Fan favorite film Rogue One is finally making its presence felt in Star Wars: Shatterpoint with the Deploy the Garrison Squad Pack, featuring that titan of the Imperial Security Bureau, Director Krennic. Joining Krennic in the largest squad pack to date are a Death Trooper Specialist as secondary, and a pair of two-character supporting units, Death Troopers and Shoretroopers. It’s a fairly good showing for the new Imperial characters and trooper types we see in the film.
With two Supporting Units in the box, players will have some squad building choices to make right away. The Primary and Secondary units favor a somewhat defensive, denial strategy, with abilities that deny momentum to the opponent, snatch away control of objectives, and hand out conditions to opposing units. Both Supporting Units pick up on that idea with abilities that provide Cover and Protection, but where the Shoretroopers stay largely defensive with Steadfast and a lot of hunkering, the Death Troopers are a bit more aggressive, adding free moves and focus actions into the mix.
Director Krennic
Primary unit Director Krennic only provides 2 Force, but he brings a gargantuan 9 squad points, giving him a lot of options for Secondary and Support units. His dual Reign of the Empire and Age of Rebellion eras give him access to all the Stormtrooper units currently in the game, plus (most likely) those in any future releases, which makes Krennic a fairly versatile Galactic Empire Primary unit.
Krennic has a mix of supportive and reactive abilities that will have him looming large over the battlefield without needing to get too close to the action. His only active ability is Deploy the Garrison, which pretty much gives an allied Stormtrooper character a free turn: they get to Dash closer to an objective, gain a hunker token and then make a free 5 dice attack. Although the attack is a little less powerful than most Stormtroopers can do on their own, it still amounts to a pretty good free activation, with a move, an attack, and a hunker token which will be especially helpful to the Shoretroopers.
But the big man’s real advantage is in what he can do when it’s not his turn to activate. Your Concerns are Hardly Warranted is a reactive ability that reduces his opponent’s Momentum gain for wounding units. At 2 Force it’s a little on the expensive side, but Krennic has an Innate ability to help mitigate that, and it should make his opponent think twice about expending too much time and effort on attacking his allies.
Meanwhile, We Stand Here Amidst My Achievement gives Krennic a free Dash and 5 dice attack any time an allied Primary or Secondary wounds an enemy unit. This will allow Krennic to take advantage of his more aggressive allies, and if he stays in his Arrogance Stance it won’t cost any Force (see below).
Peace and Security for the Galaxy, Krennic’s Identity ability, gives him a choice to make at the end of each activation, depending on what his active Stance is. If it’s High Aspirations, which is a little more weighted for defense, he takes control of an objective he’s contesting and keeps it locked down for the rest of the turn – great for those times when it seems like every model on the board is clustered around one objective. On the other hand, if his active Stance is Arrogance, his active and reactive abilities costs are reduced by 1, which will be more helpful if you’re low on Force but want to be able to use his reactions.
Stances
Krennic’s two Stance options are interesting in that they both offer a mix of offense and defense, which is good because you will want his Peace and Security ability to dictate which Stance you leave him in at the end of his activation.
High Aspirations is the slightly more defensive of the two. The combat tree has a great mix of shoves, healing and repositioning, making this the Stance that you’ll want Krennic in if he’s parked on an objective. But it’s still got its fair share of offense, with a potential 8 damage, a Strained condition, and even an Active ability icon at 4 hits that will call in a Stormtrooper Supporting character for a 5 dice attack. Plus, the ranged attack expertise adds one or two critical hits, and the defense expertise has a nice mix of blocks and changing critical hits into misses.
Arrogance has a more locked down combat tree, with three separate branches that don’t offer any choices once you start down one of the three paths. You’ll have to choose between inflicting damage and conditions, Active ability and healing, or shoves and repositioning. Chances are you’ll usually be able to pick a path that works for the circumstances, but the lack of on-the-fly options is a little troubling. The expertise charts are quite a bit weaker as well, with ranged only adding regular hits until you get up to 5 expertise, and the defense chart not doing much until you get up to 4. Still, there will be times when it’s a fair trade off for the Force discount that Peace and Security offers while Krennic is in this stance.
Death Trooper Specialist
It may seem like the Death Trooper Specialist comes up a little short next to his larger than life boss, and at a cost of 5 points, it’s unlikely he’ll make it into any Imperial squads other than Krennic’s. However, he does have a good range of complementary abilities with a lot of focus on dealing out conditions to make opposing units less effective. It starts right away with his Tactical ability, Oppression, which gives him a free move and a strained or pinned condition to a nearby opposing unit, dealing out free damage or denying them their next move, as needed.
His Active ability, Imperial Brutality, keeps the free moves and conditions coming by allowing the Specialist or an allied Galactic Empire Supporting unit character to Dash and then give an Exposed condition to an engaged opposing unit. The cost of one Force plus an Exposed condition for the allied unit seems a little high, but it could still be quite useful in softening up an opposing unit for an easier attack.
With Unrelenting Assault, the Specialist can make a second 5 dice attack against a different unit after completing an attack. In a game where most units only activate at most two or three times, the more a single unit can do on its turn, the better.
