Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Count Dooku

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking off a several-month dive into the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS/Separatist) faction and we're starting with "the big guy," Count Dooku. Dooku is a staple of my playing group - there's a guy who basically JUST plays Dooku/Seppies - and he can be a NIGHTMARE to deal with on the table. He's also healable by the cheaper of the medic options that the Separatists have, so if you're running a medic (maybe to support Grievous, Asajj, or Geonosians), the disincentives of dealing with him can really stack up. Let's see what this guy is bringing to the fight and how much you should invest in him.

Count Dooku: The Profile

Dooku starts at 165 points and that makes him one of the cheapest "heavy hitting" pieces among the factions. His offensive power is very good with 5 red in melee with Impact 2/Pierce 2 and Makashi Mastery (so he'll have Pierce 1 against units that are normally immune to Pierce or the newly revamped Impervious) and 6 black dice with Pierce 1/Scatter/Suppressive at range 1-2 (which is not nearly as good against units with Impervious or Immune: Pierce, but still useful for bringing units out of cover with Scatter - and potentially into melee with Dooku to keep him from being shot at by other units).

Defensively, Dooku is very solid - 6 wounds with surging-red saves, Deflect, and Immune: Pierce means that he needs to flub a lot of saves to go down (or get shot at by snipers - there's that too). While Dooku is likely to end up being very expensive, he's well kitted out to retain his points from going to your opponent for most of the game (if you're not completely reckless with him).

But adding to these are a few powerful support abilities on Dooku: Cunning, Master of the Force 2, and Direct: Trooper Unit. Cunning, of course, allows your Dooku-specific command cards win ties against non-Cunning command cards, which is a great tool for making sure that you have the chance to go first. While not all of your command cards will benefit from Cunning, you don't want to go first every turn - but on the turns that you really, REALLY need to go first, you have a very good shot at it.

Master of the Force 2 is reserved for a VERY elite club of units and it gives Dooku the ability to pair two of the strongest Dark Side force abilities in the game: Force Push and Force Choke. I've run both of these together on Commander Vader before and at some point, you have to choose which one you're going to leave tapped while you untap the other. Dooku doesn't need to make this choice, though: he can shove someone around AND kill a mini from a unit that's proving difficult (like a solo guy who charges you). Both abilities can deal with sneaky tricks that your opponent uses to make sure that Dooku doesn't get where he wants to go, but the pair of them is pretty expensive, so there might be other exhaustible upgrades that you look for instead if you can't find points in your list any other way.

Direct: Trooper Unit is . . . possibly the most useful ability in the game, especially in a Separatist list. As we'll see in our next post, this version of direct issues an order to any Trooper unit that you want within range 2 of Dooku. This means that Dooku can issue himself an order if you're playing a command card from another character (or a command card that issues orders to vehicles/droid troopers), but Dooku can also use it to trigger the Coordinate keyword on units like B1 Battle Droids. If you have a second character for their punch and not for their command cards, this can guarantee that they'll have an order if Dooku is already giving himself one, which is super good.

The downside to Dooku's profile is the absence of two special rules that are present on a lot of Force Users: Jump X and some kind of free attack keyword. The Separatist lightsaber users are evenly split between those with free attack keywords (Grievous and Asajj) and those who don't (Maul and Dooku). Maul at least has Juyo, so he can effectively have Relentless by getting a third action, but Dooku is locked in at two actions and no more. As a result, I think it's important to keep in mind that his threat range (especially with that snazzy lightsaber of his) is incredibly short and as such, you need to plan several turns ahead to make sure he lands where you need him (and maybe take a more adaptable combat piece to go where Dooku can't go).

The lack of Jump X is . . . fine, if you plan ahead. Not being able to use Jump does limit your ability to use terrain to your advantage and you should absolutely NOT move in such a way that you have to reduce your speed to perform a climb test. Dooku needs to be moving his full Speed-2 every time he moves (or Speed-3 - more on that shortly) to make sure he arrives where he wants to be and does what he wants to do - having Jump would be great, but we're not given that option. We could also complain about not having Disengage, but that's true of most units, so . . . we'll let that lie.

Count Dooku: Recommended Upgrades and Command Cards

Dooku only has two kinds of upgrades he can take: Force upgrades and a Command upgrade. Since Dooku has Master of the Force 2, having 3 Force upgrades is super nice - and having a Command upgrade is just always nice (but particularly on a Commander that has Direct: Trooper innate).

Force x3

There are two Force upgrades that I think are essential to Dooku: Burst of Speed and Force Choke. Force Choke has already been touched on, but it's important to note that simply HAVING Force Choke means that Dooku can't be tied down by a single model (unless that model is a character - something you're usually okay with, by the way). At 10pts, it's moderately cheap for a Force upgrade and will result in no less than slow attrition against the enemy once you've gotten within range 1 of the enemy. To help with getting where you want to go, I would always take Burst of Speed. This upgrade has long been a staple on Force Users and remains a very good option as it can give Dooku Speed-3 on one turn of the game (and Speed-1 on the following turn - hopefully after he's arrived where he wants to be).

