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AT-ST Set: Universe #33/60 Date Reviewed: June 07, 2006 Image from Wizards.com Rating: 3.0 Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst. 3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.

 

Ten-Eyed Man	The AT-ST (along with its partner in crime, the X-1 Viper Droid, reviewed at the end of the week) is one of those pieces that people expect to win the game for them. You look at its 40 damage and Double Attack and Damage Reduction and you think, "What could possibly stand in my way? I will not only defeat my opponent, but I'll also rob a convenience store with this monstrosity on the way home!" Well, I'll tell you what can stand in your way: +8 Attack and Mounted Weapon. In and of itself, the AT-ST will probably lose against any other similarly priced piece in the game. Yoda, Darth Maul, the aforementioned Viper Droid, all of them will beat the snot out of an AT-ST more often then not, because all of them have real defenses (numeric in the former two cases, special ability for the Viper). If you can't hit your target, 40 damage doesn't do any good. Fortunately for the AT-ST's playability, it's in an extremely nurturing, supportive faction that will love it for what it is inside (a non-Unique follower). The Empire's Commander Effects are second to none, and you can build a good squad around the AT-ST, but that's what you have to do, build a squad around it. Don't just throw one in and hope to win, because that sort of behavior is reserved for Aurra Sing (who the AT-ST needs to roll a 17 to hit in cover). So, how do you support the AT-ST properly? The short version is Grand Admiral Thrawn and General Veers. Once you throw +3 to Attack and Defense, Force Immunity, and Accurate Shot on to it, everyone starts to worry about the chicken walker. If you're perverse, you can throw in a Stormtrooper Commander for a +10 Damage bonus. You can also use Imperial Officers for extra attacks. If you also want to run Emperor Palpatine, Sith Lord, you can include the Republic's Clone Trooper Gunner for combined fire possibilities (and those Gunners are lonely, so you'd be doing a good deed). You should also consider some source of Industrial Repair, since any squad built around one piece should be able to keep that piece in play as long as possible. Oh, and the AT-ST also sports Grenades 20 and Mobile Attack, but these are practically footnotes. Mobile Attack is a great ability, but difficult to get much use out of on a huge, Rigid piece. Grenades 20 is really only good against a really large cluster of enemies, but at least it's there if you want it. Speaking of Rigidity, the AT-ST can run into major problems on many maps. Be careful of allowing the battle to happen somewhere where the walker can't help. In the final analysis, AT-STs can be terrifying, but only in the hands of a really strong player will they be truly effective. Damage output is only one element of this game (albeit an important one), and the odds that an unsupported AT-ST can hit anything you really want to put your two 40-damage attacks on are slim. Overall rating in 100: 2 (you just can't afford to support it here) Overall rating in 200: 4 (consider running two once you've bought your support pieces)
Sith Dragon	AT-ST Imperial Cost: 54 HP: 120 DEF: 14 ATK: +8 DAM: 40 Damage Reduction 10; Double Attack; Grenades 20; Mobile attack; Mounted Weapon; Rigid. Today's Piece is a piece that can scare most anybody when they find themselves across from it. Its just plain big! The AT-ST has 120 HP which is good, but add DR 10 to that and you get a piece that can take one heck of a pounding by anyone that doesn't have a lightsaber. The 14 DEF isn't very good, nor is the +8 attack. It is the 40 DAM that makes most people cringe. An unassisted Critical can give a character 80 DAM off just one attack. The cost of this character is spot on as it really is a brute. What makes it even more deadly is the host of CEs. With Veers you can give the AT-ST accurate shot so he can hit support pieces or shoot around meat shields. With the stormtrooper commander, you can add an additional +10 DAM so its double attacking for 50 DAM now instead of 40. But it's the last CE that breaks this piece wide open and it is of course - Thrawn. The errata to Ysalimari, giving force immunity to character, made this beast the Jedi killer. Jedi can no longer deflect away the damage as they used to, so it leaves the Jedi with the only defense being their high DEF values. Thrawn also gives the AT-ST a +3/+3, so it can now attack for a +11 instead of the horrid +8. The 17 DEF really doesn't mean much against anything but grunts, which generally wont do much to it anyway. Thrawn also has one last thing that can really help the AT-ST out besides the always going first. Thrawn's ability to swap characters means you only need to position one AT-ST in the line of fire. It can double attack, and then Thrawn can swap it with the other one allowing it to double attack. This is a great defense as it makes the opponent have to chew through both AT-STs in order to make any progress. Meanwhile the AT-ST is plucking away for 40 DAM. The AT-ST has two weaknesses. One is the low attack. Thrawn is the only way to boost the attack of an AT-ST at current. You can use Palpatine, Sith Lord to bring in clone gunners, but that get very expensive for gunners that can be picked off pretty easily by accurate shooters. The day the Empire gets a gunner of its own is the day this army dominates the game. Jedi's only DEF when the AT-ST is run with Thrawn, is that most of the time it will be rolling a 13 or higher to hit. The other downside is the Jedi once again. Once a multi-attacking Jedi can base an AT-ST, it generally falls pretty quickly as lightsabers can bypass the damage reduction, and with only 14/17 DEF the Jedi are not going to miss the AT-ST very often. 100pt: Its not even worth trying here. In a format dominated by powerful multi-attacking Jedi combined with a host of maps that can trap the AT-ST from the start, the AT-ST doesn't do well at all. 200pt: Here it gets help with Thrawn, Veers and the rest of the Imperial army to be a real power. If you can get a wide open map you stand a good chance of pummeling your opponent into the ground before they can get close. It has a hard time hitting high powered Jedi, but it doesn't have to hit very often to some real damage. This is one of the better weapons in the Imperial arsenal. "Dude, the fat guy totally just blew up!" -Pink 5
