Boba Fett, Bounty Hunter

To be fair, in the era of the 30+ damage hitter, a character as inexplicably and tiresomely popular as Boba Fett needed an update, despite being one of the best pieces in the game already. It also wouldn't really have felt right if he just had 30+ damage himself. No, he needed Twin Attack and Disintegration in order to feel like the dangerous threat the fan community has decided he has to be, while still seeming like Fett.

Boba Fett, Bounty Hunter is a piece without weaknesses, which is what annoys me about him. He's ranged, has great numbers, a good mix of offensive and defensive abilities (including the devastating Accurate Shot), and a bargain cost for what he brings to the table. The only thing that the original Fett can do that the new doesn't do better is split his attacks between two targets, and this hardly matters. Generally, if you want to do that, it's either (a) because you're using a very expensive piece to kill fodder, which is dumb, or (b) because you Disintegrated your target on the first attack, so what are you whining about?

As you've probably picked up, I'm grouchy about this piece, because he's nauseatingly efficient. He's a very solid (if not stellar) damage-dealer who has a 5% chance of removing the target from the board with every attack. When Jedi get close, he gets to move away without drawing an attack of opportunity and still attack twice. When he gets swarmed, he has Flamethrower 20. When he's shot at, he has Evade.

The only flaw I've seen in the new Fettness is how he gets played. The two major schools of thought on him seem to vary between protecting him like a precious treasure by keeping him in the back where he can't shoot anyone, and sending him forward, guns-a-blazing, to get hacked to death by the opponent's entire squad. The mark of a good player is finding the balance between these approaches. Remember that Fett is more powerful than most other pieces, but not more powerful than most whole squads.

For squad synergies, you have a number of options. Yoda can help him reroll his Evade saves, as can Emperor Palpatine (by lending him Force Points). Thrawn can teleport him around the map. General Windu or Gonk can give him Extra Attack (which turns into two more attacks, due to the weirdness of Twin Attack). Rebel Hero Han can give him Advantageous Attack. San Hill lets him position himself well.

In terms of competitive play, there are very few reasons not to play Boba Fett, Bounty Hunter. Probably the most compelling of these is that there is no way to fit him into a Black & Blue build without sacrificing the all-important activation count. In terms of your conscience and sense of self-worth, there are all sorts of reasons not to play him.

Overall rating in 100: 5
Overall rating in 200: 5

IG-88, Bounty Hunter

Much like Kevin J. "Baby-Eater" Anderson's ill-conceived short story about the character, IG-88, Bounty Hunter is over-thought, convoluted, and of little use to anyone. First of all, Iggy suffers from the same problems as all Unique droids, which is that they are extremely difficult to synergize with a squad. They aren't subject to any current Commander Effects, all the Separatists' special effects are restricted to non-Uniques, and there are consequently almost no ways to push them past their initial boundaries.

IG-88's initial boundaries are things like 80 hit points and a mere 19 Defense, with a shockingly low Attack value of +9 (which, admittedly, is mostly mitigated by his Bounty Hunter +6, but God help him if he tries to shoot a Thrawn-enhanced Stormtrooper).

On the plus side, he has Opportunist, one of the better abilities in the game. Unfortunately, if he's going to get to use it with his mighty Double Attack, he has to hold still until your opponent has moved a couple of pieces, at which point he might already be dead.

Flamethrower 20 is a nice addition, and he can use it on the move, which helps. Sonic Stunner is a strange choice, since the idea of using your short-lived 44-point cannon to maybe activate an opposing piece or two seems foolish in just about any circumstance. It would be terrific if there was some way to use Sonic Stunner and then capitalize on the enemy piece's weakness with Opportunist, but there just isn't any way to do it (droids can't be Dominated, and Pawn of the Dark Side doesn't work on Uniques) (Did I mention that I don't like Unique droids?).

