I’d gotten the Separatist Alliance starter set; I’d just built the spider droid but… I wanted more (and I know I shouldn’t)! The spider droid was a great set. It was small in terms of models, but that one model had been fairly sized. While I had loads of troops, I wanted more of the big things. As I was looking through the units that are currently available from Atomic Mass Games (AMG), one of them really caught my eye – The TSMEU-6 Personal wheel bikes.
Big. Round. Wheel. Bikes. Big, round, wheel bikes with droids riding them! I mean, you don’t really have to sell me this very much, it sounds awesome. The box looked awesome, the idea looked awesome and I would like to think that they played awesome on the tabletop. In other words, a whole box of awesomeness. This is a slightly pricey set at £59.99 which only has two models, but those models do look fairly big. While it is easy to compare the price of unit sets – for example the spider droid is £29.99 for one model so this is in keeping with that – when you compare them to the starter sets, you realise just what fantastic value those sets can be. The box for this set does look a lot more substantial than that of regular unit boxes, twice the height. You can’t help but be a little impressed.
Opening the box, there was the usual AMG leaflet, tokens, cards, sprue and bases. As much as I wanted to get straight to building the bikes (they do look so cool), I knew from experience that it is much better to have a look at the cards first in case there were any decisions to be made about alternative builds. The box comes with a few cards, all representing the different languages the game supports. However, for each language there are only three cards – one unit card and two upgrade cards.
For a unit of two-wheel bikes you are going to have to spend ninety points. For that, each bike has three wounds and is rolling a red defense dice. The melee weapon has overrun two and you roll three black dice. For ranged, it’s a range of one – two with Impact one and you are rolling a red and white dice. Not too bad from the basic stats. In terms of keywords, they have AI: Dodge, which I realise all the droids must have an AI ability and this one seems to be rather handy. Armour 1 will allow these to survive a little bit longer; Climbing Vehicle keeps them a bit more mobile with terrain and Mobile means that they are always going to be moving. These seem like a fast-moving unit that can quickly engage enemies that are causing you trouble. I’m slightly worried that they seem a little squishy with only three wounds a piece and I’d be tempted to have an upgrade that makes their survival a bit more guaranteed.
Speaking of upgrades, the two that are included are both fairly inexpensive in terms of points. The IG-100 Magna Guard Pilot allows the unit to be immune to melee pierce and the melee weapon to gain scatter. Helpful, particularly if you want to throw your wheel bikes at units… I want to throw these bikes at units! At ten points it is not too expensive, and it also means that the models can be fitted with magna guards rather than the commando droids (more on that later). The other upgrade, Turbo-Charge, costs eight points and allows a player to discard the upgrade during a move action to increase the speed of the bike to three. This could be very useful but also very situational. For eight points, I’m not sure it would be a must for me. However, if I found that for an army list, I had eight spare points, this could be a handy little one-off upgrade.
With the cards inspected, it was time to assemble the models. Following the QR code, I loaded up the AMG website, found the instructions and got ready to build. The assembly for each wheel bike is the same, to be honest I wouldn’t expect there to be much difference. This started off so well, the wheel bikes look complex, but the instructions are so clear, little grooves in the where the pegs need to slot into, so you don’t make a mistake. Great care has been taken to ensure that the building of the bike is smooth. Each bike is made from two sprues (so four in total for the two bikes) and as soon as you start to realize just how well thought out the construction has been, you can relax into the build. Each part of the wheel has two parts that click together beautifully. When you are putting the two together, you can see just how much detail is in each piece – some of it isn’t even visible on the finished model.
When the sprues of the wheel bikes are done, it is onto the pilots. You can have them with either the commando droids or the magna guard upgrade pilots, but both have an alternate build, so you actually have two different variations of the model, which I really like. I’d already decided on the magna guard upgrade, so I didn’t need to debate which model. That said, the commando droids do look really good – maybe an excuse to buy a second set! Now while the wheel bikes had been easy enough to put together, I can’t say the same for the droids. The foot pedal piece on the first droid I did get in completely the wrong orientation and had to be cut off to make sure it was correct, thankfully I could glue it to the feet, so it was supported. I also wish that I had left the handles off till much later as I found these just got in the way. The head and hand joints are very small, and these also proved to be a bit of a headache. It was almost like a completely different build! That said, when I finally got to finishing the first model completely, I was impressed. It looked amazing and you couldn’t even notice where I had got the pedals wrong – a small miracle!
When I came to do the second bike, I instantly saw where I’d made an error, which thankfully I didn’t repeat! The piece fit a lot flusher, but it wasn’t as tight as I had been expecting, which is probably what threw me. If you are at all unsure, take my advice and don’t glue it in until you have your assembled droid ready to test the fit. The build steps I actually changed quite a bit. I built all the model up except the legs and the left arm that’s holding the weapon. Now the model I love, it’s a cloaked magna guard and it looks very impressive. When the body, head and right arm are glued and the glue has set, I then added the legs and while the glue was still drying, I then added it to the bike. The flexibility in the legs I found a lot more helpful so I could get it into just the right position, before gluing everything else into place. After this, I then glued on the left arm, and the rest of the process was easy.
With that the models were done and ready to play with. The bikes themselves are a joy to build, the models, well, I don’t often make mistakes, but I did on this one. The instructions need a little patience and some moving around just to allow you an easy time with the pilots, as the parts are sometimes very thin. Overall though I’m really happy with them. The detail on them is fantastic and I can see on the tabletop they are going to look incredible. As a game unit, they look impressive and even without playing them, I’m already thinking I need to get the Grievous unit on wheel bike to go with these two.
The Star Wars Legion: TSMEU-6 Personal Wheel Bikes pack from Atomic Mass Games retails at £59.99. It is available now from high street gaming stores and online retailers including Amazon UK and Amazon US.
