49 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

I doubt it, that wouldn't fit with the unit nor would it solve the speeder's problem. It's got two arcs and its pretty good at getting things in them. It's main problem is being able to maneuver away from danger (due to its height, large size and the overhang rule) and its durability (cover 1 is useless for it against anything other than lone DLT shots, lone HH-12 shots and Vader's saber throw). It needs a pilot that allows you to use Dodge and Cover to cancel critical hits.

The problem with card fixes is that they become auto-include and relegate a unit to a single build. What it REALLY needs is a points reduction or some kind of RRG fix (see my post above)

I agree that card fixes are not ideal, but that has been FFG's way of doing up to X-Wing 2.0. I don't see them doing it different for Legion, since point values are already on the cards.

I'll admit my suggestion for a hardpoint wouldn't completely fix the T-47. I thought one of it's issues was having to get into bad positioning to get any benefit out of it's Arsenal keyword.

Just chucking more aim tokens at the AtSt is such a poor fix. It needs a point drop and it needs it's white dice upgraded to black. It needs to be a credible threat same with the T47, those 2 units get people into the game and then leave nothing but sour!

And will nobody think of the poor snow troopers ion rifle

14 hours ago, srMontresor said:

A decent solution might be to offer the errata as free and as paid cards for those who want them. I wouldn't want to have to wait until Legion 2.0.

The best solution would be for the agitators for errata to do some basic math before they waste everyone’s time advancing unfounded opinions.

I really feel like the problems with the heavy vehicles are because people are driving them wrong. Someone started spreading the opinion then everyone started repeating it and now we have this huge confirmation bias. I have never seen the problems that people keep repeating. Every time the heavies are used, they are absolute powerhouses.

27 minutes ago, Derrault said:

The best solution would be for the agitators for errata to do some basic math before they waste everyone’s time advancing unfounded opinions.

I'm talking about a way around people being bothered by 'having to pay for an errata' in the form of cards. I have made no statement as to game whether the game is balanced or whether units are costed well or not.

20 minutes ago, Derrault said:

The best solution would be for the agitators for errata to do some basic math before they waste everyone’s time advancing unfounded opinions.

Here's some math for you since you seem so interested in it. AT-ST with it's main gun alone averages 3 hits per shot. For roughly a third the cost, a single 5 man dlt squad puts out 3.25 damage. Sure you could put more guns on the ST to bring the damage to an acceptable level, but for the same point cost of a fully loaded you could get nearly four 5 man dlt squads who have a dramatically higher damage output than the ST while burning Weiss. The ST takes on average from a six man z6 squad 13.22 attacks. To kill 3 squads of dlts, the same squad needs 9 attacks if they're out of cover and 18 if they're in heavy cover. I've already shown the airspeeder to be worse than it's competition in every way except speed in a prior thread.

Unlike the airspeeder, I do believe the ST has a place. Most named units have low dice rolls that lack impact. If hero heavy lists become popular, the ST is a great solution to it. I don't think the ST is overpriced, but with how common corp spam is that it's going to have a hard time performing well.

13 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I really feel like the problems with the heavy vehicles are because people are driving them wrong. Someone started spreading the opinion then everyone started repeating it and now we have this huge confirmation bias. I have never seen the problems that people keep repeating. Every time the heavies are used, they are absolute powerhouses.

While I don't disagree with you necessarily, I do have a problem with you claiming they're powerhouses. A fully loaded ST sure it can delete units and I can buy that, but not with the airspeeder. When the game first came out, I wasn't on the forums and came to the same conclusion. Heck I like trying to prove that a unit has it's place in the game, but I still haven't found a good way to fly the airspeeder. It dies too quickly against imperial forces to fly head on and I get that, but hanging it back is a poor decision as well as it costs too much of your army to validate doing so. The best way I've found to use it is to try and it flanks with it, and it's still not good at that as the damage output is too low with too short of a range.

25 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I really feel like the problems with the heavy vehicles are because people are driving them wrong. Someone started spreading the opinion then everyone started repeating it and now we have this huge confirmation bias. I have never seen the problems that people keep repeating. Every time the heavies are used, they are absolute powerhouses.

I like the AT-ST, and find the air speeder to be a tad bit better than these discussions imply. In my experience, the AT-ST can range from amazing to terrible, depending literally on the roll of the dice, as well as other issues like deployment, terrain, and how it's used. While the last few issues are perfectly fine, getting rid of some dice variability goes a long way to helping it.

