Let's talk about the new heroes and how they work.

Tress Hacnua

http://cards.boardwars.eu/Expansion-Boxes/Tyrants-of-Lothal/Rebel%20Heroes/Tress%20Hacnua/

• 10xp Flexibility build:
  • Aryx Variation -> Gundark Throw -> Acklay Counter -> Dragonsnake Variation
• Krayt Dragon Fury build
  • Aryx Variation -> Acklay Counter -> Krayt Dragon Fury -> Dianoga Sweep

Tress looks like a hybrid of Saska, Loku, Gaarkhan and Verena. She has some nice action efficiency thanks to Leg Hydraulics giving you a random number of movement points each turn, average 1-2, with an 8% chance of getting 3 and a 17% of getting 0. edit: Something that I had not noticed in my initial evaluation of Tress is that the movement from Hydraulics is "move X spaces", which means she can ignore difficult terrain, but also means she must use the movement immediately or lose it and it can also become awkward if she wants to move through enemy figures since she can't end her Hydraulic movement on another figure and then spend movement points to move off. Important to note is that Hydraulics requires a strength test each turn, so she does not synergize well with abilities that grant focus, although she can choose to forgo Hydraulics style to keep her Focus. She also has 2 other class cards that allow her to spend style tokens for free movement and something worth noting is that none of Tress's abilities, save for her side mission reward, actually cost any strain to use, so she is free to use her strain purely for movement points, making her an extremely mobile hero. Like Loku, she is limited to just the 2 style tokens that came in the box, so you will want to be cycling through those. She only has two other ways to get style tokens aside from Fyrnock style, one of which involves defeating enemy figures, so Tress should be attacking often. Something else to note is that Tress is especially frail for a melee hero, but unlike other heroes, she doesn't lose any of her abilities when she becomes wounded, though Hydraulics does become weaker when her attribute dice replace a yellow die with a red one.

Reinforced Cyberarm is terrible as a starting weapon, probably the weakest in the game, but it is the source of her secret 3rd ability, the ability to spend Style tokens for +`1 damage. It's nice that this is a "while attacking" ability so you don't have to spend those precious Style tokens if you don't have to. Because of this, Tress is effectively forced to bring Cyberarm into battle with her and limited to equipping 1 other weapon, but that's fine since her abilities mostly only work with melee weapons. You will want to get her a new melee weapon asap though, as Cyberarm has no surge abilities or reroll effects. Pretty much any tier 1 melee weapon will be a vast improvement over the Cyberarm, but tier 1 standouts include the new Punch Dagger, as well as the Vibrosword and Gaffi Stick. But even the humble Vibroknife will vastly improve her damage output, though a weapon with a mod slot is always preferable. Unfortunately despite her appearance, this hero does not have any innate rewards for taking Fist weapons, so I still wouldn't recommend any of the Fist weapons that lack mod slots, though again if that's your only option you should take anything you can get.

Turning to her class cards, Aryx variation is Tress's 1 xp movement card. It allows her to convert style tokens into something other than just damage, and being able to zip around the battlefield efficiently is going to be important for Tress, who again wants to be attacking constantly to keep generating those Style tokens. Combined with Hydraulics, this can be the equivalent of a free Move action for Tress each turn, which is very powerful. It also gives her an alternate means of generating style tokens if she needs to take a break to Rest or Interact or if there's no enemies within reach for her to attack. Mynock Strike is bad, don't bother. Style tokens are too valuable to be throwing them away on just a Weakened condition.

Gundark Throw is a wonderful combination of action efficiency, free damage, map control and flavor, sort of like a marriage between Diala's Force Throw and Mak's Expertise. This card checks all of the boxes that I like to see on a class card. Throwing a bad guy into a door to open it, while it will rarely actually happen, is such a flavor win. And this card doesn't even require you to spend a Style token! Dianoga Sweep can be used to add up to Cleave 2 to an attack if you spend 2 Style tokens, giving her some added damage control, but the rate of 1 token for 1 damage is not great here compared to her default ability, and Gundark Throw offers similar damage precision without having to spend tokens. It does combine well with other sources of Cleave; if you get a BD-1 with a Weighted Head attached, Cleave 5 is pretty good. You will want to pick this one up if you are going for the Krayt Dragon Fury Route. It also combos with Dragonsnake Variation in that if you defeat a figure, you can spend the style token you receive from Dragonsnake Variation to apply Cleave 1, because the attack is still resolving.

