Wave 10 Villain Pack – Emperor Palpatine
Emperor Palpatine, painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com
Campaign
Sheev Palpatine finally made it into Imperial Assault. Emperor Palpatine is also pretty unique in what he can do.
13 Health for a Deployment Cost of 8 does make him more fragile than other figures. This can be a problem in the campaign since he does cost a good amount of threat you can only afford in the later parts of the campaign. But this also means the rebels have much more ways of dispatching Palpatine with just 1 activation. He does have the advantage that with Emperor he does not need to be close to the rebels to cause havoc. Tempt can be used right before that to make the attack have even more of a punch. Or it can be used to wound a hero that only has 1 Health left. Force Lightning can also be used to deal direct damage to a hero and thus maybe wound it. It’s still a high price to pay, though, for this ability.
The pack also comes with an Agenda Set called The Emperor’s Plots of course. For the Emperor reduces the Deployment Cost of Guardian Group by 2 once a mission. This card is a straight-up downgrade to Hired Help from the core box. With Riot Troopers and Sentry Droids both sporting the Guardian trait, at least there are exciting new options for this card. Isolation forces the rebel players to stick together. With imperial classes like Subversive Tactics or Power of the Dark Side, this card can get some serious traction. Last is the side mission Insidious that actually lets you earn Palpatine for your open groups.
To recruit Emperor Palpatin for your campaign, you need to win the side mission Insidious, which is included in this pack. This side mission requires tiles from the Heart of the Empire expansion!
Emperor Palpatine appears in the following campaign missions:
- Heart of the Empire Story Mission: The Realm of the Dark Side
- Heart of the Empire Story Mission: History Repeats
- Heart of the Empire Story Mission: Capital Escape
- Wave 10 Pack Emperor Palpatine Side Mission: Insidious
Skirmish
Like the other figures of Wave 10, Emperor Palpatine seems to be designed with Skirmish in mind. With a Speed of 3 and a melee attack, you are not going to use him to attack. He does have an automatic Pierce 3 and a RG attack as a last resort. What you really want to be doing with him is using his 3 named abilities as best as you can. Force Lightning is considerably stronger than in the campaign, because figures usually have less Health than rebel heroes. Also, because there are more figures on the board, the splash damage from it has a higher chance of hitting. Emperor can be devastating if combined with Tempt. Either you can finish off badly wounded figures or boost the damage of one of your other figures.
All of this combines him being very flexible in Skirmish. The only parts that seem off are his traits and the included command cards. As an imperial Force User, there is Force Rush and Deflection. From the pack itself, there is Dark Energy that lets you put an additional point of damage on a figure and position it, so that Force Lightning has its maximum effect. Palpatine’s signature card is Unlimited Power! And … it costs 2 to be able to use Emperor anywhere on the map? Why? Moving on … Officer’s Training is somehow the star of the show here. Cycling through your deck when you attack with Jedi Luke, Han, Ahsoka or Vader makes this card insanely good value. Prepared for Battle gives you 4 Power Tokens when used with a figure with the Leader trait. However, for a cost of 2 it’s tough to find a spot for it. To round it out, there is Corrupting Force. Like the other 2 start of round force cards in Wave 10, it’s just overcosted and situational. It’s a neat effect, but you can’t really control it enough to justify its cost.
Model
The model is the Emperor in his signature Force Lightning pose from Return of the Jedi. He will join Vader on the board with being one of the darkest models. Should be pretty easy to paint, as you can safely screw up the face without too many people noticing.
Thanks to /u/Vee492 for pointing out missing missions.