That’s right, it’s Spoiler Season! This time around, we have 18 new cards to bring you over the following week for IACP Season 11! For those of you who haven’t been following, since Season 9 we have changed our timeline such that instead of one new season a year with long periods of both playtesting and competitive play, we now work Seasons in a 6-month schedule. This has allowed us to keep things fresh as we release content more often and have more opportunities to iterate on the project, while at the same time allowing us to focus on a smaller number of new releases at a given time (while overall maintaining the same number of cards released per year as previously).
For those of you participating within the community from the IACP Discord (https://discord.gg/gyWSyAUxhA), we will be adding a distinct forum post on our skirmish channel for each new card this season, as well existing cards receiving changes or on Probation. We’ll post each card’s thread as they are revealed throughout the week, and they will remain there for discussion and feedback throughout the season. We hope this method will provide players with an organized space to share their thoughts on our new release and changes and encourage players to provide both initial and hands-on feedback as they are playing their games through this testing season.
Without further ado…
For Season 11, the Empire decided to fight back harder than ever against the Rebellion and polished up some old toys to play with!
First on the list is a very cool figure which unfortunately wasn’t getting much time in the spotlight. The Purge Commander is a hybrid support unit meant for helping Imperial Hunters slice through their foes with precision. However, the majority of these hunters being melee meant that getting the Coordinated Hunt ability to work was quite tricky as the attacker was often blocking Purge Commander’s line of sight to the target.
To remedy this issue, we have made a slight change to this ability: Purge Commander now only requires line of sight to the attacking Hunter, rather than the target of the attack, to grant the reroll. Thus, your figures won’t body block themselves as much, and as such it should be significantly easier to trigger this ability. We hope this change will find its mark and make Imperial Hunters more consistently deadly.
Next up is a fan favorite and iconic Imperial Assault character from the base game, who slowly crept away from the meta as more and more cards were released. The Royal Guard Champion is an awesome brawler who sweeps across the battlefield delivering a flurry of blows. Unfortunately, this power fantasy often fell a bit short, and he wasn’t inspiring fear into his enemies quite like before.
Well, what do you do when you can’t quite get to the top? You reach higher of course! So that’s exactly why the Royal Guard Champion now has the Reach ability to help him fully utilize his kit. Brutality and Executor should now be much easier to trigger as an Imperial player, and this change gives RGC a much-needed threat radius boost. This should also give his unique command card an indirect buff and hopefully help it get included in some lists. More attacks, more fun!
To go along with this improvement is a deliciously flavourful reroll in Overpower, allowing you to reroll one red or black die while attacking or defending. One of the main complaints with the Royal Guard Champion was that his dice were too swingy, leading to frequent situations where he would deal little damage and die rapidly. This new ability should help mitigate some of that while being unique from other more general reroll abilities. Notably, this also does not permit rerolling into a dodge, which is especially important on a two defense-die figure who can occasionally dodge.
While RGC will still die to a series of high-powered focused attacks, the goal for this figure is to allow him to move in quicky and do damage before that happens. As such, RGC thrives in lists that have cheap expendable figures to sacrifice for Executor triggers, giving the opponent tough decisions about whether to attack the tanky RGC, or the frail supporting cast, but risk being solidly thwapped in the head in return. There are a lot of spicy combos which have already sprung up for this purpose, and we can’t wait to see what the community can come up with! (Looking at you Palpatine and Rancors…)
Speaking of fearful figures, the Lord of the Sith has come a long way since his reign of terror in FFG and early IACP days. With more and more low-cost efficient figures appearing in the meta, the poor Sith had a hard time keeping up no matter how hard he hit. This is why we’ve decided to give him more options by reworking his unique command card!
Vader’s old command card was basically never used, as it couldn’t grant him any additional attacks or Force Chokes, all for the steep cost of 3 command points. This new effect should help keep up with the ever-increasing number of efficient attackers in lists by granting him a bonus attack of his own! It can combo off of any defeat and can even be used during a Parting Blow combo before the Stun gets applied to Vader. It could also be used in between the two attacks from a Pummel, if the first attack defeats the target. Note that if it is used during Vader’s own activation, the once-per-activation limit for special actions still applies. However, there are many surprising combos that can be pulled off, which will make Vader an even more imposing threat on the battlefield.
Long-time IACP players will know that the Steering Committee has always tried to keep Vader as a target top-tier figure for the power level of the game, so this change is not being done lightly. The Command card still costs 3 points, meaning that in a list with 2 Parting Blows and this card, you can very quickly run out of points. This change will help our favorite Sith Lord rise once more, and also provide a reason to play a famous unique character’s Command card, allowing for more diversity in the Command card selection for Vader lists.
Finally, the last preview is the (hopefully) last episode in a multi-season saga, You Will Not Deny Me, Fifth Brother’s unique Command card. After a probationary vote and a disapproval vote, we have decided to go with a completely different direction from the card, though still themed around the concept of a relentless pursuit.
Instead of leaning further into his card-searching theme, we aim to alleviate some of the weaknesses of being an expensive melee brawler; namely, being killed during the approach rounds, and being neutered by Harmful conditions. The card being used on discard makes it perfect for dampening big attacks through Zillo Technique, while subsequently granting Fifth Brother a Second Chance-like effect which also lets him ignore all his HARMFUL conditions while it is active. Ignoring conditions means he can still receive them, he simply will not suffer from their effects for the round, though they will impact him once You Will Not Deny Me drops off. To balance this strong ability, the card will automatically end once a hostile figure is defeated, leading to interesting strategic decision-making for both players. Since he recovers 2 damage before the card is sent to the game box, he will not be automatically defeated when this trigger occurs, but of course will still remain perilously close to death.
That is it for today’s spoilers! We hope players are excited for these updates and changes, and stay tuned for future reveals of new and exciting cards during the rest of this week!