Like many I picked up a couple of squads of fleet troopers and Leia yesterday, put them together and played my first game at my FLGS. I played against a Trooper heavy Veers list that also included 3 speeder bikes and 2 squads of Snowtroopers. No AT-STs.
We played on a desert type terrain table, and the table itself was a test table for our tournament this weekend, so it had the 1/4 portion of rocks, obstacles etc.
So some thoughts:
1) Fleet Trooper Range: The 1-2 range generally meant that my troopers were suffering 1 turn of fire before they could be able to get into range to return fire. If I wanted to go on standby, or take a dodge, that was generally a tough decision because i also wanted to move in order to press the attack. As there were obviously sections of open ground, the need to do a double move had to be weighed verses other actions.
2) Leia - The 1 pip orbital bombardment is kinda bogus. Since it only works at 4+ range, that generally means for it to be effective, she's gotta be away from whatever you'd be dropping the dice on. That could mean keeping her out of the fight presuming what you want to bombard and build up suppression has to be a fair distance away. Yet it's a 1 pip order for her only kinda card. Generally when I want to be burning 1 pip cards, I'm engaged in the fight, really needing initiative.
3) Fleet trooper heavy weapons - I tried out two squads, one with each weapon. I found the scatter gun the better of the two, especially with the pierce 1, but 1-2 range just not too exciting and the imperial player took the tact of staying back making me move to him. The MPL-57 I find a complete waste of points. 2 white 1 black and having to exhaust unless you're able to use the rest of the squads weapons which then requires 1-2 range, the chances you'll get to take advantage of that blast and impact 2 just never really panned out.
It's just one game and obviously I need to think about how to utilize fleet troopers better. I'm not in the 'wont ever use them again' phase yet. On first play they just don't quite seem worth the points.
Leia seemed kinda ho-hum. The white defense dice wasn't a concern in this game but I had to keep her out of trouble that I would willing send a luke in for. Sure she allowed me to field yet another squad because of the points savings OTOH, Luke commands a certain amount of respect that an extra trooper squad or AT-RT won't have.