Dewback Rider – Unit Guide

This article is a unit guide for Dewback Riders in Star Wars Legion.

Are you tired of B1’s running all over the place? Call 1-800-Dewback today to order your very own lizard camel to deal with those pesky droids. Dewback Riders are an amazing unit in the Imperial roster. They are inexpensive and synergize with powerful Imperial units like Darth Vader. Dewback Riders are well-rounded and in a great position in the current meta. In this article, I will first give an overview of Dewback Riders, then cover the best upgrades, and end with some strategy and potential armies you can run them in! Original article by Lucas Ustick with updates to Legion 2.6 by Evan “Doc Velo” Paul.

Strengths

• Cost: only 70 points
• Speed
• Large melee dice pool (goodbye droids)
• Tanky: Armor 1 and 6 health with red saves
• Relentless

Weaknesses

• Suppression
• Reliant on Spur for speed

Overview

Points 70:

Dewback Riders are 70 points with no upgrades and only cost 75 points total when upgraded with the T-21 or 80 when upgraded with the flame rifle. They are extremely inexpensive considering what they bring. Because of their low cost, you can easily fit 2-3 Dewback Riders in a single army while still having multiple other strong units in your army. At this cost, Dewback Riders are one of the more efficient units in the entire Imperial roster, which explains their current popularity.

Offense:

Dewback Riders have Surge to Hit and the melee weapon profile Razor Claws & Shock Prod which has 3 red dice, 3 white dice, Critical 2, and Suppressive. Unaimed, this attack averages 3.75 hits and averages 4.63 hits with tenacity. This is a solid melee base profile. Armament upgrades give the Dewback Rider ranged weapon profiles which I will go into more detail in the upgrades section. Overall, the Dewback is decent at range and deadly in melee, while also being quick and elusive due to the keyword Relentless.

Defense:

Dewback Riders have 6 health with red saves giving them 12 effective wounds. This is further augmented by Armor 1, which will often shave one hit off every incoming attack. Notably, Armor 1 still protects Dewbacks in melee, giving them extra defense when engaged. Armor 1 and heavy cover, combined, removes 3 hits off any incoming attack, making them difficult to wound when in cover.

Utility/Support:

Dewback Riders have no support abilities, they are purely fighters who support your army by applying pressure to opposing units. The main way they can support an army, is by tying up opposing ranged units in melee, so they cannot shoot your other units.

In Legion 2.6 they have gained more of a utility role as flankers, since they are fairly fast and hearty they can close in on an enemy’s weak side to cause quite a bit of trouble around a less-well-guarded POI.

Mobility:

Dewbacks are only speed 1 but this is deceiving since they are quite fast in reality. Spur 1 plus their medium-sized base makes them move farther than range 1 per move. This means you can double-move and engage any units at range 2 and nearly range 3. This is a huge threat range. The one drawback is the suppression you must take to move at this speed. This suppression is typically mitigated once engaged since you do not receive suppression from melee attacks. One unique combo that makes Dewbacks especially fast and deadly, is the combination of Darth Vader’s two-pip command card New Ways to Motivate Them (NWTMT). This card allows you to take free action if the unit suffers a wound, allowing the Dewback to move three times in one turn. Three moves in a single turn raises your engagement range nearly range 4!

Compel is another ability that helps Dewbacks get to where they need to go. They are only Courage 2 after all, so with all the spurring it’s going to be pretty likely they’ll at least be suppressed fairly often. Luckily for Empire players, this keyword received a boost when Director Krennic got a new and improved unit card that shored up his weaknesses and renewed his status as the “ideal” Dewback commander.

Upgrades

Training:

Training is the most competitive upgrade slot for Dewback Riders. Note that Endurance used to be a popular choice but since many Imperial lists have access to Compel (Krennic) and infinite courage (Vader) it’s better to concentrate on upgrades that actually make the Dewback better in combat.

Into the Fray extends the life of Dewbacks by giving them surge tokens once they get into the…fray. It can easily be the difference between death and lasting another turn, which can be game-changing.

Tenacity adds roughly an extra hit to each melee attack. Because Dewback Riders are a single-model unit with multiple wounds you can easily trigger Tenacity. Tenacity is only 4 points and makes them deadlier in melee. The Darth Vader command card I mentioned earlier, New Ways to Motivate Them, synergizes great with Tenacity since it gives you a wound.

Comms:

I often leave the Comms upgrade slot empty, but if you have the points to spare there are still some alright upgrade options.

This upgrade is cheap and gives you handy access to take advantage of opponents who are going to try to activate a unit early and withdraw away from the Dew. Since this gives you a face-up, you can reply by crashing right back into that unit that ran away immediately after your opponent acts. Or, if you get to activate first, you can just finish the opposing unit off before it can cause trouble, then move into a different melee.