Both 3xp cards are interesting and help address Tress main weakness, which is her low durability. Dragonsnake variation gives her a +2 Health bonus, but also gives her another way to generate Style tokens, which is the main draw for me. With Aryx Variation and this card, Tress should always have Style tokens available to use on her various abilities. Acklay Counter is a very strong defensive card though, making Tress extremely tanky as long as she has style tokens to spend, as it can be used multiple times a round. It reminds me of Ko-Tun's Dig In, which has proven to be a very powerful card. It does still leave her vulnerable to melee attacks, but if she can get enough damage onto them she can make it impossible for them to attack her. Interestingly I've found these 2 xp cards actually go well together, as Dragonsnake Variation allows Tress to spend her style tokens during her activation and still get multiple uses of Acklay Counter after she's activated.

Her 4xp cards are somewhat underwhelming compared to other 4xp cards in the game. I would not prioritize getting either of these early on, and I suspect that in the app I might even be likely to skip these and grab another 3 xp card. Fluidity is the most interesting, giving her a free non-attack action by spending 2 style tokens. How good this card is will mostly depend on how efficiently you can generate style tokens. Personally I think that 2 tokens is too steep a price for an action that can't be an attack, but if Tress is consistently generating more style tokens than she can utilize, then this card will be fine. She already generates a ton of free movement points and she doesn't rely on strain enough to want to be Resting every turn (although she does benefit from the damage recovery), so the main draw here is the free Interact, but none of her attributes are exceptionally good and she can already open doors for free with Gundark Throw. Krayt Dragon Fury is no better. There is some debate as to how the 2nd half of this card actually works, though it seems the current consensus (per the developers) is that it only refers to the top ability, as the wording doesn't really make sense with her other Style token abilities all of Tress's style token abilities, but only if they are in the same timing window and you still have to be able to pay additional costs to the use the ability again. So for instance you can combine Dianoga Sweep with itself or with Cyberarm, Acklay Counter can only be combined with itself, and you can't combine Aryx Variation with itself because you'd have to exhaust the card twice. The number of combinations you can create with this is actually very limited. As for the first ability, dodges are just not something you see that often on the Imperial side of the table except for the occasional Nexu now and then. The surge option is only going to be more useful than cyberarm if you have a weapon with awesome surge abilities but terrible surge dice. I guess you could take this if the Imperial player is using the Reactive Defenses class deck to counter the auto-Dodge on 88-Z, or if the Imperial player is especially fond of elite Nexus, but it should be noted that this effect can be cheaply replicated with the Focusing Beam modification from Heart of the Empire. If you do decide to get KDF, make sure you understand how all the abilities can be combined and plan your build path around getting the xp cards that can be combined most easily.

Additional gear to consider grabbing for Tress would include Survival Gear, since she is going to making strength tests every time she activates, having that reroll to get an extra movement point or 2 will be handy, as will the ability to ignore difficult terrain. Extended Haft is particularly good with her since only 1 of her abilities require her to be adjacent. She should also be one of the first heroes to receive an armor upgrade, as she will get wounded quickly and often be fighting deep in enemy territory. Equipment with strain costs are easy for her to use thanks to being very strain efficient, so the Vibrosword, Double Vibrosword and Mandalorian Helmet are good fits with her. In fact I'd say Mandalorian Helmet seems to be designed specifically for her. The Bo-Rifle is also a great weapon for Tress as she can still use all of her attacking abilities with it when using the ranged attack on the card, as it still counts as attacking with a melee weapon, including her ability to add Cleave, which becomes much better when it's on a ranged attack.

Playstyle: If you are a lone wolf that likes to act independently from what everyone else is doing, Tress might be the hero for you. She is similar to Verena and Shyla in that she mostly just wants to be thrown into a group of enemies and go to town. However it's important to note that until she gets Acklay Counter, she is not as protected as those heroes are and you may have to pick your fights carefully with her to avoid being instantly Wounded, using her high mobility to isolate low health Imperials and stay out of danger, though she is probably the least affected by being Wounded of any hero. What Tress doesn't do is team support, none of her abilities buff her allies in anyway except for Mynock Strike, which we have established is terrible, so if you like being Santa Clause handing out goodies to other players, Tress is probably not the hero for you.

