SW Imperial Assault - Jawa Scavenger

"I can't abide those Jawas. Disgusting creatures."
     –C-3PO

Almost no one knows what Jawas look like beneath their hooded brown robes—not even on Tatooine, where nearly everyone knows them by reputation. They are junk droid scavengers and merchants, and they traverse the desert planet in their massive, treaded sandcrawlers, hawking their wares to moisture farmers with few other options.

Not quite hostile, these Jawas aren't truly friendly, either. Because their droids are often hastily refurbished, they push to strike their bargains quickly. Then they roll away in their sandcrawlers before the droids have a chance to malfunction.

It's this combination of mystery, haggling, and droid-focused trickery that you'll find brought to life by the figure, missions, and cards in the Jawa Scavenger Villain Pack for Imperial Assault.

A Clever Desert Scavenger

Adding to the Jawa Scavenger's mystique is the fact that there are three different Deployment cards in the Jawa Scavenger Villain Pack—one non-elite Jawa Scavenger and two versions of the elite Jawa Scavenger. Just what the Jawa Scavenger does, then, depends largely on if you're fielding the non-elite version or the elite version, and whether you're using it in your campaign or in a skirmish game.

There are, nonetheless, a number of similarities that run across all the different versions. No matter which version of the Jawa Scavenger you field, you'll gain a ranged attack of two yellow dice, defense of one white die, and the Take Cover ability, which allows you to duck behind whatever junk is nearest you, gaining one block ( ) at the cost of one evade ( ).

Additionally, each Jawa Scavenger comes with a built-in accuracy boost, a surge result worth two damage, and another surge worth two more points of accuracy. These additions make the Jawa Scavenger a solid and cost-effective participant in any of your fights, whether in the campaign or the skirmish game.

Their low deployment costs also make it easy to field a whole cluster of them. When you consider that Jawas have been known to work for Jabba the Hutt, you can easily imagine a pack of Jawas all scurrying about during a gunfight, focused with green and yellow dice flying everywhere.

Finally, each of the different Jawa Scavengers units comes with its own version of a colorful surge ability that allows you to pursue other ends in combat than raw damage. And both of the elite Scavengers provide you a means to get more from your droids.

Forceful Negotiations

As befits a scavenger and merchant, each of the Jawa Scavengers comes with a surge ability that adds value to the Jawa's attack beyond its raw damage output.

• The non-elite Jawa Scavenger deals its target a point of strain so long as its ion blaster finds its mark.
• The campaign version of the elite Jawa Scavenger can, instead, spend its surge to Haggle. For the cost of the surge and one point of threat, the Scavenger can roll a green die and earn you a point of threat for each  result you roll. The odds are that you'll at least break even, and you've got a fifty-fifty shot at earning an extra point of threat.
• The skirmish version of the elite Jawa Scavenger does something similar, but would rather Bargain than Haggle. To Bargain, your Scavenger spends its surge and a Victory Point to roll one green die. Then, you gain one Victory Point for each  you roll.

What's more, the elite Jawa Scavengers don't just earn you threat and Victory Points; they add immediate value to all your droids.

In the campaign game, your elite Jawa Scavengers are excellent Motivators. You can bring them into your campaign with the Salvage Operatives mission, and their jury-rigged and reconfigured Droids can then head to battle with additional speed and accuracy. Then you could use your Jawas to pit the heroes against Probe Droids that can race around, overcoming their slow speed, and sniping the heroes at long distances, only to duck back behind a safe corner.

In the skirmish game, the elite Jawa Scavenger allows you to bolster your army with up to three Droid groups from any affiliation. You can even field reprogrammed Imperial and Rebel droids side-by-side, and who wouldn't be curious to see what you could do with C-3PO in your army to focus IG-88 and your elite Probe Droids ?

Or in what might be one of the more amusing twists of fate, you could field two elite Jawa Scavengers to see what would happen if you ran R2-D2 and C-3PO alongside BT-1 and 0-0-0 . The look-alike droid duos could scarcely be more different in the ways they labor, their loyalty, and their considerations of carbon-based lifeforms. But some Jawa tinkering and restraining bolts could bring them together as an interesting, and cost-effective cast of versatile combatants.

Focused on the Kill

Notably, there's more for your skirmish games in the Jawa Scavenger Villain Pack than just its Jawa. The pack also introduces a new skirmish upgrade specific to IG-88 that makes the assassin droid even deadlier.

Focused on the Kill is a free skirmish ugprade that trades away IG-88's ability to repair himself for a five-point boost to his health, plus a trio of other enhancements. It focuses IG-88 before each of his attacks, it grants him a "Pierce 1" surge ability, and allows him two points of movement at the beginning of each of his activations, freeing up more actions for attacking.

This extra movement becomes even more valuable when you partner it with the new command card, Navigation Upgrade . A command card that effectively becomes a Deployment card once you draw it, Navigation Upgrade can lend a timely boost to any droid in your squad. There are bound to be times that if you use it to boost IG-88's free movement from two points to three, you'll be able to move the fearsome bounty hunter just far enough around a corner that he can fell even some of the most powerful opponents before they return fire.

And since these upgrade and command cards come in the Jawa Scavenger Villain Pack, your Jawa Scavengers—as members of the Mercenary faction—might coordinate their raids with the wishes of Jabba the Hutt . It's easy to imagine a pack of Jawas all spending their surges on the round you play Utinni! to gain the Victory Points that you can later spend with Jabba, using his Order Hit ability to send IG-88 after a rival.