Hello all,

So when I play with friends I play with Jyn sometimes as I find her good fun, but I noticed in Okimedes last article that he mentions specifically that Jyn is really bad. I haven't found her to be bad in my fun games, which is in contrast to how me and my friend felt about Vader from day 1 (I.e., he sucked the big one). So my honest question is: why is she so terrible in competitive play? I'm not challenging that she doesn't work there (I am sure the competitive players would use her if she gave some advantage), I am just trying to understand. (Any Math proving she sucks is welcome, I enjoy Math).

I gave her a try for a couple of games. I think she is a bit overcosted for what she does:

-Low damage output at range 3 - the range 2 damage is decent time especially but she generally doesn't want to get too close because her survivability in melee is quite bad

-She is survivable against range damage when she got some suppression tokens - but not in melee or when she gets shot the first time (especially against sharpshooter + pierce)

-Her command cards are gimmicky and with them she is in the center of attention but she is not the heavy hitter or crazy jump character that can that directly swing games

-She is not able to handle a jumping and/or lightsaber-wielding character without risking her life. Therefor you kinda want her to run her with something that can play that role which hurts your activation count.

You definitely pay for her infiltrate key word, so you feel the need to use it to get her in an advantegious position and risk her life.

She pays (pointwise) for all these cool keywords, but the keywords are very hit or miss as far as being useful in a given situation.

You pay quite a bit for Danger Sense and Infiltrate, but I've rolled 6-7 blanks on my white defense dice many a time and frankly even average dice rolling she'll still die quickly if multiple units can target her. Infiltrate usually puts her in places she can get focused shot at which helps her die quicker

13 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

and frankly even average dice rolling she'll still die quickly if multiple units can target her.

As should ALL non-Jedi unarmored humanoids! Might have to pick her up for use in my fun games!

In my opinion she's a very powerful unit and i use her in a lot of my games. Her infiltrate is ridiculously powerful when used well and especially with the long march battlefield. Her melee weapon confuses me though...it's like FFG wanted it to be used a lot since it seems pretty good, but she isn't survivable at all in melee. Aside from that, I think everything else about her is amazing. Her command cards are ridiculously powerful and her attack is pretty good. She's really survivable and I've found that with 4 suppression and heavy cover she's basically immune to all corp attacks and snipers even since she can overage the number of blocks avoiding the pierce. The only problem i've faced with her is when my opponent brings Boba Fett....she doesnt stand a chance when he's in the game at all. All in all, I think shes a really great unit

1 hour ago, bllaw said:

In my opinion she's a very powerful unit and i use her in a lot of my games. Her infiltrate is ridiculously powerful when used well and especially with the long march battlefield. Her melee weapon confuses me though...it's like FFG wanted it to be used a lot since it seems pretty good, but she isn't survivable at all in melee. Aside from that, I think everything else about her is amazing. Her command cards are ridiculously powerful and her attack is pretty good. She's really survivable and I've found that with 4 suppression and heavy cover she's basically immune to all corp attacks and snipers even since she can overage the number of blocks avoiding the pierce. The only problem i've faced with her is when my opponent brings Boba Fett....she doesnt stand a chance when he's in the game at all. All in all, I think shes a really great unit

She is just too expensive for what she does. You almost pay Skywalker costs for a utility unit. If her pricetag would be the ballpark of Krennic or slightly above, she would be competitive.

8 minutes ago, M.Mustermann said:

She is just too expensive for what she does. You almost pay Skywalker costs for a utility unit. If her pricetag would be the ballpark of Krennic or slightly above, she would be competitive.

yeah she is pretty expensive, but i could get what, 2 rebel commandos or 3 rebel troopers for her cost? She's way more effective than those. And then Skywalker is of course better, but i always get him in my rebel armies anyway so i couldnt get 2 (gosh i wish i could...that would be amazing)

... because she's not riding a Dewback.

I’ve played games where Jyn was a rockstar. She’s rolled crazy good defensively and she’s taken out a full Wookiee squad (last/first activation+1 pip card effect). But more recently I’ve had her completely whiff on rolling 7 defense dice and die against only 2 attacks. That’s a bit swingy for her cost.

I like infiltrate... sometimes. Again, it’s either going to be incredibly good or do nothing.

