6 minutes ago, Khobai said:

Phase 1s cost less now

Where is the new point change? How much are they now? In the new RR points updates the only GAR units I see are ARC, ARC strike team, BARC, Phase 2, Obi-Wan, & R2D2.

13 minutes ago, codytx2 said:

Where is the new point change? How much are they now? In the new RR points updates the only GAR units I see are ARC, ARC strike team, BARC, Phase 2, Obi-Wan, & R2D2.

The cost of the Z6 and extra troopers went down.

Z6 is 2 less points
Extra troopers are 3 less points.

Since the whole basis of my GAR lists is abusing fire support I wouldnt take clonetroopers without Z6s. So my lists benefit from the cost reduction of the Z6.

My 10 activation GAR list is based on 3 concepts:

1) having as many activations as possible to minimize the activation disadvantage of using fire support (10 activations)

2) using an inexpensive commander that can give as many faceup tokens to trooper units as possible (Rex)

3) abusing the **** out of fire support by deleting unactivated enemy units off the board before they can activate. which means taking multiples of units that can form the biggest attack pools possible (Clonetrooper mk1s with Z6s and AT-RTs)

Hence why im running Rex, x6 Clonetroopers w/ Z6s, and x3 AT-RTs. If the Z6s hadnt gone down in cost that list probably wouldnt be possible and id likely be bumped down to 9 activations.

9 minutes ago, Khobai said:

The cost of the Z6 and extra troopers went down.

Z6 is 2 less points
Extra troopers are 3 less points.

Since the whole basis of my GAR lists is abusing fire support I wouldnt take clonetroopers without Z6s. So my lists benefit from the cost reduction of the Z6.

Small yet notable distinction between an upgraded unit went down overall the way I build it in a particular list vs a unit went down when it clearly did not.

9 minutes ago, codytx2 said:

Small yet notable distinction between an upgraded unit went down overall the way I build it in a particular list vs a unit went down when it clearly did not.

The points difference is still enough to make the difference between having 10 activations and 9 activations.

The discounted Z6s give me 10-12 extra points I wouldnt otherwise have. Without that discount I would be over 800 points and it wouldnt be a legal list.

I could run naked units of clonetroopers but that goes against the core strategy of the list which is to maximize fire support. Plus naked units arnt as good as they used to be now that heavy weapons and extra troopers are discounted. Its more efficient to take as close to full strength units as possible than naked units now.

5 minutes ago, Khobai said:

The points difference is enough to make difference between having 10 activations and 9 activations.

The discounted Z6s give me 10-12 extra points I wouldnt otherwise have. Without that discount I would be over 800 points and it wouldnt be a legal list.

I could run naked units of clonetroopers but that goes against the core strategy of the list which is to maximize fire support.

I think the point was that the base trooper squad price didn't change even though the effective cost per squad, with your chosen upgrades, went down.

Hooray, everyone is right!

24 minutes ago, KiAdiMoody said:

I think the point was that the base trooper squad price didn't change even though the effective cost per squad, with your chosen upgrades, went down.

Hooray, everyone is right!

I suppose thats true.

but the point I was trying to get across is that naked units arnt as worthwhile anymore because heavy weapons and extra troopers are cheaper.

The rules update has made it more efficient to use units that are closer to full strength over spamming naked units and strike teams.

That has not only changed how I build GAR lists but its also changed how I build my Imperial lists. I might have considered running naked units to up my activation counts in the past but now I dont think naked units are worth it for that purpose anymore. Same with strike teams theyre not worth it anymore, why take a scout trooper strike team for 48 points when I can take a full scout trooper unit with a sniper for 76 points and get 3 extra scouts for only 28 points more? The full scout team is only 15.2 points per model instead of 24 points per model for the scout strike team. Strike teams suck now.

Additionally standby token sharing was removed. So taking naked units to produce standby tokens isnt necessary anymore.

As a result the focus of my GAR lists has shifted away from abusive token generation/token sharing to abusive use of fire support. Ive traded abusing one mechanic for abusing another lol. Ive been on both the attacking and receiving end of fire support and its absolutely one of the most miserable NPEs in the game.