37 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I really feel like the problems with the heavy vehicles are because people are driving them wrong. Someone started spreading the opinion then everyone started repeating it and now we have this huge confirmation bias. I have never seen the problems that people keep repeating. Every time the heavies are used, they are absolute powerhouses.

Yeah groupthink is definitely a thing. I feel like the only times my AT-ST hasn't been an absolute beast is when my opponent uses LoS to run the heck away from it and just try for objectives.

When I force a confrontation by parking it near a central objective it's always a steep fight uphill for my opponent.

The airspeeder does need some help though

46 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

While the last few issues are perfectly fine, getting rid of some dice variability goes a long way to helping it.

Well, that definitely seems like the unique pilot in the Occupier will help (and also will work for the occupier too) to get an aim after every standard move, though if you completely park or have to reverse that doesn't work.

--

I think a lot of people do think about Legion a bit too straight-forward, they see whatever first thing which springs to mind is and kind of just play that way and it confirms a lot of assumptions because when we group together it tends to mean people get to agreeing. But at the same time there are people going to big events making these "anti-meta" builds and actually have some interesting and effective tactics. Given how harsh people are on the Airspeeder, I can totally buy that many people haven't actually found what they're good at (and also I think they'll be good as tankhunters in future), and really want to know how the couple of airspeeders did at LVO and what the rest of the list is like. At the moment, I do think the platform is a bit inflexible, which the X-34 will certainly have on it, but the future is always in motion.

That said, I agree, the current Speeder rule is BS. Ground vehicles with their ability to standby, reverse, be repaired, etc are really showing a lot of advantages which their actual units are pretty good anyway. They should amend the rule so if the non-flat/stable terrain piece is below your Speeder X height limit, you still scoot back (for pragmatism) but don't take the damage. No accidentally crashing into barricades in an Airspeeder from height 2.

Given the devs did eratta some of our Core set battlefield cards, I'm sure they're not afraid to bust out the white-out if needed, just I know typically that's a last resort because it causes a kerfuffle no matter how they handle it.

1 hour ago, srMontresor said:

I'm talking about a way around people being bothered by 'having to pay for an errata' in the form of cards. I have made no statement as to game whether the game is balanced or whether units are costed well or not.

Yes, although that does presume that some errata is warranted.

1 hour ago, thepopemobile100 said:

Here's some math for you since you seem so interested in it. AT-ST with it's main gun alone averages 3 hits per shot. For roughly a third the cost, a single 5 man dlt squad puts out 3.25 damage. Sure you could put more guns on the ST to bring the damage to an acceptable level, but for the same point cost of a fully loaded you could get nearly four 5 man dlt squads who have a dramatically higher damage output than the ST while burning Weiss. The ST takes on average from a six man z6 squad 13.22 attacks. To kill 3 squads of dlts, the same squad needs 9 attacks if they're out of cover and 18 if they're in heavy cover. I've already shown the airspeeder to be worse than it's competition in every way except speed in a prior thread.

Unlike the airspeeder, I do believe the ST has a place. Most named units have low dice rolls that lack impact. If hero heavy lists become popular, the ST is a great solution to it. I don't think the ST is overpriced, but with how common corp spam is that it's going to have a hard time performing well.

1) The AT-ST can step on Troopers for auto-suppression, which isn’t accounted for.

2) It by default has fence cutting blades as well, that’s 4 more red dice (3 damage average; 2.5 hit, .5 crit) it can use against a target in melee range (and because it can’t be engaged, it can still fire at a target with the main gun even if you didn’t spend the paltry cost of adding other weapons)

3) Once you’ve sunk the 195, the marginal cost of the other weapons is better than virtually anything but the ground buzzer (5 points per black die); DW-3 is 7.5 points per black die and comes with blast which is effectively worth 2 automatic hits against targets in cover.

4) The AT-ST points don’t just cover the damage output, which as noted is a substantial 6.5 before any add ons, but also it’s resilience to damage reduction from damage taken, a feature not at all shared by troopers, who suffer damage reduction for every wound suffered. The four squads may begin with more output at 13, but they attrit damage far faster (z-6 squads have it far worse, suffering .5 damage lost per wound suffered.

Why does this matter? Because it takes those 4 squads 4 activations to maybe get their damage potential realized; it only takes 1 for the AT-ST (or other large expensive unit; Vader or Luke, or the T-47 for example). Those stormtrooper squads are very likely to see their damage potential drop through the floor before they can even use it, not so with armored units with high health.