Probably the best you can hope for if you want to get some use out of this version of IG-88 is teaming him with San Hill. San's "ability" to force/allow you to activate only one character per phase means that you will probably get to move IG-88 last, and therefore trigger Opportunist. Conveniently for IG, San is in the same faction as the best Repair piece in the game, Wat Tambor, so there's the core of a squad idea. Unfortunately, while these are probably the best options for IG-88, San and Wat have better options available to them, so I don't think IG will be competitively viable in the foreseeable future.

Overall rating in 100: 2 (Boba Fett, Bounty Hunter can only miss him on a '1,' and only needs to attack him twice) (he might help you against Bane, though)
Overall rating in 200: 2 (he's just not very good)

Mandalore the Indomitable

In my day (1/7/83), the word "indomitable" meant something. You were either domitable or you weren't, and if you weren't, brother, you were set for life. Mandalore the Indomitable is many things, but he's not indomitable. Not really. Not the way it used to be.

He is an interesting package, though. He's got a big Damage rating of 30 and the ability to use it twice a turn with a respectable-for-a-ranged guy Attack rating of +13. He'll be standing still for that Double Attack, but he does have Evasion to help him avoid counter fire, and the tantalizing possibility of Deadly Attack, meaning he throws criticals twice as often as most pieces, but still not very often.

Okay, so we've got his role clearly defined: he's a cannon that stays well away from the fight. Except for two things, one of them positive and the other negative. The good news is that he's got Momentum, so if someone's starting to sneak up on him, he has the option of hitting them extra hard once. This won't always be the best option, but options are good. The bad news is that he doesn't have Accurate Shot, and there's no legal way for him to get it, so until you clear out the fodder, that giant gun is going to be pointed at Ugnaughts if your opponent knows what he's doing. Hmmm.

The Mandalorians, however, were built to be an extremely synergistic faction. The Basilisk War Droid, with its Strafe ability, is obviously a great way to clear out any fodder in Mandy's way, and perhaps put some damage on the real targets at the same time. Throw in the fact that Mandalore's Commander Effect grants Momentum to the Basilisk, so that all of those lovely Strafe attacks are at +4/+10, and you can see what a loving, supportive faction these guys are.
The Mandalorians are so synergistic, in fact, that Mr. the Indomitable's CE works on every single one of them, including the Mandalorian Commander, whose Mobile Attack-granting CE in turn affects Mandalore. Neat. Mandalore's Momentum trick also does wonders for the Mandalorian Blademaster, who gets both of his Twin Attacks enhanced.

Mandalore is an oddity: he's the most expensive piece in the game who doesn't suffer from Melee Attack, so his stats are lower than you might expect at his cost. He's also one of the linchpin pieces for the most synergistic faction in the game (and the only one who didn't go to the same tailor as all the others).

Overall rating in 100: 2.5 (no room for the rest of his pals here)
Overall rating in 200: 3.5 (will require very careful and clever play, but potentially very powerful; not a piece for beginners)

4-LOM

I’m not generally a fan of unique Droids, at least not ones with double-digit point costs. R2-D2 can stay (hell, he can take beer out of the fridge without asking), but most of the more expensive unique Droids leave me cold. The reason for this (not that you asked, you self-absorbed churl) is that there are very few ways to build a synergistic squad around them. At this point in the game’s history, there are absolutely no commander effects that work on them, and only a couple of ways to enhance them in any way (Gonk, CS Darth Sidious’ Dark Master ability, Thrawn can give them Force Immunity). This means that any unique Droid has to be an extremely self-contained package, not requiring outside assistance to earn his points for your squad.

The original 4-LOM was one of my favorite pieces in Rebel Storm, and remains one of my favorite pieces today. At 21 points, he’s a shooter that does decent damage at a +16 to hit under the right (not too difficult to set up) circumstances, who also has an 18 Defense and 70 whole hit points. Sign me the heck up.

As a side note, Zuckuss has Rapport with any character with “4-LOM” in the name. This is sort of trivial under most circumstances, but it does mean that Mr. LOM comes down to 20 points, the magic number to be used in Fringe Reinforcements 20 or Fringe Reserves. Nice.

