With the updated status of bantha riders shipping to stores I wanted to try and put together a good list, who knows I might play this at our upcoming store championship.

I call it "Bantha Bomb!"

9 - Bantha Rider

1 - Last Resort

6 - Elite Nexu

1 - Last Resort

7 - Elite Tusken

7 - Elite Tusken

2 - Punishing Strike

1 - Beast Tamer

1 - Temporary Alliance

2 - C-3P0

3 - Gideon Argus

40 points

Command Deck

3 - Crush

2 - Jundland Terror (to move a bantha later in a round and stampede and trample again! Or use for the elite tuskens if bantha rider is dead)

2 - Jundland Terror

2 - Parting Blow

0 - Opportunistic (to move a bantha later in a round and stampede again!)

1 - Survival Instincts (giving that bantha some actual defense? or that Nexu probably won't be dying this turn!)

0 - Take Cover (auto bantha defense again! Though I do want to make sure that I'm actually reading it right)

1 - Roar (stunning bantha rider or nexu!)

1 - Ferocity (more attacks is good - using their creature against them if they have one? Awesome! They brought a wampa for some reason, use it to slaughter one of their guys! Or get some nexu auto bleed going since you've probably already used punishing strike for some stun this round)

0 - Urgency

0 - Rally

0 - Take Initiative

0 - Planning

1 - Single purpose (double trample?)

2 - Close the gap (6 figures get to move 1 space each and bantha can stampede out of turn again)

Maybe a cripple (cost 2) instead of close the gap to keep an important figure stuck next to the bantha or nexu bomb for a full round

I feel like this would be a fast moving list with some enough weapons that your opponent is always faced with a hard choice of who to focus on. Focus on that bantha bomb? That's a lot of damage to do and don't be there when he dies. There is a ton of synergy with command cards between creatures and brawlers. Gideon moves the bantha? Stampede! Focused nexu and tusken raiders. Beast tamer lets your bantha gain movement points, shoot, and trample! Nexu can auto stun with punishing strike or your tuskens can stun instead of weaken.

What are your thoughts?

I think it would be better to take out 2x last resort and punishing strike to put in hired guns. They'll help with objectives and that gives you 7 activations which will be good.

For command cards, Take Cover is questionable. Element of Surprise or Fleet Footed is probably way better.

Element of Surprise is superb, and does not require an action...but Take Cover does require an action, so that in itself is always a big factor.

I do think that Hired Guns would be a good choice. Don't try to use them for combat, because they're far too squishy for that; but they're great for objectives.

The idea with the last resorts is for it to make your Bantha even less desirable to attack because when he dies it's a grenadier going off on 14 adjacent spaces.

I could see taking the bomb off the nexu and then dropping an elite tusken, that's 8 points and putting in two sets of hired guns for objectives. That'd be a 7 activation list.

The stun from punishing strike just seems too useful, especially with a nexu that can attack and no matter what gets an auto bleed (turned into stun with punishing strike).

The idea with take cover was that you can use the beast tamer to gain your movement pool with the bantha, use one action to take cover and your bantha will have an auto block for the rest of the round making it harder to chew through that 21 health and more likely that your bantha will be alive for even more movement antics throughout the round (Gideon, command cards, etc.), and you still have the second action to use trample.

Fleet footed, that's a fun one for this too but close the gap does the same for more units, at the cost of doing it at the beginning of the round though.

Hired guns are awful, so taking more than 1 is probably bad.

Last resort can be played around and most units are ranged anyways.

Punishing Strike isn't going to matter most of the time since you'll almost always be in range to get hit.

Using an action on the bantha to not use his ability, move, or attack is a complete waste.

Element of Surprise is probably the best replacement for take cover, but fleet footed can be considered.

You are really Adjacent dependant on this.

You are really Adjacent dependant on this.

Kind of but if you think about it, your bantha is going to run into things and when it finishes it's movement everything it was on top of will end up adjacent to it. Every time it ends it's movement. If I send a bantha into 4 stormtroopers, that's 4 adjacent units. If that bantha is 1 health point away from dying, my opponent is either going to waste a lot of his stormtroopers whole activations to activate and move away from the blast and not shoot the bomb (can still shoot other people) before the rest of his buddies can get away or else use the first stormtrooper to kill it but set off the bomb. It's a parting blow, it's a mental dilemma, and it's only one deployment point.

Hired guns are awful, so taking more than 1 is probably bad.

Last resort can be played around and most units are ranged anyways.

Punishing Strike isn't going to matter most of the time since you'll almost always be in range to get hit.

Using an action on the bantha to not use his ability, move, or attack is a complete waste.

Element of Surprise is probably the best replacement for take cover, but fleet footed can be considered.

