The Fast and the Furriest

Todays article was written by Crit2Block's most distinguished member, Richard Lavery. Richard has a history of being a trend setter when it comes to finding success with newly released battleforces. Last year he was the first person to crack the code with Blizzard Force at NOVA and this year he nearly swept all of Pax Unplugged before losing in the final round. Join me today as Richard teaches us how to build and find success with the Wookiee Defenders battleforce!

So you want to play Wookiees do you? Well, get ready for a crash course on the Wookiee Defenders Battleforce. We are going to start by taking a look at the special rules, the different units allowed in the battleforce, their strengths and weaknesses overall, and then three common archetypes within the battleforce. So prepare your best Wookiee roar and let's charge in!

Special Rules

For those of you unfamiliar with “battleforces” in legion; they are a specific way to build a list and play the game. For the cost of limiting what units you are able to bring, you get a new force organization chart and some special rules that are only usable within the battleforce. Occasionally you get additional command cards or unique units that can only be taken within the battleforce (Stormtrooper Heavy Response Unit, Major Marquand, C-3PO “Golden God,” etc). This particular battleforce comes with 2 unique rules, 1 unique requirement and a unique unit. 

Let’s discuss the requirement first as it is the simplest: you must include at least 3 Wookiee trooper units within your list. Doesn’t matter what rank they are, you just have to have at least 3. Which isn’t that restricting of a requirement since you’re playing Wookiee Defenders and you’ll probably want to take as many of the furballs as possible in the first place. 

Moving on to the unique rules. First, and most importantly, Wookiee Warriors (Noble Fighters) count as core for the purpose of list building and objective cards. Now if you aren’t familiar with Wookiees this is the melee version of the unit. This is the unit you want taking up the core slot of your list building 99.9% of the time and one of the main reasons to play the list. It lets you field an unreasonable amount of Wookiees on the field without taking up those special forces slots. It is important to remember that these Wookies count as core for objective (blue) cards as well which means that a Wookiee Warrior can be a hostage carrier at the beginning of the game. After deployment however they revert back to their special forces status and use the corresponding token for the purpose of activation. 

The second unique rule is that every time a Wookiee trooper unit loses a mini for the first time a round, every round, they may perform a speed 1 move. You want to shoot my Wookiees? Great, now they’re closer to you. Wookiees excel at moving around the board (seeing as half of them want to get buried in melee, but more on that later) and this gives them that extra little push in the right direction (which is your opponent's line). Don’t underestimate the ability to duck behind LOS terrain with this move or retreat out of range of your opponents units as necessary. The move and what direction you go in is situational and subject to change based on the flow of the game. Also note that this is a speed 1 move and so DOES NOT trigger charge or other key words that are triggered off of move actions. A small but incredibly important difference. 

Finally we get to the unique unit of the battleforce, Attack Run Fluttercraft. If you are familiar with the regular fluttercraft then you’ll be familiar with this one as well. For a small amount of points you gain the ability to either increase or decrease your speed by 1 for the rest of the round. Suddenly you have flutters going speed 3 to drop off bombing run objectives (that large base does wonders for crossing the field) or you’re dropping that speed to line up the perfect gunner shot. Either way in the hands of an expert, the ability to control the Flutter speed makes all the difference and can really increase the impact they have on the field. 

Battleforce Units

This section won’t be a deep dive into the units themselves but rather a quick glance at what you can bring and some suggested upgrades for them. Mixing and matching what you can bring to fit your particular play style should always be the goal, as what works for one player won’t work for another. 

The Commanders

Wookiee Chieftain: A decent melee beatstick with a ranged weapon that can do some work on good dice the chieftain comes in at 100 points. With two training, a command and a gear slot you’ve got some options on him. I’d suggest Tenacity, Recon Intel, and Situational Awareness as potential staple upgrades though Offensive Push and Seize the Initiative are good options as well. The Chieftain is certainly a strong contender for the commander slot. 