Seriously, 4-LOM, dude. 4-LOM.

Overall rating in 100: 4
Overall rating in 200: 4

4-LOM, Bounty Hunter

If you read my review of the Rebel Storm 4-LOM, you know that I consider him a tough act to follow. Unique Droids are hard to enhance with support pieces, so they have to be pretty self-contained little units in your squad, and I find the 21-point version of 4-LOM to be an admirable example. I’m still on the fence about this newfangled version.

In most ways, adding the “Bounty Hunter” surname to 4-LOM seems to mean slight upgrades to the same piece. He has 20 more hit points, one more point of Attack, 10 more points of Damage(!), and retains Bounty Hunter +4 and Careful Shot. These bonuses, taken together, are worth maybe 5 or 6 more points to me, but the new piece costs 12 more than his predecessor.

The ability that’s supposed to make up those last points is Paralysis, an ability we’ve seen on several pieces in this and previous sets. It’s a nice little stun effect, allowing you to shut the target down for the rest of the round if they haven’t activated yet, save 11. The key difference is that all the other pieces that have ever had it also have Melee Attack. Furthermore, every other piece in this game with a similar ability has, at most, a six-square range with it. 4-LOM, Bounty Hunter can activate Boba Fett from across the board, and that impresses the heck out of me. I just can’t decide if it impresses me 33 points’ worth.

It occurs to me that Grand Admiral Thrawn is about the best synergy you can hope for with 4-LOM, BH. You’ll almost always have initiative, allowing you to take a stab at activating the important piece before he can go, and you can give 4-LOM Force Immunity by just having him stand near Thrawn’s Ysalimiri field. Importantly, this would mean that any Force-users you try to Paralyze will only get the one chance to save, without any pesky Force Points ruining your fun. I may have to try this one out; I’ll let you know how it goes. The one thing to remember here is that 4-LOM lacks Accurate Shot, so a canny opponent is going to make it hard to target the piece you really want to hit. Bring crowd control pieces to clear out the fodder.

Overall rating in 100: 2.5 (a third of your squad, and hard to support)
Overall rating in 200: 3.5 (can possibly keep a much more expensive piece out of the fight)

Aurra Sing

If you read my review on Boba Fett, you know that I’m a little puzzled by the “ultimate badass of the galaxy” status that the fan community has thrust on him, but since it happened, it makes sense that his miniature is among the most powerful in the game.

Why then, is Aurra Sing, who appears for approximately three seconds in one movie and is never heard from again, another of the most powerful pieces in the game? I suppose this is a question for the philosophers. I’ll settle for reviewing her.

Anyway, check this out: imagine for a moment that there was a Jedi character in this game with an excellent Defense of 21, very good Hit Points of 130, and a respectable attack of +11 to go with the standard Jedi Damage score of 20. She’s got Lightsaber Sweep as well, and a crazy ability that gives her +4 Attack and +10 Damage against most of the other high-end figures in the game. Oh, and if she holds still, she gets another +4 to Attack, virtually guaranteeing a hit on any of the aforementioned high-end figures. Sounds all right, right? So if she had a cost of, say, 37 points, that would be cool?

Yeah, cool.

The problem is, she can shoot, too. And not in that mamby-pamby, I’m-Kyle-Katarn-and-carry-a-peashooter-that-does-10-at-range-next-to-my-lightsaber way, either. She does her full 20 (30 against Force-users) at range.

Wow, she’s pretty good.

It gets worse. She’s also got Accurate Shot.

Oh, come on! For 37 points? Along with her Jedi Hunter, Careful Shot, I-never-miss-you-ever numbers and abilities, she can choose her target? And this woman was on screen for 3 seconds in one movie that also contained Jar Jar Binks?

I’m afraid so. Add this level of awesome playability to the fact that she’s from the legendarily sold out Clone Strike expansion, and you can start to see why eBay seems to have her around $70 these days.