T-47 is equally resistant to value reduction; it would take Stormtroopers an average of 6-7 attacks to bring it down. (Thanks to cover and armor, the airspeeder only suffers 1.16 wounds on average against a DLT-19 5 man squad, whereas a Rebel Troopers squad suffers 2.16 wounds (and the loss of at least 1 potential damage per future attack).

7 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Yes, although that does presume that some errata is warranted.

Or that it will be coming. Generally, it's best not to presume anything in a discussion.

22 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

I think a lot of people do think about Legion a bit too straight-forward, they see whatever first thing which springs to mind is and kind of just play that way and it confirms a lot of assumptions because when we group together it tends to mean people get to agreeing.

My general observation has been that a lot of the game is viewed through a weirdly narrow lense, specifically the lense of "If we both just line up across open ground and shoot at each other, who wins?". In my opinion, this is why the DLT gets so overvalued. It's not that it's bad, but to hear or read about it, you'd think it wins games on it's own and the range 4 aspect is played up a lot, but in my last dozen games, I can't recall a range 4 DLT shot doing anything but giving a unit a suppression or maybe randomly killing 1 model. In practice, it's basically the same as the Z-6, it just focuses on consistent damage over the Z-6's more random, but potentially more powerful dice pool. The thing is, once people get this idea in their heads, they don't lose it even when the information in front of the generally contradicts it, like they'll see that one moment where it did well and ignore all the other turns where just tossing 2 dice at range 4 did nothing or so little as to not alter the game state.

The T-47 and more and more Speeder bikes are another weird example. If i asked most people "What do you do when your opponent has an objective that's out of LoS?" Most people just shrug. They accept that they can't effect those units when both factions have a perfectly viable option to effect this i.e. an option that's fast enough and has a suitably consistent dice pool to reach out and touch normally inacessible targets. But this feature is so undervalued right now in the game that it kind of baffles me. Objectives are how you win. One would think a unit that can force the issue would be more highly valued and in most other games, it is, but not in Legion.

I would also carry this over to Snipers vs. Saboteurs. Saboteurs are better. I haven't arrived at the conclusion idly, they dictate the flow of the game, dictate how your opponent can approach objectives and actually do a ton of damage. The problem, is that they require an approach to gameplay beyond point and shoot which is almost definitely why Snipers are more favored.

To wrap all of this up, the game Legion reminds me the most of is Malifaux. Both games generally have comparable activations, an alternating activation system, a remarkably similar action system and victory in both games is only determined by missions. In Malifaux, removing models is only relevant if it's part of a strategy or scheme or will meaningfully inhibit your opponents ability to achieve a strategy or scheme. It's also noteworthy that the fastest way to remove models or force your opponent to throw away models is to threaten the strategy or scheme in a way that they have to respond to or lose. This is the lens by which I've basically been viewign Legion from the outset and why I've never felt the speeder was underpowered, DLTs were god's gift to heavy weapons and why I'm increasingly arriving at the conclusion that snipers are noticeably worse than saboteurs.

21 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

It's true. If they put a twenty dollar bill in every box people would complain about how it was folded.

Hey thats a serious problem! When the bill isn’t folded right it messes up the rest of the bills in my wallet!

4 hours ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I really feel like the problems with the heavy vehicles are because people are driving them wrong. Someone started spreading the opinion then everyone started repeating it and now we have this huge confirmation bias. I have never seen the problems that people keep repeating. Every time the heavies are used, they are absolute powerhouses.

Exactly. The airspeeder is a scalpel, pincer movement flanker. The at-st is either a long range supression cannon or with Weiss a mid range twice per game skullf**ker that needs to be supported with infantry but can destroy almost anything in the game in one arsenal 4 shot

4 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

My general observation has been that a lot of the game is viewed through a weirdly narrow lense, specifically the lense of "If we both just line up across open ground and shoot at each other, who wins?". In my opinion, this is why the DLT gets so overvalued. It's not that it's bad, but to hear or read about it, you'd think it wins games on it's own and the range 4 aspect is played up a lot, but in my last dozen games, I can't recall a range 4 DLT shot doing anything but giving a unit a suppression or maybe randomly killing 1 model. In practice, it's basically the same as the Z-6, it just focuses on consistent damage over the Z-6's more random, but potentially more powerful dice pool. The thing is, once people get this idea in their heads, they don't lose it even when the information in front of the generally contradicts it, like they'll see that one moment where it did well and ignore all the other turns where just tossing 2 dice at range 4 did nothing or so little as to not alter the game state.

