Wookiee Defenders – Battleforce Guide

This article will serve as the guide to the Wookiee Defenders Battleforce for Star Wars: Legion.

We’ll go over some overall strengths and weaknesses of the Wookiee Defenders battleforce, special rules, the force organization chart, the unit cards, and some list ideas. We’ll also go over the “Wookiee generic” command cards; though not strictly unique to the battleforce, they fit neatly into it (as you would expect for Wookiee specific command cards) and should be part of your plan when running a Wookiee Defenders battleforce.

Strengths

• Lots of beef (or fur, if you prefer)
• Unique Fluttercraft unit
• Strong objective play
• Mobile

Weaknesses

• Expensive units
• Lower activation counts
• Low unit variety

Battleforce Special Rules

Despite the sparse text in this bit compared to its droid counter, there is actually quite a bit to unpack here.

First, a Wookiee Defenders battleforce is part of the Republic faction. That should be fairly obvious from the unit roster, but a lot of the units on this roster can also be Rebel units (the Wookiees and Chewie, specifically) so it’s worth noting.

Second, Wookiee Warriors (Noble Fighters, that’s the melee one) count as corps for the purposes of army building and battle cards. Basically this means you can use melee Wookiees to fill out your corps slots. You can also use them as a hostage carrier on hostage exchange, since they count as a corps for battle cards. This will inherently make nearly any Wookiee Defenders great at hostage. Not only is your hostage unit likely to be substantially beefier than your opponent’s, it also benefits from the next special rule quite a bit…

Third, the first time a mini in each Wookiee unit is defeated each round, they get to make a free speed-1 move. As Wookiees take casualties, they get free moves! This has myriad uses, from simply keeping the Furvalanche going towards your opponent to popping out of sight to avoid further shots.

Lastly, your army must include at least three Wookiee Trooper units. This seems sort of hard not to do with the way the unit roster plays out, but I guess it’s technically possible? If you aren’t taking at least three Wookiees though, what are you even doing here?

Force Organization and Unit Roster

Wookiees! Wookiee Defenders is supposed to represent the Republic(ish) forces that defended Kashyyk from the droid assault on said Wookiee Homeworld. What about the droid attack on the Wookiees?!?

Commander

One to two commanders. This has to be either the Chieftain, Yoda, or Chewie. Sorry, no generic clone commanders.

Yoda

Yoda was, of course, famously at the battle of Kashyyk, one of the primary reasons he didn’t fall victim to Order 66. In Legion, Yoda is a ridiculously flexible piece that opens a giant decision tree and excels at most objectives, with an extreme premium cost to match. The restrictive roster of expensive pieces makes it more difficult to field Yoda here, but not impossible. You are probably tapped out at about 8 activations if you take Yoda in a Wookiee Defenders list, but that kind of activation count isn’t the struggle it used to be.

Upgrades to consider: Force Push, Burst of Speed, Force Reflexes, Guidance, Jedi Mind Trick, Force Barrier, Vigilance

Chewbacca

Republic Chewie is not as flexible as his Rebel counterpart with respect to Guardian, but he has crazy synergy with Yoda (Size Matters Sometimes blows open that Yoda decision tree even further) and he is also a Wookiee Trooper Commander, which means he can utilize the special Republic Wookiee generic command cards. He’s ten points cheaper than the Wookiee Chieftain for a similar role, giving him some utility even when not running Yoda.

Upgrades to consider: Protector (with Yoda), Tenacity, Recon Intel

Wookiee Chieftain

Viewed as an interesting piece for the cost on his release, the Wookiee Chieftain is among the many characters with a small/medium dicepool and no Sharpshooter that has aged poorly with the 23′ cover changes. He’s still pretty durable, especially when on the move, and his melee profile is decent. You have to have a commander, and if you don’t want to save some points with Chewie you could do worse than this guy.

Upgrades to consider: Improvised Orders (if running Flutters), Offensive Push, Tenacity, Situational Awareness

Special Forces

Note that Wookiee Warriors (Noble Fighters, aka melee Wookiees) count as corps for army building purposes here, so I’ll include them in the corps section.

