Rapid Reactions: Ewoks (Bright Tree Village Battleforce)

Ewoks have been revealed.

In September 2021 we watched the first Ministravaganza. We were told about Battleforces and mercenaries for the very first time, as well as Ahsoka (no, not that one apparently) and, surprisingly to most of us…Ewoks.

That was almost two years ago now. Ewoks have been something of a campaign promise from Atomic Mass, the culmination of their ground-up design philosophy brought to full bore in a completely-AMG designed Battleforce (the original five were partially carried over from Fantasy Flight) and it’s sure to get a lot of folks excited.

I’ll save my solipsistic soliloquys on both Ewok Hunt mode in Battlefront II and the perfection of slapstick horror as well as my thesis for why Ewoks: The Battle For Endor was in fact the first film in the still-burgeoning “Grim-Dark Star Wars” genre in an upcoming article about Battleforce Canon, for now I’m sure you want to just get to the cards and the force org, which seems to have been revealed in all its glory this week.

Logray was first on the list, previously only shown in model form. If Threepio (previously spoiled at Adepticon) is the pure-support commander, and Wicket is the go-get-em type, Logray is the toolbox. His keywords (Nimble and Low Profile) mean that he’ll last longer than a generic Rebel/Empire commander but not by a ton, at 4 health with white saves he’s always going to be one triple-aimed Inferno Squad shot from utter annihilation, but his dodged-up buddies are usually going to be more of a distraction. Aid and Independent alone will allow him to keep his little friends stuffed to the cheeks with tokens but he also comes with his own set of unique upgrades to help him out there.

Secret Ingredients is the no-thought auto include since it makes Aid both free and 6-tokens more useful throughout the game. From there some players may choose to take Forest Dwellers or Situational Awareness but if they want to go full theme they can make him a medic who can recharge with recovers (Herbal Medicine) or use him to get extra moves on his troops if you can predict the turn when you’re gonna get some unit kills. I do think this latter card (Onward to Victory) feels a bit on the weak end for 10 points, 1-2 sorta-free speed 1 moves to line up with full kills is just a bit too combo-ish in my opinion, you’re often going to either not get kills at all or get kills outside of the card’s 1-turn activation window.

Logray doesn’t have any unique command cards unfortunately, I suppose he’s the “generic” of Bright Tree Village, but he does get to use the below cards which are quite nifty. This of course includes that very nifty Log Trap that’s more powerful than an AT-AT and Recusant-class Destroyer.

When I saw that this was going to be extent of the releases involving Ewoks, I will admit I was a little sad that it didn’t include a 3-mini support unit of hang-gliders that will crash with a bad sneeze but we may be in luck in the future in that department. How do I know? Well, they showed the world the whole document!

Battle Furce

The elephant in the room turned out to merely be a pink one as we are left beyond a doubt now that Luke Skywalker won’t be showing his face at all in this Battleforce, which is otherwise made up of exactly the creatures and characters you’d think of first…except, strangely, R2. Han, Chewie, and Leia all showed up though, which actually gives us a massive number of texted command cards to choose from. If you play the right uniques, that number rounds out to 23 command cards aside from the basic 1-4 pips. It’s appropriate that this is the case in an army that has literally no access to contingencies when we’re talking about easily distractible diminutive ursines, good luck picking the 6 you actually want!

It’s the rank requirements that, as I hinted at earlier, made me scratch my head a bit about what’s in the future. The top three categories aren’t particularly shocking, hero hammer and the kinda-expected 6+3 Corps to Special Forces ratio mean that you can combine the uniques with swarm all in one hirsute package. The bottom half is what interests me. It’s entirely possible that we’ll never see another Ewok expansion, but two Support units stands out a bit more than the usual three that we see here. I’d bet you those gliders will show up eventually. More puzzling to me though is the Heavy slot. Why two? Are we going to get a mind-controlled Gorax? Ewok Dark Troopers? I really hope it wasn’t a mere oversight because the mind abounds! For the meantime, we “just” have regular Chewbacca, who we’ve seen before but I wanted to add a bit of a fun detail too.

