Good morning gamers,
A while ago, we covered Obi-Wan Kenobi and Phase I Clone Troopers - both of which come in the Clone Wars core set and both of which I love very, very much. Today we're (finally) covering the last of the elements of the core set, the BARC Speeder. This unit takes up a Support slot and originally "competed" with AT-RTs and Fluttercraft . . . but if we're honest, all three really compete with Clone Commandos now, in addition to the Corps and Special Forces options available to the Republic (which are all REALLY good options).
Because a vanilla Clone Trooper Infantry squad (or an ARC Trooper Strike Team) costs about as much as a BARC Speeder, it's been very tempting for me to just go with the infantry squads and skip these guys altogether. It's taken me a long time to like these guys, but I think they do have a place in some Republic lists. Let's take a look at the profile and see what makes these vehicles special . . .
BARC Speeders: The Profile
BARC Speeders got a points increase with the new edition and start at 65 points - and as you can see in the image below, running them without upgrades is a perfectly fine thing to do. BARCs only have two upgrade slots - and if you don't take a crew upgrade, you'll have a Speed 3 speeder. Unlike Speeder Bikes, STAP Riders, and Swoop Bikes, however, a BARC Speeder is a single-model Support unit, which limits its firepower when compared to these other units (unless you take a crew upgrade - in which case, you'll be slower than the other speeder units).
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| Four perfectly defensible loadouts for your BARCs - 65-99pts Photo Credit: LegionHQ |
BARCs are speeders, so naturally their distinctives from other Republic Support options include Speeder 1 (allowing them to go over terrain up to height 1 and they get a compulsory move at the start or end of their activation) and Cover 1 (which is great when cover is harder to get). While Cover 1 is all nice and good (it really means that you always have light cover - assuming your opponent doesn't have Sharpshooter or Blast), it's the Speeder 1 that's the real gem here. Since Speeder 1 gives you a free move action, even a Speed 2 BARC Speeder with a crew upgrade can move pretty far if it performs three move actions. In the main, your weapons are going to be Fixed: Front, so having the flexibility to take that compulsory move at the beginning of your activation (if you don't have your intended target in your forward arc) or at the end of your activation (if you can already see the target and want to get away) is really nice. Depending on your crew upgrade, however, you might need to have your target in the forward arc - but it certainly helps.
BARCs on defense aren't bad - they have 5 wounds, a red defense die save (no surges), and Cover 1 (as was just mentioned). This makes them decently durable (most speeders have white defense die saves), but not as durable as a 5-6 man Clone squad that's got heavy cover. Since BARC Speeders are also Repulsor Vehicles, they can't benefit from the token sharing that their Corps and Special Forces competitors get . . . so that stinks.
On offense, however, a BARC Speeder has a very respectable innate weapon (its Twin Light Blaster Cannons have a "rainbow roll" of 1 red/1 black/1 white at Range 1-3, Fixed: Front) and have surge to hit (which is all but unheard of in the Republic faction) and Arsenal 2 so you can fire with a second weapon either in the same attack or as a split attack. By default, you have a DC-15A to add in an extra black die, but your crew upgrades give you some better options for 18-24 points more.
The 501st Legion
Before we jump into the upgrade section, I wanted to take a quick swing through the 501st Legion Battle Force, which not only has a greatly paired down list of units, but also requires you to take at least one Support option (and a max of two). There was once a time when BARCs and AT-RTs were your only choices, but now you can get Clone Commandos - and chances are good that you're taking two of those.
I've compared BARCs in passing to Clone Trooper Infantry - and I think in general Republic lists, the Clone Trooper Infantry are the better option - if for no other reason than you probably have a Corps or Special Forces token in your order pool, so having another copy of an order token you have lets you activate the units you want to more reliably than having one Support order token. There are exceptions to this as we'll see in a bit, but in the main, I'd generally avoid these guys in your run-of-the-mill Republic list.
Need for Speed - BARCs vs. ISPs
Another point of comparison for BARCs is the Infantry Support Platform, which is a Heavy unit option that can do similar things to a BARC Speeder. While Support units tend to be cheaper, weaker versions of Heavy units, the ISP is pretty cheap out of the box - and while it doesn't have Arsenal 2 or Speeder 1, it does have a base speed of 3, Cover 1, surge for hit, and is a repulsor vehicle.
