BoardWars.eu

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

Campaign

Welcome to the dark side of the Mercenaries. Maul is the newest addition to the green faction. His cost of 7 buys you a modest amount of power. 12 Health on a black die, a Speed of 4 and a melee attack with red-yellow. A built-in +1 damage and a surge ability for Pierce 3 is what you get. Decent, for sure, but a Speed of 4 with a melee attack can be tricky to navigate.

To help him out with that, he has Stalk Prey, which can be activated with a surge and gives him 2 movements points as well as a damage power token. Another ability, Dual-Bladed Fury, lets you choose: Either become focused or gain reach and Cleave 2. Reach with Stalk Prey certainly gives him unexpected mobility. So he has decent range with his movement to weave into and out of the action. But sometimes, you need to stay in the line of fire. For that, he is Sustained by Rage. It makes Maul unable to recover damage. But the upside is that he can not be defeated unless he already activated this round. So he is perfect to finish up unsuspecting rebels. The beautiful thing is that it makes the rebels think twice about even attacking him if they can’t even prevent his attack this round. You can start the mind games by just deploying Maul, which is just perfect.

His agenda set, aptly named “A Former Sith”, includes Critical Strikes. Maul and Vader both love this card. Especially since you can play it on demand, say when you attack a rebel with a white die and they roll a blank. Adding 3 damage once for 1 Influence doesn’t terribly good, but once you figure in that it comes out of nowhere, it certainly gets better. The other card is Imminent Reprisal and just … isn’t that good. Firstly, you can only play it on one group, not use it for all melee figures during a mission (which I think would be better). And then, which groups are you want to play this on? Gamorrean Guards? They are not that useful other than soak up actions of the rebels, the tokens just won’t help them. Riot Troopers certainly are one of the best choices. You can defend, spending your Block Power Token, and then retaliate with a stronger attack. Still, they are usually not around long enough to make use of more than 2 tokens in total. Is that worth the investment of 1 Influence? You be the judge.

To recruit Maul for your campaign, you need to win the side mission Dubious Disposition, which is included in this pack. This side mission requires tiles from the Heart of the Empire box expansion!

Skirmish

In Skirmish Maul joins the ranks of the “almost good” squad. The basics are there. Potential 3 dice attack, Pierce 3, automatic +1 Damage. The thing is, he has no other surge abilities other than Pierce 3 and gaining a damage power token. There is also the issue of him only having 12 Health. With Sustained by Rage, he can get in an additional activation most of the time. Still, that’s not enough. For 7 Deployment Points, he directly competes with elite Weequay Pirates with their Hunter trait and other advantages. He is never going to win this battle. The only way he will become viable is by him relying on the Force User and Brawler traits. This immediately presents another problem. Since many Force User cards are locked to either the empire or the rebels, he can’t use them! This makes him very unattractive at the moment, especially compared to other mercenary figures for similar costs.

His pack does come with some crucial Command Cards, though. Deathblow can be used by any figure during a melee attack to reliably get rid of the back line of the enemy. Works well on Ahsoka or elite Riot Troopers. Costs just 1 point for a potential +2 Damage. Not bad at all, and will only appreciate in value with the new melee creatures in the next expansion. Face to Face is even better. It’s amazing on Vader to allow him to extend his range by an additional 2 spaces. This often comes as a surprise and is usually a really painful one. Again, also good on elite Riot Troopers. The last good card is Looking for a Fight. If you plan on running the popular Unshakable and Parting Blow combo with Vader, this can give you basically a free attack after a double move. This is really strong and should definitely not be overlooked. But of course, there are also duds. Chaotic Force is … not only is it volatile, it’s also very damaging in the current meta, where you want to draw as many cards as you can. So you only should run it if you don’t rely on command cards. Wreak Vengenance gives a small temporary boost for one attack of Maul. For 1 point, it’s actually not that valuable. Closing the gap to your enemy is easier with other, sometimes cheaper. While it’s nice to be able to hit from afar, it’s usually not worth 1 point.

Model

If you know him from Star Wars: Rebels, he looks very familiar. Though for the game, I would have preferred a sculpt that makes him appear less scrawny. He just doesn’t look as imposing as he should.