On 11/14/2018 at 7:57 AM, Derrault said:

Working assumption: White defense die, no surge, Armor, white attack dice, no surge, immune to panic/suppression (no courage value)

I’d say a max of 8 models, starts at 6? (Or 10, start with 8). 8 points per model (48 start; or 6 points, 48 start for the larger group)

I agree with most of this, except for the armour.

I like the idea of white defense and white attack, two trooper upgrades, leave off the gear, grenade and maybe the heavy - those could be seperate units. The super battle droids could have the armour.

I would also love to see the “—“ courage value. With white attack and defense, it could work.

I would also alter the ion keyword to include droids and vehicles, or a keyword that allows ion to affect them. I would expect ion grenades (droid poppers) to be added to the game.

On 11/14/2018 at 12:56 PM, crx3800 said:

I'd love to see a mass of models, but I suspect it will be in the interests of costs to see similar size squads, so that the droid army isn't the most expensive one for the equivalent size army.

Thing is, the only people making it the most expensive army would be FFG - the plastic that goes in these boxes costs them literally pennies, and given how spindly they are I don't think chucking an extra 2 or 3 basic droids in the box without increasing the price would hurt FFGs margins much.

7 minutes ago, Yodhrin said:

Thing is, the only people making it the most expensive army would be FFG - the plastic that goes in these boxes costs them literally pennies, and given how spindly they are I don't think chucking an extra 2 or 3 basic droids in the box without increasing the price would hurt FFGs margins much.

You say that, and while I do agree with you, I would like to point to warhammer prices and remind you to be thankful that it isn't like that

2 hours ago, Yodhrin said:

Thing is, the only people making it the most expensive army would be FFG - the plastic that goes in these boxes costs them literally pennies, and given how spindly they are I don't think chucking an extra 2 or 3 basic droids in the box without increasing the price would hurt FFGs margins much.

Yup. It's like how a $3 loaf of bread only has a few cents worth of wheat in it, hence why wheat prices can fluctuate pretty hard and not be noticed by consumers. Putting some more injection molded guys in the box is not going require high prices, especially if they double up on some poses.

If I was designing battle droids I might make them suck in all ways imaginable. Just the worst statted things you can imagine. And make them endlessssssss. When enough casualties are generated, you get to recycle the models as reinforcement squads to enter on your deployment zone table edge.

I would like to point out that both the Royal Guard and Wookie Warrior boxes only have 4 models, and are the same price as all of the boxes with 7 miniatures. I would not be surprised if some of the heavier droid options also had a lower model count to "balance" the extra minis in the battle droid box.

18 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I would like to point out that both the Royal Guard and Wookie Warrior boxes only have 4 models, and are the same price as all of the boxes with 7 miniatures. I would not be surprised if some of the heavier droid options also had a lower model count to "balance" the extra minis in the battle droid box.

Let the goblin-indexing commence...

Battle Droids with 5 minis base and 7 minis max.

That could work.

1 hour ago, Indy_com said:

Battle Droids with 5 minis base and 7 minis max.

That could work.

Same number of Troopers base as everyone else.

Same number of upgrade slots as everyone else.

But every upgrade slot is a personnel - add extra droid trooper

Bring on the Droidekas!! I'm hoping that droidekas will be attached to battle droid units kind of like E-Web Blasters, rather than being a specialist unit on their own.

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Bring on the Droidekas!! I'm hoping that droidekas will be attached to battle droid units kind of like E-Web Blasters, rather than being a specialist unit on their own.

The E-web is its own unit. Did you mean the DLT-19?

9 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Bring on the Droidekas!! I'm hoping that droidekas will be attached to battle droid units kind of like E-Web Blasters, rather than being a specialist unit on their own.

But wouldn't that be against their purpose? I mean they are more of a quick response force. Fast Moving, and hard hitting. Attaching them to other units will at the very least, hinder their speed.

6 minutes ago, Vode said:

But wouldn't that be against their purpose? I mean they are more of a quick response force. Fast Moving, and hard hitting. Attaching them to other units will at the very least, hinder their speed.

This is importance to balance them. If they could roll freely at their full speed... they would be far too powerful and nothing would be able to stop them...

Roll up behind Palpatine, engage shields, unleash ****.

Game, set, match Separatists.

4 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

This is importance to balance them. If they could roll freely at their full speed... they would be far too powerful and nothing would be able to stop them...

Roll up behind Palpatine, engage shields, unleash ****.

Game, set, match Separatists.

that's why i think a dual condition card, like s-foils in X-Wing, would work well for this kind of thing. One side would be high speed, low defense, and no attack, and the other would be low speed, high defense, and attack. It would take an action to switch between the two so you couldn't roll up and shoot in the same turn unless you had a way to get more than 2 actions per turn.

