I’ll admit it, I was not a fan of the Star Wars show Rebels when it first aired. I have, however, given it another chance, and now the story of the Spectres is one of my favorite stories in all of Star Wars lore.
When these characters were announced for Shatterpoint, I was very excited because first and foremost, I couldn’t wait to put some paint on those minis. The sculpts absolutely blew me away. I will have a How to Paint Everything article dedicated to each box soon enough, but in this article I will be reviewing the squad pack Make the Impossible Possible and in a separate article I will be reviewing its companion squad pack Stronger Than Fear.
Hera Syndulla
Hera Syndulla (Spectre-2) is the Primary unit in this box. She brings 8 squad points and 3 Force with her to help with Strike Team construction and paying for those sweet, sweet abilities. Like most Primaries, she has two stances available for players to choose from, and both her Difficult Choices and Spread a Little Light stances offer the same amount of offensive dice for ranged (7) and melee (6) attacks. As far as dice go, the only difference is in her defensive dice. In Difficult Choices she gets 4 ranged defense dice and 5 melee defense dice, and in Spread a Little Light she gets 5 ranged defense and 4 melee. She also has 9 Stamina and 3 Durability. Hera also has the keywords of Rebel Alliance and Spectre.
Stances
Difficult Choices is definitely geared towards more damage dealing, as the first three spaces down her tree grant 3 damage and a Strain to your target. After you get past that third spot, you have the choice of either a Shove or Pin to give to your target (along with one damage), and then you have the choice of performing one of her Active abilities, dealing out 2 damage, or dealing out 1 damage and a Reposition. She also only has two tiers of expertise for both ranged and melee attacks in both stances, and they are nearly identical. In this stance, 3+ Expertise will give you 2 Criticals and a Strike for a ranged attack, and 1-2 will give a Critical and a Strike. In melee, 1-3 Expertise grants a Critical and a Strike, and 4+ grants a Critical, Strike, and Exposed. This stance is really meant to represent her getting into the fight as a commander and trying to turn the tide of battle.
Spread a Little Light is meant to represent Hera’s role as a commander and having an impact on the larger battlefield by repositioning characters and handing out conditions to put her teammates in a more advantageous position. Her expertise charts remain the same, except you get a Recover instead of a strike for 3+ ranged expertise, and a Recover instead of an Exposed for 4+ melee expertise. In the latter part of a struggle, this stance could be very helpful to get opponents off of points and increase your scoring while keeping her alive just a little bit longer. The first two slot on her damage tree is a Recover and a damage, and the majority of the rest of this tree is made up of shoves, conditions, and recovery. Her bottom row grants a Shove and a damage, her middle row gives out a Pin, Shove, Active Ability, 3(!) Recovers, and 4 damage, and her top row gives out Disarm, Recover, Reposition and only 2 damage. This is not the stance to use if you really need her to deal out damage and wound characters.
In addition to these two stances, Hera has access to a Tactics Ability, one Active Ability, one Innate Ability, and and Identity.
Phoenix Leader
This is her Tactics Ability. Like most members of this squad, this ability has a different effect for Rebel Alliance characters than it does for Spectre characters, and Spectre characters typically get the biggest benefit from these abilities. In this case, an allied Rebel Alliance Unit can choose one character to Dash, and an allied Spectre Unit can choose one character to Advance.
We Will Not Stand Down
Hera’s active ability We Will Not Stand Down is expensive at a cost of 2 Force, but it is extremely good. An allied Rebel Alliance Unit (with no range restriction) can remove a Wounded token, all damage from itself, and remove a condition from itself, and then gain an Injured token. In addition, that same unit can then Reposition towards an Active Objective. This could be a potentially huge scoring swing for your team, especially in later struggles.
Crew of the Ghost
Additionally, Hera’s innate ability Crew of the Ghost grants allied Rebel Alliance units Cover (1). I really like that this isn’t locked to the Spectre keyword, which will allow you some more flexibility when you are building out your strike teams, especially as more units are released with the Rebel Alliance keyword.
