Wave 9 Villain Pack – Jawa Scavenger
Campaign
I hate to admit it, but this is the secret star of this wave. The Jawa Scavenger and the also included Elite Jawa Scavenger look very innocuous at first, but the devil is in the details with these guys. Both of them have the same Y-Y attack. Both also share the automatic +2 Accuracy and Surges for another +2 Accuracy and +2 Damage. The elite version also has another Surge Ability for Pierce 2. Immediate comparisons with Imperial Officers are surely misguided, as the Jawas are just better. With low Deployment Costs of 2 and 3 Threat, a good Health pool and the ability to conjure additional blocks out of thin air with Take Cover makes them unusually durable for their cost.
After that, the story diverges a bit. The regular Jawa can inflict additional Strain with Surges through Harass. Not bad, but certainly not game changing. The elite Jawa gets the ability to spend a surge to Haggle. The imperial player now can bet 1 threat and roll a green die. He gets 1 threat for each damage result of that roll. There is a 1/6 chance to completely miss on that. But there is also a 1/3 chance to get a free threat out of the deal! Considering the low cost of even the elite Jawa, this can help you get in the game really quick, especially in the middle parts of the campaign. But there is more: With Motivators, the elite Jawa empowers all friendly droids on the field. No requirement of line of sight, range or even adjacency. The droids only get +1 Accuracy and +1 Speed. This is actually stronger than it looks at first, making your Probe Droids or any other Droids much more dangerous!
Also, let’s not forget that the pack also comes with the reward card Mechanical Salvage, which you get for winning the Salvage Operatives Agenda Side Mission. Speaking of which, this might be one of the most fun side missions to date. Even if you don’t win the reward, the actual mechanics around the Sandcrawler and Jawa certainly are highly thematic and fun.
The Agenda Set comes with 2 additional cards. Ion Blasters which lets you deal Strain to heroes, provided surges to spare. It works really well with the Jawa Scavengers themselves, as well as the Probe Droids from the Core Box. Bummer that it’s gone once the figure is defeated, so it’s probably not as useful late in the campaign. If you really can’t come up with the threat to deploy the Jawa Scavengers, you can rely on Jawa Raid. It adds 1 Jawa Scavenger to your open groups and reduces its Deployment Cost by 2. Together with Mechanical Salvage, you can deploy 2 figures (elite Java Scavenger and elite Probe Droid) with 12 Health total and 2 activations for a cost of 3. That has a powerful punch even in the late campaign. Wow!
To recruit the Jawa Scavenger as a Villain for your campaign, you only need to buy the Pack! The Jawa Scavanger and the elite Java Scavenger can be deployed like any normal deployment group! The included side mission Salvage Operatives requires only tiles from the Core Box!
Java Scavanger appears in the following campaign missions:
Skirmish
The regular Jawa Scavenger stays the same, but the Force is with the elite Jawa Scavenger for Skirmish. Instead of Haggle, it gains Bargain. Similar as with Haggle, you can bet something to gain more of that, just that this time you are gambling with VPs. But the killer ability certainly is Scavenged Stock which replaces the Motivators ability. It lets you include up to 3 droid groups from any affiliation! Want to bring C-3PO and BT-1 in the same list? With the elite Jawa Scavenger you now can! The developers said they wanted to create a 4th faction with this mechanic, and they really have. Considering all these Command Cards that synergize with Droids that were released with this wave, you can build some very tight armies.
Command Cards are also included in this pack, of course. Navigation Upgrade costs you one Strain and an action to place it amongst your cards on the table. Then you can exhaust it for an additional movement point during one of your droids activations. It’s … okay. If you can slap it down with C-3PO or 0-0-0 it might be okay. But wasting an action and a strain to get 2-3 movement points in total over the rest of the game, just doesn’t seem a good investment, especially not for 2 points! Next up is Triangulate which deals direct damage to a target figure. It can be good to finish off big enemy units, but since the hunter swarms are quite prevalent now, this card also falls a bit flat. The 2 point cost, again, doesn’t really help with that. Lastly, there is Utinni! which is actually quite interesting. If you really run 2 elite Jawa Scavengers or even better a bunch of normal Jawa Scaveners too, you can fetch quite a number of VPs in a round. Even more if you use Bargain. The question is, is it worth its cost of 1. Time will tell, but with so many other good command cards, it will face a tough competition for a space in the deck.
Model
The model is perfect. Easy for beginners, but with plenty of room to try advanced painting techniques. The oversized blaster and the hood really make for a unique model that easily stands out on the table.