Armada Meta Deep Dive: Imperial Two Ship

No, you're not reading anything wrong. It's really just two ships: an ISD and a Quasar. This build is the latest hotness sweeping Vassal.

Ground Commander's Guide - 1.4 FD Laser Cannon Team

It's a new Support unit!  The 1.4 FD Laser Cannon Team lets Rebels do what they already try to do with their AT-RTs - Aim and Shoot without moving like an idiot - only better because the unit in question can't move!

Armada Meta Deep Dive: Raddus Bomb

Part one of six of our Armada Regionals deep dive!

Pre-Regionals Armada Meta Review

We're only a few weeks out from the start of Regionals season. While we're still waiting on FFG to publish a full list, your FLGS should already know if they got one. The community has been putting together a list, so head over to the forums for the latest and greatest. It also wouldn't be Regionals season if I didn't take a look at the meta and make some crazy predictions!

NOVA Open AAR

It's been a hot minute, but I'm finally getting around to my NOVA Open AAR. Obviously the two days went quite well for me, but there's still lessons to be learned. For science!

Ground Commander's Guide - Scout Troopers

Scout Troopers are the Imperial equivalent of the already covered Rebel Commandos, giving them their first Special Forces unit and temporary parity with the Rebel forces.  That being said, these Special Forces units differ somewhat from the Rebel Commandos and other Imperial forces.  Let's take a look at them now.

Scout Troopers

Offensively is what we need to look at first.  The Scout Trooper's EC-17 Hold-Out Blaster is a beast of a weapon, dropping 2 Black dice on your opponent at a limited Range 1-2.  This averages to 1 hit per mini, which is better than pretty much any generic trooper mini.  Unfortunately there is no offensive surge conversions to improve these shots, but with a generic 4 man team and no aim, you can average 4 hits, and increase this to 5 with a single aim token.  Sharpshooter 1 helps ensure your shots will go through cover.

They aren't terrible at melee, but 1 Black die and no surges does not exactly inspire confidence.  You basically cut their damage in half by getting into melee, so the Range 1-2 is their sweet spot.

Defensively, they are an Imperial glass cannon.  While they are a rare Imperial unit that gets defensive surge to block, they also have the dreaded white defense die.  Combined with just 4 minis per unit and a single health per mini, and if they are caught in the open they will die very rapidly.  Fortunately, with Low Profile they can get Heavy Cover nearly anywhere.  Also a courage value of 2 means that they can take some shots and still advance, or "Duck and Cover".

For movement, you can use Scout 1 to get a jump on an early objective, or to get them closer to the fight early, and you'll want them in the fight with their attack dice.  Otherwise, just a normal Speed 2 move.

Upgrades are Heavy Weapons, Training, Comms, Equipment, and Grenades.

Scout Troopers - Strike Team

Identical to the normal Scout Troopers but only 1 mini (2 after the mandatory upgrade) and the Heavy Weapons Team keyword.  The whole unit is relatively inexpensive in this case (16 points + mandatory upgrade of either 26 or 28 points)

Upgrades:

* = comes with this expansion.

Heavy Weapons

DLT-19x Sniper - 28 points*

Oh my yes.  Another mini (worth 15 points by itself) and the extra 13 points gives you the ability to reach across the map, a weapon with 2 Black dice (and thus no downgrade in dice quality) and the keywords High Velocity and Pierce 1.  The range boost on this weapon lets the Scouts at least do something on their approach, split fire, or just sit as a Strike Team at long range and plink away at a target.  They average better hits with an aim token then the Rebel's White / Black, so on a team just sitting across the map and not moving, they are going to statistically do just a bit more damage.

Pierce 1 is good enough reason to throw this onto your full team, but it might not be the most efficient upgrade.

Sonic Charge Saboteur - 26 points*

Imperials get another way to put Suppressive attacks on a target.  Sonic Charge Saboteur lets you Arm 1: Sonic Charge to put down a token capable of making an AOE attack at Range 1 with 1 Red / 1 Black and surge to crit, as well as Blast and the aforementioned Suppressive.  Great against troopers and trooper spam, this can be detonated at basically any time as long as you have a unit with Detonate X: Sonic Charge still on the board, including other Scout units.

This is honestly probably the upgrade you want to take on the full scout units to maximize the chaos against trooper spam.

Training:

Duck and Cover - 8 points*

Get that suppression token early so that you can have immediate Heavy cover.  With this upgrade you can walk your Scouts across the map without giving a single care about cover, or put this on a Sniper Strike Team and not worry about getting bodied from long range.

The best part of this card is that if you only get attacked once, you will be right back at the 1 suppression sweet spot next turn.  No lost action, but Heavy Cover while standing in the open.