3 minutes ago, jcmonson said:

that's why i think a dual condition card, like s-foils in X-Wing, would work well for this kind of thing. One side would be high speed, low defense, and no attack, and the other would be low speed, high defense, and attack. It would take an action to switch between the two so you couldn't roll up and shoot in the same turn unless you had a way to get more than 2 actions per turn.

Or you can just add cumbersome to the attack. That prevents scoot and shoot pretty well especially since top speed is speed 3

I'm still a fan of seeing battle droids come in group of 8 to 10 with 2 man additions for total of 12 or 14. No defense die, if shot they die. Its sheer numbers that they rely on.

Playing horde armies in other games, not getting a save isnt a bad as many think, weight of numbers can be just as difficult to over come.

18 minutes ago, thepopemobile100 said:

Or you can just add cumbersome to the attack. That prevents scoot and shoot pretty well especially since top speed is speed 3

Yean, but it doesn't account for the vulnerability while moving fast, which i personally think is important to take into account for balance purposes. But to get back on the topic of the battle droid numbers when I was looking at homebrewing a Droid army before the announcement for the Clone Wars I came up with the standard squad costing 42 points. I figured at 42 points for the base squad if there were 6 Droids in the base squad each individual one would cost 7 points. I figure that each box could come with 8 B1 battle droids with 6 in the standard squad and 2 for the upgrades. I had also figured that the two upgrades would just be extra droids with no heavy weapon option.

On 11/15/2018 at 7:29 AM, aniron said:

IIRC they are only remote controlled in EpI. That weakness was deemed not worth the savings after the Battle of Naboo and removed.

Indeed. After the Battle of Naboo, all Separatist battle droids underwent upgrades which added independent tactical computation so they no longer needed a central control node.

A side effect of this was the droids would now develop personality quirks. An in-universe explanation for the comedic personalities of the battle droids. In Episode 1 the droids were soulless automatons, after that they began to have some personality.

As for their rules. I am guessing white defense and offense. No surges. Possibly in units of up to 10 models. With some sort of unique upgrade slot for special programming.

these are the stats that i came up with for the B1:

B1 battle droid

corps (trooper)

42 points

6 units

Attack: 1 white meele - 3

Defense: White

1 health

2 courage

speed 2

extra trooper

extra trooper

grenade

keyword:

Clanker: This unit doesn't suffer the effects of suppression tokens.

They'll probably need a special rule on their generic Personnel card that allows you to take more than one copy of that card, or better yet just one card that adds 2 minis.

9 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

They'll probably need a special rule on their generic Personnel card that allows you to take more than one copy of that card, or better yet just one card that adds 2 minis.

Three personnel upgrades.

”A droid”

”Another Droid”

”Yet another Droid”

I’d hope battle droids are something like 6/unit with a personnel upgrade that gives 4 more.

Attack 1 white melee and ranged (range 1-3) attack die each and a white defense die. 2 move, 1 health/2 units with a courage of one. And yeah, I think those droids should have courage the way they were portrayed in The Clone Wars series. No surges.

They should have a coms upgrade and grenade upgrade, but I’d say they should have no heavy upgrade since they tend to have a whole new droid for specialist weapons and thereby a whole new unit.

Point cost, I’d put at 30 points and 20 points for personnel upgrade. This makes them cheap, but at a half health each and a white attack/defense die with no surges that sounds about appropriate. The only way they would be effective is through large numbers and a unit of ten would do just that.

Just a thought.

Here are my 2 cents on the matter:

I guess they should be unit size 5 with two personnel and one programming upgrade slots. Maybe it could even be more guys or multiple droids per upgrade.

I would give them the following keywords: Droid Brain (Do not lose actions or gain dodge tokens through suppression tokens) and Mechanical (When defending against attacks with Ion the attack as if the target was a vehicle).

Also this programming upgrade card could be included: Centralized Control: B2 Battledroid only. When not issuing this unit an order do not place a corresponding command in the command pile. This unit may not be activated by a token from the command pile. After completing this units activation by a command card you may immediately active another unit with this ability in range 1-4 as long as no command token is placed near it.

50 minutes ago, LennoxPoodle said:

I would give them the following keywords: Droid Brain (Do not lose actions or gain dodge tokens through suppression tokens) and Mechanical (When defending against attacks with Ion the attack as if the target was a vehicle).

You don’t gain dogde tokens through supression tokens you gain cover. Other than that mistake i like the keyword

@JabbyOops, made I mistake there. Was in between lectures I guess.

On 11/19/2018 at 4:31 AM, Vode said:

But wouldn't that be against their purpose? I mean they are more of a quick response force. Fast Moving, and hard hitting. Attaching them to other units will at the very least, hinder their speed.

Droidekas corrolate best to Support most likely, they serve in a light cavalry role, like Speeder Bikes.