You Cannot Run Duel Pack – Review

After much work we finally had the opportunity to see how Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi worked in combat situations, and after a lot of humming and hawing, I have a few thoughts. Obi-Wan is particularly interesting here, and while he has some insanely powerful abilities, it comes with a major drawback. Vader has his own abilities, but I think in this pack Obi-Wan is an intriguing addition to your squad.

Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter

As you would expect, Darth Vader is all about attacking – either his own attacks, or attacks targeting him or allied characters. For one Force Point, Vader can move, and during the next attack by Vader during his current activation, he can add 2 damage to the Damage Pool. This is a great way to get Vader across the map quickly – most units with bonus movement get a dash or a jump. Vader gets a full movement.

We’ve seen a few of Vader’s other abilities on other cards, or at least variations of those abilities. Vader can deal damage to opposing units if they roll Critical Failures on their attacks. After being wounded in an attack, Vader can dash and make a 5 dice attack targeting the character who wounded him.

His last ability is a bit more unique, allowing an allied character anywhere on the map to suffer 2 damage during an attack sequence, providing their attack 3 extra dice. This can be pretty powerful in specific situations, and it played out much like I would have thought. For example, in a final showdown where a single attack could decide the fate of the game, a few extra dice could come in handy, regardless of the damage you would take!

Obi-Wan Kenovi, Out of Hiding

Out of hiding he is! Obi-Wan has abilities that I think are amazingly powerful, and I think a lot of people will initially want to add him into their squads since he is a Secondary unit in this situation.

Obi-Wan’s Run ability is pretty good, especially when used in dire situations. It allows an engaged ally to reposition and heal – and it doesn’t matter where that ally is on the battlefield either!

His Mind Trick ability, which costs two Force Points, allows an allied unit within 3 to, when targeted by an attack, instantly end that attack sequence. If it is the attacker’s activation, they may make another attack targeting a different character, but if they do, they must remove 2 dice from the roll. This is such a powerful ability, and when kept within 3 of the right units, can make the difference in a game.

The other abilities Obi-Wan has are equally as impressive. With his Greater Purpose ability, Obi-Wan has Immunity, which means when he would gain !, he may heal instead. What ended up happening in our sequences is that the other player simply didn’t put ! on Obi-Wan – this still, however, was a deterrent to use specific attacks on the skill tree, which was nice.

Finally, Obi-Wan’s Last Stand of the Jedi ability is similar to that of Lord Mauls – for each wound token on Obi-Wan he can add 3 dice to both his attack and defence rolls.

Final Thoughts

As I stated earlier in both video and in writing, I find that putting these two characters in an expensive diorama box set is a bit unfortunate. However, for those who want something great to paint, the Diorama, when on display, is going to look really good.

It will be up to you whether this pack is worth the price. I can say with confidence, however, that the characters included are fun to play with, and provide different strategic approaches to each game of Shatterpoint.