Welcome, true believers, to the last of the Season 9 Preview Articles. I’m confident many of you are excited to see the long-awaited inclusion of everyone’s favourite murder-bears: The Ewoks! Included also is a new listbuilding upgrade to bring some heavy armaments into the Scum Faction.
A 5-cost group of three figures at 2 figure cost each is a great little package that is excellent at playing objectives and can really pack a wallop with some careful setup.
Ambush gives Ewok Warriors some cover to help them safely get into engagement range and also gives a much needed boost to their otherwise unremarkable Blue-Yellow attack pool, meaning a Hidden melee attack will have an innate Pierce 1 on top of the usual +1 Surge. The added surge should hopefully allow you to re-Hide or hit that second surge result for the +2 added damage.
Sling Barrage enables an interesting alpha strike, letting you use your Ewok Warriors to contribute a yellow die to an attack at the cost of receiving a Stunned condition. Ideally, I think you want to use the Reach ability to land melee attacks with your first two Ewok Warrior figures, then follow up with a Sling Barrage for the third figure to perform a ranged attack with 4 (5 with focus) dice! Make sure you keep the target of your Sling Barrage in Line of Sight of your other Ewok Warriors!
During initial alpha testing, the Steering Committee noted that Ewok Warriors can be quite effective if they stay together and choose their targets carefully. They only have 3 Health each, meaning they are quite vulnerable to dying easily to blast, cleave, and other out-of-attack damage effects. They also depend pretty heavily on being Hidden for consistent damage output, so make sure you try to attack targets that don’t have any innate Evade results, or you may feel like you’ve brought sharp sticks to a blaster fight.
You Didn’t Mention the AT-ST
One of the goals of the IACP Steering Committee is to open up list-building options to provide increased flexibility in making fun and effective lists in all factions. If this can be achieved with thematic designs inspired by excellent Star Wars media, then that’s even better. The inspiration for this particular attachment comes from the Mandalorian Chapter 4, in which an iconic AT-ST walker has been scavenged and repurposed by a band of pillaging raiders.
This attachment allows either the AT-ST or AT-DP into the Mercenary Faction and represents a scavenging and jury-rigging of Imperial heavy vehicles. At the cost of losing dice consistency (as well as access to Imperial Retrofitting), you gain quite a bit of dice volume and flexibility (and 1 extra deployment point). In the Imperial faction, these heavy vehicles often act as firing platforms that rely on imperial officers to get them into firing position. Scavenged Walkers are far more independent, using their own movement to position themselves for end of round attacks.
Let us know how you like the Ewoks and Walkers and what lists you like bringing them in!