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

====General Grievous====
(155 pts.)
As a four-armed, lightsaber-wielding, asthmatic cyborg, General Grievous can do a passable blender impression in melee.

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Upgrade Cards
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<B>Command Upgrades (x2 Slots)</B>

''Aggressive Tactics'' (15 pts.) - After issuing orders, give 1 surge token to up to 4 friendly units with a face-up order token. Combine this with ''Crush Them!'' to try to get at least 2 surge tokens on four of your units. Really good. Take this.

''Commanding Presence'' (5 pts.) - When issuing orders, you can issue orders at range 1-4.  Pretty meh. On smaller battlefields, this isn't even needed. On larger ones, it's situational. Having one unit equipped with ''HQ Uplink'' costs 5 points more and is generally better.

''Esteemed Leader'' (5 pts.) - Friendly trooper units at range 1 gain '''Guardian 1''', helping you defend your points investment. Basically, allows you to have someone else to eat a ranged attack meant for your general; doesn't work in melee, though. Works great if you have tons of cheap infantry to serve as body guard (and you do), and stacks with his ''Supreme Commander'' card, giving friendly units at range 1 '''Guardian 3''' for one turn, allowing your general to make it into melee unharmed. Pretty good in larger point games.

''Improvised Orders'' (5 pts.) - After drawing a token from the order pool, you may choose to draw another one and choose between the two. It's just okay. Your baseline troop has '''Coordinate: Droid Trooper''' and can take an ''HQ Uplink'', though, so we don't really need this.

''Strict Orders'' (5 Points) - Guarantees a trooper unit with a face up order token can remove a suppression when they activate, rather than leaving it to chance. Especially useful thanks to the Coordinate rule. As already stated, make sure you fully take advantage of Coordinate as much as possible.

<B>Training Upgrades (x1 Slot)</B>

''Duck and Cover'' (4 pts.) - You can intentionally gain 1 suppression while being shot at, for cover. With only 2 courage, you risk losing an action on your activation unless you're also running Strict Orders. Not at all recommended. 

''Endurance'' (6 pts.) - At the end of your activation, remove 1 suppression for free. Pretty situational, but can be useful. If you're getting hit with 2-3 suppression a turn, it might help, but you're probably doing something wrong. Grievous is better off with Strict Orders. Even so, it's not the worst choice and can see good use. 

''Hunter'' (6 pts.) - When attacking a wounded trooper unit, get 1 free aim token. Aim tokens are always nice, especially when you're chucking black or white dice (and Grievous chucks both, regardless of which weapon he's currently using). Where this one ''really'' shines is when using "Trained in Your Jedi Arts" Command card. Just make sure some of the targets you're going to try to hit with that are wounded and BAM, free Aim tokens!

Offensive Push (4 pts.) – While performing a move, exhaust this card to gain Tactical 1 (after performing a standard move, gain 1 aim token). Aims are always nice, especially with the dice pool Grievous has. 

''Overwatch'' (4 pts.) - Gain '''Sentinel''', making your standby range 1-3. Grievous' only eligible ranged weapon is range 2, and even then, you don't want Grievous standing still and waiting to use Standby. He needs to rush forward as fast as possible and use Relentless to chop people up. Hard pass.

Seize the Initiative (5 pts.) - Commander or Operative only: during the issue orders step of the command phase, issue an order to yourself and discard this card. Cheap and efficient for what it does. Recommended, unless other upgrades appeal more to you.

Situational Awareness (2 pts.) - You gain Outmaneuver, meaning you may spend dodge tokens to cancel crits. This can be very useful, but other upgrades will be ''more'' useful.

''Tenacity'' (4 pts.) - When making a ''melee'' attack, while you are wounded, gain 1 red attack die. Pretty good, considering your General is likely to draw a lot of fire. Only works in melee, but that is where he does the most damage. Either this or ''Hunter'' are probably your best choices.

<B>Armament Upgrade (x1 Slot)</B>

''DT-57 "''Annihilator''"'' (12 pts.) - Gives Grievous a melee ''and'' ranged attack option with 2 Black and 2 White dice. Price is a bit high, but this allows him to do ''something'' with '''Relentless''' when he can't/shouldn't get into melee. Range 1-2 is meh, but '''Critical 1''' and '''Pierce 1''' is nice. As mentioned earlier, don't forget that '''Versatile''' lets you shoot a ranged attack even when you're in melee!  

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Command Cards
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    1 Pip: Trained in Your Jedi Arts - [General Grievous] General Grievous gains Disengage and 1 dodge token. At the end of his activation, he may perform an attack against each enemy unit at range 1 using the following weapon: (Range 1, '''Suppressive''', '''Versatile''', 1 red, 2 black, 1 white dice).  

