So yesterday we played a game, and it was my first time fielding Iden. Unfortunately, we were doing the Downed AT-ST Act 1 scenario, which doesn't allow Infiltrate, so I lost that benefit of her and Inferno Squad.

Inferno Squad worked well, I kept them up in a high vantage point to snipe at troops moving towards the objective, but I was at a loss for how to play Iden. The list also had Commander Vader, so I was using a combination of Vader's and Iden's cards.

So broad strokes, what does Iden do best, what shouldn't I do with her, what are good strategies/uses for her little droid buddy?

The problem with Iden is that her ranged attack is not very good. Even the repeater is kindve bad. The repeater is only good when its fired at range 1 and the droid is adding its weapon to the attack pool. The only other time the repeater is worth using is the turn she gets sharpshooter 2 from her command card.

What I like to do is spend the first two turns shooting with her then try get her into melee. With tenacity she can do 3 red and 3 white in melee while also getting an aim and dodge token. Just keep her away from Jedi.

I also wouldnt bother with ISF. Deathtroopers are better. ISF just arnt a very good unit primarily because FFG thinks marksman is way better than it actually is.

51 minutes ago, oreet said:

So yesterday we played a game, and it was my first time fielding Iden. Unfortunately, we were doing the Downed AT-ST Act 1 scenario, which doesn't allow Infiltrate, so I lost that benefit of her and Inferno Squad.

Inferno Squad worked well, I kept them up in a high vantage point to snipe at troops moving towards the objective, but I was at a loss for how to play Iden. The list also had Commander Vader, so I was using a combination of Vader's and Iden's cards.

So broad strokes, what does Iden do best, what shouldn't I do with her, what are good strategies/uses for her little droid buddy?

Iden can be played effectively 3 ways:

1) Using her covert ops you infiltrate her in to a flanking position to draw out your opponent, distract and harass, and be enough of a nuisance that they can’t just ignore her. You can also support her with inferno squad/imp special forces in this manner.

2) infiltrate her on an objective early for points and to put your opponent on the back foot, rinse and repeat with inferno squad for an early advantage.

3) Use her as a commander and do the imperial gun line march across the map. This method works better with death troopers over inferno squad, but it is still effective with inferno.

With her load out you get to figure out suits that current game better and utilize her accordingly.

16 hours ago, Khobai said:

The problem with Iden is that her ranged attack is not very good. Even the repeater is kindve bad.

On what are you basing this? if you compare it to other imperial commanders, with the repeater she is pretty good. Sure the repeater doesn't have Pierce, but compensates with more/better dice, and has range 3, which many commanders don't have.

To be sure I compared the average damage on the Dice calculator of an attack of all Empire commanders against, for example, a red defense without surge unit on heavy cover (so Sharpshooter can be taken into account) and this are the results:

Range 2:
Vader (Saber throw): 0,62
Palpatine: 1,98
Krennic: 0,73

Range 3:
Veers,: 0,75
Iden: 0,89

Now the same but if the defending units were out of cover:
Range 2:
Vader (Saber throw): 2,25
Palpatine: 3,39
Krennic: 1,62

Range 3:
Veers: 1,03
Iden: 1,56

So Iden has better average damage in ranged attacks than any other imperial commander except Palpatine and Krennic only on an attack without cover, but she has more range than them.

I made a post about this in another thread but I'll toss in my 2 cents:

Iden is a very focused unit, meaning you have to decided when you're building your list how you're going to use her. I run two builds that I call the Hammer and the Scalpel

Hammer

Running Iden with her heavy repeater and a good batch of troopers can lead to a very hard hitting front line fighter. I've used this one the most and if things go according to plan, I can break the enemy line by turn 3 or 4 and the rest of the game is just a mop up. This does have the risk that an opponent can just gun down Iden and focus her until she's suppressed or dead, which is just a risk of the strategy. I only had her survive until the end in one game, but I have yet to see one where she didn't have a major impact. I've traditionally run this with a squad of DTs but I plan to use ISF going forward just for the extra points. (and I've personally found Marksman to be rather useful for at least generating suppression if not guaranteed hits, but I mostly play against Rebels so red saves are a rarity for me)

