So I've played Cassian and K2s0 twice and played against Iden 3 times.(only once against each other)

The marksman rule basically guarantees hits and sometimes crits. I've never seen the sniper rifles played because Cassian with his longshot and Iden's 5 dice cannon are both way better than almost every other gun in the game save a couple of lightsabers and tank guns.

Cassian has the K2S0 tax but i still contend that Iden is a little too good for her cost (first time I've thought that for this game, some things have been too expensive maybe but never too cheap)

14 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Cassian has the K2S0 tax

??? You don't have to take K2SO.

I've played with it yet, but my gut reaction is "no". However, with the Empire specifically, I think it's excessive on Iden. If you aren't generating multiple aims (Empire excels at this), it really isn't substantially better than sharpshooter unless you're attacking armor.

With Cassian, he can't get the benefit of marksman and longshot with his pistol so I don't see the issue. Furthermore if you're taking advantage of danger sense, you aren't taking advantage of tactical so Cassian's aim token supply is tied to his staying power on the board.

With Iden, I don't think she should have Quick Thinking AND Nimble AND Marksman AND a weapon that powerful. Cassian has to make a choice between offense and defense; Iden doesn't.

@arnoldrew

K2 really helps keep Cassian alive and fully loaded with dodge and aim tokens.

@thepopemobile100

Marksman is on his card and longshot is on his pistol. 2 aim tokens or more and your good. K2 offensive push or a command card + tactical = not hard to have multiple aim tokens multiple turns. I was shooting range 3 with marksman most of the turns of the game. Heavy cover plus Duck/Cover means full danger sense is a thing especially with K2 helping out.

Idens cannon shoots 5 dice. With Marksman the white sice are a lot better than they appear. She is also one of the most durable figures in the game with effectively 8+ wounds with D1O on board. She also has embarrassingly good courage which i think should be a bit more expensive compared to other super characters (think any of the jedi) most of whom are short ranged

I've not played any unit with Marksman yet, but at least in the papers doesn't seem too good, just good. If you reroll 2 white dice on a unit that converts attack surges the probability of getting at least 1 hit is not too low (and not to speak of rerolling black or red dice), Marksman just gurantees that 1 hit, so it's a bit better, but not much, at least in my opinion without using it. The crit thing could be good if you're attacking a unit with armor, because if you just want it to bypass cover or dodge, a reroll to get more hits normally helps you to get more damage through cover and dodge (unless your opponent has enough dodge tokens to cover all remaining damage.

So I'm curious as to why in your experience, actually having it played, you think that it's too good and not just good. Could you give examples as to what happened during those games?

Marksman is a lot better than aim with the dice that these 2 are rolling with their armament upgrades.

For Cassian, I never used his pistol on his card, I used the A280 pistol Configuration which has Longshot. 2 R 1 B, I felt like I had 2 aim tokens pretty much whenever I wanted which meant, I was guaranteed a crit and if I rolled well (not hard with 2R1B dice) sometimes 2 crits and a hit with pierce 1 at range 3. 1 Crit for sure, possibly 2 crits if I rolled a natural crit already. Crits don't care about dodge tokens or cover. Only a few units can deal with Pierce.

For Iden, I can't see why you wouldn't run her with her repeater cannon. 5 dice. I'd never spend 115 for a sniper so I think the Repeater is her default. with D-10, she's 130 base, 140ish if you put some upgrades which you can choose at deployment. She has at least 8 wounds, More if she recovers and sticks to cover and she basically is stronger than the Occupier Tank with more staying power. Not too mention her Courage 3 (Vader and Palpatine are the only other commanders with that courage)

I guess Marksman is not broken, but it is a noticeable notch above any other keyword on these particular platforms (Iden and Cassian)

I was just curious if anyone else had proxied besides me and felt the power shift? I'm just thinking this keyword will show up on other units and besides certain heroes, I could see this becoming a slippery slope (if they stuck it on ARC troopers for example) where it becomes very spammable.

On 3/21/2020 at 7:04 PM, buckero0 said:

some things have been too expensive maybe but never too cheap

Can't have one without the other; everything is relative.

But either way, this is why points adjustments exist. Hoping for a nerf to DLTs (diversity please) the Critical keyword, and Snipers and/or strike teams. Their death was greatly exaggerated.

20 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

But either way, this is why points adjustments exist. Hoping for a nerf to DLTs (diversity please) the Critical keyword, and Snipers and/or strike teams. Their death was greatly exaggerated.

FFG never wanted snipers to die. They're an all around good unit but the nerf they got keeps them from being the overpowered units they used to be. Now they're just a really cheap activation that perform their job well but not insanely effective

Yes. But I think characters in general are overpowered.

3 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

Yes. But I think characters in general are overpowered.

Some of them are, but i think this is by design. This is what the game was designed for (showcase characters feom SW Univ in a game)

2 hours ago, buckero0 said:

Some of them are, but i think this is by design. This is what the game was designed for (showcase characters feom SW Univ in a game)

Doesn’t end up feeling like the movies though. Legions heroes feel more like Superman. In the movies, heroes will surrender to a handful of supernumeraries. In Legion they’d just eat the hits and kill them.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

Doesn’t end up feeling like the movies though. Legions heroes feel more like Superman. In the movies, heroes will surrender to a handful of supernumeraries. In Legion they’d just eat the hits and kill them.

Not sure about this point of view. I only play CIS, and when my heroes get focused they die. When they don't they run the table. Sure every now and then the red dice come through way better than they should, but that's dice. As for my opponents heroes, I feel the same. Throwing weight of dice at them backed up by a key turn with Grievous or Dooku usually does the trick. Again, there are times where their dice saves their bacon, but that's RNG.

