We’re back for another tactics article! This time, the We Don’t Need Their Scum Unit Pack! To start with a personal note, I am extremely excited for this release. Since my childhood, the mystique of bounty hunters tickled my imagination. It seems my experience isn’t unique, the mystery and uniqueness of those original bounty hunters standing in front of Darth Vader captivated millions of people across the world, and now thanks to Atomic Mass Games we have the opportunity to bring those characters to the tabletop!
As this is Unit Pack only consisting of secondary characters, I will format the tactics slightly differently. Due to only providing secondaries, this box is not as plug-and-play as previous releases, so after the analysis of each character, I will provide a full strike team highlighting that character. Now, onto the tactics dive, starting with the most famous bounty hunter across the galaxy, Boba Fett!
Boba Fett, On Contract
Boba Fett brings an interesting set of tools, mixing mobility with aggression and just a sprinkle of control. Costing 4 squad points is the sweet spot for secondaries, mixing power with list building flexibility. With 9 stamina and 2 durability, Boba ends up on the tankier side of secondaries, but only just. With nothing about his basic stat line standing out, we turn to his abilities to see what makes him feared.
You’re Running Out of Options – This is an excellent tactics ability, providing both flexibility and power. A jump is a significant step up from the dash many other secondaries get but is restricted to only Boba himself (he doesn’t like it when others mess with his jet pack, it’s led to bad experiences). I would recommend thinking of this as your default option. The 5 dice attack is more situational than it appears. Of course, there must be an opposing primary in range, but you also must consider if putting a 5 dice attack into the primary will actually advance your game plan. Are they on a point you are trying to control? Would wounding them give your opponent some advantage, such as force refresh or a revenge attack? Will I be punished by Deflect or Riposte? Those are all factors to consider, and primaries boast higher than average defenses, so 5 dice attacks will likely only result in 2 to 3 damage and maybe a disarm. Respectable, but not game-changing. I suspect the jump to be the higher-value option most of the time.
Knee Rocket – At a base rate of 1 force for 2 damage, this ability seems just ok. Splitting the damage across two units is flexible but not great for targeting down a key target. Generally, I think this is an ability you’ll be happy to use if you get 4 steps down Boba’s tree, but you will only be spending force to finish someone off or you’re about to refresh your order deck with a glut of unspent force.
Whipcord Launcher – This reads as a better rate to me than Knee Rockets. One force for two conditions is a good value, and pin and disarm can really mess up an opponent’s activation. If you have to choose between spending on this or Knee Rocket, make it a general rule to choose the Whipcord Launcher. This ability will get its best value against high-impact single-character targets. Fitting for a bounty hunter really, there’s not much money to be made catching a nameless squad of battle droids or stormtroopers after all.
Dead or Alive – For my money, this is the best ability on Boba’s card. Getting to jump after your opponent completes a primary activation is powerful. You get to see their plan and have a chance to disrupt it without them being able to respond. This will likely be somewhere between 4 to 6 extra jumps over the course of a game and is an ability situationally worth spending force to use when Boba’s injured. Note that while Boba must jump towards a primary, he must move towards the one that just activated. (The physical version of his card clarifies this.)
Hired Hand – Boba Fett gets either the scoundrel or galactic empire tag, neat! Boba himself lacks tag-based abilities, so how good this is directly depends on the other units in your strike team. Sometimes, this will be useful; sometimes, this will be flavor text. Generally, I think the empire tag is better than the scoundrel tag; however, as empire is a highly synergistic faction, I am unsure Boba has a home there.
Boba Fett’s stance card, Notorious Disintegrator, is a mixed bag for me. His defensive profile essentially nets you a 1-for-1 return on blocks for expertise, which is good, but only 4 dice in his pool, which is bad. Still, he’s durable enough to survive being one-shot by all but the mightiest, or luckiest, of hits. His attack expertise is acceptable, early crits are always nice, but nothing amazing. His melee expertise is better than his ranged until you get to 4+, so given the option, I would generally try for melee attacks. His tree, however, leaves something to be desired. The earliest shove being on step 3 is not ideal and with only an average dice pool with no easy access to focus, getting there won’t be super consistent. Getting a free active ability on step 4 is nice, but neither of his actives are game changers, just nice value pieces. With no guaranteed displacement, Boba Fett is really going to rely on disintegrating his enemies but will need assistance, either via setup or extra dice, to do so consistently.
To that end, here’s a Boba Fett list I’d recommend:
Squad 1
- Primary – Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter
- Secondary – Boba Fett
- Support – Wing Guard
Squad 2
- Primary – Lord Maul
- Secondary – Jango Fett
- Support – Fifth Brother
This is really a good stuff list, with every unit besides Jango benefiting from Darth Vader giving extra dice for melee attacks, and Jango and Boba do a good job of doing splash damage to set the other up for kills. Plenty of displacement between Jango, Maul, and Fifth Brother to make up for Boba’s let thereof. Squad 1 gives a nice Empire Strike Back theme as well, which is always nice.
