I'm pretty disappointed with Kallus. He brings nothing new to the Empire: Infiltrating unit with chip damage on range 3 (Iden), Charge units (Royal Guard, Dewbacks, Vader), Cunning (Krennic). Only Contingencies might be interesting. But at least his 1-pip is not overwhelming and I don't see good synergies with other units yet. And i really don't like units with expansive but basically necessary upgrades. Without his 25pts weapon Kallus is basically useless. With it, he is at 115 points, this is not a bargain. I wouldn't take him in competitive games as he is now. We'll need to wait for his other command cards and of course the flaw card ...

Lando is better in that perspective. Since Rebels play Hero-heavy already, his contingency will do a lot. His spoiled Card has a lot of cool interactions already and I would like to see contingency effects on his other cards as well (though they lack the bar in the text on the preview image, so probably not). His guaranteed 1-2 wounds on range 3 are nice though Cassian has that as well for the same price and an option for infinite range, 2 sniper teams also cost about the same. So as it stands now, I see Lando as quite interesting but not very strong. We'll need to wait for his other command cards and of course the flaw card ...

Disappointing. Kallus seems like a worse version of Iden Versio that dies faster.

Contingencies is useless for Imperials. Because Imperial commanders have so many bad command cards you dont even want to use half of them in the first place let alone set them aside for contingencies lol. And at 115 points pairing Kallus up with another Imperial commander is too expensive to be practical even if you had a good selection of command cards to choose from.

And a flaw card really? I get why its necessary on anakin because hes good. But Kallus doesnt seem good enough to warrant a flaw card.

His revealed command card is complete trash. It turns him into a really bad jedi for one turn and then he probably just dies on the following turn. Imperials already have a really bad jedi thats really bad every turn I dont need Kallus to do that for one turn lol. Unless Kallus' other two command cards are completely amazing I cant see my opinion on him changing any. If his other command cards are really good or give him permanent abilities like anakin it could completely change my outlook on him though. So its still too early to pass final judgment.

Kallus paired with another character.

You need to go first with that character (let's call him A).

You play A's 1 pip.

If the opponents also plays 1 pip, you activate contingency for kallus' 1 pip, so you still go first. Then you play seize the initiative on A, so you can go first with him.

Just for this trick kallus worths his points

It will be interesting to see what contingency really do and how well it will work.

I start to feel that we have a real bloat in the commander slot for empire/rebels. So many options at 100 ish points and it's gonna be hard to get a good internal balance.

23 minutes ago, jocke01 said:

It will be interesting to see what contingency really do and how well it will work.

I start to feel that we have a real bloat in the commander slot for empire/rebels. So many options at 100 ish points and it's gonna be hard to get a good internal balance.

We already know exactly what it does, and it will work pretty well. It's a fantastic ability.

I don't know why everyone is complaining about Kallus. Both he and Lando are not supposed to be Force user level of power. You take them for their keywords. Especially for the Contingencies keyword. Kallus actually has pretty good keywords for a cheapo commander without the Bo-rifle. SShooter 1, Pierce 1, Tactical 1 with 3 dice isn't bad.

Just like you take Krennic for his Cunning and Entourage : Deathtroopers, not for his Sharpshooter Pierce 1 pistol (which isn't bad, but that's not why you're taking Krennic)

The other reason you take a certain character is because of their command cards. Several units act or perform defensively or offensively as well as certain characters, but there are not command cards built for specific units (yet, I know there are some cards that help Corps, heavies, or Operatives/SForces etc)

Mandalorian Resistance is a pretty defensive unit at times and decent offensively, but you have to take a commander, and there are no Mandalorian specific command cards, much less 3 of them for me to play.

6 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

or if the opponent plays the 3pip, you can change out your card for the 2pip and give orders on both, and still get to go first.

You have to pick a card from your contingencies with the same pip value.

Nice as standby is, I think I'd keep Ace as a contingency card. It's basically an improved version of Seize the Initiative since he can give a free order to himself or another unit on any turn and it can be outside of the Issue Orders phase. And you'd prefer not to discard from your hand.

Contingency does have it's counters. Obviously if you lose Lando or Kallus, your contingency cards go away. But if you lose your character(s) on the cards in your command hand, you can't play them to trigger your contingency either.

What's next? a figure that removes a card from your hand? (Grand Inquisitor)

That would be a nice ability for Clone Wars era Emperor

1 hour ago, arnoldrew said:

We already know exactly what it does, and it will work pretty well. It's a fantastic ability.

Yeah and really good with cunning. However until we see what the flaw card does we don't know. The flaw cards might interact with their contingency ability.

4 hours ago, toffolone said:

Kallus paired with another character.

You need to go first with that character (let's call him A).

You play A's 1 pip.

If the opponents also plays 1 pip, you activate contingency for kallus' 1 pip, so you still go first. Then you play seize the initiative on A, so you can go first with him.

