Seen lots of great ideas for Mudtroopers, but everyone has been building units out of the idea of using them as discrete units, the same size as a Stormtrooper squad.

The one thing Solo showed us, was that these are a flood of troops rushing forward as a human wave.

I'd have them as the following, with 12 miniatures in the box.

Unit - Imperial Army Troopers

30 points

1 White die per figure melee

1 White die per figure at ranges 1-3

No surge

White defence die

Health 1

Courage 1

1 leader and 3 troopers per squad.

Keyword: Fodder - You may discard 2 hits from the dice pool and remove one Imperial Army Trooper before rolling defence dice.

Personel Upgrade

Personel Upgrade

Heavy Weapon Upgrade.

Nothing spectacular to look at, that comes in the next part.

Personel Upgrade

Imperial Army Troopers

15 Points

Takes 1 Personel Upgrade slot

Adds 3 Imperial Army Troopers to any Imperial Corps unit.

Adds 1 White die per figure at ranges 1-3

Keyword: Fodder - You may discard 2 hits from the dice pool and remove one Imperial Army Trooper before rolling defence dice.

This lets us add them throughout the army as the fodder that they are, dying quickly and being used to eat up shots to allow the Stormtroopers to get into position on an objective. With 3 of these cards in the box,

Personel Upgrade

Imperial Army Officer

15 Points

Takes 1 Personel Upgrade slot

Adds 1 Mini to any Imperial Corps unit.

Adds 1 Black die per figure at ranges 1-3

Adds 2 courage to the unit while the officer is alive.

Again, a multi unit attachment that can be used to simulate the minor officers that are so ubiquitous in the Star Wars universe.

Heavy Weapon Upgrade

Z-6 Trooper

Exactly the same as the Rebel counterpart.

So, a fully kitted out Imperial Army unit would have 4+3+3 troopers, with a Z-6, giving 16 White Dice for 82 points at range 1-3, white defence dice, no shenanigans - just a huge wave of firepower. With the Officer attached, they lose some firepower but become much better at staying on an objective, and the box can also be used to spread 4x attachments throughout a more Stormtrooper focussed army.

I like that fodder keyword

Fodder is too powerful. dropping 1 guy for 2 hits is a 50% success rate i.e. the same as a non-surging red die. You can't take more than 1 of an upgrade, so the extra dudes would need a special rule to allow that. Also, they're too cheap and too numerous. The games' damage wouldn't scale properly to killing 10 man units and getting that for 60ish points especially when all you really need at the end of the day is living unit leaders for existing missions combined with the fodder rule being purely beneficial i.e. you'd never not use it unless your opponent only had 1 hit to cancel this unit would break the game very hard.

This was my idea for an Imperial "horde" unit from the homebrew thread.

Imperial Army Troopers

Rank: Corps

Base cost:35

Defense: Red.

Health: 1

Courage: 1

Weapons: black dice (melee), E-11 Blaster (range 1-3, no surge)

Speed: 2

Squad Size: 4

Upgrade slots: Gear, 2 Personnel, Heavy weapon, Grenade.

Exclusive Upgrade Cards:

1. Medic (Personnel, 15 pts): When defending from ranged attacks ,exhaust this card to roll up to 2 white defense dice, shield results are added to your pool.Cumbersome. Available to all trooper units.

2. Army Trooper (7 pts)

3. T-21 Light Repeating Blaster (20 pts): 4 white dice, range 1-3, impact 1

Ability: Garrison: Gain a free standby token if this unit doesn't move during its activation.

I like the concept. Needs a little rebalancing and fine tuning to make them great swarmy fodder but retain overall game balance. I really like the fodder mechanic, but I’m not sure how to make it not overly broken. Maybe you can only remove one mini per attack in that manner? And have it done before defense dice are rolled, so it’s a gamble that they **could** roll natties and get away free, but this way guarantees 2 blocks.

What if we are looking at it wrong.. at the beginning I misread your idea and I understood something different which is actually pretty cool. What if... wait for it... they are released as a "personnel upgrade" itself instead of a unit, allowing you to add 4 or 5 minis of them to any other unit creating that mix we see in the solo movie with the mimban troopers (but with any kind of imperial troopers) so defence die/surge will be shared and the attack will be a different weapon (white dice IMO with some clarification to not apply attack surges). Therefore the fodder mechanic becomes the natural choice you will make removing first this 4 or 5 minis "saving" your more valuable troopers from the fire. If properly costed will be simple, fun and thematic!

Well so far the personnel upgrade is simply adding in one more mini already listed on the unit card not some completely different unit. I don't see an inject of health into the personnel upgrade happening. It would have to go in the heavy weapons slot and even then, I don't see it happening.

What could happen is for this unit to get 2 personnel upgrade slots and have Guardian X. They then can be true cannon fodder. Give them the standard E11 white dices and since not much armor, white defense with surge to hit and defend.

12 hours ago, Mep said:

Well so far the personnel upgrade is simply adding in one more mini already listed on the unit card not some completely different unit. I don't see an inject of health into the personnel upgrade happening. It would have to go in the heavy weapons slot and even then, I don't see it happening.

What could happen is for this unit to get 2 personnel upgrade slots and have Guardian X. They then can be true cannon fodder. Give them the standard E11 white dices and since not much armor, white defense with surge to hit and defend.

I thought this thread was thinking outside of the box? I don't see any reason why a "personnel" upgrade can't add more "personnel" to the unit with the right wording.

OK, if we want to think outside the box, how about this - don't make them rubbish chaff infantry at all.

Now, hear me out - the Imperial Army, as seen in Solo(and it's in the trailers so I don't consider their presence a spoiler now the film is out) as low-grade academy washouts, local defence forces, and conscripts has been referred to as something the Empire was working to phase out in favour of the Stormtrooper Corps, but that doesn't mean the basic idea of infantry with the appearance and equipment seen in Solo wouldn't still exist, they would just be a less "chaff-y" formation.

The Dawn of Rebellion sourcebook(which is canon) stated under the TX-225 tank entry "These rugged vehicles can be found in mechanised infantry divisions and the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps...", emphasis added. That implies the Empire does still maintain infantry apart from the Stormtrooper Corps, and in substantial numbers, they're just no longer the basic line-infantry they were in the Empire's early years.

So, rather than going for the "mudtroopers" angle and making them cheap swarm units, perhaps try for something that's a *bit* less capable than Stormtroopers but not total trash-tier, and then give them some innate special deployment option or other ability to represent the strategic mobility of mechanised forces. I'm not versed enough in FFGs rules systems yet to propose what that would look like, but it's an idea anyway.

Would squads consist of ST and Mudtroopers though?