Wave 7 Ally Pack – Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi painted and photographed by Matthew of www.oldenhammer.com
Campaign
Old Ben Kenobi is part of the first wave for Imperial Assault that features characters that are not alive at the time the actual stories of Imperial Assault take place. So right away, this might turn some people off that care a lot about the theme. If you don’t want to use him in the campaign, the pack still offers something to you! But before we get into the bonus, let’s get over the basics. Obi-Wan Kenobi has a dedicated campaign deployment card. With the same Deployment Cost as old Luke (there is a new one coming with the next wave!), 2 additional Health and a black die, he certainly can take a punch. He does only have a melee attack and a Speed of 4, which puts him at a disadvantage if you can’t push him into position. But luckily, he might not even need that since he can push up to 2 hostile figures during his activation with Mind Trick. And it isn’t even limited to small figures! As 2nd ability, he can Use the Force to help out allies with attribute tests. In some missions, this can make your life a lot easier. Especially side missions that come with the small box expansions tend to feature heavy attribute test bars to clear so far.
To recruit Obi-Wan Kenobi for your campaign, you need to win the side mission Deadly Transmission included in this pack. This mission only requires map tiles from the core box!
As a bonus, this pack comes with a new rebel upgrade card! The Ancient Lightsaber is a tier 3 item costing a whooping 1000 credits. But it is also very unique in that its attack pool is determined by the insight (eye) pool of the hero wielding it. So this is amazing for Diala if you build her with little defense. On her wounded side, she has an insight pool consisting of b-r-g. This make the Ancient Lightsaber hit like a truck! While that is not enough to pick up the pack alone for, it is definitely a very nice bonus.
Obi-Wan Kenobi appears in the following campaign missions:
Skirmish
So Obi-Wan Kenobi has a dedicated skirmish deployment card. Like usual, it is basically the same as the campaign deployment card, just that there are different abilities on the card. However, Obi-Wan is also the first figure that has a different deployment cost for skirmish! For a meager 7 Deployment Points you get 12 Health, a black defense die, a Speed of 4 and a hefty red-green-yellow melee attack. +2 Damage and Pierce 3 as Surge Abilities only sweeten the pie. As for abilities, he has Alter Mind, lets you zone-out hostile figures around mission objectives that require interactions or control. With Into the Force, you can focus another friendly figure, should Obi-Wan be defeated.
We also must talk about the skirmish upgrade card included, which is Channel the Force. If you are running old Luke, and the map features doors you can attack, this card is beyond amazing. You can fetch Meditation during setup, put 2 damage onto Luke and then start hacking away at the door, using recover to get rid of the damage basically each time. Even if you are not min-maxing it this way, it is still a nice way to ensure consistency for your command card draws. Like Zillo Technique you will see this a lot in rebel and maybe even imperial lists for a while.
Speaking of Command Cards, 3 are included in this pack. A Powerful Influence is Obi-Wan’s ability on a card, so you can use it with other Force Users. With a cost of 2 it is a bit on the expensive side. But since it can easily win you games if played right, it is a decent card still. Force Surge also costs 2 but deals 2 damage that can’t be avoided. It is tricky to use and doesn’t have the most impact unless you can remove a deployment group with it. But not a bad card by any means. Lastly, Obi-Wan’s signature card is I Must Go Alone. Not a flashy card, but good insurance against HK-Droids. It can also be valuable when you try to block off objectives. Still, there might be better cards to include in your pack.
The included skirmish map Anchorhead Bar only uses tiles from the core box.
Model
Robe flapping in the wind, lightsaber in hand, this is certainly a model for more advanced painters. It also feels distinctively bulky and has a good presence on the board without needing to resort to flashy poses. A very good model indeed.