Battle report Double officers vs Vader&Bossk

Posted on August 26, 2019 by jocke01

Welcome to another battle report. This time I faced 2 opponets who used one of my opponents lists, they played togheter with one command hand and it was more like a player with a coach. I think it both worked to their advantage with different ideas, however sometimes I think it might have worked against them with the classic too many cooks.

We played at our local gaming place at Studiefrämjandet.

It was great to finally test some of my newest terrain pieces. This match we had alot of light cover area terrain and some line of sight blocking trees + the building. As well as some difficult terrain water terrain and barricades. I used my modified list from the last time, learning from my misstakes and took some hints from my last opponent.

Rebel Alliance 798
Commander
Rebel officer – esteemed leader 55p
Rebel officer – esteemed leader 55p
Corp
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, astromech 70p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, astromech 70p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper 62p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper 62p
Rebel veterans – cm-0/93 trooper, rebel veteran, hunter 97p
Mark II medium blaster trooper 38p
Special forces
Rebel commandos strike team – dh-447 sniper 44p.
Support
At-rt – flamethrower 80p
At-rt – flamethrower 80p
At-rt – rotary blaster 85p

I faced an imperial list led by Darth Vader with a Bossk operative. Supported by e-web teams and stormtroopers.

Empire 798
Commander
Darth Vader – force reflexes, saber throw
Operative
Bossk – Hunter, targeting scopes
Corps
Stormtroopers squad – dlt19 trooper
Stormtroopers squad – dlt19 trooper
Stormtroopers squad – dlt19 trooper
Stormtroopers squad – dlt19 trooper
Special forces
Scout troopers strike team – dlt sniper
Support
E-web team – barrage generator
E-web team – barrage generator

After a die roll my opponets chose to be blue player and we ended up with clear conditions, advanced positions and breaktrough. I had some luck with breakthrough coming up at the third spot so I could guarantee it, which favoured me with 12 activations against 9.

I deployed most of my units in the centre left, using the scout move from advanced position to get some squads further ahead. I put my rotary at-rt alone in the other end of my deployment with a trooper squad and officer in the centre. I thought a reserve of 3 units with inspire support was a good idea for the breaktrough objective. The rotary at-rt was gonna walk straight into the imperial deployment zone from the flank, firing as it goes.

The empire focused most of their units around the crashed at-st and barricade line where they had a great line of fire to a large area and put 2 trooper squads on the left flank.

Round 1
Command cards
Assault vs Lying in wait

These command cards is pretty fitting for how the game went

I wanted to save my flamer at-rt’s to last so they don’t take too much damage, I also gave order to my veterans to get the free dodge as well order token to my emplacement trooper. The empire had no choice, but to give order to Bossk who sat and got all the aim tokens.

The empire started with a nice 2 wound sniper shot at my backline officer. I followed with a great z-6 squad opening, dealing 3 wounds on the closest e-web.

This squad kept over performing and managed to duck so much fire that came their way, surviving with a dodge token gifted by my rebel officer. We traded a few long range shots, not doing much damage and the at-rt’s started to advance.

It was my first time playing against Bossk and oh man, can he store aim tokens. He waited for good shot at my at-rt which the stormtroopers tried to soften up with a dlt. Luckely I managed to repair it with one of my astromechs.

Bossk finally had to activate and he crawl forward and decided to take his shot at my closest flamer at-rt. It was amazing to whatch, it was just re-roll after re-roll until he had his 5 crits. Putting 5 wounds on the at-rt it got damaged, but I repaired it putting it at 4 wounds at the end of the round. Bossk with targeting scopes was scary, if he re-rolls that much he would completly bypass any dodge and guardian.

End of round
If felt happy with the first round. The empire didn’t make much progress across the board while my forces moved quite a bit for a single turn. While the sniper shot that took out half my officer in the back was disheartning, my z-6 squad was mvp this round. Dealing 3 damage and despite being shot by 3 attacks lost nothing. My opponent focused alot one of my flamer at-rt which worked in my favor thanks to the astromech healing. The plan was for Bossk to burst it down which would have changed alot.

resourceful, reliable, reparing astromechs ❤

Round 2
Command cards
Covering fire vs Reptilian rampage

This round I wanted to keep reparing my walkers as well as use the covering fire to advance in the open area between my position and the forest. I gave order to my 2 astromech squads as well veteran + emplacement again. Empire of course gave order to the rampaging Lizard. The empire first activated a random and got a corp order which they used to put their far left stormtrooper squad outside of at-rt walk-fire range and put 2 wounds on it with their dlt supported attack. I activated one of my astromech squads to repair my at-rt up to 3hp and attacked the e-web dealing no damage, but giving out a dodge token to another squad due to covering fire.

It is akward when just one base is lacking grass 😛

Here is when my opponets were really unlucky with Bossk. They had a plan to double tap my at-rt with 3 hp left, providing they got a crit on the first attack they could pierce it trough my save and then use their aim token on the second attack to hopefully get 2 crit on the second attack and drop the at-rt. However they roll 5 blanks on their first attack so they decided to attack my trooper squad with the second to push on the supression. 3 hits after aim sadly got denied by cover and my dodge token.

acrylic tokens helps your troopers survive

In this game I really got value from my astromechs, I activated my second astromech squad and repaired the last hp I could giving my at-rt effectivly 10hp instead of 6. Then they rolled amazing and killed the 1hp e-web.

4 natural hits with a z-6 is average right?

Then it was time for Vader to show his troopers how it’s done, he walked into position behind the barricades and drop 2 soldiers with his saber throw.

If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny!
My acrylic tokens went out, coincidence?

My at-rt went into position for a next turn stormtrooper barbecue. My other one lost his first action and just walked up against vader. next I finally got to use fire support with my veterans. Despite throwing 9 black dice with aim I only managed to put 1 wound on vader and got one wound deflected due to his forces reflexes.

End of round
My flanking trooper squad and rotary at-rt kept advancing and dropped a strormtrooper or 2. Thing were locking okey for me, but I was scared of having vader so close to my lines. I had the advantage, but if I can’t stop Vader then this will be a short breakthrough.

Oh right, my strike team also walked up behind the walker

Round 3
Command cards
Ambush vs Master of evil

“Okey guys, one 3 we jump out and fire at the 2 meter tall cyborg death man who can block blaster bolts with his hands. Uh sir that seem…3!”

I expected master of evil, but I thought that they might play implacable as well so I played it safe with ambush. I issued order to my veterans and emplacement trooper while Vader got his order and a dodge tokens as well as an e-web and Bossk. My first Fire support activation again only pushed trough 1 dmg on Vader, fire with hunter veterans feels powerful, but the force was with the dark lord of the sith this day.

“If that dosen’t kill him what will?, Not us…run!”

