I've been playing with Shoretroopers in pretty well every game I've played since I've gotten them. I've been finding that they're not quite cutting it for me.

Obviously them being the conduit for the DF-90 Mortar into the game is key. I see that they're popular enough in current lists but I'm trying to figure out how they work in for me. It comes down to a few things:

1 - Coordinate seems too situational. Unless I'm parking the Shores in a gunline they've got other places to be most of the time. Whether that is maneuvering into position to get a shot, going for an objective, or peeling away with one, the pros of staying in range one for Coordinate don’t seem to outweigh the cons in many occasions.

2 - In the same vein of Coordinate, I don’t think Target is that great either unless you're using it as a means to advance and shoot, which totally kills Coordinate. That said I have used it pretty well but I've started to always take Targeting Scopes to improve the aim.

3 - No Surges . Fellsbadman. Critical 2 on the T-21B does help mitigate this, so does a free aim token (and Targeting Scopes). Not my biggest gripe but still a thing.

Obviously they have big pros. Black attack die, being able to take the DF-90 Mortar Team, an Elite Training upgrade slot (that I never seem to use).

Maybe I'm just not doing it right but does the ability to take a DF-90 make them more valuable than just taking another DLT-19 Stormtrooper Squad? Tell me I'm using them wrong, I want to love them.

Krennic plus Death troopers w/ comms relay and comms relay on all of your mortars. Suddenly you are getting to issue 2 or 3 free orders (plus aim tokens (and surge tokens if you take aggressive tactics)) by relaying the Krennic entourage.

troll thread is obvious

https://thefifthtrooper.com/shoretroopers-unit-guide/

Don't forget that coordinate is range 1 from any mini to any mini, not from unit leader to unit leader. It's pretty easy to set up if you are playing tight (like you should be). They are an amazing unit that hits harder than any other corps unit and most special forces units when used properly.

And yeah, check out that unit guide.

Shores with T-21b and 1 mortar cost 120 points and can shoot a combined 2 Black and 5 White dice at Range 4 with Crit 2 and Suppressive. 2 Stormtrooper squads with DLT cost 136 and shoot 4 Red at Range 4. It gets even worst if your opponent decides to go to Range 3 and unload 6 Black and 5 White using Fire Support with an Aim.

1 hour ago, TheHoosh said:

troll thread is obvious

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to Ignorance. Not everyone follows tournaments closely.

But yeah, as the people above have said, Shoretroopers are very, very good. They do depend on getting orders, but at the moment comms relay makes it easy to give all of them an order (I expect a points change or the loss of the comms slot next time points are changed). 2 Aims+targeting scopes makes them scarily effective, whether firing their entire dice pool or splitting fire. Fire support with the mortars is cute when it happens, but not really necessary.

Having just run shores at LVO, I will say that 2 squads of stormtroopers are straight up better at scoring centrally placed objectives. The mortars are only good at staying parked on a 'safe' backfield objective and only have 3 health and basically no good attack inside of range 3. The shores themselves want to stick to a grouped gun line so its harder to have them be flexible in their positioning.

Yea I haven't been using any Comms Relays so I'll try that and I will check out that link to the guide. Sorry If you think I'm trolling man, I'm just trying to find out the best way to use them effectively.

3 hours ago, Crawfskeezen said:

Yea I haven't been using any Comms Relays so I'll try that and I will check out that link to the guide. Sorry If you think I'm trolling man, I'm just trying to find out the best way to use them effectively.

No worries. Give the Mortars Comms Relay and all your Shores start with an Order and Aim Token on top of whatever you wanted to give Orders to. This is reaaally strong and not by accident do all successful Imperial Lists bring multiples of Shores.

On their own they are just a solid unit.

Combine them with krennic, mortars, coms relays and aggressive tactics and you get a monster.

1 order to a shoretrooper that then coordinate it to 1 morter who send it to next shore that coordinate a 2nd mortar who can Keep or give away order. That's 3 facup orders from 1.

Target is very good since you can either get double aim for a total of 6 re-rolls with targeting scopes or move aim shoot.

The t21 att range 4 with 2 aims got a decent shot for 2-4 crits att range 4. On range 3 you will have a hard time missing a single shot.

They lack surge, but thanks to surge tokens they can either get more dmg or better defence. Regardless 1 black is still better than your stormtroopers white with surge.

