Editing Star Wars: Legion/Tactics/Empire (section)

====Stormtroopers====

The bread and butter of the Empire, stormtroopers have an advantage in armor (4+) over their Rebel counterparts (generally 5+ or worse), but their shooting skills are shit in exchange, with only a white die in ranged combat. To compensate, they have Precise 1, so maximize on this by having them get aim tokens as often as possible, such as with Veers' Spotter ability. 

They can take one upgrade each of Gear, Grenades, Heavy Weapons, and Personnel; like 40k's Tactical Marines, kit them out for their desired role, such as grappling hooks and concussion grenades for if you want to rush them into close combat to take objectives, or targeting scopes and heavy weapons if you want them to sit in the backfield shooting.
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Upgrade Cards
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'''Heavy Weapon Upgrades (x1 Slot)'''

''DLT-19 Stormtrooper'' (24 pts.) - Adds a trooper with a range 1-4 gun that does 2 red dice, and has '''Impact 1'''.  At a minimum, you should always take this- if gives your troopers some much needed punch since their standard white dice are awful.

''HH-12 Stormtrooper'' (34 pts.) - Adds a trooper with a rocket launcher.  Exhaust this weapon to make a range 2-4 attack, and deal 3 black dice for damage with '''Impact 3'''.  Along with having to exhaust it (meaning you have to spend an action on Recover to use it again- not as big of a deal if you've got Veers though), a big drawback is '''Cumbersome''', meaning the unit it's attached to can't move during the same activation you shoot this.  Stupid good against armor, though.

''T-21 Stormtrooper'' (27 pts.)- adds a trooper with a range 1-3 gun that throws 4 white dice with ''Critical 2''.  It almost doubles the dice your squad is throwing, and gives critical surge on up to two of the surges you may roll (bearing in mind that you already have normal surge built-in on Stormtroopers).  Not a great choice unless you just really like throwing a lot of white dice or really want critical surge.

''RT-97C Stormtrooper'' (26 pts.) - adds a trooper with a range 1-4 gun that throws 1 red and 3 white dice.  It's got less accuracy than the DLT but a higher ceiling and higher average damage. No impact means it's less reliable against light armor, but it will get more hits through targets in heavy cover. A decent side-grade to the DLT and arguably your overall choice

'''Personnel Upgrades (x1 Slot)'''

FX-9 Medical Droid (19 pts.) - Adds an (evil) medical droid that as a free action twice per game, can either heal a model of a lost wound or poison token, or restore a model to a unit (if the unit has multiple wounds, like Royal Guard, the model only has a single wound). The range is 1. Otherwise, the droid can't fight in any way, and cannot be removed as a casualty unless only the unit leader is left. Useful mainly to keep your powerful Commanders and Operatives alive, especially Palpatine after he uses "And now... you will die."

R4 Astromech Droid (9 pts.) - Adds an (evil) astromech that functions exactly like the Medical Droid, except that it heals vehicles of wounds, ion tokens, or damage tokens (eg "weapon destroyed). It's fairly cheap and can keep your lovely AT-ST in the fight. Obviously it's useless if you have no vehicles.  

''Imperial Comms Technician'' (10 pts.) - Adds a guy with a cool big helmet that gives you a Comms Upgrade slot.  If you're desperate for an HQ Uplink on these guys, here's your chance.  Otherwise, meh.

''Imperial Officer'' (20 pts.) - Adds a new squad leader to your unit who increases your courage by 1, and gives you '''Inspire 1''' (remove a suppression token from another unit at range 1-2).  Gives your doods a nice morale boost.

''Stormtrooper'' (11 pts.) - Adds another stormtrooper.

''Stormtrooper Captain'' (15 pts.) - adds a stormtrooper captain.  He becomes your squad's leader and adds a Training upgrade slot to the unit.  Additionally, you can exhaust him to make your unit immune to being suppressed (but they can still panic) for the activation, at the cost of not being able to remove suppression tokens during that activation.  He essentially lets your stormies stay in the fight for one extra turn.  Either way, being able to take an upgrade like ''Hunter'' can be handy, since your Stormies rely pretty heavily on Aim tokens.