Vader activated and gave me a total of 12 supression tokens! He then crushed my flamer at-rt with saber throw. I followed that with a randow draw support, Flame on. After aim-shoot I got a very average 7 hits on the 5 troopers and their armor was useless.

I prefer my stormtroopers red in the middle

The rest of the fight on the left flank wasn’t very dramatic. Most of my troopers had 3+ supression and I needed to start moving if I wanted to reach the enemy deployment zone so I ignored the dodgeless Vader. My backline officer had walked into range enough to use his inspire which combined with my other officer and at least 1 succesfull rally each time prevented my units from panicking despite e-web and Bossk supressive attacks. My flamer at-rt got another 2 wounds and was also damaged.

End of round
My flank units continued towards the enemy line and finished of the rightmost stormtrooper squad. After removing supression tokens during the end of the round I felt pretty safe. I understand how this imperial list could be panic central when combinding supressive weapons with master of evil. I had some luck with activation order to use inspire as well as at least rally 1 token each rally step,

Round 4
Command Cards
Push vs Implacable

I gave order to my veterans + emplacement once again as well as my officer. Imperial gave it to Vader.

Vader started by walking to my right flank and cut down 2 troopers with his saber throw and took one damage to put back his order token via implacable. My trooper squad responded by fire back, as standard for my gammorean z-6 trooper he rolled 3 crits + 1 hit :). However vader was really implacable and blocked every bolt with his saber.

Meanwhile on the left flank the shooting gallery continued. The rebel forces ran trough the woods towards the edge of the battlefield, while the veterans setup in a covering position in the forest. Thanks to the heavy cover and diminishing imperial troopers casualties was minimized. However my 2nd flamer finally went down.

End of round
On the right flank my rotary at-rt blasted the imperial strike team and Vader finished of the foolish troopers that shot at him and walked towards the rebel officer. My sniper team managed to put 1 wound on Vader. I felt like I had a pretty good chance of placing 2 units in the enemy deployment zone. The empires chance is to stop me from putting more than 1 unit and pick up the bounty on my Twi’lek officer forcing the game to points which the empire would probably win thanks to the huge amount of points stuck in Vader&Bossk.

Round 5
Command cards
Turning the tide vs Merciless Munitions

The empire could only give order to Bossk and I had only my rotary at-rt left. I was a bit disconserned when I saw the Bossk grenade card, I had totally forgot he had grenades. Luckily for me Bossk was just a bit to far away to hit several units with the grenade, If he was about half a speed 1 move closer he could have gassed 3 units.

You gonna have to work on your throwing arm mr Bossk!

My emplacement trooper stayed behind to cover my advancing troops and dropped 2 troopers, sadly the e-web survived my rotary at-rt and could keep the barrage generator on while pounding my troopers, that combined with bossk grenade attack I had only 3 trooper leaders + 1 astromech left of my troopers.

Quick hide behind R4

End of round
Vader did a sweet curved saber throw cutting the at-rt in half down to 3 wounds and my right flank was starting to look battered. Going in to the last round I felt that my offices was already dead due to vader being so close and the at-rt could be taken down by the last stormtroopers + e-web. However I felt that my strike team was garantueed to make it into the deplyoment zone and live through the round. On the left flank I had to put at least 1 unit in the enemy line, if Bossk managed to drop my officer it would be clutch due to the fact that my troopers could not stay supressed since they all needed 2 moves to make it across.

Round 6
Command cards
Sabotaged communications vs New ways to motivate them

I gave my order token to the only available special forces while my opponent gave it to Vader an Bossk. My first activation was a random drawn commander, I activated my twi’lek inspired a trooper squad and ran into the goal zone.

Here I have to tip my hat to my opponent, he did a very cool manouver with Bossk thanks to the extra action from Vaders card, he was very close to turn the game. Bossk used his unhindered to jump over the x-wing wreck and fired with an aim token from hunter on my rebel officer who now lacked any unit in range to use guardian. My officer just managed to duck enough wounds to surive and deny Bossk his bounty. Bossk then ran into melee with my veterans stopping them from walking as well and regenerated the wound lost for the extra action. Wow it was a great activation, if it had worked he would have denied me 2 victory tokens while gaining 1.

His lone stormtrooper put a supression on my closest leader preventing him from double move, the e-web survived my rotary blast with 1 wound and then killed my second closest leader. My veterans used their hunter to club Bossk down to 2 hp.

Tense game, but here rebel victory semed imminent.

Vader walked up and cut of my officers head with his saber throw, while my sniper team walked into the victory zone and popped another wound on Vader.

I feel bad for my sniper team in the fictional turn 7 :p

End of round
Now if Bossk had taking his bounty the score would have been 2-1 and his last stormtrooper squad could aim-shoot my at-rt and hope to drop it, in that case my last supressed trooper leader had a 1/3 of winning the game for me. However Bossk just missed it and the stormtrooper couldn’t get 3 crits. My supressed leader didn’t rally so in the end the rebels won 3-0, the final score dosen’t really paint a fair picture of the full match and it could have turned the other way easily.

After battle report
It was fun to play with all my new terrain pieces and I think that this list worked a little better than the last version. While I didn’t get to be blue player I got a very lucky mission to play with 3 more allbeit weaker activations. I felt that the veterans with hunter + emplacement fire support worked well in theory, but they did a total of 2 wounds despite rolling a total of 18 black dice with aim in their 2 attacks. I think fire support have great potential and I think my choice to hold them back worked in their favor to not get focused early and the hunter gave me a total of 3 aims during the game and it could have been 4 if I didn’t have to run towards the deployment zone.

RNG
I felt that the dice was in my favour in the start of the match. My z-6 squads delivered 4+ hits almost every attack while the average is 3.5. The early 3 wounds on the e-web did alot since the double barrage generator combined with master of evil is an great combo against rebels. My opponent focused my at-t’s which I think was smart looking at the huge damage just one of them did, however due to below average rolls I was given plenty of time to repair. I think that the biggest rng swing was with Bossk. My opponent gave him targeting scopes and he gained a ton of aims during the game either from hunter or actions, despite that he rolled pretty poorly espechially in important attacks like the 2 wound at-rt and the bounty officer.

List building
I was suprised when I saw targeting scopes on Bossk as this card have recieved it fair share of negativity, but dang he used it alot during this match. For my own list I felt that swapping 2 rotary to flamers made them more of a threat and they tanked alot of damage this game, while I could use my astromechs to their fullest and reparing 4 wounds. The double officer still works with giving me a great command range as well as precise inspire and extra activations. However despite guardian, they are very squishy and the risk is giving away bounty. I think double officer works, but maybe Leia is so pass powerful that her with commanding presence and esteemed leader might work better or just as well. 2 officers is essentially splitting Leia in 2 while loosing her command cards. This was also my first game with veterans and I like them, they feel more like a special forces unit than corps unit and the fire support with the medium blaster was scary even when it failed against the Vader tank this game. The drawback is that you often feel forced to give them an order due to the coordination order to enable fire supprort and get the free dodge token.

