@thepopemobile100
"Yes the cards are relevant because one unit has them and one doesn't regardless of how good they are. That's like me saying armor is irrelevant because better cheaper units have it.
Potential max damage is fine, but it seldom happens and certainly not when you need it most. By that same argument, the rebels with Z-6 should be the best unit in the game because they are capable of throwing out more damage then then almost every unit."
The key difference being that a Z-6 isn't even close to the average hits of a T-47 (1.5 hit/crit results on 6 white dice without surge vs. 3.75 on the T-47; Luke's 2 red dice average 1.75 hits, which is great. But still less than the 1.875 average wounds from the T-47. That Luke only has two dice and no sharpshooter means he does .5 damage against a target in heavy cover vs .875 from the T-47; so, regardless, his shooting is vastly inferior from inferior range.)
As for the defense:
"And now you go back to averages when they suit you best. Yeah T-47 takes less damage per attack on average, but it's also in a position where it's getting shot at more frequently and by more units which is going to bring it to the magical 7.7 attacks sooner. Your numbers for Luke are also for him in the open and it also doesn't account for cover from suppression. Assuming Luke doesn't have any cover or dodge (despite 2 of his cards giving him a free dodge and reflexes giving him a third so he should have a dodge token in half of the rounds), we'll round that first shot to two damage for simplicity. Luke now has light cover and next shot deals on average 1.3125 damage (rounded to 1). Each shot after that has averages to .8125 which is even less likely to take damage than the T-47. This also affects his time to kill to being over 6 attacks. The T-47 hits damage threshold sooner than that and is 1-2 hits from being destroyed. If Luke is in heavy from the start by the way (because why would anyone have their commander out in the open in the middle of the field) it takes 7.6 attacks without a dodge to kill Luke and it jumps to 8.6 with one behind heavy cover. So no, the T-47 really isn't all that much survivable compared to Luke in in the open and is equal to or worse if Luke has good conditions."
I'm using averages because their defense depends on the enemies targeting them (offensively they're going to be throwing different numbers of dice, so the range is actually an important question, especially for people who might decide to take a long shot).
Your math is off, every shot after luke has cover 1 from supression is 1.3125 damage (demonstrated below).
First, here's the offensive hit/crit chances for those stormtroopers (setting aside, for the moment, re-rolls, which would favor the T-47 anyway as more results are dangerous to Luke than to the T-47; thanks armor!; also setting aside Snowtroopers which deal 1.25 wounds to Luke and .5 wounds to the T-47)
ws = .25 hit, .125 crit
rs = .75 hit, .125 crit
2x rs = 1.5 hit, .25 crit
5x ws = 1.25 hit, .625 crit
total: 2.75 hit, .875 crit (3.625 combined)
dodge/cover/armor negate regular hits only.
impact converts remaining regular hits only.
Let's do our best and worst case scenarios for Luke and the T-47 (6 full stormtrooper DLT-19 units in one round), if it sets your mind at ease:
Worst case scenarios for Luke: No cover, no dodge token, 6 full Stormtrooper unit attacks in one round.
1st Attack: 3.625 hit/crits, Luke uses a red die, for 50% save = 1.8125 wounds. 1 Suppression gained.
2nd: 3.625 hit/crits, 1 regular hit negated by cover 1; 50% save = 1.3125 wounds. 1 Suppression gained.
3rd-6th = 1.3125 hits + 1 suppression token.
Total: 8.375 wounds (Luke is dead by the 5th attack on average), 6 suppression tokens (enough that he panics)
Worst case scenario for the T-47: no dodge token, 6 full stormtrooper unit attacks in one round.
1st Attack through 6th: 2.75 hit, .875 crit (cover 1 removes one regular hit, impact 1 converts one regular hit to a crit, armor removes remaining hits); 1.875 crits with 33% save = 1.25 wounds per attack. Total: 7.5 damage. T-47 dies on the 6th attack, absorbing one more attack than Luke.
The best case scenario for each is of course: They aren't exposed to enemy fire at all, because we agree, it's either a deliberate choice to expose the unit to fire, or not.
The distinction here is that Luke being less maneuverable (and reliant on melee) pretty much HAS to subject himself to the threat of enemy fire. The T-47 with its speed rarely if ever has to do the same. And even if it does, it's able to absorb more damage in the worst case scenario.
"As shown above, T-47 is literally not twice as survivable to direct fire. The AT-RT doesn't need cover 1 to be similarly protected as melee is only dangerous with lightsabers to armor (except saber throw which T-47 is also vulnerable to), who cares about blast against armor as you still need crits to actually do damage which already ignore cover. The only argument that you presented that I can't refute is speed 3 and free movement."
You've certainly demonstrated that a player can temporarily improve Luke's survival chances, but that itself comes at a cost: Playing a specific card, activating before enemy units to get dodge and use a card, which itself requires another action to refresh (The flip side of all this is that Luke can't get any real damage out there until he leaves cover, if he doesn't he basically does nothing), but his normal didn't do anything survivability is significantly less (dead in 3.3 attacks vs dead in 5.6...not quite double, sure, but close enough that you won't really notice the difference between double or a tiny bit less.)
AT-RTs lack the extra speed and free move action to avoid enemy fire, so there's that, they also have 1 less hit point, so there's that, and cover 1 on the airspeeder means that Vader throws 3 dice, which, unless all three crit (a .02% chance), prevents a point of damage. AT-RT may die in as little as one hit from Vader's melee, or two saber throws, whereas the T-47 requires at least 3 saber throws, even Vader rolls natural crits on all dice. Oh, and the AT-RT doesn't surge their defense, so they only save 1/6 instead of 2/6.
They both may have armor, but cover 1 really does matter when the enemy unit has Impact, as vader does (and surge to defense matters in all cases where the attack doesn't have Pierce)
"Your argument against Luke boils down to: If you run him badly he won't last
Yeah no kidding, that's user error, not a fault of the unit"
Wrong.
My argument is that when you run them both well, the T-47 is better, and it is.
Just for giggles, here's what happens if those Stormtroopers are running an HH-12
5x ws = 1.25 hit, .625 crit
3x bs = 1.5 hit, .375 crit
total: 2.75 hit, 1 crit
Impact 3 means 4 crit (after allowing for dodge/cover removals)
AT-RT dies in 2 attacks.
Luke Skywalker dies in 3.2
T-47 dies in 3.8
Oh well.