Welcome back! Today I will continue to go through two-box pairing recommendations for each expansion pack in the game (as of the November releases). If you read part one then you know the drill, and if you haven’t then you should obviously go do that! All of my choices in that article were 100% correct and everyone agreed that my opinions were perfect (don’t fact check me) so it’s well worth your time.
For the uninitiated, the overall premise is simple: what would I say if a new player asks “Hey, I just bought X box, what should I buy next?” Of course, if they had just bought an Xbox I’d tell them that The Witcher 3 is an amazing game and available for good prices these days (gotta get the expansions too!).
Making a cohesive and effective strike team is very important, but that’s not the only consideration here. Ideally, we’d like to match the squads thematically and give a variety of interesting mechanics. We also want to give our hypothetical new player a strong foundation for expanding their collection. We’ll assume we already have the core set since it has several critical game components. Boxes like the You Cannot Run duel pack and the We Don’t Need Their Scum unit pack won’t be considered since they don’t include full squads.
The Jedi Hunters box came out at a weird time. The game was young and focused mainly on the Clone Wars era. Grand Inquisitor & Co. released tri-era units, presumably so that they didn’t have to wait a year for list-building flexibility. While they could make things work with some Clone Wars boxes, we definitely want to pair the inquisitors with some true imperials. The Grand Inquisitor looks at Moff Gideon and says “You have something I want.”
What does Gideon’s box bring? A strong melee buff, movement for support, and a powerful secondary. The inquisitors are very melee-focused, with only the boss himself having ranged attack options. As such, the extra die Moff can give in melee will get a lot of use. Fifth Brother and Fourth Sister also love to be moved around outside of their activation, using their tiebreaking ability to sneakily steal objectives. Both Moff Gideon and the Death Trooper Escort have good ways to move supports. Beyond that, the Death Trooper Escort is just a very good unit generally. Conversely, Reva is not, so you’re getting a big upgrade there if you want to continue building around inquisitors.
Both the Vader and Veers boxes are flexible enough to have a number of good pairings. However, I think they work best together, at least as a jumping-off point for your collection. Both primaries give 7 squad points to the team, but Vader brings a 3pc secondary and 4pc support while Veers brings a 4pc and a 3pc, respectively. In future strike teams, Vader could take the snowtroopers and a 4pc secondary of choice, or Veers could take the Stormtrooper Sergeant and a 4pc support of choice. Furthermore, both boxes love stormtrooper synergy, so why not go all-in on that?
The sergeant is a key piece of mutual synergy here – the snows enjoy the extra dice from Coordinated Offensive while the sergeant himself is a bit slow and likes to be dashed up with Veers’ Prepare for a Surface Attack at the start of the game. Speaking of slow units, Veers is not all that fast himself, so an extra dash via Vader murder spree is something that he enjoys greatly.
A good third box here would be Moff Gideon’s crew. Vader likes the extra melee die and his aforementioned murder dash (Perhaps I Can Find New Ways to Motivate Them) helps the Moff get into position to utilize his tiebreaker. The Death Trooper Escort also has the Stormtrooper tag, furthering our synergy in that aspect.
Note that Maximum Firepower will not release until November 2024.
As this is our first rebel pairing, it bears mention here: rebel two-box pairings are tricky. The heroes of the rebellion show up in multiple places. We have three Leias, two Lukes, two Hans and two Chewies. Luke loves to be moved around out of activation, and Princess Leia, Charming to the Last helps a lot there. However, her box creates conflicts in two spots: double Luke and double Leia. Once we expand beyond two box pairings things get a bit easier, but for this exercise rebels are a bit restricted.
Being unable to take either of the primary-variant Leias, Han is our next best choice here as a way to open up movement options for Luke. Luke is also a character who can generate lots of force for Han to spend, gaining momentum via Let’s Keep a Little Optimism Here. Chewie is a solid piece and rebel commandos are a staple of the faction, so those are both good pickups. We also end up with a fairly thematic strike team featuring many of our favourite original trilogy characters.
If you really want to build around Luke, then Kanan’s box is not a bad buy either. Ezra is a strong secondary who keys off of the force user tag, making him a great substitute for the worst Leia version, Boushh. Spectres help alleviate the repeat character issue as well, assuming you’re open to being a bit less thematic.
