Where do we start with Cassian Andor? Without a lot of spoilers depending on who you are in the Empire and when you meet him, you could view him as any of the following: a terrorist, a protector, a hero, a criminal, a loner, a leader, a rebel, or a mercenary. This range of labels is actually a big part of the reason you may be drawn to Cassian in Shatterpoint. In Shatterpoint, Cassian Andor is one of the most flexible pieces you will find. He can be paired with all five of the “faction” tags to great effect.
How He Plays
This is easily the toughest section of this article. As mentioned in the intro, Cassian is extremely flexible and can be paired with almost any other primary in the game. To make writing the “how he plays” section even harder he brings different assets to each pairing. But let’s look at his overall strengths and weakness. This is only looking at what I consider to be Cassian’s “core” squad, and can shift significantly based on the squad they are paired with, especially if the “core” squad changes. I consider Cassian’s “core” to be: Cassan, K-2SO and Rebel Commandos. Together they are the screwdriver in your toolbox.
On a scale of 1 to 10, here is where I consider Cassian’s power level to be at using the five categories Tatotot defined in the original ewok article in this series.
Cassian and Friends
- Synergy – 4/10
- Movement – 5/10
- Power/Offense – 5/10
- Attrition/Defense – 5/10
- Map Control – 9/10
Overall they are okay at everything but only really good at one thing, map control. Fortunately for Cassian, this game is about one thing and one thing only controlling specific points on the map. The other half of the strike force should add one or two points to a couple of them as well.
Why Play Cassian?
Looking at the strengths listed above, there are a lot of mid-level scores. Movement is often talked about as a key factor and this squad has no free start of turn movement and not enough force to use their movement abilities. For offense, they have This Town is Ready to Blow and Coordinated Fire: Damage, both are excellent abilities on paper that are just good on the table. This Town Is Ready To Blow can do a lot of damage after struggle one but the damage tends to decline after struggle 2. In terms of defense, no one is bad but nothing is really above average either. Finally synergy, every unit has a little synergy but they are mostly added bonuses instead of team defining. To top it all off these “strengths” come at the cost of giving you only 2 force. So why play am I recommending them?
Because they are really good at winning the game. Shatterpoint is ultimately a game about controlling 3 to 6 objectives. Movement, offense, defense and synergies are all tools to helping you gain control of and maintain control of objectives. Let’s look at each of the “core” units in a little more depth.
Cassian has three main abilities We Need To Blend In allows Cassian and another rebel to dash and maybe gain a hunker. Unlike most primaries this is an active ability that costs force instead a start of turn tactic. This Town Is Ready To Blow is Cassian’s main offense. In a perfect world it can do 18 damage to the opposing team but in practice it is usually 8 or 9 which is still more than a full attack from most units. You don’t get to carry over the momentum if you wound into the next struggle, but if they cannot score, that is a win for you. However, the real reason you are taking Cassian is Make Ten Men Feel Like a Hundred, this is hands down the best revenge movement ability in the game. It allows you to advance or reposition any unit on the board. You will almost always be able to push someone back on the point when your opponent wounds a unit or take an unprotected back point. Often this unit will have Lockdown or break ties with Imperial Mandate or Thanks For Doing The Heavy Lifting. The second part of this identity gives any rebel unit Sharpshooter [2] and Impact [2]. Most of the time this will translate into one or two additional steps on your tree, if you can focus. Most of the time it is rebel commandos that will be able to take advantage of this, however Princess Leia is good shatterpoint target if she is your other squad. Cassian’s final ability is We’ve All Done Terrible Things is his least used and gives him a little offense but, more importantly, it can wound one of your units allowing Make Ten Feel Like a Hundred to trigger.
K-2SO comes with four abilities. The first is useful but disappointing, like We Need To Blend In it is over costed compared to similar abilities on other units. Most of the time dashing toward a rebel won’t very restrictive as you have the commandos out front but if you are pairing Cassian with non-rebels it can become restrictive and taking someone like Lobot over K2 is worth considering. Congratulations You are Being Rescued also looks for the rebel tag. It gives you a 5 die attack which is ok but the main purpose is to move K-2 onto one of the points your opponent is looking to flip for the turn. It is worth noting that it has been ruled that Cassian can make K-2 move and than if the wounded unit, not model, is within range 4, K-2 can trigger this can potentially react to a unit 16 inches away being wounded, more if you have a favorable ingress point. Once he gets on the point it is his due to Lockdown even if your opponent has multiple models on elevation and K-2 isn’t. I first learned about Goodbye when I did the standard shoot than move on point order of operations to see where Cassian would react to. After wounding K-2, I was now strained and pinned and unable to move onto either point!