I don't get what you're trying to say about punishing strike? Punishing strike lets me take a nexu, attack someone, it gives an automatic bleed, and I can exhaust punishing strike to change that bleed to a stun or weaken. Or take a tusken attack, spend a surge to weaken, exhaust punishing strike to turn it into a stun or bleed. Once per round, but that's still really good.

If I played take cover, I would use beast tamer to get a full movement, use take cover to make the bantha have auto defense for the whole round and -2 accuracy against most units being ranged, and still get to use my last action to trample at the end of my movement, and then you still get to stampede as a passive then you stopped on units. So I don't think take cover is a bad card on a bantha rider with beast tamer since the bantha has no defense at all and anything that makes it harder to kill is huge.

My point is that even if you stun something, it will just unstun and shoot you (or another target that will be in range since you have so many close range attackers), so you really haven't gained that much.

Sure, stun is great sometimes, but when all of your figures are melee it will be extremely difficult to arrange a scenario where stunning them actually makes a difference.

I forgot about the accuracy, that actually does make it somewhat better. However, you're almost always going to be trying to use all of your actions with the bantha on other stuff even when you effectively get 3 thanks to Beast Tamer.

On round 1, it is probably move, move, special action. On round 2+ it needs to be move, special action, attack OR move, unstun, special action.

Using one of those actions on "take less damage" isn't fantastic unless you're blocking a super important objective.

Last resort on the bantha will be okay on certain maps/positions, but trivial to play around on others.

My point is that even if you stun something, it will just unstun and shoot you (or another target that will be in range since you have so many close range attackers), so you really haven't gained that much.

Sure, stun is great sometimes, but when all of your figures are melee it will be extremely difficult to arrange a scenario where stunning them actually makes a difference.

That makes sense. I'd definitely need to make sure I'm thinking about that when I decide between bleed, weaken, or stun. But I'd also be looking to move, attack, even moving back one space makes stun worth it. Or shooting with the tusken cycler from close range and getting a major character stunned is huge. Or sacrificing one tusken to stun a royal guard champion can be a big deal since it makes him stay there and attack the tusken or waste his turn unstunning and moving.

On another note, I did want to try and get HK's in there but not sure how I'd do it. Really wanted the multiple tuskens to take full advantage of the jundland terror command cards - to make sure I have a tusken alive to take advantage of it.

I don't think Punishing Strike is worth it. I'm less sure about Last Resort. I think I'd rather see a group of Hired Guns than Punishing Strike and the 2 Last Resorts, but I'd have to see how it played out.

Hired guns are awful, so taking more than 1 is probably bad.

Last resort can be played around and most units are ranged anyways.

Punishing Strike isn't going to matter most of the time since you'll almost always be in range to get hit.

Using an action on the bantha to not use his ability, move, or attack is a complete waste.

Element of Surprise is probably the best replacement for take cover, but fleet footed can be considered.

I disagree that Hired Guns are awful. They punch way above their weight in a time crunch game like tourney rules enforce. They set up the awful choice for your opponent of taking them out (and gods forbid 1 attack doesn't kill one) as opposed to a good unit. It's about value for point spent, and cheap activations. For 2 points, I don't see the purpose of punishing strike except to further bias the meta against using big point characters, so I agree there.

Honestly, I can't think of a better way to spend 4 points right now. The more I test HG's the more I like them.

My point is that even if you stun something, it will just unstun and shoot you (or another target that will be in range since you have so many close range attackers), so you really haven't gained that much.

Sure, stun is great sometimes, but when all of your figures are melee it will be extremely difficult to arrange a scenario where stunning them actually makes a difference.

That makes sense. I'd definitely need to make sure I'm thinking about that when I decide between bleed, weaken, or stun. But I'd also be looking to move, attack, even moving back one space makes stun worth it. Or shooting with the tusken cycler from close range and getting a major character stunned is huge. Or sacrificing one tusken to stun a royal guard champion can be a big deal since it makes him stay there and attack the tusken or waste his turn unstunning and moving.

On another note, I did want to try and get HK's in there but not sure how I'd do it. Really wanted the multiple tuskens to take full advantage of the jundland terror command cards - to make sure I have a tusken alive to take advantage of it.

Tusken Cycler can't apply a condition, no abilities can be used, i.e. all surges are worthless.

My point is that even if you stun something, it will just unstun and shoot you (or another target that will be in range since you have so many close range attackers), so you really haven't gained that much.

Sure, stun is great sometimes, but when all of your figures are melee it will be extremely difficult to arrange a scenario where stunning them actually makes a difference.

That makes sense. I'd definitely need to make sure I'm thinking about that when I decide between bleed, weaken, or stun. But I'd also be looking to move, attack, even moving back one space makes stun worth it. Or shooting with the tusken cycler from close range and getting a major character stunned is huge. Or sacrificing one tusken to stun a royal guard champion can be a big deal since it makes him stay there and attack the tusken or waste his turn unstunning and moving.

