4 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Again, when building a list, impact grenades could be a waste of points if nothing has armour.

Not for imperials or droids since black is better than white. Also your ion grenades would also be pretty much useless in that case.

3 minutes ago, Staelwulf said:

And this is exactly the reason why you see noone pick ion weapons in tournament. They just get some DLT or impact grenades.

True, Currently. But, here is the thing.. we are discussing the effect of ion on droids. If the droid trooper keyword is affected by ion, and I think it will, and ion tokens affect vehicles, it could make them a very versatile weapon.

This IS all hypothetical. We don't know the exact effects of the droid trooper keyword or even If a ion grenade will make it in the game, but I honestly believe ion will affect droid troopers, and we will get an ion grenade.

18 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I'm not sure where you are going with this.. I never implied that ion weapons should be area effect weapons. Legion doesn't have area of effect weapons apart from mines really. Everything is only affecting a single unit, but that is a gaming effect more than anything. Despite not having blast a grenade still explodes over an area, it is not represented exactly in game. Neither are regular weapons. They are all abstractions. Unless you truly believe that every single die that is rolled represents a single pull of a trigger, you seem to be speaking with much hyperbole.

Again while not directly spelled out in the game (intentionally for a relatively fast paced and simple mechanics) grenades don't work like their real life counterparts. Their effect is to alter the attack pool with an additional effect at short range. As some grenades add blast, others add impact, etc.

But if your reading is grenades don't have “area effect” how come, if a grenade attack is successful, Units are removed, based on the defenders choice, even though they might not have been the closest to the grenade? The reason; abstraction for a thematic game NOT a true simulation.

Now, as to ion affecting a whole unit of, say six battle droids, how does that make any more or less sense that me having 1 model from a squad throw an concussion grenade and the rest fire blasters, giving the whole attack blast? Again, it is an abstraction.

My referencing the T7 was to show that a hand portable weapon took out a walker in, one or two shots at most, but game wise, it adds an ion token.

Now, as to the effect of the droid trooper keyword, we know it WILL do something, as the clone trooper keyword allows the spending of another clone troopers’ green token. We also know that ion effects ARE deeply ingrained in star wars lore, and have affected droids in the movies.

It is logical to assume that ion WILL affect droid troopers in some way. It could be something as simple and elegant as ‘when rolling defence dice, for each ion token the defender has, roll one fewer die’ This does the abstraction of the ion effect on droids, but will only ever affect one model at a time.

It is very possible to have the gameplay and fluff coincide side by side.

I do understand that the game is strictly an abstraction, however going back to the grenade example, the only representation of the area of effect IS the Blast keyword, since a grenade only contributes a single attack die, same as a rifle.

A single model using a grenade with Blast represents the targeting unit being forced out of cover even momentarily to avoid the full effects of the grenade, seen many time in war movies as soldiers flee entrenched positions to try to get away from a grenade that landed at their feet. So Blast represents the weapon not having to be in incredible close proximity to deal damage (the blast can go around the cover), and the targets possible reaction to the weapon (fleeing cover to possible death to avoid certain death).

Also, at no point of my comment was I saying Ion Grenades shouldn't affect the whole unit if such a weapon existed, I was addressing the oddities that allowing any weapon with Ion to Stun a Droid Trooper unit as a whole would introduce for ALL Ion weapons. Again, the effects of Ion shown on individual droids in canon is more akin to the model being "defeated" than "temporarily stunned." EDIT: So I could see a rule causing the Droid Troopers to take an additional wound from Ion weapons.

11 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Again, when building a list, impact grenades could be a waste of points if nothing has armour.

Impact grenades do nothing to speeder bikes, apart from potential damage, but ions would hurt them more.

The point I am making is that BOTH would have a place. If ion does affect droid troopers, it makes it a very useful tool.

A single ion on a vehicle can save a trooper unit, be eliminating a much needed aim token by reducing actions.

Impact grenades also allow Snowtroopers and Stormtroopers to upgrade to black attack dice at range 1 against any target, so they are still useful even against infantry. I'd much rather be rolling 5-6 black dice at Speeder bikes rather than 5-6 white dice.

Also, Speeders are arguably the worst vehicle targets for Ion as they always get a free move, allowing them to reposition before attacking, as opposed to preventing other vehicles from turning and firing.

29 minutes ago, Staelwulf said:

Not for imperials or droids since black is better than white. Also your ion grenades would also be pretty much useless in that case.

I admit my initial wording and idea was subpar, so lets look at it like this; an droid popper grenade will have minimal effect on an organic, but likely some whether through gear carried malfunctioning or something else. Suffice to say, game wise it needs an attack die, so white fits the best.

Now, it seems ion weapons all have the ready action so lets keep that.

Finally, we treat this grenade as as having the ion keyword. That is potentially devastating for vehicles, but even if you add 5 ion tokens, you likely are not destroying the vehicle or droid, just pinning it, close. You could throw say only one grenade in your attack pool to gain the ion keyword. Again, this limits damage, armour can still negate it, AND you have to be close range. And while a trooper unit CAN pin down a vehicle, it comes at the the expense of spending two actions to do so for minimal damage. Not great, but, tactically useful in times to let other troops move in to position without worrying about a vehicle.

Now, above I hypothesized the effect of ion on the droid trooper keyword. In that when a droid trooper has ion tokens, when rolling defence, they roll one fewer die for each ion token. This makes it easy to destroy droids by focusing fire, or a z6 rolling lots of dice. But, again, offset by the lower attack die on the ion grenade.