Battleplan and tactics
The plan was pretty simple, place a massive blob to run behind the fire chickens that tanked enemy fire. Hopefully get enough units to the enemy line. The backline deployed force worked very well even though they spend 2 turns just walking, having fresh troops arriving at the enemy flank was great and it forced my opponent to decide where to focus his troops. The fire chicken tanks work great with my astromech squads. However I must pay more attention where my command range ends, I had a opportunity to play turning the tide vs master of evil, but one of my at-rt was just out of range.

Happy to write another battle report and I find that going through the match a day after, looking at pictures you get to reflect on the match. Somethings looked more even than it felt and you see what misstakes you avoided or did during the match as well as to get a clear picture of how different units delivered. If you like my stuff pls consider supporting me on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Rebelsguide

Next time I think I will try some tauntauns or perhaps Sabine, see you then.

Support, Unit Analysis

At-Rt Unit analysis

Posted on August 13, 2019August 24, 2019 by jocke01

“Hey, why didn’t I get to be in Rouge one?”

Unit introduction

The At-Rt (all terrain recon transport) is a clone wars era scout vehicle and works as a mobile fire support unit for the rebel alliance. At first I was lukewarm to the At-Rt being in the core box. I thought: “they couldn’t put out a core box before going to clone wars era, ugh”. However it grew on me and thanks to the alliance refit of the arc-170 in x-wing and the rebels episode where they find an abandoned clone wars base a story started in my head. A rebel force attack an imperial base that they heard have low security. When entering the facility, they find out why the security was so lacking. It’s a surplus storage facility, where they find old blaster, non functioning equipment and a large number of At-Et’s. Despite having weak armor and weapons the rebels make the best of it and since they lack spare parts and plans for maintenance. I wanted my forest world recon walkers to look muddy and rusty with the old paint job from their episode 3 appearance. Decommissioned from the empires service in favor of more advanced modern vehiclems the rebels use what they get and it’s really fitting the David vs Goliath relationship of the rebels vs empire with an at-rt going up against the at-st.

Before the dark times…wait that is pretty dark

The rebel at-rt is in my opinion the most balanced unit in the game. I’m not saying it’s the best unit in the just the most balanced in both internal balance (compared with other rebel units and options) and external balance (compared to other faction units and options). It has 3 weapon options and they are all viable picks despite being very different. I often find myself annoyed at some design decisions where I just don’t understand the reasoning, but with the at-rt almost everything went right. You might think that I claim the Rt is perfect and it’s not, but close. I have 2 gripes, one being that it should have been armor 2 and surge-block. However since armor was an all or nothing keyword when it was desighned I will let it slide. The second thing is that the climbing vehicle is rarely useable and I would have preferred it just being unhindered by difficult terrain instead. You might of course find yourself on a table with a bunch of things to clamber on, where you can get cover or good line of sight. However this is not often the case in my experience.

Unit options and abilities

The At-Rt comes in at a base cost of 55p which sounds cheap, but you often want to take one of the 3 weapon options pushing the cost to 80-90p. It has a nice speed of 2 with a medium sized base that gives it quite a good mobility. 6hp and 4 resilience threshold is fine for the price and the armor keyword makes it pretty resilient to non impact weapons, however with a surgeless white dice defense, most crits will go through so don’t expect more than one block each game. Except for the 3 weapon options, the only upgrade it can take is comms. Surge-crit helps in its anti armor role and its melee weapon is not to be overlooked, 3 red dice with impact is not bad. Like mentioned before it has the armor keyword, so all normal hits than aren’t flipped via impact are canceled. It has clamber vehicle and expert climber so it can move just like a trooper with grappling hooks. Thanks to its base size it moves about an extra 1.5 small base lenght compared to a normal trooper.

Guest appearance of Pao

The at-rt got 3 weapon options. The first and cheapest is the Flamethrower which comes in at 25 points. It has only range 1 and instead of a fixed dice value it gives 2 black dice per miniature in the defending unit that is in line of sight. This combined with the blast keyword makes this a nightmarish weapon vs trooper squads, especially other rebel troopers or the soon to come cis. The more models the more dice and blast takes away cover so the effectiveness is increased vs lighter armor. 2 black dice per miniature with an average of 0.625 hits per die gives you pretty good odds of getting at least as many hits as defending models in every attack.

The second and slightly more expensive is the Rotary blaster at 30 points. This is the true utility weapon of the unit if not the entire rebel faction. 5 black dice at range 1-3 with surge-crit and no keywords it is the jack of all trades. With its range, dice pool and surge-crit it can hurt both vehicles and troopers alike, but not as effective as the other 2 weapons to their specific targets. It’s the go-to weapon if you don’t need specific anti-tank or anti-infantry firepower in your list.

The third weapon is the Laser cannon which has the longest range 2-4 and highest price at 35. This gun was the sniper before the sniper teams came out. It has 2 black and 1 red with impact 3 making sure that any hits that go through cover turns into crits. Due to the range you can often just sit and go aim-shoot with a 2-3 hits every time. This gun isn’t that effective vs troopers since heavy cover nullifies most of your dice if you don’t roll crit or surge, but vs imperial vehicles you can often count on 2-3 crits every attack since they don’t have easy access to cover.

Build and tactics

The fire chicken

At-rt 55p
Flamer 25p

Total 80p

This is the cheapest one you can get with a weapon hardpoint. You might considering putting a hq uplink on this one to combine with “sorry about the mess” or a unique 1 pip cards as this unit screams last-first activation. The range 1 is limiting, but if you spend a turn double moving and then first activate for a move shoot next turn, you can cover a lot of distance and get the drop on an unlucky trooper unit. I suggest taking 2-3 of this unit since it’s gonna be a priority target for your opponent and it has to survive on the way to it’s targets to get any firepower from it, so having a pack makes it much harder to deal with than a single one. Han solo is a great commander for these ones, since his reckless diversion can help them walk up the battlefield without getting shot at. The “sorry about the mess” hq uplink or improvised orders can give you a nice last first activation to guarantee a burned enemy unit. I think of these ones as flaming missiles rather than fire support. You should pick on target to go after and hope you can get there before being shot down, any turns after that is just a bonus. If you are faced with a single model unit, remember you have a nice 3 red melee weapon.

The Z-6 big brother

At-rt 55p
Rotary blaster 30p

Total 85p

This is the basic At-Rt fire support. It works very well with your rebel troopers, commandos and any trooper unit with a range 3-4 weapon. It’s gun does an average of 3 hits, which is just shy of what a Z-6 trooper squad does, however it doesn’t lose any attack dice when suffering wounds unless you get weapon destroyed after you reach your resilience value. It also doesn’t care about suppression like troopers, so you can often do an aim-shoot to increase your dmg output. This is the At-Rt’s main strength, it’s a workhorse that delivers until its destroyed. I want my enemy to shoot att my rts because then my troopers can do their job and don’t lose effectiveness . Even with 5 wounds and chance of only having 1 action per turn from the damaged vehicle, the rotary blaster still spits out average of 3 hits per shot. Using a group of commandos with the rotary At-Rt is like giving them a mobile heavy cover that also have a gatling gun.