Leia doesn’t exactly see major play at the moment so you’ll be forgiven if you don’t but, remember what her card with “Chewbacca” is?

Look at the card, then look at the AT-ST. Making the connection? I’ll admit I hadn’t even thought about it until my jank-hungry brother mentioned it, but Rebels join the club of having access to their very own massive “fire support” piercing attack, only this one doesn’t require flipping any tokens. Let’s go to the numbers (click for appropriate music).

Leia’s pistol combined with “Chewbacca’s” Twin Blaster cannon combines for 5 black dice, 2 red, and 2 white for a total of 9 with sharpshooter 2, surging crit, impact 3, and pierce 1 which Chewie (probably, rules pending) doesn’t even need to have arc on the target for, because rules. You can then follow up next activation with a shot from Chewie itself, which is of course a surging-crit triple rainbow with impact 4. That’s enough to (in all) do an average of 6 wounds to red-save armor and pretty much obliterate everything else that isn’t a Jedi with dodges. What’s extra funny is that since Chewie doesn’t actually make an attack with Leia’s card coming into play, he doesn’t actually lose incognito by contributing if he hasn’t already broken it, which could end up being pretty hilarious.

So yeah…between this and the utility of her new 2-Pip with Wicket I think it’s honestly kind-of-expected that we’re gonna see Leia-centric lists that don’t have No Time For Sorrows. In other words…

A Time For Sorrows

We knew from prior streams there was going to be some kind of risk to pair with the above rewards, and it’s a doozy.

The first one isn’t so bad and for some it may even reduce the internal drive to dive in and buy a full nine boxes of Ewoks to field a whole stinkin army with em. I personally find the slingers a bit lackluster so I think two squads of full commandos would fit nicely with an otherwise all-melee core of corps. It’s that second part that makes things interesting.

So yeah, Ewoks don’t lose suppression at the end of the turn like everybody else does, lasers are scary after all! We should have had a clue when a damn AT-ST came packaged with Inspire 3, but when you combine that with Leia and Logray you’ve already got enough Inspire in your army to take care of that many tokens, assuming you draw the orders at the right time to do so. Endurance is expensive as a per-unit upgrade, but Lead by Example really isn’t so bad and that fits nicely onto Logray or Leia, the only downside being that you want to use Inspire late and token generation early. C’est la vie, I’m sure they’ll be fine, but they’d best watch out for any Ewoks holding a “Recover the Supplies” box at the edge of the map at the game’s end. Two ineffectual sniper shots would be enough to make them panic and lose that VP with little effort at all!

Here’s my basic first “stab” at a list that’s mostly focused on getting the Ewoks into melee by threatening with range first and distracting opponents while your real killers slink in from the jungle. Everyone except Logray has pierce, although those It feels pretty weird to run a bunch of corps alongside big full-armor, but as I mentioned at the top…Ewoks.

A New Storm on the Horizon

Blizzard Force may well have thawed with the recent update but we still haven’t heard a word about the Battle Force due to release alongside Bright Tree, “Tempest Force” (Empire). Will Empire’s third Battle Force have commands this time? We know from streams that it will have its own unique unit, presumably General Weiss in his own AT-ST to have fun fights against Chewie, but it’s otherwise been a mystery. Since I might as well guess, he’s what I’d bet will be eligible for it:

• Commanders: Generic Officer “Ruth/Maggie,” Iden, Weiss (in his AT-ST), one slot
• Corps: Stormtroopers, 6 slots
• Operatives: None, no bounty hunters allowed on the secret base!
• Special Forces: Inferno Squad, ISF, Full Scouts, maybe one strike per full scout…four slots?
• Support: Bikes and bikes and bikes…and bikes? It’ll be pretty hilarious if Blizzard has more than the force that made the vehicle “famous” Minimum 1 probably.
• Heavy: AT-ST, 1-3 for giggles

What doy ou think of Bright Tree and what do you hope is next? Let us know in the comments, and thanks for the read!