Hunter - 6 points

New card in with Fett.  Attack a wounded unit, get a free Aim token.  Bad news is it doesn't work on generic troopers at the moment as they all have 1 health.  Should work with Wookies / Royal Guard (some of the time) though!

This can make your Strike Teams more mobile if going up against named character, it also adds more dice rerolls to your Scout Troopers while getting them all up in against the big guys, while you reenact the ending of Last Jedi on Luke Skywalker.

Comms:

HQ Uplink - 10 points*

This has some use with both Imperial commanders so far:

Vader - Use this with Scout Troopers to get that free action with New Ways to Motivate Them.  (Not great when each one is worth 15 points of force on the board!)

Veers - Here's where it gets fun.  Get a Recover action (which refreshes HQ Uplink immediatly!) with Imperial Discipline!

Long Range Comms - 10 points

HQ Uplink is like... right there.  It comes with the unit.

Maybe better for a Vader list where your Scouts are your only non-Core units?

Comms Jammer - 15 points

Scouts do want to get ALL UP IN on your opponents anyway.  This could be good for throwing a wrench into your opponent's plans.


Equipment:


Targeting Scopes - 6 points

Could be a very useful upgrade.  Snipers don't need it, but a full team of Scouts is going to be throwing a LOT of dice at a target.  Find a good way to toss an aim token their way (Veers) and go hog wild doing more damage than a team of Fleet Troopers.

Grappling Hooks - 3 points 

I almost consider this worthy of stapling to the Sniper upgrade card, especially the Strike Team.  Get high, see more things, shoot more things.

Environmental Gear - 3 points

Unhindered might be a big help, especially if you're planning on hiding in Light Cover / Difficult Terrain.  Even more so if you're running around laying down a mine cover.  Not quite an auto-include though.

Emergency Stims - 8 points*

A pretty good idea to include on your Strike Force to double your effective health for one good zombie push.  Also lets you suicide yourself into an enemy if you've got a Saboteur - Arm and immediately Detonate (Arm was an action after all!)  Then hang around anyway to force your opponent to use your reanimated corpses for target practice.  You're already dead, might as well take some of those Rebels down with you.  Stims don't kill you until the end of your NEXT activation after all.

Stims just get better the more health and potential damage / points you have available to yourself.


Grenades:

With Sharpshooter 1, Concussion Grenades aren't really all that useful.  Impact Grenades could be helpful, but really you're cutting the combat power of the Scouts by taking grenades in half for each one that throws a grenade.  So unless you want to an emergency source of anti-Armor, leave them at home, or put them on the Stormtrooper teams.

Builds

Scout Troopers

- Sonic Charge Saboteur

- Duck and Cover

Total:  94 points

You've got a team that is difficult to kill, being effectively always in heavy cover, and able to drop Sonic Charges all over the place.  Great against trooper spam.  Get them all up ins!

Scout Troopers

- DLT-19x Sniper

- Duck and Cover
- Emergency Stims

Total:  104 points

Waaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!  Forget bombs, you don't need anything fancy to shoot things.  Get close, fire 10 Black dice at a target, survive the counter attack, and do it again.  Pierce 1 ensures your attacks will cause some damage.

Scout Troopers  - Strike Team

- Sonic Charge Saboteur

Total:  42 points

Kaboom!  Even if your main Scout team dies, you can still set off their mines as the Strike Team hides in the rear of your lines with a detonator in hand.

Scout Troopers - Strike Team

- DLT-19x Sniper
- Grappling Hooks

Total:  47 points

That's pretty cheap for a good supporting unit.  Better than a 4 man unit of naked Snowtroopers anyway.  Hide somewhere high and put rounds downrange.

The NOVA Open Format

Hey folks! Truthiness here, back after a longer than intended break following the NOVA Open. I'll dive into a true AAR of my personal experience in the near future. I wanted to start, however, by talking about the NOVA Open's unique structure for its Star Wars Armada tournament.

Ground Commander's Guide - Boba Fett - Infamous Bounty Hunter

Hey guys it's your boy Boba Fett here ready to collect another bounty with ya'll!  Fett gives the Imperials quite a bit of tricks.  Let's look at what he brings to the party.

Let's Look At Sheev

September was not a good month for any of us here at Steel Squadron, at least not for writing articles.

Let's take a moment to look at the new Imperial Commander that will be coming out early next year.  Emperor Sheev "The Senate" Palpatine is pricey for Imperial commanders, coming in at just under Darth Vader cost, making him the 3rd highest Imperial.  However in exchange you get a supercharged Intel Officer for all of your ships, affecting all uses of the named token (not one specific token).  But only one turn per token and one token per turn.