Sniper RT

At-rt 55p
Laser cannon 35p

Total 90p

This is a stable anti-tank platform, but it has limitations when attacking infantry. The range however let’s it stay out of range of some impact firepower and stray blaster bolts and it doesn’t have to move all that much. A speed 2 move with the medium base + range 4 is a long distance on the battlefield, so this unit can work as a sniper when single models units present themselves out of cover. While the range 2 can feel limiting, you can just run into melee if someone gets that close. This is a unit that I could take 1 of, but it works fine as a pair. 2 of these can really put some consistent hurt on any ground vehicles you face when they aim-shoot together, speeders are harder targets these days with their often cover 2 protection that blocks your impact. Ironically their favourite targets are other At-Rts which they will make short work of.

Tips and tricks
Since they have so few upgrade slots I figured I would do a general tips and tricks section instead.

Reversing
I find that a lot of players, myself included forgets that ground vehicles can reverse. This has the obvious advantage of getting out of range from enemy weapons or melee units like Vader. However it can also help with getting units in your fire arc, even better than pivot does.

Mobile cover
Even without weapons the At-Rt is a big cylinder of light cover (heavy with low profile or suppression) that can be placed where you need it. 3 naked At-Rt’s only cost 165p and that is 18hp with armor walking towards your opponent. I haven’t played with weaponless At-Rt’s, but I am tempted to do a melee rush list with them, if you want to see battle reports with that kind of army please consider supporting me on patreon.

Displacement
When you are moving into melee with a trooper unit that has 2 or more models, you can often manager to displace one model, while moving into base contact with another. That way you give the unit 1 suppression from displacement as well as attacking them. You can also do a little dirty move when displacing your own units, that way you can displace your own unit leader in order to move then further ahead. Sure they get 1 suppression, but if it’s late in the round it will just go away in the end phase.

At-Rt’s place today
With the newest addition of tauntaun riders, the rebels have access to 3 different support units. I find that At-Rt’s work best with Han Solo or the generic officer. Leia and Luke works best with troopers due to their abilities and command cards, not that you can’t take At-Rt’s with them just that they prefer trooper focused armies. Jyn works well with most things that can take care of themselves if you use inflitrate. The tauntaun riders have better mobility and strike hard vs troopers with red dice save or better. The laser turret gives great firepower at range 4 for cheap, but the lack of mobility can be exploited by your opponent. Both are great options, but the At-Rt’s strenght is the advantage of armor and no courage as well as flexible weapon options.

List idea: Vehicle heavy. This is a list that I think can go against the new meta of more and more trooper units and less vehicles and impact. This army can march up the board and throw out dice. Rotary blaster works against most targets and the landspeeder is kited for anti-tank.

Rebell alliance

Rebel officer
Esteemed leader
55p

Rebel officer
Esteemed leader
55p

Rebel troopers
Z-6 trooper
Astromech
70p

Rebel troopers
Z-6 trooper
Astromech
70p

Rebel troopers
Z-6 trooper
62p

Rebel troopers
Z-6 trooper
Comms specialist
Comms relay
76p

At-Rt
Rotary blaster
85p

At-Rt
Rotary blaster
85p

At-Rt
Rotary blaster
85p

X-34 landspeeder
M-40 ion blaster
Ryder Azadi
Rps-6 rocket gunner
154p

Total: 797p

This is my analysis of the At-Rt. A fine unit that still holds up. If you are curious about the Landspeeder pls let me know in the comments, I would love to do an analysis of that unit. If you like my stuff, please consider supporting med on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Rebelsguide

terrain

Downed At-st step by step

Posted on August 5, 2019August 5, 2019 by jocke01

When I started working on the at-st I didn’t plan on doing a step by step, but it just kinda happened.

Step 1 preparation. When I opened it I noticed the base was very uneven so I had to put it into hot water in order to bend it flat. I then started with a brown primer.

While the scenario included talks about a recently crashed at-st, I felt that the model screamed old overgrown wreck. I planned on working from the ground up with rust.

Step 2 rust. I painted on a very watered down dark brown to the at-st parts. Followed by splatter on some heavy watered down orange on pieces I though could be rusty (picture mixing)

Step 3 at-st armor. Time to start with the grey parts of the vehicle. I drybrush with a dark grey. The reason I drybrush is because I want to keep the rust I worked on in step 2.

I’m doing 3 coats until I’m satisfied with the coverage.

Step 4 wash. Time for a wash, I used gw agrax earthshade, but any brown wash will do. I’m using brown wash to give a more wheatered look.

Step 5. Time to start lighting up the grey, starting with the grey I used before, but with a little bit of white.

I then go with 2 more steps of drybrushing while adding more white each time.

Feeling it lacked depth, I used very watered down black paint on the blast holes, battle damage and vents.

A few last touches using white with a little grey on a few edges as a final highlight.

At-st part done.

Part 2 the base

Step 1 Dirt. I started by painting all the sand parts with a dark brown, in this case I use gw rhinox hide wich is what I use for base color in my rebel army. Then I painted all the rocks black.

Step 2 sand highlight. I drybrush all the sand with a lighter brown.

Step 3 Rocks. I drybrush all the rocks with a dark grey followed by more coats adding more white as I go until I’m happy with the results.

At-st and base painted and done. I give the model a matt varnish spray then it’s time for flocking.

Part 3 Flocking.

Step 1. I use a mix of pva glue and water (70/30) that I brush on in patches before putting on some flock grass then turning the model over and give some light taps to lose the non stuck grass.

I do this in patches because I find it easier and it dosen’t get as messy with grass every where.

Step 2 extra touches. I then add some grass tufts and lycen so it fits the rest of my rebel and terrain bases. I also added a few patches of bush that I had left over from making trees at a few places on the wreck to make it look a bit overgrown. (Pic missing).

The downed At-st is all done.

This was a fun model to work on and despite it being a bit uneven out of the box it was pretty easy to fix with hot water. The price tag is a bit high, but I look forward to playing the scenario some day soon.

Did you like this step guide?, Do you want to see more like it? Then let me know in the comments and consider supporting me on patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/Rebelsguide

Special forces, Unit Analysis

Rebel Commandos unit analysis

Posted on July 30, 2019August 24, 2019 by jocke01

Rebel commandos analysis

General Solo?, is your strike team assembled?

Rebel commandos is probably the expansion for the rebels with the most value since you can field 2 units out of the box and you get 7 very nice minis. This was the first rebel special forces and they are essentially rebel troopers on steroids, the strike teams are on the other hand just like the name entails, a small unit that strikes critical targets.

