Star Wars Legion: Commander & Padawan Ahsoka Tano finally brings the beloved character to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). Although she has had a Rebels miniature for a while now, Ahsoka can finally fight alongside Anakin, Obi-Wan, and the Clone Army, just as she did throughout the seven epic seasons of the 2008 Clone Wars TV show, much to the delight of GAR players like myself who have been sorely missing this sassy Togruta from our army lists for some time. This review will provide a rundown of the contents of the box, from the two miniatures included to their rules and how you might run them in your army. Now, let’s get on with the review, and may the force be with you!
Commander & Padawan Models
Commander & Padawan Ahsoka Tano is the newest release in Atomic Mass Games’ (AMG) exciting new hard plastic range of Star Wars Legion models, and as such these two miniatures come out of the box on a sprue and benefit from some superb detailing. Both models feature new-style lightsaber blades as seen on the Jedi Guardian in the recent ARF Troopers box which are thinner and more screen accurate than anything possible with the old soft plastic. The Padawan and Commander models appear almost identical to Ahsoka’s Clone Wars season 1-2 and season 3-6 appearances respectively, and it is evident that the designers took great care to include even tiny details in the mold that they could have left to the painter such as her upper arm bands and the diamond pattern on her leggings. Topping all of that, however, are the faces. Both include full detailing of all of Ahsoka’s jewelry, facial markings, and headtail (or lekku to use the in-universe term) markings, which should lead to a much easier job when painting these details as the molded markings act as guidelines for your brush. This is even more impressive when you consider that Padawan Ahsoka’s face is less than a centimeter tall (about 8mm) even when including her lekku, so be prepared to use your finest brush, a magnifying glass, a bright light when painting this model!
Just look at that! I can barely believe how good the detailing is for the size, and I’m the one who took the picture!
The only downside with the model is the lack of customisation options, which seems to be par for the course when it comes to AMG’s models. Commander Ahsoka has a piece of base terrain to stand on that you have to use otherwise she’ll be standing weirdly, and the head and limb angles all appear to be fixed. Fortunately, both models have very exciting and dynamic poses and personally I don’t mind all that much at not having many customisation options when it comes to named characters as I want them to look as close to their show and movie appearances as possible which, as I mentioned before, AMG has already done a great job at.
Other Components
In terms of other components, there’s not that much to say. As is now standard all the cards in the box come in four languages (English, French, Spanish, and German) so you’ll have plenty of spare cards to use for backing your printed proxies whilst waiting for AMG to release the new official cards for older models. Furthermore, the upgrade cards are now standard card game size like the rest of the cards so you’ll only need to buy a single size of card sleeve if you want to protect them all (standard size is the same used by Magic the Gathering and Pokémon). Although the cards no longer have keyword references on them so you’ll have to check the core rules until you’re familiar enough with them, the unit and command cards have beautiful artwork by Zara Alfonso, Jake Murray, and Evgeny Loginov which bring to life various action scenes from the Clone Wars show in a more realistic style, featuring several 501st Legion Clones and even a background cameo of Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker!
AMG seems to be continuing their token-lite trend last seen in the ARF Troopers box as the only cardboard pieces are once again the order tokens, so if you need trackers for wounds, suppression, etc. you’ll have to supply them elsewhere. This does have two order tokens, however, a republic specific one and a generic one that can be used for any faction. There is also a notable lack of assembly instruction, having been replaced for a while now with a piece of paper with AMG’s Legion related social media and a QR code to their website which has a database of all their assembly instructions.