My hunch is that Sabine will pair really well with Jyn. Jyn really needs another unit or two that can get in the opponent’s grill with her. I’ve found Pathfinders too costly and fragile to handle that burden.

I think Jyn could have a breakthrough sometime, but no one has found the right mix of units for her yet.

I also think people are still stuck on Wonder Twins and sniper spam, and that does not fit Jyn’s game.

She's very good at two things: not dying to chip damage, and being deployed in an advanced position. Is that worth 130 points? I haven't found that to be the case. Besides her three pip, her command cards are very lackluster.

In competitive games I've just found it is fairly trivial for good players to exploit her weaknesses: burst damage, melee, and pierce. It doesn't help that some of the most effective characters and units in the game are strong in one or more of those areas (Death Troopers, both bounty hunters, and Luke, specifically).

If you want to use an infiltrate unit to do objectives, I would recommend pathfinders, who are cheaper, have more firepower, and can also take HQ Uplink. I used them at Adepticon with fairly solid results, but I probably wouldn't take them again with Death Troopers (and soon Bossk) in the meta. Good players are pretty good at countering infiltrate jank. Basically I found myself just using the paths like high courage Rebel Troopers with scout 3, which is good, but not 100+ points good.

Her danger sense is also somewhat anti-synergistic, since she doesn't have Dauntless. Courage 3 is solid, but she's often at 3 or more suppression (if you want her to live), so she sheds actions fairly easily, which is a problem given how poor her damage is.

I think that is a long way of saying she is overcosted, compared to the other Rebel commander options.

All characters within the rebel faction do something well for their points, and they have their own distinct character.

What is GOOD about them:

• Luke - quick, dependable beatstick, relatively tough (solid cards that give a variety of versatile benefits) - high cost
• Han - very shooty at mid range, synergy with chewy (solid cards that focus on messing with opponent) - mid cost
• Leia - supportive, has inspire and dishes out dodge tokens (supportive cards that are versatile) - low cost
• Jynn - has infiltrate, is kind of tough but fragile (thus cancels out), can use aim + dodge well but takes up an action (thus cancels out), has average attacks (yawn), (gimmicky cards that situationally help certain things) - mid cost

Jynn's defining feature is INFILTRATE. So what does infiltrate benefit most?

• Getting super close to the enemy (good for melee and strong/tough units (Jynn is neither of those)).
• Getting into a good spot that is hard for the enemy to get to (this really helps range 4 or more units (Jynn is neither of those))
• Taking objectives early/mid game (below average chance of getting those missions, and if the opponent sees you have Jynn, will veto those missions)
• Getting onto a flank and getting more force into a part of the battlefield than the enemy (Jynn kind of does this okay, but should I really have to rely on a character to do this? No. I want bang for my buck on a 130+ point unit)

Pathfinders - Jynn is meant to work with pathfinders. But to oversimplify - they just aren't good at any one thing, and are really very fragile.

Jynn's cards.

1. One Pip - helps Jynn fight in melee, but she isn't STRONG/TOUGH enough to do this well.
2. Two Pip - gives Jynn inspire 2 and helps her work with one other unit well (why doesn't she just get inspire natively?). Likely unit to be pathfinders if using infiltrate to full effect, and they are not an impressive unit, sorry.
3. Three Pip - gives Jynn low profile (why doesn't she just have it natively?). Gives a suppression to chosen units, they can remove them at end of turn, they can't get suppressed or panicked. Obviously designed to help danger sense pathfinders. But pathfinders ARE NOT GOOD. They are not bad, but they are not good. (that is an entire other discussion)

So we can see that her cards only really benefit a select number of units, and because they are infiltrate units, these cards don't help the rest of the army.
All of the other characters have versatile cards that will predominantly be useful in most situations.

Jynn is designed from the ground up to take good effect of infiltrate, but:

• she isn't effective as a close range beatstick
• nor a long range sniper
• she isn't fast
• isn't tough
• and doesn't have support abilities such as inspire or take cover

You can try to maths out stats all you want, but the abstraction of the battlefield, countering tactics, and positioning; mean that you must also utilize the tactical mind, not just the analytical (they are not the same); when determining unit effectiveness and costs.

