Wave 6 Villain Pack – ISB Infiltrators
ISB Infiltrator painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com
Campaign
Spies! Spies everywhere! The ISB Infiltrators are an interesting mix between Spy and Trooper, even if they don’t really have the Trooper trait. Their Regular Deployment Card sports a very affordable 5 Deployment Cost. For that you get 2 figures with 4 Health each 4, a white defense die and green-blue dice for their attack. Notable is that one of their Surge abilities is Hide which enables them to gain the Hidden condition. This gives them better survivability and offensive potential! Especially in combination with the Imperial Black Ops class deck, you will have them both in the shadows almost perpetually. To compensate that you only get 2 figures for your investment, they have the special ability Coordinated Raid. As long as both of your figures have line of sight to a target, one of your Infiltrators can command the others to attack. This brings your potential attacks per round to 3 and thus on equal footing with a Stormtrooper group.
We shouldn’t forget that this pack also comes with the Elite Deployment Card. Increasing the Deployment Cost by 2 get you 2 more Health more per figure and drastically better Surge abilities. They also keep Coordinated Raid and gain Deadly, which lets you ignore a Dodge during the attack. This is especially good against R2-D2, but not bad either against all other white defense dice.
Similar to the Hired Guns, you can just include the ISB Infiltrators in your open groups without having to win their support in a Side Mission. This means you get 3 Agenda Cards in the Agenda set! Misdirection is certainly a novel effect. It does allow you to move through the map at a quicker pace, but paying one 1 Influence as well as 1 Threat for the effect seems a bit costly. Quiet Entry is another way to give your figures the Hidden condition. At 1 Influence for potentially 3 Hidden conditions, this is very valuable. Lastly, Trip Mine is very nasty for the rebels. Dealing a bit of direct damage, a bit of Strain as well as bleeding them all can make for a very slow start for them.
But the Campaign goodies go on with this pack. It is the first Villain Pack to include a gray Side Mission. Into the Unknown can be added to the Side Mission pool by the Rebel Players. And it is also the first side mission that can be incorporated into a mini Campaign. Then it is played as a forced mission in between the 2nd and 3rd mission in the Bespin Gambit mini campaign, if the Rebel Players and the Imperial Player agree. Deciding if you want to add it or not isn’t so cut and dry as it seems. Because this is also the first gray Side Mission to award 2 rewards, depending on which side wins. If the rebels beat the mission, they get Cautious Approach. Very potent against everything that can deal Strain as getting Movement Points is usually easier for the rebels than it is for the empire to deal Strain. However, if the rebels lose the mission, the Imperial Player gets Tactical Advance. Not as strong as Cautious Approach, it is still a good source for gaining the Hidden condition.
To recruit the ISB Infiltrators as Villains for your campaign, you only need to buy the Pack! They are ready to go right out of the box. The included Side Mission Into the Unkown requires tiles from the Bespin Expansion!
The ISB Infiltrators appear in the following campaign missions:
Skirmish
The regular ISB Infiltrators seem a bit brittle in Skirmish. 4 Health still puts them in range of getting defeated by direct damage. With the elite ISB Infiltrators and their 6 Health, you usually fare much better, for only 2 additional Deployment Cost. Deadly as added benefit means you can deal with Rebel lists much easier.
For Command Cards, you get Comm Disruption, which acts as a more powerful version of Negation. It is more expensive, but can also cancel 3 cost Command Cards! Cut Lines would be amazing in a deck focused on dealing Strain. But so far, the only Mercenary Deployment Card that has the Spy trait is Hondo Ohnaka. You will probably also use it with your Infiltrators and the other Spy Command Cards and Agent Blaise. Data Theft can be a very good effect. Think about stealing your opponent’s Son of Skywalker with your Davith or Murne! For a Command Cost of 1, you can certainly consider such situations. The last card in the pack is Strategic Shift. Good to have against rebel lists that try to draw through their deck in 2 rounds or so. Otherwise, I think this is a bit costly to use as an “on demand” Mulligan.
Remember Comm Disruption? Wouldn’t it be great to give the Spy trait to one of your Trooper groups? Look no further! The Skirmish Upgrade Card Cross Training lets you do exactly that. You can also replace one of your defense dice with a white die … if you like to gamble. At 1 Deployment Cost, this upgrade isn’t too expensive to sprinkle it in certain lists. And if your Command Cards build on the Spy trait, you should probably bring this.
The included skirmish map ISB Training Grounds uses tiles from the core box and the Bespin Gambit expansion.
Model
A significant step up from Agent Blaise, they rock armor without a helmet and a cool comms headset. Designed for advanced painters, it still feels like a Trooper group without sacrificing an expressive face. Just great.