I Enjoy The Smirk

So, how good is she? I dunno, let's talk about it. I make a big assumption below about Kryat Dragon Fury that changes my initial thoughts about Tress. I hope I'm right about it!

Note: For this analysis, I'm not trying to compute the effects of the the Frynock Style reroll for both. I'm not for sure what % increase you could expect; we'll have to work that out some other time.

Attacking

Tress' attack pool seems impressive as green/red/yellow. But since she has no surge for additional damage or pierce, her raw damage output to the defending figure isn't nearly as impressive. The following charts show expected damage results (no rerolls):

Red: vs. 1 black die
Green: vs. 1 white die

For being a melee single-figure deployment with just one attack, I wish she'd do 4 DMG 50% of the time or better vs. a black die. I presume no native damage increase was given due to her surge abilities. Not very many figures with this low of a figure cost can Stun. (0-0-0 can also Stun on attack, but drops all damage results to do so; Elite Rebel Saboteurs are almost always forced to use their Pierce before they can Stun.) Here's her surge odds (again, without factoring in a reroll):

• vs. 1 black die
  • 79.86% of at least 1 surge
  • 42.82% of at least 2 surges
  • 11.81% of at least 3 surges
• vs. 1 white die
  • 53.01% of at least 1 surge
  • 23.15% of at least 2 surges
  • 5.32% of at least 3 surges
• focused vs. 1 black die
  • 88.77% of at least 1 surge
  • 61.34% of at least 2 surges
  • 27.31% of at least 3 surges
  • 6.48% of at least 4 surges
• focused vs. 1 white die
  • 64.70% of at least 1 surge
  • 38.08% of at least 2 surges
  • 14.24% of at least 3 surges
  • 2.89% of at least 4 surges

Kryat Dragon Fury says "X equals the number of SURGE rolled", which I THINK means we DO NOT APPLY MODIFIERS like evades to this value. Based on this assumption, we'll need to also consider these surge odds (again, no rerolls):

• Base Attack Pool
  • 86.11% of at least 1 surge
  • 48.61% of at least 2 surges
  • 13.89% of at least 3 surges
  • 1.39% of at least 4 surges
• Base Attack Pool + Focus
  • 93.06% of at least 1 surge
  • 67.36% of at least 2 surges
  • 31.25% of at least 3 surges
  • 7.64% of at least 4 surges
  • 0.69% of at least 5 surges

A player using Tress will definitely want to reroll to get enough surges to spend for the attack. But even with the reroll while Focused, you're not gonna see a whole lot of Cleave 3 or Recover 3 from Tress. (I know we were all getting excited about that potential Cleave 7 or Cleave 8; sorry to rain on y'alls parade.) Cleave 2 will be nice in the right situations, especially if you use her Spinning Kick command card to kick it up to Cleave 5 or Cleave on 2 different figures. Having a decent chance to Recover 2 as a consolation prize when your attack misses isn't too bad, but I wish it was Recover 1 + X.

It seems like Tress's greatest strength is to Stun. With two surges to spend, doing Stun/Weaken is an excellent way to take just about any figure out of the fight for a round. She has a very good chance of stunning single-black-die figures, even ones with a native block like IG-88, AT-DP & Drokkatta. Vader is a tougher nut to crack: Not counting offensive/defensive rerolls, Tress has only a 68% chance of landing at least 1 DMG on Vader; giving her a DMG Power Token to spend increases that to 84%; Focused Tress has an 86% chance. Against white-die defenders with a built-in evade like JK Luke Skywalker, her ability to Stun will be exceptionally low due to the evaded Surges.

Focusing is the best way to improve Tress. It adds more surges to be counted for the Kryat Dragon Fury algebra AND that can be spent to apply her surge abilities. Things that add an extra surge to Tress' attack (Hidden, Hera's Call the Shots, Blitz command card, etc.) are the next best. Using Brawler cards to amplify Tress' attack results on the primary target is always welcome.

Having a Speed of 5 will help Tress get into position for attacking, but without some sort of bonus movement (like the Hit and Run and Face to Face command cards), it'll be hard for Tress to get away and into safety. It might be better to just leave Tress in the fray and have the opponent decide whether he/she wants to spend actions removing Tress or your other figures.

Defending

9 Health isn't bad. White die means that she'll likely take a little bit more damage from attacks, so you can reasonably expect Tress to survive at least the first attack against her and then, most likely, only a strong second attack will finish her off. Dodge is Dodge, you know how that goes.

More interesting is the Frynock Style reroll, which can be used against the attacker's dice. There's a bit more utility with that than other rerolls we've seen: for example, Tress can force a ranged attacker to reroll a die to change the Accuracy rolled. Since a die can be rerolled only once, an attacker can reroll one or more dice which then cannot be forced to be rerolled by a defending Tress. Imagine elite Alliance Rangers automatically rerolling both of their dice so that Tress cannot force a reroll!

Of course, forcing attacker rerolls is what the Tough Luck command card is designed to punish.

