Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Republic Chewbacca

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.

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: The Bad Batch, Part II

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at the Republic Bad Batch profile (and the various things you can include in your lists to keep them going or augment what they do). In today's post, we're looking at the post-Order-66 Bad Batch and how they operate differently on the tabletop with the loss of Crosshair and the potential addition of Omega. Let's review the profile (and how it's changed in its Rebel incarnation) before hopping into the strategy for using them.

Rebel Bad Batch: The Profile

The Bad Batch for the Rebel Alliance is a four-man unit that needs to equip 4  Heavy Weapon "upgrades" (Hunter, Echo, Tech, and Wrecker - not Crosshair).  Their only optional "upgrade" is to add Omega as a Counterpart. With 2 wounds/mini normally (3 wounds on Wrecker) and 1 wound on Omega if you add her to the squad, these guys have a very impressive 10 wounds (slightly below the Republic version's 11) and Courage 3, which makes it very, VERY difficult to both suppress this unit and punch through their wounds. With a rare-for-Rebels non-surging red saves and speed 2, these guys add an element of resiliency to your list that many Rebel operatives . . . actually can compete with, but with about half the wounds that these guys will have.

They have some unit special rules that can be summarized as ARC-Trooper-like: Scale, Sharpshooter 1, and Impervious are standard issue on ARCs, which gives these guys reliability when moving over difficult terrain/scaling walls and reducing enemy cover when they shoot into cover - these are the kinds of boosts that fill the dreams of Sleeper Cell or Rebel Commando units. Impervious gives them something against Pierce, though Impervious itself is more of a "nice when it works" kind of proposition.

They also have Steady, which is different and more flexible than the Charge that you find on ARCs (which gives ARCs a free attack action when they end a move in melee, instead of a free attack action when they end a move NOT in melee for the Bad Batch). With 1 red each in melee and 1 black/1 white at range, these guys don't look far off from their 140pt price tag (20pts cheaper than the Republic version, but only 10pts less if you add Omega), but there are more special rules to this unit . . .