Bringing them to the Battlefield
110 Points
Jump 2 (When this unit moves it can move over or onto terrain that is height 2 or lower)
Associate: Anakin Skywalker (If you are also running Anakin Skywalker this unit does not take up a Commander slot)
Deflect (When defending this unit gets surge to block and if you roll one or more surges the attacker takes one wound)
Immune: Pierce (Attackers cannot use the Pierce ability against this unit)
Independent: Recover (If this unit is not issued an order it may take the Recover action as a free action)
Scout 1 (The unit gets a free Speed 1 move as it deploys)
Shien Mastery (When using Deflect the attacker takes a wound for every surge rolled instead of just one, and this unit does not get a suppression token if it did not take a wound)
Impact 2 (When this unit attacks a unit with Armor it can convert two hits to critical hits)
Pierce 1 (When this unit attacks it can cancel one block result)
It can take the following upgrades:
● Force
● Command
● Training
Charge (When this unit makes a move action it may make a free melee attack action)
Guardian 3 (When an allied unit at Range 1 is attacked you may have this unit defend three hits from that attack)
Disengage (This unit can perform moves as normal when engaged in melee)
Jar’kai Mastery (When this unit attacks it may spend any number of Dodge tokens to convert blank results to hits and hits to critical hits for each token)
Leader (This model is the units Leader and you can have only one Leader upgrade card per unit)
Sidearm: Melee, Ranged (This model can only use Melee or Ranged weapons on its upgrade card)
Block (If this unit spends dodge tokens it gains surge to block)
Independent: Dodge 1 (If this unit is not issued an order it gains a dodge token)
Critical 1 (This unit may convert one surge to a critical hit)
Ability details out the way, I can now proceed with my analysis of the two models, starting with Ahsoka Tano Padawan Commander. Ahsoka is by far the cheapest Jedi Commander for GAR when it comes to her points value of only 110, which is 40 points lower than any of the others giving you space to add extra upgrade cards or even squeeze in another squad of Clone Infantry. Despite this she has the most attack dice out of all of them excluding Yoda and has surge to critical hits, although this is balanced out with all her attack dice all being white or black and having a lower Pierce value than the other Jedi. She is also the only Speed 3 GAR Trooper unit allowing her to zip around the battlefield to take out distant enemy units or capture objectives, further supported by the Scout 1 ability giving her a headstart when she deploys onto the battlefield and Jump 2 letting her ignore most tall terrain. Shien Mastery is also an exciting new addition to the list of lightsaber techniques making Ahsoka a deflective demon with the potential to deal multiple wounds to enemy attackers whilst she’s defending.
In terms of Ahsoka’s command cards she has a nice mix of offensive and defensive abilities. You Are Beaten giving her an extra attack and letting her attack for free whenever she moves is likely to be devastating against enemy infantry and commanders alike, and Revenge Is Not The Jedi Way giving her three Dodge tokens and the powerful Jar’Kai Mastery, last seen on Asajj Ventress Operative (https://zatu.com/products/star-wars-legion-asajj-ventress-operative-expansion/), allows her to use her Dodge tokens to upgrade attack dice rolls to better results, which with a bit of luck and preparation could even give you 8 hits and/or critical hits for your attack that turn. Meanwhile, I Go Where I’m Needed is a very fun multi-use command card that can both get Ahsoka out of sticky situations and move her to defend your other units as the situation requires.
Moving on to Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Padawan, this upgrade card is most comparable to the Jedi Guardian upgrade from the ARF Troopers box, but has several distinct advantages. Coming in at 35 points, only 13 points more expensive (also known as the cost of a single Clone Trooper Infantry model), the Block and Independent: Dodge 1 both grant Ahsoka and her squad the much needed defensive capabilities that I’ve felt the Guardian lacked ever since its card was announced. Afterall literally every other GAR lightsaber user has some sort of defensive ability, so why doesn’t the Guardian? These 13 points also provide two extra attack dice for a total of four (albeit they’re black and white against the Guardian’s red dice) and Critical 1 to help push through an extra bit of damage. The most exciting improvement in my opinion, however, is that Ahsoka can be added to any Clone Trooper unit, not just special forces units, giving you significantly more options for army building.
To conclude, Ahsoka Tano Padawan Commander is an excellent commander that can either be a cheap replacement for other jedi units to allow you to run more infantry or upgrades, or in larger games and alongside Anakin she can be a dedicated objective capturer. Her unit card and command cards provide a good balance of offensive and defensive abilities which don’t come at a cost to one another and let her perform various different tasks throughout the battle. Similarly, Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Padawan is a good option to provide survivability to important Clone Trooper units and can also dish out a reasonable amount of damage should she get into melee, making her a distinct improvement over the Jedi Guardian or other more expensive melee leaders like Fives. All in all, I’d definitely recommend picking up the Commander & Padawan Ahsoka Tano box for your GAR army.