If you are having difficulties with order control, HQ Uplink can help shore up that shortcoming. HQ Uplink is expensive, so I only recommend it if the army you are running relies on good order control.

Then, of course, there’s the upgrade that ASSUMES you won’t have order control. If you have the spare points, this is essentially a way to increase the power of the attack you’ll make when you crash into the enemy by getting an aim token without the need for an action (once per game per Dewback of course).

Armament:

The CR-24 is the most expensive Armament option at 10 points, and for the first time since this unit was released the most expensive option is likely the best one. This gun used to be Range 1 only but has been changed to match other flamethrowers by being Range 1 OR Melee. This is huge because it allows you to do what Dewbacks want to do anyway (do damage while safely engaged with enemy troopers, thus avoiding ranged attacks) but with some CHOICES baby! That choice boils down to this: should you use the flamethrower on your opponent or should you just bite him?

Here’s the shortcut: barring an acute need to attack with either critical or suppressive (you get both via the “Bite”) it’s better to use the flamethrower if the opposing unit has 4 minis in it or more. If it’s three or less, just start chompin’.

RT-97C Blaster Rifle

The RT-97C has the longest range out of the three options. It costs 5 points and brings an average of 2 hits per attack. Long-range shooting is much less necessary in the modern game however, and if the goal is to have a Support unit that can do so then it’s much more efficient to just use Range Troopers for such a task. Dewbacks were meant to get in the fray dangit!

T-21 Blaster Rifle

The T-21 used to be the clear go-to weapon for the Dewback since it would push damage through cover but now it’s honestly roughly equivalent in value to the RT-97, perhaps a bit more still for the simple reason of having some game against armor at range. Still, I generally think that the flamethrower is a more consistent choice. Prior versions of Legion were much more about slowly chipping away at your enemy over the course of several turns but this iteration is no more. Units need to get onto objectives quickly and have appreciable effects on the opponent…a 4 dice gun that is all or mostly white dice is just not going to be enough to justify the cost.

How to Play

Dewback Riders are strong in melee and difficult to kill since they have Armor 1 and red saves. The engagement range of Dewback Riders is roughly range ~2.5 (two spurred moves). If a Dewback double moves at the end of a turn and then double moves again at the beginning of the next turn, the unit can cover roughly range ~5. This is a massive threat range and makes it so you can quickly switch from ranged chip shots to melee. As I mentioned before, New Ways to Motivate Them also extends the threat range of Dewback Riders to nearly range ~4 (three spurred moves). Notably Dewback Riders struggle against force users since they have large dice pools and 2-3 pierce in melee. When fighting a force user it is sometimes better to take a dodge action instead of an aim since dodge + armor 1 shaves off two hits each attack making it so your Dewback can potentially survive 3 attacks instead of 2.

Generally, your Dewbacks will want to dive POI’s that have the units least likely to fight back with much success, and you’ll want to dive into units that have already activated to eliminate the risk of them withdrawing afterward. Your opponent obviously needs to contest POI’s to win, so whether that means your Dew is going to crash into would-be-attackers or hit your opponent’s weaker side is going to depend on the game state at the time. I stress the importance of picking your destination carefully because, while hearty, a Dewback IS gonna go down to focus fire. It’s not gonna have surge tokens until it gets close enough for Into The Fray so 12 hits (fewer if piercing) is going to kill it on average.

Once you’re in there, it’s worth remembering that creature troopers can now withdraw (which used to be your whole activation but is now just an action) and attack during the same activation, which can be useful in some circumstances such as when you really need to contest a POI but are already engaged. That said, they still can’t withdraw and get engaged in a different melee in the same activation, so if you DO withdraw you’re going to be vulnerable to shooting until the next round at least.

List Building (for Legion 2.6)

Many (most?) Imperial lists benefit from Compel anyway and Dewbacks are certainly in that category. That said, they can still panic so you have to be careful…unless of course they have an infinite courage commander around.

Here is Josh “Fluffysaurus” runner-up list at the 2024 NOVA GT that feature both of the above, as well as medics who can help prevent the early death of Dewbacks who are shot early (which is quite likely, since they’re probably the best targets for early long-range sniping in this list).

You can also consider Death Troopers with DT-F16 for a source of Compel but Krennic is generally going to be a more common choice.

Conclusions

Dewbacks have had a bit of a roller coaster in the games history, where they were at first an exciting new unit type that quickly faded to obscurity when the reality of suppression became evident, then re-surged again after points drops, then faded again when it was clear that the Empire pretty much needed to play Blizzard Force to stay relevant. Now all that is in the past again, and the advent of a new type of Legion where fixed points on the field always matter (POI’s) this lumbering brute has a clearly defined role, perhaps for the first time in its history. Has the age of the Dewback begun?

We shall have to see.