Season 10 Preview: Besp Wingman in Cloud City!

In Season 10, some older figures and cards are getting some much-needed love, and some additional cards to supplement their toolkit.

Why don’t you put Wing Guards in that list…. said no one ever. No longer! The Bespin police force refuses to be the butt of any more Imperial Assault list building jokes. These folks are now fully trained up and serious about keeping the peace in Bespin. Unfortunately, they’re just planetary cops—not exactly known for their serious firepower. Instead, they will just provide support to whoever’s in charge (that’s what scum is basically about, really, anyway). Hopefully, this time the support will be useful.

Second things first, the Squad Training ability has been reworked to grant adjacent leaders and Scum troopers a reroll. The latter is mainly to give other Wing Guards a reroll, like before, but now any adjacent Leader will also benefit. (Remember, they’re just following orders). While Scum might not be known for their leaders, certain Imperials and Rebels may qualify. Furthermore, this ability also allows them to bring in Lando Calrissian along for the ride. With his Gambit and Shrewd Scoundrel abilities, this reroll can be put to very good use. In fact, with Temporary Alliance, this ability is the first time it will be possible to have a Rebel figure in an Imperial list, fitting, for the Empire’s most infamous collaborator.

More excitingly, however, Keep the Peace has been significantly upgraded. It no longer costs a strain to use, and works with any friendly figure, including other Wing Guards. Note that it is only once an activation, so double attackers do get a small respite. While it may not seem like much to deal a single strain to an opponent, since they will just toss a card anyway, if this ability is triggered on every attack, it can quite quickly add up. Plus, the deployment card lets you bring three of them, so you can protect almost your whole army this way.

Under Duress is the star of the show when it comes to Wing Guards. Making your opponent discard two cards or take one damage for every attack may have them second guessing whether to take that extra throwaway attack with a support figure. However, it is likely best to find other ways of dealing strain as well, for a cohesive list. Examples might include HK-47, Bossk, Mando (or anyone with a flamethrower), etc.

Importantly, the Wing Guards are also Guardians. And in fact, at 3 points per figure, they are very cheap ones at that. That makes them excellent users for Get Behind Me! and Iron Will (who wants to waste extra attacks into a 3-point figure?) Another small note is that they have a surge for +3 accuracy instead of Recover 2, so they can still shoot from range and pop back behind the safety of your other figures to apply their defensive bonus.

Watch out for blast, cleave, Massive figures, and figures with Priority Target! They might pick off figures outside the loving embrace of your Wing Guards, or perhaps just target your Wing Guards themselves.

Wing Guards may also have uses outside of the Scum faction. While they don’t provide rerolls to Imperial troopers, or have access to Under Duress, they might still be best buddies with Riot Troopers, and still benefit from other Trooper synergies in Imperial faction. Their strain dealing will turn spam lists into a bunch of mini hedgehogs that prick you when you shoot them. There may even be a use for them in escorting Vader across the battlefield, or as sacrificial pawns for the Royal Guard Champion. The possibilities are endless!

In addition, Wing Guards are excellent users of the next spoiler card this season: Smoke Grenade. Let’s take a closer look at this card.

For the cost of one action, a figure can reach out and place an energy shield in a space 2 spaces away, and then 2 spaces from that (up to 4 spaces away from the figure playing the card), can grant 2 movement points (MP) to any friendly figure (including itself). This energy shield will last for the remainder of the current round and through the next round. While situational, this energy shield can be very, very powerful. The key is to use it to allow your remaining figures to more easily make an attack and retreat to safety behind the shield. Even a single shield can greatly extend the range of safe spaces on the map, much to your opponent’s surprise who has probably not planned line-of-sight calculations around this token. In the best-case scenario, your figures might be untouchable for a round, while still getting attacks off.

Who is best to play this card? Let’s take a look at some combos, although this is by no means an exhaustive list. Del Meeko can use this, and along with expertise, gain a total of 4 MP (effectively a move), with still an action left to attack. Any Technician can use this to trigger All in a Day’s Work, although this will be best with a Technician with a strong attack. Even a Technician companion might use this to grant their main figure an additional 2 MP, similar to a common use of Field Tactician. Multifigure trooper groups can also be great users. One Trooper in a group of Stormtroopers, Heavy Troopers, Wing Guards, etc. might use it to give another figure in the same group 2 MP to allow it to get an attack off. This is likely one of the most powerful uses of the card, with multifigure groups. In this way, it acts as a pseudo-urgency with a bonus—the shield. Wing guards could use it to reposition a figure back closer to them for the defensive strain bonus. The key here is the surprise factor, so put it in your decks and spring it on your opponent!

Last but not least, the command card Take Position has been updated. While formerly requiring at least one additional action to get +1 or +2 blocks, now, it does not cost an action and provides one figure a static +1 block. In combination with Fuel Upgrade, this can be a very strong defensive bonus on figures like walkers and Boba Fett, but is also strong with other Guardians with innate defenses (IG-11, Mando, etc.). Given how strong Survival Instincts is on Creatures, this should be similarly strong for Vehicles and Guardians. Since unlike Brawlers, these classes generally lack a lot of solid 0 point options, this should be a solid inclusion in many lists, keeping figures alive just that much longer. For best results, combine with defensive tricks like Brace for Impact or the aforementioned Fuel Upgrade. When set up properly on a figure with high defenses, this may disincentivize your opponent from attacking that figure all together. Just make sure to not give them any other good targets!

That concludes today’s preview for now.

Editor Wesley here. Thanks again for pitching in to write this article, Alex (AKA destruct_1 on the IACP Discord). Check back tomorrow for our announcement of the July Map Rotation, then Season 10 Spoilers will resume Thursday!