Can we talk about Iden?

By Memorare, in Star Wars: Legion

I play Star Wars legion with my mate every week, and we basically have since the game came out. (Covid aside) So, to say the least, we like the game.

But neither of us can fathom Iden's under costing.

She's hyper efficient on actions, has an amazing gun with the repeater, an absurdly high courage value, great command cards, and the final strawberry on the ice cream of O P...her wounds with a red save. She basically has 8 wounds (with her droid) and a red save.

I love Legion, but what were the designers thinking?!

Had to entice imperial players because any true imperial would never allow a Traitor!!! into their force hehe.

I agree that Iden in a vacuum is very good.

But whenever I put her into a list I see that she really doesn't synergize very well. You lose benefits of Aggressive tactics in at least 2 turns and Shores don't get orders with her cards, missing out on aim tokens. And she has to be closer to the enemy than the rest of the army (unless you use her as a very expensive extra sniper) making her vulnerable to closer range fire or Tauntauns (she's not good in melee either).

Equipped with 130+ points I think she is fine. Much more and I'd have a hard time fitting her in.

Like it was already said, Iden is amazing as an operator, but only the 3 pip card is really good in an army. The 1 pip, and both 2 pips only give orders to herself. And even if you want to bring other cards, you're stuck with cards that don't give orders to troopers anyway.

Right now, the best Imperial unit are the Shoretroopers. They are cheap, the mortars are really cheap, great at both range and suppression. But on top of that, shores coordinate to mortars, and mortars can fire support. Not only that, but shores get an aim for getting an order. So, getting an order is the priority if you are playing shores. Iden goes against that. To make better use of Shores, you'll end up having to pay for Comms Tech and HQ Uplink, on top of a Giddeon Hask.

Krennic is better, as not only he gives DTs an order, but all his cards except 1 let you give orders to 2 or more shores with all the bell and whistles.

I willagree Iden on yhe surface looks phenomenal, but as an operative not a commander. Unless you are running SF heavy, you are still going to need Krennic or Veers to get order tokens out to troops effectively.

LOL

So far, all the replies are "She's not good until the Special Forces are released, then she'll be good"

She's fine. She's probably 10pts too cheap in casual play, and we had a pretty good thread about it and Cassian when they were first revealed. I think the Marksman rule is pretty good compared to other types of adjustments, but that's just me, it even works in melee.

3 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

So far, all the replies are "She's not good until the Special Forces are released, then she'll be good"

No one mentioned Special Forces other than yourself. I'd suggest you re-read all the replies.

Everyone is saying, she is too expensive and not that good as a commander, she shines as a operative.

45 minutes ago, CyberClaw said:

No one mentioned Special Forces other than yourself. I'd suggest you re-read all the replies.

Everyone is saying, she is too expensive and not that good as a commander, she shines as a operative.

Just teasing guys. relax. There were 4 replies that were almost identical to each other. And She is a wrecking ball, especially with a good source of Aim tokens.

She's fine and good and works well in lists that aren't completely META as well. Not everyone plays Krennic, DT, and Shoretroopers. There are other Imperial units in their army thankfully.

She did pretty well against me this last Friday over TTS. Of course, she was running with 3 Death Troopers and they honestly stole the frigging show (as any non-hero unit with red DEF that surge. Clan Wren will avenge me!).

11 hours ago, SailorMeni said:

I agree that Iden in a vacuum is very good.

But whenever I put her into a list I see that she really doesn't synergize very well. You lose benefits of Aggressive tactics in at least 2 turns and Shores don't get orders with her cards, missing out on aim tokens. And she has to be closer to the enemy than the rest of the army (unless you use her as a very expensive extra sniper) making her vulnerable to closer range fire or Tauntauns (she's not good in melee either).

Equipped with 130+ points I think she is fine. Much more and I'd have a hard time fitting her in.

...... She doesn't synergize well in the group think meta. She synergizes just fine with other options.

When we first saw Iden's stats, I said she would do best in a two Commander army. From what I've seen so far, that seems to be the case.

I'd agree she needs another commander to provide the army synergy she lacks, veers is my favorite to back her up. I think of her as roughly equivalent to a unit of death troopers and she's around 12 points more (depending on upgrades of course). My initial impression is that she's overcosted by about 5 points; but definitely need more games with her before starting a firm opinion about any points adjustments.

On 6/22/2020 at 5:10 AM, Bigbboyd said:

I willagree Iden on yhe surface looks phenomenal, but as an operative not a commander. Unless you are running SF heavy, you are still going to need Krennic or Veers to get order tokens out to troops effectively.