Chewbacca: Costing 10 points less than the chieftain and coming in at a base of 90 while filling almost the same role. You can run Chewie without any upgrades and be perfectly happy or try my preferred method with Tenacity. Five red with Lethal has this walking carpet swing almost as good as some lightsaber wielding maniacs. This is my preferred pick of commander for the list because he does almost everything the Wookiee Chieftain does but at 10 points cheaper which gets you alot in a few extra upgrades here and there. 

Yoda: Speaking of lightsaber maniacs, we have the frog man himself. An incredibly expensive platform at a base of 200 points but with the ability to carry entire games on his back. Force Barrier, Force Push, Burst of Speed are all examples of good upgrades to put on Yoda.  While not my particular favorite for the list, Yoda is a cornerstone of one list archetype for Wookiee Defenders and is an excellent character option. 

Corps

Phase 2 Clones: It should be noted here that you can take 0-2 Phase 2’s. And it's my opinion you should be taking zero. Clones are good but don’t fit into this list well at all. I suppose there’s a version where you are using your Phase Two Clones to set up Fire Supports on surge to hit units but honestly the Phase IIs are too expensive to do that effectively here. If you have to take them, the Z-6 is probably the best option since you’re most likely looking for as large a dice pool as possible to Fire Support with. 

Wookiee Warriors (Noble Fighters): As stated before this is the melee version of the Wookiees and the bread and butter of this list. 69 points for the base unit and 9 wounds right out the gate makes them a great option to fill out your corps and then some. I don’t like leaving home without 4-5 units of these guys. There are arguments to be made for the Battle Shield and Bowcaster as the heavy weapon upgrade (the Long Gun just doesn’t do enough). With Duelist they’re able to do some good work in melee while avoiding some Pierce tech if they have a dodge. But they are still t-shirt saves so expect to take wounds and be happy when you find a single block out of 6 rolled dice. Tenacity, Offensive Push, and Recon Intel are all excellent options to boost the efficiency of the unit. 

Special Forces

ARC Troopers (full team): You can take 0-1 ARC Trooper units in this list, but you can’t bring Echo. The only reason I see to take the ARCs is if you are running Yoda so that you can do Guidance shenanigans with them on the 2 pip turn. But honestly you can do that with other units in the army just as well so I’m not convinced the ARCs are worth the points. If you do bring them don’t forget your handy-dandy DC-15 and perhaps some Prepared Supplies or Targeting Scopes to help them out just a little bit more. 

Wookiee Defenders (Kashyyyk Defenders): Also known as “Shooting Wookiees”, these are your go to special forces unit in the list. At 103 points with a Bowcaster this unit has Sharpshooter 1, Pierce 1 and Impact 1 while throwing 8 dice at range 3. Primarily white dice attack pools can be deceptive on their output. With surge hit you’ll typically find 3-4 paint and with Sharpshooter and Pierce that will typically force three saves. Remember that they also benefit from the free speed 1 move should they lose a model during the round. I like to add Targeting Scopes onto mine for a bit more consistency when rerolling white dice. Also note they roll black/white in melee with surge to hit, so they can do work there as well in a pinch. 

Support

BARCs: 0-1 BARCs are allowed in the list if you really want them but honestly the BARC doesn’t offer anything that isn’t better elsewhere. It's cheap, and that’s about it. You’re better off taking something else here. 

Raddaugh Gnasp Fluttercraft (Attack Run variant): If you’re looking for a speeder this is the one to go for. Coming in at 57 base you’re going to be putting a crew slot onto this unit to make it effective. Either the Bombardier for 20 points or the Gunner at 15 are viable options. Each upgrade forces the piece to play differently, either hunting for chip damage with a Pierce gun (that can only fire out the rear arc, so get ready to get good at geometry) or by flying over the battlefield at your new speed 3 dropping bombs into whatever melee your Wookiees have started below. No matter what style you’re considering for the craft you’ll also end up considering that comms slot. Hacked Comms, Comms Jammer, and Emergency Transponder are all good options depending on the style of craft you’re trying to run. 