I think Jynn is an exceptionally situational and delicate unit to utilize well. I think her main supporting unit (pathfinders), are also not particularly good at any one thing.

I think she should be 100 points (maybe). Or she should get low profile + a speed/redeploy ability/card - this makes thematical sense, because she is an operative who should be able to trick the opponent on her true location. Her aim + dodge thing is useless because it wastes an action on a unit that needs every action to attack and move. Jynn has to stay mobile.

Jyn's defining feature is being the cheapest courage 3. Pretty useful if you bump into range 4 suppression spam.

16 hours ago, Orkimedes said:

She's very good at two things: not dying to chip damage, and being deployed in an advanced position. Is that worth 130 points? I haven't found that to be the case. Besides her three pip, her command cards are very lackluster.

In competitive games I've just found it is fairly trivial for good players to exploit her weaknesses: burst damage, melee, and pierce. It doesn't help that some of the most effective characters and units in the game are strong in one or more of those areas (Death Troopers, both bounty hunters, and Luke, specifically).

If you want to use an infiltrate unit to do objectives, I would recommend pathfinders, who are cheaper, have more firepower, and can also take HQ Uplink. I used them at Adepticon with fairly solid results, but I probably wouldn't take them again with Death Troopers (and soon Bossk) in the meta. Good players are pretty good at countering infiltrate jank. Basically I found myself just using the paths like high courage Rebel Troopers with scout 3, which is good, but not 100+ points good.

Her danger sense is also somewhat anti-synergistic, since she doesn't have Dauntless. Courage 3 is solid, but she's often at 3 or more suppression (if you want her to live), so she sheds actions fairly easily, which is a problem given how poor her damage is.

I think that is a long way of saying she is overcosted, compared to the other Rebel commander options.

I agree to almost everything. I'd say the 1-pip and the 2-pip are still decent in the right context though.

The 1 pip can be decent mid to late game when the opposing army is not concentrated and there is a chance to catch an emplacement trooper, strike team or a core unit that is important for the mission. Especially with alate activation-first activation combination, she can cover a huge distance with the bonus charge move and engage a unit. Her damage output is negligible, so it doesn't really matter if she is hiding most of the game.

The 2-pip can also be ok in certain lists. If Jyn is hiding behind line of sight blocker in the midfield together with a full unit of Commandos or Wookies, she can augment their burst damage quite a bit. If the Commandos go last activation/first activation and have 2 aim tokens from Jyn, their attack pool is really close to Deathtroopers. Due to Sharpshooter and Pierce, their output is even significantly better. The aim tokens help out Wookies as well during an initial charge, because they throw a lot of black dice as well and often need to do some damage to their target to avoid return damage. The Wookies also help to mitigate some of her weaknesses you mentioned because they help to guard her against aggressive melee units and like to hang out behind a LOS-blocker as well in a lot of situations.
I suppose the card also is good with Luke or Sabine, but I have no experience there. I feel lists with Jyn really needs a lot of activations, and two very expensive units are a little hard to fit in.

Ultimatly there are even more opportunity costs attached to these plays. Its a shame that such an interesting unit is that hard to justify within a competitive context. She should definetly either be cheaper or get some buffs. If she would have Sharpshooter 2 and if Quick Thinking would be a free action for example, she would be much more viable.

On 5/30/2019 at 8:11 PM, Orkimedes said:

Basically I found myself just using the paths like high courage Rebel Troopers with scout 3, which is good, but not 100+ points good.

This pretty much sums up my problem with Pathfinders. I think that has a trickle down effect on Jyn. Essentially, not having Scout 3 on another unit means her Infiltrate, which you are paying heftily for, is not nearly as effective.

21 hours ago, lologrelol said:

• One Pip - helps Jynn fight in melee, but she isn't STRONG/TOUGH enough to do this well.
• Two Pip - gives Jynn inspire 2 and helps her work with one other unit well (why doesn't she just get inspire natively?). Likely unit to be pathfinders if using infiltrate to full effect, and they are not an impressive unit, sorry.
• Three Pip - gives Jynn low profile (why doesn't she just have it natively?). Gives a suppression to chosen units, they can remove them at end of turn, they can't get suppressed or panicked. Obviously designed to help danger sense pathfinders. But pathfinders ARE NOT GOOD. They are not bad, but they are not good. (that is an entire other discussion)

I like the idea of her having Inspire and Low Profile natively and maybe putting Quick Thinking and Sharpshooter 1 (giving her 2) on command cards instead. They maybe got a bit too creative and made her too situational to be highly playable.