CT-1701

http://cards.boardwars.eu/Expansion-Boxes/Tyrants-of-Lothal/Rebel Heroes/CT-1701/

• Support Build:
  • Pin Them Down -> Squad Tactics -> Strafing Run -> Weakness Identified/Concentrate Fire
• Offense Build:
  • Pin Them Down -> Strafing Run -> Weakness Identified Wildfire/Squad Tactics

If Tress is sort of a fixed Saska or Loku, then CT feels like a fixed Biv or Gideon. Ability-wise he looks like a hybrid between Garkhan and Ko-Tun, a strong starting ability that grants a 3rd action and costs 2 strain and class cards that manipulate power tokens and combine offense with team support. Unlike Garkhan, the power of CT's Barrage is tempered by the addition of a white die, which can make him an explosive but also high variance hero. From the very first mission, there will be some turns that he is a complete beast, mowing down enemies, and other turns where is ability will essentially do nothing. CT is a strain intensive hero, as his main ability drains half of his endurance, and he often will still want to move a space or 2 to setup the perfect triple attack activation. Important to note is that CT can trigger Barrage even if he is attacking outside of his activation, which can be very powerful in combination with Gideon, Loku, Murne or Leia.

CT's starting weapon isn't the worst, but it's also not that great. Mostly it's high variance, much like Barrage, as it doesn't have any ways to reroll or convert surges into damage. The fact that it rolls 2 green dice helps though, meaning you will usually see at least 2 damage results on your rolls. Focus Fire helps to give CT a sort of delayed surge for +1 damage, and can also be used even if CT deals 0 damage with his attack. The +2 accuracy is also nice, minimizing the amount CT needs to move in order to attack his target accurately. CT can probably get away with using his starting weapon until Tier 2 items are available, but keep on the lookout for items that can let him do something with those extra surges. Under-Barrel and Responsive Armor are the main ones, though even Power Charger can useful even though it duplicates his ability, as there will be some attacks that don't give you any surges and the back up power token will be useful there, plus it only costs 50 credits after you sell the thing. If his starting weapon starts to under perform before you hit Tier 2, E-11 or Hunting Rifle are decent cheap options, but avoid close-range pistols that will require CT to move closer to his target. Avoid attack upgrades that you have to exhaust to use, and prioritize ones that give passive buffs across all attacks. Plasma Cell will be especially effective once you hit Tier 2, though this is also where you'll want to pick up a stronger weapon like the EE-3 or A-280.

Class Cards: At 1 xp, Reload is a decent ability that can help give CT's attacks a little more pep. CT drinks strain like it's water, so he's going to be resting a lot and reaping the passive reward from this card often. The expanded power token load is mostly just so he can still use Focus Fire, but it's also a nice way to enable him to hold defensive power tokens. The only problem with this card is it's only triggering every 2nd or 3rd turn, which reduces it's overall usefulness. The more I think about Covering Fire, the more I'm starting to like it. It's "while attacking" so you can wait to see if you've overkilled or underkilled an enemy or if they rolled a Dodge and give yourself or an ally a block token. Ko-Tun and Jarrod have shown me that good defensive abilities can be quite strong in campaign. However I wouldn't prioritize either of these abilities early.

2 xp has 2 very good class cards. Strafing Run is a card that I would prioritize early, as it is a card that will usually be generating 2-3 movement points for you every turn and can help move through difficult terrain. This card is a work horse, and it helps CT to save his actions for attacking and Resting. Pin Them Down is also very strong, and not as difficult to trigger as I initially thought. You can choose the targeted figure and another figure, or 2 other figures if the target died, and here Weakened is gravy on top of Stun that also softens up your Barrage target by weakening the white die. Being able to Stun 2 figures at range is super strong, preventing the Imperial player from using the popular tactic of shooting you and then moving out of line of sight. I think I would go for Strafing first, but Pin Them Down is high on my list. Edit: So actually I've now come around to the idea that Pin Them Down is not only CT's strongest XP card, it may be one of the strongest hero XP cards in the game. The ability to cripple any 2 Imperial figures for a round with almost no cost is just incredibly powerful. Unless you are playing in the app, you should definitely prioritize this asap.