It has a surging white die on defense (instead of a non-surging red die), but it has Armor 3, 7 wounds (instead of 5), It does have Weak Point 1 on its rear/sides, so most units will probably get Impact 1 against it, but Armor 3 can only be fully neutralized if your opponent gets all-crits - which most things can't do (and even if your opponent does get all-crits against your ISP, a BARC is going to take at least as much damage as an ISP will).
ISPs are also not that expensive compared to a BARC - with three 25pt upgrades, an ISP with just a hardpoint upgrade comes in at 90 points, which is just 14pts more than a BARC with an RPS-6. 14pts for being Speed 3 all the time, a comparably dangerous damage pool, and arguably the same/better defense? I mean, there's an argument to be made that these guys are better . . .
. . . unless you like your BARCs to have no upgrades. Paying 90pts for an ISP when you could get two BARCs without upgrades for 130pts is a pretty different equation. Two BARCs will probably do about as much damage as one ISP (especially if it's splitting fire with two of its three hardpoint options), they'll have more combined health, count as two units for determining control, and every unit in the comparison is Speed 3 . . . for 40pts more, I think the double BARCs are worth looking at.
Okay, let's take a look at the upgrades you have available to you - and why you might want to run these things "vanilla" . . .
BARC Speeders: Recommended Upgrades
While we're going to see some pretty cool upgrades here, please keep in mind that a BARC Speeder already costs 65 points - so picking any of the Crew upgrades will push you to 80-90 points and taking a comms upgrade after that is going to drive you right up to the base cost of most of your Phase I Clone options. So, without further ado, let's start by looking at the most expensive upgrades you can give a BARC - and the only ones that really make them deal out the kind of firepower you want in a Clone list . . .
Crew
I'm going to start off with the most expensive upgrade: the Ion Gunner. Don't buy this one - yes, it has Ion 1 (which is good against Droids and Vehicles) and yes, it has Impact 1 (which . . . a lot of things have Impact 1, so that's not really a big deal) and just got Critical 1. It doesn't exhaust anymore, which is good, but it's also 28pts - that's really high. 93pts is a lot, especially when you compare it to all the other units you could bring.
Your second option is the least expensive, and that's the Twin Laser Gunner, which give you 2 black/2 white at range 1-3 (same as your base weapon), Fixed: Front. This boosts your pool from 1 red/1 black/1 white to 1 red/3 black/3 white, which is plenty respectable for a speeder. For just over 80 points, it's not bad at all - take it if you want.
But in between these two options (for 3pts more than a Twin Laser Gunner and 10pts less than an Ion Gunner), you can get an RPS-6 Gunner - and not only is this guy so much cooler than the other two guys (he gets his own model!), but he also doesn't have the Fixed: Front requirement that the others have - so you can fire with 1 red/1 black/1 white in the front while shooting with 1 red/1 black/1 white against a second unit OR you can shoot with 2 red/2 black/2 white at range 2-3 at someone in the front OR you can shoot at someone who is in any of the other arcs with 1 red/2 black/1 white. Oh, and wherever the RPS-6 is shooting, you get Impact 2 . . . and you don't have to exhaust him.
Expected damage coming off any of these upgrades is basically the same, with the Ion being slightly above the Twin Laser, which is itself slightly above the RPS-6 - but I like the flexibility of the RPS-6 and it's a very affordable anti-armor option (and becomes doubly dangerous if you have an RPS-6 launcher in one of your Clone units).
Alternatively, you could skip these upgrades entirely . . . that's just fine. Any BARCs you take without any upgrades will be fast units for objective play, the cost of three of these units (195pts) would be about the same as 2 Corps/Special Forces units (so you're netting +1 activation), and their base weapons (each rolls 1 red/2 black/1 white) is decent for the cost you're paying. Yes, there's no token sharing going on, but if you need to have units away from the rest of the group (like in Breakthrough or Recover the Research), that might be just fine. Let's talk Comms now . . .
Comms
Technically speaking, there are nine Comms upgrades available to BARCs - but very few are actually useful. To start with, you won't get any value from the Command Control Array (since you don't have Coordinate) or the Onboard Comms Channel (since you don't have Transport - though for the record, I think it would be cool if you got Light Transport 1: Open if you didn't take a Crew upgrade).
There's always going to be a situational benefit to taking a Comms Jammer or a Hacked Comms Unit, but both require yo uto be at range 1 of enemy units . . . which is dangerous for a BARC, especially one that has an RPS-6 Gunner, since you'll be within its minimum range. Take these on a crewless BARC if you want (or theoretically on a BARC with a non-RPS-6 crew option, but I think you'll be throwing points away if you're that close to the enemy).