The T-47 and more and more Speeder bikes are another weird example. If i asked most people "What do you do when your opponent has an objective that's out of LoS?" Most people just shrug. They accept that they can't effect those units when both factions have a perfectly viable option to effect this i.e. an option that's fast enough and has a suitably consistent dice pool to reach out and touch normally inacessible targets. But this feature is so undervalued right now in the game that it kind of baffles me. Objectives are how you win. One would think a unit that can force the issue would be more highly valued and in most other games, it is, but not in Legion.

I would also carry this over to Snipers vs. Saboteurs. Saboteurs are better. I haven't arrived at the conclusion idly, they dictate the flow of the game, dictate how your opponent can approach objectives and actually do a ton of damage. The problem, is that they require an approach to gameplay beyond point and shoot which is almost definitely why Snipers are more favored.

To wrap all of this up, the game Legion reminds me the most of is Malifaux. Both games generally have comparable activations, an alternating activation system, a remarkably similar action system and victory in both games is only determined by missions. In Malifaux, removing models is only relevant if it's part of a strategy or scheme or will meaningfully inhibit your opponents ability to achieve a strategy or scheme. It's also noteworthy that the fastest way to remove models or force your opponent to throw away models is to threaten the strategy or scheme in a way that they have to respond to or lose. This is the lens by which I've basically been viewign Legion from the outset and why I've never felt the speeder was underpowered, DLTs were god's gift to heavy weapons and why I'm increasingly arriving at the conclusion that snipers are noticeably worse than saboteurs.

We have a very similar approach, though our conclusions are very different 🙂.

I try to always play scenario-focused. So with every action - starting at list building and mission choosing - I ask, how does this help me win the game? Looking at the scenarios I see two scenarios that need specific Trooper Actions and three with area control, where one can only be won with Troopers again. To this we add bounty hunters who can add another victory token on top of being a trooper and able to get the standard scenario points. And finally if the scenario results in a draw, killpoints matter. So far so good.

I also keep in mind, that terrain mostly supports defensive play. So when I pick my spots for Recover the supplies or sabotage moisture vaporators I will almost always be able to put them to locations where I have a big advantage in claiming and defending them.

In the end we are looking for 3 features for units effective in szenarios and two general features:
1) Troopers who are fast and can take a beating for claiming tokens and surving standing in mission areas.
2) Units who can prevent enemy units whoe are good in 1).
3) Raw killpower.
4) The game favors more activations. The most powerful move is to have last activation followed by first activation. This only works, if you have more activations than your opponent (already during list creation or by being better at eliminating enemy units).
5) The last thing to keep in mind is activation control. Being able to activate the exact unit you need in every situation is often key to victory.

So here is why I conclude that Snipers > Saboteurs and Speeders are not very good atm:

When they first arrived, we played a lot of Saboteurs in our local group and we were pretty convinced, they are the better choice. They are very good in 2), especially the imperial ones (suppressive) and situationally effective in 3). But they are extremely fragile and very dependend on terrain. They very rarely lay more than two mines and usually die very early (you HAVE TO get into range of your targets) and then often give a disadvantage in 4). You can of course play them passively, but then they don't do anything meaningful most of the game. Snipers though lacking in direct impact are very consistent. Apart from limited visibility they are active every turn, very often wounding a unit or at least giving a suppression token, which can be huge. And unless there are snipers on the other side too , they survive uncontested (apart from one shot from Veers/Leia). So they keep their activation counter and are even able to actively participate in moisture vaporators and key positions.

Concerning Speeders: They only actively participate in two missions. And they are expensive. Making them bad in 1) and 2). In most games, their only value can lie in 2) and 3) (maybe 5) but that is the least impactful). Speeders can get around the field quickly, making them good for hunting Objective carriers. The problem is, it is almost impossible to wipe out an entire unit in one hit and then you are sitting there with activation disadvantage to be shot to pieces. Even if you manage to kill off a crate carrier, again your activation disadvantage kicks in, because you don't have a spare unit to pick it up. Also most of the time, bikes get 1-3 shots and then they are dead. In raw killpoints you have to get almost 2 units value out of those max 3 shots. That never happenes. It is even worse with the landspeeder, where you give up 3 other units. I've used the landspeeder a lot. There is not a single game where I didn't think that literally every other option would have been better.

BTW I never shrug off any situation. Fact is, that very few situations make it worth going after scenario markers behind LOS. In moisture vaporators it is far more likely to get killpoints advantage (or a bounty) than to capture a vaporator. You have to spend so many actions just to get there - often in terrain disadvantage - that it is simply not worth the risk being shot down completely. And recover the supplies almost always ends up in a hunt for the center crate. My go-to guys for these situations are Luke and Boba. They are in all accounts better suited than Speeders for this job. I'm expecting the game to get shaken up a lot by infiltrators.

