Is anyone concerned about generic officers?

[Thevshi 127]

I am not concerned.  The Rebel officer provides a cheap commander for those that want a much points to structure their army as they can get, and also includes another way to use him (by adding him to a regular Rebel Trooper unit).  Seems like it can create some interesting options.

[srMontresor 165]

9 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Why would anyone want to play a Star Wars game and not use named characters?  Very confused by why those people would even be interested in Star Wars to begin with.  

1

Because they like the aesthetic and the setting but not the characters?

Because they're creative types who prefer to craft their own characters than someone else's?

Because they find the inevitable matchups of x-named character vs y-named character to break the atmosphere of the game?

Because of any number of individual reasons that are easily imaginable if you put your thinking cap on?

I'm not having a go at you, just answering your question, and I very much doubt the introduction of low-cost, non-unique characters with relatively underwhelming stats will cause most players to not want to field the unique characters.

[buckero0 1,956]

9 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Mildly concerned.  This is Star Wars, named characters should be on every table.  Why would anyone want to play a Star Wars game and not use named characters?  Very confused by why those people would even be interested in Star Wars to begin with.  

Hmm there are several video games based around being a Stormtrooper, etc.  Generic = use your imagination to fill in the blanks. This is also the same company that makes the SW RPG which is all about using your imagination

Edited August 3, 2018 by buckero0

[srMontresor 165]

11 hours ago, Collins said:

because history has taught us that war doesn't have named heroes 

History certainly has plenty of unsung heroes.

[Mep 2,291]

Well, since we can't have more than 6 trooper units as is, the trooper spam can't get any worse. Cheap leaders gives options for other units than the standard 6 troopers everyone is already bringing.

[WAC47 1,796]

Just now, Mep said:

Well, since we can't have more than 6 trooper units as is, the trooper spam can't get any worse. Cheap leaders gives options for other units than the standard 6 troopers everyone is already bringing.

That’s missing the point. 

“Trooper spam” is a misleading title. It’s “cheap, objective-scoring activation spam.” 

The more cheap, efficient, objective-scoring units we get the worse so called “trooper spam” will get UNLESS expensive units are able to kill things fast enough to even the score. 

[TheGreenKnight 96]

I’m not a competitive player, and I welcome anything that adds more variety and customisation options to the game. If this didn’t happen (and the sooner, the better), I’d have gotten frustrated and figured out a way to homebrew it. I’ve always leaned heavily into narrative scenarios and campaign play in any wargames I’ve played, and generic leaders are a must for this. Otherwise, your heroes (always familiar ones) are forced to lead narrow, implausible campaigns against the same ‘usual suspects’ over, and over, and over again. You can only devise so many narrative scenarios in which Luke and Han face off against Vader and the Emperor before any sense of verisimilitude and suspense goes out the window. It becomes a Saturday morning cartoon (‘Ooooh, those pesky Rebels! I’ll get them next time!’). But getting to create your own heroes and villains? Now you’ve got my attention.

[TauntaunScout 4,276]

10 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Mildly concerned.  This is Star Wars, named characters should be on every table.  Why would anyone want to play a Star Wars game and not use named characters?  Very confused by why those people would even be interested in Star Wars to begin with.  

It's easy if you try...

Mildly optimistic. This is a Star Wars tabletop hobby wargame, named characters should be on no tables. Why would anyone want to play a Star Wars miniature hobby wargame and use named characters? Very confused by why those people would even be in interested in miniature hobby gaming to begin with.

Even as a child playing on the floor my favorite Star Wars figures were nameless pilots and troops.

The point of this whole miniatures enterprise for most people was making your own stuff: designing your collection, painting the figures, building scenery, creating scenarios. There is no place for canon, the tabletop is my corner of the galactic civil war. I get to be the director, the set and costume designer, etc. etc. etc. In the 90's we didn't even have rules for movie characters in Star Wars miniatures battles, unless we took time to convert them from RPG supplements, and even in those supplements they suggested that movie characters should never make an appearance in games, except maybe as a cameo.

If I wanted to be bound by what proper nouns to use I'd play (even more) historicals (than I already do) because no fictional universe can ever be as detailed as reality. It is seriously non-canon to see Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader confront each other every time I turn around.

 

[Caimheul1313 2,990]

14 hours ago, Mep said:

Well, since we can't have more than 6 trooper units as is, the trooper spam can't get any worse. Cheap leaders gives options for other units than the standard 6 troopers everyone is already bringing.