At 3xp we have some weird but interesting cards. Squad Tactics gives CT a neat support option by allowing him to move nearby figures around the board. With a Move action and 2 strain, he can give up to 7 movement points to teammates and the cool thing is he can divide them up however he chooses as long as the target is within 3 spaces, so he could send 1 figure 3 spaces, another figure 2 spaces and move himself 2 spaces, and he can do this at any point during his activation. Being able to keep your slower and attack intensive heroes advancing forward can be a critical asset in many missions. Weakness Identified lets you remove a defense die from the defenders pool if you're attacking a figure whose group has an already defeated figure, and it also gives a baseline of +1 damage if you can't meet its requirements which is nice, but the card can only be used once per activation. I personally like the possible movement shenanigans that Squad Tactics offers, but if shooting stuff until it's dead is more your speed then Weakness Identified is a solid choice.

Speaking of shooting stuff until its dead, Concentrate Fire is quite the card at 4xp, allowing CT to possibly have 4 attacks performed during his activation for 4 strain. However the restriction of only being able to target a figure that CT has already attacked is real, and on turns where CT can't spend 4 strain on the same turn, Concentrate Fire isn't going to be all that much different from Barrage, they just don't get the extra defense die but also have a stricter targeting requirement. I'm not a huge fan of this card, though if you have other heroes whose abilities scale based on how many attacks they got, such as Fenn, then this might be worth it. Wildfire is much more interesting to me. A basic explanation of what this card actually does, it basically lets you CT's Barrage ability an additional time each round for just 1 strain. It doesn't let you use Barrage 3 times however. But still, that's a free attack for just 1 strain, and 2 free attacks for 3 strain is not bad at all, especially when you can sort of hop from one enemy to the next each time, and with abilities that trigger on each attack, like Strafing or Blast, this card scales really nicely.

Additional items to consider with CT are Bacta Pump and Emergency Injector, as he is a very strain heavy hero. His proclivity with power tokens also makes him a good candidate for Power Charger in tier 3, and just as in the Skirmish game, CT has a lot of synergies with Ko-Tun in campaign. Also I should mention that CT's reward card, Bullseye!, is super good.

XP Builds: CT has multiple possible build routes depending on what you want to do with him. He has support and offensive options at each tier in his class deck, making it possible to focus on one or the other, or split the difference. I think whether or not you take Reload depends on whether your going offensive and if you are trying to hold out for Tier 2 weapons. I think regardless of what role you want CT to play, Strafing Run is easily his best xp card and should be prioritized, and Wildfire is a strong card that can fit into either style of build. I think whether or not you take Wildfire or Concentrate Fire in a support build is going to depend on which heroes are getting the best weapons. If CT has a sweet weapon loadout, you want Wildfire, but if he's operating on a budget so the other heroes can pack more heat, then you might want Concentrate Fire.

Playstyle: CT is sort of like an inversed Ko-Tun in that he is a hybrid offense/support character that leans about 70/30 towards offense/support compared to Ko-Tun's 40/60. If you like attacking a lot while moving very little and perhaps giving bonuses to teammates sometimes, CT will be a good match. However CT is also high-variance and can be very swingy, so if you are risk averse and hate high risk, high reward style of play, you might not like this hero so much.

If Krayt Dragon Fury essentially gives 1 (or 2) Style tokens worth of any ability (as I theorize here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/281510-question-of-krayt-dragon-fury-skill-from-tol-tress/?do=findComment&comment=3451408 ), how would that change your assessment of it? I think that 2 extra would make it pretty amazing, probably even too good: +2 damage on an attack, a free move/interact/rest, etc. If it's +1, that's a little tougher to say; 1 free style token per round isn't that great (and you only get it if you spend one already).

14 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Reinforced Cyberarm is terrible as a starting weapon

Dumb question. Are we sure Tress’ Reinforced Cyberarm counts as a weapon? I sort of figured it didn’t, since it wouldn’t (logically speaking) take up a hand to use. I figured “Fist” means it isn’t technically a weapon, like “Blaster” or “Blade” etc. are?

8 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

I figured “Fist” means it isn’t technically a weapon, like “Blaster” or “Blade” etc. are?

