Wave 3 Villain Pack – Hired Guns
Hired Guns, painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com
Campaign
Their deployment card looks wierd at first. Disposable means they roll a white die, but are not able to completely dodge an attack. Combined with their meager 3 Health, this means they are very brittle. However, with Parting Shot, they get to attack a last time before being defeated. This additional attack makes them incredibly annoying to rebels. This attack also triggers if they are defeated by any effects triggered by the imperial player like exploding Probe Droids, attacks with Blast or other effects that can harm imperial units! All that for just 4 Deployment Cost? Count me in!
And, as if that’s not enough, their Agenda Set is also quite good. Trade Routes Disrupted costs 2 Influence and ideally removes a powerful Supply Card. It is costly, but could win you the final mission by itself if you remove an Emergency Medpack or a Shock Grenade. But the best card clearly is Final Blast. For 2 Influence, you buy an additional attack once per mission. But not enough, this also can be triggered at the same time as Parting Shot, essentially letting you attack twice with a Hired Gun when it is defeated.
The side mission Back Room Bargains does award the reward card Mercenary Ties. It synergizes well with the Subversive Tactics class deck and other mercenary Agenda Sets.
To recruit the Hired Guns as Villains for your campaign, you only need to buy the Pack! They are ready to go right out of the box. This mission is playable with just the tiles from the Core Box!
The Hired Guns appear in the following campaign missions:
Skirmish
In Skirmish you can choose between the regular deployment card and the elite deployment card. You can make the case for both, and with their small cost, they are easy to swarm on the board. If you really want to spike the damage, you can upgrade them with Last Resort. If you can combine it in a way to finish your own Hired Gun off with it, you might trigger not only additional damage, but an additional attack. You can also use it with Tusken Raiders, as they need to get close to the enemy anyway.
As for Command Cards, Of No Importance reduces the victory points one of your groups give the enemy by 2. Smuggled Supplies is a bit better. You can use it with your Rebel Saboteurs to recover or get additional Surges to make that Pierce or Blast happen. Though since you can only include it once in your deck, without additional card draw, it is a bit unreliable. You also get Slippery Target which does gain a bit in value with the recent release of Agent Blaise and the ISB Infiltrators.
The included skirmish map Sewers of Nar Shaddaa only uses tiles from the core box.
Model
Their pink armor and green skin clash a bit, so it can be difficult to get that right. Otherwise, they are a good model to improve your skills once you move on from Stormtroopers or other easy to paint figures. Also, their raised blaster sure draws attention on the board.