Star Wars Miniatures: Clone Strike

Overall score:

One of the hardest things about reviewing CCG (Collectable Card Games) and CMG (Collectable Miniature Games) is how to score their expansions. You don’t have to judge the mechanics, unless there are major changes, so that leaves you with new rules, if any, and how the new cards or figures compare to the originals. Thankfully my job is easier then say our Magic The Gathering reviewer, since there’s only one set before Clone Strike for me to have to base my review upon (though if I was doing a MTG review I’d be comparing everything to Legends and Ice ages since that was the last time I was really active in the game. Force of Nature for the win!). Before you go any further, if you haven’t played a Star Wars Miniature game from Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) I suggest reading my review of the base set, Rebel Strike, since I’m not going to go into any of the rules in this article.

As one would venture from the title, Clone Strike deals with the first 3 movies and, surprisingly, the Star Wars Expanded Universe (i.e. all the non-movie stuff). Instead of getting hordes of Stormtroopers and Rebel troopers you’re getting Clone Troopers and Battle Droids. I was unimpressed with many of the commons in this set since it feels like more of the same, or maybe I just don’t think Battle Droids are that cool. While the commons in the set are a little under whelming, the uncommons and rares are the opposite. The biggest boon for Clone Strike is uncommon, generic, Jedi and Sith figures. They’re not Yoda, but cool none the less. The biggest surprise in this set is the number of Expanded Universe figures there are, and that they’re some of the best. Some are from TV, Asajj Ventress, others are from the comics, Aurra Sing (ok, so she was in episode 1 for like 5 seconds). The sculpt and paint job quality is the same as from the previous set, that’s to say good. Out of all the figures I personally seen I’d have to say the ARC Trooper is the best.

There are a few new abilities added to the game, such as the Droid’s Fire Control. The standard Battle Droid has no bonus to attack, though if you have a Droid Commander all Droids on your team get +4 to attack (yes, even Durge and General Grievous). But if that commander gets taken out then all your standard Droids become near worthless. It’s nice to finally see some more complex strategy appear in Star Wars Minis; currently one of the biggest problems in the game is lack of difference between the other four factions. And right now aside from the few Commander Abilities in the game, the only real army building strategy is deciding if you’re going to have one or two Droid Commander.

The other major addition to the game is Jedi being able to block ranged attacks and some, like Yoda, being able to redirect the attack back at the attacker. Not all the Jedi have this, thankfully, but most of the rares do. Also as a balancing issue blocking an attack requires force points and a die roll to succeed. While I like the abilities to use force points I don’t much care for the required dice roll since there’s about a 45% chance of success with the roll. But when you have people like Yoda, who gain force points every round; die rolls are the only way to keep the little green Muppet under control. The rest of the new powers are more specific to representing a particular figure’s abilities in the movies or books. For example, Darth Maul has a rolling cleave ability that lets him move one square and attack after killing a foe. Or Yoda’s ability to cancel other force powers.

Clone Strike is a worthy follow up to Reble Strike, the addition of new Force Powers and strategic figures add more depth to game while not taking away the simplicity that made the fist set so fun. Plus we learn that Yoda kicks butt even as a miniature.

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Written by Spriggan on January 20th, 2005