If you’re still riding high from Star Wars: Andor’s second season, you might want to relive some of the tense shootouts and nail-biting battles on the tabletop. Here’s what you need to know to get started with Star Wars: Shatterpoint, a miniature wargame that puts the focus on epic duels between the most famous heroes and villains from throughout the Star Wars timeline.
There are two miniature wargames set in the Star Wars universe, Star Wars: Legion and Star Wars: Shatterpoint, and both games have models for Andor characters. Shatterpoint is a skirmish game that focuses on very small groups of heroes, usually up to eight per side, that is all about the cut and thrust of pivotal duels and shootouts; while Legion is an army-scale game played with dozens of troops per side, supported by jet-bikes, vehicles, and more.
We love them both. If you’re interested in big battles rather than tense duels, we recommend you wait for the new Star Wars: Legion starter sets to release this summer, as they’ll be a great value way to get involved. There are also a lot of cool kits in the Star Wars Legion roadmap that aren’t available yet, another reason to wait.
Our Star Wars Shatterpoint review goes over the basic rules, and raves about why we think they’re so good. You can also download the core rules for Shatterpoint for free from the Atomic Mass Games website. This article is focused on what products you actually need to play the game, and the best starting point for Andor fans.
Star Wars: Shatterpoint models
In Star Wars Shatterpoint, each player fields a ‘Strike Team’ of two Squads, each of four characters – your force will be two famous heroes or villains, two more named characters, and four nameless mooks (or gaggles of weaker characters, such as bands of Battledroids or hordes of Ewoks).
You have a lot of customization options when it comes to your force. All that matters is that your whole Strike Team can’t contain two versions of the same character – so you can’t lead one Squad with Anakin and another with Vader. All the models in each squad must come from the same Era of the franchise: so Lando Calrissian can’t lead a Squad of Clone Troopers, and Darth Maul can’t lead Death Troopers.
If you want to get into list building, there’s a handy, fan-made tool that explains which units have good synergy with one another. But it’s very simple to get started – just grab a Squad Pack.
If you want to build up a Rebel force, the ‘All The Way’ Squad Pack is led by Cassian Andor himself, accompanied by K-2SO and a pair of Rebel Pathfinders.
If you’re feeling the pull of the Dark Side, the ‘Deploy the Garrison’ squad pack is led by Director Krennic, with a Death Trooper Specialist bodyguard, and a choice of either two Death Troopers or two Shore Troopers as a Supporting Unit.
If you’re just getting into miniature gaming for the first time, it’s a good idea to just grab one of these packs and see if you enjoy actually building the minis, before you spend more money on a second kit. Wargamer has a separate guide on painting miniatures that should be a big help!
When you’re ready to make a full Strike Team, your force will be more effective if you pick your second Squad from the same era and the same faction as the first. But the rules won’t stop you from mixing and matching.
The design team has recently updated the rules for some Shatterpoint units, so the cards in some Squad Packs are now out of date. You can download print and play replacements from the company website.
Star Wars: Shatterpoint gameplay aids
If there isn’t a gaming club with an existing Shatterpoint scene near to you, you will need some extra components to play:
- A mission pack.
- Range measuring tools.
- Tokens.
- Dice.
- Terrain.
Before you buy those separately, it’s worth considering the Starter Set, which comes with all of those items, plus four Squad Packs. We noted in our review that it isn’t cheap, but we think it’s a fair price for the contents.
Shatterpoint is a really vertical game. Thanks to jet packs and force jumps, models can move freely between terrain levels, and decisive blaster fire or relentless melee attacks can throw characters back off ledges. The official Shatterpoint terrain range is designed to make the most of these rules, and it’s very good quality, so it is worth considering.
But if you have a collection of Star Wars Legion terrain or Warhammer terrain collection, you will be able to use lots of it with Shatterpoint. Shatterpoint models are about 40mm tall, compared to the 28-32mm used in the most popular wargames, so they will look out of scale with buildings with doors and other features that give their scale away. But natural terrain like hills, trees, water features, rough ground, and so on, will look fine.
That’s everything you’ll practically need to play Star Wars: Shatterpoint. Want to see what’s coming up next for the game? Check out the Star Wars: Shatterpoint roadmap of future releases – Jyn Erso and the cast of Rogue One are coming soon!
If you do decide to jump into Shatterpoint – or if you already play – or if you just want to rave about that Andor finale, come and join us in the official Wargamer Discord community!
We’ll also take a moment to call out something because it’s simply cool: check out the convention exclusive Star Wars Shatterpoint diorama!
Source: Wargamer