After these two upgrades, I think you have a few options. My go-to third choice is Force Push - I know it's expensive, but there's SO much tactical value in taking it and Dooku is a nightmare to remove, which means he'll keep that threat up for longer than most foes. If you're opting to save some money, then I'd recommend Force Guidance, which is a useful way to get surge tokens on friendly units near you (especially other characters). You could also take Fear for 3pts if you find that there are players in your local area who like to take Standby actions on their Trooper units to shoot Dooku as he makes his way across the board, but understand that this will ignore the benefit of having Master of the Force 2. I've seen people in my gaming group take Force Reflexes for a free dodge token and Force Barrier to save some friends from taking hits, but I've also seen these hardly ever used (and Reflexes isn't nearly as necessary as it used to be now that Deflect is always on and doesn't require a dodge token to trigger).

Command x1

Separatists don't struggle with messy order pools much, so I'd recommend that this slot either be used for Inspiring Presence (5pts for a range-4 Courage 4 bubble) or Trusted Agent (so you can issue an order to Asajj, a Super Tac, Maul, or Sun Fac). Trusted Agent is far more situationally useful, but does help you get unique order tokens out of your bag, which is always valuable for Separatists. Beyond that, I think you can pass on everything else.

When it comes to Command Cards, Dooku's command cards are pretty good and might all go in your deck. His 1-pip is by far and away the most important (Fear, Surprise, and Intimidation) - this  is not only a 1-pip command card with Cunning to win ties, but it also gives Dooku Relentless, Versatile on his lightning, and Arsenal 2 (so he can slash with his saber AND hit with his lightning). This card also gives out extra suppression, which is super powerful for helping you remove units who have already activated from controlling objectives. Always, always, ALWAYS take this one.

His 2-pip (Double the Fall) gives Dooku and one other unit an order and allows you to return Dooku's order token to your order pool in order to send up to 2 enemy order tokens back to the order pool (so long as the units with those orders are within range 2 of Dooku). In general, you want to have order control on your Force Users, so I wouldn't do this unless Dooku's order is going to be the only order token in your order pool OR if the only other order token is a Commander token (so everything is a Commander). In either case, you still have full order control on Dooku, able to activate him whenever you want to. If you don't have that level of order control, you may not want to take this command card (or you need to commit to playing it late in the game when you've probably lost a few order tokens). If you don't use the special ability on the command card, there's still a slight benefit of taking this over Push, in that you can't get Cunning off of Push, so . . . you might take this one anyway, even if you don't remove Dooku's order token.

Finally, we have his 3-pip (You Disappoint Me), which issues an order to Dooku and two other units and gives all three units a dodge token. Until the end of the round, when Dooku attacks with his lightning, he can make a speed-2 move with the target unit (you control that, not your opponent). Once again, this can be a powerful command card for managing who is able to contribute to scoring on a key objective, but is best used against a unit that's already activated.

There's another command card that you can play with Dooku that has 3 pips but counts as a 2-pip for your command hand (potentially competing with Double the Fall), which really depends on you having both Asajj Ventress and Dooku in the same list (The Sith Will Rule). This command card basically allows Dooku to activate and Asajj immediately activates after him (flipping her order token facedown after doing so OR issuing her a facedown order token after she activates) - this can allow you to do some really powerful last-first activations (if you finish the previous round with Dooku and Asajj and then get to strike out with both of them again before your opponent is able to perform much of a reaction). If you're running both, this is definitely worth taking. If you don't . . . it's a 3-pip card that's taking up a 2-pip slot? Is that worth it to having Cunning on it? I don't think so . . .

The new Separatist Commander blister that's coming out will have a 1-pip command card (For the Cause) that can be played by any Separatist Commander unit (I don't think that triggers Cunning, but I could be wrong about that?). This is a 1-pip that gives orders to 1 Commander and 2 Operatives and gives each of them a Surge Token. While this is super good on units like Kalani and Operative Super Tactical Droids (who have Exemplar/Aid, which allow these to be borrowed), this isn't a great command card on Dooku as he can't shuffle surge tokens to anyone else (that we know of) and he doesn't need surge tokens because he surges both offensively and defensively already. I'd skip on this one unless you're also running Kalani (which you might).

Some kind of Super Tactical Droid (probably an Operative) should probably be in any Separatist list that you build and they can take Tactical Download, which doesn't seem like the kind of command card that Dooku would benefit from - it only affects AI units, it doesn't benefit from Dooku's Cunning ability, and it can't issue Dooku an order. So why, then, is this a good command card for a Dooku deck? Because Dooku wants as little attention on him as possible when the game starts - and THIS upgrade allows the backbone of Dooku's list become more effective on the first turn of the game and allows other units to take the attention away from Dooku. If he can then arrive and place himself in a good spot (with much of his army still alive from free dodge tokens AND some chunks of your enemy blown out by extra aim tokens), I think you're in a very solid spot.