I think the points are pretty balanced in relation to each other in pure mathematical "range" conditions and not the "field" conditions of a game.

I don't think the points costs are balanced in relation to the objective cards for example. If vehicles can't score points, anti-vehicle weapons lose something that can't be measured by comparing damage output and other numbers.

10 minutes ago, SailorMeni said:

When they first arrived, we played a lot of Saboteurs in our local group and we were pretty convinced, they are the better choice. They are very good in 2), especially the imperial ones (suppressive) and situationally effective in 3). But they are extremely fragile and very dependend on terrain. They very rarely lay more than two mines and usually die very early (you HAVE TO get into range of your targets) and then often give a disadvantage in 4). You can of course play them passively, but then they don't do anything meaningful most of the game. Snipers though lacking in direct impact are very consistent. Apart from limited visibility they are active every turn, very often wounding a unit or at least giving a suppression token, which can be huge. And unless there are snipers on the other side too , they survive uncontested (apart from one shot from Veers/Leia). So they keep their activation counter and are even able to actively participate in moisture vaporators and key positions.

This is where I really think the adage "you're doing it wrong is applicable". Saboteurs have to get within range, but not LoS, vs. snipers who don't need range, but do need LoS. In that regard, I frequently find the snipers no more survivable. The only "terrain dependent" aspect of the saboteurs is that you need some LoS blocking in the middle of the field, but realistically, not playing the game with such a terrain setup is a bad idea anyways for a multitude of reasons. In this respect, I don't think the fact that Saboteurs can attack targets out of LoS gets enough attention (the saboteur needs LoS to the token and the token needs LoS to the target, but the saboteur doesn't). 2 good buildings near objectives, punish your opponent for trying to go around it or let them sit behind it and eat repeated bombs. It's also weird that you quote Vaporators and key positions, both missions where I'd 100% take saboteurs. Use recon intel to scout to a vaportator top 1, lay charges and fix/damage for 2 turns, then move away towards the rest of the fight. If your opponent does get the upper hand later, they have to take 2-3 charges to even try and fix it. Key positions even moreso since it has to be a terrain piece closest to the center for 1 of them. Mine the entire area or find nearby buildings to sling bombs at it. Ideally it itself is a building. Additionally, since you're not worried about shooting, you're never tempted to expose the #2 man in the unit to fire, so just keep them out of LoS at all times, so even if they get to you, it's still 2 attacks to take the unit down. Someday I may write a "how to saboteur" because their skill floor does appear somewhat high, but the skill ceiling and damage is also remarkably high and they can punish opponents quite severely for turtling.

8 hours ago, Derrault said:

Yes, although that does presume that some errata is warranted.

1) The AT-ST can step on Troopers for auto-suppression, which isn’t accounted for.

2) It by default has fence cutting blades as well, that’s 4 more red dice (3 damage average; 2.5 hit, .5 crit) it can use against a target in melee range (and because it can’t be engaged, it can still fire at a target with the main gun even if you didn’t spend the paltry cost of adding other weapons)

3) Once you’ve sunk the 195, the marginal cost of the other weapons is better than virtually anything but the ground buzzer (5 points per black die); DW-3 is 7.5 points per black die and comes with blast which is effectively worth 2 automatic hits against targets in cover.

4) The AT-ST points don’t just cover the damage output, which as noted is a substantial 6.5 before any add ons, but also it’s resilience to damage reduction from damage taken, a feature not at all shared by troopers, who suffer damage reduction for every wound suffered. The four squads may begin with more output at 13, but they attrit damage far faster (z-6 squads have it far worse, suffering .5 damage lost per wound suffered.

Why does this matter? Because it takes those 4 squads 4 activations to maybe get their damage potential realized; it only takes 1 for the AT-ST (or other large expensive unit; Vader or Luke, or the T-47 for example). Those stormtrooper squads are very likely to see their damage potential drop through the floor before they can even use it, not so with armored units with high health.

T-47 is equally resistant to value reduction; it would take Stormtroopers an average of 6-7 attacks to bring it down. (Thanks to cover and armor, the airspeeder only suffers 1.16 wounds on average against a DLT-19 5 man squad, whereas a Rebel Troopers squad suffers 2.16 wounds (and the loss of at least 1 potential damage per future attack).

