Wave 5 Ally Pack – Leia Organa

Leia Organa painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com

Leia Organa painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com

Campaign

Looking at her campaign deployment card it quickly becomes evident that this is worth it though. She costs less than her brother and also has less Health. Other than that she is very similar. She doesn’t have a light saber though, so her special ability Battlefield Leadership lets her command a friendly figure to perform an attack together with her. But there is more. Should you roll more Surges than you need, you can spend one on Agressive Negotations to exhaust an Imperial Class card. Not only is this a refreshing new mechanic, but it is also very useful and will probably stay useful in the future.

To recruit Leia for your campaign, you need to win the side mission Communications Breakdown included in this pack. This mission requires map tiles included in the Return to Hoth expansion.

Skirmish

Leia’s skirmish deployment card is basically identically to the campaign version. 8 Health, 5 Speed, good surges and a ranged attack with blue, yellow, yellow for a total of 8 deployment points is impressive. Her white defense die does make her a bit of a liability, but with 2 yellow attack die, triggering Recover 2 damage should trigger quite often. Battlefield Leadership works wonders in Skirmish too! Additional attacks are never a bad thing to have. And if you can trigger an Echo Base Trooper or even Luke with this attack, you are bound to make an impact. Military Efficiency, which is skirmish exclusive, makes her even better though. Imagine using Son of Skywalker, and then reclaiming it with Military Efficiency for a 2nd use! And with R2-D2 and Devotion you have a good chance of that actually happen quite quick.

But we haven’t even gone over the command cards included in this pack! Her signature card There is Another is a bit underwhelming, but it does cost 0 points to include, so it is not terribly bad. I Can Feel It can actually be played by Luke and Diala too, so it makes it more versatile, but still isn’t terribly strong. Lastly Behind Enemy Lines is a bit odd in this pack. Leia does have the Spy trait, but this card seems to be designed to be used with the Alliance Smuggler, Rebel Saboteurs or other future groups with the Spy trait. With the recently released ISB Infiltrators and Agent Blaise, this card might also be good to include in a relevant imperial list.

The included skirmish map Nelvaanian War Zone uses tiles from the core box and the return to hoth box expansion.

Model

I am really disappointed that the model doesn’t have the same pose as in the deployment card. She looks a bit out of touch and and almost as she is striking a pose. Nothing you’d expect on a battlefield. Additionally this makes her silhouette is very hard to make out on the board. She just doesn’t have any striking features. The Echo Base Troopers certainly got the better end of that deal!