An Opinion Love Letter to GAR
From Cloneball to Rexstar, we saw some very strong Grand Army of the Republic clone gunlines that used (and arguably, abused) token sharing back in the day. In the wake of a strong Republic showings at tournaments across the world, token sharing became limited between clones and standby sharing was also taken away to help limit their strength to a more reasonable level. However, as many have said, those changes took away a lot of the Republic’s strength and made them (in popular subjective opinion) the weakest faction in the game. Perhaps not by miles, but by far the faction with the least number of options for competitive lists. If that sounds like an exaggeration to some, there have been numerous events since early this year that have shown mediocre results across the board.
All this is to say that many have called for a point cost reduction to the faction. While this could be an easy patch to help strengthen the Republic as an overall faction, perhaps instead of running from the storm, we lean into the issue instead. Instead of just saying “GAR iS sO BaD, Plz hELp”, why not find a way to make their high cost values more efficient, therefore taking away from the easy bandage fix that lowering points can be?
We have taken a few of the units from GAR and have listed suggestions that could help strengthen the Republic’s troopers that would greatly help the faction with a small boost.
Phase 1’s:
Corps unit are the bread and butter of any faction. Sometimes players want to beef them up with upgrades to make them hit harder or gain certain abilities, but sometimes it’s nice to have a cheap unit to complete objectives. Many argue that this is one of the Republic’s biggest issues currently in competitive play. Even with red defense dice and black attack dice, 52 points feels steep for unit that otherwise only boast Fire Support as a keyword. For comparison, Shoretroopers gain both target 1 and coordinate emplacement trooper for the same cost; this is a very powerful combo that can give them a free aim token with fire support from their mortar troopers (or even an e-web), for example.
Adding reliable 1 would be a strong move for AMG to boost P1’s without breaking them. They could use it to attack or defend, but it still wouldn’t make them an overly powerful corps unit. But at 52 points, it could be argued that it would make them worth their cost, which has long been needed since alterations to clone’s token sharing happened.
Phase 2’s:
Phase 2’s are nice with reliable 1 and fire support with 2 courage. However, at a 62 point base, it still feels very expensive to field a unit that otherwise shoots 4 black dice and rolls red defense. This is close to the cost of most special force units, which is high for any 4-man corps unit to deal with. Giving P2’s a native surge to hit would give them the ability to keep their surge tokens (from Reliable 1) for defense. With token sharing, they could give their other clone counterparts a chance to use it as well
while not burning through their own. This would feed in very well to the clone gunlines in general and boost their fire support options as well!
Arc Troopers:
Arc troopers are an elite unit of clone troopers in the Star Wars world. However, the first thing that sticks out about them are a lack of strong keywords that you may expect from a special forces team. Impervious to pierce is great, but otherwise they rely solely on 50/50 red defense dice to try and stay alive. Sharpshooter 1 and tactical give them better odds of hitting, but they only shoot one black dice each at range 3, or one black and one white at range 2. To compare and contrast, a slightly cheaper Death Trooper unit has precise 2, disciplined 1, and ready 1 for 4 less points with a native surge to hit and defend. They even have a free ranged 4 weapon to keep them at a distance, whereas Arc Troopers need to be a bit closer to get serious damage in.
Surging to both hit and defend would be very strong for arc troopers. Defend 1 could also be a strong keyword to help justify their cost. In general, making an expensive unit like them able to withstand taking fire better would be a huge boost for them. Without adjusting their point value, Arc Troopers need surges to hit and defend if they really want to feel like the elite units they are supposed to be. Otherwise, they have little advantage over their Phase 2 corps counterparts at a much higher cost.
Arc Trooper Strike Team:
The Arc trooper strike team is arguably the hardest to fix in the faction. They do have two options with Echo and the DC-15x Arc Trooper, which sounds great in theory. However, they are by far the most expensive strike team in the game; and echo upgrade at 69 points, or the DC-15x option at 58. This means that their cheapest option is a whopping 10 points higher than both the Empire and Rebel’s versions, and 8 more than their separatist counterparts. On top of that, they also lack high velocity and natural pierce 1 abilities that make the original factions efficient for their cost and what they can do.
Tactical 1 is a good feature that Arc Trooper Strike teams good at rolling (or re-rolling) to get 2 hits in their dice pool. However, lethal will force them to make a decision: do I spend the aim to hit, or to give my weapon pierce? The answer will always be situational, but when shooting into heavy cover, for example, it is hard to get more than 1 damage through.
Target 1 would be a strong adjustment for Arc Trooper Strike Teams. It would increase their odds of hitting even more to help make Lethal even more effective. At the same time, they would still need to receive orders to take advantage of the keyword, which would make command cards and effects like Coordinate Clone Trooper even more important to lists than they currently are with strike teams. Without the Pierce keyword at their disposal, this could help make them worth their high point costs compared to ones of similar factions.
Obi-Wan Kenobi:
We all love Obi-Wan, and his recent show debut has put him at the height of popularity in the Star Wars universe. However, as tournament data suggests, Obi-Wan feels a bit underwhelming as a commander in the Republic right now. His guardian ability is fairly strong, but as always, can be a double-edged sword depending on his rolls. The last thing you want to do is let him take enough damage to keep him from eventually jumping into melee. On top of that, he has no surge to defend, which can make him vulnerable without a dodge token to spend.
As a hero who favors defense, it would make a lot of sense for Kenobi to gain either a surge to defend or defend 1. His points are not unreasonable for what he can do, but in a faction that has access to Anakin and Yoda, there feels like there’s little reason to run Obi-Wan Kenobi over other commanders in his faction. Regardless of whether he is “bad” in one’s eye for his cost, there is no denying that he doesn’t offer anything to the table that stands out right now, particularly with two other powerful jedi to boot. With defend 1 he could more consistently keep dodges on himself, and if he naturally surged to defend then he wouldn’t need to worry about having dodges on him as much to increase his odds with defensive rolls. Both options would not only make him stronger, but they would also fit him quite well thematically
With all of this said, there are many ways in which the GAR faction can “lean into the storm” instead of patching things over with a point cost reduction to certain units. While we may not all agree on what specifically can be changed, there is a lot say in trying to let them be a faction with fewer—but overall stronger—units that can make up for lack in numbers. Quality over quantity could be a great way of evening the factions and making the Republic strong in competitive once again. AMG may go a different route in the end, but for now we hope to start the conversation on how GAR can and should be altered to help them have a fair fight for the top tables at tournaments going forward!
Sincerely,
David Blanchard, The Indy Garrison
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