Most people are already familiar with Rebel Commando. Infiltrate lets you get on points early and Coordinate Fire can ping a unit when another rebel attacks. Given that no one has amazing damage output this can be vital to putting opposing units to sleep. But the real reason you are taking them is because they are amazing shatterpoint targets. Most people like to activate primary units with their shatterpoints but getting 2 10 dice attacks and having 2 bodies move is pretty amazing. It isn’t uncommon for them to both get their full tree and go the heal route for 6 heals, 10 or 11 damage and 4 shoves. Just be careful about an early shatterpoint resulting in the commandos getting wounded twice the first time through the deck and spending too much force on them once they are wounded. It is often worth taking the risk but don’t get so blinded by the short term gain that you lose the game as a result.
List Building
Now that we have Cassian’s squad, who are we going to pair him with? As I said at the start he can pair with almost anyone to great effect but since making 20 different teams seems not useful for this article, I’m going to walk through making a rebel premiere list with Cassian as an anchor. The goal is to enhance the toolbox nature by having each list enhance a different aspect.
The first list will be the “power/offense” list. Rebels in general aren’t the most offensive faction but there is one primary that buffs the offense the most, Freedom Fighter Leia and Coordinated Fire: Expose. She also helps our movement but giving a rebel a full advance while having Defensive Maneuvers to dash herself. For her secondary, I’ll choose the newly upgraded C-3P0 and R2 unit. Again they bring out of activation movement and since everyone in the list is an ewok can give them scale or steadfast. Their personal offense is still horrible but their ability to remove conditions from other units can increase their friends’ offense significantly. The support slot comes down to Ewok Hunters or Rebel Pathfinders. Pathfinders have better range, speed, and expertise but the Hunters do more damage, roll more dice and bring a third coordinate fire. I am going to choose the ewoks because they have better damage and this is the offensive list, Coordinated Fire: Pin is also basically a free damage as there is a lot of early pins on your tree. I have never gotten close to living the dream but they have the potential to roll 16 dice with both attacks thanks to Cassian and Strength In Numbers. Most likely you will get 10 or 11 which is still great.
The second list will be the “are you sure we can’t be friends?” list. This list will focus on minimizing the impact that wounding has on your team. We cannot take Princess Leia since we took Freedom Fighter Leia so we are looking at Kanan or Han for the primary if we stay in rebels. Since we might want Han and Chewie elsewhere and Kanan’s revenge is more consistent, let’s take Kanan. Kanan ideally needs some Spectres to fully function. Kallus and Sabine both bring another unit that can focus without an action allowing you to make better use of sharpshooter and impact with you shatterpoint them but I think Ezra is the hands down winner. While he is awake he breaks ties which can be huge when you are advancing him around the board with Cassian. Zeb is the slightly off meta choice with Kanan, but thanks to Lasan Honor Guard, if Zeb gets wounded, not only do you get Cassian and Kanan but Zeb himself stands back up to stay on the point.
The final squad has a lot of options, Fulcrum/Luke/Han and Chewie or Luke/Kallus/Lando and R2 but I’m a Rogue One fanboy so I’m just going to put a placeholder here for the Rogue One squad pack. In the meantime use this spot to try out a pairing with your favorite character, even if there is no obvious synergy it will probably go better than you think.
Strategies
Shatterpoint is a game where turn 0 planning doesn’t matter much as there is too much unknown. Mission, activation order, opponent activation order, first player vs second, and opposing list are just a few of the factors that make the saying “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy” especially true in this game. However, you do have some factors under your control. For example, if you are the first player you get to pick the mission. I recommend First Contact or Sabotage Showdown. Both are missions that provide force refresh and can often be won in two struggles. I think Cassian is stronger on First Contact but in a tournament setting First Contact can easily go to time which we want to avoid. I will use First Contact in my example but if you are in a time crunch there is nothing wrong with Sabotage.
