I've heard a bit recently about how effective Tauntauns are in The game in particular often referencing action economy in that they have 7 actions or equivalent in game making them overpowered and that it has been the biggest instance of power creep. (to be honest that prize goes to both flavours of strike teams IMO , while saboteurs were the harder of the two to pilot both led to a definite change in the meta where your only real choice was to bring 2 or usually 3 of them, if you didn't your list ended up not being competitive at the higher levels)
Let's take a closer look at the action economy of the Tauntauns.
Agile 1 , every time they move they get a dodge.
This in itself sounds very powerful , but forgetting about the fact that getting a dodge on many other units is an action let's take a look at it from the viewpoint of damage mitigation which ultimately is what dodge and cover are all.about
Compare with other forms of damage mitigation
Airspeeders / Landspeeders / Speeder Bikes who have innate cover 1. This removes.1 non critical.damage from every attack landed on them, is always on and doesn't exhaust itself
Jyn Erso/ Sabine / Leia/ Rebel troopers all have nimble, this is important aa all of these have to activate and use an action to dodge first, however once on that damage mitigation recycles again and again until the end of them.
Rebel Veterans gain a dodge when they receive an order. This is a limited resource though it doesn't cost them an action. Unlike the above this is also.like the Tauntauns.
Any form of Armor has mitigation that is always on and effectively removes damage , so excepting critical and impact hits the hits are removed , even in the case of impact of through hits are removed at the dodge and cover step and no hits remain impact doesn't come into play. This does not cost an action or have any requirements to activate.
Troopers including emplacment troopers but excluding creature trooper can have a suppression token , this allows them to remove one non critical hit per attack.
While the majority of the imperial do not have then benefits the rebels get with dodges they do have better Armor and as result this.balances out against the rebel equivalent.
The Tauntauns get no damage mitigation benefit from suppression, have no Armor keyword, have no cover keyword, all of which are permanent once active , all of which do not require an action on the part of the unit being attacked.
The Tauntauns also get cover way less than their rebel trooper counterparts, firstly being larger and secondly anything that doesn't impede their movement also doesn't provide cover so the cover they do get would be from Line of sight blocking terrain. A correctly made table should have some of this but should have open terrain as well that you can at up near, which means melee units should be forced to run across at least some open terrain before getting to you. If not then The table hasn't been laid out well or you have deployed poorly . If the Tauntauns can sneak about in this avoiding shots speeder bikes , landapeeders, airspeeders can also knock around getting extra cover however for an extra 10 points 2 of these units can sit in open terrain and also still benefit from full cover anyway.
So the only additional damage mitigation that a Tauntauns gets is the single dodge token they get in each move. This is dependent on the Tauntauns moving early in some way and is a limited resource, though it is possible to get 3 or 4 dodge token in a Leia list advanced positions along with no time for sorrows. Ultimately though is this any different than an airspeeder/ landspeeder with an outer rim pilot getting shot twice. Aggregate the same number of wounds get mitigated . This didn't stop DLT from taking shots at Airspeeders before because they knew they had no choice, and the Airspeeders stopped getting played because of DLT gunlines even though they had the equivalent of an always on equivalent of a dodge (and even the enticement of a second "dodge" with the outer rim pilot wasnt enough for it to see play.
So are these.dodges provided real additional action economy or are they just required damage mitigation to make them playable. Example if you removed the Agile keyword from it entirely then most shots would be going straight to saves unless the unit stood still for an action to dodge (see below for what that does). Similarly if you limit it to one dodge gained the unit then the damage will often go straight to saves with no damage mitigated at the dodge and cover step after the first bit of damage)
Now if you look at any of the other white save units, how often do you have a shot at them where they have no suppression , no cover etc, even without dodging these units always have access to a few forms of readily available dmg mitigation whether it's cover (inbuilt or otherwise. Over a game count how many wounds get mitigated by white save units by cover, Armor era and see how much damage is avoided.
The Tauntauns get normally 2 per round removed or 1 if they are suppressed. they may get more , however that isn't a factor of.Tauntauns action economy it's a factor of the deployment or.the commanders command card, or occasionally if they get cover.
So IMO scratch this from the action economy to bring it down to 5 since it falls under regular damage mitigation which this unit loses completely without it that other units have an easier time getting it naturally.
