Covert Ops

By manoftomorrow010, in Star Wars: Legion

6 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

EDIT: Actually, didn't you yourself dig up that the counterpart can have different subtype just so it can equip upgrades? That would be all the reason for Dio to have a comms slot, so it could equip some of the droid only tech.

Good point! Touche!

5 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

I am unfamiliar with a movie example of rebel use of violence and intimidation that is intended to get someone else to change a policy. 1) use violence 2) calculated to create fear, 3) hoping the scared people change their behavior. That is terrorism. You could argue that the rebel military is unlawful violence, but not all unlawful violence is terrorism. The engagement at Lexington & Concord wasn't terrorism but it was unlawful violence. Whereas the Boston Tea Party was arguably terrorism.

Compare this to when The Empire destroys a planet and millions of people to intimidate other people into aligning with them

So not that I want to dive to deep on that part of the discussion because it usually gets pretty hairy, but I do have a Criminal Justice degree and did take a class on terrorism. The tricksy thing is that there's not a singular universal definition of terrorism, but different groups and agencies will use slightly different ones. If we all agree that's one thing, but it's not very clear categorically. For instance, state-sponsored terrorism might be unlawful in the targeted areas, but not the state sponsoring it. The generally agreed elements are that there has to be terror inflicted, and that terror needs to be aimed at a group or entity for some purpose. The Death Star is referred to explicitly as a weapon of terror and used to keep the systems in line, vs blowing up the Death Star is an act of planetary self-defense.

On the Cassian point question, do we know if Command Cards affect unit cost? If his cards only affect himself and/or K2 then that might be a determining factor in his cost.

I'm sure Luke Eddy will drop by the Discord soonish and clear up the actual cost.

@TauntaunScout

You are correct. I cannot give an movie example of an act of terrorism by Rebels that fits your description.

But I cannot give one for the Empire as well that fits the description you posted.

So the Star Wars movies are terrorism free.

11 minutes ago, Nurgle23 said:

@TauntaunScout

You are correct. I cannot give an movie example of an act of terrorism by Rebels that fits your description.

But I cannot give one for the Empire as well that fits the description you posted.

So the Star Wars movies are terrorism free.

By @TauntaunScout 's definition of terrorism, the strategic bombing campaigns of WWII were terrorism as were the uses of atomic bombs to end the war.* If that's his position, then I respect it. That isn't a definition most people would agree with, however.

*Strategic bombing targeted factories manned by civilians during daylight hours. The atomic bombs were used to scare the enemy into submission, and were used to intimidate the Russians until they had their own atomic bombs.

Edited by SoonerTed
18 minutes ago, Nurgle23 said:

@TauntaunScout

You are correct. I cannot give an movie example of an act of terrorism by Rebels that fits your description.

But I cannot give one for the Empire as well that fits the description you posted.

Except the one I *just* gave. "[Terror] will keep the local systems in line... [terror] of this battlestation". And "If you prefer a military target... then name the system. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective [terrifying example of]."

Edited by TauntaunScout
1 minute ago, TauntaunScout said:

Except the one I *just* gave. "[Terror] will keep the local systems in line... [terror] of this battlestation". And "If you prefer a military target... then name the system. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective [terrifying example of]."

For me it doesn‘t fit your description. I am with @SoonerTed on that.

25 minutes ago, SoonerTed said:

By @TauntaunScout 's definition of terrorism, the strategic bombing campaigns of WWII were terrorism as were the uses of atomic bombs to end the war.* If that's his position, then I respect it. That isn't a definition most people would agree with, however.

*Strategic bombing targeted factories manned by civilians during daylight hours. The atomic bombs were used to scare the enemy into submission, and were used to intimidate the Russians until they had their own atomic bombs.

That's not my definition at all. You can SAY it is my definition but it's not.

The WWII bombing you describe, is targeting the civilian infrastructure that underpins the war effort. That's total war. Not terrorism. The goal is to destroy an enemies ability to make bullets n' beans. Not to scare them into changing their policies. The atomic bomb was used to more efficiently bomb a target as opposed to the traditional firebombing in Tokyo (which killed more people than the A-bomb). The Japanese higher ups had already conceded to each other in meetings, that if the Americans did not invade, and just kept bombing, they'd be helpless to resist. Just because something is scary when it happens doesn't grant it the "ism".

Blowing up a freight train so that the enemy can't move iron and coal is sabotage. Blowing up a train where you try to get as many passengers as possible and saying you'd better wise up, or we'll blow up more trains is terrorism. Can you seriously not see the difference?

Edited by TauntaunScout
30 minutes ago, Nurgle23 said:

For me it doesn‘t fit your description. I am with @SoonerTed on that.