On another note, I did want to try and get HK's in there but not sure how I'd do it. Really wanted the multiple tuskens to take full advantage of the jundland terror command cards - to make sure I have a tusken alive to take advantage of it.

Tusken Cycler can't apply a condition, no abilities can be used, i.e. all surges are worthless.

Yeah I forgot about that, and for some reason I confused the Bantha's ranged attack (which is the same dice as tusken cycler) and applied that to the regular tuskens in my mind. So thanks for pointing that out.

But I am leaning more towards dropping the punishing strike at least and either dropping 3P0 to turn his two and punishing strike's two into an elite smuggler or getting rid of the last resorts and punishing strike to do the hired guns and keep 3P0.

One other possibility would be to swap a Elite Tusken set out for another elite Nexu, and then drop all the attachments and 3P0 for a gain of 1+4+2 to throw in an elite Saboteur - so

9 Bantha

7 E Tusken

6 E Nexu

6 E Nexu

1 Temp Alliance

3 Gideon

7 E Sabs

Edit: Forgot the Beast Tamer - 1

= 40

Played a couple games this past Friday, on the stormtrooper training map (reprogrammed) and kuat station map (incoming transmission) with both lists but really liked this one:

9 Bantha

7 E Tusken

6 E Nexu

6 E Nexu

1 Temp Alliance

3 Gideon

7 E Sabs

1 Beast Tamer

= 40

Played against a trooper swarm and a RGC list.

Some observations: Beast tamer really makes the Bantha work - having two full movements and then the action to trample is amazing. Opportunistic was a great card - it's interesting how much of a difference 3 movement points made versus 2 (from say Gideon) on the bantha to be able to stampede more than one figure.

I'm pretty sure the Bantha got to do at least 15-20 damage each game and by the time it finally died my opponent was beyond able to come back. It did 11 damage to the RGC in two turns - with some great red dice rolls and the crush command card.

I liked the double nexu's with elite sabs over double elite tuskens with C-3P0 and hired guns. The sabs were able to do a better job offensively than hired guns and the nexu did lots of damage too. C-3P0 couldn't really keep up with the list to do his job so I didn't miss him too much.

One thing that surprised me is I don't think I used Gideon to move the bantha either game. Maybe that's because I was super agressive with it and so Gideon was unable to get in line of sight and I worried more about putting focus on nexu (first game) and sabs (second game).

I'm definitely very interested in playing some more on more maps and in a tournament environment.

Lots of really good comments above.

I'm trying something similar - maybe even for store champs (big risk! Could be terrible!) - but every list I'm trying has Devious Scheme.

The reason here is with Beast Tamer - if you hold your Bantha to the last activation, you can probably move it to at least one terminal on ALL maps and maybe get a trample. Then, initiative swaps and you can move and trample again (or trample shoot)

I don't think the Bantha survives long sadly So maybe last resort isnt' great on it. But it's ok! Your opponent HAS to focus fire on the Bantha for maybe their entire second round, leaving everything ELSE you've brought to the table to bring the heat.

Further to my last -

I'm quite excited to run my Tuskens to command points then smush them with my OWN **** BANTHA.

The reasoning being that I get to choose where my own figures move to first before my opponent, so I'll take one damage to ensure MY figures are on the sweet spots / limit my opponent's options.

Sand people ride in single file to hide their numbers. MY sand people ride in single file ... and sometimes on top of each other.

Further to my last -

I'm quite excited to run my Tuskens to command points then smush them with my OWN **** BANTHA.

The reasoning being that I get to choose where my own figures move to first before my opponent, so I'll take one damage to ensure MY figures are on the sweet spots / limit my opponent's options.

Sand people ride in single file to hide their numbers. MY sand people ride in single file ... and sometimes on top of each other.

Damage from stampede is only against enemy units. Your troops don't take damage when the bantha stops on them and moves them

Damage from stampede is only against enemy units. Your troops don't take damage when the bantha stops on them and moves them

- Good spot! ****, I'm learning so much and I don't even own the Bantha Rider yet!

Yeah there's a bunch of keywords to check out in the RRG that really help out for understanding how the Bantha moves and can be deployed etc.

Check out:

Massive and large - but remember that the massive rules can override the large ones. Example: large figures can't go through solid or striped red lines, but Massive can move through, end movement, and be deployed overlapping them, and don't pay any extra movement points to move through them or enemy characters.

And as far as I know, a Bantha can end it's movement on a large figure and scoot it out of the way just like small figures. So a Bantha can land wherever a nexu is and push it out of the way. Unless I missed something in there.

I watched a list today at our store tournament, in ONE Shooting turn.. take out 2 x 12HP Elite Wampa, and 1 Elite Sab. It was just unbelievably broken. They nerf sab's blast cause "oh its just too much damage for the cost!"