Lackluster?

It's probably the strongest corps unit in the game atm 😋

Umm... we just had the biggest Legion tournament ever (Las Vegas Open). 5 Imperial players made it to top 8. Not a single one of them had fewer than 2 shores. If there's one unit in the game that feels even more overtuned than Taun Tauns, that would be shores. If you struggle to use them effectively, I'm afraid it's you and not the unit.

I'm a new player (5 games so far, the latest three on Sunday at a relaxed local tournament) who accidentally hit upon the Krennic+Death troopers+Shore troopers combo by buying the models that I liked the most. For all their advocated strength, skill, tactics and experience really matter. I know this because so far I have none of them and I keep losing horribly Having great fun, though.

I need to remember to keep my death troopers, shore troopers and mortars near each other at deployment. That and protect Krennic, because he's very squishy. When I get this right, things go well. When I get it wrong the synergies don't kick in and everything dies. The greatest errors I need to work on are my activation order and deployment. My final opponent on Sunday reckoned I'd have won just my changing the order I retrieved the objectives in, and I think deploying differently would have been a part of this. I also think he was being generous

Even worse than Tuantauns!

My own experience with shoretroopers is they are decent but not spectacular, my black dice roll way more blanks than they statistically should. As others have said they really are only abusive when combined with mortars and coms relay for orders shenanigans. If ffg changes anything, I think it will be with the mortar or coms relay, not the shoretrooper unit.

That being said, people have been complaining about tauntauns since they came out, and the designers have stated on at least one live stream that tauntauns are working as they intended. The same logic could also be applied to shoretroopers.

Red def and black off, I'd kill for these as a Rebel

26 minutes ago, WesA69 said:

Red def and black off, I'd kill for these as a Rebel

Red defense and black offense? Join up with the Republic!

1 hour ago, KarlVonCarstein said:

My own experience with shoretroopers is they are decent but not spectacular, my black dice roll way more blanks than they statistically should. As others have said they really are only abusive when combined with mortars and coms relay for orders shenanigans. If ffg changes anything, I think it will be with the mortar or coms relay, not the shoretrooper unit.

That being said, people have been complaining about tauntauns since they came out, and the designers have stated on at least one live stream that tauntauns are working as they intended. The same logic could also be applied to shoretroopers.

I like this

Everyone complains when something works well. Rebels need a beatstick besides Luke. Tauntauns are that. Shoretroopers work as intended. Highly organized and trained crack troops. Sometimes the Red defense dice are just so good. (which is why the Rebels needed Red offensive dice of the Tauntauns) Krennic and Deathtroopers and Shoretroopers are supposed to work well together and be good - check out the movie inspiration

13 hours ago, Crawfskeezen said:

Yea I haven't been using any Comms Relays so I'll try that and I will check out that link to the guide. Sorry If you think I'm trolling man, I'm just trying to find out the best way to use them effectively.

I sent the article after realizing you probably weren't trolling and had just not read that article explaining effective use of shore troopers. Hope the article helps you out.

1 hour ago, manoftomorrow010 said:

Red defense and black offense? Join up with the Republic!

Fingers crossed for clan Wren giving the rebels some much needed generic Red dice

27 minutes ago, gothound said:

Fingers crossed for clan Wren giving the rebels some much needed generic Red dice

Given they're the counterparts to Inferno Squad, I'm pretty sure they'll be unique. On the plus side, Beskar has consistently been red dice+surge and impervious.

33 minutes ago, Squark said:

Given they're the counterparts to Inferno Squad, I'm pretty sure they'll be unique. On the plus side, Beskar has consistently been red dice+surge and impervious.

Maybe the first jump pack unit who is not a hero

If your Shoretroopers lack lustre, try hitting them with a gloss clear coat after painting

1 hour ago, Squark said:

Given they're the counterparts to Inferno Squad, I'm pretty sure they'll be unique. On the plus side, Beskar has consistently been red dice+surge and impervious.

Fingers crossed that its more of a pathfinders option; generic base with unique heavy weapons upgrades, but regardless getting some heavy armor troops will be nice

@buckero0
"Sometimes the Red defense dice are just so good."

For example, +1/6 times per die roll over the White surge defense dice.

It's +16.667%, and a whole lot of overactive imaginations.