So what WAS the purpose of blowing up Alderaan in 1977? Seems like it was to spread fear to me. To get scared people to do what imperial "regional governors" wanted. Do you have movie lines to suggest otherwise? Because I've provided several points from the movie to indicate that's exactly what it was. They wanted to create maximum fear, otherwise they'd have blown up Dantooine. They dissolved the senate and said without that bureaucracy they could still maintain control because fear of the Death Star would keep people in line. Pretty cut and dried.


Seems like some people are also conflating terrorism with shock and awe . They are different. One could make an argument that Alderaan was shock and awe , but with Tarkin explicitly conceding to Leia that it was not a military target I'd find that hard to swallow. But no one seems to be arguing that blowing up Alderaan was shock and awe . Only that is was not terrorism.

My description of terrorism, again, is 1) be violent 2) to create fear 3) so people will be scared into doing what you want. Therefore, according to my summation of the definition I posted earlier, blowing up a German shoe factory during a declared war, so German soldiers will have to go barefoot, is different from blowing up a high profile target to scare people into changing their foreign and/or domestic policies in case you'd keep blowing things up.

I've been pretty consistent with my description of terrorism and why I think the events the films do and do not fall into it.

Edited by TauntaunScout

The same purpose as public executions for example.
To rule with fear. So you don‘t go against the law and rebel.

I forsee a thread lock in the near future with the way this discussion is going.

4 minutes ago, Derpzilla88 said:

I forsee a thread lock in the near future with the way this discussion is going.


Nirgle23, being more of a gentleman than I, had moved the discussion to PM where we will continue it. I will cease derailing the thread.

So, after playing around in Tabletop Admiral, I concluded I actually need both not just Iden.

Man.... so many things in the pipe.

On 12/12/2019 at 9:05 PM, Cleto0 said:

Right, I still think there is no case where ID10 is a required upgrade, even if he is zero points. ID-10 is a counterpart with 1 or fewer keywords. I can almost guarantee that.

No. I am saying that Jyn works well on her own, but you absolutely HAVE to look at the list you are including her in. I mean imperials need synergies, but each unit is it's own piece. that is like the point of how they build, where as rebels are a sum of the parts... This isn't new... That's why Leia on her own can't compare to veers, but with the correct units she shines. You are not "paying for her twice", you are gaining more utility by running both units.

Because the game has 6 ranges and there will be commanders and ops at all of them eventually... I think you are focusing on the wrong things. How many heroes have range 4? 1. So lets just say that is OP because there is no counter hero. No, we say "oh, Bossk is a bounty hunter with a sniper rifle, he should be able to shoot long range." Iden and Cassian are fine for range, although it might change just for continuity anyway (imo).

I use math, not dice. It is very likely considering there are many ways to hit crits. a. Natties b. 2 hits marksman into crits c. using aim tokens to reroll blanks into hits and using aim tokens to turn those hits into crits.

ok, so I explained it before, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Moving, gaining 2 aims and attacking with super consistent dice leads to crits. crits= equivalent sharpshooter. Comparing them to snipers as you keep doing means they "should" have ss1. ss1 is 1 crit. this would be expected from cassian standing still and aim shooting. The same can be said for iden. The trouble comes in when you are hitting a unit for 2 crits and even with avg red dice, they are taking 2, due to pierce. This is overpowered when you aim at a unit that relies on armor and red dice saves to protect it... like a tank or even an ATST (white with surge). idk if you know, but 2/8 (tank) is 1/4 or 25% of the total health of the vehicle.

As for your bit on snipers, aims on them do not translate into crits. that is the difference. maximum damage from them is 2, but that is normally a unit in light or no cover unless you are Teknofobia . Multiple aims on snipers are normally a waste because their damage is consistent and reliable at 1 or 0. wasting aims into snipers loses efficiency. This is all just math that makes sense when you look at it. I believe if you go to the Fifth Trooper you can find the math there.

Woah. Lets start with the bottom and work our way to the top. 1. There is no meta and ever unit is useable. I will stand by this statement forever. (or until you move into range 2) It is all about the person running the list. I don't care the some people think that some units are unplayable, because truth is that every unit in this game is extremely playable, some just easier to play with and more popular. So there is no dud units. If there is, I challenge you to a TTS match where I will use a list with said dud units and win. Cassian isn't necessarily a "super unit" We haven't even seen everything in the pack. Do I think he is strong? sure, so far so good, but he has no utility with any other units and seems like a Han. If you know Han, you will know that he doesn't see competitive play much because many strong players ignore him. Do I think Han is bad? no, but I see his strengths and they don't really fit with most of rebel's overall strategies.

fine.