Rebel commandos (unit)

Like I said commandos are rebel troopers on steroids. They come in at 60 points for the base unit of four models so 15 points per model compared to the 10 point trooper. They keep the same defence die and weapon, but they have a lot of nice keywords to make Them stand out. Like fleet troopers and rebel veterans they got surge-hit and sharpshooter 1 on top of that. In defence they got low profile which is great thanks to their courage value of 2, that allows them to get heavy cover from suppression while requiring 2 to lose their action after rally.

Unit options and abilities

Commandos have access to 2 different heavy weapons, but no personel upgrade. In top of that they got access to gear, comms and training. They have several abilities:

Low profile which gives them heavy cover if they got light, this is a nice ability to have since some terrain should be light and they can get heavy from hiding behind at-rt’s or emplacement troopers or just out in the open of they have suppression.

Scout 2 that allows them to make a speed 2 move when deploying, nothing gamebreaking, but depending on terrain, deployment and objective cards this is an ability that shouldn’t be overlooked since they can get a great position outside deployment or move into claim position for objectives.

Sharpshooter 1 this is great since most shots vs other infantry will be at least light cover, it’s almost like adding an extra hit to their attack rolls.

put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of Emperor Palpatine with a clear line of sight, sir… pack your bags, fellas, war’s over

They got 2 heavy weapons to choose from, one being the DH-447 sniper rifle. This weapon is special since it got range 1 – infinite, making it a great weapon for splitfire since it can always reach a target. It adds 1 white dice over the standard rifle which isn’t too exciting, but it has pierce 1 and high velocity which don’t allow dodge tokens to be used…providing it’s the only weapon in the attack. So just to compare with a Z-6 trooper squad which is in my opinion the gold standard.

Average hits

Z-6 troopers: 3.5
Commandos sniper: 3.5

So at first light it’s the same, but adding the pierce and sharpshooter on a standard stormtrooper squad in heavy cover we get:

Average wounds

Z-6 troopers: 0.75
Commandos sniper: 1.875

More than twice amount of dead bucketheads!

This is in a control environment of course, but my point is don’t let the amount of dice fool you. Against lighter armor the commandos advantage decreases and increases vs heavy armored targets like death troopers. A commando squad with a sniper gives you a quality attack that excels vs imperial targets. The downside is that your commandos die just as easy as normal troopers when fired upon, while low profile helps a bit of course.

The second weapon option is the proton charge saboteur which is a different kind of weapon option than other units have. It does not add any dice or keywords to the attack pool, instead it’s an area weapon that needs to be charged then detonated. So unlike exhaust weapons you don’t have to recover it, but you have to spend an action to arm a charge within 1 of the unit leader. After a charged is placed any friendly unit with “detonate proton charge” can detonate it after any unit have performed an action. When detonated the charge performs an attack vs every unit att range 1 of the token and line of sight including friendly units. The proton charge model uses the commandos ranged weapon of 1 black die, but the real advantage comes when using the charges since you get to attack every unit in range and los. I will speak more about proton charges, their effect and how to use them in a future analysis. You can have a maximum of 3 proton charge saboteurs in your list and that’s a potential 18 charges armed (3 saboteurs x 6 rounds), more likely it’s 8-12 and you need at least one unit left with detonate proton charge to use any placed charges. So a commando unit with a proton charge saboteur can be a base unit combined with 2 strike teams with saboteurs.

Upgrades

Commandos can have a plethora of different upgrades. Grenades, gear, comms and training.

I don’t usually take grenades on commandos. Frag grenades is a decent dmg increase, but restricted att range 1 for a unit that prefer attacks at range. Frag grenades seems overkill when you already have sharpshooter 1 and if you want anti tank then the proton charge is a better use than impact grenades.

There is a lot of gear that’s useful. Recon Intel to get a scout move of 3 is perhaps not necessary, but fun and can give you a nice alpha strike with scout move-move-shoot or scout move-shoot-move back depending on deployment. Environmental gear is a solid choice as your commandos can turn difficult light cover terrain into free heavy cover terrain and it helps your scout move. Emergency stims is just as good here as on other expensive units. Grappling hooks is also a great thing with scout, as you can scout move into a climbable terrain piece then during your activation you can climber-shoot. Targeting scopes is usually a never take for rebels, but combined with the hunter training card it’s actually a valid choice.

Comms is not as pick and choose friendly. Comms jammer doesn’t suit commandos as they prefer long to mid range. Comms relay can be used with sabotage communications to great an upgrades ambush card. Hq uplink is the one I use the mosh, just to get the extra uses from Luke and Leia’s 2 pip cards and to ensure control of when I can activate my commandos and I prefer this over long range comlink.

Comms Combo!

Training is a powerful category, but pretty specific in it’s cards. Tenacity is just a no take since single wound units can’t be wounded. Duck and cover is a good one as it combines with low profile, however it is expensive and in the wake of death troopers, Palpatine and Bossk the empire have a fair number of suppressive weapons. This can make duck and cover as risk as you can easy help your opponent to suppress or even panic your commandos. Endurance is good, but not really necessary unless you run into a lot of the aforementioned suppressive weapons on a regular basis. My favourite is the hunter card. It’s not to expensive at 6 points and it suite the commandos offensive capabilities perfect.

Builds and tactics

The classic commandos

Rebel commandos 60p
Sniper 26p
Environmental gear or grappling hooks 3p
Hunter 6p
Hq uplink 10p

total 105p

These guys are the standard commando squad I play. You can cut some fat by skipping the hq uplink, but I like the command flexibility. These are the rebel hunters and what do they hunt you ask? These guys are character killers. Any commander, even Palp or Darth with the immune pierce are prime targets. Commanders usually hang around with royal guards which is a free aim token piñata. They prefer to stay at mid range where they can bring all their guns to bare and their focus is to take down enemy commanders, operatives and royal guards. A trick is to splitfire the weapons between a commander and his guard to get 2 aim tokens if both are wounded. The sniper can be shot at a commander to ignore dodge and pierce can be used on a guardian hit if the target have immune pierce. The other guys throw their dice at the guards something different, with sharpshooter negating some of the cover tax of attacking multiple units.

This unit like a lot of rebel units prefers Leia as a commander. Her command cards works well, 1 pip can drop wounds on units for hunter to trigger, the 2 pip is just good and the 3 pip let’s Leia inspire and order take cover on them before they activate. Using Leia with strict orders you get very good control of suppression, you can make sure to keep one token for low profile if necessary. Commandos love at-rt supports as they can walk behind them and gain heavy cover while either shooting in base contact or through them with sharpshooter.

