Hello Legion Players, CIS Main Here,

I wanted to start a discussion on the topic of the issue is see playing the "Swarm" faction of the CIS with my average 9 Activation Lists. The Problem I See is as the CIS we are suppose to be the end all be all of Cheap swarm tactics and out activating our opponent to gain an advantage. Now in most cases such as against our destined opponent the GAR its relatively easy for us to meet or beat the activation count even when running Rex. However when going against my buddy who I regularly play Legion with makes Rebel lists i find myself sweating looking at list that bring 10 activations on a bad day and even sometimes 12 activations. My Point comes down to Point cost to Effectiveness ratio for CIS vs Rebels I will use the Corp Units in the Core Sets just to keep things simple:

B1 to have any amount of viability cost 54 points, Base Squad(36) plus E-5C (18). Now this Brings you to 7 HP with 6 White and 3 Black on Offense with no surge and White on Defense with No Surge. now yes droids are suppose to be easy to kill and I wouldn't have them any other way. Now the issue stems from the more or less need for a heavy weapon for the squad to do anything meaningful to affect enemy forces besides losing all your minis to a good Z6 Roll. In the case of the Empire who also rolls white on most of their Corps they do have auto surge conversion for their White offense which its still not a black dice but you take what you can get.

Now Rebel Troopers can stay viable at 40 points honestly and can be more viable at 50, Base Squad (40) Rebel Trooper (10) Z6 (22). Ok first point I know I'm gonna see here is "Well with a Z6 and a base squad rebels are at 62 and roll almost the same dice". I'm fully aware of that price jump, However its the effectiveness of a naked rebel squad or a squad with just an extra trooper that i would like to point out. Now i will not pretend to understand dice probabilities but I do know black have more chances to hit than white. So a extra trooper Rebel Trooper squad throws 5 black down range, and with Nimble and surge to block they can keep there models in the fight relatively reliably especially in cover. Now comparing them to a very similar Corp Unit such as we did for B1s, Phase I Clone Troopers Cost 52 base and 65 with extra trooper and 77 with a Z6 now a naked Clone Squad throws less dice than a extra trooper Rebel while still being 2 points more expensive. Now the argument can be made about keywords and army synergy especially with the Clone Unit Type effecting point cost. My point is that Rebels can easily be the same offensive threat to my army as a Clone squad for a drastic difference in points and with relatively similar defensive suitability.

54 point B1 6 white 3 black with white defense and 0 surge, 50 pt Rebels 5 black with white defense and defense surge, 62 point Rebels 8 more points to have 6 white (same as B1) and have 4 black (1 more than B1) while still having defense surge. Rebels gain the point freedom to add, to match a B1s 54 point cost, a Targeting Scope (4 with rebalance) allowing any Aim tokens they would gain to make their ability to make up for a lack of offensive surge rather easy. So a 54 point equal Corps makes the Rebels easily a bigger offensive threat with their more reliable dice and ability to reroll with Precise 1 from Scopes. The point will be made about the total dice being rolled and max damage for the attacks, which a white hitting with a 25% chance and black hitting on a 50% the reliability is a huge factor.

The final point i will bring up that causes a lot of the activation difference is leader options and cost. Every Faction except the CIS currently has a Commander option that starts base lower than 100 points: Leia 90 , Rex 90 , and Veers 80. While CIS Leaders are strong and I love Grievous to death, I also want to bring the full weight or the CIS numbers advantage to bare. With all CIS Leaders being 175+ points they take up a huge portion of your army for just 1 activation, and with Heavy hitter replacements coming out soon for CIS, i.e. the AAT, that issue grows more and more.

I know this was a long post everyone, but I love this game and love hearing the thoughts of my fellow players to see how their experiences have differed from mine so please feed back and opinions are welcome and encouraged.

I disagree with most of what you said. CIS are meant to be the cheap faction but that doesn't have to translate to more activations, they get more bodies on the field by comparison to other factions. Not to mention the ability to get much better control of those activations then other factions.

