Today we are looking the Today, the Rebellion Dies squad box with Commander Iden Versio, Gideon Hask, Del Meeko, and the Imperial Special Forces in what is a very aggressive squad box for the empire.
This squad box is one of the strongest options for the Galactic Empire at the moment. It can dish out damage and conditions easily, and you will wound a lot of enemy units. Because of this, a popular counter pick for your opponent will be units with revenge triggers, such as Kanan with Spectre units, or Princess Leia, Charming to the Last. So be careful you are not giving your opponent easy ways to seize control of objectives or make out of activation attacks against you because you wounded someone. Another watch out is for your opponent wounding your units quickly, especially the ISF, as they lose a lot of effectiveness due to the increase in force cost for key abilities such as Covert Operations (a fantastic ability talked about below). And finally, there is the old saying “with great powder comes great responsibility’ (maybe that’s from another franchise?) And this is true of using this box, as this box can feel oppressive and give your opponent feel bad moments, due to how strong it is. So, it might not be the best choice for a friendly casual game.
Commander Iden Versio
As this squad’s primary unit, Commander Iden Versio provides 8 squad points and 3 force. Iden has 9 health which is about average for a primary unit, and thanks to her strong defensive expertise, it feels like a lot more. She has two great tags in Galactic Empire and Scout (more on that shortly). She and her squad are in the Galactic Civil War era, so they have a wide array of list building options.
Iden has a very strong set of abilities, starting with her tactic ability (and the name of the Squad Box), Today, The Rebellion Dies. It allows her to move unengaged Galactic Empire Scout characters within 4, and then dash herself as well. This provides a lot of out of activation movement for your scouts which is very powerful and can allow you to steal objectives. It also allows you to dash Iden herself. Providing additional movement to a character that already has a lot of movement available to her.
The first of Iden’s two active abilities is Covert Operations, which for the cost of 1 force you can dash Iden, and if she ends this movement within 4 of an enemy you make a focus action and gain Sharpshooter [1]. This is a fantastic active ability and I always use it. This gives you great additional movement on top of the dash from her tactics ability, and the 2 extra dice to her ranged attacks makes her a real powerhouse as you will be rolling up to 10 dice for her ranged attack.
ID10 Seeker Droid, for 1 force you can strip an enemy within 3 of all their hunker tokens, or if they don’t have any hunker tokens, they gain the exposed condition. This is a great ability as you can use it to deal with characters like Leia Organa, Freedom Fighter or General Obi-Wan Kenobi who tend to have a large number of hunker tokens. The bonus of being able to hand out an exposed is also great and can set up a future turn for your other units. I usually favour spending force on Covert Operations over this active ability due to the dash you get with it.
The Empire Sends Its Regards is Iden’s identity ability, where when an allied Galactic Empire unit wounds an enemy with an attack, you can choose another enemy unit within 4 and give them either the disarmed or strained condition. And then your allied unit can heal and dash. This is a fantastic win more mechanic. Since you can choose the enemy unit to affect, you can tailor the condition to the unit. Have an enemy Jedi or Vader in range, throw a disarmed on them. Do you have a low on health enemy in range? Then give them a strained condition to make your opponent have to use an action to remove it. As you will be wounding enemy characters with this squad so you will be handing these conditions out most turns.
Stances
Burst Fire is the more damage focused of the two combat trees, with the ability to do up to 10 damage (if you double pinned your enemy). With range 5, and 7 dice for range attacks that you can easily increase to 9, and an expertise tree that adds critical, you will have no trouble wounding enemy characters. While Melee is an option with 6 dice and an expertise tree that can add criticals, and turn blocks to misses, you will defiantly want to utilise your ranged attack as much as possible. Iden has 5 dice in both ranged and melee defence and her defence expertise tree is strong. Starting with 1 expertise for 2 blocks, then it adds in heal and reposition the more expertise you get. The only watch out is that Iden has no critical mitigation.
Full Auto is Iden’s more control focused stance. With 3 shoves, a dash, a reposition, heals, and conditions you have options as to which path you want to go down. I love having a pinned on the first step of the stance tree. Her ranged attack increase to 8 dice and her melee defence drops to 4 dice. Iden’s ranged expertise is strong. You not only add criticals but also turn your opponent’s blocks to misses. The melee expertise tree is the same as on Burst Fire, which is great as 3 expertise on melee is equal to 5 expertise on her ranged expertise. Iden’s defence expertise is slightly weaker on this side, requiring 4 expertise to get the best result on her expertise tree, compared to just 3 expertise on her other stance.
Gideon Hask
Gideon Hask is a powerful 4 cost secondary and really earns his place in this Squad. Because his name is Gideon he, of course, comes with the ability Long Live The Empire. For 1 force you can choose one Galactic Empire Supporting Unit, and one character in that unit may reposition toward an active objective. They then suffer two damage, and if they become wounded from this, they can become injured instead (following all the rules for becoming injured). This is a great way to steal an objective from an opponent and offers a way to score two objectives on Gideon’s turn. This ability is worth the cost.
Covert Operations is the same as it is on Iden’s card, and all members of Inferno squad come with it.
May We Live Up To Our Name is a revenge trigger for Gideon. When he is wounded by an attack he can dash and make a 5 dice attack targeting the character that wounded him. This is super strong and has allowed me to stop an opponent from flipping control of an objective because I have wounded them back with this attack so they can’t take control of the objective I control. If he just had this, he would be a good character, but he gets even better.