Basically this means you get 0-4 ranged Wookiees (in your special forces slot) and 3-6 melee Wookiees (in your corps slot). You can also take up to one full ARC as one of your four special forces units.

Wookiee Warriors (Kashyyk Defenders)

If you want something in your list that shoots things besides Fluttercraft, ranged Wookiees are basically your option. They’re still decent with a bowcaster, and they do have Sharpshooter 1 to downgrade that pesky cover, but most of their pool is white dice which makes them a bit of a slot machine. They need a way to get aim tokens, which they don’t particularly have in this battleforce with no access to Exemplar.

One thing the battleforce does offer them is the ability to pop back behind a line of sight blocker if they take heat on return fire (assuming they lose a model) which is a nice consolation prize for the lack of aim support.

Upgrades to consider: Bowcaster Wookiee, Offensive Push, Recon Intel

ARC Troopers

Full ARCs are a hard sell in a list with no Boil, no Echo, and no Exemplar, but ranged attackers are definitely hard to come by in this battleforce, so they do fill a weakness there. Amusingly, they can also benefit from the tokens on the Wookiee generic one pip (since that doesn’t specific Wookiee Trooper for the target) but that is fairly edge case.

The only way to get your ARCs surge access would be to also take a Phase II clone trooper unit, and then at that point are you even running a Wookiee list?

Upgrades to consider: DC-15 ARC Trooper

Corps

Here’s the beef. You need 3-6 corps, but of course melee Wookiees count for that. This is where most of the meat of your list is going to come from.

Wookiees took a big hit with the vertical movement changes (and the resulting massive nerf to Scale) in the 23′ CRB update, but the free moves you get in the Wookiee Defenders battleforce, and the ability to saturate them with the org chart might just put them back on the map.

If there is one thing Wookiees like besides ripping arms off, its moving (to get closer to the bodies those arms are attached to).

There are a couple of different ways to field your melee Wookiees in this battleforce; naked with just Tenacity (for 75 points) as just a pure melee rush list, or with some combination of heavy weapons (either the bowcaster or the shield). The Sharpshooter-less ranged 2 pool of Wookiees with the bowcaster has lost some luster but is still servicable.

Alternatively, consider the shield Wookiee. Five points cheaper than the bowcaster, it makes your Wookiees a lot tougher, especially once they get close and don’t really have to move. Impact and critical weapons are also fairly rare in melee, meaning once they get stuck in your battle shield wookiees will be much harder to dislodge. They also make a great hostage unit.

Upgrades to consider: Tenacity, Offensive Push, Into the Fray, Bowcaster Wookiee, Battle Shield Wookiee, Recon Intel

Phase II Clone Troopers

I know it’s a Wookiee battleforce, but there were some clones on Kashyyk. Phase IIs seem to fit a bit of an awkward spot on this roster, with a price point almost exactly halfway between a naked Wookiee and a Wookiee with a heavy when outfitted with the Z-6.

If you want Fire Support, Phase IIs are your only option. The Wookiee Defenders roster actually has quite a few things on it that want to be fire supported (Ranged Wookiees, Fluttercrafts, the Infantry Support Platform, Chewie, Wookiee Chieftain). Fitting one Phase II in there might not be a bad idea just for that option, though you’ll need a plan to get them a face up order since you can’t take a Clone Commander.

You could also consider a medic for bringing back the occasional Wookiee casualty.

Upgrades to Consider: Z-6 Phase II Trooper, Phase II Mortar Trooper, Clone Medic

Support

BARC Speeder

If you aren’t a Fluttercraft maestro, you might consider a BARC, though you can only take a single one. One BARC by itself doesn’t really do much, but it’s an option. Personally in this roster I’m running the excellent special Fluttercraft and not looking back.

Upgrades to Consider: RPS-6 Gunner, Twin Laser Gunner

Raddaugh Gnasp Fluttercraft (Attack Craft)

The unique battleforce Fluttercraft is identical to a “normal” Fluttercraft except for the excellent Attack Run ability, which allows you to change its speed for its activation. This gives them the potential to be insanely fast; with their large bases and speed 3, they can match the T-47 for fastest unit in the game. They also have the option to slow down to speed 1, which can be helpful in some situations.