They are traits and have no gameplay effect other than referred to by other components. Other than you can't attach two modifications that have the same trait to a weapon, and some class cards referring to traits (like Jyn's cards referring to Pistol) . Traits do not define whether an item card (including class cards that are item cards) is a weapon.

"Weapons are identified by having the word "Attack" listed in a box above dice icons and a ranged or melee icon."

Gotcha. Thanks, @A1bert

9 hours ago, angelman2 said:

Dumb question. Are we sure Tress’ Reinforced Cyberarm counts as a weapon? I sort of figured it didn’t, since it wouldn’t (logically speaking) take up a hand to use. I figured “Fist” means it isn’t technically a weapon, like “Blaster” or “Blade” etc. are?

There are several other "Fist" weapons in the armory as well, such as Armored Gauntlets and Vibroknucklers in the Core and the new tier 1 weapon in Lothal. I mentioned it in my OP, but I'm sad we still haven't gotten a hero that grants benefits for using Fist weapons the way we've seen heroes that get bonuses from Pistols, as the Fist weapons tend to be very underused because they lack modification slots.

16 hours ago, Stompburger said:

If Krayt Dragon Fury essentially gives 1 (or 2) Style tokens worth of any ability (as I theorize here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/281510-question-of-krayt-dragon-fury-skill-from-tol-tress/?do=findComment&comment=3451408 ), how would that change your assessment of it? I think that 2 extra would make it pretty amazing, probably even too good: +2 damage on an attack, a free move/interact/rest, etc. If it's +1, that's a little tougher to say; 1 free style token per round isn't that great (and you only get it if you spend one already).

Thought I had responded in this thread but responded in the linked thread, anyway reposting my reponse from that thread:

I want your interpretation to be correct, but I’ll have to take a hard look at the ramifications. I also have some issues with how the wording of the card interacts with the rules. For example, if you are using a style token effect while attacking, then you can’t use any “during your activation” effects, because those can’t be used while an action is resolving. Also “choose an additional effect” makes it sound like you can’t choose the same effect twice, which limits how useful it is if you can’t use “while attacking” and “during your activation” abilities at the same time. It would definitely make the card better regardless. I’ll have to revisit the card to explore what it can do if it affects all of her other style tokens.

Some preliminary thoughts on CT-1701 from playing him a bit and from doing some theorycrafting:

Starter weapon: Actually really good. In theory, it suffers from a lack of surge abilities, but his innate ability effectively gives it a surge for +1 damage, and I find that I have damage tokens to use on it a lot of the time. Since he's so strain heavy, it's also nice to recover strain with the surges. He very rarely has unspent surges in my experience, and bad rolls often have a pretty good consolation prize in the form of strain recovery and token generation, which can make your next attack a lot better. In some parties, I actually think he should use this all the way to Tier 3. The biggest issue replacing this gun is that pretty much any gun you'd replace it with isn't a significant improvement unless fully modded. So, for instance, an E-11 barely outdamages it without a Tactical Display after you factor in the damage tokens. An E-11 and an A280 both barely outdamage it with just a Plasma Cell (i.e. if each gun including the starter has just a Plasma Cell). If you're planning to give the Tactical Display to someone else (in my group, that would be Jyn with a DL-44), you could spend a lot of money for only a marginal improvement.

Skills: So if you're not improving his gun (apart from a Plasma Cell in Tier 2), Barrage will kinda suck, right? I expect it's going to lose some effectiveness, which is why I'm saving Wild Fire for last. I do agree that Strafing Run is powerful, but only if you're constantly attacking, and I don't think that's the strongest way to play him until the end game, so I'd actually save it for later. On the other hand, both Squad Tactics and Pin them Down are game-changers. Pin them Down can shut down a lot of units. Most melee units can be stopped dead with it. Assault units lose half their effectiveness (more, counting weakness). Hired Guns can be denied their parting shot, and it can work from such a long range that even a lot of standard ranged figures simply won't be able to make the range unless they move. Squad Tactics, meanwhile, is even more amazing. You pointed out that you could fatigue 2 and move to give 7 movement to someone. But why stop there? Why not double move and make it 10-12 movement? There are a lot of scenarios where this would be a borderline exploit. Even Gideon can't give away that much movement unless the hero he's commanding has a speed of 5, and even then, he only gets to 10, not 12. I wouldn't want to be the Imperial player on any mission where the heroes just need to race an objective. If you saved CT and another hero for the last two activations, then catapulted the other hero 12 spaces and had them double move, they could move as much as 24 spaces, and then lead off the top of the next round to cap the objective. It has really good synergy otherwise, too, though, getting a vulnerable hero who has already activated out of line of sight so they can't be wounded, for instance. Or moving a close range hero into range for two attacks.