On 12/1/2020 at 11:39 AM, buckero0 said:

Everyone will complain even more when the Scum and Mercenary faction is released. "Grogu single handed destroyed my army by launching marbles at them ! !"

Marble launching is broken!

They will only complain if its overpowered.

You dont see people complaining about Imperials? Why? Because they arnt overpowered.

The moral of the story is if you dont want people to complain dont make overpowered factions.

1 hour ago, Khobai said:

They will only complain if its overpowered.

You dont see people complaining about Imperials? Why? Because they arnt overpowered.

The moral of the story is if you dont want people to complain dont make overpowered factions.

they used to be until people like you started complaining on the forums, now look at them. That is at least part of the reason why i am against any Nerfs and instead suggest buffs to the others.

Just now, 5particus said:

they used to be until people like you started complaining on the forums, now look at them. That is at least part of the reason why i am against any Nerfs and instead suggest buffs to the others.

people were complaining about GAR long before I joined the forums. nice try though.

Just now, Khobai said:

people were complaining about GAR long before I joined the forums. nice try though.

i didnt say you, i said people like you, learn to read dummy.

GAR wasnt balanced. People "like me" were in their absolute right to complain about GAR. GAR was always a poorly designed faction with abusive game mechanics that shouldve been detected in playtesting. They got rid of standby token sharing thankfully but fire support is still incredibly abusive.

And everyone wanted buffs instead of nerfs. Even I was advocating buffs for the weaker factions instead of nerfing GAR completely into the ground.

But look where we are... Imperials didnt get buffed in any appreciable way. And GAR still crushes Imperials.

Imperial players are quitting the game or flat out refusing to play GAR. Or theyre dumping their Imperials and switching to GAR. Not just in my meta but other people have said the same exact thing about their metas.

Imperial players have every right to be irate with the rules update. It did nothing to make suppression better or fix fire support so it doesnt circumvent panic/suppression. And none of the Imperial units got buffed in a way that actually matters (except boba fett).

Imperials were the worst faction yet somehow got the least buffs... even CIS got more meaningful buffs than Imperials, especially by getting access to field commander. They couldnt even throw Imperials a bone and give poor Weiss field commander (not that it really wouldve mattered because the AT-ST is still meh).

If that isnt a good enough reason to complain I dont know what is.

I dont think Imperials are beyond saving but I do think their suppression mechanics need a major boost. Fire support shouldnt circumvent panic/suppression. And Imperials need more keywords that interact with suppression tokens. But I doubt either of those things will happen so Imperials are probably just a dead faction for another year at least.

2 hours ago, Khobai said:

GAR wasnt balanced. People "like me" were in their absolute right to complain about GAR. GAR was always a poorly designed faction with abusive game mechanics that shouldve been detected in playtesting. They got rid of standby token sharing thankfully but fire support is still incredibly abusive.

And everyone wanted buffs instead of nerfs. Even I was advocating buffs for the weaker factions instead of nerfing GAR completely into the ground.

But look where we are... Imperials didnt get buffed in any appreciable way. And GAR still crushes Imperials.

Imperial players are quitting the game or flat out refusing to play GAR. Or theyre dumping their Imperials and switching to GAR. Not just in my meta but other people have said the same exact thing about their metas.

Imperial players have every right to be irate with the rules update. It did nothing to make suppression better or fix fire support so it doesnt circumvent panic/suppression. And none of the Imperial units got buffed in a way that actually matters (except boba fett).

Imperials were the worst faction yet somehow got the least buffs... even CIS got more meaningful buffs than Imperials, especially by getting access to field commander. They couldnt even throw Imperials a bone and give poor Weiss field commander (not that it really wouldve mattered because the AT-ST is still meh).

If that isnt a good enough reason to complain I dont know what is.

I dont think Imperials are beyond saving but I do think their suppression mechanics need a major boost. Fire support shouldnt circumvent panic/suppression. And Imperials need more keywords that interact with suppression tokens. But I doubt either of those things will happen so Imperials are probably just a dead faction for another year at least.

If one faction is weak, why do you advocate for Nerfs to another faction, that isnt even the top faction anymore? that title belongs to the CIS.