Just for this trick kallus worths his points

Why wouldnt you just pick Kallus' 1 pip as one of your command cards to begin with? That makes way more sense.

All youre doing is wasting A's 1 pip. Youre throwing out a perfectly good 1 pip card for no good reason.

Unless one of his command cards is unusable for some reason, you should probably always be using all three of Kallus' command cards to maximize cunning without having to discard command cards to use contingencies.

Contingencies isnt really all that useful for Imperials anyway. Imperials dont like to run 3+ characters. The only real use I can see for it in a 2 character list is always being able to take coordinated fire if you ever need it instead of another 3-pip. Or maybe you can swap around some Vader cards but then you have to ask yourself why are you using Vader? Hes so bad.

I dont think contingencies/cunning or anything Kallus does is worth the cost of both Kallus and another character. Thats over 200 points. Maybe even 250+ points depending on the second character. Imperials are so far behind the other factions they cant afford to spend points on frivolous characters like Kallus. Every unit they bring has to be best in slot in order for them to even have a chance of winning. Thats the problem with being the worst faction, you have the least choices, because you always have to bring the best of everything you have.

3 hours ago, buckero0 said:

I don't know why everyone is complaining about Kallus.

In a nutshell its because he forces imperials to play in a way thats suboptimal.

Imperial characters tend not to be as good as characters in other factions. So imperials typically dont like playing character heavy lists.

Kallus essentially forces you to take at least 2 or possibly even 3 characters to make full use of contingencies. Which is really not a good idea for Imperials because their characters arnt that good. Even Imperial units arnt that good unless they get proper support from a character like Veers or Iden. And Kallus doesnt really support Imperial units in the ways they need. Hes the exact opposite of what Imperials need.

Thats why Lando is better than Kallus because Lando doesnt force Rebels to play in an inherently different and suboptimal way. Rebels like using multiple characters already and Lando complements that playstyle perfectly. Although one could argue Lando isnt that great either. But Lando certainly works better for Rebels than Kallus does for Imperials.

And the fact Kallus even has a flaw card seems ridiculous to me. Its totally unwarranted. Unless for some reason his other two command cards are absolutely amazing. They could be. We dont know. But I doubt it lol.

If they released new command cards for each existing commander that could also change my opinion of Kallus. The value of contingencies would probably go up considerably then.

Now that I have gotten a chance to play with them in list builders Kallus fits in 10-11 activation lists and the same with Lando. It really depends on those command cards IMO. I can see Kallus easily fitting in an Iden list for instance and being at 11 activations, but is that better than 11 fully upgraded squads without Kallus or 12 activations. I can't tell yet. Lando is competing with Cassian, Jyn, K2SO, Leia, Han (just joking no one competes with Han), Sabine, Chewie etc as that secondary commander/operative because you don't just take Lando due to contingency.

the only list I can possibly see Kallus working in is something like Kallus+Bossk+Boba Fett. Iden+Bossk+Boba Fett has sometimes worked for Imperials in the past if they can pull off the bounties. Youre essentially just replacing Iden with Kallus and Kallus is arguably better at range 3 shooting than Iden. Idens really only in there to help soften up bounty targets at range which Kallus can also do.

Kallus+Iden seems pretty meh to me. You dont really gain anything at all by including Kallus. It just detracts from points you could otherwise spend on death troopers/scout troopers. And if youre going to take a second commander with Iden I think Veers is a way better choice. Iden likes to go trooper heavy and Veers synergizes with that. Im not a fan of Krennic, but Iden and Krennic is also probably better than Kallus if youre going heavier on the special forces for Iden's 3-pip.

28 minutes ago, Khobai said:

the only list I can possibly see Kallus working in is something like Kallus+Bossk+Boba Fett. Iden+Bossk+Boba Fett has sometimes worked for Imperials in the past if they can pull off the bounties. Youre essentially just replacing Iden with Kallus and Kallus is arguably better at range 3 shooting than Iden. Idens really only in there to help soften up bounty targets at range which Kallus can also do.

Kallus+Iden seems pretty meh to me. You dont really gain anything at all by including Kallus. It just detracts from points you could otherwise spend on death troopers/scout troopers. And if youre going to take a second commander with Iden I think Veers is a way better choice. Iden likes to go trooper heavy and Veers synergizes with that. Im not a fan of Krennic, but Iden and Krennic is also probably better than Kallus if youre going heavier on the special forces for Iden's 3-pip.

Maybe but I think Kallus Iden has the command card set up you want to use. You use Kallus's 3, Idens 4 and either coordinated fire or covert observation. I am guessing you now have the ability to deal with more situations doing this. If we compare this to Veers you are picking up extra activations in aim tokens but he has pretty weak command cards.

Both seem good, but not for everyone. In the right hands and lists they will give opponents fits. In the wrong hands and lists, you may as well have reb/imp Officer.