So I plan to race Pin them Down (which has already proved powerful) and Squad Tactics. Then, depending on the XP curve of the campaign, either grab Covering Fire or start saving for Wild Fire. After that, Strafing Run rounds out the build. I'd ignore Weakness Identified, personally. The effect just isn't really that big for a 3XP card. If you really hate the idea that a Stormtrooper might roll a dodge against your Barrage, I can see the appeal, but you have to exhaust it on declare, and you're making a lot of other attacks, so it's not really doing a lot for the build, statistically.

Final build: Pin them Down, Squad Tactics, Covering Fire, Wild Fire, Strafing Run (12XP). If you have extra XP, I guess you could get Reload, too, particularly since you'll no longer be spending extra surges on damage tokens very often once you have an end game weapon with good surge abilities.

On 9/5/2018 at 7:59 PM, Tvboy said:

At 3xp we have some weird but interesting cards. Squad Tactics gives CT a neat support option by allowing him to move nearby figures around the board. With a Move action and 2 strain, he can give up to 7 movement points to teammates and the cool thing is he can divide them up however he chooses as long as the target is within 3 spaces, so he could send 1 figure 3 spaces, another figure 2 spaces and move himself 2 spaces, and he can do this at any point during his activation. A tactical player could do some really cool things with this card.

Are you sure this is correct? As I said to Labcoat Samurai it seems a bit OP.

3 hours ago, Chingloves said:

Are you sure this is correct? As I said to Labcoat Samurai it seems a bit OP.

It's certainly correct *as written*. I'm a little further in the campaign, but don't have it yet. I'll have it for the next story mission we do, so I'll update with my thoughts on how useful it is, then. For now, I can say that Pin them Down continues to be really strong. In the last mission (Hostile Negotiations in Jabba's Realm), I used it a couple times at the end to prevent the Imperial Player from almost certainly stealing the mission. Mission details hidden behind spoiler below:

4 hours ago, Chingloves said:

Are you sure this is correct? As I said to Labcoat Samurai it seems a bit OP.

Yes, it's correct. The card lets you spend the movement points in chunks of X, so you don't have to stop moving other heroes after they've moved out of range of CT. And as Labcoat said, it's even stronger than I let on in my analysis since CT can double move and give all his movement points away, up to 12 with 2 Moves and 2 strain, and he can give all 12 to a single friendly figure within 3 or divide between multiple friendlies in range 3.

Why would I ever use the bottom half of this card? Am I unable to use movement points outside of my turn?

Move 1 space allows to enter an adjacent space that is difficult terrain while 1mp doesn't. During your activation the +1mp would go into your pool, move 1 space happens immediately. Three attacks during your activation would give you 3mp to be spent during your activation. Or 1 space after one attack and 2mp before or after.. The possible use combinations of how you could combine the use of mp and the move 1 space are too numerous to list here.

I've played several more missions in the campaign and so far my original suspicions seem to be bearing out. Pin them Down is very good and can completely shut down many different kinds of powerful units, but Squad Tactics is even stronger. On the right mission, Squad Tactics makes CT a Gideon-tier hero. We've now done two missions where you have to chase objectives, and in both cases we completed them handily with 1-2 rounds to spare and relatively little threat of being fully wounded.

I've done the first 6 missions of the campaign without getting any gear upgrades at all, and our imperial player still fixates on CT as the most broken hero. For the record, I don't consider him broken (yet), but the control and support abilities let him pull off tricks that you'd normally need Diala or Gideon for, and he can do some of those tricks much better. In one mission, we had to pick up an objective on one end of the map and get it all the way to the other. So I gave away 12 movement points to our tankiest hero (Jarrod), and he had no trouble running through resistance and capping the objective to finish the mission.