Kevin	Big gun number two for the week is the AT-ST. The much improved, much more powerful AT-RT. Lets look at the stats first. Cost = 54 Hit Points = 120 Defense = 14 Attack = 8 Damage = 40 Special Abilities; --Damage Reduction 10 (whenever this character takes damage, reduce the damage dealt by 10. Adjacent enemies with light sabers ignore this special ability.) --Double attack (On its turn, this character can make one extra attack instead of moving.) --Grenades 20 (replaces attacks, range 6; 20 damage to target and to each character adjacent to that target; save 11) --Mobile Attack (Can move both before and after attacking) --Mounted Weapon (Only allies with Mounted Weapon or adjacent allies with gunner can combine fire with this character) --Rigid (can't squeeze) If you look at the basics, the hit points of 120 is nice, the 8 attack is decent enough, the 14 Defense is about as bad as you can get for a 54 point character, but 40 damage, that is nice. That we can work with. The AT-ST has twice the HP and retains the Damage from the AT-RT while taking a dive of 4 for Defense and 2 in attack. Also, it costs 19 more. So why is it so much better then the AT-RT? Simply put, its special abilities are sweet. Special ability number one, Damage Reduction 10. Meaning that, at range, this character effectively has 240 hit points and is immune to the little 10 point pot-shooters. This allows the AT-ST to take several, several hits at range VS 20 damage characters. It also means that the AT-ST has plenty of time to fire off that 40 Damage at anything hitting it. Also, if combined with a few Iktotchi Tech Specialists, it will be able to be an effective shield for a very long time. Special Ability number two, Double attack. Two attacks at 40 damage, 80 potential damage a round, let me do the math on that. 120 hit point character, hit twice, 40 hit points left. It hurts. Special Ability number four and five, Grenades 20 and Mobile attack. Probably the two least used of the AT-ST's specials. Grenades 20 is actually very nice. Being able to take out packs of little characters save 11 is always a bonus. Problem is, it replaces the two attacks at 40 damage. As for Mobile attack, normally I have a lot of praise for that skill, but since the AT-ST is a huge figure, mobile attack is almost meaningless, there just isn't a corner big enough for it to hide behind. Also, it moves, meaning it can not make both attacks. The remaining two special abilities are restrictive. Mounted weapon limits what can combine fire with it and rigid just keeps you from sneaking around a two block wide corridor with it. In 100 point games, the AT-ST is hard to run. 54 points is a lot to commit on a single unit, and support would be the rest of the squad, making it the entire squad. There are a few other things you can run with this piece, but I would rather just have a Vader in the deck. Where this piece really shines is in 200 point. It is imperial and it is a follower, what more can you ask for? If this character is given the right support it can fire at +10 damage, +3 attack and Defense, fire one extra time per round, have accurate shot, and get a few force points at its disposal (granted it couldn't have the +3 attack and Defense and the force points at the same time). That's with just the imperial support too. Add in fringe and you can get a whopping 110 damage on a critical and give it bodyguard support. Basically, if well supported, the AT-ST can be one of the scariest pieces in the game. The problem is, to much support and its the only target. The 54 points still leaves you with 146 points left to play with, so finding support and finding something with a light saber to throw in shouldn't be to hard. 100 points = 3/5 200 points = 4.5/5
ninjaduelist	AT-ST (54) HP: 120 DEF: 14 ATK: 8 DMG: 40 Damage Reduction 10 Double Attack Grenades 20 Mobile Attack Mounted Weapon Rigid Continuing on with Big Guns Week, we have the big brother of the AT-RT: AT-ST! Although different factions, they have much in common. For starters, we can check its stats. 120 HP is decent, especially after seeing yesterday's piece. However, 14 DEF and 8 ATK is just plain horrible! A Stormtrooper has more DEF than this thing, and this thing is made of metal! Why doesn't this have more ATK? Here's the answer: 40 DMG! Once again, we have the more devestating damage-type piece that is good on big squads that can support this piece (did someone say "Thrawn?"). With a low defense, at least it has some shielding. With Damage Reduction 10, it won't fall easily to a fleet of stormtroopers or droids. However, jedis won't get along with this piece too easily considering that the armor doesn't stop lightsabers. Double Attack allows more devestating damage when it hits, and Grenades 20 gives a more splashable option when staring down a fleet of troopers. Also, the mobile attack makes up for the lack of defense. However, the last two effects hurts this piece like the AT-RT: Mounted Weapon (more picky about who to combine fire with) and Rigid (unsqueezable). Despite these bad sides to it, it still is a decent piece. Use two of these with Thrawn and you have a beefy Empire team. Although low stats, this piece does better than yesterday's. You just need to know how to use the piece. 100 PT: 3/5 200 PT: 3.5/5 "May the force be with you."