4 hours ago, Uetur said:

Maybe but I think Kallus Iden has the command card set up you want to use. You use Kallus's 3, Idens 4 and either coordinated fire or covert observation. I am guessing you now have the ability to deal with more situations doing this. If we compare this to Veers you are picking up extra activations in aim tokens but he has pretty weak command cards.

You dont take Veers for his command cards though. You take Veers for his aim tokens. And because hes cheap.

You can still take all four of Iden's cards and coordinated strike with Iden/Veers because Veers' command cards are weak anyway. You only need to take his 1-pip.

Unless Kallus' other two command cards are extremely good I cant see any reason to use him over Veers. Aim tokens are way too important to imperial units and for Iden to use marksman. I just dont see any real synergy between Kallus and Iden at the moment. That could change when we see his other two command cards.

Kallus just isnt looking very good at the moment. Its sad but its true lol.

I am looking forward to using Han and Lando together.

I can see it now, I play a 3 Pip card and should my opponent play a good card...CHANGE OF PLANS

Reveal Command card phase:

*Opponent* "Hello Ther-

*Me* CHANGE OF PLANS!

*Opponent* Wait, what?

*Me* Change...of...plans

*Opponent* Oh not good.

Hello There, Son of Skywalker, Trained in Jedi Arts, and others beware.

Oh I know it won't always go the way I want but man it sounds like fun when it does.

The only problem I have with Han and Lando is that you cant take Leia.

Im not entirely sure if taking Lando is worth giving up Leia for.

I wish Lando was an operative so you could still get the whole Han/Chewbacca/Leia synergy. Getting 5 dodge tokens a turn from Leia is awesome.

But Lando does make it easier to choose what command cards to take when youre playing rebel fantastic four (substituting Leia out).

I like that Lando pretty seamlessly slots into existing lists in place of Leia. Kallus is a lot more difficult to fit in an Imperial list.

16 hours ago, Khobai said:

And the fact Kallus even has a flaw card seems ridiculous to me. Its totally unwarranted. Unless for some reason his other two command cards are absolutely amazing. They could be. We dont know. But I doubt it lol.

I think you have to see the flaw card first before you call it unwarranted

7 hours ago, Khobai said:

The only problem I have with Han and Lando is that you cant take Leia.

I think Lando works way better with Leia than with Han. Contingency can't work with Han's 0-pip, and Ace's alternate text works great with No Time for Sorrrows.

4 hours ago, GooeyChewie said:

I think Lando works way better with Leia than with Han. Contingency can't work with Han's 0-pip, and Ace's alternate text works great with No Time for Sorrrows.

The issue I have is Lando and Leia together is you now have two support heroes in your list which is a 1/4 of your list. I think you have a terminal firepower problem now where as Han at least can do some work at short range. I am most interested in Lando with Luke, Chewie and Sabine. Also I believe the alternative texts greatest strength will be to let a unit activate precising when you need them and not trying to get extra benefits from a command card (that is way more niche and below is why).

The command cards that are most open to synergy due to having keywords that say any order token counts such as an HQ uplink or Lando's contingency. Paraphrasing some below:

Luke: My ally is the force - when a trooper is issued ANY order it gets a dodge token
Han: When a unit performs an attack it must attack a unit with a face up order token

Leia: No time for sorrows - when a trooper unit is issued an order it gets a speed 1 move

Jyn Erso: Complete the misson - when a friendly unit with a face up order token activates it can't be suppressed

All these are situationally good but the situation that most likely will occur is you want to activate a unit at the precise moment. I don't think No time for sorrows is a good combo card anymore. You are way more likely to do something like give an important unit a quick order.

9 hours ago, syrath said:

I think you have to see the flaw card first before you call it unwarranted

a commander that has a flaw card should be better than a commander that doesnt have a flaw card in order to offset having a flaw card.

kallus remaining two command cards have to be amazing to offset him having a flaw card. if theyre not amazing why should I use him?

48 minutes ago, Khobai said:

a commander that has a flaw card should be better than a commander that doesnt have a flaw card in order to offset having a flaw card.

kallus remaining two command cards have to be amazing to offset him having a flaw card. if theyre not amazing why should I use him?

With as much as you complain about how bad the empire is, why do you even play them at all? No matter what unit is being talked about, you always bring up unit x in this faction is better. So play those factions and stop whining about how empire isn’t op.

Personally I’m excited to see how well kallus will work with a Vader or emperor, or iden or with 1-2 operatives.
First impression looking at it, he looks to be a flexible commander that can be utilized in multiple ways on the battlefield, but he’s not a beat stick. Contingency looks like it will really work well with Vader in particular.

@Shadowhawk252 haters gonna hate and trolls gonna troll

12 hours ago, GooeyChewie said:

Ace's alternate text works great with No Time for Sorrrows.

I wonder if it works that way. I don’t think you give the order during the command phase, so I’m pretty sure you would not get the movement. Timing will need to be clarified.