Geez. I could almost get a case of Universe for that.

Yeah.

Strange-but-true anecdote, by the way: The very first Clone Strike pack I opened contained Aurra Sing, but mine didn’t have any arms. I eventually got her traded into WOTC for a new one, but for a while she made a pretty pathetic sight on the battlefield, running around and killing people left and right with her torso powers.

Overall rating in 100: 5
Overall rating in 200: 5

Boba Fett

I know I’m not the first to observe this, but what the heck is the big deal about Boba Fett? In the movies, I mean. In Empire, we mostly see him standing around Cloud City, looking not quite as menacing as Vader, and in Jedi, we just see him swallowed by a burping, tentacled hole in the ground. From this we get the most dangerous bounty hunter the secondary canon has ever seen. Thank goodness the prequels at least showed his daddy kicking a modest amount of butt.

Anyway, like it or not, Star Wars fans for the last 26 years have collectively decided that Boba Fett is one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy, and his mini accurately reflects this. Double Attack (as well as its cousin, Triple Attack) is the meat and potatoes of damage-dealing in this game. Boba is one of the relatively small number (ten, to be precise) of Double Attackers who do at least 20 damage per shot and aren’t restricted by Melee Attack. This is a good start.
Accurate Shot is arguably the best ability in the game, since it denies your opponent the ability to decide who you’re going to attack. The only two pieces that have both it and Double Attack are both named Boba Fett. This is still looking pretty good.

The biggest threat to a given shooter in this game is frequently a comparably priced Melee Attack figure, since the Melee figure will generally have better stats. Not only does Fett have very respectable numbers of his own, he also has Flight, allowing him to outmaneuver ground-bound pieces that have to get through or around obstacles, and to ignore attacks of opportunity as an added bonus. This is an amazing finish.

But we’re not quite done, because as the icing on this moist, rich, and oh-so-fattening cake, Fett’s extremely respectable numbers are topped off with the Bounty Hunter ability (duh), which makes his attack against any Unique (and there are very few non-Uniques who are a threat to him) a mighty +16, enough to rival pretty much anyone.

At 50 points, he’s one of the most expensive pieces in the game, but he’s pretty much always worth it. While I may disagree with the need to have made Boba Fett one of the most powerful pieces of the game, it doesn’t change the fact that he is.

Overall rating in 100 points: 4.5 (he is half your squad, after all)
Overall rating in 200 points: 5

Bith Black Sun Vigo

Okay, let’s just assume that we’ve all made the obligatory Matrix joke about the Bith Black Sun Vigo and move on. The BBSV, as he’ll be known by brevity-conscious players, is a fantastic piece who was recruited by Morpheus to be the Chosen One and deliver humanity from the clutches of the machines – dammit!

With Mobile Attack, Stealth, Evade, and a healthy Defense of 19 with 50 hit points, he’s probably the hardest 20 points your opponent will ever have to kill, especially since he’ll rise from the dead when Trinity declares her love for him – crap!

Advantageous Attack and Twin Attack mean he can actually put 40 points of damage on an unactivated target, despite his humble Damage rating of 10, and Micro-Vision helps him punish enemy Agents that try to get past his Stealth by taking over the code of other imprisoned humans nearby. Sorry; let me get a grip here. I can finish this.

As if all that wasn’t worth your 20 points, he is a Vigo after all, meaning a high-ranking member of the Black Sun criminal syndicate, and naturally has a crime-friendly Commander Effect. In this case, he helps his fellow Stealth units by granting them Evade and eventually dying in a transparent Biblical allegory.

Overall rating in 100: 4
Overall rating in 200: 4.5
Overall rating for the first movie: 4
Overall rating for the sequels: 2

Bodyguard Droid

Shortly after Episode III came out, my wife (Mrs. Ten-Eyed Man) came out of the shower singing, “I wish I was a guard for General Grievous\That is what I’d truly like to be\’Cause if I was a guard for General Grievous\I’d be the coolest droid in the movie.” Truer words have rarely been sung to a hot dog jingle. The Bodyguard Droid is a terrific piece, befitting the way cool Jedi-fighting, staff-spinning, head-not-needing droids from the movie.