List example:

++ Standard (Rebel Alliance) [796 Points] ++

+ Commander +

•Leia Organa [100 Points]: Strict Orders, Esteemed Leader

+ Operative +

•Chewbacca [122 Points]: Emergency Stims, Tenacity

+ Corps +

Fleet Troopers [78 Points]: Fleet Trooper, Scatter Gun Trooper

Rebel Troopers [62 Points]: Z-6 Trooper

Rebel Troopers [58 Points]: 2-1B Medical Droid

+ Special Forces +

Rebel Commandos [107 Points]: DH-447 Sniper, Environmental Gear, HQ Uplink, Hunter

+ Support +

Rebel At-Rt [85 Points]: Rotary Blaster

+ Command Hand +

Command Hand: •Coordinated Bombardment, •Sabotaged Communications, ••Brains and Brawn, ••No Time for Sorrows, •••Covering Fire, •••Somebody Has to Save Our Skins, ••••Standing Orders

++ Total: [798 Points] ++

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

The proton base

Rebel commandos 60p
Proton charge saboteur 24p
Duck and cover 8p
Comms relay 5p

Total 98p

This is another commando unit I’ve used when playing a triple proton charge saboteur lists. It’s Main purpose is to survive and detonate charges and place some on a backline objective. They can take descent potshots and the comms relay is for the sabotaged communications command card or just to boost command range to runaway strike teams. I like to play a Han&Chewie saboteur list. Han Solo’s reckless diversion help to stop fire on your strike teams and “sorry about the mess” combined with improvised orders help to guarantee a last first activation. Chewie works well with Han and His guardian helps keeping your strike teams alive.

What I see when I play reckless diversion

List example:

++ Standard (Rebel Alliance) [799 Points] ++

+ Commander +

•Han Solo [130 Points]: Improvised Orders

+ Operative +

•Chewbacca [122 Points]: Emergency Stims, Tenacity

+ Corps +

Rebel Troopers [62 Points]: Z-6 Trooper

Rebel Troopers [58 Points]: 2-1B Medical Droid

+ Special Forces +

Rebel Commandos [91 Points]: Comms Relay, Proton Charge Saboteur

Rebel Commandos – Strike Team [44 Points]: Proton Charge Saboteur, Recon Intel

+ Command Hand +

Command Hand: •Sorry about the mess, •Sabotaged Communications, ••Push, ••Reckless Diversion, •••Change of Plans, •••Notorious Scoundrels, ••••Standing Orders

++ Total: [799 Points] ++

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

Final thoughts

In conclusion I think the Rebel Commandos are a valueable unit in the rebel alliance and much needed to counter the royal guard based death balls, either with hard shooting or the area damage of the proton charge.

This was my thoughts on the Rebel Commandos who are in my opinion an unit that get’s overshadowed by their strike team brothers and sisters. Speaking of wich, I might talk about them next time or perhaps I will give my thoughts on the At-Rt, make your voice heard in the comments!

Corps, Unit Analysis

Rebel specialists unit analysis

Posted on July 17, 2019August 24, 2019 by jocke01

Rebel specialists unit analysis:

“Don’t get me started on that medical droid…”

The specialist pack is a unique expansion at this point in legion. Instead of giving you a new unit it gives you 4 different personnel upgrades to your other units as well as a generic commander option. So what’s so special about the rebel specialists?

Let’s find out.

Rebel officer (unit)

This is the unit version of the rebel officer, it’s a generic commander (no unique dot in the name) and works just the same as our other commanders with 2 differences. It’s not unique so you could have 2 of these in a single list, or even 4 in a team match. They also don’t have any unit specific command cards like Son of Skywalker for example.

Unit options and abilities

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is redofficer.jpg — *Leia light*

The officer comes in at 50 points and is a light version of Leia Organa. You get inspire, take cover and sharpshooter, but only value of 1 instead of 2. A weaker blaster, melee attack and you only get 4 hp instead of 6. You get one command slot and a gear slot. So at first glance there is a lot of stuff you give up for the 40 points you save. So Leia is in my mind a far more valuable choice when you want a support character. However those 40 points can give you a lot of other stuff or you could go with double generic officers for just 10 more points than Leia.

Builds and tactics

The officer

Rebel officer 50p
Esteemed leader 5p

Total 55p.

This is the best option for the rebel officer IMO. 4hp is very easy to snipe down and if your opponent is bringing Bossk or Boba then they have an easy bounty. Esteemed leader helps a lot and gear is not really worth it, if you load this guy up to much you are better off just picking Leia. The main thing about this unit is a cheap command bubble that can give some support with take cover and inspire for your backline or power units.

So instead of thinking how to build your officer, let’s check in what kind of lists ge works well in. Luke and Leia is a classic commander pair and it’s effective no doubt about that, however you pay a minimum of 250 points in 2 models, probably close to 300p with upgrades. Leia brings her command cards of course, but in a Luke and Leia list she is mostly backline support. Here you can swap Leia for a generic officer to get points to other stuff. Likewise if you play a Han&Chewie list you sink a lot of points into those guys and a generic officer is enough for some support and you want to focus on Solo’s command cards in that list anyway. With teamwork a single take cover Still gives 2 dodge tokens when given to Han or Chewie and the inspire 1 is enough to help Han from becoming suppressed or even panicked.

The generic brothers

This is something I have been pondering lately, since Leia’s command cards and take cover don’t synergies well with vehicles I think that for a vehicle heavy list the double officer is something to consider. Vehicles are costly and they are fast, especially the speeders so having 2 command bubbles help a lot.

List:

2x generic officer

Esteemed leader
110p

1x Z-6 trooper squad 62p

1x Z-6 trooper squad with comms spec and comms relay 76p

2x Z-6 trooper squad with astromech 70p

3x at-rt

Rotary blaster
255p

Landspeeder

M-45 Ion blaster
RPS-6 Rocket gunner
Ryder Azadi
154p

Total: 798p

The landspeeder is kitted for anti vehicle and the astromech squads are meant to march up behind the cover of the rotary at-rt’s repairing as they go. The list have 10 activations and the 2 officers help with command range, inspire and take cover in a large area. The comms specialist is there for the comms relay that helps getting orders to your speeder or other vehicles with cards like covering fire. This list uses both 2 officers and 2 astromechs so try it if you have 2 specialists boxes and tell me how it went.

Specialists (personnel upgrades)

Officer

The officer personnel upgrade cost 19p and gives the unit +1 courage and inspire 1. He also uses the units weapons and profile so for a rebel trooper squad he is 9p more expensive than the extra trooper. With the amount of suppression the empire gives out, it’s always nice to have some extra inspire, especially from a corps unit. The big thing is the courage 2 however. Your commanders courage value helps against panicking, but having courage 2 means you need 2 suppression tokens after rally to lose your 2nd action, this is great. It also means that your unit can have a suppression token that increases their cover while still operating at maximum efficiency. For a rebel trooper squad this isn’t that life changing, you get to take a dodge action a little more often. For a trooper squad with ion though this is huge, since you want to recover that the gun as possible. Normally your opponent just needs to score a single hit on your ion squad before their activation to have a 66,6% chance of them being suppressed when activated. Another unit that really needs their second action is fleet troopers, regardless of heavy weapon choice since they will need to move often to get into range with their range 2 pistols. So if you have the points it’s a well worth add, to any fleet troopers squad or trooper squad with an exhaust weapon.