The RRG has been out for less than 2 weeks and you have already dismissed it as useless, jumping the gun much?

1 hour ago, 5particus said:

The RRG has been out for less than 2 weeks and you have already dismissed it as useless, jumping the gun much?

In terms of the immediate Imperial updates, I have to side with Khobai. They did imperials dirty.

They changed Boba to be cheaper, which is a good thing, a full unit of scouts is cheap now too, also good, but the rest of the changes are either super niche or not actually helpful. Nothing happened to the Imperial meta. It's still 3x snipers + Shores and Mors + X.


With that said, I'm hopeful that the reason the changes to the imperials were so lackluster is that future expansions will be buffing the faction heavily. I could see a case for believing Kallus + X expansion could turn the imps around.


Time will tell there.

11 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

In terms of the immediate Imperial updates, I have to side with Khobai. They did imperials dirty.

They changed Boba to be cheaper, which is a good thing, a full unit of scouts is cheap now too, also good, but the rest of the changes are either super niche or not actually helpful. Nothing happened to the Imperial meta. It's still 3x snipers + Shores and Mors + X.


With that said, I'm hopeful that the reason the changes to the imperials were so lackluster is that future expansions will be buffing the faction heavily. I could see a case for believing Kallus + X expansion could turn the imps around.


Time will tell there.

Don't discount the changes to the Dewbacks. They are 15 points cheaper base. I know a lot of people don't like them, but I have had tremendous luck with them and in the couple of games I played recently, them coupled with the cheaper full scout teams did decent under Iden and Veers.

That being said, it would have been nice if they had been a tad more generous to the Imps and maybe done some add changes. Particularly when you take into account the points reductions to the Phase-1s on the GAR side?!

8 minutes ago, Bigbboyd said:

Don't discount the changes to the Dewbacks.

They were already discounted



HA!

You're right, of course, but that's one of the changes I filed under niche. Cheaper dewbacks may lead to them actually being used, which is great, I wouldn't say they're competitively relevant as of this moment.

I think my favorite "niche" change was the transport rules. Getting a couple of Gav tanks and some snow flamers sounds incredibly fun.

Dewbacks got 20 points cheaper and still feel 20 points overcosted.

Its the **** spur rule. Its bad. We have to load up our units with suppression just to make them go the same speed as everything else? why is that even a thing?

It doesnt even get cover from the suppression either. Theres no benefit to it at all. Spur is all downside and no upside.

Were speed 2 dewbacks really that overpowered? double moving speed 3 tauntauns with 7 actions a turn are fine. but OMG speed 2 dewbacks we cant have that. I like how FFG felt the need it reign it in on the dewbacks but not tauntauns.

3 hours ago, 5particus said:

If one faction is weak, why do you advocate for Nerfs to another faction, that isnt even the top faction anymore? that title belongs to the CIS.

The RRG has been out for less than 2 weeks and you have already dismissed it as useless, jumping the gun much?

Because fire support directly shuts down Imperials only real advantage which is suppression.

Droids do as well but at least theres other downsides to droids (like they dont get cover from suppression either). Fire support has no real downside especially if its being used to avoid panicking/suppression.

Although I do think suppression on the whole has become way too weak of a game mechanic. And imperials suffer the most from that. Again there needs to be less ways to circumvent/avoid suppression and there needs to be more keywords that interact with suppression.

Its also become abundantly clear they arnt buffing Imperials. Because they didnt buff Imperials. FFG obviously responds better to cries to nerf factions than cries to buff them. Its funny because its true.

I have a way better chance of getting GAR nerfed again than I do of ever getting a good version of Vader.

I think Dewbacks might be viable (not stellar) in Skirmish, where you can likely double-Spur into melee in Round 1 and don't really need to take the weapon upgrade anyway. But for the main game? I'll only bring it for fun, not in competitive play.

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

They were already discounted



HA!

You're right, of course, but that's one of the changes I filed under niche. Cheaper dewbacks may lead to them actually being used, which is great, I wouldn't say they're competitively relevant as of this moment.