But by all means, let's let Rebel Troopers focus for free... let players take 2 squads (or more) and watch the hilarity ensue as 6+ Rebel Focused Troopers blow everything to bits in seconds..

Yeah.. Sabs were OP.. lemme tell ya!

I don't want to touch a Bantha.. it'll die in 1 turn, guaranteed. Absolutely no contest or room for doubt. That list is spreading like wildfire already cause it was at Regional, and its only gonna get worse.

I watched a list today at our store tournament, in ONE Shooting turn.. take out 2 x 12HP Elite Wampa, and 1 Elite Sab. It was just unbelievably broken. They nerf sab's blast cause "oh its just too much damage for the cost!"

But by all means, let's let Rebel Troopers focus for free... let players take 2 squads (or more) and watch the hilarity ensue as 6+ Rebel Focused Troopers blow everything to bits in seconds..

Yeah.. Sabs were OP.. lemme tell ya!

I don't want to touch a Bantha.. it'll die in 1 turn, guaranteed. Absolutely no contest or room for doubt. That list is spreading like wildfire already cause it was at Regional, and its only gonna get worse.

What was the squad you saw, exactly. I saw some startling results this weekend with elite Snowies auto-focusing each turn, rolling blue-green-green and reapplying focus/weaken. It's worse with snowies since they have 6HP, which makes it very possible to need three 2-die attacks to kill them.

But, seriously, Wampas? Anyone who runs Wampas head long into focused elite troopers is just asking for it. Try that against wookiees where for the same points you have to do 10 more points of damage.

And, only elite troopers can focus so it is no more than 2 groups. There's a reason surge for a focus is rare outside of single unit squads. And they are all elite, limiting them to two per list. It's powerful.

I'm becoming more convinced that focused trooper lists are countered by lots of hired guns. Disposable, low cost, troops to either waste focus tokens on OR let them attack two or three times for an average of 3 damage, taking out the troopers. Then you either follow up with heavy hitters or swarm them with a gaggle of low-cost troops.

I watched a list today at our store tournament, in ONE Shooting turn.. take out 2 x 12HP Elite Wampa, and 1 Elite Sab. It was just unbelievably broken. They nerf sab's blast cause "oh its just too much damage for the cost!"

But by all means, let's let Rebel Troopers focus for free... let players take 2 squads (or more) and watch the hilarity ensue as 6+ Rebel Focused Troopers blow everything to bits in seconds..

Yeah.. Sabs were OP.. lemme tell ya!

I don't want to touch a Bantha.. it'll die in 1 turn, guaranteed. Absolutely no contest or room for doubt. That list is spreading like wildfire already cause it was at Regional, and its only gonna get worse.

I don't understand what you are seeing from Rebel Troopers. At most they can do 7 damage focused(!) against a blank white die or evade. They have no innate rerolls and they are reliant on aim to increase their damage. Not to mention all of the current maps have nowhere for the rebel troopers to use "Get into position" and take advantage of Aim while they are focused without giving up enormous objective control. You have to position really badly for Rebel Troopers to "blow everything to bits in seconds". Compare the Elite Rebel Troopers to Elite Stormtroopers and you will find the Rebel Troopers lack consistency, high damage, and durability. They may do well against a Bantha, as any list with a lot of figures will, but Rebel Troopers would absolutely crumble to a Stormtrooper list.

I watched a list today at our store tournament, in ONE Shooting turn.. take out 2 x 12HP Elite Wampa, and 1 Elite Sab. It was just unbelievably broken. They nerf sab's blast cause "oh its just too much damage for the cost!"

But by all means, let's let Rebel Troopers focus for free... let players take 2 squads (or more) and watch the hilarity ensue as 6+ Rebel Focused Troopers blow everything to bits in seconds..

Yeah.. Sabs were OP.. lemme tell ya!

I don't want to touch a Bantha.. it'll die in 1 turn, guaranteed. Absolutely no contest or room for doubt. That list is spreading like wildfire already cause it was at Regional, and its only gonna get worse.

I don't understand what you are seeing from Rebel Troopers. At most they can do 7 damage focused(!) against a blank white die or evade. They have no innate rerolls and they are reliant on aim to increase their damage. Not to mention all of the current maps have nowhere for the rebel troopers to use "Get into position" and take advantage of Aim while they are focused without giving up enormous objective control. You have to position really badly for Rebel Troopers to "blow everything to bits in seconds". Compare the Elite Rebel Troopers to Elite Stormtroopers and you will find the Rebel Troopers lack consistency, high damage, and durability. They may do well against a Bantha, as any list with a lot of figures will, but Rebel Troopers would absolutely crumble to a Stormtrooper list.

Elite Snowtroopers and Elite Stormtroopers are truly excellent. A bantha should be added to a list to do one thing...die, soaking up a ton of damage in the process.