You got the new Imperial starter set before Christmas, you’ve played a few games stomping down those pathetic Rebels and now you want to change up your force, you want to see what other units might help sway your victory. Atomic Mass Games (AMG) have released a huge amount of Star Wars Legion content over the last few weeks to help you mix up your forces. This week, I’m going to look at the Imperial Special Forces unit and see how they might change up my starter set.
Imperial Special Forces; I have always loved them. They wear the TIE pilot uniform, and I think this is one of those outfits that look just great. I’ve also painted them for Star Wars Shatterpoint, as part of their Inferno Squad pack. Low and behold, two of the miniatures included here come from that squad. If you are not familiar with Inferno Squad, they were in the newer version of Battlefront 2 as well as having a very well written novel based around the squad. In the box you can field not one, but two units, which made me even more interested in this box. Two squads could really change the current force I’m using and give me more of a feel to how an Imperial force really worked. As well as this is the price point. For seven miniatures, or two units’ worth of models, the price seemed extremely good. Coming from Shatterpoint, where I’m paying more than that for four miniatures – even at a bigger scale – this seemed to be a lot more affordable.
So, what do you actually get with these two units? Seven models sounds great, but will they deliver? I opened the box, found a neat pack of sprues and bases, tokens, cards and the leaflet to point me in the direction of the assembly instructions. Usually I’d make the models first, but I really wanted to see what these units were going to give my force (and if it would help me beat my Rebel son). I’ve been rather spoiled with the starter sets, the sheer number of upgrades and extras in terms of cards has made me think this is what I should expect from every release. In Special Forces, there are five cards, two-unit cards and three upgrades.
Now I am still learning the ropes with the game – or at least I thought I was – when I was looking at these cards. The two-unit cards have the two units: Imperial Special Forces and Imperial Special Forces Inferno Squad. The former having a unit size of four, the latter having a unit size of one. However, with Inferno Squad you must equip the Del Meeko and Gideon Hask upgrades. That left a T-21 Special Forces Trooper upgrade that you could attack to the first unit. This is where I started to question how well I knew the game. Four models plus one model, add the two-unit upgrades and then the additional one… that made eight models in total. I double checked the box, seven models. I thought I must have got something wrong. But when I double checked I was not quite losing my mind (not yet anyway). If you want to field both units, with all the upgrades, you don’t actually have enough models in the box. I’m not going to lie; I was a little disappointed by this. It meant that I had to decide either to have the T-21 trooper and presume I’m not going to run the Special Forces squad with Inferno Squad or, not have the T-21 trooper and be able to run both units. Not knowing the game well, I had no idea what I should do, and I didn’t like that unlike everything I had so far come across, I was going to have to sacrifice something in the box.
Not knowing which way to go with these upgrades, I thought I better look at the units to see if that could help. The Imperial Special Forces unit costs sixty-eight points and gives you four men with range three E-11 blaster rifles. Throw in the keywords of infiltrate, marksman and reliable 1, this was looking like my sort of unit. My luck with dice is not the best so having the option to be able to mitigate somewhat was certainly a positive. If I then did use the upgrade of the T-21, I would then have a repeating blaster rolling four dice and having critical two. I mean that’s doubling your dice throw for an attack. Not going to lie, that was sounding very tempting!
So, what would Inferno Squad give me? While technically costing thirty-four points, by the time you add Meeko and Hask on you can call it ninety-eight. More points, less models – they have the same keywords with the addition of ‘Retinue: Iden Versio’. If you want to run as close as you can to Inferno Squad, having Versio as your commander with this squad has some advantages. The real test would be the upgrades, Meeko and Hask. Now what I needed to remember is that although I could run these guys as part of Inferno Squad, they can also be an upgrade for an Imperial Trooper unit. This gives players some variation to their army lists, particularly with me who just has the starter set. These two could easily join my stormtrooper units and it would be interesting to see how that might change the dynamics of my army. Or I run them as their own unit. With only three models though, I would be a bit concerned they might get demolished by my opponent rather quickly.
So, Hask. He increases the courage value of the unit he is with by one and also gives the unit coordinate. That latter keyword would work well with Hask in either configuration. He gets to use two red dice for his E-11 blaster, so he is certainly more reliable. He seems like he would speed up my army a little bit, but I would still be worried about the damage a squad with him included in would take. My preference at the moment is to put him in a stormtrooper unit.