Scalpel

The other strat I've run with Iden is to use her as a precision instrument. Typically, I'd get her into a nice sniping spot while other units take up the front lines. If you can get her elevated or just into a position with good visibility, she can plink away at distant units to generate suppression or pick off models before they can get to the front. I'd call this one the conservative approach because it keeps Iden out of harms way, but limits her ability as a commander, so taking a second commander can play this well. Take her as an OP and you can place her in a good spot from the beginning and potentially get some ISF support depending on the field. (I'm really into the ISF if that was not apparent!)

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In terms of ID-10, I would 100% take it if you're going Hammer, but I'd leave it of you're going Scalpel. It sounds like you had a decent list but got a bum scenario for it, which sucks. Inferno Squad as a unit seems like it would work well with Hammer but not as well with Scalpel, but I haven't gotten to play them just yet, so I'll try and report back once I got the chance.

@evo454 I completely forgot about your great posts on Imperial commanders

17 minutes ago, evo454 said:

It sounds like you had a decent list but got a bum scenario for it, which sucks. Inferno Squad as a unit seems like it would work well with Hammer but not as well with Scalpel, but I haven't gotten to play them just yet, so I'll try and report back once I got the chance.

So this was my list:
https://tabletopadmiral.com/legion/empire/p3auEMuEMuEMua8ua7uEMl3auEMuEMuEMuEMuEMp03u0du2du6fp07uEMuEMuEMuEMp07uEMuEMuEMuEMp27u72uEMuEMu3auEMp4eub6uEMuEMu29uEMuEMp4fuaauabuEMuEMu29uEMuEMp13uEMu2ac4ac3bc52c53c04c25c08
Iden, Vader, 2 Snows, 1 Shore, Spec Forces, Inferno, and E-Web

and my opponent's list:
https://tabletopadmiral.com/legion/rebel/p0bu11u1auEMp21u81u4fuEMu47p06u10u0cuEMuEMp06u7cu0cuEMuEMp06u7cu0cuEMuEMp47uafu36u02uEMub0uEMp48ub1ub2u36u02uEMub0uEMp18uEMu36u26uEMuEMc0dc30c12c2fc13c29c08
Leia, Sabine, 3 Rebel Troopers, Mando Resistance, Clan Wren, Wookiees

We always try to match number of activations, and we always allow for +5 additional points over the 800 points.

In the end, I did kill Leia, Sabine, and Clan Wren, so they are locked out of Act 2 of the wrecked AT-ST scenario next time we play, but I lost Vader, so I can't bring him. Thinking maybe something build around Veers and either Iden or Bossk (I'm a huge fan of Bossk on the table).

I was really happy with how the special forces and Infernos did, just wasn't sure how to best utilize Iden. Feel like I'm wasting an action each turn to keep the droid's shield up, so I only recharged it once. The scenario has you set up on the farthest edges of the table, so I think my Inferno Squad's sniper was the only shot fired on the first turn, and that was only because his Mandos rushed the AT-ST, getting them in range of my 1-5 sniper rifle.

1 hour ago, oreet said:

Thinking maybe something build around Veers and either Iden or Bossk (I'm a huge fan of Bossk on the table).

Bossk is honestly my pick for best Empire OP to take. He isn't that expensive in the grand scheme, his weapon is inherently suppressive, and he can absolutely shred in melee.

He is a bit of a glass cannon in my opinion, though, so you have to be careful not to overextend with him (I've done that a few times after getting cocky). Veers is a solid commander to take if you plan to also take some speeders or other vehicles. If you aren't he still isn't bad, but I might take the generic commander and spend the points elsewhere but that's just me. I've got bad luck with Veers! (and I do mean luck, every time I've run him my opponent just seems to roll better, its weird!)

Snows+Shores is starting to become more popular, especially if you put Hask or Meeko with them to pop in and out of cover and take pot shots. Also, considering you took out Leia and Sabine and traded Vader, I'd still call that a win in the end, and taking out Clan Wren on top of that is great!

