Good morning gamers,
We're back in Republic and we're looking at a not-often-seen Commander option: Ahsoka Tano. I'm going to be honest, I thought Ahsoka was going to be an Operative - and then I saw that there were two models in the pack and I was like, "Okay, she's going to be a Commander AND an Operative" . . . and then I was like, "Wait, she's a Commander and a Squad Leader? Why would I ever run the Commander!?!?!?!" Well, that's the question we're tackling today - because it turns out that while her Squad Leader option is very good and incredibly powerful, she's also good as a commander and I think players shouldn't sleep on that option.
Ahsoka Tano, Padawan Commander: The Profile
At first blush, Ahsoka doesn't look like a great Jedi: the distinctive of most Jedi in the Republic faction is that they have access to either Charge or Relentless (either innately on their unit cards, like Anakin and Obi-Wan) or via command cards that come back to them (like Yoda, who can have Charge or Relentless on up to 4 turns of the game) or via an upgrade (like any customizable Jedi Knight who takes a double-bladed Lightsaber - and any Jedi Consular can have Steady, which is like a poor man's version of Relentless). Ahsoka doesn't have Charge or Relentless except on her 1-pip Command Card - and while this card might allow her to perform multiple attacks, anyone that she Charges but doesn't kill has the ability to disengage with her. This means that one way or another, if Ahsoka Charges, she's not going to be engaged when she's done . . . and that is usually not what a Force User wants to do.
Additionally, Ahsoka doesn't have Master of the Force - this isn't unique to Jedi (Commander Luke, Rebel Ahsoka, and the new customizable Operative Jedi Knights don't have Master of the Force either), but Ahsoka is in an interesting middle-ground place in that she has Independent: Recover. On the one hand, this means that, if she doesn't get an order token, she'll reset not just her Force upgrade, but she'll also reset any Training/Command upgrades that she took. Additionally, suppressing her is quite difficult, since the Recover action will also clear any suppression she picked up. All in all, a free recover action looks like a better deal than Master of the Force X . . . and in all but one respect, that's definitely right. What you usually want, however, is order control on your Jedi - you want an order sitting on them so you can go with them when you want to . . . and in order for Ahsoka to get an order token (see what I did there?), she needs to forego the free recover action. It's an interesting trade . . .