1) When you displace troopers with a vehicle the player who didn't move the vehicle places the minis where they want around the vehicle's base, including the rear arc. I didn't account for it because it's a bad idea.

2) With the size of the base and the rules restricting base overlap with obstacles, it is more difficult than it seems to actually do that. You can't get at anything with the melee that is on the other side of any piece of terrain without displacing the troopers on the other side. Furthermore, closing to that distance puts your ST in range of potentially the entire army of the other player. It won't last long if they're packing impact grenades.

3) That's complete horse hockey. The DLT's marginal cost is better than both the mortar and DW combined or separate and is barely worse (isn't noticeable in game) than the 88 Light. The snowtrooper flamethrower is more effective in terms of point cost than every weapon you just listed. On the rebels side since you brought it up, both the rotary gun and RT flamethrower are more efficient for their damage to cost ratio.

4 It's not 6.5 it's 5.5 before throwing anything else onto it and that's a very unlikely 5.5. It's more than likely stuck at 3 for most or all of the game unless you really think running it up into the opponent's face is a good idea (impact grenades). It is only more resilient to damage when compared to troopers in the open. If any of those DLT squads is behind heavy cover it takes roughly the same amount of time to drop all of them as it does the ST and the ST at 8 damage risks becoming completely worthless if isn't upgraded. The rate of attrition is almost negligible of the DLT squads are all behind heavy cover as one squad is capable of dishing out more damage than the ST and it takes about as long to kill two of the three squads as it does to kill the ST.

If the ST gets crippled then it's not going to be doing much of anything and is much easier to ignore than it already is. You have to commit to ending an entire squad as it only takes the unit leader to capture an objective and cause you to lose.

I'm not getting back into the T-47 with you. It's still not good and most of the reasons have been stated before or are applicable from the ST. I will say that the cover really isn't doing much of anything as without it it'd still take the same amount of time to destroy it.

13 hours ago, thepopemobile100 said:

1) When you displace troopers with a vehicle the player who didn't move the vehicle places the minis where they want around the vehicle's base, including the rear arc. I didn't account for it because it's a bad idea.

2) With the size of the base and the rules restricting base overlap with obstacles, it is more difficult than it seems to actually do that. You can't get at anything with the melee that is on the other side of any piece of terrain without displacing the troopers on the other side. Furthermore, closing to that distance puts your ST in range of potentially the entire army of the other player. It won't last long if they're packing impact grenades.

3) That's complete horse hockey. The DLT's marginal cost is better than both the mortar and DW combined or separate and is barely worse (isn't noticeable in game) than the 88 Light. The snowtrooper flamethrower is more effective in terms of point cost than every weapon you just listed. On the rebels side since you brought it up, both the rotary gun and RT flamethrower are more efficient for their damage to cost ratio.

4 It's not 6.5 it's 5.5 before throwing anything else onto it and that's a very unlikely 5.5. It's more than likely stuck at 3 for most or all of the game unless you really think running it up into the opponent's face is a good idea (impact grenades). It is only more resilient to damage when compared to troopers in the open. If any of those DLT squads is behind heavy cover it takes roughly the same amount of time to drop all of them as it does the ST and the ST at 8 damage risks becoming completely worthless if isn't upgraded. The rate of attrition is almost negligible of the DLT squads are all behind heavy cover as one squad is capable of dishing out more damage than the ST and it takes about as long to kill two of the three squads as it does to kill the ST.

If the ST gets crippled then it's not going to be doing much of anything and is much easier to ignore than it already is. You have to commit to ending an entire squad as it only takes the unit leader to capture an objective and cause you to lose.

I'm not getting back into the T-47 with you. It's still not good and most of the reasons have been stated before or are applicable from the ST. I will say that the cover really isn't doing much of anything as without it it'd still take the same amount of time to destroy it.

1) It’s not a compulsory move, displace one trooper and you get the suppression, no problem.

2) If the army is using ranged 4 weapons you’re already in hypothetical range, it would be folly to ignore 4 red dice because you somehow feared a theoretical impact grenade attack (which an AT-ST can easily annihilate anyway).

3) 12 per die (DLT-19) is more than 7.5 per die with blast (DW), case closed.

4) 4 red no surge dice is 3 damage average, the main gun is 3 as well; 6 damage.

5) Flamethrower (either) is only more effective in cost ratio if you are firing on a target with more than 2 minis, and it’s short range.

6) The T-47 cover is effective whenever there’s less than 2 regular hits on the DLT-19. Given that the average, is actually quite frequently.

10 hours ago, Derrault said:

1) It’s not a compulsory move, displace one trooper and you get the suppression, no problem.

