Jedi Luke, Leia, Lando, Han Solo, Chewbacca

What heroes would you pick and why?

In my group, we have gotten very skeptical towards Leia as she's just so squishy. I (Imp player) had no trouble killing her dead with a single regular Stormtrooper group activation in our recent RtH campaign, and I didn't even have to use any Imperial class cards or anything. We (our gaming group - we play friendly games) have had a hard time making Leia worth her points, which is sad as she's a great character (obviously) and her abilities are quite cool too...

As for Jedi Luke, well, he's a beast, sir! He'll frag stuff up royally, like! (I always get worried when the Rebels field Jedi Luke)

I'd say the biggest consideration is: what is the imperial class deck, and what have they spent their XP on? Leia's ability to exhaust an imperial card can be huge - against the armored onslaught deck, for example, taking out Mortar each turn and really puts a huge kink in the imperial player's plans. Also, if you have a ranged hero with a great weapon her ability to give one of your guys another shot can be really useful. For only 4 threat (with Murne) you really can't go wrong.

With that said, though, Jedi Luke is awesome too. He's a bit more expensive, but again with Murne's ability he'll probably make his cost back in just about any mission.

So really neither is a bad choice IMO. Again, for me the biggest determining factor would be whether there's a good imperial card for Leia to exhaust.

8 points cost to cancel Mortar is a bit expensive, IMHO, especially since Aggressive Negotiations requires an attack (and Battlefield Leadership is also an attack), which means Leia needs to be in/near line of fire to be effective, which again means she'll get shot at a lot. In RtH, I think my players managed to block my Mortar twice in the entire campaign, and I had no trouble defeating her with cheaper deployment groups.

Aside from Aggressive Negotiations, I've found Battlefield Leadership to be valuable all on its own, when used with the right hero.

And remember, we're talking Company of Heroes, so Leia really is just 4 pts. That's hard to beat, though I can totally see how an 8 pt. Jedi Luke is tempting, too.

Really, they're both very solid choices.

Allies with a white defense die can go down pretty fast. We once played the first mission of Twin Shadows campaign as a side mission in Core campaign if I recall correctly and I recall Han being almost shot down by one regular stormtrooper group in a single round, despite having Chewie next to him granting a free block(!)

But back on topic, I agree that you cannot just exhaust imperial class card every round and expect Leia to be optimally effective. If you do chances are Leia is not attacking often in order to move and stay along with the group of heroes. Such use of Leia is probably not optimal and Jedi Luke would therefore be better since he gets a "free" attack with Heroic. However, Luke's a melee attacker which means he will most likely need to move to get close enough to attack and might need to move back to get into cover unless you trust the dodge symbol to show up often. He has Deflect though. As an imperial player you might want to skip attacking Luke if you have some units on the board with a single health point left.

8 minutes ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

Allies with a white defense die can go down pretty fast.

True. The interesting thing about Luke though is that he kinda subverts the "Throw big stuff at black, chip away at white" defense die rule in that Deflect slightly discourages the normal conventions, given more attacks mean more damage deflected.

It's not a huge advantage for Luke, but it can be used to good effect.

On 7/16/2018 at 5:07 AM, ManateeX said:

I'd say the biggest consideration is: what is the imperial class deck, and what have they spent their XP on? Leia's ability to exhaust an imperial card can be huge - against the armored onslaught deck, for example, taking out Mortar each turn and really puts a huge kink in the imperial player's plans. Also, if you have a ranged hero with a great weapon her ability to give one of your guys another shot can be really useful. For only 4 threat (with Murne) you really can't go wrong.

With that said, though, Jedi Luke is awesome too. He's a bit more expensive, but again with Murne's ability he'll probably make his cost back in just about any mission.

So really neither is a bad choice IMO. Again, for me the biggest determining factor would be whether there's a good imperial card for Leia to exhaust.

Thank you all for the opinions

On ‎7‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 7:39 AM, Eyfrosyne said:

IP is playing Nemeses.

Powerful Foes - Pointless
Inspirational - Potential
Fearsome Presence - Mostly Pointless
Ringleader - Pointless
Prepare the Ambush - Half Pointless
I'm on the Leader - Best Choice
Leave them to Me - Pointless
Punishing Force - Pointless
Devestating Legion - Pointless
Indomitable - Potential

So basically, I'm on the LEader is best choice for Leia, followed by Inspirational or Indomitable?