Corps =/= Troopers. All of the units that have Trooper keyword as their unit type are troopers. So: everything that has been revealed that is not a AT-RT, AT-ST, T-47, or Airspeeder  Speederbike. Every other unit that we know about is a Trooper.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Caimheul1313

[Thevshi 127]

2 hours ago, WAC47 said:

That’s missing the point. 

“Trooper spam” is a misleading title. It’s “cheap, objective-scoring activation spam.” 

The more cheap, efficient, objective-scoring units we get the worse so called “trooper spam” will get UNLESS expensive units are able to kill things fast enough to even the score. 

 

50 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Corps =/= Troopers. All of the units that have Trooper keyword as their unit type are troopers. So: everything that has been revealed that is not a AT-RT, AT-ST, T-47, or Airspeeder. Every other unit that we know about is a Trooper.

Sure, these are concerns given the current way people are playing the game.  But look at some of the stuff coming down the pipe.  Yeah the emplacement troopers are rather inexpensive, but the special forces units can get rather spendy, particularly if you are kitting them out as much as you can.  A rebel strike team with the proton charge saboteur is already almost 90 points, add a HQ Uplink and some other upgrades and you will easily get over 100 points for the five man team.  If you choose to field the heavy weapon team with the sniper as well, that is over 40 points without any upgrades.  I imagine the Scout Troopers will be similarly priced and the Wookiee Warriors and Royal Guard also look to be pricey.

So yeah, the generic commanders (Rebel and Imperial) might free up a chunk of points, but the special forces units can quickly eat that up.

I think it will be interesting to see how all these options play out once we have them.  I certainly believe more options is always preferable to less.

[KommanderKeldoth 3,141]

I'm not concerned.  A four health commander with a white defense die and two courage is going to be VERY vulnerable to heroes and snipers.  Not to mention AT-ST Mortar fire and speeder alpha strikes.  Once the commander goes down the whole army will be extremely vulnerable to panic

[BadMotivator 1,263]

Generic commanders are good because it gives you more agency. You can have your personal character on the field.

"This is Lt Jenkins, commander of task force Beta-3, which has been ordered to secure this supply depot from the Imperial Garrison guarding it".

"This is Lance Corporal Lorkin. Only a few months out of the Imperial academy, he relishes his assignment to suppress the rebel insurrection upon Hyplon-9 with his elite force of Stormtroopers."

[Derrault 1,091]

21 hours ago, Shadow345 said:

And the fact that their extreme low point cost further promote and enable trooper spam?

Not even a little. Their command cards are next to nothing, and they have next to no combat capability; especially as compared to any other commander. Worse, at 4 HP, they’re going to potentially be 1 shot by Veers or a couple sniper special forces units. 

[Jabby 1,042]

I’m probably going to still use named characters but also generics. Prolly a named-generec combo. That seems like the most effective use

[Caimheul1313 2,990]

58 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Generic commanders are good because it gives you more agency. You can have your personal character on the field.

Nothing stops you from doing that with the "named" characters, with a different paint job or customization. Heck, my "Leia" isn't even human, she just happens to have a  similar style of command. If you let the name on a piece of cardboard dictate the personal backstory for your models, that's on you.

[Mep 2,291]

2 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Corps =/= Troopers. All of the units that have Trooper keyword as their unit type are troopers. So: everything that has been revealed that is not a AT-RT, AT-ST, T-47, or Airspeeder. Every other unit that we know about is a Trooper.

yep, and we already have trooper spam, What's a few more. My problem is with the activation spam and how that makes the games take longer.

[Winter79 4]

I love them (maybe not the imp sculpt, but that is a personal thing)

I think that the real issue is around the role the commander plays in the game. Vader, Luke and Probably the Emperor (I say probably as I've not seen him played yet for obvious reasons) are killing machines in their own right.  They occupy a different role from generic officer. They stand and fall on the effectiveness of their cost vs their killing and game winning potential. The Q is are they cost effective vs infantry spam. This would still be the Q even if Generic officer didn't exist. Its really Leia and Veers as back line support commanders thats the Q.  Generic commanders occupy the same space in terms of role. Infantry morale and unit buffering. The Generic commanders are basically Leia and Veers lite. Is Leia worth an extra 40 pts (= 4 reb squad unit)?  I agree that it maybe that it could be no in most cases, but until this is play tested across many games its hard to tell. 

[VAYASAN 850]

19 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Mildly concerned.  This is Star Wars, named characters should be on every table.  Why would anyone want to play a Star Wars game and not use named characters?  Very confused by why those people would even be interested in Star Wars to begin with.  