I think my favorite "niche" change was the transport rules. Getting a couple of Gav tanks and some snow flamers sounds incredibly fun.

I actually bought a Gav just to do some test with the new rules. I think it will be interesting.

@Khobai putting endurance on the dewback for 6 points helps mitigate 1 spur a turn. Would it been nice to get extra move range on dewback, yes, but they did give it some love and they are better then previously.

Unfortunately, Dewbacks don't have armor, just the armor 1. They are very similar to the Flamer AT-RT, but to be different, they gave them a white die instead of black on their flamer, made them more expensive and didn't give them the armor. I think the designers felt that having Relentless (Move, Move and Flame) would be too powerful without some serious drawbacks (Like spur, movement 1, no armor, courage value 2, etc)

I think if you address one of those drawbacks, or give them point cost of 75 with the flamer, you'd see 3 of them in an Imperial Rush list that most armies would have a tough time dealing with.

I don't have 3 of them, but I would wager, that 3 Dewbacks with Flamers may be stronger than some people think, (it just hasn't been tried) You just have to have 1-2 survive and then the enemy starts losing too many units to deal with them.

I might have to try this. There are several ways to deal with suppression in the Imperial list, Flamerbacks can survive if you can roll 50% on your red dice defense and get decent cover before you spur. There are also several deployments now that put them in Turn 1 flaming.

Yeah I dont want to pay 6 extra points for endurance because the Dewback has spur which it shouldnt even have in the first place.

Quote

I think the designers felt that having Relentless (Move, Move and Flame) would be too powerful without some serious drawbacks (Like spur, movement 1, no armor, courage value 2, etc)

they didnt have to give it relentless though.

it couldve been speed 2 with charge or enrage instead of relentless.

theres so many different (and better) directions they couldve gone with the dewback.

instead they tried to make it into a bad dinosaur version of darth vader... why? darth vader is bad enough. why would I want a bad dinosaur version of him too? it makes no sense.

36 minutes ago, Bigbboyd said:

I actually bought a Gav just to do some test with the new rules. I think it will be interesting.

The Occupier Tank is better than the AT-ST now. And open transport is a lot of fun. But its still hard to justify 150 points for the Occupier Tank in competitive lists. It cuts into your activation count way too much.

I'm not sure if I should try a more melee type commander (Kallus may actually fit the bill here)

Aggressive Tactics to pass out surge tokens

but

3x Snowtroopers (2 Flamers or 1 with Gideon and then a mix of either Officers for inspire or Medical droids)

3x Flamer Dewbacks

2x Imperial Guard units with Stun Rods and Tenacity (Guardian your dewbacks, heal IG or Dewies with Med droids and charge!)

You could Also squeeze Bossk in here for another lizard of death

Lightsabers will hurt, so Bobafett to tie things up or maybe Vader to hit the Jedi.

There are a couple of options here and even with fire support, you're not chewing through that much meat.

1 hour ago, buckero0 said:

I'm not sure if I should try a more melee type commander (Kallus may actually fit the bill here)

Aggressive Tactics to pass out surge tokens

but

3x Snowtroopers (2 Flamers or 1 with Gideon and then a mix of either Officers for inspire or Medical droids)

3x Flamer Dewbacks

2x Imperial Guard units with Stun Rods and Tenacity (Guardian your dewbacks, heal IG or Dewies with Med droids and charge!)

You could Also squeeze Bossk in here for another lizard of death

Lightsabers will hurt, so Bobafett to tie things up or maybe Vader to hit the Jedi.

There are a couple of options here and even with fire support, you're not chewing through that much meat.

This is effectively a narrowly defined anti meta list that I think a Gun support clone squad will chew through and then you run into lists that has armor or a more balanced Imp list and you don't have a great response. There is an issue with flamers we don't always talk about, they don't actually hit that hard for their opportunity cost. Take a Dewback flamer for instance, against a 5 man squad it show hit for around 4.99 net hits for 2.5 average wounds against non surging red saves. That is a problem for the opportunity cost of rolling up in their face, which gunlines love medium speed units trying to charge them. The unit charging has to manage suppression, distance and cover usually losing activations. The gunline gets to aim and fire at units rolling up on them. So the problem is when you try to manage an army of flamers you can only usually slip a couple in and the rest get exposed rolling up.

