Updating star wars fandexes for 9th

[Jack Shrapnel]

Alright, for those interested in such things I'm looking for feedback on updating my star wars empire and star wars rebels fandexes for 9th edition. This involved quite a bit of playtesting, which got me to these 8th edition versions:

www.mediafire.com/file/48otior4v7mko07/codex_galactic_empire.pdf/file

(battlescribe file): www.mediafire.com/file/mhpygsnpn2ku5gg/Galactic_Empire.catz/file


www.mediafire.com/file/tfzlkrgbdz4er7h/rebels_first_draft.pdf/file


(battlescribe file): www.mediafire.com/file/c9xw919ha3dox8g/Rebel_Alliance.catz/file


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So I'm planning on starting with the empire. 

First off I'm looking at making the emperor a supreme commander, and I'm considering combining his datasheet with the royal guard datasheet. This would be similar to a triumph of St. Katherine style unit combined with a few ideas from the silent king - basically the royal guard have to be killed first and as the unit is whittled down, some of the abilities change. 

strats and datasheets will have to all be updated and relics taken a look at. 

When I originally did up the codex it was just under the power level of imperial guard... kind of a horde army (stormtroopers were essentially scion level) with some vehicles that did actual damage and a mix of guard level characters and space marine level characters as the jedi. 

This of course has left it pretty low on the power level and some stuff just didn't work out as planned lol. 

So I'm not looking at making it on par with space marines / death guard... I'm looking for mid-tier and balanced. 

I'm going to update this thread as I go, and would certainly appreciate anyone who would like to playtest this out on TTS / in person, just let me know!

[voodoo]

Well, you know I'm always in to play against it.

[Jack Shrapnel]

Did a test of the 8th ed dex vs. craftworlds eldar (who aren't in a terribly great spot right now in 9th)

lost by 10 points at the end, but was able to make a few takeaways:

- none of the infantry are survivable at all... yeah I know they're all stormtrooper variants, and they actually die like flies, but in a game that requires actually holding primary objectives and not dying, it reminds me a bit of GSC. Guard statline but not the guard numbers to blob

- anti-tank is essentially a problem. So unlike guard, when the vast majority of your firepower is S5-7 taking out a tank is a rough proposition. The e-webs are Damage 3 lascannons so that helps a bit, however it's on a T3 3 wound platform, so any smart opponent just kills them with impunity.

- characters seem pretty good but somewhat underwhelming. ie: epic duel between Darth Vader and a wraithseer had him nerf batting the monster repeatedly and kind of turtling with his invul save to avoid getting pasted.

- psychic powers are all small to mid-range, making smite often the only choice for a power.

and some GOOD things:

-The mobility of speeder bikes is great for things like engage on all fronts
-enough infantry for actions is helpful for secondaries (I chipped a couple wounds using the infantry but essentially they were better off using actions)

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So obviously playtesting needs to continue as I don't want to make any adjustments based on a single game of course. But these are the things that popped up in our first game. I'm sure Ray will also have thoughts facing it

[Frosty the Pirate]

After our TTS game yesterday, I might have to name my newly assembled Wraithseer with a suitable Jedi name... he fought Darth Vader and survived. Not an easy feat. =P

Some thoughts I had after facing it:

The speeder bikes were very good disruptive elements. Felt very similar to Necron Tomb Blades and their -1 to hit.

I initially WAYYYY over estimated how good Light Sabers were (I was expecting old-school Thunder Hammer Wolf Lord levels of 'I flatten anything'), I was expecting the Jedi characters to just kill stuff with impunity and hence did the Elf-thing and just avoided them as much as possible, seemed fairly easy to do given my excessive mobility, but a slower army would likely have struggled.

Lightsaber Deflection is incredibly strong, Darth Vader reflected two D-Cannon shots back at the Wraithseer and caused a brown-pants moment.

Some of the Force Powers felt like they didn't really need to be psychic powers. Light Saber Throw could work just as well as a normal shooting attack for example, like Jain Zars' Trieske attack or Arjac Rockfist's Hammer Throw, and Force Choke could probably be simplified to be like Mind War where it just inflicts the difference in scores in mortals, or like Hammer of Wrath where it's just a number of dice vs Toughness to make it resolve faster.

The stratagem of 1CP to completely prevent falling back is insanely strong. Given how falling back changed in 9th to disallow tri-pointing and other techniques, this probably needs to be updated. Easily the most powerful thing I saw.

Storm troopers felt pretty squishy. Upping the non-specialized versions to minimum squad size to 10, but adjusting the point costs down to keep them similarly costed might help staying power just by pure volume of wounds needed to remove them.