Heavy

Infantry Support Platform: Another 0-1 option for the battleforce that’s going to be 0 almost every time. While the ISP has some worth in other lists (Cody for instance) it doesn’t do anything here. With a lack of Fire Support platforms and dice pools that don’t do much on their own your points are better spent elsewhere. 

TX-130 Saber-Class Fighter Tank: Last but not least 0-1 saber tanks. Again this is probably going to be 0. While having a LOS blocking tank could be helpful in getting the wookies closer to the target; the saber (and vehicles in general) are struggling in today’s heavy cover meta. Nothing in the list really supports the tank, orders will be hard to come by, and honestly you could spend the 180-190ish points from the saber on two melee wookies instead. And personally, I’m going to take the melee wookies every time. If you have to take the tank, consider the Twin Laser Turret for the hardpoint, any of the shell upgrades (depending on what role you want it to fill), and Linked Targeting Array for the few times you might be able to get it an order in the game. 

List Archetypes

The Fluttercrafts

"Weokie From Muskogee"

Kentucky Dan here, Richard gave me permission to write this section since playing Flutters is one of my favorite pastimes in this game.  The new Attack Run Fluttercrafts are versatile and so much fun.  The ability to increase your speed to three gives you far more mobility around the board in a way that only an experienced Flutter lover can appreciate.  The additional speed not only helps you get shots easier and earlier, but it also makes maneuvering over/around terrain much easier.  Speeder 2 is an incredible keyword, but a speed two movement tool can only go so far when you need to move through a wide building or hop over an AAT.  The movement granted by speed three goes a long way in restoring viability to a unit that has been quickly overshadowed by power creep.  

Unfortunately this new variant can only be taken in the Wookie Defender battleforce so you’re missing out on any other synergies you might normally coordinate together (Cody, Swoops or your favorite Jedi).  As far as the Bombardier upgrade goes, I’d just as soon leave it at home.  The possibility of overrunning enemy units in melee is tantalizing, but with the current gunline meta bringing your Fluttercraft any closer than range three is a death wish.  A single positioning mistake with the bombardier can proc an Exemplar standby that’ll get Fire Supported and your Fluttercraft will be a goner.  The Gunner upgrade on the other hand is easier to keep alive and is also better suited to use both the speed one and speed three capabilities of the new version. The ability to swoop in with a compulsory move, take a piercing shot and then zoom away makes the Gunner upgrade an excellent choice in today’s meta.  

Without going into too much detail about the various lists I’ve tried with the new Flutters, I’ll just say that after much internal debate and conversation with Richard he’s persuaded me to leave the Chieftain at home and basically adopt a variant of his own “Fast and Furriest.”  (Richard’s list and breakdown is below).  By removing both of the Shooting Wookiees and two copies of Recon Intel you can bring three Flutters with the Gnasp Gunner and a hearty five point bid.  This bid allows you to bring the traditional speeder objectives and play your own battle deck whenever you’d like.  Additionally you gain another activation to help on objectives like Key Positions and Breakthrough and a fourth bowcaster for dealing with armor.  I won’t pretend that my variant is any better than Richard’s (I’ve got significantly less reps with it) but I’d argue that they’ve got a similar ranged damage output and are both downright potent when it comes to objective play.  

And lastly, just like the OG “Fast and Furriest” this list is a blast to play with and against.  I get to charge you with a roaring horde and you get to roll all your attack dice in an attempt to stop me.  The results are similar to what Richard gets and the Wookiees will likely be tabling their opponents before the six rounds are complete.  In short: super wholesome, much fun.  

Yoda

There's a few options for how to build the Yoda version of Wookiee defenders but we are going to be discussing the Yoda, Chewie, melee Wookiees and single ARC version. Yes, your eyes aren't deceiving you, this is a 7 activation list. In the current “8 act is normal” meta 7 activation lists are viable if they're trying to do something specific, which this list is.

