So, just noticed something about the new commanders: none of them are immune to pierce! Even though they (Veers, Leia, Han) can have Esteemed Leader, Guardian only applies to 1 normal hit from a ranged attack! So vs ranged (or Vader's saber throw), Guardian will work great. Bbbbbbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut:

Luke Skywalker is going to wreck any of them! Han, Leia, Veers, etc. Speed 2, Speed 2, Charge, 6 dice, surge conversion, pierce 2, etc. Then they are engaged melee, disengage is difficult, etc. If Vader can somehow get range 1, or take force push or something, he will just wreck them as well.

But yeah I just noticed no pierce immunity! So Vader really will still be the best option to take on Luke, and vice versa.

______________________________________________

I wonder if we will get more force user/lightsaber commanders at some points. Perhaps Starkiller? Kanan Jarrus? Inquisitor? Obi Wan? Emperor?

I’m guessing Lightsabers are what grant immunity to pierce.

Kanan/Grand Inquisitor would make a great face-off pair. And you have so many Kanans to choose from.

Well, in order to be significantly cheaper, the new commanders had to be significantly less powerful in some areas than Luke and Vader. Those areas turned out to be offense and defense, as new commanders support their armies as good, if not better, than existing ones. Neither Veers nor Leia come close to Vader's and Luke's destructive melee prowess, and even with Esteemed Leader they are waaay more squishy than core set commanders. The lack of immunity to anything, really, is just cherry on top of their vulnerability cake

I also believe that "lore" reason for Vader and Luke having Immunity: Pierce is that they both have lightsabers.

So yeah, if you want them to stay alive, you need to keep them further back. And without threat of your Luke/Vader countering, your opponent's force user will feel more free to roam the battlefield wrecking havoc - but hey, that's called opportunity cost

That's why I believe that we won't experience a sudden disappearance of Vader once Veers is out. He's still a viable choice, and with less chance to find someone to oppose him on the other side, he'll truly shine.


As for future commanders - I think some further force users are inevitable, but them using lightsabers is not that certain (i don't think we'll see Old Ben commander soon, so prime candidate for saber-wielding unit will be the Grand Inquisitor).

Old Ben force ghost will be the commander released with the Ewoks

17 minutes ago, Shanturin said:

As for future commanders - I think some further force users are inevitable, but them using lightsabers is not that certain (i don't think we'll see Old Ben commander soon, so prime candidate for saber-wielding unit will be the Grand Inquisitor).

We know that sometime, Palpatine comes in to do the job itself. Tho he will not have light saber, I clearly see a good closecombat - range 1 4-5 red dices attack and a kind of flamer range 2 with 1 red dice per mini in a unit.

But yeah, what bother me is the range 2 of Han Solo... it's short, even if he can shoot twice ^^

Proxying Leia, she's been really survivable (though I'm doing the possibly-silly two-leader thing, with Luke).

Range to friendlies is easy to manipulate (thanks, cohesion rules: a squad's range to enemies is from the leader, and range to the squad is to the squaddies, so having at least one behind is totally fine*), and she can get pretty good positions pretty often through to the mid-game. Nimble helps later if you want to shoot (and you DO want that) - get her into a Fleet-trooper kind of spot so they come to you in cover, and you can dodge (+1 to another unit) and shoot amazingly effectively. I've been thinking of her as a kind of finessey, short range rotary cannon.

If she's more vulnerable to the combat leaders, well, that feels right. She *should* go down if Vader starts a-swinging. But she's only in range if you chose to be there.

*Note: we're going with LOS cover (i.e. needs 50% cover to be cover), which I think is a point of contention. That means squaddies are often *in front* of the leader to get to that cover. If that rule is wrong, then it's even better TBH. Squaddies will almost always be as far behind as you can squeeze them.

A cheaper commander also means more squads to shoot Vader or Luke as they trundle across the field.

Last night a 6 man Z-6 squad dropped 6 wounds on Vader with an aimed shot. Granted I rolled above average but it was not a crazy outlier roll. Vader rolled below average and only made 2 saves so half dead right there.

Obviously this won't happen every time and Vader won't always be out of cover but the force users still go down to weight of fire.

I think Veers much lower courage of two is equally as big of a deal as his squishyness.

It's a lot harder to shoot Luke off the board since he's basically allowed to teleport wherever he wants to. :\

8 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

Kanan/Grand Inquisitor would make a great face-off pair. And you have so many Kanans to choose from.

Inquisitor has an action for "Sabercopter 3 - Move anywhere at range 1 - 3, ignoring terrain restrictions."

True, I guess they will have to be used differently, especially if half of their actions are spent handing out tokens to other units. Plus they do remove suppression.

Speaking of suppression, Han with Gunslinger is going to be great for suppressing squads! Suppress two different units a round.

4 hours ago, KalEl814 said:

Inquisitor has an action for "Sabercopter 3 - Move anywhere at range 1 - 3, ignoring terrain restrictions."

I HATE the sabercopter and desperately want to fly one!

1 minute ago, Mep said:

I HATE the sabercopter and desperately want to fly one!

In my mind, every time someone flies away on a sabercopter, vuvuzelas are playing loudly somewhere nearby.

If Vader is hitting your Leia/Veers I'd have to ask why you let that happen eh? Luke's speed will make him more dangerous but if you know exactly where Luke is running to it's going to be up to you to have a plan about that. Running a cheap commander means you should have more activations and more troops so it's a matter of playing to that advantage and not just trying to put your 2nd tier commander into a punch up with the top guys

16 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

Kanan/Grand Inquisitor would make a great face-off pair. And you have so many Kanans to choose from.

Can I ask they just thread the needle and give us 3 or 4 heads to choose from? Possibly small Rebels spoiler: Classic Kanan, Helmet Kanan, Blind Kanan, and Final Kanan.

15 hours ago, HanScottFirst said:

Old Ben force ghost will be the commander released with the Ewoks

No, no! C-3PO as the commander of that release!

8 hours ago, KalEl814 said:

Inquisitor has an action for "Sabercopter 3 - Move anywhere at range 1 - 3, ignoring terrain restrictions."

God, I hate those stupid things, but darn that is really meme worthy. I demand that we not just get the Grand Inquisitor but an Inquisitor Spec Ops unit with all of the Brothers and sisters!