I agree that infinite range is strong, but it not unbalanced. if you spend 120-130 on Iden, I am fine with you chipping away for 2 a round vs spending 70 more points to grab a vader and smack for 6+ a round as well as utility like force push. right now, Iden and Cassian have nothing that make them broken except for maybe the choose your commander thing, which isnt confirmed yet. I believe we need to see the rest of the cards and analzye what units work best with them to really say if it is broken. As I mentioned earlier (last post), I specifically need to math out the efficiency of mortar + iden to get more than 2 crits a round, which might be over powered.

are you asking me if I am complaining about a potential meta busting unit? I don't mind change nor do I think that shore+mortar+relay is broken, far from it. Is it strong? yes. Are tauntauns strong? is 13 activation rebels a strong list? yes. Is Krennic shores good? yes.

So I figure I won’t argue with you, since you have your own perspective on these new units and you make some compelling points. I will say this though as my final comments, I think it’s a mistake to reintroduce infinite range snipers into the game especially Operative/Commanders. You’re now trading three infinite range snipers for one that has for the most part unlimited lives (compared to garden variety snipers) and now that other snipers do not have unlimited range we’ll have no way to combat these new menaces. And your argument about spending so much and keeping them at such a range, does not wash. Most commanders do not do much damage (save for the combat monster type - Obi, Luke, Vader, Grievous etc) and the best you can hope from them is 1 or 2 hits, so this will be more than enough to justify the cost. Further, Jyn and Iden are very similar (save sniping). Both have some of the same abilities and both are very tankie. Jyn may seem very tough, but I have personally seen her die after one or two shots, just like I’ve seen red defence dice let their unit down. I’ve also seen Jyn take hit after hit and not die, just like I’ve seen red dice. This is all a mater of perspective and for the most part. I think that once these units hit the table they will be a “must play”, like Tauns & Shores/etc or unlimited range snipers before them, but I hope you’re right and these new units aren’t that big of a deal. 🤞 Peace out. ✌️ ☮️

4 hours ago, JediPartisan said:

So I figure I won’t argue with you, since you have your own perspective on these new units and you make some compelling points. I will say this though as my final comments, I think it’s a mistake to reintroduce infinite range snipers into the game especially Operative/Commanders. You’re now trading three infinite range snipers for one that has for the most part unlimited lives (compared to garden variety snipers) and now that other snipers do not have unlimited range we’ll have no way to combat these new menaces. And your argument about spending so much and keeping them at such a range, does not wash. Most commanders do not do much damage (save for the combat monster type - Obi, Luke, Vader, Grievous etc) and the best you can hope from them is 1 or 2 hits, so this will be more than enough to justify the cost. Further, Jyn and Iden are very similar (save sniping). Both have some of the same abilities and both are very tankie. Jyn may seem very tough, but I have personally seen her die after one or two shots, just like I’ve seen red defence dice let their unit down. I’ve also seen Jyn take hit after hit and not die, just like I’ve seen red dice. This is all a mater of perspective and for the most part. I think that once these units hit the table they will be a “must play”, like Tauns & Shores/etc or unlimited range snipers before them, but I hope you’re right and these new units aren’t that big of a deal. 🤞 Peace out. ✌️ ☮️

I do agree with quite a bit of what you say here. I do think they will be overused because infinite range snipers are really good. I also do not like all the potential tankyness of Iden being able to hide ID-10 around a corner to get heavy cover. I do think there is some competition now for commander and operative slots because Iden and Cassian are both commanders. This means lists like Luke + Leia will have to be traded out and imperial lists like double bounty or Middle Management will have to make big trade offs. One of the most popular recent lists is double tank, which greatly benefits from Veers, but they have no points to spare for Iden. More units are better than fewer imo and I am eagerly waiting for them to drop so we can actually argue about things we know 😄 . Speculation is just speculation and I hope there are no hard feelings here. Have a good weekend friend.

Edited by Cleto0
On 12/12/2019 at 12:47 PM, JediPartisan said:

It does seem odd to me that they just nerfed some snipers, just to add two more infinite range snipers. I thought they said, infinite range would be reserved for special things like air strikes and the like (command card kind of stuff). I wonder if these cards were being printed when they were doing the nerf. Does that mean they will eventually be nerfed.

The problem with snipers was they were being spammed, can't spam a character, therefor they can safely have infinite range sniper rifles.

15 hours ago, DtLS said:

The problem with snipers was they were being spammed, can't spam a character, therefor they can safely have infinite range sniper rifles.

I don't think that was the only problem with snipers. The other problem was that they were in almost every list, which reduced the variety of lists, which being a character doesn't fix. Sure each list will only have one infinite range sniper, but if most/the majority of the "competitive" lists include Iden or Cassian, then there is still a problem.

Edited by Caimheul1313
36 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I don't think that was the only problem with snipers. The other problem was that they were in almost every list, which reduced the variety of lists, which being a character doesn't fix. Sure each list will only have one infinite range sniper, but if most/the majority of the "competitive" lists include Iden or Cassian, then there is still a problem.