In the last upgrade phase, I picked up Wildfire, a Pulse Cannon, and a Plasma Cell, so he's about to become a massive offensive threat too. I'll see how impactful that ends up being, but sample rolling and some experimenting with the damage calculator seems to suggest it will be comparable to Mak with No Escape (slightly weaker).

My suspicion here is that this won't be quite as ridiculous in practice as it sounds, because if he's focus firing, he's not using Squad Tactics, and vice versa. I think he's going to end up being more of a versatile hero than a one man army. Need to throw the tankiest hero over to an objective? No problem. Need a powerful villain to die *right now*. Also no problem. I'll add some final thoughts after we finish the campaign and I see how all of the abilities fit together. I still haven't picked up Strafing Run, which I think, paired with a move action and 3 attacks, could possibly let me have my cake and eat it too, with regard to support and offense. That would be 8 movement points and 3 attacks. If I can get a Plastoid Armor, that will be almost strain neutral, too.

On 9/13/2018 at 4:46 AM, a1bert said:

Move 1 space allows to enter an adjacent space that is difficult terrain while 1mp doesn't. During your activation the +1mp would go into your pool, move 1 space happens immediately. Three attacks during your activation would give you 3mp to be spent during your activation. Or 1 space after one attack and 2mp before or after.. The possible use combinations of how you could combine the use of mp and the move 1 space are too numerous to list here.

Also, unless I'm misunderstanding something, the move 1 space happens immediately, while the movement points must be spent after you're done with your chain of Wildfire and Barrage attacks, because you can't interrupt the triggers to spend movement points during your turn.

Right, by spending movement points you lose the "after attack resolves" trigger, while moving a space with an ability that has the same "after attack resolves" trigger doesn't.

Alright so I think it would useful to note which of Tress's abilities can actually be combined with each other using Krayt Dragon Fury now that we have the official ruling in the other thread, as it's a very confusing card.

Quote

Here is the official answer from FFG:

1. You can use the second half anytime you spend a style token, not just when you spend one with Krayt Dragon Fury.

2. As long as there isn’t a limitation or another cost (like exhausting a card), you can use the same ability twice with this.

3. The ability lets you choose a second effect, but that effect only counts having spent one token. One style token for the first ability and one more token for the second ability.

Some final thoughts after finishing our campaign:

CT-1701 is a top tier hero in my view, in the same tier as Fenn, Gideon, and Diala. His support abilities rival the best in the game, and his offensive capabilities are versatile and as big a threat as any hero out there.

Some examples of offensive feats I pulled off in the last few missions:

1) I downed an AT-DP in one activation.

2) I took out a Skirmish upgraded IG-88 in two activations, starting 10 spaces away and had enough firepower left over on the second turn to kill two Gammorean Guards to boot.

3) On a couple occasions, I took out a full stormtrooper group with only one action. Even with bad offense and lucky defense rolls, I still took out a Trandoshan Hunter group in one activation.

4) I killed Darth Maul with one activation while wounded.

In terms of support, I was also staying very useful:

1) I used Squad Tactics to put myself and two other heroes onto a tile we needed to be on to win the mission and used my other action to make two attacks to finish off a villain who also needed to be dead to complete the mission, finishing the mission in one activation when it would normally have taken three.

2) I used Squad Tactics to toss Jyn over to a supply crate 15 spaces away that we were otherwise going to miss in one mission, because the Imperial Player had resolved to concede the win condition to try to deny us some credits.

However, I definitely noticed that after beefing up my offense, I ended up using my support abilities a bit less, and they became more situational (e.g. moving an endangered hero out of harm's way, putting Jyn in a good quick draw position for an upcoming turn, but rarely just burning a full double move to throw 10+ movement points when my other action could be to eliminate a major figure or a group of stormtroopers)

Reflecting on some of my original thoughts:

Pin them Down is a very good skill in the early game, but toward the end of the game, it's more useful for weakness than for stun, because you mostly end up using it to gimp the white die that your targets get on your Barrage attacks, and most things don't really stay alive long enough for the stun to matter. It's still useful in some clutch situations, though. For instance, it denied IG-88 one of his attacks, and with the skirmish upgrade, those are very scary attacks.