What am I going to do, not recommend the two Ewok boxes together? If you are already buying teddy bears, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to buy more teddy bears. With three primaries and three secondaries across the two boxes, you’ll have a number of different lists available without any additional expansions.
Competitively speaking, top Ewok lists don’t actually involve a lot of Ewoks. They mainly focus on taking rebels with the scout or warrior tags (such as Chewie, commandos, and Zeb) and then turning them into Ewoks (via Leia) for Logray to synergize with. Oh, would you look at that! We still need both Leia and Logray! However you want to lean into Ewoks, those are the two main characters you’ll want which brings us back to these two boxes as a starting point.
In part 1, I passed up this pairing for Cad in favour of Count Dooku’s box. However, with Mando, I don’t think there’s a better option than Cad. We’ll get a relatively fun and synergistic list out of the box, though the eras aren’t ideal. Luckily, the Bounty Hunter supports are tri-era, ranging from Age of Rebellion to Fall of the Jedi (the technical name for the Clone Wars era). As we expand to try more bounty hunter lists then these guys will be quite handy.
For future boxes, I’m sure you’ll want to grab the bounty hunter secondary box, We Don’t Need Their Scum, at some point. However, they are all secondaries in the Age of Rebellion era, so we’ll need a second primary from that era to make a proper list. Lando could work here since he likes scoundrels, but I’ll recommend the This is Some Rescue box. Princess Leia, Charming to the Last is a very good unit that brings a lot of abilities that are tag-agnostic. Han & Chewie are also a 5pc support that can be swapped out for IG-11 if he doesn’t quite float your boat.
I’ve mentioned Moff Gideon’s box a couple of times so far in relation to other boxes, but my favourite pairing for him is Thrawn. Thrawn’s box has a number of similarities to the Grand Inquisitor box: strong melee characters, a replaceable secondary, and lots of movement shenanigans. So why does Thrawn win the spot here as my preferred Gideon pairing? Well, I just find him to be a more interesting unit than Grand Inquisitor. Moff’s box is good, but it can be a bit boring. Good stats, but not necessarily lots of flashy plays. Thrawn brings tricksiness to spice things up. The randomness of his battle tactics reinforces the key Shatterpoint aspect of doing the most with what the deck gives you, so there’s a good learning element there.
With Moff and Thrawn, you have two of the best Imperial boxes and you’re set up extremely well to continue expanding your collection. Moff and Grand Inquisitor are fine, but I believe it’s a weaker starting point, relatively speaking.
I usually err on the side of theme here, but I can’t bring myself to say Han’s best box pairing is Ee Chee Wa Maa! or even Fearless and Inventive. Instead, we’ll mix movies and TV with a Han/Kanan crossover. Kanan is just really, really good, and Spectres avoid the repeat name issues that plague rebel boxes. This box pairing will let you play a good and interesting strike team right away while also providing flexible options for expansion. We could pick up almost any other rebel box and reuse a lot of the pieces we already have.
Iden, Thrawn, and Moff Gideon are all great, foundational boxes for an empire collection. I’ve chosen to pair up Iden and Thrawn specifically because in some regards they represent some of the extremes in the faction; Iden is peak “guns go brrrrt” for maximum wound potential while Thrawn arguably brings more shenanigans than any other imperial. Kallus is a bit of a weak spot here since he fits better in rebel lists, but using your third purchase on the You Have Something I Want pack will give Thrawn the Death Trooper Escort. Iden’s box relies heavily on the scout tag which keeps it fairly self-contained, but still able to pair with anything imperial.
I could recommend Thrawn or Iden as a paring for pretty much any imperial box in this article. Luckily, or unluckily for your opponents, they also work well together, giving you a strong starting strike team before continuing on your imperial journey.
Much like the Ewoks, how can I resist recommending the two Spectre boxes together? It’s not only super thematic, but you get a very good strike team. One tip though: swap Zeb to Hera’s squad and Chopper to Kanan’s squad. Opponents will often stack conditions on Zeb instead of wounding him since he can kind of ignore the wound. Hera offers heals galore to keep Zeb effective, plus extra cover at range, where he is weaker defensively. Chopper is more self-sufficient, being immune to half the conditions and having innate protection to reduce damage. He can also go through long stretches where he simply can’t be shot, making Hera’s cover bubble less useful.
