Ive been trying to make somewhat elite all round list but with somewhat decent unit count and im curious about your opinion. 4 trooper units (3 storm and one snow) and vader for objectives, speeder bikes for flanking and at st as longer range support.

Ive been running a very similiar list to this. The only difference is i run 3 DLT squads, concussion grenades instead of impact, and grenade launcher on the at-st instead of the laser cannon. I think its a very good rounded list. The ptoblem ive noticed is.....

The rebels are broken compared to the imperials lol. Rebels have rebel spam with usually 9-10 activations. So 7 activations just puts you so far behind that its almost not possible to make up the difference. Ive played with the idea of dropping the bikes and having two more naked stormtrooper units just to capture objectives while the other units focus on attacking or defending. But naked stormtroopers are very inefficient compared to rebel units. Im gonna write an article soon about how the rebels are overall better right, now compared to imperials.

43 minutes ago, Gun4hire said:

Ive been running a very similiar list to this. The only difference is i run 3 DLT squads, concussion grenades instead of impact, and grenade launcher on the at-st instead of the laser cannon. I think its a very good rounded list. The ptoblem ive noticed is.....

The rebels are broken compared to the imperials lol. Rebels have rebel spam with usually 9-10 activations. So 7 activations just puts you so far behind that its almost not possible to make up the difference. Ive played with the idea of dropping the bikes and having two more naked stormtrooper units just to capture objectives while the other units focus on attacking or defending. But naked stormtroopers are very inefficient compared to rebel units. Im gonna write an article soon about how the rebels are overall better right, now compared to imperials.

I actually very much disagree that the rebels are better. They just have to be played differently. Vader and AT-ST is a hard list to use because so many points are sunk into 2 units, so you have to get a lot of work done with them to be worth it. If you are having trouble with activation advantage, then adjust to remedy that. As Empire I almost never have less than 5 corps. They are the bread and butter of this game, I've found.

Rebels get more units for cheaper, true, but they also die easier, so should dodge and use nimble. Stormtroopers throw white dice, but if you aim and shoot then precise makes up for a lot, plus the DLT is a monster. The AT-ST can give and take heaps of damage, but is easy to ignore in favor of wiping out troopers.

I hear equal complaints about either side being OP, which is a good indicator that the game has decent balance.

Maybe if the costs of units were similiar compared to the factions but its not. The imperials are just more expensive.

Tournament rebel list wil be something like luke and maybe leia too, 5-6 rebels with z-6 with some extra trooper upgrades. And 2-3 AtRt rotary cannons and or laser cannons. Usually 9-10 activations.

If stormtroopers and rebel troopers are so equal why can you get rebel unit, extra trooper, and z-6 heavy for 72 points and stormtroopers get only the DLT for 68 points.

Also precise with white dice is not very good. Your still only rerolling bad dice odds.Where nimble gives u multiple gauranteed dodges. Maybe if a dodge let you reroll defence dice like aim lets you reroll attack they would be even.

The rebel troopers have better attack dice.

Nimble is better than precise.

Rebel troopers are cheaper.

Luke w/ force reflexes and a rebel trooper squad w/ extra trooper is same price as only vader w/ force reflexes and saber throw.

2 At-Rts both with rotary blaster is only 170pts vs a naked At-St at 195pts. Thats 12 armor, 10 black dice w/ surge to crit, and 2 activations compared to At-St 11 armor, 2 red 2 black and 2 white, surge to defend only and still 25 pts more expensive. Add twin laser upgrade on the At-St to take advantage of arsenal 2 and now your 45pts more expensive and still rolling worse dice overall.

to be honest i had a decent sucess with vader, 3 maxed stormtroopers (extra trooper, 2 dlt and one hh12) speeder bikes and at st (then i gave it aditional weapon: grenade launcher). Even tho i had only 6 activations i still managed to fight evenly and even win and im thinking about this list to basicly test snowtroopers

1 hour ago, Gun4hire said:

1 hour ago, Gun4hire said:

Tournament rebel list wil be something like luke and maybe leia too,     5-6 rebels with z-6 with some extra trooper upgrades. And 2-3 AtRt rotary cannons   and or laser cannons. Usually 9-10  activations  .  

My go-to Empire list is 10 activations. Probably not optimized, but it's Veers, 3 bikes, 5 DLT squads, 1 squad of snowies +1 with flamer(all that I own). 10 activations is very doable, but you probably can't have the most expensive units in the game. You don't see many 10 activation T-47 lists.

1 hour ago, Gun4hire said:

Also  precise with white dice is  not very good. Your  still only rerolling bad dice odds.Where nimble gives u multiple gauranteed dodges. Maybe       if a dodge let you reroll  d  efence dice like aim lets you reroll attack they would be even  .   

The rebel troopers have  better  attack  dice.  

Nimble is better than precise.       

Rebel troopers are cheaper.               

