I love a demanding villain played by a solid actor. In the Star Wars universe, there’s so many brilliant actors who have played villains, and now I get to paint at least two of them.
In the Imperial High Command expansion for Star Wars Legion, you get Grand Moff Tarkin, Director Orson Krennic, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and General Tagge to add to your Empire.
Let’s dive into the box.
Asmodee North America
What’s in the box?
You get all 4 models, and Krennic gets an option to have a hat or not, which is a nice touch. You also get the character and command cards for all 4 units, which are all pretty interesting to have in the game, seeing for the most part, they’re not very combat focused.
The sculpts are beautiful, especially seeing Peter Cushing and Ben Mendelsohn rendered perfectly in plastic. These models will give me the challenge of painting them correctly like their actors, and I look forward to showing you all that later this year.
I did notice a few issues with assembly, namely some gaps on Krennic, but this is easily solved with some sprue goo or UV resin.
Alec Kozak
What about the cards?
Each character card represents their chosen commander pretty well. Tarkin has the Pulling The Strings keyword, which allows him to grant any Empire Trooper a free action, which will pretty much be a free Attack. His command cards allow him to give Darth Vader Guardian 4 (allowing him to cancel out 4 attacks on Tarkin...effectively Vader uses the force to block), and the ability to Backup Tarkin, which allows him to step into combat while Tarkin is under fire, a change to the Legion rules and because Tarkin does hold Vader’s leash. Fear Will Keep Them In Line allows you to grant suppression tokens to enemy units, and when he’s contesting an Objective, all of your units can demoralize the enemy.
Krennic brings some uniqueness to the game, with his Compel keyword, which will grant free move actions to allies at the cost of a suppression token, Entourage allows him to ignore ranks of allies, giving him special control over an allied unit (not to mention a command card that aligns with the Imperial Death Troopers), and Exemplar, which allows units within range to spend aim, dodge, and surge tokens even if they don’t have them. His command cards allow him to give free Standby actions, a peak at the remaining Order tokens in a round, and spread Suppression around to enemy troopers.
Thrawn, a favorite character from the old Expanded Universe days brought into the canon universe brings a bit more flexibility with his attacks, and some special keywords. One Step Ahead and Cunning come together to allow him to give free movement based on the pips on opponent cards, which will allow you to win Priority more often. Strategize is a fun one, as it allows him to take Suppression while giving allies Aim and Dodge tokens. Direct allows him to issue an order to any friendly unit on the battlefield, regardless of you having the token required. His Command Cards are exceptional. Architects Of Their Own Destruction allows him to choose which enemy unit activates first or last, which can severely hinder an opponent's heroes. We Must Wait and Watch allows you to grant 3 units Reinforcements, either letting you deploy immediately or wait until deeper in the game to ambush an opponent. Lastly, I Want You to Know Failure grants all Empire units a free Aim token when they fire into units that haven’t taken a turn yet. Brutal.
General Tagge, whom we remember as the guy who uncomfortably watched Vader choke out another general, brings a lighter card, but with the unique Logistical Prowess. This allows him to remove any number of tokens from his card to gain those tokens, then using Calculate Odds to dish out those tokens to allies. This then means the unit that gains the token gets to use it for free! Neat. Canny Adversary allows him to copy tokens from a nearby enemy unit, which then he can redistribute to his allies.
All in all, these are pretty advanced characters. With my level of experience in Legion being pretty small, it’ll be a while before I use these models (as I still need to build my Imperial army), but I can definitely tell that they have intense power and abilities.
Stick with GamingTrend for all things Legion, and the next time you see these guys, we’ll have them painted up for you!
