Season 4 Preview: You are Both Hunter and Prey

Most of the Steering Committee is pretty good at keeping hints about Season 4 content under wraps until releasing these the Season 4 Previews. Then there’s me: I’m pretty sure that I said no less than 3 times publicly that we’d be having cards based on The Mandalorian. Not only could I not contain my excitement but I wanted to assure our community that a priority for Season 4 would be making cards from the most exciting Star Wars TV show since Rebels.

The Committee made initial designs for most of the principle characters, then chose to focus on a few to release this Season. Since we don’t have the benefit of an official license agreement with Disney or FFG — wouldn’t that be something! — we don’t get access to the show content before each episode airs. That means that our designs of these characters need to be flexible in order to anticipate changes in the character’s allegiances or abilities revealed in future episodes.

A quick warning: The following contains plot and character spoilers for Season 1 of The Mandalorian TV Show. If you have tried to keep yourself free of information about the show, proceed at your own risk. I have spoken.

Weapons are Part of My Religion

We wanted the design of The Mandalorian to reflect most of the arsenal that he accumulates before answering Greef Karga’s call to return to Nevarro — and before he is gifted a jetpack by The Armorer. By making him less mobile and omitting the Vehicle trait, we create a different play style for him compared the other Mandalorian figures in Imperial Assault.

New Deployment card for Season 4

We represent his full cuirass of Beskar armor — and how it can be damaged & repaired in battle — with the usage of block power tokens. We also gave him the Guardian trait to represent how he puts himself in danger to protect his allies and The Child. Unlike Boba Fett or Sabine Wren, he can protect others with the Get Behind Me! command card and protect himself with the Iron Will command card.

His offensive capabilities are just as strong as his defense. He uses his wrist flamethrower with mixed results in the show, so we’ve chosen to make it a bit less powerful than other flamethrower abilities in Imperial Assault. What he does use to great results is his Disruptor Rifle shots, which we give the powerful effect of finishing figures that are just one damage away from becoming defeated. (You can’t Zillo Technique to survive with 1 Health left, Stormtrooper!) With the Hunter trait, The Mandalorian should have no problems ramping up his damage output while using Disruptor Rifle or his primary attack.

And when he needs to take out a whole host of Stormtroopers, he can rely on the gift of Whistling Birds.

New Command card for Season 4

We feel that Whistling Birds gives him a multi-figure close-range finisher that compliments his Disruptor Rifle’s single-figure mid-range finishing ability. With the extra block tokens & Guardian trait, we’re expecting players to push The Mandalorian into the middle of enemy forces carefully, betting that he survives most of the biggest counterattacks before his next activation.

I Am Fulfilling My Base Function

The other character from the show we are previewing today started as Din Djarin’s bounty hunting rival that was left blown to bits on Arvala-7. Repaired and reprogrammed by Kuiil, IG-11 became a potent ally for The Mandalorian and The Child before sacrificing himself to take out a squad of ex-Imperial Stormtroopers. As a fan favorite of the show, the Steering Committee prioritized adding IG-11 to Season 4 — and we made sure it is not just some annoying junk droid made by an Ugnaught.

New Deployment card for Season 4

Like certain other IG assassin droid models, IG-11 has a very strong defensive profile, better-than-average Speed and can dish out multiple attacks that are most effective against nearby figures. Unlike those newer IG models that have an arsenal of weapons, IG-11 carries medium blasters as his weaponry and thus limited to a fixed attack pool. For targets 5 or more spaces away, IG-11 needs to make good use of his Targeting Computer or additional modifiers to accumulate enough Accuracy. Players will need to use careful positioning to keep IG-11 near the fight and protecting other lower-Health friendly figures using Guardian command cards.

Before IG-11 would suffer damage that may defeat him from an attack, he may elect to use Self-Destruct Protocol to damage nearby hostile figures in one last explosion of glory. Opponents can get around Self-Destruct Protocol through abilities that cause IG-11 to suffer damage outside of an attack: Blast or Cleave, Grenadier, Sabine’s Parting Gift, etc. Therefore players may elect to attach the Last Resort skirmish attachment to IG-11 to guarantee the nurse droid explodes when it suffers damage equal to its Health. You should keep in mind that Self-Destruct Protocol ability, Last Resort skirmish attachment & the Terminal Protocol command card all do not trigger each other, preventing players from rolling more than one die of damage.

Most IGs may be Hunters but not this one: It was reprogrammed. With the Droid trait, players will want to give IG-11 Focus from a support figure or a Command card like Shared Experience. IG-11 can also call upon some leftover code from its time as a Bounty Hunter Guild assassin to boost both of its Rapid Fire attacks.

New Command card for Season 4

We designed IG-11 not just as a great fellow Guardian to pair up with The Mandalorian. We feel his design makes him a superb primary attacker option for Mercenary Droid lists — not as expensive or dominating as IG-88 but still requiring most of your opponent’s attention. You’ll give up a lot of Victory Points if IG-11 is defeated but you’ll be able gain that many points or more back with his strong attacks & self destruct.

So This is a Mandalorian? I Thought They’d Be Bigger

We hope that these two new Deployment cards & two new Command cards will inspire some new and fun army building ideas. Perhaps Mando gets hired by Saska Teft for a protection detail? Or both The Mando and IG-11 are hired by a certain Sith Master?

We still have one more big reveal to make about The Mandalorian content in Season 4… but it will have to wait. Until then, keep a close eye on your tracker fob.

This article is part of our Season 4 Preview series. Until the end of July 2020, the Steering Committee will be revealing the cards that make up our Season 4 content. You can discuss these cards in the comments of this post or on the IACP Reddit.

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