5 minutes ago, evo454 said:

Also, considering you took out Leia and Sabine and traded Vader, I'd still call that a win in the end, and taking out Clan Wren on top of that is great!

At one point, Leia had 8 or 9 suppression tokens on her, and Sabine had 7 or 8 at one point, thanks to things like Vader's Fear, Iden's Droid's Incapacitate command card, and Vader's Master of Evil command card. He had a lot of bad rolls in his rally step.

20 hours ago, Lemmiwinks86 said:

On what are you basing this? if you compare it to other imperial commanders, with the repeater she is pretty good.

Im basing it on the fact her repeater doesnt ignore heavy cover for free and doesnt have pierce.

Her repeater is not that good except in two specific circumstances. 1) range 1 so you get to add the droids dice and suppressive to the attack pool, and 2) the turn she uses her command card that gives her sharpshooter 2. If you can keep Iden at range 1 or in melee against non-jedi thats where she usually works the best.

In fact a lot of players that use Iden competitively dont even bother taking her repeater at all. Because her repeater usually just bounces off heavy cover anyway. Instead they run a cheaper Iden that they can throw into melee where she can do 3 red and 3 white dice with tenacity and cover wont affect her in melee.

you should always take ID-10 with her because its amazing for 15 points. her repeater is entirely optional though.

13 hours ago, evo454 said:

Bossk is honestly my pick for best Empire OP to take. He isn't that expensive in the grand scheme, his weapon is inherently suppressive, and he can absolutely shred in melee.

He is a bit of a glass cannon in my opinion, though, so you have to be careful not to overextend with him (I've done that a few times after getting cocky). Veers is a solid commander to take if you plan to also take some speeders or other vehicles. If you aren't he still isn't bad, but I might take the generic commander and spend the points elsewhere but that's just me. I've got bad luck with Veers! (and I do mean luck, every time I've run him my opponent just seems to roll better, its weird!)

Ive never really been a fan of Bossk for much the same reason im not a fan of Iden. They both have trouble doing damage to units in heavy cover.

I prefer Boba Fett for the sharpshooter 2 and the fact all his attacks ignore cover.

Bossk's suppression tends not to be a problem for the opponent unless you build your entire list around suppression. And that kindve of list, while fun, just isnt strong enough. There should be more keywords that trigger off of suppression in order to make suppression more synergistic and useful.

7 hours ago, Khobai said:

If you can keep Iden at range 1 or in melee against non-jedi thats where she usually works the best.

So, exactly how I said to run her with my Hammer build.

Additionally, two red dice makes it so that you're practically getting a guaranteed hit every attack with Marksman if you take an aim or use Offensive Push. Of nothing else, its a kill against white dice most of the time and at least one suppression, and considering suppression is one of the better strategies for Empire, I wouldn't scoff at it.

Iden isn't worth it in my opinion just taking the sniper. Yes, it's nice to have a sniper that won't die after a couple of shots, but 115pts, I want them to do more. (this is also way less fun, sitting in the back giving courage, but I don't like playing with or against gunlines either)

The repeater is way more fun. But you will want some way of getting Aim tokens. With Marksman, she should be spitting 2-3 crits every shot at range 3 from the beginning of the game. The droid and her command cards make her very dangerous to engage at close range.

Critical and Marksman help with getting through cover.

I've found the repater to be pretty decent, 5 dice with surge-hit is pretty good firepower.

marksman costs an aim token though. it kindve sucks IMO. im not a fan.

i personally think marksman shouldve been free and not cost an aim token.

ISF would be a lot better then too.

5 dice even with marksman and critical 1 is pretty lousy if you have to deal with heavy cover. But her sharpshooter 2 command card can make it bearable for a turn.

And if you can get her into range 1 on the following turn the extra 3 white dice makes her shooting way better. Then you have to decide if youre better off charging her into melee where she ignores cover entirely.

Whenever Ive played Iden it seems like she only uses her repeater twice per game then you get her into melee. I can see why some people dont even bother taking the repeater and save 15 points.