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Chewbacca, painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com

Campaign

The side mission to earn Chewbacca as an ally is called The Spice Job and is included in the core box of Imperial Assault. So the only card for the campaign that is new in this pack is the reward card called Intimidation. The mission you have to win to earn it is Celebration. At first, this looks like a rather weak effect. But considering one of the strongest deployment cards in the core box campaign is the Imperial Royal Guard, this quickly becomes very worthwhile. Royal Guards have a deployment cost of 8. Bumping this to 10 either means an additional round for the imperial player to be able to deploy them, or not being able to deploying them with an Imperial Officer. Both are very good things to have in the campaign. Though, the reward card in the Han Solo Ally Pack has much more immediate value.

To recruit Chewbacca as an Ally for your campaign, you need to win the Side Mission The Spice Job. Since this mission is included in the core box, you don’t need any additional expansions.

Chewbacca appears in the following campaign missions:

• Core Box Side Mission: The Spice Job
• Wave 1 Pack Chewbacca Side Mission: Celebration
• Retun to Hoth Side Mission: The Hard Way

Skirmish

With Skirmish, he does fair a bit worse, actually. His deployment card is a bit underwhelming. He has a Deployment Cost of 15, with 14 Health, 4 Speed, a black and white defense dice and attacks with red, yellow and blue dice. He does have the Protector ability, but with his 4 Speed he is a bit slow to get in the right positions to make the most use out of this ability. Chewbacca also has the special action Slam, essentially smacking an adjacent figure for the damage rolled on a red die. It can be good to safely remove annoying low-health figures like Imperial Officers or C-3PO. Still, the current sentiment about him is that he is overpriced in skirmish. Maybe if more Wookiee trait cards are being released over time, he becomes viable again.

As for Command Cards, Hold Ground is probably the most versatile because it can be used by any figure with the Guardian trait. It also works with Royal Guards so it is probably the most played card of the pack until now. If you do bring Chewbacca along in your army, you get to use Debts Repaid. With it, you get an additional activation out of Chewbacca as well the focused condition for your next attack. It works similar to Luke Skywalker’s “Son of Skywalker” from the core box. But since it is tied to the condition of losing a figure, it is not as flexible.

Other command cards are focused more on Wookiees like Wookiee Rage and Adrenaline. Both are okay, but since Wookiees suffer from being slow and melee focused, they just don’t fit in the current meta.

Update: Chewbacca gets some much needed Wookiee love with the Heart of the Empire expansion in the form of Wookiee Avenger. It’s an attachment you can only play on Chewbacca. Bringing his cost from 15 to 11 is very good and drops him in a range where unique figures usually should be. It’s certainly a good trade for losing Protector and the ability to dodge. Starting with Debts Repaid in hand also is kinda intimidating for your opponent as he knows that Chewie can go again when he defeats one of your other figures. Lastly, Slam for no action? You shouldn’t argue there. 1 red die isn’t the highest damage output, but especially against Trooper or Hunter lists, it should come in handy. Go get Heart of the Empire!

The included skirmish map Imperial Labor Camp uses only tiles from the core box.

Model

The model is okay, but nothing to write home about. Especially compared to other core box highlights like Darth Vader and later wave figures, he just seems to be nothing special.