In the vein of a macro mechanic for Rebels, something I have been thinking about is an ability that would make units tougher as they lost models. An obvious issue here is that it wouldn't make characters better, but those aren't exactly the problem with Rebels. The Mark II would also be excluded, and that thing definitely needs some sort of buff, but that's another issue.

Anyway, maybe something that lets the Rebel player roll 1 additional defense die per model lost from the unit. So a naked Rebel Trooper unit down to the unit leader would get to roll 3 additional dice while defending. This has the added benefit of giving Rebel players an incentive to take personnel upgrades in their Corps units, as a maxed out unit down to the unit leader would roll 5 additional defense dice. However, this might be too good, as it would make Rebel trooper units very difficult to kill without large attack pools. Maybe if the bonus dice were reduced 1:1 by Suppression so they could be worn down with multiple attacks? This would also prevent the ability from stacking with Danger Sense. I would also have this not apply to Mandalorian Resistance/Clan Wren or Creature Troopers, and maybe not Wookies either (and give them some other sort of buff) just for flavor.

It doesnt have to be per model. It could just be X.

Something like: "When this unit defends, if its at half its maximum number of wounds or lower it rolls X additional defense dice."

That would slow down the unit dying the rest of the way once half the models are dead.

Ok, elephant in the room. I think people are sleeping on the Airspeeder. It’s really good. I wouldn’t complain if it got tweaked more in the next point/errata update, but when played well, it does it’s job.

I understand why it is looked over from a troubled past to the fact that it is a vehicle, but it has upside.

On 9/17/2020 at 9:49 AM, Xclbr1 said:

Hot dang guys, if you think Jyns command cards are terrible you REALLY are sleeping on her. Her 3-pip is one of the best in the game, allowing up to 3 units to just ignore suppression for a round is a tremendous benefit, especially if your opponent was betting on them panicking. It can hard counter some command cards (Krennic's 3-pip, Vader's 3-pip (if anyone used Vader...)) and can help units get where they need to be even under heavy suppression.

Rebellious got a bit of a buff with Danger Sense being usable in melee, but you have to carefully pick when and where to use it. I've used Jyn to knock down an injured Grievous before, but even if she can't kill the target, she can tie them up from doing more important things, namely interacting with an objective. Not to mention her baton has Suppressive, meaning you get two attacks and therefore two suppression on the target before they even activate. If they fail the rally step, for most units that's often one action down.

Trust Goes Both Ways was probably the worst of the 3 for a while (and for some lists it probably is still not great), but with Cassian and K2 being out there you have the potential to make a 3 character chain of Teamwork where Jyn can produce 6 tokens in one action for them all. That's action economy right there. Even if you don't want to go all in on the Rogue One crew though, Teamwork with Quick Thinking can be a decent combo, especially if Jyn isn't ready to quite in a position to do much else than give out tokens (Or my favorite, sit on that Moisture Vaporator and hit it while generating 4 tokens!)

That said, games can go a lot of ways, and the way Jyn is designed is pretty close to her character. Specifically her speech right before the rebels hit the beaches on Scariff. She's a lot of fun to play, and feels great when you take the chances and they work out, but sometimes the dice are cruel. All part of playing rebels though, in my opinion. Embrace the chaos.

Her 3 Pip solves a problem the rebels don't really have. By the time your units have a ton of suppression on them they are often just dead overall. That is why it is actually the worst in the game.

18 hours ago, Uetur said:

Her 3 Pip solves a problem the rebels don't really have. By the time your units have a ton of suppression on them they are often just dead overall. That is why it is actually the worst in the game.

As an Empire player who loves to play run a Krennic Suppression build, I can vouch and say that it has saved my opponent a time or two. It's pretty situational, but it does effectively counter Krennic's 3 pip Annihilation Looms play, which I like to use as a nuclear option to force panic in the enemy ranks in the late game. The commands won't always see really good use, but when it does work it can cripple a suppression oriented build for a turn, which is all someone may need to turn the tide.

One time, that card ( Annihilation Looms ) would have decided the match and my opponent timed his command perfectly to keep his units in place just long enough to hold one more VP than me at the end (zone control scenario).

Top units being slept on right now:

1. STAPs - As the best speeder in the game, and benefiting from frequently perfect order control and easy LTA procs, i think these are definitely being slept on by the wider community, although i think many strong players respect them.
2. General Veers - He's still pretty great, and i think his synergy with Iden is fantastic, as is imperial discipline giving out piles of refreshes
3. Operative Luke - He had a brief time in the sun with the 12 act list, but with ATRTs about to go the way of the dodo with all the releases coming out lately, hes about to go from pretty underplayed to criminally underplayed.
4. Chewbacca - Chewie is a victim of "Rebels only have two operative slots, and one belongs to R2". i think chewie is pretty good, but you never see him
5. B2 Super battle droids - good unit, rarely seen. The T series will turn this unit into a gem.