The range isn't great but if you can manage to pop this when enemies are clustered (looking in your direction, Clones...), you can really dish out some damage as well as suppression. Versatile means that even if you're engaged in melee combat, you can make ranged attacks, so wail away on ''everything''. Unfortunately, despite it clearly being the trophy sabers, you don't get your normal Pierce/Impact and it will be affected by Cover as it normally would; but you do benefit from Hunter when the targets happen to be wounded. Same for Tenacity if you happen to be wounded and use this to make melee attacks. Also note that the v1.61 version of the rules clarified that you cannot combine this special attack with Arsenal to attack with additional weapons like his pistol; it's only this attack.

    2 Pip: Supreme Commander - [2 Troopers] General Grievous gains 1 surge token for each other friendly trooper at range 1.  While another friendly trooper unit has a faceup order token, it gains '''Guardian 2''' and can use Guardian during a melee attack. 

A few notes: 1) only troopers can be protected by Guardians, so AATs and Droidekas are shit out of luck. 2) A unit with the Guardian keyword cannot be protected by another unit with Guardian; Grievous is safe (since it specifies "another friendly trooper"), but if you want Dooku or B2 squads to be guarded, DO NOT give them face up tokens. 3) You can use multiple units to block out full attacks. If Grievous somehow takes six hits from one attack and there are three crappy B1 squads near him with face up tokens, they can each take two hits and completely spare Grievous any damage. The defending player gets to decide the order in which this happens. Lastly, don't forget, as mentioned above, if Grievous (or Dooku) has Esteemed Leader, it'll stack with this. This only applies to characters who have the upgrade.

    3 Pip: Crush Them! - [General Grievous and 2 Troopers] When General Grievous issues an order to a unit, that unit gains 1 surge token for each defeated enemy unit. 

Not the best command out there, considering you have to already be doing fairly well to get the most out of it. Surge tokens can be nice, but can only do so much. Combined with Aggressive Tactics, though, this can be a nice boost. It turns your 6+ save to a 5+ and can maybe give an extra hit here or there. 

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Tactics
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At 170 points, he's a decent chunk of your army. With 8 wounds and a red defense die, he's fairly sturdy, but with only 2 courage he's prone to "abandon ship" sooner than most commanders. Be extremely afraid of suppressive weapons. He also has Block and Impervious, allowing him to stand toe-to-toe against the amount of focus-fire he's likely to draw.

Against force-users, '''Jedi Hunter''' allows you to convert surge results to a crit. Combine this with the Tenacity (or possibly Hunter) training to give him a better chance to deal damage to enemy commanders. Be sure to remember that he has ''two'' sabers, not one, as it's a very unique aspect of him that newer players may not see. Each one throws 1 red, 2 black, and 1 white die, with '''Impact 1''' and '''Pierce 1''' (These stack, for Impact 2 and Pierce 2!) Grievous also has '''Relentless''', which allows you to make an attack after you perform a move action. This works with his DT-57 pistol, which throws 2 black and 2 white dice ('''Critical 1''' and '''Pierce 1''') at range 2 or in melee. '''Versatile''' allows him to fire this out of melee. Is Vader nearby and with one wound left, but Grievous is stuck in melee with some Stormtrooper goons? No problem! Just use '''Arsenal 2''' to fire the pistol at Vader and use the other attack to chop up some Stormies (and if you took Hunter, you're getting a free Aim token to boot); ''Arsenal'' even allows you to split attacks with your lightsabers- so you could murderize one unit using two sabers, or if you're engaged with two units, attack each with a single lightsaber. It's a very flexible keyword.

With regards to terrain, Grievous has '''Scale''', giving him the ability to make a free clamber maneuver before or after he moves. In addition, anytime he clambers (free or not), he does not roll to see if he takes damage, and difficult terrain does not slow him down while he's moving. This all translates that for a guy with speed 2, he moves pretty fast. He's very dangerous over short distances, and ''Scale'' plays into that.

Despite his name, General Grievous is actually not all that great at commanding troops. Two of Grievous' three Command Cards are underwhelming, and the third can be very situational (i.e. to get the most out of it, the conditions have to be ''just'' right). This means Grievous is more of a blitzing type of character who wants to move fast, hit hard, and keep moving. Dooku is better for commanding the army, so let Grievous be his attack dog. Grievous is fairly tough, rolling red dice for defense, but he needs a Dodge token to trigger Block and get the most of his defense- and he can't lean on Force Reflexes for that. Getting and keeping him engaged is arguably his best defense; just choose your opponents wisely.  Don't let '''Jedi Hunter''' and '''Impervious''' fool you, Grievous stands to get very badly hurt if a Jedi or Sith swings back at him.

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