Good morning gamers,
We're back in Republic and we're talking about Chewbacca today - a character that you either love or hate depending on your perspective on white saves. Chewie's one of three Commander options available to the Wookiee Defenders battle force and remains the cheapest available at the moment (time will tell if the new customizable Commander/Operative Jedi will come in below him, but I doubt it). With flexible melee and ranged attack options, reliable damage in either form, and the standard big-Wound-bad-Save profile you expect from a Wookiee character, we'll look today to see how good Chewie is at being a Republic Commander, both in and out of the Wookiee Defenders battle force.
Republic Chewbacca: The Profile
To start with, Chewie is 90pts, which is cheaper than either a "melee Wookiee" or a "gun Wookiee" squad. We'll go over his upgrades in a bit, but suffice it to say that you're probably not getting him for more than 98pts and he's fine even at 90pts. Compared to the Wookiee Chieftain profile, Chewie's got some pretty standard Wookiee characteristics (and some hero characteristics in general) with Courage 2, Speed 2, non-surging white saves (more on that in a minute), and surge to hit. Where he shines above most other characters, however, is his Wound Threshold of 9, which means you have to dump more fire into him than normal (even over Rebel Chewie and all Force Users - who admittedly have Immune: Pierce and at least red saves).
Chewie's keywords change his base stats quite a bit, however: he's got Enrage 4, which means after he takes 4 wounds, he gets Charge and infinite Courage - so his Courage 2 stat probably won't stay Courage 2 for a while. As a Commander, this also means that once he's taken 4 wounds, your units within range 3 of him can't be panicked, which is GREAT for scoring (though if you're running mostly Wookiee units, you have Indomitable on everyone to clear suppression anyway - but hey, not having to roll is better than rolling a better die). He also has Guardian 2: Commander, which can force Chewie to take hits in place of a Wookiee Chieftain or Yoda (and soon to be generic Jedi) in the Wookiee Defenders list or for another fairly fragile commander in a Republic list (which could be a Clone Commander, Rex, Cody, Ahsoka, Anakin, or the aforementioned other Commanders). While this is a nice add-on, it's also just fine to run Chewie without another Commander (either in a standard game or in Recon where you can't take another Commander) and just chalk this up as a useless keyword. The main reason you'd want to use this Guardian ability is to a) provide Backup to an Operative (like Bad Batch or Padme in a generic Republic list) and b) so you can trigger Enrage 4 without having to be shot at.