The reason I don't think the Fire Support gunline is OP, is it really wants a heavy cover battlefield to work and I have not been impressed how it does against TaunTauns and armor, so there are a lot of good counters now that you can't standby token share.

They may be better charging into combat if they can

If you think you can get there reliably, cut the flamers and just use their claws. It'll save you 45pts

The problem with the groupthink (not just you) is there is too much assumption. You assume that everyone plays in some isolated high-efficiency meta arena.

I'm more likely to play the list above and perfect it than i ever am in buying another set of shoretroopers.

Not everyone plays the same way. Not everyone plays the same lists

Not everyone has fun the same way

On 12/3/2020 at 1:21 AM, Darth Sanguis said:

See above in the post for our terrain. Plenty of LoS blockers and heavy cover.

I can't be definitive, but it seems to me part of the problem is LoS blockers can be circumvented by setting up firing lanes or scouting to angle around them. The last time this happen GG was blocked from the deploy, but scout 3 and 2 respectively on 2 units made enough of him visible to land the shot.

That terrain is really nice, but honestly still a little too open.

While map 1 has some really great big pieces, a lot of the board is still very open, and the terrain is placed in a way that allows big diagonal firing lanes. Which makes it hard to hide.

Map 2 has more medium terrain, but there's windows and holes in all of the buildings, so there's very few places to hide.

Both tables need more medium sized terrain in the middle-ish sections of the boards to allow units to move up.

3 hours ago, buckero0 said:

They may be better charging into combat if they can

If you think you can get there reliably, cut the flamers and just use their claws. It'll save you 45pts

The problem with the groupthink (not just you) is there is too much assumption. You assume that everyone plays in some isolated high-efficiency meta arena.

I'm more likely to play the list above and perfect it than i ever am in buying another set of shoretroopers.

Not everyone plays the same way. Not everyone plays the same lists

Not everyone has fun the same way

If youre inclined to use dewbacks for some reason I definitely think youre better off keeping dewbacks as cheap as possible and just charging them into melee.

The ranged weapons being overcosted is a big part of the problem with dewbacks. So just not taking a ranged weapon sounds like a plan to me.

I still would not use dewbacks though. I have zero desire to spend money on them. Im not even playing Imperials that much anymore because the rules update was very upsetting to me as an Imperial player.

3 hours ago, Uetur said:

The reason I don't think the Fire Support gunline is OP, is it really wants a heavy cover battlefield to work and I have not been impressed how it does against TaunTauns and armor, so there are a lot of good counters now that you can't standby token share.

Fire support does fine against armor if you fire support an AT-RT with a laser cannon. You add impact 3 to the fire support attack pool. Sometimes I take 1 laser cannon AT-RT if I think there will be units with armor and it also saves 10 points. which is nice because my triple AT-RT list is tight on points and having 10 extra points for other upgrades can be clutch.

Also, while its hard to pull off, fire supporting an AT-ST with a flamer has to be the most satistfying thing ive experienced playing GAR.

Thats one of the advantages of taking triple AT-RTs I can pick the weapons I think will be most useful in the matchup and fire support them accordingly.

As for tauntauns... you probably shouldnt be using fire support against tauntauns. for the exact reason you said, fire support wants a heavy cover battlefield, and if tauntauns arnt in cover (and they usually arnt) then you probably shouldnt be using fire support on them.

fire support works best in specific situations where youre shooting units in cover, youre able to delete a unit entirely, youre using it to add specific keywords (like impact or sharpshooter) or surge to hit to a larger attack pool, or youre using it to circumvent panic/suppression mechanics.

fire support is very OP when its used in the right situation. And the ability for fire support to circumvent panic is huge and shouldnt be underestimated. fire support gives clones the ability to punish mistakes on a biblical level. no other faction can do that which is why fire support is so brutal because one fatal mistake can mean GG for the opponent. ive seen people concede on turn 1 or turn 2 because of a ridiculous fire support attack. Its definitely a NPE and not a fun element of the game and should be addressed somehow.