Standing Orders is good for Dooku for similar reasons - yes, he doesn't get anything from it and he can't use Cunning to make things better, but it probably allows Dooku to come in last and if he does, he's unlikely to take much damage on the way onto the board. I know a lot of people like having Standing Orders as a first-turn play, but I think Tactical Download is a lot better of a play as it enables you to do alpha-striking more effectively (and I'm a big fan of alpha strikes).

There may be other command cards that are released for Savage Opress and Admiral Trench, but for now, I think these are the ones you want to look at for Dooku. Let's get into some lists and see what we can do with him!

Count Dooku: Sample Lists and Strategies

We'll start off with something akin to a typical 12-act Separatist list before the reimagining of sniper teams (I did not have the points for Force Push, so I settled on Guidance instead - a fact that I'm not thrilled about, but it is what it is):

• Count Dooku with Burst of Speed, Force Choke, and Force Guidance
• Kalani
• Super Tactical Droid, Auxiliary Command Droid with Tyrannical Taskmaster, Optimized Task Flow, Sliced Comms, and Electrostaff
• Super Tactical Droid,  Auxiliary Command Droid with Tyrannical Taskmaster, Optimized Task Flow, Overclock, and Electrostaff
• 3x B1 Battle Droids
• 2x STAP Riders
• 1x LM-432 Crab Droid with Defense Protocols
• 2x Aqua Droids with Heavy Aqua Droid

This list features a Crab Droid to give Scout-1 to Dooku on the first turn (which he can benefit from because they share the same Affiliation), giving him a free 4" move before his two standard moves. This can place him in a splashy position for Turn 2 if you want to dive-bomb Dooku into something and trigger a strong 1-pip turn OR put him behind a piece of obscuring terrain that's a little further up than normal. 

The list also has two sources of Direct: AI on the Super Tacs, which can be issued to the STAPs, which in turn can Coordinate to the B1 Battle Droids and Aqua Droids (Heavy Droid Troopers count as Droid Troopers, and so will benefit from B1 order chaining). Since those sources of Direct are free and are not tied to your command card each round, the only units you should have to issue orders to are the Crab Droid, your three Super Tacs (Kalani and two Operatives), and Dooku - and one unit who is not the Crab Droid will be getting a Direct order from Dooku. So . . . you have 4 order tokens that you need to worry about for your command cards, which means you should be able to skew your order pool to only Operatives on most turns of the game.

Our second list does a Dooku/Asajj pairing that leans pretty equally into Dooku and Asajj command cards and gets to 14-acts by not taking any Aqua Droids and instead takes three pairs of BX Commandos/Strike Teams:

• Count Dooku with Burst of Speed, Force Choke, and Force Push
• Asajj Ventress with Burst of Speed and Saber Throw
• Super Tactical Command Droid, Auxiliary Command Droid with Seek and Destroy and Optimized Task Flow
• 3x B1 Battle Droids
• 3x BX-Series Droid Commandos with BX Viborswords
• 2x Droidekas
• 3x BX-Series Droid Commandos, Strike Teams with BX-Series Droid Sniper

This list could certainly benefit from making the Operative Super-Tac more dangerous, but we got Force Push on Dooku and we've got dive-bombing options for Asajj and Dooku. We also have dive-bombing options with the Commando units and long-range threat coming from the Strike Teams. All in all, there's a lot of aggro in this list, but it will certainly wilt faster than the previous list. Still, for you aggro players out there, this one could be really fun to run!

Count Dooku: Final Review

Dooku is a powerful piece - and needs to be positioned well in order to be worth his points. If you can find the points to give him the upgrades that he craves, he's incredibly good. 

Overall Unit Review: 4.5/5 stars. The only negative one can say about Dooku is that he doesn't have any free attack options (except for the one turn in which he plays his 1-pip). This limits how early he can affect the game and can be an issue for newer players who want to get him into the action (especially in melee) quickly. Taking a Crab Droid for Scout-1 and Burst of Speed can help a lot, but even Burst of Speed is going to be best used on his 1-pip turn . . . and after that, he's not hard to halo (so he'd better be where he needs to be to score for the rest of the game). Still, with support abilities like few others in the game, Dooku is quite powerful and dangerous.

Next time, we turn to what I feel is the most important Separatist unit in any army: the lowly B1 Battle Droid. These guys were not looked on well by my son and I when we got started in the game (back when we thought Legion was about shooting stuff), but now that I've acquired my son's Separatist models, these guys play an indispensable part of any list that I write. Find out what makes these guys good next time - and until then, happy hobbying!