If there is any pack that screams The Clone Wars, then it is the Witches of Dathomir Squad Pack. Of course, the roots of the witches date back to Legends and Dave Wolverton’s The Courtship of Princess Leia. They were forever included in the canon at the time until George Lucas saw an image of one on Star Wars Tales and brought them into The Clone Wars. A little different but still keeping the same spirit they had all those years ago. In the pack we have Mother Talzin, Savage Opress and the Nightsister Acolytes. What I like most initially about this set, is that it is something a little different. Not clones, not droids, but witches. All these characters are to be found in Dave Filoni’s The Clone Wars, something that so far, the game has really focused on.
I don’t really comment on the box art for my reviews, let’s be honest, most of the time the boxes will be opened and never seen again. Yet the artwork on this set is absolutely striking. Mother Talzin covers the entire front of the box with her mystical green smoke, that really sets it apart from the other expansions we’ve seen released. Pretty artwork and nostalgic trips to Legends and The Clone Wars are all well and good, but does it equate to a squad that you will actually want to do battle with?
Opening the box, everything as usual is on one sprue plus bases. One thing that will strike you is the depth to the sprue, it is a lot thicker than usual, those robes really are flowing! The sprue is also a bit bigger than usual. Once that has been taken out, it’s scanning the QR code to get the assembly instructions up on the Atomic Mass website. The first model for assembly is the primary, Mother Talzin herself. The first thing to take note of is that there are a lot of thin wavy pieces for Talzin, so extra care needs to be taken when snipping these out and assembling them. I’ve started to notice on the last couple of instructions, that Atomic Mass are starting to add little comments to their steps if they think they’re needed. These little bits of advice are a great addition and makes assembling that bit easier and fluid. That said, the head does take a bit of work to get it right. You will have a gap on the right shoulder, that’s normal. Both the front and back need to be glued at the same time. I started by attaching the back of the head to the neck first, then gently pushing it back to get the front on. It’s a bit tricky but once you’ve done it a couple of times before applying glue, you should be fine. The rest of the build is simple enough. The model itself is stunning. They’ve really captured Mother Talzin and her ‘magic’. The flow of the robes adds motion while also allowing the figure to be fully assembled and players still able to reach everywhere with a brush.
Next, it’s onto Savage Opress. Savage is a straightforward build, particularly after assembling Talzin. Just be careful removing the double-bladed lightsaber from the sprue and you’ll have him assembled in no time. What I like about the model is the green smoke is used to help provide more contact with the base, so the model is less likely to come off in a battle. The pose is pure Savage, the strength perfectly encapsulated with it and the facial expression. He is a bulky model and so he should be.
The Nightsisters Archer is the next model and is even more simple than Savage. Six pieces and it is straight onto the Nightsisters Daggers. While the second sister has slightly more pieces, she is equally a quick and simple build. The two sisters capture the feel of the Nightsisters from The Clone Wars perfectly. The sinister feel to them, the fact that one is ranged, the other melee, it helps to give the squad cohesion. More than that is the magic smoke that helps to reinforce them on their bases. It also brings the squad together and gives them a unified look which I’m sure will look incredible on the battlefield.
To the cards themselves and Mother Talzin looks incredible. She has her tactic allowing you to move any Dathomirian unit, always a handy thing to have. But then we come to ‘manipulating hands’ where she can move an enemy character within four. This is a fantastic way to get enemies away from objectives. It does cost two force, expensive, until you realise that this ability also appears on one side of her stance card. An extremely powerful ability to have built into her combat. The one however, that I think is going to really see Mother Talzin be top of the squad building, is life drain. Any allied Dathomirian character, anywhere on the board, that causes damage to an opponent, can heal one. This is incredibly powerful and could see units lasting a lot longer on the battlefield before they are wounded. With no range, as long as you are running primarily Dathomirian units, you could do extremely well from this ability. Her stance card is double sided, providing the damage heavy Great Mother side and the more healing and manipulating hand’s ability Wrath side. On paper at least, she seems an incredibly strong primary unit.
Savage seems just as nasty. A lot of his abilities centre around damage; causing damage to enemies nearby or adding dice to his attacks. What I think really makes Opress dangerous is ‘unwitting brute’ which allows him to move if a Separatist or Dathomirian primary unit activates within three of him. It means Savage is going to be able to move across the board very quickly, engaging with units you want tied up from the opposition.
The Nightsisters seem less of a threat. They do provide coordinated fire and can jump. What looks really interesting and also thematic, is ‘night hunter’. The sisters can roll more attack dice when shooting if another Dathomirian character is engaged with the enemy. This brings forth memories of the battle on Dathomir in The Clone Wars and I love that the designers have thought the ability through to that sort of level.
All in all, this seems like a very, very strong squad that works well with each other, even at range. So, when actually on the battlefield, how do they perform? Well, the answer is amazing. The synergy between all three units is superb. It takes some planning out to get the most out of them, but when it works, it really works. At the start of the game, I was playing against my son, the first card I drew was Savage. As a first turn move, this really didn’t help me. Putting him into reserve and drawing Talzin showed just what this squad could do. My other squad was led by Maul, which with the Dathomirian tag, meant that he was able to move. Having either Maul or Asajj as another primary allows so much flexibility on the battlefield. With Talzin activating, it meant Savage got to move and it probably comes as no surprise that he was my first unit into combat. When in combat, he packs a punch. Even with only two successes he’s able to cause four damage. Follow this up with Dark Fury and you have a character that really pushes out the damage onto your opponent.
Talzin’s abilities really mean she’s a back piece. She’s someone to keep on the sidelines, close enough to give crucial bonuses, but you want her away from the action unless you’re sure she can do a kill. The Nightsisters are a thing of beauty. I was able to coordinate their attack to have one in melee and one at range and once they start racking up the hits, they don’t stop. They are however very squishy so unlike Savage, they really require some thought as to when to best strike. Their jump ability on their stance card when playing with lots of terrain also makes them very useful and again it’s the manoeuvrability of this entire squad that really makes them interesting and fun to use.
Overall, this is an extremely well constructed squad. Each unit feels like they do in The Clone Wars: Talzin sits back and works her magic, Savage rushes in and the Night Sisters are then supporting in multiple ways. The synergy between the three is superb and it was a joy to play and find how they each kept activating different abilities with one another. If played with Maul and Asaaj then you have maximum effectiveness of Talzin’s ability and are able to manipulate where you want more flexibility on the board. The fact that you have within the squad, units that act very differently but when they all combine have a wonderful payoff is extremely rewarding for players. I’m hoping more Dathomirian squads are planned to really provide players with maximum effectiveness, although I wouldn’t want to be playing against it! It works very well with the core set, giving you several options of using Maul or Asaaj and the droids or the Mandalorians. My son certainly prefers the latter and is deadly! Combine this with the simply gorgeous miniatures and you have a squad expansion that should be high on your list, particularly if you have a tendency to the dark side.
