What if loku and mak cost 2?

By cbuss, in Imperial Assault Skirmish

What if loku and mak cost 2?

Would they replace smugglers?

Would they be overpowered?

I just tried them in place of smugglers in a han rangers list and was a fan. They can sit on objectives and snipe.

Mak won me a game on turn 1 with critical hit, removed Blaze of Glory hah.
But if you made him or Loku any cheaper.. there would need to be adjustments with Mercs and Imperials. I don't think Mak needs to be cheaper. Loku maybe 3 pts instead of 4, but definitely not 2

1 hour ago, Kalandros said:

Mak won me a game on turn 1 with critical hit, removed Blaze of Glory hah.
But if you made him or Loku any cheaper.. there would need to be adjustments with Mercs and Imperials. I don't think Mak needs to be cheaper. Loku maybe 3 pts instead of 4, but definitely not 2

Awesome! What do you mean adjustments in mercs and imp?

If I'm FFG, I want to promote diversity in the meta. Making cheap small units more playable achieves this and only necessitates FFG releasing updated costs. I've heard the idea of an official dynamic pricing list builder app that could increase rate of change.

I'm sure they go through loads of work to create new material for each release, but I think they proved with the han Vader chewy upgrades that they can just as easily excite the community with updates to existing units.

I would be so excited if suddenly, just do to cost updates, loads of unique figured became playable. I want to play loku, biv, saska, murne in a competitive list!

There would probably be less reason to run smugglers, since in most missions they are just 2 point bodies that roll a white die and move 4 and can't hit anything past range 2. It would might make Rebel lists a little less skill intensive then they are since they will have more guns on the table which means losing 2 rangers won't be quite as devastating.

It wouldn't unbalance the game or anything though. Also it's not going to actually happen.

2 hours ago, Tvboy said:

There would probably be less reason to run smugglers, since in most missions they are just 2 point bodies that roll a white die and move 4 and can't hit anything past range 2. It would might make Rebel lists a little less skill intensive then they are since they will have more guns on the table which means losing 2 rangers won't be quite as devastating.

It wouldn't unbalance the game or anything though. Also it's not going to actually happen.

I have hope that FFG reads these forums to some extent and that there is a possibility of change!

Mak would simply be to good at 2. Mak sees fringe play right now since he is a cheap spy rebs can use to try and control the cc opponents use. The smuggler cc tend to be offensive/defensive, but the spy cards are very utility based and mak doesn't need to be in harm's way to strategic shift or comms disrupt people.

On 7/15/2018 at 3:46 PM, cbuss said:

I would be so excited if suddenly, just do to cost updates, loads of unique figured became playable. I want to play loku, biv, saska, murne in a competitive list!

yeah, unfortunately I don't think these units are a priority for FFG's release. I love Loku and Biv in skirmish but I can't justify their cost

FFG wants to mainly fix the "popular" figures to y'know...bring in more sales. A skirmish fix for Saska vs. a skirmish fix for Boba Fett would achieve very different results

10 hours ago, LordDraigo1 said:

Mak would simply be to good at 2. Mak sees fringe play right now since he is a cheap spy rebs can use to try and control the cc opponents use. The smuggler cc tend to be offensive/defensive, but the spy cards are very utility based and mak doesn't need to be in harm's way to strategic shift or comms disrupt people.

Or to Intelligence Leak a card like Assassinate or On The Lam out of your opponent's hand.

I think if you could have Mak or Loku at 2 deployment points, they would be especially great with Heroic Effort lists. But the Spy cards are just too powerful.

@cbuss I have been working on some skirmish fixes for a lot of the older figures. ( FFG Thread is here ; latest version of fixes are on this google doc .) My goal is to improve these older figures where they could be considered for play -- if not for highly competitive play, at least good enough to hold their own versus figures released as part of the Jabba's Realm expansion wave and beyond.

My current solution is to make both Mak and Loku worthy of a deployment cost of 4:

Quote

Unique Skirmish Attachment Card: Master Spy (Mak Eshka'rey only)

Cost: 1

Health +2. +1 DMG.

You gain "=> Prowl: You become Hidden".

Quote

Unique Skirmish Attachment Card: Ballistics Expert (Loku Kanoloa only)

Cost: 0

You gain Health +3, +1 DMG.

Set Your Sights and Coordinated Attack require only one Special Action to use. When you perform an attack with Set Your Sights, you may reroll one attack die.

By costing 4 deployment points, players will have to choose Mak or Loku over either lower-cost support figures or utility attackers (Hera, Jyn, Tress, Jarrod, Lando, etc.). However their attack abilities and survivability are amplified so that they can participate in combat.

2 is too cheap. 3pts would be good. Loku needs a bit more health as well.

What would happen?, people could play rebel spies is what could happen. Right now there aren't enough cheap spy units to run a 3 strong spy themed list with supporting command cards. Most if not all the spies have some severe weakness that makes them cool but not competitive (Leia, Loku small health, Davith can't do enough consistent damage, Saska all kinds of wrong, Blaise, weak

I think that might almost be part of the design with spies, though. Those command cards are really powerful, so as it is there's a bit of a tradeoff to taking a unit who can use them. If a unit was already a fantastic combat unit that, oh yeah, can also see the opponent's hand of cards and remove Blaze of Glory, it would be really hard not to bring that unit along in just about every list.

1 hour ago, ManateeX said:

I think that might almost be part of the design with spies, though. Those command cards are really powerful, so as it is there's a bit of a tradeoff to taking a unit who can use them. If a unit was already a fantastic combat unit that, oh yeah, can also see the opponent's hand of cards and remove Blaze of Glory, it would be really hard not to bring that unit along in just about every list.

absolutely.

In the imperial faction, we can see how the developers value the Spy trait. Cross training, and it's worth a point. Without Spy, Mak probably should cost 2, and Loku would make sense at 3. but with spy, they're not costed badly at all.

Actually, I think Mak is good as he is except for his health. He would need 5 health.

loku 's health to cost ratio is terrible, especially in the post Jabba light. His abilities are lackluster and his surges are terrible. 3points doesn't make up for this especially if he loses Spy

On 7/17/2018 at 2:05 AM, cnemmick said:

Or to Intelligence Leak a card like Assassinate or On The Lam out of your opponent's hand.

I think if you could have Mak or Loku at 2 deployment points, they would be especially great with Heroic Effort lists. But the Spy cards are just too powerful.

@cbuss I have been working on some skirmish fixes for a lot of the older figures. ( FFG Thread is here ; latest version of fixes are on this google doc .) My goal is to improve these older figures where they could be considered for play -- if not for highly competitive play, at least good enough to hold their own versus figures released as part of the Jabba's Realm expansion wave and beyond.

My current solution is to make both Mak and Loku worthy of a deployment cost of 4:

By costing 4 deployment points, players will have to choose Mak or Loku over either lower-cost support figures or utility attackers (Hera, Jyn, Tress, Jarrod, Lando, etc.). However their attack abilities and survivability are amplified so that they can participate in combat.

@cnemmick

Do you have edited card files for these fixes? I messed around with printed off edited card a lit and enjoy it.

I think mak is fine as is but Loku is a little under powered.

Edited by Zagnoroth

@cbuss I typically write them up as Skirmish Attachments b/c many times what I want to change can't fit on a standard deployment card.

Do you have image files of.those attachments?

@cbuss no I haven't gotten around to putting them into the custom deployment card maker software. (There's a link to it on the forums.) You're welcome to do so.