Fluttercrafts were already sort of interesting after their massive price reduction in the most recent points update, and these unique Fluttercraft might just be the best thing about this battleforce besides the ability to just spam Wookiees.

The Gnasp Gunner should probably be your go-to option here. The increased speed from Attack Run might just give you the ability to actually get the occasional out of cover shot, if nothing else just by flying directly over your target to hit them from immediately behind at point blank range.

The Bombardier is interesting as well, primarily because Overrun attacks can be made in melee. If your list centers around swamping your opponent with a relentless wave of Wookiees, a couple of Bombardier Fluttercraft on hand to skew objectives and drop bombs on tied up units could be a useful tool in your box.

For more tips on Fluttercraft, check out Evan’s Fluttercraft Unit Guide. Thanks Kyle, I’m very proud to be the second hit when you google “fluttercraft”…damn you wookieepedia!

Heavy Support

You can take a Saber Tank or an Infantry Support platform in your Wookiee Defenders list, but I struggle to see why you would want to. The Saber needs Exemplar (or another way to access shared tokens) to really reach its potential, and it’s also very expensive, which makes it an awkward fit for this roster. The ISP is first and foremost a fire support starter for clones, and the Wookiee Defenders roster already has a ton of good fire support starters while also severely lacking in the clone department.

Command Cards

Make sure you read these titles out load wherever you happen to be reading this article. Your coworkers, family members, or random bystanders will thank you.

Note that the two and three pip have neither rank nor trooper type restrictions on the faceup, in case you need to order a Phase II for fire support in a pinch. Just keep in mind you are probably giving up the card text effect for that order by doing that.

Grroooogrrraaaawrrrrrrrrmph

I haven’t the slightest idea what this means in Shyriiwook, but in Legion it means one of your units gets some free tokens. This works on Wookiees, obviously, but it also works on Fluttercraft, BARCs, and (weirdly) ARCs, since there is no Wookiee restriction on the target here (your nominated commander still has to be a Wookiee).

There isn’t much to say about this card is that free tokens are good, and the effect doesn’t have to be spectacular on a one pip.

Additionally, if you happen to use Seize the Initiative on your Wookiee Chieftain or Chewie, they can also benefit from this effect (in addition to whoever you give the card order to).

MROWGH GHRRMROWRIG!

I recall from an Alex interview that the translation of this one has something to do with trees (either to the trees or from the trees). Anyway, apparently that makes your Wookiees agile, because that’s what the card does.

Agile is a great keyword, especially on units that want to be moving (your Wookiees want to be doing that). Used on the Wookiee Chieftain, this doubles his Agile value, giving him two dodges per move.

Note that Agile won’t proc on the free speed 1 move from the battleforce special rule, since that is not an action or free action.

YHWARGGHHHHHHHHHH!

This is basically Assault with a nice little situational bonus. Demoralize is actually a really solid keyword, especially on melee units, since it can prevent your opponent from taking useful standbys. Think of this one as Assault and be excited when it does more.

List Ideas

Yoda Wookiees

If you take Yoda, you’re pretty much locked into naked Wookiees just to get to 8 activations. Maybe that is fine, though; this is still a lot of beef, and Yoda can get your Wookiees on target faster with Guidance while doing his own nonsense with Chewie. The battle shield Wookiee gives you a good hostage unit.

Wookiee spam

Maximum Wookiees. You could fit one more unit in here if you stripped all the heavy weapon upgrades, but having a couple of the Ranged Wookiees with bowcasters gives you some options if “hit W” isn’t in the cards for the particular map or battle card setup you find yourself in.

Fluttercraft

If you want to run Fluttercraft, you’ll need to cut some Wookiees. This one also includes a Phase II unit to Fire Support the Fluttercraft or ranged Wookiees.

In Conclusion

Huuguughghg gaaa aaahnruh grroooogrrraaaawrrrrrrrrmph. Or something.