Even as an operative, I think I still like Bossk more. I’m not saying she’s bad, but I’ve played her in my Krennic list in Bossk’s place, and I think I prefer the bounty hunter.

Edited by NeverTellMeTheOdds
49 minutes ago, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

Even as an operative, I think I still like Bossk more. I’m not saying she’s bad, but playing her on my Krennic list in Bossk’s place, and I think I prefer the bounty hubter.

Seeing as I just picked Bossk up at same time, haven't had option to use him in my list either. I think her strength comes in her load out ability to be flexible and a couple of her cards that have synergies with SF will be fun.

I’m happy to try Iden out because I don’t have krennic, DTs, or shores. At all.

Iden krennic..... Power couple.

Iden is good in and out of the vacuum, just go play against her.

Why people pretend she isn't amazing is kind of odd. Compared to every other character she skills/wounds/courage is amazing. Her pip3 activates her and 3 units for God sake lol

Oh well.

7 minutes ago, Memorare said:

Iden is good in and out of the vacuum, just go play against her.

Why people pretend she isn't amazing is kind of odd. Compared to every other character she skills/wounds/courage is amazing. Her pip3 activates her and 3 units for God sake lol

Oh well.

Nute Gunray knows

33 minutes ago, Memorare said:

Iden is good in and out of the vacuum, just go play against her.

Why people pretend she isn't amazing is kind of odd. Compared to every other character she skills/wounds/courage is amazing. Her pip3 activates her and 3 units for God sake lol

Oh well.

I personally prefer analyzing a unit and trying to find counters over calling OP the first time I have to play against it.

I mainly play against her and did that already with every other faction and found a way of dealing with her in every game. Given the choice with my Rebels what to play against I'd prefer Iden over Bossk every day. Less Long Range, less suppression, fewer aim/surge tokens, more points (so less for other stuff) and actually something close enough to engage with luke or tauntauns. I don't disagree that she is good, I do disagree she is OP, that's all. And congratulations, you found the one synergy with the army, she can order (not activate!) multiple units with a good game effect. Like literally every other commander.

I know it's an unpopular argument, but Empire is close to dropping out of invader league in top 32 games. Iden is in all but one of the lists. So either the rest of the army sucks or she isn't OP.

Have you played against it yet? On the table that is (tts is meh) I'm now 3-4 games in so my post is not just a knee jerk reaction. Watch any game online with her and watch her wreck up. Besides the analysis you can see, even at a glance, is keywords + wounds + cards = incorrect point cost.

When we see real world tournies return, you'll see her in every empire list. That's a bet.

#IStandWithNuteGunray.

1 hour ago, Memorare said:

Have you played against it yet? On the table that is (tts is meh) I'm now 3-4 games in so my post is not just a knee jerk reaction. Watch any game online with her and watch her wreck up. Besides the analysis you can see, even at a glance, is keywords + wounds + cards = incorrect point cost.

When we see real world tournies return, you'll see her in every empire list. That's a bet.

#IStandWithNuteGunray.

I've played 3-4 games against her as well, also on a real table. Only one I lost and that because I played a rather weak Droid Army with little experience with it. But even in that game, Iden was not the problem. Funny thing, I have a local gamer who is quite decent at Legion who I had to explain why Iden is even worth taking 😄 .

I also watched several online games where she is used and I don't remember a single one where the empire actually won. But I honestly don't understand your argument. First you say TTS is meh and then you ask me to watch online games. Makes no sense ...

And I'll take that bet! What's at stake? I'll even raise the the odds. I bet you, that less then 1/4 of winning real live tournament lists will have Iden. That should be a safe bet for you since you believe Iden is OP, making Empire OP so they should dominate the ranks 😉 .

So far I have faced her once and she was great, not sure if too good for the cost though.

However she makes bossk and boba look a bit meh, however the designers need you to buy new expansions so we gonna see more efficient units with less cost more and more as we go on, just like we did in X-wing.

The bet is 50% of my internet points. Plus an evening with Nute Gunray. Deal?

Just because one can deal with her (just like you can deal with any ONE activation in the game, that's kind of a main theme in the game) that doesn't mean that there isn't some point shrinkage going on.

The TTS tournament is a nice bunch of stats, but with the limited data, and the way/timing of the tourney means it is not the be-all, end-of-the-debate that everyone is touting it to be. It's one tourney, played by some people, most of whom think alike and play alike while caught in the middle of a world-wide pandemic. It's one source of data, not all the data.

2 hours ago, Memorare said:

The bet is 50% of my internet points. Plus an evening with Nute Gunray. Deal?

Deal! 🤑