Rebel troopers have 4/8 per die to hit. Z-6 is 2/8

Stormies are 3/8, and DLT has 7/8 chance per die, plus range 4 and impact 1. Then you get 3 rerolls on an aim.

Rebels have white defense dice. 2/6 to block. If they don't dodge, they melt.

Stormies have red defense dice. 3/6. Pretty solid chance to block.

1 hour ago, Gun4hire said:

Luke   w/ force reflexes and a rebel trooper squad w/ extra trooper is  same price as only vader w/ force reflexes  and saber throw.   

Force reflexes exhaust, which means Luke will only be able to take it once, MAYBE twice. Vader can take it every turn(and should) due to Master of the Force. Vader throws red dice, no surge, Luke throws black w/ surge to crit. Vader has impact and pierce 3, Luke has 2. Vader's Saber throw is significantly better than Luke's blaster, and anything that hits, sticks. Luke can fly around the battlefield but Vader can hold a position better. I think you can make an argument for Vader being overpriced, but it's not by much.

1 hour ago, Gun4hire said:

2 At-Rts        both with rotary blaster is only 170pts vs a naked At-St at 195pts. Thats 12 armor, 10 black dice w/ surge to crit, and 2 activations compared to At-St 11 armor, 2 red 2 black and 2 white, surge to defend only and still 25 pts more expensive. Add twin laser   upgrade on the At-St to take advantage of arsenal 2 and now your 45pts more expensive and still rolling worse dice overall.     

You can't just look at the numbers without the actual utility. The AT-ST main cannon has range 4, and it maintains full effectiveness for 8 wounds. A single turn can easily bring an AT-RT to it's threshold. However, if this were just a numbers game, we'd play it on a calculator. The playstyle and tactical utility of a unit (Areaial, giving suppression, soaking wounds, claiming objectives,etc) is much more important than the straight numbers.

Rebels definitely aren't better overall I'd say, but they are probably a bit more internally consistent. It's a lot easier to stumble into a good Rebel list because all of their stuff is about the same kind of good (except Luke, who's defintely their star) and costs pretty similar ranges so they generally stumble in about the same power level.

Imperial stuff is easy to overspend on. It's a little more pricey and tends to either gain a bit more defense at the cost of offense or hits harder while being pretty paper thin. Having a proper mix is a lot more challenging, as its very easy to be durable, but not do enough damage to win out in attrition, or have too much stuff that needs to stay pack to not get picked off after its initial volley. There's just a lot more traps in Imperial list building; particularly with the early desire to overspend on Vader and an ATST. I find both models can work well, but together you just don't have enough board presence to control the table and other list archetypes are just a little too free to make some pretty risky decisions risk free.

Ok lets compare....

Stormtrooper unit with DLT only 68 pts.

4 white dice 3/8 to hit = 1.5 average to hit

DLT 2 red dice 7/8 to hit = 1.75 to hit

Total = average 3.25 hits @ range 3 so no distance advantage to the stormtroopers

5 units with red defence die 3/6 = on average takes 10 hits to kill 5 stormtroopers

Rebel unit w/Z-6 and extra trooper 72pts

5 black dice 4/8 to hit = 2.5 average

Z-6 5 white 2/8 to hit = 1.25 avearge

Total = 3.75 hits @ range 3

6 units with 2/6 defence die = takes around 10 hits to kill 6 rebels.

Nimble guarantees another dodge token.

Precise only only grants usually 3 white dice 3/8 = 1.125 average hit.

But also you have to remember rebels usually always have an additional trooper unit compared to imperials. And yes if you keep at range 4 with DLTs all this math doeant matter and imperials are better.

27 minutes ago, Gun4hire said:

But  also you have to remember rebels usually always have an additional trooper unit compared to imperials. And yes if you keep at  range 4 with DLTs all this math doeant matter and imperials are better.  

Sure, you won't be able to stay at range 4 very long, but it means you'll be able to slap on a suppression token before they're in range. That means they have to make some hard choices.

We haven't even talked about speeder bikes. They hit hard, have better defense than AT-RTs, and are tied for most mobile unit. Sure, if you run them up the middle they fall apart, but if you take on 1 or 2 units at a time as you fly around, they can be incredibly hard to deal with.

53 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

Rebels  definitely aren't better overall I'd say, but they are probably  a bit more internally consistent. It's a lot easier to stumble into a good Rebel list because all of their stuff is about the same kind of good (except Luke, who's defintely their star) and costs pretty similar ranges so they generally stumble in about the same  power level  .      

I can agree with this. I see more playstyle variety in Empire than I do in Rebels.

Nimble is misleading. It's a cool ability that makes it hard to focus fire Rebels down, but acting like its just there assumes a lot of things. First of all, the unit has probably already activated unless the commander granted the token, so they're probably not a priority target anyway. Second, the free dodge token is only valuable if someone shoots at you twice, which if you haven't activated yet is already less effective due to the suppression token. A unit taking the action to dodge is basically suppressing themselves for survivability and if they're suppressed.... they're probably not dodging.

