Hey all, so having gotten a couple games in already and now with a better understanding of how to play the game I've been trying to recruit some more friends into playing with me. While talking to one friend last night and explaining how to play he asked about besides the named commanders if there were any generic commanders to lead the army. Sadly there are not any to choose from right now being that the game is still relatively new but this got me thinking about what a "no named" generic officer/commander would look like, what rules they would have and how much would they cost.

Here's what I've come up with so far and I want the community (you) to chime in and share some ideas on how to build a generic commander to lead the troops into battle. This is ment to be an open discussion for everyone in the community.

Anyway here's my thoughts: He/She/It should be relatively low points cost like 50 or so. Not to many special rules, mostly leadership abilities using (unit keywords) like take cover, inspire or spotter and probably should have at least one defensive/offensive ability for themselves to use. Give them a blaster pistol and a decent melee attack. The upgrade bar should probably only have two slots, one command and one equipment slot. Wounds and Courage I think should be 4 and 2 respectively. I'm not sure about how to deal with surges but maybe make it a reflection of the base troops in the army like critical for the Imperials and block for the Rebels. Speed 2 for movement. And then last but not least how to deal with command cards. I'd just probably take doubles of the 1-3 pip cards and the Standing Orders card.

So these are my thoughts and I'd rather like to hear all of your thoughts on this topic...

Until then my friends may the force be with you.... Or the dark side... Whichever is your preference...

Weez

32 minutes ago, Weezbeez37 said:

Hey all, so having gotten a couple games in already and now with a better understanding of how to play the game I've been trying to recruit some more friends into playing with me. While talking to one friend last night and explaining how to play he asked about besides the named commanders if there were any generic commanders to lead the army. Sadly there are not any to choose from right now being that the game is still relatively new but this got me thinking about what a "no named" generic officer/commander would look like, what rules they would have and how much would they cost.

Here's what I've come up with so far and I want the community (you) to chime in and share some ideas on how to build a generic commander to lead the troops into battle. This is ment to be an open discussion for everyone in the community.

Anyway here's my thoughts: He/She/It should be relatively low points cost like 50 or so. Not to many special rules, mostly leadership abilities using (unit keywords) like take cover, inspire or spotter and probably should have at least one defensive/offensive ability for themselves to use. Give them a blaster pistol and a decent melee attack. The upgrade bar should probably only have two slots, one command and one equipment slot. Wounds and Courage I think should be 4 and 2 respectively. I'm not sure about how to deal with surges but maybe make it a reflection of the base troops in the army like critical for the Imperials and block for the Rebels. Speed 2 for movement. And then last but not least how to deal with command cards. I'd just probably take doubles of the 1-3 pip cards and the Standing Orders card.

So these are my thoughts and I'd rather like to hear all of your thoughts on this topic...

Until then my friends may the force be with you.... Or the dark side... Whichever is your preference...

Weez

I would never expect to see unnamed commanders.

Theyve basically stated that the characters are the defining portion of the genre to their game design.

Every important lynchpin will be a named character.

16 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

I would never expect to see unnamed commanders.

Theyve basically stated that the characters are the defining portion of the genre to their game design.

Every important lynchpin will be a named character.

100% this.

Ok I get where you're coming from about the games reasoning behind having named characters lead the army's but the topic is about creating no named leaders not shooting down my idea before it has a chance to grow and be commented on.

Here's a couple reasons why I think having a no named leader would be beneficial to the game.

It would help with smaller point games and escalation campaigns by not having an expensive leader take a huge chunk out of the army.

It would also be good for scenario driven missions like how Han Solo and a few units of commandos have been tasked with placing thermal charges in key points of an Imperial controlled facility where the opposition is an Imperial Officer and a bunch of stormtroopers.

Also as a teaching/learning how to play standpoint for new people who don't have a gaming background.

And finally I thought it would be fun to share an idea that I had and maybe contribute something to a game that I enjoy playing.