We Have Hope
Finally, you have Hera’s Identity, We Have Hope. It adds some very interesting mechanics to the game. First, it allows each Rebel Alliance unit within Range 4 removes 3 damage from itself. Again, Hera wants to help keep your team alive and in the fight. However, if you activate this identity during a normal activation, you have to spend one momentum. This doesn’t sound very good, because it could potentially swing the game away from you with the loss of momentum. If you activate Hera with a Shatterpoint card, though, you don’t have to spend the momentum, which makes this identity much more useful for your strike teams.
Sabine Wren
Full transparency: I absolutely love Sabine Wren as a character in every iteration that she appears in. I love her in Rebels, I loved her in Ahsoka, and I loved painting her for Star Wars: Legion. That being said, let’s explore what my favorite Mandalorian brings to the table. First, she is the Secondary Unit in this squad pack, and has a cost of 4. She also has the keywords of Clan Wren (which has me intrigued for future releases), Mandalorian, Rebel Alliance, and Spectre. She also has 8 Stamina and 2 Durability.
Stance
Sabine’s lone stance My Way, grants her 6 Ranged attack dice at range 4, as well as 6 Melee attack dice. She also has 4 defense dice for both attack types with her Beskar Armor. Her ranged attack expertise has three tiers for 1, 2-3, and 4+ expertise rolls, and her melee expertise has the same number of tiers. Additionally, both give you a strike, a crit and a strike, and then two crits and a disarm for the final tier. After the first spot on her combat tree, you have the option of choosing the upper path, which grants more control with two shoves and two damage, or choosing the heavier damage of the bottom path that grants a strain and three damage. If you roll 3 expertise, you also have the option of using her active ability. The final three spots on her tree grant two damage and a pin, and finally either an exposed and a damage, or a jump and a damage.
In addition to her single stance, Sabine has access to a Tactics Ability, Active Ability, Reactive Ability, and an Innate Ability, which I will detail below.
My Friends Make the Impossible Possible
This is Sabine’s Tactics Ability. Much like Hera’s, there are two different effects of this ability depending on the keyword tags that a unit has. If the allied unit has the keyword Rebel Alliance, that character may dash. If that unit has the Spectre tag, they can gain a hunker instead. Movement and defense are always good options to have.
I’m Gonna Go Add Some Fireworks to the Celebration
First, great job AMG on naming this active ability. I love it. Now, what does it do? For the cost of one Force, Sabine can choose an objective with Range 4. She then rolls 5 attack dice. For each attack expertise roll, all Units within Range 2 of the chosen objective suffer one damage. Sabine can then jump after this action is resolved. I really like this ability A LOT. For one, any time you can hand out automatic chip damage and your opponent doesn’t get to roll any defense dice is a good ability in my book. Additionally, the objective you choose doesn’t have to be an active objective. So if your opponent has a lot of units clustered around an objective they believe will be active during the next struggle, or they’re passing by one on their way to an active objective, Sabine can just make things go BOOM. However, you will want to make sure you don’t have any of your own units around the objective, or that they are units that can take the damage.
I Forged This Armor With My Family
After Sabine completes a move action, she can use this ability. If she is within Range 2 of an allied Mandalorian or Spectre unit, Sabine immediately makes a focus action. Again, these two Spectre squads were really designed to work well with each other. However, it does open up some interesting synergy with Mandalorian units, especially with the upcoming releases of more Mandalorians into the game.
Daughter of Mandalore
Sabine’s final ability is her innate ability. It grants her both Protection and Sharpshooter (2). Additionally, any time Sabine would move, dash, climb, or reposition, she can instead jump. It’s a solid ability.
Chopper
Star Wars has some really cool droids, and Chopper has to rank near the top. Chopper is the support unit in this squad, and has a cost of 4. Chopper also has 8 Stamina and 2 Durability. Chopper also has the keyword tags of Droid, Rebel Alliance, and Spectre.