Comms specialist

A comms specialist gives your unit a comms upgrade slot and you have to add a comms upgrade to the unit. The interesting part is that the specialist cost 9 points and like the officer it uses the same profile as the unit it’s added to. So if you add this to a fleet trooper squad you get an extra trooper for just 9 points, of course with the caveat of buying a comms upgrade. You can think of it like a discount on the comms upgrade, as well as the opportunity to give one to a corps unit. So what kind of comms upgrades so we have and what should we take?

Comms relay 5p

This is the cheapest one and it gives you some extra order control and range. Like I pointed out earlier it can help to give orders to speeders or other units that moves ahead of the army and moves out of command range, this can be achieved by giving the vehicle a comms upgrade, but this is cheaper. It also combines well with the covering fire command card since that specifies 3 corps units, this could give an order token to a vehicle, commander or well anything other than a corps unit. The effect of the card triggers with corps unit of course, but 2 is enough to give you activation control for your corps. I would use this on comms specialist in a rebel trooper squad when using vehicles or a lot of special forces/operatives or if you run a single commander.

Hq uplink 10p

FFG have a history of putting Toryn Farr on good cards and this is no exception. It suites units that really needs and order like a single heavy or lone special forces unit. You will have a pretty good chance to draw corps order token from your stack anyway so it’s not super crucial. There is 2 things about this though, if you play a Luke and Leia list it gets a little bit more value. Both their 2 pip command cards gives out bonuses when a trooper unit is issued an order, it doesn’t have to be order from the commander so the hq uplink lets you get more bonuses out of those cards. The second thing is the Solo trick. Solo’s 0 pip command card that guaranteed gives you priority combos with hq uplink, His card gives order only to himself, but with hq uplink you can get a first activation with another unit like a scattergun fleet trooper squad.

Long range comlink 10p

“Yes, it’s bears armed with sticks…no I’m not drunk”

You will most likely be able to stay within command range so I don’t recommend taking it.

Comms jammer 15p

You will have a hard time getting to range 1 and even harder to stay alive there so this is more suited for faster units like the landspeeder or airspeeder.

Astromech

This little guy comes in at only 8 points and gives the unit repair with 2 charges as a free action. Unlike the officer and comms dude he doesn’t have any arms to hold a blaster so you don’t get to add any attack dice from him, ge also gets removed last from dmg (except for the unit leader). I really like the astromech since the rules changes to repair allowing the mech to repair repulsor vehicles. This changed the potential targets from 1 to 3 and makes it much more useable. Add this dude to a Z-6 trooper squad and pair them with an at-rt and you got a potent formation where the troopers can stay behind the cover of the at-rt and repair it when needed. At-rt’s comes in at a minimum of 80p if you buy a weapon hardpoint and with only a ⅙ chance of blocking dmg they will be wounded very quickly. The astromech can give your vehicles 2 extra health or remove the crippling immobilized dmg token from a flamer at-rt. The repair to repulsor vehicles is a nice bonus, however I recommend pairing these dudes with at-rt’s. Losing 1 black attack die from a trooper squad is a small price to pay for a potential extra attack with a at-rt that would have been destroyed otherwise.

Medical droid

Very close to his astromech cousin he has the noncombatant keyword and gives a free action with 2 charges although this is for troopers and not vehicles. Unlike the astromech it doesn’t only remove wounds from damaged troopers, it can also restore a model to it’s mother unit. With the restriction that the model died in the current round and it’s mother unit is still alive. Models with multiple wounds gets restored with 1 hp remaining.

The medical droid is expensive though with 18 points and non-combatant it’s a heavy investment. So you really want to use both charges before the game is over and hopefully in something more expensive than just a rebel trooper. It’s about target priority with the medical droids, where can you get the most value and greatest effect. I remember seeing a table with how much wounds were worth in points depending on point cost and armor save and It’s true that expensive wounds can be a priority and depending on the save, you get more out of the wounds sure. I however also look at what effect the extra wounds or models can bring. So for example Chewbacca and wookies have a terrible save as they only block ⅙ hits, however they have very good offence. If you restore a wookie to a unit with tenacity, you get 2 black and 1 red dice extra of they can make a charge before taking more hits, same with Chewie as his offence in both melee and ranged is great, it is worth it to keep him alive. So while I still agree that using medics on targets with high cost and good save, I recommend that you don’t always go that route and think about what needs healing right now.

I decided to put down a list of units that pair extra well with medical droids:

Luke every wound on Luke is precious, he will most likely take about a quarter of your points and with red defence with deflect and immune pierce, he isn’t a fun target for your opponent to shoot. Since he is such a priority for your opponent, you might as well make it hard for them.
Han with the reckless diversion command card, you can force your opponent to shoot at han if possible. Thanks to low profile he will almost always have heavy cover and uncanny luck on that. He isn’t super tanky, but he will be a great dmg sponge for one round when your other units can operate almost without danger. A medical droid or two can help him survive a round like this, the more shots against han the better since it will keep your other fragile units alive.
Sabine same reason as Luke, she has very good save and is a huge threat.
Commandos and strike teams these units have the same durability as a normal trooper, but much higher cost. Keeping these units alive is key. The trick with strike teams is to try and Keep 1 member out of sight so ge can’t be targeted by hits. Then you use your medical droid to restore the lost model. This can make proton charge teams an endlessly annoyance in games.
Emplacement troopers coming in at 70 points minimum, this is a great unit to heal, since they will mostly be hit by sniper dmg that only deals 1-2 dmg at a time.
Pathfinders again price is a factor, but also the danger sense, the more shots they take the more dice they can throw in defence. A unit like this can be very hard to eliminate if placed on an objective and has a medical droid as support.

So that’s my analysis of the rebel specialist pack, agree disagree? You have some great tactics or lists with the specialist?

Let me know in the comments!

Heavy

Posted on July 12, 2019 by jocke01

T-47 Airspeeder

Landspeeder

Corps, Unit Analysis

Unit Analysis Fleet Troopers

Posted on July 12, 2019August 24, 2019 by jocke01

Fleet troopers

Coming in at a base cost of 44p with an extra trooper for 11p, just 1 point more than rebel troopers. Same speed, hp, courage and save. They got access to 2 heavy weapons, grenades and gear. They are however quite different in their playstyle. They are a glass cannon or hammer unit. they hit hard, but are very brittle. They require a much offensive playstyle than the normal troopers.