5 hours ago, Darth Challenger said:

STAPs - As the best speeder in the game, and benefiting from frequently perfect order control and easy LTA procs, i think these are definitely being slept on by the wider community, although i think many strong players respect them.

I don't think STAPs are really being slept on. Most of the top CIS lists from Invader League had multiple STAPs. I think people just haven't gotten to play with them much due to COVID and the fact that they only came out less than two weeks ago (officially, anyway; a lot of people got them early).

6 hours ago, Darth Challenger said:

Top units being slept on right now:

1. STAPs - As the best speeder in the game, and benefiting from frequently perfect order control and easy LTA procs, i think these are definitely being slept on by the wider community, although i think many strong players respect them.
2. General Veers - He's still pretty great, and i think his synergy with Iden is fantastic, as is imperial discipline giving out piles of refreshes
3. Operative Luke - He had a brief time in the sun with the 12 act list, but with ATRTs about to go the way of the dodo with all the releases coming out lately, hes about to go from pretty underplayed to criminally underplayed.
4. Chewbacca - Chewie is a victim of "Rebels only have two operative slots, and one belongs to R2". i think chewie is pretty good, but you never see him
5. B2 Super battle droids - good unit, rarely seen. The T series will turn this unit into a gem.

You know, I've never thought about the potential of Veers+Iden. Marksman can be brutal and if you kept Veers close to use Spotter he can just feed her free hits. I'll have to give this a try, thanks for bringing it up!

6 minutes ago, evo454 said:

You know, I've never thought about the potential of Veers+Iden. Marksman can be brutal and if you kept Veers close to use Spotter he can just feed her free hits. I'll have to give this a try, thanks for bringing it up!

Also, since Veers' 2-Pip is terrible, it makes it easy to take both Iden's and ID10's 2-Pips.

31 minutes ago, Lochlan said:

Also, since Veers' 2-Pip is terrible, it makes it easy to take both Iden's and ID10's 2-Pips.

This is also true. I generally haven't had good luck with Veers (and I do mean luck, for some reason I just roll really badly when he's on the field, I can't explain it) but I've had amazing luck with Iden, so maybe those two will balance out!

7 hours ago, Darth Challenger said:

Top units being slept on right now:

1. B2 Super battle droids - good unit, rarely seen. The T series will turn this unit into a gem.

I want to start droids and run the crap out of these but everyone is sold out of them 😠

The Tseries kindve sucks with super battle droids

because if you choke/los snipe the 1 wound tseries then it resurrects and replaces one of the 2 wound super battle droids. you take an extra wound.

gideon hask and snowtroopers are also dumb. because every time a 2 wound gideon hask dies he replaces a 1 wound snowtrooper. and you gain an extra wound.

they really need to fix the leader rules so theyre not as nonsensical and broken.

When you kill a special unit leader they should just die and the basic unit leader should take over instead.

And I have similar predictions to Crabbok about changing Leader rule - see what happend with next RRG update.

I do find it funny what people list as being slept on, and how local meta dependent it is. Pretty much everything I've seen listed is used pretty regularly locally. Veers/Iden and OP Luke are in every list for their respective factions here. STAPs and B2s don't show up much, but that's a matter of local stores not getting much of a supply of either, and even Chewie makes an appearance from time to time. At least one of our local players has been experimenting with Snows with the upgrades from ISF, and Rebel Z-6s never died here like in the big competitive meta. Another local player has a love affair with Speeder Bikes, and only recently stopped playing them after having them nuked off the table for the 95th time.

Finally, for the big two of the Fifth Trooper list, I guess locally we're ahead of the curve. One local player started buying into multiple FD 1.4 shortly after they got the buff last year, and he ran 2-3 pretty regularly until Cassian came out. They're good, but with good deployment and tables, relatively easy to mitigate. For E-Webs, they're my jam. I've used them both casually and competitive since I started playing Legion, and every Imperial list I've ever made has had at least one, usually two or three. I think I had 2-3 in the list I won an RPQ with. Only reason I'm not using them now is I switched to GAR, and I keep hoping they'll annouce a E-Web/EWHB-12 unit for the GAR soon.

21 hours ago, evo454 said:

You know, I've never thought about the potential of Veers+Iden. Marksman can be brutal and if you kept Veers close to use Spotter he can just feed her free hits. I'll have to give this a try, thanks for bringing it up!

I can tell you that it's a great combination. Veers is my go to imperial commander so he's the first one I tried with Iden when she came out. If you're hurting for points a generic officer with elictrobinoculars is also a good choice.

On 9/23/2020 at 5:59 AM, Darth Challenger said:

Top units being slept on right now:

1. STAPs - As the best speeder in the game, and benefiting from frequently perfect order control and easy LTA procs, i think these are definitely being slept on by the wider community, although i think many strong players respect them.
2. General Veers - He's still pretty great, and i think his synergy with Iden is fantastic, as is imperial discipline giving out piles of refreshes
3. Operative Luke - He had a brief time in the sun with the 12 act list, but with ATRTs about to go the way of the dodo with all the releases coming out lately, hes about to go from pretty underplayed to criminally underplayed.
4. Chewbacca - Chewie is a victim of "Rebels only have two operative slots, and one belongs to R2". i think chewie is pretty good, but you never see him
5. B2 Super battle droids - good unit, rarely seen. The T series will turn this unit into a gem.

