Command cards: using To the limit to the limit

Command Card Review: To The Limit

When building a Command Card deck, it’s pretty hard to stay away from 0-cost Command cards. Since you need the Core set to play the game, I’m going to go through several Command cards in this series from the Core set (though we’ll depart from the Core set for at least one post…maybe two…we’ll see). To start us off, I want to begin with a Command card that I didn’t like at first (I mean, it hurts you, doesn’t it?) but have come to rely on for many Skirmish lists.

Requirements For Candidates

To The Limit requires that you perform a special action during your activation: in trade for an extra action now, you become Stunned (which generally requires that you lose an action on your next activation AND prevents you from performing most interrupt actions when it's not your activation). While some units by default have special actions on their deployment cards, the use of Command cards can give any unit a special action. As such, any unit could use this card, but certain characters can use it more effectively than others. As such, the qualifications for those that appear in our list today will have a) at least one special action they can perform on their deployment card, and b) some way to deal with the Stun harmful condition. Without further ado, let’s look at our third-place finalist…

Bronze Medal: Bossk

Bossk has a wonderful ability that allows him to discard a Harmful condition at the end of the round (as well as recover some damage – which is awesome). Bossk’s special action, Indiscriminate Fire, allows him to do splash damage to enemies around a certain space that’s nearby, which allows you to:

1. Move to a useful location;
2. Perform Indiscriminate Fire;
3. Play To The Limit and fire at your foes;
4. Become Stunned. 

It’s important to note that if you don’t use all of your movement in Action #1 above, you’ll lose the remainder of your movement because of the timing of the Stun effect. You could move in Action #3 and shoot in Action #1, which will be better if you start in a position where you can attack your enemies (as it also gets you away from the targets of your Indiscriminate Fire).

The reason Bossk stands on the Bronze pedestal is that during the rest of the round, Bossk can receive the Bleed and/or Weaken conditions. When the end of round occurs, you then need to choose which condition to remove – do you stay Weakened (which really hurts you both on defense because you roll a white die and on offense since you have a great Surge ability but not a lot of surge generated)? Do you retain the Bleed (which you can heal at the end of the round, but if you don’t remove it, you’ll be that much easier to kill)? Or do you stay Stunned (which you’ll need to get rid of if you want to move/attack)? No good options – your next turn is spent for sure.

Silver Medal: Onar Koma

Onar has a great special ability: with Rush, he can move a number of spaces equal to his speed (which is different from gaining movement points equal to your speed per the FAQ) and gets to push someone out of the way, dealing damage to the target. Since Onar can only attack once, this allows Onar to:

1. Move towards the person you want to take down; 
2. Rush (which gives him even more movement);
3. Play To The Limit to unload on the person he Rushed (who will not only be right next to Onar, but will also be 1 health closer to death than he was a moment before Onar arrived).

When most characters would get stunned, Onar’s Immune special rule indicate that he cannot receive harmful conditions so…you just shrug it off. No penalties, free action this round. Ah, yes, this command card was designed for Onar to use. So why doesn’t Onar get the Gold on this one? Because there’s one other character who uses it far better…

Gold Medal: Jabba the Hutt

Let’s be honest here: Onar gets a free action. That’s pretty great. Jabba, on the other hand, can’t ignore the Stun – he’s going to get stunned and it’s going to hurt. Or will it? The rules for Stun indicate that you can’t “move or attack” while you’re Stunned. For many deployment cards, moving and attacking is all they can do in the Skirmish game. How then does Jabba take the Gold? He’s got a bunch more he can do besides moving and attack.

Jabba has a wealth of special actions he can use – they are most effective in a Mercenary list, but can be employed in a Rebel list too if you use Saska Teft to ally him into the list (which I do regularly). For starters, Jabba can Bully, which allows him to pick a foe within 3 spaces to suffer 3 Strain. This is not an attack or a move. Jabba can also use Incentivize to make a Mercenary figure become Focused. This is not an attack or a move. Perhaps Jabba’s most useful special ability is Scheme, which allows you to draw a Command card. This to is not an attack or a move. Finally (I think you’ve caught on already), you can spend both your actions to Order Hit, spending 2 VPs to pick a Mercenary figure to interrupt to attack and gain a few movement points.

All four of these options are yours to pick from with To The Limit, but you can also do them while in the Stun trance. In fact, if you begin the game with To The Limit in your hand, you can play it in the first round and let Jabba sit in his happy trance the entire game and he’ll still be useful. While his Red-Green melee attack is decent (would be better if he could Surge), his speed is awful and with such a large base, it’s hard for him to flee from pursuers anyway – so don’t move and don’t attack. If your opponent was close enough to move and attack, you can Bully him from where you are for one action instead of moving and attacking for two actions (and you'll probably get more damage through than you would rolling your attack profile). Not near any bad guys and have some good Mercenary figures? Try Incentivizing one of them and scheming this turn. Did Fenn race in and deal a deep blow to one of your guys? Use Order Hit to strike back!

I’ll admit that Jabba might not be as good as Onar on this one, but I think Jabba gives you a lot of options that are not tied to his attacking or moving, so the Stun doesn’t really affect him either. Since Onar can't attack multiple times in an activation, unless you play a Command card that allows him to do something other than move, all Onar can gain from this card is a free move action. Jabba can do so. much. more. That said, I could see him and Onar sharing this space (there, I said it). In our next post, we’ll be looking at two 0-cost cards that are fairly similar and show situations where it helps to have one over the other: Fleet Footed and Urgency. Until then, happy gaming!