There's limited value - but still value - in taking the Emergency Transponder or the Linked Targeting Array: the Emergency Transponder is a once-per-game issuing of an aim or dodge token if you were assigned an order from the order pool (which is quite likely if you're not the only Vehicle in your list and you have Vehicle-specific command cards or Cody) and the Linked Targeting Array can give you an aim token if you are issued an order. While these can boost your offense, most Republic lists are probably not issuing orders to these guys, so the boosts you're getting are going to be quite limited. Still, if you want to focus in hard on BARCs, I guess there could be value in these upgrades.
This leaves us with two upgrades still on the table: the HQ Uplink and the Comms Relay. An HQ Uplink requires you to perform a recover action in order to use it more than once, but if you're okay with a move-shoot-recover or a shoot-recover-move with your BARC, it's fine. While I don't like this particular upgrade, anyone who's looking for a BARC to support their gunline and walk with them might consider it.
But if you want to support your gunline with a fairly inexpensive unit, taking a BARC with just the Comms Relay (or a Comms Relay and an RPS-6) is really good. The Comms Relay means that Cody's free order from Direct can be issued to anyone - which can trigger Coordinate from Fives or just give an order to a Corps unit that has Fire Support/Defend 1. Whatever your use case, having a Comms Relay can make sure that a unit that's near a BARC gets an order when they need it. For 5pts, that could be super useful.
Okay, let's take a look at some lists!
BARC Speeders: Sample List and Strategy
BARCs can be easily dropped into basically any Republic list, but I've decided to take a swing at a two BARC 501st Legion list today. It's running its maximum of 4 ARC Troopers (2 full, 2 Strike Teams), 2 Phase II Mortars (to save points), Anakin (for control), and 2 BARCs - that's 9 Activations and lots of long-range shooting to support the fast BARCs (per the usual, you can see the list in LegionHQ here):
- Anakin Skywalker with Saber Throw (or Force Barrier), Force Push, Offensive/Defensive Stance, and Tenacity
- Phase II Clone Troopers with Phase II Mortar Trooper and Clone Medic x2
- ARC Troopers with DC-15X ARC Trooper x2
- ARC Trooper Strike Team with DC-15X ARC Trooper
- ARC Trooper Strike Team with Echo and Smoke Grenades
- BARC Speeder x2
Let's start by saying this: You could drop the comlink if you wanted to get Barrier on Anakin instead of Saber Throw. I've gone for a more aggressive Anakin build so he can trigger Fire Support with a Mortar when he uses Saber Throw - 3 red dice and 2-7 black dice with surge for crits, Impact 3, Pierce 3, and suppressive is pretty nasty - and since Anakin picks up Relentless, you can do this after moving twice if you need to get moving in a scoring round.
The ARC Troopers are the stars of this Legion (as always), providing you with impressive long-range shooting (1 red/1 black with Lethal 1, which can be easily used thanks to Tactical 1) and the Phase IIs provide you with healing and long-range shooting to assist the ARCs. The BARCs allow us to do a bit of an objective skew between them and Anakin, relying on their speed and Anakin's durability to get units into/near the enemy deployment zone or securing an enemy hostage. If we want to do a long-range shooting war, we certainly can - but if we need to get in close, this list can certainly do that too.
BARC Speeders: Final Review
BARCs are either fast or damage-filled - I think they're okay. I don't have any plans to pick up any additional BARCs, but they're fun and I like that there isn't much in the Republic list that can do what they do (ISPs included). These speeders may not be as good as Imperial Speeder Bikes, but they're still plenty good in generic Republic lists (where they're crowded for space), 501st lists (where they might be a required choice), and even in Wookiee Defender lists (though the Fluttercraft looks really good in that list).
Overall profile review: 3/5 stars. I think these guys could get away with having Armor 1 - heck, I think all speeders in general could benefit from having Armor 1/Cover 1 since getting actual cover is so hard for them. The unit is fine how it is, but the lack of token sharing and the relative cost they reach when you add in the side-car crew member makes these guys a design choice for a list and not an auto-include option. For a unit that comes in the core set, I think this is a great unit and a fine inclusion.
Next time, we're turing to the girl who makes all the Republic lists go: Padme Amidala. Padme is great - she's a flexible Operative choice who can deal damage in a pinch, helps Clones do what they do more reliably, and remains relatively cheap enough to fit into just about any list you want to build (but isn't available to any battle forces). Find out what you can do with her next time - and until then, happy hobbying!
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