Squad Tactics might be the best support skill in the game, at least in the right circumstances. Certainly there are circumstances where Force Throw will be more useful and plenty of circumstances where the versatility of Masterstroke will outshine it, but it can pull off maneuvers that come very close to breaking some missions, and I don't know if there are good counters to it. Our Imperial player certainly didn't think so.

Wildfire does indeed give CT Mak-tier damage output on a single target, but it also lets him take out multiple weak targets. Either way, all those attacks, paired with Covering Fire and Strafing Run grant enormous versatility in movement and defensive support when taking out weaker or nearly dead units. It's formidable.

So yeah, in summary. He's an amazing hero.

2 hours ago, labcoat_samurai said:

Some examples of offensive feats I pulled off in the last few missions:

<SNIP>

What was your weapon loadout?

4 minutes ago, Majushi said:

What was your weapon loadout?

Pulse Cannon with a Plasma Cell. I also had the Supply Pack and I picked surge tokens for the versatility (since CT can also convert a surge into a damage token anyway). I often found I was oversurging when taking out weaker enemies, which left me with damage tokens for when I needed to burn down something bigger later on. Occasionally, I would also get a pierce 1 benefit from Jax since Jarrod had Mechanical Master and could often activate him on another player's turn. This was more important vs higher defense enemies like the AT-DP or IG-88, where pierce 2 vs pierce 1 is rarely a waste.

Pulse Cannon with Plasma Cell can do enough damage even without those little boosts, but those tend to tip the odds in clutch moments, which helped.

Playing LotA I had CT-1701 with DDC Defender and Disruptor Cell and Strafing Run + Admiral's Uniform. The first time DDC Defender made sense as a weapon (with Wildfire up to 5 attacks from CT, 1 space moved between them and up to 4mp to spend later). Loku had Hand Cannon with Plasma Cell. Verena had Disruptor Pistol with Spread Barrel.

Tress was the only hero to have a 3-dice weapon - with Bo-rifle (and HiG for the +2dmg surge) she's really crazy, defeating 8-Health figures in single blows with some Cleave thrown in.

It was my first play with CT-1701 and Tress though. Ended with:

Loku - 14 Health, All-Weather Rifle, Personal Shields, Hand Cannon w/ Plasma Cell, Scouting Report (1XP), Combat Coat, Spectrum Scanner (2XP), Combat Visor, Study of Enemies (3XP), Mon Cala Special Forces (4XP)
Verena - 15 Health, Military Blaster, Fighting Knife, Create Opening (1XP), Gaffi Stick, Student of Battle (2XP), Laminate Armor, Point Blank Shot (3XP), Hidden Blade, Master Operative (4XP), Disruptor Pistol with Spread Barrel, Missing Key (supply card)
CT-1701 - 15 Health, DC15-S Blaster, Slicing Tools, Covering Fire (1XP), Strafing Run (2XP), DDC Defender w/ Disruption Cell, Squad Tactics (3XP), Admiral's Uniform, Wild Fire (4XP)
Tress - 13 Health, Reinforced Cyberarm, Mynock Strike (1XP), Dianoga Sweep (2XP), Dragonsnake Variation (3XP), Krayt Dragon Fury (4XP), Bo-rifle with High-Impact Guard

An interesting trick that I saw on BGG, if Tress is attacking and triggers Dragonsnake Variation by defeating the target, she gains the style token during the damage calculation step of performing an attack, which means she can spend it immediately on Dianoga Sweep.

Yep, defeat happens during step 7, so you gain the style token during the attack and can add cleave at any time before the attack resolves. I think I got to use it once when Tress took out an Heavy Stormtrooper to cleave 2 the adjacent Imperial Officer for the remaining two damage.

We're going into our final mission of Twin Shadows and I'm actually thinking about taking Dragonsnake Variation over Fluidity or Krayt Dragon. Right now I've got Aryx Variation, Gundark Throw, and Acklay Counter. Our Imperial player is using Military Might and I'm constantly having to save my all of my style tokens to spend on Acklay Counter just to survive his barrages and don't really get to use her other abilities. I feel like Dragonsnake would let me be more liberal with spending style tokens during my activation and feel more secure knowing that I'll usually have 2 style tokens at the end of my activation ready for either defense or to use on Aryx Variation and Cyberarm at the start of my next activation. The +2 Health doesn't hurt either.