Kill’em All
Cassian should put K-2SO and a rebel commando on one side objective but as centered as possible. preferably away from the opponents more killy squad, and the other commando in the middle. On the other side you want C-3P0 starting off in Against My Programming on the point with the rest of the squad as centered as possible. If C-3PO goes first, his free dash can move someone else to hold the point while he advances to midfield and switches into Angry Trilling to create a steadfast bubble. Your shatterpoint cards will usually be best used on either of your supports as they both have access to non-action focus so they can use Cassian’s sharpshooter and impact effectively. When moving K-2SO keep him on points but centralized as much as possible. His revenge trigger combined with Cassian’s reposition means he can get to most objectives if the opponent wounds someone holding it regardless of the mission. Your primary activations are fine but if you are looking for Jedi level activations you will be disappointed. They are both support style characters and while they can do 9 damage, overextending or relying on them one-shotting a unit is usually a mistake. Use them to finish off units that have been damaged and move others onto points. Early out of activation movement is well spent getting Leia up the board even if she doesn’t need the extra movement to get good use out of her turns.
Last Man Standing
This second focuses on penalizing hyper aggressive lists by having someone step right up filling the void created when they wound you. Not having easy expose access really reduces your damage significantly but Kanan is a much more active piece than Leia if you can take advantage of it. This list wants to push models up the board into the danger zone and dare your opponent to attack them. Specters often get attacked early while Kanan is still in deployment, Cassian fixes this by giving him an advance that he can use before Kanan’s jump. The ability to move Kanan twice when a model gets wounded also opens up soresu as a viable option without giving up your revenge attack. You do not want to live in soresu as K-2 and Ezra usually are better at keeping the point but if you are running low on force it is a viable option that is often dismissed. Your turns are best spent focusing on doing small amounts of damage but pushing the opponent back into their zone. The damage will build up especially in struggle 2 and 3 unless they have a lot of heal but like before rebel commandos are easily capable of doing 10-12 damage and knocking out 2 units during a shatterpoint. After struggle 1 your force is going to be a real disadvantage. Spending 2 force for covert ops on a wounded commando unit is almost always worth if it is a shatterpoint turn but if you also spend 2 on force push that leaves you with only 1 to spend on your other 5 activations. Fortunately most of your force hungry abilities are nice but not necessary to have productive turns and your defensive abilities other than K-2 don’t cost force at all.
Matchups
I’ll conclude with some advice on the current meta and what matchups Cassian wants to see and which ones they struggle against. Although as stated at the beginning Cassian is so flexible that what you pair him with can change this completely.
The Bad
Rebels: Rebels as a faction tend to do below average damage this means you won’t get your Cassian’s best ability as much without impacting their ability to score points. They will most likely have some sort of revenge trigger as well to mitigate the wounds you do. You are most likely the aggressor in this matchup but that doesn’t mean you have to wound people as quickly as possible. If possible, set units up to be wounded when the town blows by leaving them on one or two health minimizing the effectiveness of their triggers. Play your game, control the points and wound only when necessary.
Lando: Lando isn’t super common but what he represents is. Lists that give out a lot of pins and strains can be very tough. You don’t have the out of activation movement that some other lists do to burn the pins. C-3PO and the ewok portion of the list are your best bet here as C-3PO can clear conditions off nearby units. It is also worth remembering that Cassian’s revenge triggers on ANY wound, not just wounds caused by your opponent. It isn’t common but you can trigger a strain to get a Cassian trigger.
The Good
Jedi: Jedi just got a huge buff in the 2025 balance pass. They have always had some of the best movement in the game but now have the damage to back it up and average toughness. Fortunately for you that is exactly what you want to see. Often they need to wound you to get a point and that is what you are built to stop. Anakin’s move is after your reaction moves but K-2 doesn’t care if he suddenly has six clones and a child murderer on the point he is holding. Just make sure Anakin can’t attack him directly.
Empire: Empire are even more reliant on wounding to score points which means you are even better at stopping them. Unlike Jedi however, every Empire unit is likely able to kill you. This can very quickly result in your force issues becoming overwhelming and you can’t score if everything is dead. Cassian, K-2, and commandos can all generate hunker tokens with their abilities. Often this is just a little side benefit but in most Empire matchups you need to maximum them. You will probably want the commandos to focus on generating heals with their attacks. Keeping your units alive an extra turn or two can easily make the difference.
Final Thoughts
I will end this where I began: Cassian is an extremely flexible piece and can be paired with almost any other primary in the game. The discussion in this article was intended to look at just a couple of possible pairings. There are way too many potential pairings to go into detail on all of them. Princess Leia and General Solo are both extremely good inside the faction but you don’t need to stay within the rebellion. I have had very good results with Empire, Bounty Hunters, and Separatists pairings. I personally haven’t found a good Republic pairing outside of Ashoka, Jedi No More but I am sure it out there, drop your teams in the comments.
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