So in short, with the theorizing above, a “droid popper” grenade would look like this:

”Droid Popper” 5 points

attack die white, recharge

range 1

gain Ion 1

Yes, ion is devastating on vehicles, but the range and white die, plus the recharge will limit it.

If you fight droids or lots of heavy/support it can be good. If you need to limit movement if those units, say for breakthrough it is double edge as you also limit your movement if you want to continually pin said unit. If you fight trooper spam, it is also useless, much like impact grenades on 50% of the corps units. Clones and rebel troops have black dice already.

It seems that a lot of people only think in the mindset of destroying an enemy, whereas two corps units worth 50 points each pinning down, say an AT-ST worth more than double that is worth it. The difference is the grenade I propose above has a lower potential to hit on vehicles.

18 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Droid Popper” 5 points

attack die white, recharge

range 1

gain Ion 1

Sounds interesting, needs some playtesting before I can say more. It also depends on what stats the other future droid get. Yout ion suggestion for droid troopers is basically Pierce.

BUT:

From a balance point of view shouldn't there be a stun grenade too that does the same to "organic" troopers? 😎

34 minutes ago, Staelwulf said:

From a balance point of view shouldn't there be a stun grenade too that does the same to "organic" troopers? 😎

Like a grenade with suppressive and/or immobilize?

50 minutes ago, Staelwulf said:

From a balance point of view shouldn't there be a stun grenade too that does the same to "organic" troopers? 😎

Not necessarily. The balance comes from the Droid trooper keyword, NOT from the grenade. Grenade has other uses not just against droids. I would think droid trooper gives other advantages to coincide thematically.

17 minutes ago, FearofaBlankPlanet said:

Like a grenade with suppressive and/or immobilize?

A grenade with suppressive could be interesting, but would affect droids as well.

Suffice to say, there are lots of ways to make ion work for droids, it could work as normal even. We don't know. Whilst being affected by ion tokens, I would suspect that there is some other advantage if they have a face up order token - like no panic, or removing suppression when issued and order token - which with B1’s would be nasty.

39 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Whilst being affected by ion tokens, I would suspect that there is some other advantage if they have a face up order token - like no panic, or removing suppression when issued and order token - which with B1’s would be nasty.

The Co-ordinate ability that the B1's have seems to indicate that Droid Troopers may come with an interesting cocktail of synergies and weaknesses.

38 minutes ago, FearofaBlankPlanet said:

The Co-ordinate ability that the B1's have seems to indicate that Droid Troopers may come with an interesting cocktail of synergies and weaknesses. 

Time will tell, but I suspect all droids will have some interesting abilities.

2 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Not necessarily. The balance comes from the Droid trooper keyword, NOT from the grenade. Grenade has other uses not just against droids. I would think droid trooper gives other advantages to coincide thematically.

A grenade with suppressive could be interesting, but would affect droids as well.

Suffice to say, there are lots of ways to make ion work for droids, it could work as normal even. We don't know. Whilst being affected by ion tokens, I would suspect that there is some other advantage if they have a face up order token - like no panic, or removing suppression when issued and order token - which with B1’s would be nasty.

The only effects we know for sure Droid Trooper has right now is being able receive an order token from the B1's coordinate. I think it's likely that Droid troopers will all have AI, forcing a specific action if they don't have a face up order token. Clone troopers on the other hand have quite a BIG advantage in being able to use the green tokens from other Clone Troopers, which is in part balanced by an increase in points.

EDIT: I'm also a believer that an optional upgrade is not how to balance a game effect. Especially when army lists should be built before knowing what army you're facing.

2 hours ago, FearofaBlankPlanet said:

Droid Troopers may come with an interesting cocktail of synergies and weaknesses.

I really think this will be the case. They absolutely nailed this exact feel for the Vultures in X-Wing and now they’re one of the most interesting ships, to me.

Make them super cheap, give them something like Networked Calculations (I think this is the Coordinate, in this case), and they’ll be fine against the things that people tout as their weakness, because everybody’s not going to start bringing ion just on the off-chance they face droids. If the meta starts requiring ion to handle droids, then that just serves to balance out their benefits.

1 hour ago, SpiderMana said:

If the meta starts requiring ion to handle droids, then that just serves to balance out their benefits.

If it REQUIRES Ion to handle droids, then the droid army isn't balanced. The droids should be (nearly) balanced innately with any benefits not "balanced" by drawbacks included in the points value of the unit.

51 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

If it REQUIRES Ion to handle droids, then the droid army isn't balanced. The droids should be (nearly) balanced innately with any benefits not "balanced" by drawbacks included in the points value of the unit.

I guess I didn’t mean required, there, quite. But what I’m trying to say is that a weakness to Ion or EMP could be a way they choose to balance the droids. Not necessary to beat them, but it helps. 🤷‍♂️

1 hour ago, Caimheul1313 said:

If it REQUIRES Ion to handle droids, then the droid army isn't balanced. The droids should be (nearly) balanced innately with any benefits not "balanced" by drawbacks included in the points value of the unit.

I don't want it required, but it certainly SHOULD have an effect. While many will argue that ‘gameplay > Fluff’ I maintain that they are EQUALLY important. If too much of the fluff is ignored, we aren't playing a Star Wars game which is why most of us are here.