Weez

On 6/8/2018 at 2:02 PM, Weezbeez37 said:

He/She/It should be relatively low points cost like 50 or so. Not to many special rules, mostly leadership abilities using (unit keywords) like take cover, inspire or spotter and probably should have at least one defensive/offensive ability for themselves to use. Give them a blaster pistol and a decent melee attack. The upgrade bar should probably only have two slots, one command and one equipment slot. Wounds and Courage I think should be 4 and 2 respectively. I'm not sure about how to deal with surges but maybe make it a reflection of the base troops in the army like critical for the Imperials and block for the Rebels. Speed 2 for movement. And then last but not least how to deal with command cards. I'd just probably take doubles of the 1-3 pip cards and the Standing Orders card.

To be honest this seems pretty reasonable and complete.

Courage you may want to up to 3, be sure to include Pierce in the weapon.

The other totally different approach to take is simply promote a trooper squad as your commander unit. It doesn't look as thematic, but for ease of learning that might be better. The named leaders aren't that much more complex to play with versus your suggestion.

Luke and Vader do have a bigger possibility space IMHO, so I have been teaching with 350 pts lists and Veers and Leia.

@Weezbeez37 Your idea has been discussed at extreme length previously on the boards, hence the quick responses, especially as you seemed to be under the impression that generic commanders were only a matter of time. The developer has stated in an interview that all Commanders are planned to be named characters, and that the first 2-3 years of releases are already planned out.

Leia and Veers are likely the closest to a "no-named" commander (for now, future named commanders might resemble "generic" commanders better in future). Just repaint and/or convert the models a bit to suit your taste. Personally, I don't care if the unit has a name on it or not, that's just for purposes of identifying it in the game. My "Snowtroopers" have nothing to do with snow, "Fleet troopers" have nothing to do with any fleets, and my "Leia" isn't even going to be painted up as human.

Part of the issue is we don't yet (and my never) have enough information to determine what the points value of various elements of the units are worth. How many points are the effects of a particular command card worth? How many points is a 4 wound model with Courage 2? Any commander option cheaper than Leia or Veers basically becomes an auto-include as they would be an incredibly cheap way to help your Troopers avoid panic, and put more units in range of a model capable of issuing orders.

For scenario games, where both sides are using such a generic commander, I think simply using one of the Core units as a commander will be easiest and maintain the current balance of the game best, or use replacement names (Leia's rules to represent Hera, and Veer's rules to represent Thrawn for instance).

@Caimheul1313 Thanks for your input on this topic. I was unaware that this topic has been discussed before nor was I aware that the developers have laid out the plans for the future releases, that many years in advance might I add..

Perhaps I should have started from the beginning with the conversation my friend and I were having. He has a shed load of Star Wars miniatures from various different sources and his question about generic leaders stemmed from some of the Imperial Officers that he has (I believe they're from Imperial Assault but they could be WotC... This is not important though) Anywho, he was just curious if he could use them in the game and if they had rules so I informed him that the selection of miniatures was limited atm but that I wouldn't have a problem with making up some houserules for them.

This is when I came to the forum and asked for advice and ideas for building a generic leader. This was purely ment to be for a good natured fun game between friends and at the end of the day I'm probably going to use whichever rules that I feel will work the best for a game I'm having fun playing.

Either way, thanks for the comments and if anyone has any other ideas related to the topic feel free to share.

Weez

One speculation that people have made is that Imperial officers might make an appearance as a Personel upgrade, providing an increase to Courage values for the unit to which they are attached.

For friendly games, I think what you outlined in your initial post would work well enough initially at least. As you play games with the rules you may find they need slight adjustments, but only play testing will really tell imho.

"One speculation that people have made is that Imperial officers might make an appearance as a Personel upgrade, providing an increase to Courage values for the unit to which they are attached. "

Now this is a viable option that would be easier to bring to the game without making a whole new character. I can definitely get behind this and will probably use it in the intro game with my friend to see how it plays.

Any chance of getting a link to the discussion so I can see what others have said on this topic without having repeated threads with the same content?