Stance
Chopper’s single stance, Droid Rage, is fairly simple. You get to choose where you start, either dealing two damage, or dealing out one damage and a shove. After that initial choice, there is only one path for Chopper to go down on his Combat Tree. Chopper deals out 4 damage, a shove, and an Active Ability in the final spot. Chopper gets 6 Attack Dice at Range 3, 8 melee attack dice, and finally 4 ranged defense and 5 melee defense. Do not let the 4 ranged defense scare you away from using him, his abilities make him much more durable than that would lead you to believe. His Defensive Expertise, Sterner Stuff, has three tiers and grants a block, 2 blocks, and finally 2 blocks and a reposition for 1, 2-3, and 4+ expertise rolls respectively. His attack expertise tables are nearly identical. They both have three tiers: 1, 2-3, and 4+. These two charts give Chopper a Crit, a Crit and a Strike, and finally two Crits plus one additional effect. The ranged expertise grants a disarm, and the melee expertise grants a damage in the final tier in addition to the other effects.
Chopper also has access to two Active Abilities, one Reactive Ability, and two Innate Abilities.
Mayhem
This is Chopper’s first Active Ability. For one Force, Chopper can choose one enemy unit within Range 2, and then roll 3 Defense Dice. If you roll a Block result, the enemy unit gains Strained. If you roll an Expertise result, the unit gains Disarm, and if you roll any Failure results the enemy unit gains Exposed. If you have the Force, and there’s a unit within Range 2, why wouldn’t you use it? Handing out conditions can be a real force multiplier.
Rocket Booster
Simple and straightforward: pay a Force, Chopper can jump.
“Chopper,” Sometimes You Do It Right
Chopper can use this Reactive Ability after wounding an enemy unit. After the effect is resolved, Chopper can choose another allied unit within Range 2 as long as they have either the Rebel Alliance or Spectre keyword tag. If the unit is Rebel Alliance, they can dash. If the unit is a Spectre, they can reposition instead. More movement is always welcome in Shatterpoint.
Sturdy Construction
Chopper is immune to both Pin and Disarm, and has Protection. Solid innate ability.
Is That One of Ours?
If Chopper’s Order Card is still in the Order Deck or in Reserve, Chopper can’t be targeted by Ranged attacks. I love this ability. That 4 Range defense doesn’t seem so bad if he can only be targeted part of the time.
Gameplay Tactics
This squad pack is solid. What I think I like the most about this squad is that it feels like AMG specifically designed this and the other Spectre box to play the best together, which is an amazing reflection of how this team interacted on the show. However, because there are benefits to Rebel Alliance units, there is a benefit to pair them with those keyword tags, especially as more units are added to the game with that particular tag.
Strike Team 1:
Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, Chopper
Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, Zeb Orrelios
It’s hard to break up a family. This Strike Team is specifically designed to maximize the benefits of every unit having the Spectre tag. Also, I am a sucker for staying on theme with a Strike Team, and it doesn’t get much more on-theme than this currently in the game. Turn them loose and let them do Spectre things. Bonus points if you can build a themed table to represent a mission on Lothal!
Strike Team 2:
Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, Chopper
General Solo, Chewie, Rebel Commandos
This Strike Team takes advantage of the Rebel Alliance tag. With the Commandos, you gain an extra model so that you can spread out to control more objectives if you need to. Additionally, Chewie helps to boost the defense of Primary and Secondary Units around him. Lastly, General Solo’s Let’s Keep A Little Optimism Here ability here can help provide extra momentum when you need to spend it with Hera.
Star Wars: Rebels is one of my favorite stories in the entire Star Wars Universe. I was beside myself with excitement when these squad packs were announced, and I really like the design path AMG took with both of these boxes. How are you using the Spectres? Let us know in the comments below!
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