8 hours ago, Mokoshkana said:

Not sure about this point of view. I only play CIS, and when my heroes get focused they die. When they don't they run the table. Sure every now and then the red dice come through way better than they should, but that's dice. As for my opponents heroes, I feel the same. Throwing weight of dice at them backed up by a key turn with Grievous or Dooku usually does the trick. Again, there are times where their dice saves their bacon, but that's RNG.

Define "focused". One shooting attack from a squad should reliably kill a hero. It doesn't.

15 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Define "focused". One shooting attack from a squad should reliably kill a hero. It doesn't.

Should it though? Realistically maybe, but that never happens in any of the films, which is the feel they are trying to evoke on the tabletop.

22 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Define "focused". One shooting attack from a squad should reliably kill a hero. It doesn't.

Have you watched the movies? A farmboy, a criminal, and a politician can fight off dozens of professional soldiers. They ARE supermen. The only time they are captured or defeated is when the plot demands it. It sounds like you're looking for realism where the rest of us want to play Star Wars and want the heroes to feel like heroes.

21 minutes ago, Lochlan said:

Should it though? Realistically maybe, but that never happens in any of the films, which is the feel they are trying to evoke on the tabletop.

If you watch with a critical eye, the heroes only do that once. When they are allowed to escape the death star. Other than that they avoid imperial troops and are frequently scared of small numbers of them. They don’t defeat large numbers of enemies , they escape from large numbers of enemies. Jabba’s palace is the other exception but those were disorganized surprised semi-pro’s.

34 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

Have you watched the movies? A farmboy, a criminal, and a politician can fight off dozens of professional soldiers. They ARE supermen. The only time they are captured or defeated is when the plot demands it. It sounds like you're looking for realism where the rest of us want to play Star Wars and want the heroes to feel like heroes.

No. “They let us go. It’s the only explanation for the ease of out escape”. Han surrenders to imps three times on Endor. He runs away from them at Mos Eisley and Hoth. Boba Fett is killed by a simple accident.

Luke can’t take a single Tusken Raider or Wampa if they surprise him.

The cult of worshipping these heroes as gods sprung up the retelling in the decades after the movies. It’s not actually in the movies, except for full fledged Jedi/Dark Jedi.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

Define "focused". One shooting attack from a squad should reliably kill a hero. It doesn't.

Star wars isn't real life. If that's what you want, perhaps you should checkout a historical war game.

For me, heroes are the most fun part of the game, I'm always ready to get a Commander / Operative turn and do some shenanigans with them. And the game encourages me to do so, even if I don't win the battle... In skirmish, it even feels more like that.

About Marksman, it makes those heroes even stronger, now you're not going to finish an attack with the aim token dead next to the miniature, it's going to be always useful (almost, not normal to roll all natural crits).

14 minutes ago, Mokoshkana said:

Star wars isn't real life. If that's what you want, perhaps you should checkout a historical war game.

Star Wars also isn't DC Superheroes.

The heroes are not as powerful in the old movies, as fan culture has made them out to be in the past 30 years. My complaint is not that "real people can't do that", but that "this doesn't evoke the movies to me".

This whole discussion reminds me of a time I was at the gaming store, and these two guys couldn't understand how you could have a Clix gaming mini of Cthulu. "He's a god, he can't have hit points! You can't kill a god!" they said. To which I replied "Well, you could run a steamship through his head like in the original short story". Which of course, they had never read.

Yeah yeah yeah, heard it all before, Boba Fett's a fearsome warrior, and ewoks are just "teddy bears" with "walking sticks". 🙄

9 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Star Wars also isn't DC Superheroes.

The heroes are not as powerful in the old movies, as fan culture has made them out to be in the past 30 years. My complaint is not that "real people can't do that", but that "this doesn't evoke the movies to me".

This whole discussion reminds me of a time I was at the gaming store, and these two guys couldn't understand how you could have a Clix gaming mini of Cthulu. "He's a god, he can't have hit points! You can't kill a god!" they said. To which I replied "Well, you could run a steamship through his head like in the original short story". Which of course, they had never read.

Yeah yeah yeah, heard it all before, Boba Fett's a fearsome warrior, and ewoks are just "teddy bears" with "walking sticks". 🙄

Maybe they just don't consider that story canon. 😉

3 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

Maybe they just don't consider that story canon. 😉

Maybe!

Anyways. I am all for generally weakening keywords. Way too many things are ignoring dodges and cover, to the point that the game seems whacky.

@TauntaunScout

I get what you're saying and even agree with you. But that's not how movies are these days.

You and I are on the edge of crusty and old but we've seen a movie or 2. Some of these pups were weaned on stuff from the nineties and claim that's classic. I try to show my kids silent movies with Douglas Fairbanks and no-one can get past the credits. But that's were star wars was born if you ask me

3 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

@TauntaunScout

I get what you're saying and even agree with you. But that's not how movies are these days.

Ok but, it's still how the movies in question are. I think the big problem with heroes is giving them lots of hit points. Make them harder to hit is fine, but they should only get an extra HP or two compared to troops. Maybe Vader or Chewie would make sense to have a lot of hits but not Han or Leia.

Oh I love me some nerd-fight :-D. Fact is that also in the classic movies, the heroes are always the centerpieces of the action. And they survive far more dangerous situations than reasonably possible. Somehow they always end up in the middle of the action and come out victorious.

In game terms this would be absolutely impossible if they had only 3-4 health. This would guarantee that you would be dead more often than succeed in the mission - which miraculously NEVER happens in the movies. This would further lead to a situation where you would - for the sake of efficiency - take fewer or no heroes at all and fill the list with generics. That might be more "realistic" but would be less fun and most definitely not very Star Warsy.

I really like the balance between Heroes and regulars in the game. Heroes can and often do make the difference in the battle. But if you are not careful, they can die pretty fast.