Wave 6 Villain Pack – Bossk

Bossk painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com

Bossk painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com

Campaign

FFG has been stepped up with reducing the Deployment Cost of unique signature figures over the past few releases, especially compared with the Core Box. Bossk is no exception. At a Threat Cost of 8, you get 10 Health a white defense die, +1 Block, a red and a green ranged attack as well as +2 Damage and +2 Accuracy also automatically. And for a Surge you can trigger Pierce 2. However, he suffers from a similar problem like Agent Blaise, where you want to use both of his actions to deal damage, so he is somewhat reliant on Imperial Officers on shuffling him around the field. How does he deal damage aside from his attack? Let’s look at his special abilities.

Regenerate lets Bossk recover 2 damage and discard all harmful conditions, each round! So even in the late campaign, his high Health and white die mean that using surge abilities against him to remove him in one activation is particularly hard. Also, he has Indiscriminate Fire. Wildly shooting his gun in a general direction, he rolls a green die and deals direct damage according to the damage symbols rolled and dealing Strain according to the Surge symbols rolled. And of course this works on a space and its adjacent spaces. Remember that you need to have line of sight to the targeted space, though.

The cards from his Agenda Deck are good, but nothing spectacular. Furious Retaliation gives you the ability to deal up to 3 direct Damage that one of your figures just suffered. On The Hunt is not strong, but interesting. You have to use it right after you buy it, which is unusual for Agenda cards. Its effect lets you give one movement point to any of your figures, each time a rebel figure suffers Strain. This would work pretty good with the Subversive Tactics class deck, of course, were it not for the fact that you have to discard it or shuffle it back into your Agenda Deck after using it during a mission.

To recruit Bossk as a Villain for your campaign, you need to win the side mission Gunrunner, which is included in his Agenda Deck. This mission requires tiles from the Bespin Gambit expansion!

Skirmish

Bossk’s Skirmish Deployment Card is certainly much stronger looking in Skirmish than it is in the campaign. In Skirmish, his free Block, the free +2 Damage, his white defense die and 10 Health are statistics that justify his Deployment Cost of 8 almost on their own. Throw in the ability to discard all harmful conditions at the end of the round and recovering 2 Damage at the same time makes him insane. If you include some defensive abilities in your command deck, getting rid of Bossk will be a daunting task for your enemy.

Probably the craziest of the Command Cards in his pack is Wild Attack. It can be amazing. It can be really bad for you. It often comes down to luck. I don’t think this card will enter the meta soon, but surely makes for some memorable moments against friends! Disorient is designed against lists that generate Focused or Hidden regularly. However, especially against Hidden, dealing damage at all can be a big problem! Also, its cost of 0 which means it can even be countered by Negation. Even Trandoshan Terror, Bossk’s signature card, seems pretty tame. Sure, adding a yellow die can potentially make your opponent discard almost his entire deck. But it can miss pretty easily and cost you another 2 point of your command deck budget. It is almost as if Bossk himself is so good, that they had to reign it in with his Command Cards.

This trend even extends to the only Skirmish Upgrade Card Headhunter. Currently, it only makes sense to slap it on either Bossk himself or of course Trandoshan Hunters. Playing against an enemy that doesn’t draw too much cards, this is a way to get your strain converted to damage earlier. Also you can further limit your opponent’s options by making him discard cards from his hand. It is not bad, but we certainly have seen better.

The included skirmish map Wasskah Hunting Ground only uses tiles from the core box.

Model

Painted in his traditional colors, he certainly is cool looking. I just find that his head looks a bit off, compared to how he is portrayed in The Empire Strikes Back. Still, him bringing some color to the table, as well as being not too difficult to paint, certainly makes him a go-to model for painters just getting started.