Finally, the Specialist’s Innate Elite Conditioning gives him Protection and Immunity to the Exposed condition. This is great for keeping your own units effective, and it is especially useful if the Specialist uses Imperial Brutality on himself, allowing him to ignore the Exposed marker that ability adds.
Stance
The Death Trooper Specialist’s Enhanced Elite stance offers two separate combat tree paths that only converge at the very end. When resolving hits from this unit, you will either be dealing out a lot of damage (it maxes out at 7), plus potentially an Exposed condition and a shove, or you’ll be focused on multiple shoves and healing, with a potential Strained condition towards the end.
His expertise charts are pretty average, never adding more than 2 hits or crits on attack, and only one or two extra defense, plus a Dash at 3+ on defense. But he does have a pretty juicy 7 for ranged and melee attacks, so maybe it balances out.
Death Troopers
You will need to keep Krennic’s Death Troopers in proximity to your other units if you want to get the most out of them. Tactical Advance gives them a Dash and focus action at a cost of 1 Force, which should help them get to where they’re needed, and make their attack actions more effective. Supporting Fire gives allied Galactic Empire characters within range 5 a free Dash after they attack, which will be very useful for making hit-and-run attacks against enemy units.
Their two Innate abilities should be useful as long as they can get where they’re going. Elite Training gives them Protection and Impact [1], which will help them hold their own in combat, especially melee. And Protective Detail gives allied Primaries within range 2 Cover [1] – your Primaries can never have too many defense dice…
Stance
Death Trooper Tactics asks the question “would you rather do a lot of damage and leave your target Pinned, or do a little less damage, but disarm them and shove them out of the way?” Either option on the combat tree could be useful, depending on circumstances such as how close to an active objective the target is. The final box for both branches is a Dash, which should help keep the Death Troopers moving to where they’re needed, if you can score the five hits. The expertise charts are fairly solid for a Support Unit, with a Dash at 4+ attack and a Heal at 3+ defense looking especially useful if you can get there.
Shoretroopers
As befits their role in Rogue One as defensive garrison troops, the Shoretroopers will be particularly well suited to guarding objectives. Their Defensive Maneuver active ability gives them a Dash and a Hunker for 1 force, which will keep them moving and enable their Garrison Force innate ability. Meanwhile, For the Empire gives them a way get out of Engaged range from enemy units, but the cost of a Force and an Exposed condition seems a little high, although their defense expertise chart isn’t much to get excited about, so it might not be so bad.
The Garrison Force innate ability is why you’ll want to keep the Shoretroopers in a squad with Director Krennic. As long as they have a hunker token, they get an extra die when they make attacks outside their own activation. The synergy with Krennic’s Deploy the Garrison ability (which gives a Stormtrooper Supporting character a hunker token and a free attack during his activation) should be fairly obvious. This ability also gives the Shoretoopers Steadfast and Protection, which should help them dig in and defend those objective points.
Only Imperial Stormtroopers Are So Precise is the game’s very long-winded way of saying “Sharpshooter [1],” which will help if you’ve got the Shoretroopers parked on an objective, using their activation to focus and make ranged attacks.
Stance
The Shoretroopers’ Garrison Tactics has a very defensive combat tree, with a lot of healing but not a lot of damage. It relies on Pinned and Disarmed conditions to render opposing units less effective rather than damaging them, with a Shove on one branch of the tree in case they’re getting too close. The expertise charts are mediocre but not terrible, adding 2 or 3 extra hits or crits at range, but not much for melee or defense.
Deploying the Garrison
While I’m sure Director Krennic would prefer not to have anyone standing next to him amidst his achievement, in Shatterpoint he’ll need to work with another squad. If you want to use the entire contents of the Deploy the Garrison box, then we’re looking for a Primary and Secondary with 4 squad points to spare, leaving us with either Darth Vader, the Emperor’s Servant and the Stormtrooper Sergeant, or Moff Gideon and the Death Trooper Escort, giving one of them either the Shoretroopers or the Death Troopers in place of their usual Supporting unit.
Darth Vader is a heavy hitter and likely to deal out his fair share of wounds, which would allow Krennic to make good use of his We Stand Here Amist My Achievement to score extra movement and attacks. Additionally, the Stormtrooper Sergeant’s Inexorable Advance tactic ability would work pretty well with the Shoretroopers – their combat tree has a lot of healing to mitigate the damage inflicted by the tactic. And, since the Death Troopers and the Death Trooper Specialist are all Stormtroopers, that’s potentially 3 extra attack dice for any and all of them using the Sergeant’s Coordinated Offensive ability, if you can manage to group all the units so they stay within range 5 of each other.
The Shoretroopers would also make good targets for Moff Gideon’s Long Live the Empire – it would get them closer to a nearby objective, and their combat tree’s healing should help with the damage. Gideon’s You Have Something I Want identity ability would get the Death Trooper Specialist’s melee attack up to a staggering 8 dice.
Of course, in any strike team, Director Krennic’s fearsome presence will have him towering over allies and enemies alike…
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