Welcome back to the IACP Season 11 spoilers! This time it’s the Rebels’ turn. We’re looking at giving some love to some existing IACP figures that just don’t see the table much. We’re hoping that some changes to these cards will make them a little less underwhelming and bring them up to par on the table.
First up is Mak Eshka’rey. Mak is a hero from the core box of Imperial Assault. Previously he had found niche spots in some Rebel lists as a cheap spy that could increase the activation count of a list. With the increase in the number of Spies available in the game, it has no longer been deemed necessary to use Mak to be able to play the spy command cards. So, here is a new version of Mak that we hope you will enjoy!
First, we decided to increase Mak’s attack stats. His attack has always been weak, and he needs to be able to stand on his own against other 3-cost support figures like the elite Jawa, Gideon Argus, or Bib Fortuna, especially given that he does not have support abilities of his own. He now has a Blue Green attack pool, instead of Blue Blue. This, along with the changes to the surge bar, has dropped his accuracy. We want Mak to still be considered a long range attacker, but given Priority Target, Camouflage, and his new Command Card, we didn’t want Mak to be able to snipe from the back without any risk. However, we did also change his accuracy to an innate ability, instead of requiring surges. This should allow him to be more consistent over middle range, but not push his overall accuracy too high.
Next, we were able to make use of the IACP keyword for Priority Target to create some more space on the card. Camouflage seems like such a thematic ability for Mak, really keeping him safe to run objectives or position to shoot a key figure. This is also stealing directly from Mak’s campaign ability “Covert” while staying consistent with the same name this ability already has in skirmish with the Scout Troopers.
Another change that we made was to tweak the Critical Hit ability. The original version required the attack to defeat a figure to bring about the secondary effect, and that was only happening very rarely. That’s unfortunate for a really cool ability. So the ability was changed to trigger if damage was done during the attack. Given that we were replacing Mak’s unique command card, this seemed like a prime opportunity to merge some command card manipulation abilities. Critical Hit now stops the target figure from playing Command cards for the round. Don’t want Vader to play his new unique Command card against you? Target him with Mak and see if you can punch some damage through! Mak may need a bit of help from another figure to do this job, though, especially against figures with strong defenses. Worst-case scenario, you can probably at least bait a Zillo Technique exhaust.
Lastly, we found another neat ability from Mak’s campaign cards to replace the original unique Command card that just wasn’t seeing play. Between Camouflage and Disengage, playing aggressively with Mak will be more sustainable, allowing him to stay quite safe. Disengage can also be used somewhat offensively, not merely defensively, as veteran campaign players might be familiar with.
The next Rebel card to be updated is the AT-RT. While having some decent synergy with troopers, this figure has not been up to par with other 8-cost figures. 8+ cost figures tend to have two ways to deal damage, such as a secondary attack or a flamethrower. We decided to replace Run and Gun with a secondary damage option. Now the Mortar Launcher does damage to an area similar to the Grenadier card. During initial playtesting of this we discovered that being able to bring two of these and overlap their Mortars could be a little too good. So, distinct from other area of effect abilities, this ability cannot target an empty space; it must target a space containing a figure. This allows the opponent some counterplay by spacing their figures two spaces apart, similar to playing around Blast. Notably, this ability will also hit the AT-RT itself, if used against a hostile figure that is standing adjacent to an AT-RT, which is a small nod to the Awkward nature of its bigger brother in Empire.
We want to remind everyone that Rogue One still remains on probationary approval. We are not making any changes to the card at this point, but we would appreciate continued testing and feedback concerning that card as well.
That’s all for now, may the Force be with you!