2 Jam tokens!

No other epic action was changed in terms of power. The mechanics might have changed, but their relative power is the same.

Jam tokens are weaker than Stress tokens, stress preventing more actions AND movements.

Epic Jam gives 2 stress tokens in range 1-2.

BELIEVE!

well reinforce was adapted for non-huge ships

hopefully the jam adaptation is just the new jam tokens and nothing else

Edit: wording will have to be "if the target is not already jammed, assign a jam token" or something similar

Or just assign a jam token

Don't think it'd be nearly as powerful as wookies either way. A tokenless tie swarm can easily saw through a Bwing, but has no chance in **** against an Auzzie