2) If the army is using ranged 4 weapons you’re already in hypothetical range, it would be folly to ignore 4 red dice because you somehow feared a theoretical impact grenade attack (which an AT-ST can easily annihilate anyway).

3) 12 per die (DLT-19) is more than 7.5 per die with blast (DW), case closed.

4) 4 red no surge dice is 3 damage average, the main gun is 3 as well; 6 damage.

5) Flamethrower (either) is only more effective in cost ratio if you are firing on a target with more than 2 minis, and it’s short range.

6) The T-47 cover is effective whenever there’s less than 2 regular hits on the DLT-19. Given that the average, is actually quite frequently.

1) Even with the new rules for overhang, you can't easily bulldoze over a trooper mini that is behind most any terrian without hitting most or all of the unit.

2) You can't attack one unit with both the melee attack of the ST because an attack pool cannot have both a ranged and melee attack in it. You can't kill the unit.

3) By that logic, then the Z6 is the best upgrade in the game. Which it isn't. The red dice added pull almost double the damage and at far better range the the DW while being 9 points more. Case isn't closed, get off your high horse.

4) Fair, I counted wrong.

5) If range was actually a problem with those units, then they wouldn't see use. Since that's not the case, the range must not be much of an issue.

6) DLT still averages 2 hits much more often than a single, and that's assuming that the rest of the squad isn't shooting. It's pretty pathetic that it still is more than likely taking damage from a 24 point upgrade attacking by itself.

18 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

This is where I really think the adage "you're doing it wrong is applicable". Saboteurs have to get within range, but not LoS, vs. snipers who don't need range, but do need LoS. In that regard, I frequently find the snipers no more survivable. The only "terrain dependent" aspect of the saboteurs is that you need some LoS blocking in the middle of the field, but realistically, not playing the game with such a terrain setup is a bad idea anyways for a multitude of reasons. In this respect, I don't think the fact that Saboteurs can attack targets out of LoS gets enough attention (the saboteur needs LoS to the token and the token needs LoS to the target, but the saboteur doesn't). 2 good buildings near objectives, punish your opponent for trying to go around it or let them sit behind it and eat repeated bombs. It's also weird that you quote Vaporators and key positions, both missions where I'd 100% take saboteurs. Use recon intel to scout to a vaportator top 1, lay charges and fix/damage for 2 turns, then move away towards the rest of the fight. If your opponent does get the upper hand later, they have to take 2-3 charges to even try and fix it. Key positions even moreso since it has to be a terrain piece closest to the center for 1 of them. Mine the entire area or find nearby buildings to sling bombs at it. Ideally it itself is a building. Additionally, since you're not worried about shooting, you're never tempted to expose the #2 man in the unit to fire, so just keep them out of LoS at all times, so even if they get to you, it's still 2 attacks to take the unit down. Someday I may write a "how to saboteur" because their skill floor does appear somewhat high, but the skill ceiling and damage is also remarkably high and they can punish opponents quite severely for turtling.

If you find snipers "no more survivable" I can through "you're doing it wrong" right back at you 😉. By being out of range most of the time, they can litterally not die if the opponent doesn't use snipers themself. And even if, you are almost always in hard cover and can often hide the second mini out of LOS so only one can die. I also often use guards for the first 1-2 rounds to keep snipers safe against enemy snipers and 1-pip shots.

And I think the fact, that when saboteurs lay their bombs they are per definition within range of the explosion doesn't get enough attention. Of course you can lay a bomb and move away, but that drastically limits your options and your opponent can play around it. You can do some shanannigans with suicide bombing with the second mini out of sight or using emergency stims or medics. But you can rarely do that safely more than once per game and your opponent knows that as well and can avoid it most of the time. Also dodge tokens (nimble!) are quite effective against bomb damage. Bombs also limit your own movement. If you mine opjectives you don't want to go there yourself.

And I find it a bit foolish to plainly assume that there will always be los blockers in the middle. Sure there always should be some los blockers here or there, but there are plenty of other terrain features you can see through and you are pretty much bound to los blockers or you are dead. And most of the time there will not be a safe rout between two los blockers when snipers are covering the alleys.

Concerning vaporators: As mentioned above, unless your opponent is very lazy with defending their vaporators it's almost always unwise to try to claim them. So you spend your first 2 activations pumping and laying bombs (I assume you are playing rebel snipers with recon intel otherwise you'd need another round because you can't start in basecontact with the vaporator) I will never run into. You'll need another 2 turns at least to run to the action on the other side of the table. During this time the snipers can pump AND shoot and have probably dealt 4-6 wounds already giving me an advantage (not a guaranteed win of course) in the killpoints game.