Regardless, I really have fun running Jyn! When command cards are timed well and rolls go your way, she is one of the best commanders in the game. When she whiffs, it gets ugly fast. No other character has such a high ceiling and low floor IMHO, which is likely why she sits at 130pts. I hope she works well in future Organized Play that FFG puts out.

I think she is fun. So there, nyaah!

On 5/29/2019 at 11:48 PM, SirCormac said:

Hello all,

So when I play with friends I play with Jyn sometimes as I find her good fun, but I noticed in Okimedes last article that he mentions specifically that Jyn is really bad. I haven't found her to be bad in my fun games, which is in contrast to how me and my friend felt about Vader from day 1 (I.e., he sucked the big one). So my honest question is: why is she so terrible in competitive play? I'm not challenging that she doesn't work there (I am sure the competitive players would use her if she gave some advantage), I am just trying to understand. (Any Math proving she sucks is welcome, I enjoy Math).

Instead of asking why Jyn is bad, perhaps a more useful question would be to ask: What things is Jyn best suited to? (Ie her strengths)

Some unique things about Jyn:

1) Best Range of Rebel Commanders with a 2B, 1W surge, range 1-3, pierce 1 attack. Not bad considering, and better range than Imperial commanders except Veers.

2) Can be placed anywhere desired on the map (like Pathfinders, she’s an airborne ranger)

3) Ranged defensive abilities that power up with suppression, along with Nimble. She wants to activate early for a dodge token and absorb ranged attacks.

These three features suggest a hero you want to place on an objective to capture it immediately and run, or between an objective and the enemy forces to harry them from range while the rest of the army actually captures.

So what kind of objectives suit her?

Breakthrough (especially in a large deployment where you may be able to target one flank of the enemy forces, or avoid them entirely; or something like disarray, where she and Pathfinders could be deployed to ambush some of the enemy forces that have to be split between two locations.)

Moisture vaporators: place her and repair/sabotage turns 1-2 and you put your opponent in the position of having to undo that over the next 4 turns...which might not be plausible.

Box grabbing: goes without saying. Grab and run.

Key posititions: From turn 0 be in the winning position. Probably best suited to having melee counters or fire support available in your remaining forces (Sabine, Luke, Wookies, Fleet Troopers, Flamer RTs, 1.4 FDs).

Provide the opportunity for early scoring on the periodic objective (otomh, that’s intercept the transmissions yeah?)

I think she is good, but lacks consistency. She is a mis mush of all the 3 other commanders with a brunch of rules/keywords that rely om her command cards.

I think you need to play her more as an operative rather than a commander.

..overpower..

I have had pretty good success with Jyn. My strategy usually involves plopping Jyn and Pathfinders onto a single objective and holding the line. I typically roll with Leia and Chewbacca as well, pushing towards the other objectives with Corps troopers. My opponents tend to focus on one force over the other, typically my hero heavy flank. This allows Jyn and the Pathfinders to deal out some damage and assist the other Rebels.

I have not shied away from using her in melee. I was able to easily defeat Boba Fett by goading him into melee and I bring tenacity on Jyn. I think the trick is to use Jyn to engage in melee after the target has been softened up by Corps fire. I typically only lose her if I play too aggressively with her, or try to solo the opposing commander.

Jyn either wins ... or her chances are spent.

On 5/29/2019 at 8:48 PM, SirCormac said:

Hello all,

So when I play with friends I play with Jyn sometimes as I find her good fun, but I noticed in Okimedes last article that he mentions specifically that Jyn is really bad. I haven't found her to be bad in my fun games, which is in contrast to how me and my friend felt about Vader from day 1 (I.e., he sucked the big one). So my honest question is: why is she so terrible in competitive play? I'm not challenging that she doesn't work there (I am sure the competitive players would use her if she gave some advantage), I am just trying to understand. (Any Math proving she sucks is welcome, I enjoy Math).