I’m ready for anything, *lightsaber sound…except that

Unit options and abilities

Unlike their normal trooper friends the fleet troopers got both defensive surge and surge-hit. They only have one ability and that is the steady keyword which gives the unit one aim token after they perform the standby action.

The standby action is hard to use successfully since it’s very easy to counter. If you receive a suppression token you lose your standby, so in other Words any unit that attacks your standby unit need only one die with a hit result and you Lost your standby. I have used it successfully once and faced it once or twice. If you can place yourself behind a los blocking piece of terrain and your opponent wants to get past it or if they want to engage in melee and need multiple move actions to so it then it can give you a successful standby attack with an aim token. However since it’s limited to range 2, I recommend that you just move and try to take a normal shot.

“Shotguns? I didn’t think anyone used projectile weapons anymore.”

Fleet troopers have access to 2 different heavy weapons. The scatter gun for 23 points and the MPL-57 grenade launcher for 33p. They can also take grenades, personnel and a gear upgrade. The scattergun is an amazing weapon and the only downside is the range 1-2 limitation, however since fleet troopers have that range on their normal gun it isn’t that big a drawback anyway. The scattergun fires 2 red dice instead of the fleet troopers normal 2 white. This adds a 1.75 average hits thanks to the surge-hit and is a heavy increase in firepower over a normal fleet troopers 0.75 average hits with 2 white. In addition to this the gun has one of the best keywords in the game pierce. Pierce # cancels the same amount of rolled blocks on defence dice, this is taking straight from the descent/imperial assault game system and the thing that makes pierce so powerful is that it cancel the dice after it’s rolled a block. So for a stormtrooper that rolls on average 0.5 blocks per die needs to roll 4 dice in order to safely block a pierce shot (according to statistics). The only downside is that pierce don’t do anything of your opponent don’t roll any blocks, however if your opponent blanks hos defence roll…well you probably didn’t need that pierce.

The grenade launcher is a totally different story and I don’t know what the game designers was thinking. It has range 1-3 which doesn’t synergies with the fleet troopers 1-2 range. It’s expensive coming in at 22 points more than the normal fleet trooper and is an exhaust weapon. So for that investment, what do you get?

Well you get 1 black and 2 white dice so just 1 black die over the fleet standard. 1.375 average dmg so just shy from double the dmg of the standard 2 white. It does have some fitting keywords for a grenade launcher though, impact 2 and blast. Impact 2 is pretty good for a handheld weapon and blast ensures that cover won’t stop your hits from becoming crits. Blast can of course be combined with the rest of the troopers attack if you are at range 2 to give the entire attack blast and ignore cover. This can of course be achieved with concussion grenades at range 1 combined with the scattergun for 5 less points, and no exhaust.

Battlefield role

Unlike rebel troopers the fleet troopers are shock troops meant to be played offensive and attack rather than the multi-purpose of rebel troopers. I also think that fleet troopers works best as 1-2 squads rather than the spammable rebel troopers. Their defence is just as weak as normal troopers and they don’t have the nimble keyword, however their offensive output is much higher. Since their range is limited they need backup by other units that don’t just sit in your backline, combined with units like Luke or Han they can make an hammer to strike at your priority targets.

Builds and tactics

The run and gun

Fleet troopers 44p
Scattergun trooper 23p
Recon intel 2p
Fleet trooper* (optional)

Total 69-80p

This is the basic fleet trooper squad I use, either as 1 or a pair with 2-4 rebel troopers. The scattergun combined with the 4 standard models gets 4.75 hits with pierce 1. If you fire on a stormtrooper squad without cover and score 5 hits you will drop 3.5 dudes from that squad. This is some nice firepower to have. Now the downside is that the unit needs to survive Long enough to get into range. The recon intel helps a bit and is cheap, the extra trooper is optional ,but I recommend taking it of you can as every trooper adds 0.75 hits and you will lose a few on your way forward. My tactic with these guys is to hug los blocking terrain if it’s possible. I try to get them into position where they stand behind a wall or building where they can run out and attack any unit that comes within range of a speed 2 move and range 2. Don’t be afraid to leave them in the open after a attack like this, the dmg you inflict will be worth it, but of course use cover if you can.

This brings me into the Luke Slingshot: Luke Skywalker with force push is these guys best friend. You position these guys with Luke for round 2 or 3, then you use the command card my ally is the force to give both Luke and the fleets an order token and a dodge token. You then save Luke and the fleets for last, again try to hide behind los blocking terrain or at least heavy cover, the dodge token will deter enemy fire. Luke goes first and double move to get into range 1 of an enemy unit and push them out of cover towards the fleets. A speed 1 move + 1 move cohesion which you get to place covers quite a bit of difference. Then you fleet troopers have a fine target right in the open to shoot. Either move shoot or possible aim shoot of you set it up perfectly. Luke can next turn go Son of Skywalker and go after a commander or valuable unit.

Range longer than 2 and in cover
Force push
Speed 1 move
You get to place coheseion. In range 2 and without cover
Double move luke into range 1

The barrage

Fleet troopers 44p
Mpl-57 barrage trooper 33p
Fleet trooper 11p

Total 88p

At first I didn’t see any reason to take fleet troopers without the scattergun and against empire… I still don’t, however vs rebels I actually prefer it. Rebels are far more dependent on cover and very few units have a decent defend die so pierce is not as necessary and against such units like Luke, he is immune to pierce. The optimal way for this unit to work is of you can find a target att range 2 for the troopers then split fire with the launcher att some other small unit, like a strike team or vehicles. This is easier said than done of course. This unit doesn’t have to play as offensive as the scattergun unit and can stay in the middle and use the launcher to hurt vehicles, specifically at-rt’s and landspeeders who either comes with cover or can get it thanks to their relatively small models. Then if something comes within strike distance go and shoot with your regular guns. Depending on what units the clones and cis bring, these guys might be more useful, but for now if you face a lot of rebels with vehicles then these guys are worth a shot.

This is what happens when you don’t take cover

Upgrades

Fleet troopers have access to grenades, gear and personnel.

The only grenade I would give them is the concussion grenades, it gives a nice dmg boost against units in cover and fleet trooper fire at range 1 or 2 anyway. Impact grenades gives you a black die that with surge-hit is worse than 2 whites and frag grenades only gives each trooper a boost of 0.125 average hits and the surge-crit isn’t as powerful when they already have surge-hit.

There is 3 gear upgrades that I would use on fleets

Recon Intel. It’s cheap and gets you closer to your targets.
Environmental Gear. Also cheap and helps you get to your targets faster. It’s however dependent on terrain.
Emergency Stims. Expensive, but it gives you fleets a chance to still strike with their full strength. It’s a backup in case your opponent can activate before you and shoot your fleet troopers, you can still lose 2 guys and strike back at full strength. You will of course lose them after their activation, but these guys are all about dealing dmg, not surviving.