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ISB Infiltrator painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com

Campaign

Spies! Spies everywhere! The ISB Infiltrators are an interesting mix between Spy and Trooper, even if they don’t really have the Trooper trait. Their regular deployment card sports a very affordable 5 Threat. For that you get 2 firgures with each 4 Health, a white defense die and green and blue dice for their attack. Notable is that one of their surge abilities is hide which enables them to gain the Hidden condition. This gives them better survivabilty and offensive potential! Especially in combination with the Imperial Black Ops class deck you will have them both in the shadows almost perpetually. To compensate that you only get 2 figures for your investment, they have the special ability Coordinated Raid. As long as both of your firgures have line of sight to a target, one of your Infiltrators can command the others to attack. This brings your potential attacks per round to 3 and thus on equal footing with a Stormtrooper group.

We shouldn’t forget that this pack also comes with the elite deployment card. 2 additional threat get you 2 Health more per figure and drastically better surge abilities. They also keep Coordinated Raid and gain Deadly, which let’s you ignore a Dodge during the attack. This is especially good against R2-D2, but not bad either against all other white defense dice.

Similar to the Hired Guns, you can just include the ISB Infiltrators in your open groups without having to win their support in a Side Mission. This means you get 3 Agenda Cards in the Agenda set! Misdirection is certainly a novel effect. It does allow you to move through the map at a quicker pace, but paying one 1 Influence and 1 Threat for the effect seems a bit costly. Quiet Entry is another way to give your figures the Hidden condition. At 1 Influence for potentially 3 conditions dealt this is very valuable. Lastly Trip Mine is very nasty for the rebels. Dealing a bit of direct damage, a bit of Strain as well as bleeding them all can make for a very slow start for the rebels.

But the Campaign goodies go on with this pack. It is the first Villain Pack to include a grey Side Mission. Into the Unknown can be added to the Side Mission pool by the rebels. And it is also the first side mission that can be incorporated into a mini Campaign. Into the Unknown can be played as a forced mission in between the 2nd and 3rd mission in the Bespin Gambit mini campaign, if the Rebels and the imperial player agree. Deciding if you want to add it or not isn’t so cut and dry as it seems. Because this is also the first grey Side Mission to award 2 rewards, depending on which side wins. If the rebels beat the mission they get Cautious Approach. Very potent against everything that can deal Strain as getting Movement Points is usually easier for the rebels than it is for the empire to deal Strain. However, if the rebel lose the mission, the imperial player gets Tactical Advance. Not as strong as Cautious Approach, it is still a good source for gaining the Hidden condition.

To recruit the ISB Infiltrators as Villains for your campaign, you only need to buy the Pack! They are ready to go right out of the box. The included side mission Into the Unkown requires tiles from the Bespin Expansion!

Skirmish

The regular ISB Infiltrators seem a bit brittle in Skirmish. 4 Health still puts them in range of getting defeated by direct damage. With the elite ISB Infiltrators and their 6 Health you usually fare much better, for only 2 additional Threat. Deadly as added benefit means you can deal with Rebel lists much easier.

For Command Cards you get Comm Disruption acts as a more powerful version of Negation. Just that it is more expensive and can also cancel 3 cost Command Cards! Cut Lines would be amazing in a deck focused on dealing Strain. But so far Mercenaries lack a Deployment Card that has the Spy trait. For now, you will probably use it with your Infiltrators and the other Spy Command Cards as well as Agent Blaise. Data Theft can be a very good effect. Think about stealing your opponents Son of Skywalker with your Davith or Murne! For 1 cost, you can certainly consider such situations. The last card in the pack is Strategic Shift. Good to have against rebel lists that try to draw through their deck in 2 rounds or so. Otherwise, I think this is a bit costly to use as a on demand Mulligan.

Remember Comm Disruption? Wouldn’t it be great to give the Spy trait to one of your Trooper groups? Look no further! The Skirmish Upgrade card Cross Training let’s you do exactly that. You can also replace one of your defense dice with a white die … if you like to gamble. At 1 deployment cost, this upgrade isn’t too expensive to sprinkle it in certain lists. And if your Command Cards build on the Spy trait, you should probably bring this.

The included skirmish map ISB Training Grounds uses tiles from the core box and the bespin gambit box expansion.

Update: I lowered the skirmish evaluations by 1 point because while their command cards were and still are a very good thing, the figures themselfs kinda fell out of favor.

Model

A significant step up from Agent Blaise, they rock armor without a helmet and a cool comms headset. Designed for advanced painters it still feels like a Trooper group without sacrificing an expressive face. Just great.