The V-sets have sunken a lot of effort into the growth and feasibility of trooper based squads for all factions. The trooper squad has definitely improved, but it still suffers from the same issue it always has since the release of kybuck/lancer.

On one hand, it often seems detrimental to use high activation squads. The majority of your squad can be defeated in one activation by a gallop or strafe. Advanced Battle Meditation typically shuts trooper squads down. There are a lot of counters against these trooper based builds. Some people are against trooper squads, because the high activations cause for longer games, and less action.

I wanted to talk about some potential options as to how this could be fixed, or, should it be fixed?

Star Wars has always had a pulpy theme. The unique characters seem like gods, taking on swarms of storm troopers and coming out with hardly a scratch. Maybe we shouldn't attempt to make the trooper squad more feasible. Should a hand full of troopers really pose as a threat to Luke Skywalker, Yoda, Vader, or Palpatine?

On the other hand, Star wars also takes on the theme of huge battles, with lots of troops blowing each other up. To remove that aspect of the game would also be out of theme. However, this game has always been more about small select groups of characters, and not large scale foot-soldier driven battles. How much focus should we put on the non-uniques? If we make them too powerful, we have the opposite problem.

It seems like, to make this an tier 1 capable build, something needs to be changed to how we're approaching the Trooper builds. Throwing more commander effects at them isn't going to fix the problem. So what could be done? I have a few suggestions:

Trooer Pods. Like in many games, maybe we shouldn't be dealing with the individual trooper, but rather "pods of troopers". Many skirmish games use squads of units, rather than individual pieces. This may seem to go against how this game has always been played, but we do have examples of multiple characters on a base. Chewy/3p0, Luke/Leia, Ani/Padme/Reak. Would it be a stretch to have a "Trooper squad" at large or huge size that represents multiple storm troopers with better stats and more HP.

Safety in numbers. We have a couple of squad abilities, but they don't typically work well. Only one of them is based on survivability, while the others are offensive bonuses. Maybe we could look into more squad abilities that provided bonuses and allow the troopers to last a little longer. Squad cover is a good start, but could be some other special ability we haven't thought of, that could further strengthen running units in numbers and proximity?

Let um die. Troopers are expendable, after all. If a piece has a 5 point cost, it probably shouldn't be a game changer. Maybe, instead of continuing to make troopers more powerful and more survivable, we need to focus more on letting them do what they should do. Pose as a challenge, but not a true threat in and of itself. The Sith Pawn, IMHO, is a fantastic example of how this can work. Troopers support your Named Character, at a cost of their lives. I created an example of how this could be handled. With an ability like "Troop Loyalty - Whenever an ally with order 66 is defeated, this character gains +1 attack and +1 defense for the remainder of the skirmish. This bonus stacks." In this sense, we could create a better use for troopers. Does your opponent risk a kybuck murder rampage at the cost of providing a +10 attack and defense to an opponent beat stick? It would at the least give the your opponent question if its worth wiping out an enemy squad in one turn. Make the unique character more power, like in the movies, and make troopers worth playing with them, like in the movies. It would have to be handled delicately, as the example I provided could easily end with a broken character.

Death Shots - The only squad I've heard of at this point that uses troopers and stands a tier 1 fighting chance is the death shot squad. Much like my previous statement, this fits with the theme that troopers are best when they're dead. I have heard that this squad is a NPE though, and think that maybe its scratching the surface of a design option that could maybe be expanded on without dealing with the same old death shot option.

http://www.bloomilk.com/Custom/15854/general-skywalker--troop-leader

Safety in Numbers: "Each non-Unique Trooper of equal or less cost of this unit gains 10 HP for every trooper within 4 squares." :)

I would vote against increasing HP, just as in general I'm against abilities that require tracking.

Something that would produce a similar effect:

Close Call: If this character has 20 or more hit points when defeated, this character has 10 hit points instead of being defeated and may not be attacked for the rest of the turn.

Safety in Numbers: Allied troopers within 6 squares of another allied trooper gain Close Call. (Or do it through a commander effect.)

Most troopers are still shooters and shooters are still powerful with multiples activations and all the support in commander effects they can gain, not all factions have things like the lancer, and even those factions do not use those every time.

I still think squads have the advantage. particularly as there are more options amongst them.

My thoughts:

1. Make them immune to Gallop and Strafe. Make a commander that makes troopers unattackable by Gallop and Strafe. Doesn't necessarily have to be a CE, but making Troopers, while leaving all the other fodder you have, immune to those two abilities will solve about 70% of Trooper issues.

2. More Combined Fire bonuses. Combined Fire is perhaps the cheap, generic trooper's best advantage. When you have a bunch, that extra +4 Atk really helps. And I'm not talking about making it a swarmier version of the Commando Sniper. But more effects like Jerjerrod's CE, or Bail's CE. Using 3 Troopers to make one tough hit, is sort of where they can function.

3. Gang like abilities. I think Gang is a great thing for Troopers, to really swarm an opposing piece.

And then there are my really insane ideas, that I would like to see for swarms. Bringing in more each time a figure of the swarm dies, even if it is a crappier version.

^ +1 Combining fire and swarming is what cheap troopers should be doing.


Some random thoughts:

[Whenever (this / an allied X) character is defeated by an enemy, that enemy gets -1 Defense for the rest of the round. (this ability stacks)]

Mass kill pieces especially become more vulnerable to retaliation the more pieces they kill in a turn. Resets next round so no major bookkeeping.


Maybe something that increases the enemy's movement cost that turn when it defeats troopers.


Squad Distraction [This character gains Distraction while 3 allies with the same name are within 6 squares]

some kind of disruptive effect, anyway.

I like the spawning idea. If it's a 1 for 1 swap, and it's the weakest version of the trooper, the squad isn't ever going to get more powerful. It's then the opponent's job to get to the commanders before their whole squad is defeated.

Or maybe something that lets them move after combining fire

Hit and Run: if this character combines fire they may immediately move up to their speed after the attack resolves.

It at least lets you set up the round before (especially in a heavy activation squad) and get the heck out of Dodge before being shot to pieces.

Or use shields? Or something that works along these lines

"When 4 or more trooper allies are within 6 squares, allied trooper characters (including this character) gain shields 2."

That would make strafe and gallop less effective, especially on troopers with more than 10 hp.