Guri, Black Sun Enforcer, from Shadows





Guri's one of those pieces that has quite a few things going for her - while she's not the heaviest hitter as a shooter, she has some ways to boost her damage with protective and assassin. As a follower, a Human Replica Droid, and a Black Sun Vigo, she's subject to a plethora of commander effects. She also has Stealth and a decent stack of hit points. Most interesting of all, arguably, she's the only fringe piece with Sensors, which makes her an interesting pairing for a character like Arica with Blaster Barrage. Other synergies are obviously with different Xizors - she can gain +4 +10 from Imperial Entanglements Xizor - but she's arguably best with the Xizor from the same set, who's tough enough as a front line fighter to benefit from Decoy, while he gives her accurate and extra attack. The Talon Karrde, Guri, and 55 point Xizor combo is already 125 points, so it's not necessarily a top tier build, but it does make Guri into a formidable shooter. There are a lot of options for Guri, and there's probably something very good somewhere, but right now it seems that she's just expensive enough where she might fall outside competitive play, 7/10.

I certainly remember him being quite invaluable at the start of the game. Just a base +2 attack is pretty decent for troopers.

If you're playing troopers, use Commander Luke, and this guy can hide in a locked room.

Jodo Kast, from Destiny of the Force





Shooters often dominate this game, but Jodo Kast certainly doesn't. As a fringe follower he's subject to plenty of boosts - he can pick up Greater Mobile Attack from a TBSV and he can pick up Twin from a few different places - but at 38 points, you're much better going with something that works straight out of the box like Dash Renegade Smuggler or Cad Bane. If you specifically want a unique cunning attacker with double and easy access to twin, Rohlan Dyre for 24 points is a much better deal; while he's missing Evade and Bounty Hunter, he's still better value for the cost with built-in Greater Mobile and Beskar'gam. Virulent Poison Dart's an interesting option, but difficult to utilise given that it replaces turn, has range 6, and it doesn't affect droids - it's handy, but it's not going to get much use. Obviously as an easily boostable shooter with Evade, Jodo Kast is a competent piece in the overall scheme of things, but there are so many better options that he's irrelevant, 6/10.

Captain Mar Tuuk, from Galaxy at War





So basically the Imperials got a version of San Hill with Ozzel, then the Separatists got an equivalent to Grand Moff Tarkin with Mar Tuuk; a tempo control piece who requires line of sight to an enemy piece to function. But while Grand Moff Tarkin can be very useful in some situations - he can allow three activations on a won initiative, and he can be bought in to a matchup as required via Pellaeon - Mar Tuuk is a less useful piece overall. He is excellent in some situations - if you can position him safely after outactivating your opponent, you can set up for extra activations at the start of the next - but as you're unlikely to outactivate an opponent who's running conventional tempo control, he's too situational to be reliable. Perhaps Mar Tuuk's most interesting facet is that he works in tandem with San Hill - so you can run San Hill to outactivate your opponent, then kill San Hill with a Tactics Broker or at least use Mar Tuuk to get around the fact that San Hill's CE is detrimental once you engage, but that requires tying 1/8th of a 200 point squad up in tempo control.

Tempo control is one of the strongest elements of the game, but Captain Mar Tuuk isn't one of its strongest practitioners. Even so, tempo control is so useful that I wouldn't rule out the possibility of someone figuring out a way to make him a competitive option, 6/10.

Veteran Ugnaught, from Scum and Villainy





Door control's crucial, and Shatter Beam is a powerful door mechanic - you can remove any door within line of sight. So Fringe Shatter Beam is definitely a useful ability - especially for low activation squads that want to get the doors open and engage. But even so, 15 points feels on the high side for a piece that has little else going for it - the Veteran Ugnaught is fragile at 30 hit points, and its other abilities are relatively unexciting and can be found on cheaper pieces. Even at 15 points, a significant cost for Lobot reinforcements because you can only bring one other piece in with it, Shatter Beam can be a worthwhile option for some squads, but I think it could have been 11-12 points without any problems, 6/10.

Captain Tarpals, from Knights of the Old Republic





The Republic is the game's deepest faction, and Tarpals is one of the reasons why - his CE makes any Fringe or Republic follower with a replaces attacks ability twice as effective. Gungan Artillerists, Dr Evazan, Momaw Nadon, Klat Black Sun Vigos with Grenades 30, and Blizz are all examples of pieces who get their attacking prowess super-charged with Tarpals' CE. Urbanjedi took this assortment of Tarpals related pieces to the top 4 at the NY Regional last year (Tarpals comes in via Boss Nass's reinforcements).



Tarpals is a very strong commander - at 20 points and with a rangeless CE, he's a steal, even if he's a negligible attacker for 20 points. He's strong enough to anchor competitive squads, so that makes him an 11/10.

A fun piece to play and one of my wife's favourites, but why no pilot? Would have really helped her out and she was the star main character of Jedi Starfighter. On that note she should have had burst lighting too. Maybe we will get a pilot version of her one day or at least a Nym with camaraderie to hand out pilot to her.

Adi was in my top 4 squad from the IN regional. She performed pretty well, although I agree that there could be a better option. Pairing her with Cin and giving her Makashi basically gives you a piece with SSM in a sense as she has shien and picks up makashi from Cin. Strong, but not super crazy.

I was vacillating between a 7 and an 8, and I could definitely go either way.