Bossk, Single-Minded Slayer
At only 3 squad points, expect to see Bossk everywhere! Apparently Bossk is just less choosy about who hires him. In all seriousness, I think the point cost might make our lizard friend the most-played unit in this box. Rounding out his base stats, his 8 stamina is above the curve for 3 cost units, while he has the standard 2 stamina. Not too shabby, and it only gets better when looking at his abilities.
Regeneration – The ability to heal everything is excellent!… but the conditional counterplay of healing nothing, if Bossk is strained, keeps it from being absurd. There are ways to play around this though. You can bring units that provide easy access to recover or trigger the strain beforehand by moving Bossk with another unit; he will heal the three damage back anyway. In a pinch, you can always pay a force to use Bossk’s Payday ability when his card is revealed, giving him a tag, triggering his strain, and then he will heal all the damage when Regeneration kicks in.
Explosive Ordinance – This ability is basically 1 force for a dash plus a damage or two. Great value, definitely better than Knee Rockets. Plan to use this most activations. Note the explosion is optional, you can just dash if you want. That will be occasionally handy as this ability does hurt allied units as well.
Payday – This ability is a known quantity by now, but I think it will be better on Bossk than is has been on previously released units, mostly because I think Bossk is an outstanding 3 cost secondary that many factions will want to have, and paying a force for the synergy tax is fine in that scenario. The aforementioned synergy this ability has with Regeneration also makes this ability better for Bossk than for others.
We Have a Job to Do – Revenge attacks against enemies who wound your units have proven to be excellent in the past, and I believe the pattern will hold here. I think this is the best ability on Bossk’s card, and worth building around. Like Kanan’s revenge ability, Bossk’s only triggers off attacks that wound, but unlike Kanan, Bossk only doles out revenge for his friends, not himself. Note that, unlike previous revenge abilities, this is a reaction, so it will start costing force once Bossk is wounded or injured. 1 force for a dash and a 5 dice attack is still a bargain though, and you may even consider paying 2 force for this effect.
Cold-Blooded Killer rounds out Bossk nicely, as this is a solid stance. Good expertise conversion on offense complements an effective combat tree, good at both damage and displacement. Shoves on steps 2 and 3 are great, and early access to pin is a handy option. His defenses are lacking, with poor expertise conversion and only 4 dice at range or melee. He really relies on Regeneration to stay alive.
As far as a Bossk strike team goes, I think building around his revenge reactive ability is the best way to go, so here’s a list where 4 of the 6 units trigger the ability, doubles down on punishing your opponent for wounding your units with two other revenge triggers and provides easy recover access to deal with those pesky strains.
Squad 1
- Primary: The Mandalorian
- Secondary: Bossk
- Support: IG-11
Squad 2
- Princess Leia, Charming to the Last
- Secondary: Dengar
- Support: Bounty Hunters
Dengar, the Demolisher
Being a demolisher seems better for construction work than bounty hunting, but I guess it works for Dengar? Despite the title, Dengar reads more like a decently durable semi-support than an offensive wrecker to me. His general stats come across as quite normal, though, sporting the same 4 squad point cost, 9 stamina, and 2 durability as Boba Fett. He sports some interesting abilities, though.
On the Trail – A free dash is about as boring a tactics ability can get. Still, movement without spending force is nice, so nothing to complain about.
Payday – Not as good as on Bossk, as there is no internal synergy with the rest of his card, but still useful. Dengar reads to me that a unit really wants to play with other bounty hunters, so I don’t expect to get too much use out of this.
Explosive Regards – A weak revenge ability, but handy to have. Note the zero force cost is a lie; this ability will always cost at least one because you have to be wounded to use it. Only triggering off melee attacks is unfortunate, but you are getting 2.5 expected damage for your force, not an awful exchange. I expect the threat of this ability will matter more than the actual use of this ability, as melee-only characters who only have a couple health left may avoid wounding Dengar out of fear of his explosion.
Being Underestimated Has its Values – Free reserves for bounty hunters? I’m in! In essence, this ability translates to Dengar bringing one force to your strike team in a heavy bounty hunter list, which is quite significant. There are players who rarely reserve, and if that is you, Dengar will be much less exciting, but I’m quite bullish on this ability. However, the value drops for each non-bounty hunter you have with Dengar.