The basic trooper differences are actually a pretty good example of the advantages of the Imperial sword and board style over Rebel consistency. Every Rebel trooper does pretty similar hits per point, which gives them an edge when they're fresh, but means as they get down towards the last 2 guys they're not nearly as scary. Stormtroopers really put all of their output in that second to last guy, particularly if they aren't Aiming and they ARE more survivable under similar action choices, which, once suppression starts getting thrown around, is often stand and shoot anyway. Where this survivability pays off is in the DLT's ablative wounds are able to stick around longer and don't affect the unit's output nearly as much when they go down.

The point is, while 6 Rebel troopers are pretty scary, they will die when shot at and by turn 2-3, I'm way more afraid of 3 stormtroopers than I am 3 bits of Rebel scum.

5 minutes ago, Qwrety77 said:

We haven't even talked about speeder bikes. They hit hard, have better defense than AT-RTs, and are tied for most mobile unit. Sure, if you run them up the middle they fall apart, but if you take on 1 or 2 units at a time as you fly around, they can be incredibly hard to deal with.

I've actually cooled a bit on Speeder Bikes, personally. On paper they seem incredible and they can absolutely be very, very good, but they lose an awful lot of output after taking 3 wounds. They're still quite good and a go to option, but I've moved towards focusing on DLTs and Flamethrowers as the bulk of my forces these days.

4 hours ago, LunarSol said:

I've actually cooled a bit on Speeder Bikes, personally. On paper they seem incredible and they can absolutely be very, very good, but they lose an awful lot of output after taking 3 wounds. They're still quite good and a go to option, but I've moved towards focusing on DLTs and Flamethrowers as the bulk of my forces these days.

That's fair. I've only had good experiences with them, but to fair I've always had 4-6 corps with heavy weapons to back them up. They can die really fast, but there's something super fun about swooping around bits of terrain, blasting things that thought they were safe.

So, in general, Darth Vader + AT-ST just isn't a competitive list. This is a game number of activations really matter in, and unfortunately using over half your army on two units really hinders you. Use AT-ST with Veers, use Vader with Corps and Bikes. That's my humble opinion but I have yet to see a Vader / AT-ST list that is effective.

As for the Rebel versus Imperial debate, saying Rebels is better is just kind of a lazy perspective. Rebels outnumber Imperials on the board easier, sure, but Imperials have the stronger units. I would much rather be attacking with a DLT than anything else. AT-ST is super powerful under Veers. Vader is the best unit in the game for holding a point. DLTs may be the best unit in the game in terms of value-for-points, period.

The whole point of a game like this is to make the factions different. Suggesting that costs should "be more similar" lazily ignores how the units are meant to be played. Imperials are supposed to be able to do more with less, while Rebels are meant to have more units to sacrifice. Imperials are meant to play with heavier, harder to kill units, while Rebels play with flimsier harder-hitting units. It is quite thematic, and whats more, it is well balanced. However, balance will only take you so far. If you are playing with lists that don't work to the strengths of your units (which I'm sorry @Gun4hire , but a Vader + AT-ST list does not work to either units strengths) then it makes sense that you will lose to an optimized Rebel list and they will seem more powerful than you.

You can run vader, 4 dlt squads, 2 naked trooper squads, and an atst.

So what is your list suggestion to run vader, dlts and bikes?

This is my Vader list.

Personally not a huge fan of naked Stormtroopers - I find they don't pack much of a punch but can be alright back-field objective takers. AT-ST, I like to run with Mortar and Grenades. Of course, that's a preference thing. On Vader, Reflexes and Sabre throw is a must, but you can grab that on your list from what I can tell. Would love your feedback on mine.

I'm not sure. Given Vader's lack of mobility, I find the Bikes work better with him versus the AT-ST. You also spread around the threats. In my list, it could be argued that Darth Vader / Bikes / Flametroopers provide 5 very significant threats, and force the opponent to make a choice. For yours, focus down Vader and / or AT-ST and the list becomes a lot less threatening.

I do like Veers and ATST + 2 Bikes, or Veers + 2x ATST. Both I've seen used really well. Veers also has command cards that are beneficial to vehicles, while Vader's strengths are sharing his courage + command cards that benefit troops.

So whats your recommendation for Dlt/flamethrower ratio for the 5 trooper squads to go with vader and 2 speeder bikes?

10 hours ago, Gun4hire said:

So whats your recommendation for Dlt/flamethrower ratio for the 5 trooper squads to go with vader and 2 speeder bikes?

I run 3 DLT / 2 Flametrooper. Full build is in the thread I mentioned.

I think if you're running an AT-ST you have to run it with Veers. Better synergy and way more free points for other things than Vader. You can run Vader, but it's just bikes and troops if you do.