My friends and I are nowhere near competitive. But I used her to good effect last time we played. She's pretty good at surviving fire and taking and holding a position from the start of the game. She can also bring her strong courage value anywhere on the map to help your troops. And then when my buddy tried to sneak up on her with his Boba Fett, I had my Rebellious command card ready and just rushed him on his turn, caught him in melee and beat him up.

It's true she doesn't deal much damage but the Rogue One characters are all about survivability over damage I think.

Its a problem a lot of units in table top games end up facing. The game designers just throwing a bunch of good abilities on a unit without considering how they all work together. You end up with a unit that is less than the sum of its parts and doesn't have a good role to fill at a cost effective price point.

She would have needed a way to generate Suppression tokens spontaneously to really be worth her points. She can quite easily be killed, or nearly killed, in the first volley that would give her a suppression token. And the more suppression she has, the more likely she has fewer than 6 wounds left. If she only has 2 wounds left, even if she's rolling 4 extra white defense dice she has a good chance of still getting killed.

If she was 30 points cheaper and had an Action that gave her a Suppression token she would be interesting and actually quite scary. Then she could charge herself up and become an annoying piece to remove. But because she's almost certainly going to be missing wounds before she has all those extra defense dice she isn't very scary.

Vader throwing a Lightsaber at her before she has any suppression is probably going to drop her to half health, even if you give her the almost mandatory Duck and Cover training, and then a squad of Stormtroopers can finish the job.

Infiltrate is cool, but its not so cool on one of your commanders who is going to be very exposed and far ahead of your army. So you end up paying for a skill that you can't really take advantage of. Plus you'd be really risking not being able to use all your command cards before she gets killed.

You are playing her either really bad, or even worst.

If she is you only commander, you don't infiltrate her. That's stupid.

Moreover, Jyn + DnC + ES can soak up a lot of damage.

Who is playing Vader anyway ? I mean, except me or a few insane peoples ? For 10 more points, Palpatine is just far better than him.

And in your exemple :

Vader drop her to 3lifes, 2 suppression (because touching + DnC), the squad of storm shoot her +1supprs from DnC. She has 3 more defense dices + Emergency stim. You don't get rid of her without at least turn 2 if you don't want to lose a whole entire turn (turn that can allow rebs to run run and get in position faster). If she has the first activation, she will only take 2 damages from vader, and even less from STS. If you put her in a way she has no cover...

I played her 5-6 times, and I never felt her useless, either on her own with infiltrate, hiding the first turn behind a cover, forcing a bad deployment for the opponent who want to deal with her fast, or in my bunch of guy, shooting her's range 3 pierce 1 sharpshooter 1 blaster rifle. While getting both dodge and aim with a single action.

She is good. Not as stupid as Leia or Veers (who both need at least 20more points), but really useful (same level as Han or Krennic).

9 hours ago, RaevenKS said:

You are playing her either really bad, or even worst.

...
I played her 5-6 times, and I never felt her useless, either on her own with infiltrate, hiding the first turn behind a cover, forcing a bad deployment for the opponent who want to deal with her fast, or in my bunch of guy, shooting her's range 3 pierce 1 sharpshooter 1 blaster rifle. While getting both dodge and aim with a single action.

She is good. Not as stupid as Leia or Veers (who both need at least 20more points), but really useful (same level as Han or Krennic).

I think almost noone disputes she has interesting abilities. The main problem with Jyn is her pricetag.

Another issue is that her gimmicks are all over the place. You can only use a small part of them, and a good opponent will be able to exploit her weak spots.

If your opponents make mistakes like they did in your games she will do her thing of course. In that case you can win with any given list though.

I really like the mini and her rules, but there is no way around the fact that she is a liability in every list I can think of.

Against a lot of popular units with high range and big attack pools she can basically do nothing but hide out of sight.

In these cases she is basically a slightly tougher generic officer with one or two fancy command cards and courage 3.

I think her biggest advantage is infiltrate. I like to bring her with two squads of pathfinders and drop them on an objective. You control that portion of the board and force your opponent into either ignoring that objective, or dealing with an entrenched force.

Is she worth the points? Maybe not, but I think it's a pretty fun way to play. Before Death Troopers came out I was winning a lot as Rebels, but not so much now- having fun is a lot more important when you aren't winning as much 😛