Not Just a Pretty Face – Immunity to pin and steadfast are great defensive tools. They really make up for Dengar being kind of slow, with only a dash and his advance for movement. The pin immunity is sneakily also damage mitigation, as the pin is a common enough condition that you will often see it applied multiple times to the same unit and converting to damage. Dengar just ignores that.
Dengar’s combat tree, Brute Force, offers conditions or shoves, both of which I like. I suspect the bottom half of the tree will be used more frequently, but flexibility is good. The major thing to note is the difference between his range and melee attacks; the dice pool for Dengar’s gun is quite bad. This, coupled with his mediocre mobility, is a weakness but not a death sentence. His melee attack is quite good, as is his melee expertise. His melee defense is similarly better than his ranged defense, though not quite to the same extent as his attacks.
As far as a strike team goes, I want something that uses Being Underestimated Has its Values well for those sweet free reserves. I am tempted just to put the same strike team as Bossk, which I included Dengar in, but for the sake of variety, here’s a list with IG-88B, who uses the extra force well and can add dice to help fix Dengar’s poor ranged attacks.
Squad 1
- Primary: The Mandalorian
- Secondary: Dengar
- Support: Bounty Hunters
Squad 2
- Primary: Princess Leia, Charming to the Last
- Secondary: IG-88B
- Support: Lando and R2-D2
IG-88B, Created to Succeed
Onto the next bounty hunter (and my childhood favorite Lego Star Wars II character) IG-88B! Mirroring Boba and Dengar, IG-88B comes with a standard 9 stamina and 2 durability, the big twist here is that he costs a whopping 5 squad points. I am typically wary of 5 cost figures, simply because they are hard to fit into lists, but I think IG-88B will live up to his title and be a 5-cost unit that succeeds!
High Priority Target – A tactic that is a self-dash, but with a bit extra, a conditional focus. An enemy character within 5 after the dash is a pretty generous condition. Expect to get the focus every activation after his first, and sometimes even on the first one.
Always Get the Job Done – Spending 1 force for two conditions is fine value, as I mentioned with Boba Fett. This has the upside of sometimes being 3 conditions, with the downside of sometimes being 1, and the conditions not being guaranteed. Still, a 70% percent change to expose a defensive target before a critical attack is often worth it, as I have experienced playing lots of games with Chopper. Not a must-use ability, but a welcome tool in IG-88B’s kit.
Calculating Plans – One of two reactive abilities that share the same timing window on IG-88B’s card, this is the one you should be using on IG-88B’s turn more often than not. The fact that it costs 0 force to begin with is a big deal, and the mathematical difference between two rerolls or 3 extra dice is pretty small until you start looking at chances to get 4 steps on your combat tree. Unless you really need 4+ steps, just take the less costly rerolls.
I Engineer Success, Yet… It Alludes Me – The build-around ability on IG-88B’s card, and this one is a doozy. Any bounty hunter can spend a force for 3 extra attack dice, but if you fail to wound, you lose a momentum. Three dice really changes the math for characters like the Mandalorian, Jango Fett, or Boba Fett. Losing a momentum is a real cost, especially if you lose multiple, but I would generally recommend using this ability often, especially when first using this character. I find limit testing to see just when losing momentum becomes too punishing a better way to find the line of how much to use an ability than being to gun shy to ever find the line. Note it only lasts for a single attack in a combat action, bounty hunter supports can’t double dip, and 5-dice attacks from Aurra Sing or granted by Greef Karga can’t be the beneficiary of this ability.
Any Means Necessary is a stance worthy of a 5-cost character. With early shoves and conditions, good damage and lots of branching paths you get a lot of flexibility in the combat tree. IG-88B’s ranged expertise is significantly better than his melee expertise, despite both having the same dice pool. This is fine, however, as better range attacks would be what I’d choose anyways given the option. The free focus, free rerolls, and sometimes extra dice are the hidden stats this stance doesn’t show. Still, it doesn’t seem like his base attack stats suffered too much as a cost for those hidden dice, as we’ve seen in some older characters like the Wolfpack. Solid defensive expertise backs up mediocre defensive dice pools, especially in melee, but the reposition on 3 expertise is quite welcome, even if unreliable.
When building a list for IG-88B, I wanted characters that could benefit from his extra dice and the force economy to use the ability frequently. With that in mind, I’ve settled on this Mandalorian/Lord Maul list, with plenty of bounty hunters and a good force economy.
Squad 1
- Primary: The Mandalorian
- Secondary: IG-88B
- Support: Lando and R2-D2
Squad 2
- Primary: Lord Maul
- Secondary: Jango Fett
- Support: Bounty Hunters
Well, that’s the wrap! If you’ve made it this far, comment and let me know your favorite unit in this box is what lists you’ve been trying them in! I always love seeing the unique lists people come up with! Until next time, may the force be with you!
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