For 20 points, you get 60 more hit points to plug into the character of your choice, which is exactly double both the cost and the extra hit points for the Twi’lek Bodyguard (reviewed Monday). However, Bodyguard Droids go on to also double the Damage statistic of the alien pole dancer, as well as the Attack value (the Defense, while not doubled, is a healthy 3 points higher). Lightsaber Resistance pushes the Defense a little higher against the premier melee combatants of the game, which is a nice bonus.

This is all very well and good, but the ability that really makes the Bodyguard Droid incredible is the other really obvious one in his name: Droid. As a non-Unique droid for the Separatists, the coolest droid in the movie can reap handsome rewards like Double Attack, Careful Shot (useable on melee attacks despite the name), a total of +8 Attack from Fire Control and Supreme Commander Grievous, and the Repair 20 ability of Wat Tambor. Faction synergy just oozes off these guys. Supported correctly, a couple of them can be attacking twice per round at a +20 to hit (Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter may only need a ‘4’ to hit them, but they would only need a ‘3’ to hit him) (in your helmeted face, Vader!).

Finally, no discussion of the Bodyguard Droid would be complete without mentioning the Destroyer Droid. This is where the Separatists can really make use of that Bodyguard ability, because, as we know from the Destroyer Droid review a few weeks ago, the only problem with those guys is their low Hit Points. If you can plug in an extra 60 (which will still get all the benefits of Shields 2) (huzzah!), you’re doing well. If those extra 60 hit points can also fight, benefitting from the same stat boosts that you wanted for the Destroyer already, so much the better.

All in all, the Bodyguard Droid is a great buy. They can be used to defend other pieces, or they can be a key part of your own offense, using their eponymous ability to spread the damage between them and keep any one from getting eliminated.

Overall rating in 100: 4
Overall rating in 200: 4.5

Emperor Palpatine, Sith Lord

First of all, I just want to say that I love this piece. When the Revenge of the Sith set first came out, I happily told my friends who were Star Wars fans but didn’t play the game about the Betrayal ability, and they loved it, and I hoped against hope that Sith Palpatine could become a tournament mainstay.

It wasn’t meant to be, though. Sith Palpatine is good, but he’s since been pretty much overshadowed in terms of Imperial monsters by Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter.
His numbers are solid, but not stellar (mostly a Defense issue; at 62 points, you expect something higher than 20). You also sort of expect a +16 attack (though that’s as high as the game currently goes, so one shy is maybe forgiveable).

As with many Jedi and Sith types, it’s the abilities that really set Sith Palpatine apart. Triple Attack is pretty much a gimme in a 60+ point figure, but he’s got it. He also has a whopping six Force points, which is still not as good as having four and Force Renewal, per his other version. Lightsaber Assault is fantastic, allowing serious mobile offense, and Sith Lightning gives you some guaranteed damage (though I will usually choose Lightsaber Assault, since it does more damage at a lower Force cost, with the important down side that it can miss).

The above abilities are all very useful, but not all that interesting. Fortunately, Emperor Palpatine, Sith Lord has not one, not two, but three tricks up his billowing sleeve that are completely unique in the game. The previously mentioned Betrayal, while it doesn’t go off all that often, does mean that your opponent will always have to think twice about his attacks. Consider that if Obi-Wan, Jedi Master wants to make a Lightsaber Assault on Palpatine, there is almost a 10% chance that he’ll turn to the Dark Side and not be able to spend another Force Point to reroll. Given odds like that, many players will instead have Obi-Wan just walk up and attack once, saving that Force Point as a safety net. Betrayal is not remotely as useful in terms of “a thing that happens all the time” as it is a “thing that scares your opponent into making bad decisions.”

