Playing several games this weekend of Imperial Assault has me pretty well convinced my standby RGC list is starting to get past its prime. I played against a friend who was running a full unique Rebel list with . We played on a General Sorin map, where we needed to control the two terminals to gain victory points. We could turn off the teminals by controlling the control room. I made a mistake by not going directly to the control room and flipping off the terminals before my buddy could score a ton of VPs from it. But that’s not the reason why I’m thinking I need to rethink the list a bit (and really, its re-thinking RGC). The amount of figures now with some sort of Pierce ability has continued to grow in each expansion, and the Rebels now have access to 15 figure groups that have Pierce, Scum have 9, and the Imperials have 12. Pierce is critically damaging to Imperial units though, as they mostly depend on Black Dice as their chosen defense cube. That leaves little in the way of blocking surge abilities, and the pierce values now can really break through those defense dice rolls. This was clearly demonstrated as my Royal Guard Champ melted in one turn of an Obi-Wan and Leia attack in which the Pierce from Obi gutted my three block roll. It was then further tied in as Davith obliterated a storm trooper who had also rolled a full 3 blocks, and went on to wipe out another one that had a two block roll. The Imperial faction luckily has a deployment card that deals with this exactly in Zillo Technique. It counters Pierce in two ways, either by directly reducing Pierce value or by discarding command cards. It looks like it’s going to be the backbone of most Imperial builds going forward.
With this in mind, planning for the release of Jabba’s Realm has me looking at a few builds.
Troopers (15/15/40)
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[1] Temporary Alliance
[9] Elite Wing Guard
[9] Elite Stormtrooper
[9] Elite Stormtrooper
[7] Captain Terro
[2] Imperial Officer
[1] Zillo Technique
[2] Imperial Officer
-------------------
[3] Grenadier
[3] New Orders
[2] Cavalry Charge
[2] Reinforcements
[2] Reinforcements
[0] Take Initiative
[0] Urgency
[0] Planning
[0] Rally
[0] Fleet Footed
[0] Element of Surprise
[0] Celebration
[1] Rank and File
[1] Hit and Run
[1] Roar
This variant finds a home for the sadly miscast Wing Guards. The elite version wants to be sitting next to their trooper brethren, but the Keep the Peace ability needs them next to non-troopers. Well, by conscripting them into your Imperial force they can find a home helping groups of Stormies deal back some damage while also getting themselves some re-rolls. Captain Terro is super intriguing, and I think is going to be a lot of fun to play. He has enough hit points to weather being focused on in one of the narrow hallways on the current tournament maps, and his Mounted ability with an officer nearby can get him to where he can Flamethrower that group of Jedi right away.
The above list has a lot of other variants that could be swapped in for the Wing Guard, like an eProbe Droid, rJet Troopers with targeting computer or a pair of eProbe Droids.
Blaise Probes (15/15/40)
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[6] Agent Blaise
[9] Elite Stormtrooper
[9] Elite Stormtrooper
[5] Elite Probe Droid
[2] Imperial Officer
[2] Imperial Officer
[1] Zillo Technique
[1] Cross Training
[5] Elite Probe Droid
-------------------
[3] Grenadier
[3] New Orders
[2] Comm Disruption
[2] Reinforcements
[2] Reinforcements
[1] Collect Intel
[1] Collect Intel
[1] Data Theft
[0] Disorient
[0] Element of Surprise
[0] Espionage Mastery
[0] Rally
[0] Planning
[0] Urgency
[0] Take Initiative
This is another list that I think has a lot of flexibility for accomplishing tasks and area control, along with enough hitting power that you can kill some of the tougher as well as getting your troopers hidden to make sure you get the surges you need.
The new era that we’re entering with high pierce values and many more melee options should actually play well into the Imperial’s strengths, as long as they’re packing Zillo technique to help mitigate the damage. I’m excited to see the changes coming with the release of Jabba’s realm, and to see if some of the next maps to come into the tournament rotation will favor some more open space so Dewback Riders can really run wild.
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