Wave 9 Villain Pack – BT-1 and 0-0-0
BT-1 painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com
Campaign
Both of these Droids had their first appearance in the Darth Vader comic series from 2015. In the comic, they are portrayed as a little “eccentric” and are designed to be perfect foils to R2-D2 and C-3PO. Both also have the same Deployment Cards for the Campaign and Skirmish, so what you see is what you get in both modes.
Starting with BT-1, you get a lot for a moderate investment of 6 Threat. 10 Health, a black defense die and a Speed of 4, make him seem similar to how regular Stormtroopers work, just that he is a single figure. To compensate for that, he has a much stronger attack with blue-red-yellow. This alone makes him better than Stormtroopers. But there is more! Assassin has him gain focus before each attack. And this is actually significant because Missile Salvo lets him perform 3 attacks with each of its attack dice. Of course, he is focused for each of them. And since a green-red would be lame accuracy wise, he also gets +3 Accuracy for each of these attacks. With Surge Abilities for Blast 1, Recover 1 and Pierce 2, he is the complete package. He can be very troublesome for rebels in the early campaign, and its relatively high Health and 4 dice single attack make him a worthwhile investment in the mid to late campaign too!
0-0-0 works a little bit different. A Health of 8, a black defense die and a Speed of 4 for the cost of 4 Threat don’t sound too bad. He also has a pretty decent melee attack with red-yellow and Surge Abilities for Pierce 2 as well as Recover 2. The interesting parts are his abilities, which are very unique. First there is Shocking Palm which stuns the defender, regardless of if the attack did hit or not! This can be devastating for heroes in early parts of the Campaign as it regularly takes actions away from them. Invasive Procedure has him dishing out 1 Damage and 1 Strain to an adjacent figure to make himself focused. The important part is that he does not have to do this to a hostile figure. He can do it to a Stormtrooper or an Imperial Officer, for instance. Sure, they get damage on them, making them more likely to fold to a rebel attack. But you now created a very potent droid that can wreck a hero with a powerful melee attack, putting the rebels into a bind on which of your figures to attack. Lastly, Unnerving gives the Weakened Condition to all adjacent hostile figures. If you do end your turn adjacent to heroes, it’s usually the last thing you do with that figure, though, so beware of not throwing him under the bus too early!
Like always, this pack also comes with an Agenda Set, aptly called Devious Droids. In it, you can find Invasive Procedure and Missile Salvo. Sound familiar? That’s because these do give these abilities to other figures for one-time use. Missile Salvo can be good, and offers good value for costing just 1 Influence. If you draw it early Campaign, it can delay the rebels long enough to tip the balance in your favor, provided you manage to use it to its full effect. Invasive Procedure is best if the rest of your abilities and units also work around conditions and strain. Otherwise, it’s rather weak, considering the rebel heroes have a good number of ways to get rid of conditions.
To recruit BT-1 and 0-0-0 for your campaign, you need to win the side mission Etiquette and Torture, which is included in this pack. This side mission only requires tiles from the Core Box!
BT-1 and 0-0-0 both appear in the following campaign missions:
0-0-0 painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com
Skirmish
Both BT-1 and 0-0-0 work very similar in skirmish and campaign. BT-1 is sturdy with 10 Health and a black die. He can dish out damage well with either one powerful or 3 moderately powerful attacks. What does elevate him in skirmish are his traits. Since he is a Droid, he can use Targeting Computer to reroll a die on any of its potentially 3 attacks! He also has the Hunter trait, giving him access to a slew of Commad Cards that are very beneficial to his offensive arsenal. 0-0-0 though, seems a little slow and weak for the current meta. He also only has the Droid trait, which has a bit of a resurgence with this wave, but he can still be hard to use because of how his abilities work. He really is 50% support and 50% offensive. Shocking Palm can be good to pre-emptively counter On the Lam, which probably is the best case scenario. Other than that, he doesn’t seem to be worth the points.
Command Cards are pretty good in this pack. Brace for Impact continues the line of cards to be used for small boosts during the attack. Shared Experience is a killer card in a Droid list, though funnily it doesn’t work too well with either the figures in this pack. BT-1 is focused all the time anyway and 0-0-0 is just too damn slow to waste 3 movement points, unless you draw this card in your opening hand. Terminal Protocol is a modified version of the Delf Destruct ability of the Probe Droids. You don’t have to wait until the end of the round, but you also only get to use a green die. It’s an ok card, but will probably be crowded out of many command decks as there is just so much better stuff already. This leaves us with both signature cards. Ballistics Matrix allows BT-1 to ignore line of sight for one attack each round. This is almost always useful, as it makes BT-1 capable of sniping key figures off the board with relative ease. Eerie Visage though … it does cost an action on 0-0-0 to play and all you get is 1 Strain per visible enemy figure, and they become weakened. 0-0-0 is hard to play as it is, but this makes it even worse.
Model
BT-1 looks amazing. He is a bit taller than R2-D2 and all the bits and pieces sticking out of his shell really make him amazing to look at. He should not be hard to paint either, as he is mostly black with a bit of red sprinkled in between. 0-0-0 does look almost identical to C-3PO of course. Nothing too crazy going on with him, so don’t get your hopes up.