Anyway, that was quite a sidetrack. A lot of my lists these days keep the core of Kanan/Ezra/Something with Something/Sabine/Chopper. Rebel commandos often fill the last support slot, then the primary slot can be flavoured to taste with Charming Leia, Han, Mando, or even a classic Hera! (Though with Hera I’d recommend having the commandos on her side).
Don’t overthink this: if you are getting one Spectre box, get the other. This is probably the easiest two-box pairing I’ve done.
Remember the rebel repeat-character issues I’ve been talking about? Yeah, that gets super awkward with This is Some Rescue. Because the box features nothing but named heroes, three rebel boxes are off-limits in this exercise! When in doubt, Kanan is a good rebel recommendation, but he isn’t a fan of Han & Chewie being non-rebel. Instead, we’ll look to a more thematic pairing: Lando.
Lando loves scoundrels. Han & Chewie are a strong scoundrel support, albeit expensive at 5pc. Leia is also a great primary for scoundrels since she doesn’t care too much about tags. She has one ability that prefers rebels or spies, but Lando can help there. Lobot also pairs fantastically with Leia. Put him in her squad and she can start the game by advancing within range 2 of Lobot, getting a focus for free, then getting a dash. Han & Chewie are also strong targets for Lobot’s Security Network ability.
Leia and Lando are both great primaries for leaning into the scoundrel keyword, and their two-box pairing makes a fine strike team on its own. Just note that What Have We Here will not release until November 2024.
Crosshair’s box is the most restrictive era-wise in the game. He and his team can only go in the Reign of the Empire era, which has the fewest units, leaving them relatively inflexible when it comes to mixing and matching. Firebrand and the Elite Squad Troopers both bring Galactic Empire tag synergy, so we’ll lean in that direction. As such, I’ve chosen the Grand Inquisitor box here. The main consideration is eras; the inquisitors bring an imperial flavour to the Reign of the Empire era, adding mix-and-match flexibility as you look to expand your collection.
Want to give Empire Coordinated Fire: Expose but don’t care too much for Crosshair? Slap them under Grand Inquisitor (Fifth Brother or Fourth Sister could go in the other squad, since they are available in the Age of Rebellion, to maintain Inquisitor synergy). Want a replacement for Reva? Firebrand is more than adequate. You could certainly pair Crosshair with other imperial boxes, such as Iden, Thrawn, or Moff Gideon, but you’d be stuck running his box as-in until you pick up the Grand Inquisitor pack.
Beyond era considerations, the inquisitors bring a melee focus to complement the ranged abilities of Crosshair’s team. Crosshair particularly wants his allies to be engaged so he can damage them for more dice.
This is probably the only time in this article where I can actually utilize the core set. The Armourer’s box pairs very well with the core set Mandos, particularly a squad such as Maul/Bo-Katan/Super Commandos. Since we have a competitive list taken care of, I’m free to go purely thematic with the second box here. Do you like mandos? How about you take THE Mandalorian? Sure, Greef and IG-11 are a little awkward here, but you know you want to run Mando with the rest of his people. Armourer/Mando works well enough for a thematic list and, if you want a competitive list, Maul and the core set mandos have you covered.
Note that This is the Way is not available until November 2024.
Boom! It took two articles, but now we’ve got pairings for every single unit box released through 2024. For the imperials, it’s honestly tough to wrong. Iden, Moff Gideon, and Thrawn are all great boxes to pair with your imperial box of choice. The rebels struggle a little with certain heroes repeating multiple times, but Kanan is a fantastic box to get around that fact. He and Ezra are a powerful combination, and the squad lacks anyone named Luke, Leia, Han, or Chewbacca. If you just bought the core set and want one singular expansion then check out the This is the Way box in November.
I know my choices are 100% correct, but what are the second-best options for each box? What two-box teams do you enjoy running the most?
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1 Response
A really interesting article! Please keep them coming!