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Echo Base Trooper painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com

Campaign

For the 6 threat you give the Imperial Player you get the Echo Base Troopers. With 2×5 Health on a black die you’ll get a better deal than with the Rebel Troopers. Front Line let’s you upgrade your usual blue and green die attack to red and green. That’s even better than Royal Guards! Efficient Travel on the other hand makes sure that you can actually get them into position by ignoring blue terrain and enemy figures when you move around. Other than that, they are okay. If you do manage to win the elite version, you get an even better deal. 2×8 Health, a better Surge Ability and Combat Suit which lets you ignore 1 Pierce per attack. They definitely rival the Rebel Troopers and Rebel Saboteurs in terms of versatility and combat strength, not to mention the ability to earn them as elite versions in the Return to Hoth campaign. Definitely get that pack if you want actual allies to support you instead of collecting reward cards for your heroes.

To recruit the Echo Base Troopers as Allies for your campaign, you need to win them either in the side mission included in this pack called Snowcrash or by winning the introductory side mssion from Return to Hoth called The Battle of Hoth. If you win them in both, you get access to their elite deployment card. Both missions require tiles from the Return to Hoth box expansion!

Skirmish

The regular Echo Base Troopers only cost 6, but their limited Health, 4 Speed and only Front Line to boost their attack, they just don’t seem that good. The elite Echo Base Troopers are a bit more viable. 8 cost is still a bit higher than you probably want, but 2×8 Health plus the ability to ignore 1 Pierce per attack they are at least not bad anymore. Really their limited Speed and Front Line only triggering in close combat are what really holds them back. You also get the Skirmish Upgrade Combat Suit, which does exactly the same as the ability on the elite version of the group. Recent clarification with FFG solidifies that this does indeed stack with the ability on the group for a total of ignoring 2 Pierce per attack. Though the upgrade really only makes sense to put on them. All other rebels either have just 1 figure in the group or defend with a white die.

As for command cards, the pack’s highlight is of course Hit and Run. It is great to get in and out of combat and would be ideal to use with the Echo Base Troopers. But you can only include one in your deck, making it somewhat incosistent, even with Leia and R2-D2. The other cards are Against the Odds, a great comback card, and Efficient Travel which is basically the Command Card version of the ability on the group. It is kind of a mixed bag, though Hit and Run probably is worth picking up the pack for.

The included skirmish map Hoth Weather Shelter uses tiles from the core box and the return to hoth box expansion.

Model

Unlike most other rebel models, they are a bit bland. The pack on their back is cool and all, but their colors make them almost disappear on snow tiles. That’s probably the idea, but if you want something flashy, don’t get them.