34 minutes ago, Parker Pauley said:

Now the issue stems from the more or less need for a heavy weapon for the squad to do anything meaningful

I agree with this sentiment with the civil war factions, without a heavy weapon they just can't push damage past cover. I don't think it holds for clone wars factions though. In the case of CIS they have 6 models in a regular squad. That is like crit fishing with a z6 every shot without the need to invest any upgrades.

36 minutes ago, Parker Pauley said:

Phase I Clone Troopers Cost 52 base

36 minutes ago, Parker Pauley said:

My point is that Rebels can easily be the same offensive threat to my army as a Clone squad for a drastic difference in points and with relatively similar defensive suitability.

Rebel troopers are not a good comparison to Phase 1 clones. Phase 1s are so far beyond a rebel trooper squad in ability that doing a comparison and sayings "see the clones cost more so should the rebels" is folly. Firstly for rebels to match clones on defense they need a dodge which costs an action. Clones get the good defense and two actions. They can also share tokens. They can also firesupport. These are all some of the best abilities in the game.

37 minutes ago, Parker Pauley said:

With all CIS Leaders being 175+ points they take up a huge portion of your army for just 1 activation, and with Heavy hitter replacements coming out soon for CIS, i.e. the AAT, that issue grows more and more.

Firstly, that is deliberate design, bad corps units with really strong key units. Secondly not all CIS units have been released yet. Activation count has been shown to be an extremely powerful aspect to list building. There are strike teams on the way which will allow for many very cheap activations.

No, Rebels are not too cheap.

One could argue that Rebel troopers are too expensive,

One could argue that some of their upgrades especially are too expensive (and all of their Heavy choices)

One could argue that the Tauntauns are too cheap for their action economy, but that's it.

The one single ability that gives droids the upper hand over rebel troopers is simply the fact that they are droid troopers. I cannot tell you the number of times I have wanted soooo badly to suppress an enemy droid unit and yet, they always get both actions. It's an incredible power and i think they're spot on in cost.

One thing I wholeheartedly agree with you on though is how CIS has no cheap commanders. Granted, they're just getting started and have just 2 commanders but GAR has a cheap commander so FFG really should have prioritized that more. IMO that is the reason CIS can't get high activation armies so far along with the fact that they don't have strike teams yet. Basically all 12 activation armies I've seen have 3 sniper teams so when CIS get's some of those and a cheap commander, they'll be pretty well set.

Droid Trooper and Coordinate. They can pretty well control who and when activations happen

Yeah, except of Tauntauns (that are way too op) the cost of rebels is fine, I think.

Rebel troopers are arguably the least attractive Corp unit in the game, most current competitive lists run the minimum 3 troopers naked for objective capturing only. Offensively they don't even take a heavy, and as for defense .. Well , you don't want them getting shot at.

On 5/21/2020 at 1:09 AM, syrath said:

Rebel troopers are arguably the least attractive Corp unit in the game, most current competitive lists run the minimum 3 troopers naked for objective capturing only. Offensively they don't even take a heavy, and as for defense .. Well , you don't want them getting shot at.

I've enjoyed using the dlt20 rifle. I just don't enjoy the 40pt tax i have to pay to play them

The short-range hand cannon is dun in skirmish but then you wonder why you bought fleet troopers

2 hours ago, buckero0 said:

I've enjoyed using the dlt20 rifle. I just don't enjoy the 40pt tax i have to pay to play them

The short-range hand cannon is dun in skirmish but then you wonder why you bought fleet troopers

I have to agree on all of that but given a choice of naked rebel troopers with 4 black no surge with little to no chance of landing a wound is a worse choice than a back capper that can aim/standby and roll 8 white w/surge to hit. Neither is great but at least the latter stands a chance of landing wounds when it does shoot.

