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

Campaign

First, it is important to note that, even if you buy this Villain Pack, you can not have more than 2 regular Stormtroopers (or more than 1 elite Stormtroopers) in a campaign mission. You should know these guys from the core box already. In case you forgot, their Regular Deployment Card is very mediocre. 3 Health on a black die with a Threat Cost of 6 makes them too expensive in early missions and a pushover in later missions. Unless you run an imperial class deck that relies on you actually bringing troopers, but even then you have other options now with the Heavy Stormtroopers and the recently released Snowtroopers.

Of course, the pack also comes with an Agenda Set and even a reward card. Let’s look at the reward 501st Training first. It can be won by winning the side mission Bunker Buster which the included Agenda Set. The fact that this can be attached to any Trooper makes it interesting. Attached to an E-Web Engineer, you can use the focus if you haven’t got any good targets in a round. The 2 movement points from the first special action work exceptionally well for the Heavy Stormtroopers as they can make use of their Composite Plating ability more often. It is another attachment that might help you capitalize on Superior Augments from the Technological Superiorty class deck.

The Agenda Set included in the pack is a bit of a let-down, unfortunately. Set for Stun lets you stun with a ranged attack, provided it dealt damage. But it only works once and costs 1 influence. There is better value to be had in other cards. To the Last Man upgrades the last remaining Stormtrooper of a deployment groups. For the attack he is getting an additional red die and for defense an additional white die. But it costs 2 influence and is again, discarded after use.

To recruit the Stormtrooper as Villains for your campaign, … you don’t need to do that. Everything relevant is already in the core box! The included side mission Bunker Buster is playable with just the tiles from the Core Box!

Skirmish

This pack is really nice if you want to run more Stormtroopers than are provided in the core box. With Trooper lists being a viable build now, you can pick up this pack, just to get a 2nd Elite Deployment Card and the included Command Cards. However, the pack comes with 4 Command Cards, 2 of which are Reinforcements which is also included in the Rebel Trooper pack. The others are Set for Stun, which is a nice way to stun the Bantha Rider. With Stealth Tactics, you might be able to make unique Rebel figures live even longer with a 1/3 chance to dodge. However, with other Troopers occupying spots in the Trooper lists right now, this pack isn’t really needed anymore.

The included skirmish map Training Ground only uses tiles from the core box.

Model

The positive is that they do feature a new pose. Remember how Luke held the E-11 blaster in A New Hope? That’s the pose! Other than that, they are exactly like the core box Stormtroopers. Easy to start painting, but by now you should migrate to more interesting models already.