Utility

Her Speed of 5 and Health of 9 means she is best suited for controlling an objective or grabbing crates in the final round of the game. I guess she *could* be used to contest one of the furthest-from-the-center shield generators on Nal Hutta? That would take away her ability to find a a figure and Stun in the 2nd round. Honestly, I think you'd get more value out of teaming up Tress with your other attackers in order to Stun a high-value target.

Conclusion

At first blush, I didn't really see immediate value in including Tress. Given that my assumption about Kryat Dragon Fury is correct, Tress will actually get some decent values for X and enough surges to at least Stun figures consistently through the game. It'll be interesting to see if she is worth a Focus to Stun Vader and other high-value targets on the battlefield.

Chewie+Jyn+Tress seems like an interesting start to a list. Sure, Tress doesn't get the smuggler CC synergy, but that's a LOT of stuns to hand out. Tuck Chewie nearby (ready to be activated with debts repaid) and let Tress or Jyn be the tip of your spear.

She almost reminds me of a rebel Greedo. However she costs 1 more point and can't use the Hunter/Smuggler cards. In saying that, I have a feeling she'll become a must include for me in my rebel lists. I like @Averagejo3gam3r 's idea to pair her with Chewbacca. A lot of people are already calling her broken, but I'm not convinced yet. I think she'll be annoying at best. Still, a great addition to the game in my opinion.

9 minutes ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

A lot of people are already calling her broken, but I'm not convinced yet. I think she'll be annoying at best.

I'm pretty sure that, according to the internet, they haven't released a character that wasn't broken since before the Inquisitor

17 minutes ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

A lot of people are already calling her broken, but I'm not convinced yet. I think she'll be annoying at best.

I still think she should hit the primary target a little bit harder, but even if she did, she wouldn't be broken.

She's going to be a solid threat I feel like. Not the main focus but if she can get into a group with Parting Blow you could put some real unexpected damage into figures.

I love how you could temp her into Mercs and then change of plans with Maul. Finally a cheap brawler thats good (looking at you Jarrod) for shenanigans ?

She attacks with Jedi-dice, but she costs just 5 points! Love it! And her surges are excellent too: Cleave X, Damage +X, Stun...that's superb on a cheap figure. In my estimation, she's at least Tier 1.5...but I wouldn't be surprised if she pushes more toward Tier 1.

Also, I really like how the Rebels continue to receive excellent low-cost figures:

• 5 Tress
• 4 Hera
• 3 Gideon
• 3 Chopper
• 3 R2-D2
• 2 C-3P0

Also, I think a big part of Tress' effectiveness is simply her low cost, because she'll fit fairly easily into most squads. Compare her to the cost of Ahsoka at 8pts; you're not necessarily going to build around Ahsoka, but you do have to sacrifice something in order to fit a single 8-pt figure into your squad...it's a whole lot easier to make room for a 5-pt figure.

I see her as a bit of an anti-Vader tool. Not a counter in any way but a nice tool. The reroll of attack dice is very strong, adding the extra to land a stun and perhaps weaken and adding some virtual hit points on defence.

I really like the design, a great job by the design department.

7 hours ago, Ram said:

I see her as a bit of an anti-Vader tool. Not a counter in any way but a nice tool. The reroll of attack dice is very strong, adding the extra to land a stun and perhaps weaken and adding some virtual hit points on defence.

I really like the design, a great job by the design department.

She’ll probably need some help Stunning Vader on an attack. Assuming he would ditch for Zillo to avoid the stun(if he’s not running unashakble already and just doesn’t care if you Stun him) you’re only look at a 50% chance to do 1 damage before rerolls. One nice thing is the white dice though because Vader hates swinging at white dice just because the X factor.

2 hours ago, TheUnsullied said:

She’ll probably need some help Stunning Vader on an attack. Assuming he would ditch for Zillo to avoid the stun(if he’s not running unashakble already and just doesn’t care if you Stun him) you’re only look at a 50% chance to do 1 damage before rerolls. One nice thing is the white dice though because Vader hates swinging at white dice just because the X factor.

Probably not going to swing on Vader, just cleave him and stun his friends

Stunning jet trooper aand cleave 3 on Vader is awesome for 5pts

7 hours ago, TheUnsullied said:

She’ll probably need some help Stunning Vader on an attack. Assuming he would ditch for Zillo to avoid the stun(if he’s not running unashakble already and just doesn’t care if you Stun him) you’re only look at a 50% chance to do 1 damage before rerolls. One nice thing is the white dice though because Vader hates swinging at white dice just because the X factor.

Yes, she is not in any way a Vader counter. But if she can ensure that vader focusens on her for one or even more then one round, then I feel that is five points very well spent. As I see it, its much more the threat of the stun then landning the stun. And as you say, vader hates the white die. This is pretty much what I mean with great design. She Forces tough desicions on the Vader player. Hos much of my squad and resources should I use to remove this 5 point stun threat?

Tough Luck on enemy's attack pool...nice.

2 hours ago, viktr said:

Tough Luck on enemy's attack pool...nice.

exactly, that will get you to soak up at least 3 attacks with a very annoying 5pt figure.