Ahh, I hear you say they have other "action economy" as they get relentless and can attack at the end of their move. . Well to be honest so do a lot of melee cards. Vader, Chewbacca, Wookie Warriors , Imperial Royal Guard, and other melee-lite characters also get charge albeit in command cards or upgrades . Jyn Erso, Bossk even Palpatine can attack outside their actions during their activation. So this isn't unusual in itself. It is more unusual in that they get it via relentless, which Vader had and this allows them to So attack at range.
Lets take a look at the reasoning behind this because the reasons are important. Tauntauns are cavalry, highly mobile and able to move quickly over the battlefield. Vader is a slow mover. If he didn't have relentless he would have to stop every now and then if you wished to attack with him. Without his two moves he won't get anywhere. So he needs relentless to be useful. Now let's imagine the supposed most mobile living creature unit in Star Wars If you remove relentless. Yes it moves at movement 3 (7inches) and Vader moves at movement 1 (3 inches) so a double move Vader moves at 8 inch or so and the single move Tauntauns move 9 inch ( for reference the occupier moves faster). So if they have to stop to attack or if they have to stop to dodge they get about an inch further than Vader once you take into account bases. So the supposed fastest unit in the game outside of speeders is no w nearly as slow as Vader
Again this shows the necessity of relentless on the unit.
Moving onto reposition, r ead the above but apply it to ATRT who cannot reposition. This makes sense that they should be able to be as maneuverable as a normal trooper in the film they could turn on a dime, so to speak, however the vehicles get to be less maneuverable by virtue of their extra resilience in their Armor. So this is to make the unit realistic in that it can turn easier than other creature troops may be able to, but not as easy as perhaps troopers, since you cannot rotate more than 90 degree . This doesn't make them better or worse than trooper or vehicles just different with the movement somewhere between an ATRT and a standard trooper. The trade off is.resilience.as you go trooper Tauntauns - Vehicles losing maneuverability as you go.
So really when it comes right down to it the thing that annoys most people is how effective they are.
I've established that the move 3 is necessary and with it the Agile ( to provide some damage mitigation that it loses over other white save units), reposition let's it move about the battlefield like light cavalry , even relentless is necessary since they are essentially light cavalry able to move and attack quickly. Remove any of this and they are no longer light cavalry moving only just faster than Vader and still slower than a heavy tank.
So what makes people annoyed with them, only two things are left their attack (including then RAM keyword) and their ability to displace. Now any large base unit in the game that isn't an emplacment trooper does this, so it cannot be that so it must be the fact that they combine speed with an impactful attack. Black Black White or their red red isn't anything to write home about , ultimately it's similar to what Jyn Erso has with red red white as a shot and 4 black in melee (which is better even counting RAM.
Summing up an ATRT is like heavy cavalry the Tauntauns are light cavalry comparing a single Tauntaun with a single ATRT, the Tauntauns get maneuverability, the ATRT gets to plod along behind it and is way more robust and does more damage either ranged or melee. the ATRT is 10 points more per figure though.
To sum up people just haven't figured them out yet IMO. I can understand why people jump on its "action economy" but outside speeder bikes we haven't seen light cavalry in the game yet and certainly they are the closest relatives in the game, with a similar skill set, and even similar.damage, one is more suited to ranged attacks, the other gets more into melee
In fact if you look at speeder bikes in comparison
Ability to move and attack
speeder bikes can take 2 speed 3 moves and can still attack (can opt out the attack for more moves if needed)
Tauntauns can take 2 speed 3 moves and can attack but cannot do more than 2 but speeder bikes cannot reposition without using a move
so Bikes are better in a straight line and can travel further if the forgo the attack
Wounds and damage mitigation
bikes get 3 wounds but have always on cover
Tauntauns get 4 wounds and require to move before getting a dodge or two (which can mitigate 2 wounds over all the attacks they recieve)
So this is completely dependant on how many attacks received
bikes do better shooting into armor, but are limited to frontal firing with their best weapon though they lack sharpshooter and roll 2 black instead of red, but they can split fire. Hard to say which is better.
Tauntauns are better in melee, Bikes can't but can still shooting melee.
Bikes are immune to suppression
Tauntauns lose half of what they can do as a result of it
bikes 75 pts Tauntauns 90
I don't see the reasoning behind the hate of the Tauntauns "action economy" since that economy is effectively mirrored in the bikes. The differences being 4 wounds vs 3 , repositional vs higher top speed, 90 pts vs 75, and suppression vs immunity to it.
the only difference beyond that is the Tauntauns ability to melee, and the bikes ability to fly over terrain and units.
edit auto correct messed up a lot
Edited by syrath