''Stormtrooper Specialist'' (15 pts.) - adds a stormtrooper specialist.  He gives your squad an extra Gear upgrade slot, and you can exhaust him to gain 1 Aim or 1 Surge token. The extra Gear slot is meh, but for four points over a normal trooper you're gaining the ability to get an Aim token without having to rely on Veers or taking an Aim action. The specialist is especially useful in a squad with the HH-12 because you can use him for Aim tokens, and when you do a recover to ready the HH-12, you ready him too... just watch out for suppression!

'''Gear Upgrades (x1 Slot)'''

''Electrobinoculars'' (8 pts.) - Gain the ability to spend an action to give another friendly unit at range 1 an aim token.  If you've got one squad that can't afford a heavy weapon, this can turn the squad into a token farm for your other units.  Especially useful if Veers or the generic Officer aren't your commander(s).  But generally it's probably gonna be a pass.

''Emergency Stims'' (8 pts.) - When you would suffer wounds, prevent up to 2 of them, then suffer the same amount you absorbed with this card at the end of your next activation. Lets a unit (hopefully) survive to shoot one more time.  Meh.  This is more valuable on more expensive units that you would probably rather keep alive for one more activation, like Royal Guard or Death Troopers.  

''Environmental Gear'' (3 pts.) - Gain Unhindered, allowing you to ignore difficult terrain.  If you know there's going to be lots of difficult terrain, here's your remedy.

''Grappling Hooks'' (3 pts.) - Gain Expert Climber, allowing you to clamber without rolling dice or taking wounds.  If you know there's going to be a lot of terrain to climb, here's your remedy.

''Recon Intel'' (2 pts.) - Gain Scout 1, allowing you to make a speed-1 move after you deploy.  Super cheap and gets you slightly closer to the enemy, or into cover that was just out of your deployment zone.  

''Targeting Scopes'' (6 pts.) - Gain Precise 1, allowing you to re-roll 3 dice when you spend an aim token.  You already have Precise 1, which stacks for a total of four rerolls per Aim token.  But you're still rolling mostly white dice with these guys and still probably going to miss.

'''Grenade Upgrades (x1 Slot)'''

''Concussion Grenades'' (5 pts.) - Range 1 attack with 1 black die, that ignores cover.  Short ranged but gives you black dice, which is an improvement over your normal white dice.  Worth a look, but then again, check out the next type of grenade...

''Fragmentation Grenades'' (5 pts.) - Range 1 attack with 1 red die and surge to critical. A significant upgrade over the white dice your stormies normally toss.  If you've got a DLT-19, you can even use them against a vehicle in a pinch.  A very attractive upgrade.

''Impact Grenades'' (5 pts.) - Range 1 attack with 1 black die and Impact 1.  Great if you know you're facing vehicles.  But the problem is that they're short ranged and only the Rebels really have any vehicles at the time of writing (December 2019)- and Rebel vehicles are mostly speeders, which will be difficult to catch (or in the case of the T-47, they're immune to range-1 weapons like these).

''Smoke Grenades'' (6 pts.) - Use an action to gain "Smoke 1" for the activation; Smoke allows you to drop a smoke token anywhere within range 1 of the unit leader and within his line of sight.  Smoke tokens give +1 Cover to all trooper units whose unit leader is within range 1 of them; enemy trooper units shot by those units also get the bonus.  Can be useful if you're using a token farm unit (see electrobinoculars, above), but otherwise, you may be better off with Frags or Concussions.
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Tactics
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It really can't be understated how shit stormtrooper shooting is.  White dice are just awful even with surge, giving each stormtrooper only about a 38% chance of hitting.  Even with the rerolls from Aim tokens/Precise, you're still probably not going to hit, and unlike the B1 Droids, you don't have the numbers to make up for it.  It's important to give the squad a heavy weapon as often as possible, so at the very least, you're dropping suppression tokens on the target.
*'''Imperial Officers:'''
These guys can definitely be worth attaching to the squad with useful abilities to keep your men in the fight.  Inspire will allow you to remove suppression from nearby units, and the courage boost will make it so you don't get suppressed quite so easily..
**'''Alternative take:'''
HH-12 Rocket Launchers can sometimes not be worth it for stormtroopers, as you are unable to move and fire it, and you have to spend an action on Recover (or use Veers's 3 pip command) to fire it again. This can be a huge pain in certain game types, not totally useless by any means but definitely something to keep it. The DLT-9 is versatile in that you can still move and fire, you don't have to exhaust/ready it, it gives you good punch (2 red) and it still has Impact so the squad can still potentially do some damage to vehicles. Don't underestimate that little MG-34 clone!
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