Let's talk about Yoda first, the cornerstone of the list. Yoda is a versatile piece that excels at objective play and anything else he wants to do. Most Yoda lists want to keep him safe, guarding the lines and generating tokens and additional actions for his friends. This list wants to dig Yoda into the enemy line as quickly as possible. This can be aided by Chewie’s 2 pip. With guidance the two of them can effectively move speed 2 three times in order to set Yoda up for his 1 pip the following turn, almost guaranteeing being in melee from there. And once the frog man is buried in enemy lines the rest of the list shows up to help.

It's important to know the role of the different units in this list. Yoda is very much a technical piece but Chewie and the melee Wookiees are the beat stick. With Tenacity Chewie is throwing 5 red with lethal 1, a dice pool to rival a Jedi’s lightsaber. Wookiees are rolling 4-8 black dice (depending on how many made it to enemy lines) with surge hit and duelist. Not many units can survive that kind of sustained pierce dice pools in melee, especially with a Jedi that can attack twice a turn adding to the pool. And there is a helpful interaction between Guidance and the Wookiee Charge allowing you to potentially get 2 attacks out of them a turn. The more units you can tie up in melee the better because that means your opponent isn't able to shoot you in return. Don't forget the extra move from Wookiee casualties to get to enemy lines faster! That one naked Wookiee unit is there to run around and do objective actions (tap a vap point, pick up boxes, be a hostage carrier, etc). 

Finally we have the Arc Troopers which work really well with Yoda. Yoda’s 2 pip gives them Relentless, allowing them to move, gain an aim from Tactical, and take a shot twice in the turn (thanks to Guidance) and Arc Troopers can hit fairly hard. Their job is to soften targets not in melee for the Wookiees to clean up later and help the naked Wookiee with objective actions if necessary. 

For objectives you really want to play into Yoda's strengths. Hostage Exchange, Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators and Recover the Supplies are all “staple” Yoda objectives and that doesn't change here. Despite Yoda wanting to be buried in enemy lines he still excels at scoring these objectives and they should be a serious consideration. For deployments I would recommend close deployments such as Danger Close, Advanced Positions, Hemmed In and Major Offensive. Conditions have a bit more room for change but War Weary, Fortified Positions and Limited Visibility should be strongly considered as auto includes for this list. 

The Fast and the Furriest

And now the cream of the crop, la pièce de résistance, the (in my opinion) best of the Wookiee lists. This is the list I have the most play time with and which I’ve refined the most through countless games and tournaments. The list is deceptively simple. There are no bells and whistles, no fancy or revolutionary ideas, just pure efficiency for the brain. There are some variations of the list above (Chewbacca could be a Wookiee Chieftain for instance if you mess with the points) but this particular variety is what works best for me. I would encourage anyone trying the list to tinker with the upgrades and find what works best for you. Let’s talk about why it works.

The easiest place to start is the commander slot. There is one of them, and seven special forces. Regardless of who you put into the commander role one thing remains important: order the commander every turn. Because of the way the battleforce works all of the Wookiee units are special forces. Giving an order to the commander guarantees complete activation control every turn, something most factions outside of CIS struggle with. What this means tactically is that you can activate what you need when you need it. The benefits of Wookiee command cards are nice, but think of them as a buff and not a must. Make sure you read those cards carefully, as some order only to special forces.

The only other thing of note here about the commander slot is that I prefer to use them as my objective unit for the game. The unit that is picking up boxes, tapping vaporators, holding a back intercept point, etc. This is because of the low damage output both commander units have combined with their high health value meaning they can’t just be sniped off. Cassian/Iden/Din cannot remove them if they put one wound through every turn of the game, which is a big deal. It should be noted that when push comes to shove either Cheiwe or the commander can swing very efficiently in melee, so tuck that information away for when it's needed on the table. 

Next we come to the workhorse of the list, the melee Wookiees. A simple design, their job is to get to the enemy lines as quickly as possible and disrupt formations while taking out a few units. There are several strategies I would recommend to someone giving this list a try. First, and arguably the most important, start your Wookiees in shield mode. There’s frankly no reason not to since you can choose to flip the shield at the start of their activation if you need speed. Second, understand that you’re going to lose Wookiees. T-shirt saves means every time you roll dice you should celebrate that one block you found out of six dice. But that’s okay! Every time you lose a Wookiee you get closer to the enemy lines which is where you want to be. Historically I have found if three squads of melee Wookiees can get to the gunline my odds of victory are significantly higher. Confirmation bias? Perhaps. But I’ve lost 100% of the games where I only got two squads engaged so make of that what you will. 