The Star Wars Universe and war was massive with battles all over....im baffled why you would want to limit this to characters only(there are only so many).

 

Sure have characters available to play...thats great, I just cant work out why you would want to limit this game to them.

[jocke01 920]

The worry is that they generics will be more cost effective than the named heroes and villans.

Some editions ago in w40k you barely Saw any troops. You took the required amount and hid them while spamming the most powerful units your army could buy. Then they changed it so troopers were needed for objectives. 

So hopefully named commanders Will Still be useful.

I do however see the point that Luke&vader:co should't be in every battle in the galaxy

[WAC47 1,796]

A couple of people have pointed out the vulnerability of a single generic (4hp, white defense plus surge). However, you’re not going to see 1 generic commander in activation spam lists, you’ll see two. They’re some of the cheapest units in the game, so of course activation spam will max out on them. 

And together they appear to be roughly as survivable as Leia (for comparison, probably also applies to Veers), and have many of the same capabilities. Sure Leia has the slight benefit of the keywords being bundled together (and therefore more efficient), nimble, and her command cards. But the extra activation is huge, and has a decent chance of pushing Leia out of competitive play. That’s the concern. 

Sidenote: I totally get the desire to develop custom scenarios, characters and stories. I fully endorse that style of play! My critiques of generics come from my perspective on competitive play, in which case I feel like they dilute the storytelling aspect (because I don’t know what backstory you have for your army when you set up across from me) and pose a problem for low activation lists. 

[TauntaunScout 4,276]

1 hour ago, WAC47 said:

Sidenote: I totally get the desire to develop custom scenarios, characters and stories. I fully endorse that style of play! My critiques of generics come from my perspective on competitive play, in which case I feel like they dilute the storytelling aspect (because I don’t know what backstory you have for your army when you set up across from me) and pose a problem for low activation lists. 

Leia vs. Leia or Vader vs. Vader is a far harsher blow to storytelling than not knowing a personalized backstory. In my opinion. Which is only liable to be an issue in competitive play, where you can't talk about which forces make sense with your opponent.

Edited August 3, 2018 by TauntaunScout

[WAC47 1,796]

@TauntaunScout, fair point!

Judging from your other posts, you and I have very different approaches to storytelling in this game. In the words of Lando Calrissian "I don't like it, I don't agree with it, but I accept it."

I really respect the parameters you've set for yourself, but they're not what I look for in my experience I much prefer to treat each battle as a standalone "What if" experience than a canonical representation of a specific battle in the continuity. 

[CaptainRocket 527]

9 minutes ago, WAC47 said:

@TauntaunScout, fair point!

Judging from your other posts, you and I have very different approaches to storytelling in this game. In the words of Lando Calrissian "I don't like it, I don't agree with it, but I accept it."

I really respect the parameters you've set for yourself, but they're not what I look for in my experience I much prefer to treat each battle as a standalone "What if" experience than a canonical representation of a specific battle in the continuity. 

And here I sit where I actually enjoy both styles! Its' pretty great that the game is able to support such a wide variety of play styles and preferences!

[TauntaunScout 4,276]

2 hours ago, jocke01 said:

The worry is that they generics will be more cost effective than the named heroes and villans.

Some editions ago in w40k you barely Saw any troops. You took the required amount and hid them while spamming the most powerful units your army could buy. Then they changed it so troopers were needed for objectives. 

So hopefully named commanders Will Still be useful.

I do however see the point that Luke&vader:co should't be in every battle in the galaxy

The worry? I call it the hope. I don't want to get thrashed on turn zero for not taking special characters. Which I won't once generic costumed people are widely available.  Like, Veers is close enough to generic for my purposes, that could be anybody in that uniform.

40k went through some serious ups and downs over the decades. They do seem to have hit a nice balance with objectives and making core rules that don't completely inherently favor small elite armies. The hasty shots that hit on a 6 for example, is a way better deal for orks than it is for space marines.

Though I think the "most powerful units you could buy" thing was a deliberate case of using rules as advertising. Funny how the most powerful units you could buy changed each edition...

Edited August 3, 2018 by TauntaunScout

[Thevshi 127]

Lets not forget that the generic officers also have a second way that they can be played.  Instead of being a stand alone commander, they can be added into an existing corps squad.  In addition to boosting that squads courage by 1, the officer in the squad can still use Inspire 1 to remove a suppression from another unit within range 1-2. 

For the price of one stand alone generic commander, you could have two attached to corps squads, which can provide a nice boost in dealing with suppression.  This might be especially true for a Rebel player using Luke, who tends to charge off.