13 minutes ago, syrath said:

I have to agree on all of that but given a choice of naked rebel troopers with 4 black no surge with little to no chance of landing a wound is a worse choice than a back capper that can aim/standby and roll 8 white w/surge to hit. Neither is great but at least the latter stands a chance of landing wounds when it does shoot.

Against red defense, the Rebel Troopers will average 1 damage. That's far from "little to no chance." The Fleet Troopers only average .5 damage more.

2 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

Against red defense, the Rebel Troopers will average 1 damage. That's far from "little to no chance." The Fleet Troopers only average .5 damage more.

I like the stats but i don't count on them. The odds of getting either unit to shoot without getting 'popped' first and taking heavy casualties is poor. One of the reasons i like the dlt20 is you can move or shoot range4 or dodge without getting shot often or by a large amount of dice and have a similar damage output at range 4 that you have at range 3 with a wounded unit or naked unit. The critical Definately favors troopers.

11 hours ago, buckero0 said:

I like the stats but i don't count on them. The odds of getting either unit to shoot without getting 'popped' first and taking heavy casualties is poor. One of the reasons i like the dlt20 is you can move or shoot range4 or dodge without getting shot often or by a large amount of dice and have a similar damage output at range 4 that you have at range 3 with a wounded unit or naked unit. The critical Definately favors troopers.

Yeah that's my original point, but if I'm taking a naked trooper unit for back capping fleets make more sense since at least you might push through some wounds when you do shoot, rebel troopers would pretty much be doing it for suppression, points not being an issue id take 3 rebel troopers with DLT over any other choice for Corp

On 5/22/2020 at 9:53 PM, arnoldrew said:

Against red defense, the Rebel Troopers will average 1 damage. That's far from "little to no chance." The Fleet Troopers only average .5 damage more.

I'd assume might cover at a minimum either from suppression of figures out of line of sight or in actual cover , (this is not unreasonable IMO)

.If I'm shooting with my naked rebel troopers in the first place in already in a Hail Mary situation and is rather have a 25% chance of landing 3-5 hits than an 75% chance of landing 1 and a 25% chance of landing 2 (I know the math isn't worked out here, but I hope I get my point across, hitting red Armor with 4 black is like using peashooters , if you do any damage at all its going to be minimal w/o sharpshooter or pierce)

Unless your opponent is going gung ho at you, you will be lucky to get two hits through to save, and if I'm relying on luck I'd rather have that luck potentially landing more dmg. Note that the odds for crit fishing on 8 white are better than 4 black, meaning more of the hits landed actually bypass dodge/cover/guardian

Ultimately the fleets roll more crits , and have the odd chance of rolling a higher ceiling, whereas at best the rebels are at best getting 2 hits through and even then that's assuming no dodge and/or cover) and in the situations in back capping shooting with those units means you are in desperate situations where chipping 1 hit off means little

With the number of Infiltrate units hitting the game now and the near future as well as scouting units, naked troops umits are going to have a harder time staying out of LOS.

Rebels have tons of infiltrate and scouting units and will have move3 jump units by the end of the year.

Imperials will have Iden, Vader and most likely ISF soonish.

Republic will have an entire army that can scout (90%) with 3 units of Arcs and Rex, recon troops

CIS will have the least but will get scout 3 commandos and Cad Bane

I don't know if it will be worth it to attack a naked Rebel squad, but several of these units have the ability to remove a unit off the board pretty easily eliminating activation superiority

I am going to have to agree that you are undervaluing droid and coordinated order rules rebel troopers do not have. Nimble is nice, but it is not 2-3 extra bodies to soak wounds nice. Offensively they have a little more going on, but I would argue that 7 white dice for 42 points is better than 4 black for 40. I am basing this on 8 white dice for 44 (fleet troopers) and 4 rebel troops, it is friday so no actual math, but it is at least comparable. My (admittedly limited) experience with droids is that they do not need special weapons to be viable. The extra bodies make up a lot. YMMV.