Execute Order 66 is a weirdly different ability. Where Betrayal is all about gambling and odds, Order 66 is all about guarantees, with the big guarantee being that if your opponent is playing a clone or AT-RT squad, you’ve got a guaranteed win. The idea that a pretty large number of figures, some of whom are the best shooting options the Republic has, simply can’t target Sith Palpatine, makes it easy to see why serious tournament play doesn’t really include clones.
Which is why Palpatine’s Commander Effect is sort of a mixed blessing. Once again, it’s a trick unlike anything else in the game, because it allows you to mix factions, but only with pieces that will be completely crippled if you go up against another Emperor Palpatine, Sith Lord.
This, then, is the strangest thing about Sith Palpatine: he’s one of the most metagame-dependent pieces in the game. If your local environment involves a large number of Order 66 pieces, then you’ll do very well with him (though it might be a dull game). If your local environment involves a lot of Sith Palpatine, however, you might not want to use him (or at least not use his Commander Effect). As a pure beatstick, you can do better with either Darth Vader, Sith Lord (two points less) or Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter (13 points more). As a “reinforce everyone in your squad while doing a bunch of direct damage piece,” you should use the original Emperor Palpatine from Rebel Storm. As a “keep your opponent guessing and have some really memorable games” piece, you can’t really do better at all.

Overall rating in 100: 2.5
Overall rating in 200: 3.5
Overall rating in fun, casual games: 5

Grand Admiral Thrawn

Undoubtedly the single best commander in the game, Grand Admiral Thrawn has almost singlehandedly changed how squads work. Before Universe, competitive squads virtually always consisted of a few powerful Unique pieces, with Stormtroopers and such existing mostly to fill in the last few points. With the coming of the new commanders in Universe (especially Thrawn), it’s much harder to discount the value of fielding an army of faceless grunts.
So what exactly does the Grand Admiral bring to the table? Let’s go point-by-point:

1. Initiative control. Unless you roll a “1,” you are considered to have won the initiative roll. This is even better than it seems, because on the rare occasions you do lose initiative, your opponent will probably not be in a position to exploit that (since they’ve been assuming you’ll win every round). The only reason to be concerned about losing initiative, really, is if you’re up against another Thrawn squad.
2. Force Immunity. Every character within 6 squares of Thrawn gains Force Immunity (under the current FAQ ruling). This not only protects against Force Lightning and the like, but more importantly prevents the use of defensive powers like Lightsaber Deflect against the attacks of anyone in the bubble.
3. Grunt buff. +3 Attack and +3 Defense to all non-unique followers within 6 squares. This is not only amazing, but it’s one of only two CEs in the game that improve Defense (and Yoda, Jedi Master only gives a +2). What makes this just ridiculous is that Empire’s Defense numbers tend to be pretty good. With Thrawn, you can have a 5-point Stormtrooper in cover with an effective Defense of 23.
4. Position swap. This ability is unlike anything else in the game. It’s an offensive maneuver, letting you run a Gran Raider up to an enemy piece, then swap him for a beatstick. It’s a defensive move, pulling a wounded piece back towards the healer. In your more sophisticated squads, it can also be used to get a Momentum or Charging Assault piece back away from its poor victim without drawing an attack of opportunity. It’s simply incredible all the way around.
5. Decent numbers. For an essentially noncombatant commander, Thrawn has very respectable numbers of his own. His +12 to hit and 80 hit points mean he can trade blows with mid-range threats and come out on top (though he really shouldn’t, unless the situation is dire). True story: The first time I played with Universe pieces was a sealed tournament in which I was lucky enough to pull Thrawn. The game eventually came down to my Thrawn versus my opponent’s Naboo Flash Speeder, and Thrawn won. This is just one of the many reasons why the Grand Admiral is a common sight in competitive play, while the Flash Speeder isn’t.
   

Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of the most important pieces in the game, and will likely continue to be so for a good while.

Overall rating in 100: 2.5 (he does take up more than a third of your points, which makes it difficult to get the support you need)
Overall rating in 200: 5