You can't put Linked Targeting Array on speeders as they aren't ground vehicles

9 minutes ago, SoonerTed said:

You can't put Linked Targeting Array on speeders as they aren't ground vehicles

Which is not a requirement for LTA, it says "emplacement trooper or vehicle only".

7 minutes ago, costi said:

Which is not a requirement for LTA, it says "emplacement trooper or vehicle only".

It's clear I have mixed this one up. Sorry.

On 9/23/2020 at 5:59 AM, Darth Challenger said:

Top units being slept on right now:

1. STAPs - As the best speeder in the game, and benefiting from frequently perfect order control and easy LTA procs, i think these are definitely being slept on by the wider community, although i think many strong players respect them. I think they have to be released, assembled and for some, painted, before they can be played (too soon to be sleeping on)
2. General Veers - He's still pretty great, and i think his synergy with Iden is fantastic, as is imperial discipline giving out piles of refreshes He's in nearly every imperial list I've seen, ever, so probably not slept on around here.
3. Operative Luke - He had a brief time in the sun with the 12 act list, but with ATRTs about to go the way of the dodo with all the releases coming out lately, hes about to go from pretty underplayed to criminally underplayed. The strongest
4. Chewbacca - Chewie is a victim of "Rebels only have two operative slots, and one belongs to R2". i think chewie is pretty good, but you never see him He is also a victim of having command cards to works specifically with 3 characters. 1(han) was never that competitive, 1(leia) has been passed up for new and shiney and 1(luke) doesn't really need support.
5. B2 Super battle droids - good unit, rarely seen. The T series will turn this unit into a gem. How does the T series droid make these better? More expensive, they lose the AI attack, but activation control has always been what the separatists excel at. The loss of the wound is a problem for me.

Just my thoughts.

I love playing Chewie, always have. He's even better with the point drop. I don't get to play Imperials very often at all, but think that Veers is one of the best point for point characters in the game. I have not played separatists as much though.

2 hours ago, buckero0 said:

B2 Super battle droids - good unit, rarely seen. The T series will turn this unit into a gem. How does the T series droid make these better? More expensive, they lose the AI attack, but activation control has always been what the separatists excel at. The loss of the wound is a problem for me.

the T-Series is only 2 more points over a regular trooper upgrade so cost is almost negligible. in return you get reliable, which will more than likely make up for the 1 less wound in the unit, possibly account for 2-3 more wounds potentially over the course of a game.

Dropping AI Attack means they get freedom to aim + Fire, move + Fire at a preferred target, move + Move or move + Claim for objectives etc.

removal or AI also give flexibility to have another unit like BX droids at the end of an order chain instead of the B2s.

Lastly having that range 3 gun is pretty solid if you are running the HA Heavy as well.

Frankly the T-Series feels like an auto-include in the B2 Squad if you were already going to take the extra mini anyway.

T-Series on B2s is certainly enticing but I'm not quite sold on it yet. It's gonna be something I want to play around with once the pack drops

5 minutes ago, thepopemobile100 said:

T-Series on B2s is certainly enticing but I'm not quite sold on it yet. It's gonna be something I want to play around with once the pack drops

Don't forget that it rolls a red die, now a unit with ACM rolls 4r, 3b, 3w, thats decent

30 minutes ago, Darth evil said:

Don't forget that it rolls a red die, now a unit with ACM rolls 4r, 3b, 3w, thats decent

Oh I'm well aware that it's strong. However I currently doubt my ability to get more than one of the packs, if that, with how sparse stock has been and I'd rather use it as a commander with Grievous or Maul

Why didn't they just make the unit like that to begin with if its so much better for 2 points. Sometimes i get the feeling they just make rules to make more rules. I lnow they're trying to sell models. I'm leery of this method though. I bought 2 packs of the Rebel and Imperial and frankly haven't used any of them except the officer once or twice and thaat was more to justify my purchase and painting of them.

I dont like losing the extra wound for the T-series. And you potentially lose more than 1 wound if the T-series gets sniped or choked. A Vader with implacable can potentially even choke a T-series twice in the same turn. B2s are already fragile as is so losing extra wounds kindve sucks.

A red die is also worse than a black die and a white die. Since the black die and white die can potentially get 2 hits. While a red die can only ever get 1 hit. So you are losing upper damage potential.

AI: Attack is also not that big of an issue on the B2s because a lot of the time you either have an HQ uplink on your B1s to coordinate onto the B2s or the enemy isnt in range 2 so they get to ignore the AI: Attack anyway.

I would feel a lot better about the T-series if they fixed the leader rules to not be as wonky. If a special leader dies they should stay dead not keep getting resurrected. And the new leader should be a basic trooper from the same unit.