When deploying and choosing targets to rush with melee Wookiees there are two key decisions to make. Consider your objective, are you playing recover where there are two “safe” boxes for your opponent? How about vaps where there is at least one “safe” point? Perhaps payload where all the units are gathered together? Key positions or intercept where there’s only one unit guarding the “secured” point? By now you should understand where I’m trying to go with this. Wookiees means nothing is safe. When deploying and moving during the first turn try and fake where your Wookiees are going to go, then send 1-2 squads “beelining” towards the enemy’s “safe” victory points. 

This will do two things for you. First it’ll make them panic. Most players have a game plan during turn zero, and that usually involves considering points scored on “safe” points as already claimed. A squad or two of 12 health melee Wookiees barreling towards those “safe” points makes people pause and reconsider their options and may even throw off their tempo (which is what the goal of this list is). Second, it forces them to recommit other units to deal with the threat, leaving the center where the rest of your army is attacking weakened and easier to steamroll. Make sure that when choosing melee targets you prioritize whatever has the best guns. Pykes, any Clone Trooper squad that could Fire Support or even Rebel Veterans are all great choices. 

Do not discount the shooting potential of melee wookiees either. Because they are running up on the enemy you are likely basing terrain and taking cover away from them.  Four black and four white with surge to hit is a respectable dice pool into no cover. Melee should always be your first and most important goal but don’t forget you have some options available to you. My final thought on the melee wookiees is this: always deploy in shield mode, switch to offensive mode turn 1, and close that gap as quickly as possible.  However if there’s no cover to run to, then you can keep as many units in shield mode as necessary and wait for turn two to sprint at the enemy until you’re engaged. Once engaged, switch back to shield mode. Normal trooper units hate armor in melee and even force users have a limited impact value. Every. Wound. Matters. 

The last piece of this list is the “shooting Wookiees.” Sharpshooter 1, surge hit with a bow caster and pierce 1 is fantastic statline. Forcing two saves with this dice pool typically results in two wounds, and the potential to spike higher is always present. The shooting Wookiees in this list have two jobs, shoot whatever the melee Wookiees haven’t engaged and hold a middle objective point. Melee Wookiees should get most of the  job done once they reach melee but they won’t be able to do it all. They may weaken a target but leave them with 1-3 minis; this is where the ranged pierce comes into play. The keywords on these ranged Wookiees are perfect for cleaning up squads and the pierce value means red saves don’t hold up nearly as well. Targeting scopes are optional but I’ve found once these Wookiees are in place they don’t often move and the extra reroll on white dice is wonderful.

Finally, consider the objective deck and the power to disrupt your opponents rhythm. Force them to make bad decisions. For deployment pick whatever lets you get closer. I’d suggest Advanced Positions (my personal favorite since Recon Intel allows my melee wookiees to start with a speed 2 move), Danger Close, Hemmed In and Major Offensive. An honorable mention goes out to Disarray. Objectives are a bit more of a personal choice but consider Recover the Supplies, Breakthrough, Intercept the Transmissions and Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators. Finally conditions; look at Limited Visibility (a wookiee’s best friend), Fortified Positions (Wookiee’s don’t care since they haveScale), War Weary (everything is courage two anyway) and either Hostile Environment or Supply Drop depending on taste. I personally believe Rapid Reinforcements is a trap in this list but I don’t know everything so give it a try if you think it’ll be better!

And that’s it for Wookiees! The name of the game is disruption. Get into the enemy lines and cause havoc. Force bad decisions from your opponent as they react to your choices instead of being allowed to make choices for themselves. Don’t underestimate the staying power of 12 wound units but do understand you are going to be losing models at a rapid pace. With lists that can break a 90 wound threshold though you should be alright. Good luck and happy hunting!