27 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

The strike team versions of those units are Clan Wren and Inferno Squad, respectively.

Are they? For some reason I thought that was implied to just be an upgrade for the unit, not a two model unit.

13 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Are they? For some reason I thought that was implied to just be an upgrade for the unit, not a two model unit.

If it's not what I said then they were either lying or unintentionally confusing us. The preview article also says you can make 2 full units out of one box. I've never heard anywhere that it's upgrades.

3 hours ago, Lochlan said:

Yes, but the ARCs are much more likely to need the aim for rerolls instead of activating Lethal, and they can be suppressed. They can, however, share tokens, which gives them much easier access to aims. Critical will give them, on average, 1 more critical hit per game than BXs.

BXs are cheaper, their sniper is inherently more accurate, as is their range 3 weapon. And they can take Offensive Push for the times when they need Pierce but can't get an Order.

All this to say, I think they are extremely equal.

If they take OP, they're not cheaper anymore. And it works only once per game.

Clone token sharing is something I forgot, but it makes the ARC strike team even better, as their token supply is huge and multiple aims are easy to obtain, something the BX team will never have.

Also, if an ARC team doesn't use their aim, it can be used by another unit.

2 hours ago, costi said:

If they take OP, they're not cheaper anymore. And it works only once per game.

Clone token sharing is something I forgot, but it makes the ARC strike team even better, as their token supply is huge and multiple aims are easy to obtain, something the BX team will never have.

Also, if an ARC team doesn't use their aim, it can be used by another unit.

Yeah, it’s interesting that the ARCs enable the token sharing mechanic of the Clone army, but BX droids are stopping points for Coordinate. In fact, if they had coordinate, I think the slim point difference between the two factions would be more understandable. But instead they have the biggest weakness of the faction (AI) without the biggest strengths (order control and cheap cost). I guess cheap B1s are where the point savings for CIS begins and ends.

2 hours ago, smickletz said:

Yeah, it’s interesting that the ARCs enable the token sharing mechanic of the Clone army, but BX droids are stopping points for Coordinate. In fact, if they had coordinate, I think the slim point difference between the two factions would be more understandable. But instead they have the biggest weakness of the faction (AI) without the biggest strengths (order control and cheap cost). I guess cheap B1s are where the point savings for CIS begins and ends.

STAPs were probably intended to do the same thing, but their pricing must have been set before FFG realized regular speeder bikes were overpriced. 60-65 point STAP riders would give the CIS a bit more flexibility.

7 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

If it's not what I said then they were either lying or unintentionally confusing us. The preview article also says you can make 2 full units out of one box. I've never heard anywhere that it's upgrades.

Fair, but "two full units" also doesn't say one is a strike team and the other isn't. The unit size could just be 3 models for instance. Until we see the full cards, we can't really say anything beyond "there will be two units."

EDIT: Notably, the verbiage is VERY different than when Scout Troopers, Rebel Commandos, BX Commando Droids, or ARC Troopers, which all specify there is a large squad, and a small squad. I'm thinking the squads for Imperial Special Forces and Mandalorian Resistance are of a smaller size, so presumably 3 models. I suppose it is possible that "Clan Wren" and "Inferno Squad" could actually be "strike teams" of just the named characters, but that's still a bit different from how Fives and Echo can be run, since they have to be put in a strike team with a nameless model.
Heck, Inferno/Clan Wren could require you to put ALL of the relevant models in the unit, requiring the Iden/Sabine models from their seperate boxes.

I'm still kinda baffled at sabs being 2 pts cheaper than snipers and not just in CIS, across the board. Snipers are clearly MUCH better than Sabs so that point gap between them needs to be larger one way or another.

Just now, RStan said:

I'm still kinda baffled at sabs being 2 pts cheaper than snipers and not just in CIS, across the board. Snipers are clearly MUCH better than Sabs so that point gap between them needs to be larger one way or another.

I think part of it is that Sabs have the potential for hitting multiple units from a single action. Sabs can be effective, but they aren't nearly as straightforward, and are more dependant on mission and terrain than snipers.

9 minutes ago, RStan said:

I'm still kinda baffled at sabs being 2 pts cheaper than snipers and not just in CIS, across the board. Snipers are clearly MUCH better than Sabs so that point gap between them needs to be larger one way or another.

Saboteurs have had some very strong showings. While they're not as easy to play as snipers, I imagine FFG has seen the tournament performance of some triple saboteur builds, and feels they're about where they should be.

The area denial mechanic can also be extremely frustrating for new players, so I suspect FFG doesn't want sabotuers to be super prevalent.

37 minutes ago, Squark said:

The area denial mechanic can also be extremely frustrating for new players, so I suspect FFG doesn't want sabotuers to be super prevalent.

Studies show new players enjoy being shot from range 5.

😉

I don't think I'll take the poison bomb just because, as others have said, the sniper being only 2 points more and considerably more efficient just makes more sense.

For that matter, I don't love sniper teams. Cheap activations sound cool, but are anti-synergy with the faction design. We desperately need more activations, but we'll continue to wait for a cheap commander to embrace the concept fully.

A squad with Vibroswords and a sniper for 104 points seems pretty good. Maybe Offensive Push or Tenaticy to give them a little more efficiency. Basically a budget Grievous in squad form.

Just wait for the Training card that allows you to use a dodge token for offensive damage. You know it's coming. AI won't seem like as much of an issue then.