I meant to say Recover the supplies. not Key positions, sorry. But Key positions also only works if the center piece is a los blocker. Otherwise you are a) eligible to be shot at and b) bombing your own units.

And I don't mean to say, that saboteurs are terrible. They can be very powerful and fun. But they are very hard to play effecitvely, very fragile and are very dependend on terrain. Snipers on the other hand have lower peaks of efficiency but perform well very consistantly. I would love to be wrong about this and see a change in the meta. So if you are so sure that your lists are better and you can consistantly beat good players with their standard lists I challenge you to attend a large tournament and show us how it's done 😊.

Honestly, from playing some casual games with people that had airspeeders...

One player we have always had a very close game. Last time I shared the win only from Boba’s bounty. His airspeeder got reasonable utility.

The other player I’ve never even come close to losing an 800 point match with.

This is with a comparable list on my end (either Vader or Veers/Boba, an ATST, and troops).

The point I am trying to make is not that Imperials are better, but rather it’s all in how you use your units to max your advantage. Both of those players had very different approaches.

Moving outside of that and to the game store, I’ve has reasonably good fortune with the AT-ST as well. I’ve really only had a problem against the ultra max activation spam 6x corps 6x sniper teams Veers, but that was also a league night mission where he was gaining VP every turn and I had to take Terrain from him to start earning it. Rough mission to be sure, rougher against that kind of sea of bodies.

The airspeeder might need a little help, but too much help and it’s going to be too good. I think ffg missed the mark a little on that one, but not as big a margin as groupthink says.

4 hours ago, SailorMeni said:

If you find snipers "no more survivable" I can through "you're doing it wrong" right back at you 😉. By being out of range most of the time, they can litterally not die if the opponent doesn't use snipers themself. And even if, you are almost always in hard cover and can often hide the second mini out of LOS so only one can die. I also often use guards for the first 1-2 rounds to keep snipers safe against enemy snipers and 1-pip shots.

And I think the fact, that when saboteurs lay their bombs they are per definition within range of the explosion doesn't get enough attention. Of course you can lay a bomb and move away, but that drastically limits your options and your opponent can play around it. You can do some shanannigans with suicide bombing with the second mini out of sight or using emergency stims or medics. But you can rarely do that safely more than once per game and your opponent knows that as well and can avoid it most of the time. Also dodge tokens (nimble!) are quite effective against bomb damage. Bombs also limit your own movement. If you mine opjectives you don't want to go there yourself.

And I find it a bit foolish to plainly assume that there will always be los blockers in the middle. Sure there always should be some los blockers here or there, but there are plenty of other terrain features you can see through and you are pretty much bound to los blockers or you are dead. And most of the time there will not be a safe rout between two los blockers when snipers are covering the alleys.

Concerning vaporators: As mentioned above, unless your opponent is very lazy with defending their vaporators it's almost always unwise to try to claim them. So you spend your first 2 activations pumping and laying bombs (I assume you are playing rebel snipers with recon intel otherwise you'd need another round because you can't start in basecontact with the vaporator) I will never run into. You'll need another 2 turns at least to run to the action on the other side of the table. During this time the snipers can pump AND shoot and have probably dealt 4-6 wounds already giving me an advantage (not a guaranteed win of course) in the killpoints game.

I meant to say Recover the supplies. not Key positions, sorry. But Key positions also only works if the center piece is a los blocker. Otherwise you are a) eligible to be shot at and b) bombing your own units.

And I don't mean to say, that saboteurs are terrible. They can be very powerful and fun. But they are very hard to play effecitvely, very fragile and are very dependend on terrain. Snipers on the other hand have lower peaks of efficiency but perform well very consistantly. I would love to be wrong about this and see a change in the meta. So if you are so sure that your lists are better and you can consistantly beat good players with their standard lists I challenge you to attend a large tournament and show us how it's done 😊.

The meta is not what is best, the meta is what is most common. Especially in a game in such an early state with such a fast release schedule, this is even more true. In such a situation the meta is far more likely to be what people are comfortable with and elements with a low skill floor. Also, if I can swing the travel to make it to a big event, that's happening because, well the meta doesn't play saboteurs, so it doesn't know how to play against them correctly

1 minute ago, MasterShake2 said:

The meta is not what is best, the meta is what is most common.

There's more than one meaning depending on who, when and where you ask.