Thanks for the ideas

Weez

On 6/10/2018 at 2:57 PM, Weezbeez37 said:

Ok I get where you're coming from about the games reasoning behind having named characters lead the army's but the topic is about creating no named leaders not shooting down my idea before it has a chance to grow and be commented on.

Here's a couple reasons why I think having a no named leader would be beneficial to the game.

It would help with smaller point games and escalation campaigns by not having an expensive leader take a huge chunk out of the army.

It would also be good for scenario driven missions like how Han Solo and a few units of commandos have been tasked with placing thermal charges in key points of an Imperial controlled facility where the opposition is an Imperial Officer and a bunch of stormtroopers.

Also as a teaching/learning how to play standpoint for new people who don't have a gaming background.

And finally I thought it would be fun to share an idea that I had and maybe contribute something to a game that I enjoy playing.

Weez

Well, I'd say rather than having double the command cards of the original generic ones, they can build command hand back to 4 when they have 3 non-character specific command cards in there discarded command cards and onlyif they didn't start the game with more than 4 command cards. Stops Ambush being played twice in a row, or push etc. Unless it was the 3rd command card being discarded, so there's still some pressure on which command card you want to play or not play to hold it back for another turn. Its still a one shot deal at a time until reshuffle cards back in hand.

The stats sound about right, but you could debate if have 3 health rather than 4.

So I found the discussion about this topic on pg. 55 of the general discussion....

It seems like a general consensus that "no named" commanders will be out for the official game (houserules aside cause in my group that will be acceptable) but I rather like the idea of upgrading a unit leader to increase the courage value of said unit.

Here's the houserules we came up with: Any core unit can upgrade their leader for 20pts (essentially making them elite troopers) and increasing their courage value by 1.

We will still have to play test this to see if the point values are reasonable for the upgraded courage bonus but it seems ok to us ATM. Anyways I'll just have to see how it works and get back to y'all on our experiences with it.

Thanks again for the ideas

Weez

Just say a unit leader is a commander and gets the basic command cards set for him, maybe 30pts?

On 6/19/2018 at 3:37 AM, Major Mishap said:

Just say a unit leader is a commander and gets the basic command cards set for him, maybe 30pts?

I like this and I've been thinking about some cards of that sort:

1 Pip

• Imperial: Forced March - 1 Trooper Unit: When the ordered unit activates it must make a free compulsory move at its maximum speed.
• Rebel: Tactical Redeployment - 1 Non-Repulsor Unit: When the ordered unit activates it may increase its speed by 1.

2 Pip

• Imperial: Firing Drill - 2 Trooper Units: When the ordered unit is making a ranged attack with a weapon that does not contain the Cumbersome, Impact, Blast or Spray keywords it may add additional dice to the attack attack pool equal to half of the weapon's value rounded down.
• Imperial: Suppressing Fire - When the ordered unit is making a ranged attack, the amount of suppression that is received by the defender is doubled.
• Rebel: Fire And Maneuver - 2 Trooper Units: After the ordered unit performs a ranged attack it may perform a free move with its speed reduced by 1 to a minimum of 1.
• Rebel: Priority Target - 2 Trooper Units: Designate an Enemy Unit to be the "Priority Target". When an ordered unit performs an attack agains that unit it gains Sharpshooter 1.

3 Pip

• Imperial: With Me! - [Commander] and 2 Non-Vehicle Units: Remove up to 1 Suppression Token from ordered units. Ordered units may then perform a free move or aim action.
• Rebel: Dig In - [Commander] and 2 Trooper Units: Ordered units do not discard dodge tokens when defending this round. Ordered units cannot choose to perform move actions or free moves. They can be affected by enemy abilities that would cause them to move.

I'm jotting some down whenever I have an idea, if you have any of your own please pass them along.

I figure FFG won't release a generic commander and if they do it won't be any time soon but I may try to brew up a couple characters. Rebel Lieutenant, Rebel Deck-Officer, Imperial Stormtrooper Captain, Imperial Security Bureau Officer, etc... It may make for a more flavourful game based less on a Darth and Luke beat-down. Or it may be trash, we'll just have to try it out.