Defiance Will Be The Death Of You allows all allied Galactic Empire characters that make an attack as part of a combat action to add a hit to the attack role if the target is within range 5 of a Galactic Empire Scout character. This is one of the most powerful abilities in the game and I can’t believe it’s on a secondary. With hardly any reroll or dice changing abilities in the game this really does stand out and is one of the key reasons why this box is so popular. This increases the effectiveness of all Empire characters and applies not only to ranged attacks, but melee as well. You can also stack this with other abilities, like Moff Gideon’s ability to add a die to your melee attack.
Stance
The combat tree on Gideon’s Imperial Aggression stance focuses on either dealing damage on the top path or focusing on control on the bottom path. A shove on both the first and second step is amazing. His expertise charts are strong with the ranged expertise not only adding critical hits, but also damage and turning blocks into misses. His melee expertise tree adds critical hits and turns blocks to misses. His defensive tree is strong as well with expertise adding extra blocks and a heal, and even a reposition if you roll enough expertise. So not only is he hard to damage with 5 dice for both ranged and melee defence, but if you don’t wound him he can remove a damage or a condition.
Del Meeko
The first of two supporting units in this squad box and this unit consists of a single character, with a point cost of 4. Del has the Galactic Empire and Scout keywords that allows him to take advantage of Iden’s and Gideon’s abilities.
Trick Shot is a handy tactics ability that allows you to do a single point of damage to any enemy unit in line of sight. This is great if you have left any enemy characters on one health. Which happens more than I care to admit.
Covert Operations is the same as everyone else’s in the squad box, and it pairs nicely with the innate ability Deadeye.
Deadeye gives Del Sharpshooter [2] and removes Cover from the target. Sharpshooter [2] combines with Sharpshooter [1] in Covert Operations for a total bonus of 3 dice. Then add in the 1 die from the focus action, and you are adding 4 dice to Del’s first combat action. Wait, why did I say first combat action?
Special Forces Sniper allows Del to make up to two combat actions during his activation. This is a nice bonus as it removes some of the downside of having a single unit support. It’s worth noting that the focus action and the Sharpshooter ability always you to add dice to one combat action, not both. However, he does not break ties so this does not totally overcome playing a one character support unit.
Stance
Del Meeko’s combat tree is very good for dealing conditions with all four conditions on his tree. Along with a reposition icon near the end that should help him move around, and a heal if you can get to the end of the tree. With two paths to follow you must make a choice on which way you will go. You can choose based on the conditions you want to give out, and since you can attack twice thanks to Special Forces Sniper you can utilise both paths. If you do this, you can do a maximum of 12 damage by reapplying some conditions. His expertise charts are interesting, with his ranged expertise chart the only place you will be able to find a shove on his stance card. The melee expertise is nothing exciting, and you don’t want to be engaged with enemy characters with Del Meeko anyway. Finally, his defensive tree is similar to Iden’s and Gideon’s, just a bit weaker, but still good.
Imperial Special Forces
This is the second support unit in the box, and this unit is a powerhouse and always a first pick when I am building an Empire list. I regularly Shatterpoint this unit due to both their damage output and their maneuverability.
Special Forces Conditioning is a fantastic tactic ability that allows you to remove one damage and one condition from this unit. This means that this unit wont be affected by conditions such as pinned or strained when you activate this unit.
Covert Operations is great on this unit as both characters can benefit from it and is key to getting the most out of this unit each activation.
Infiltration is a very powerful ability. It allows you to deploy this unit within 3 of the primary unit, rather than the normal 1. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it gives you an advantage to claim objectives especially on a spread out map like those found in the Never Tell Me The Odds mission pack. On the other hand, it can leave this unit at risk of being an early target as you are closer to the enemy.
Stance
The stance chart for the Imperial Special Forces is a lot of fun. Even though it says 6 dice for ranged attacks, with Covert Operations you will routinely be throwing 8 dice, plus the guaranteed hit from Gideon means you will be hitting well above your weight. With great damage and conditions on the tree you will be aiming to wound characters with each activation. The one downside is that there are no shoves on the tree, but you will not miss them when you wound units each activation. Even in melee this unit is no slouch with 5 dice and a good expertise tree. In terms of defence the ISF is pretty good. They have 5 dice for ranged defence but only 4 dice for melee. The expertise tree is good, with 1 block for 1 expertise, and 2 blocks for 2 expertise, and a heal if you get 3+ expertise.
Gameplay Tactics
Strike Team:
Iden Versio, Gideon Hask, Imperial Special Forces
Moff Gideon, Death Trooper Escort, Dark Troopers
This is one of the strongest strike teams you can take at the moment, and it supports a very aggressive play style. One of the best synergies is using Defiance Will Be The Death Of You with units like Death Trooper Escort and Dark Troopers. And it stacks with Moff Gideon’s You Have Something I Want identity, where you can add a die to melee attacks if you are contesting an objective the enemy controls. So now your Dark Troopers are rolling 7 dice with one hit added to the attack roll. Both Moff Gideon and the Death Trooper Escort can move Galactic Empire units on their turns, so this adds even more movement to your strike team. Moff Gideon also has the ability Long Live The Empire, so now you have two chances to use this great ability on two of the best support units in the game.
I’d love to hear about how you are using Iden and the ISF in your Shatterpoint games. Drop me a note in the comments below.
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