Meeko on the other hand looks like a powerful upgrade. He comes with Repair 2: Capacity 1 which will be useful when I have droid troopers or vehicles. At the moment this isn’t too much of a problem but in the future this could certainly be helpful. The thing that really makes me sit up with Meeko is his sniper ability. True to character, his weapon has a five range with high velocity and lethal 1. He is going to be able to sit on the sidelines and take out any annoying targets. I’m already liking the sound of him. However, it also puts me into a dilemma. Would I really want to place him in a unit of stormtroopers where I hold them back, or in a small squad with Hask?
Having two units in this box is good, the flexibility is great. The decision of which model to build is not one I’m liking. I knew I needed to make this decision before I got building the models. I decided to go for the T-21 trooper, if worse came to worse and I wanted to field both units at the same time, the T-21 would just have to join Inferno Squad until I could figure out a proxy. Equally, I could buy Iden Versio, do a head swap and be able to then field both units at full capacity if that was what I desperately wanted to do. I have a feeling I’m going to be more inclined to run Hask and Meeko with trooper squads rather than Inferno Squad.
That left only one thing to do, build the models. Now for some reason, the build instructions for the older or newer Special Forces box aren’t on the AMG website – a problem I’m hoping should be fixed fairly shortly. Thankfully, a quick search on the internet brought up the instructions I needed. On these older instructions, it was building the T-21 trooper first. Straight away I could see that the choice was clear, the weapon upgrade or the regular E-11 blaster. I knew I had made the right decision to go with the T-21, but it did make me pause – again! Holding firm, I continued to build the model the way I had intended. Even without the updated instructions, AMG have these models so well labelled on a sprue that you can’t help but be able to build them correctly. The only complex part on the model was the front plate, which can be a bit fiddly. I was also a bit concerned with how to line this up so well on the body, but I shouldn’t have worried. The box fits beautifully into the gap on the armour, so well that I couldn’t help but be impressed. While I wouldn’t build the body without it, I like that you could leave it off if you wanted to. The detail on the model is also exceptional: the helmet, the front box panel, the weapons, it all looks fantastic. The only thing I would suggest is to be quick putting the arms together. There is a bit of flexibility in where the arms can be placed so I glued both arms before any glue had set, just to make sure that they lined up properly. With the T-21 trooper constructed, it was time to move onto the others – hopefully with a lot less crucial decisions to make about them!
The next one I did was model A. On the instructions I was using, this would have been the leader of the squad. I love his stance, the directing of his unit with his hand. His arms have a lot of movement, when you glue them, make sure the folds in his suit match up. One thing I did begin to notice with this model was the slight off ratio size of the helmet. It’s not a huge difference and I have a sneaky feeling that it is probably ‘real-life’ accurate, but on the model it looks slightly off. It doesn’t help that I’m currently painting the new stormtrooper squads from the starter set and it makes it even more noticeable. These new squads have been remodelled to be more tabletop accurate and this mold for the special forces – while I like the look of – hasn’t been changed in quite some time. For the next few models, it’s the same procedure. Make sure you glue both arms at the same time and you’ll be fine. Model C is one of those models I know I’m going to hate; one foot on the base the other in the air. While it makes the model more dynamic, it also usually leads to it coming a lot easier off the base during game play.
After the first five models, you then have the choice of assembling your models with helmets or without, giving you Hask and Meeko. I found it a bit strange that you can have Meeko without the sniper rifle and instead a E-11 blaster, but I suppose if you want to have a normal special forces trooper this does allow you to. Also, with a second box, you could then have every option to be able to run every upgrade. While I never think troops would go into battle unhelmets, I’m building these two models with their faces. It adds some variation to the models but also makes them far easier to spot on the tabletop. Hask goes together fine, although I would glue his right arm and right hand together first before placing the arms onto the body. The head sculpt is fantastic, really capturing the character. Meeko is the same. While I love the helmets, having some actual heads look fantastic on these detailed models. Meeko has the perfect sniper pose and his armour is slightly different to the other models, giving him something a little bit extra.
This squad does look fantastic. Even with the heads seemingly slightly off proportionally, they are still a squad (or two) that I’m really looking forward to painting. While there have been some units in Legion that I have instantly known what to do with, this is not one of those. I need to play about with the options to figure out how best to use them in my force. The options to be able to do that I think is fantastic. To be able to possibly have two-units or enhance some of my units with Hask and/or Meeko really give this pack some flexibility for Imperial players. I’m looking forward to working it all out! Keep your eyes peeled for a battle report where I use this – and some other new units – in my force to see which one’s shine and which ones don’t!
The Star Wars Legion: Imperial Special Forces pack from Atomic Mass Games retails at £39.99. It is available now from high street gaming stores and online retailers including Amazon UK and Amazon US.
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