The reason they were in every list was because they were cheap, and therefore easy to fit in every list. Even after their points increase, two snipers are still cheaper than either of the new commanders with their sniper rifles, and combined will do more damage than either of the commanders as well.

A single unit with a max two damage weapon is far from an auto-include, even if it does have infinite range. However, I do wish they had limited it to 5, just because I think infinite range is silly (unless it comes with a restrictive minimum range, like most of them do at this point).

Now, I do think Cassian will probably show up fairly regularly, since he fills a role Rebels don't really have access to right now, that being a long-ranged commander/operative. Iden meanwhile competes pretty directly with Bossk, so we will see how things shake out between them.

45 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I don't think that was the only problem with snipers. The other problem was that they were in almost every list, which reduced the variety of lists, which being a character doesn't fix. Sure each list will only have one infinite range sniper, but if most/the majority of the "competitive" lists include Iden or Cassian, then there is still a problem.

If people have gone from paying 44 to 48 to 100+ points for a sniper, than I think we are safe from them being in every list. The only reason why you always include Iden and Cassian is if they have some utility or extra damaging cards that lets them to more than 2 damage a turn. Looking at the heroes we have, we take Han, who at range 2 normally does 4 damage a turn. He also has 3 command cards that work very well with other units, making Han a viable choice for a commander. Comparing 1 pip with Cassian to Han, we see that Cassian can gunslinger his infinite range sniper, making him a very strong attacker, but it doesn't have the same potential power of Han's zero pip.

1 minute ago, Cleto0 said:

If people have gone from paying 44 to 48 to 100+ points for a sniper, than I think we are safe from them being in every list. The only reason why you always include Iden and Cassian is if they have some utility or extra damaging cards that lets them to more than 2 damage a turn. Looking at the heroes we have, we take Han, who at range 2 normally does 4 damage a turn. He also has 3 command cards that work very well with other units, making Han a viable choice for a commander. Comparing 1 pip with Cassian to Han, we see that Cassian can gunslinger his infinite range sniper, making him a very strong attacker, but it doesn't have the same potential power of Han's zero pip.

I don't think we're completely "safe" from that depending on exactly how "Marksman" works. If Marksmen doesn't allow them to switch the results to Criticals then given that neither of them has Sharpshooter, yeah, we're probably fine. But, if they have a means of reliably applying 1-2 damage to units, then they can wound other characters to help finish them off, or serve as a fairly hard counter to Detachments/Strike teams that are frequently taken to pad activation count. The other thing to consider is that they can be taken as either commanders or Operatives, so comparing them only to commanders is a misleading. Especially if "Covert Ops" allows for shenanigans like making Operative Luke your commander.

19 minutes ago, Lochlan said:

The reason they were in every list was because they were cheap, and therefore easy to fit in every list. Even after their points increase, two snipers are still cheaper than either of the new commanders with their sniper rifles, and combined will do more damage than either of the commanders as well.

A single unit with a max two damage weapon is far from an auto-include, even if it does have infinite range. However, I do wish they had limited it to 5, just because I think infinite range is silly (unless it comes with a restrictive minimum range, like most of them do at this point).

Now, I do think Cassian will probably show up fairly regularly, since he fills a role Rebels don't really have access to right now, that being a long-ranged commander/operative. Iden meanwhile competes pretty directly with Bossk, so we will see how things shake out between them.

I agree they won't be as big of a problem, but it can still make for a mildly stale meta depending on how all of their keywords and upgrades interact. If Marksmen turns an Aim token into two guaranteed crits (which I HIGHLY doubt, but until we see the rules who knows) then this becomes two damage not stopped by cover or dodges, and requires a perfect defensive roll (without Impervious) to block both damage. Time will tell, and I really hope they aren't any kind of problem.

So, is anyone else stressed by the fact that there are SIX possible ways to model Versio? Because I'm having a really hard time deciding which version I'm going to go with.

33 minutes ago, Paladin Ignatius said:

So, is anyone else stressed by the fact that there are SIX possible ways to model Versio? Because I'm having a really hard time deciding which version I'm going to go with.

Nope. Mentioned it before, as much as I do like Janina Gavankar, the TIE helmet is too iconic for me. I want actual TIE pilots (for no good in game reason) as I like their look. This is the closes I will get.

plus, you can use the Unarmored head for a rebel. 😜

45 minutes ago, Paladin Ignatius said:

So, is anyone else stressed by the fact that there are SIX possible ways to model Versio? Because I'm having a really hard time deciding which version I'm going to go with.

Not sure either if I want to put the helmet on or not... but, if I choose to not put the helmet on, I do wonder which color I’ll use for the skin.