General Obi-Wan Kenobi - Unit Guide

One of my absolute favorite Star Wars characters is Obi-Wan Kenobi. As a kid, my brother and I played the shit out of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. In the very first level of the game, the second player (me, being the younger brother) gets to use Obi-Wan, and from then on he has been one of my top 3 consistently. I am coming from a background in Legion where Obi-Wan is not the best, so when I saw what he could do in Shatterpoint I was absolutely stoked.  

I have yet to play a game without using Obi-Wan as one of my two primaries and there are a ton of reasons for that, today I will try to cover why I like him and how I think he should be used to the greatest effect.

• 8 Squad Points
• 3 Force
• 10 Stamina / 3 Durability
• Primary Unit | 212th - Force User - Galactic Republic - Jedi

Obi-Wan sits in a very flexible spot. Having 8 Squad Points is super nice for a character who is powerful enough to potentially have been worthy of 7. I find it very hard to bring any sort of pure Republic list without bringing along Obi. He is able to fit in with the aggro playstyle of Anakin or the more defensive playstyle of Luminara. He is also able to bring along any of the Republic's Secondaries or Supports in any combination, which really leads him and his squad to be kitted however you need or want. The 3 Force value is solid, he's not super force hungry, but you pretty much always want at least one laying around to use Hello There!

He's actually quite durable sitting at 30 effective HP. 10 Stamina is a really good number to be at, I've found that a lot of units tend to do 7-9 damage with a really good swing, so he is just out of one-shot wound range. He also has access to a good amount of heals and other defensive tech to keep him kicking and effective as a linebacker/support piece.

He has a whole slew of Tags that help him and his team out. Naturally, he's got the 212th tag, which has not done anything at the time of writing. He's got Force User and Jedi tags which help him a ton when you consider certain abilities like Padawan Ahsoka's Race Ya! or Barriss Offee's Faithful Padawan. Funny enough, his Force User tag can actually be a slight hindrance to you if you go up against Grievous or The Grand Inquisitor, but that's not much of a surprise.

Hello There! - This is Obi's only active ability and boy is it fantastic. It essentially acts as a Focus+ that costs 1 Force with a free Jump to boot. This ability is absolutely phenomenal for his offensive output and, dare I say, necessary. It's not that Obi is particularly bad in combat otherwise, it's just that adding 3 dice to your attacks is incredibly good. I would use this every chance you get, and make sure you have at least one force token left for him when he activates. I really like this ability for the approach, or to extend his threat range by a ton. "Oh, you need to get to an objective on the opposite side of the map and wound the unit there to win this struggle? Have I got some news for you!" -Me, probably.

So Uncivilized... - This reactive ability is essentially just Deflect+ with a cost. It is really good, but not for what seems to be the obvious reason. While I do enjoy giving whoever dares shoot Obi 3 damage back, what I really like is the Hunker token. We will cover in a second why that is particularly good but just know the more hunkers you have on your Republic units, the better. I tend to not actually use this ability all that often as most of the lists I've been running need a lot of force tokens available, and this is one of the less handy abilities on the board. I think if you don't already have a hunker you should probably always use this, otherwise I'd personally save the force token for later.

Patience - Unlike So Uncivilized..., This is an ability I use exactly 100% of the time, kind of. When you reserve Obi-Wan he gets a Jump and 3 Heals. It also allows you to reserve Obi even if you already have another unit in reserve, and you can choose to put them on the top or bottom of your deck. This ability is fantastic when it is relevant, which is almost always. Free movement is good, this jump has helped me get Obi into a relevant position in almost every game I've played with him. The 3 heals are also pretty incredible, there is rarely a time when there's not at least one allied unit that can be healed. On the off chance that you don't have a unit to heal, I would still consider using this ability just for the jump, and about 70% of the time it is advantageous to delay your Jedi activations anyway.  

This can potentially help you out a lot with your order control, if you reserve something you really want to hold for last you can reserve them early, wait for Kenobi to pop up, and then plop them in the bottom. This also becomes very relevant if you bring along Luminara. Her ability to look at the top card of your deck prior to choosing whether or not you want to go with your reserve makes the tiny bit of gambling you need to make Obi shine effectively go away. I will almost always save a Force Token for this ability, the issue here becomes if he is the last card in your deck then you saved that Force point for nothing. I would probably say, if you have only 2-3 more cards left in your deck just use the Force Token if you need it.

Knowledge and Defense - This is why you bring Obi-Wan. This ability is absolutely quintessential to Republic/Clone lists and helpful in any other. It is one of the absolute best abilities in the entire game. Probably the best defensive ability in the game at all. There is a lot to unpack here. Let's go one clause at a time:

1. Allied units do not lose their Hunker Tokens when they become Engaged and can gain and have Hunker while they are Engaged. This is the meat of the ability. Being able to keep and gain Hunker while engaged is nutso good, especially since you need at least one hunker to gain cover at all. One of the major differences between this game and Legion is that you can shoot in and out of engagement (assuming other requirements are met). It is a totally legit strategy to run a character into engagement to strip their cover before shooting with someone else, a strategy that does not work against Obi-Wan lists.
2. While an allied Galactic Republic unit has one or more Hunker Tokens, it adds 1 die to its defense rolls against Melee attacks. This is essentially like cover for Melee attacks, except it doesn't stack. This is quite good with every Republic unit so far. Giving Supports extra defense is always clutch and giving Secondaries and Primaries more dice to try and proc their expertise off is also amazing. It can make you feel a little bit better about leaving a primary off their defensive stance since they'll get the extra die.
3. After an attack targeting a character in an allied Galactic Republic unit is resolved, that character unit may remove all of its Hunker Tokens. This is not required, however, if you choose to remove any Hunker, you have to remove them all. No keeping one or two.
4. If it does, one character in that unit may Heal for each Hunker removed. Then each character that Healed may Dash. If you choose to remove all of your Hunkers then you can do this! Removing one damage or one condition for each hunker you remove is actually pretty great. I have had more than one game where a unit has 2-3 hunker tokens and is not about to be attacked again soon. In those cases, I get 2-3 damage off, which is particularly fantastic with 7 stamina Supports. I also have really liked to use this on primaries as a sort of insurance against conditions. Removing an expose or strain you just received is pretty damn good.

One relatively important keynote is that only the first clause of this ability will help non-Galactic Republic units. It's still quite good, but not as helpful. You will lose a lot of utility if you bring Kenobi with fewer than at least a squad's worth of Galactic Republic units.

Stances

Obi has two stances, like all primaries so far. It seems that most primaries so far have two ways to distinguish between stances: Offense/Defense or Combat/Ability oriented. Obi is one of the primaries that has a Combat-oriented stance and an Ability-oriented stance.  In this particular case, his Soresu stance is his ability and support stance via mostly heals and a single reposition. His other stance seems to be more combat-oriented via more attack dice, more defense dice, better defense expertise, and a combat tree that has a more frequent and higher cap of damage. The only bit that doesn't follow this pattern is that his Soresu attack expertise is arguably better than his Ataru attack expertise.

Form III Soresu

Adding onto what I've said in the previous portion, Form III Soresu seems to be Obi-Wan's ability and support-leaning stance. I really like this stance. It is amazing when you need it and okay-ish when you don't. I would only really recommend flipping to this side if you have a specific plan you need to accomplish by doing so or if you need a reliable 2-4 damage.

5 attack dice is... not great. It's not as bad as it looks when you consider Hello There! with which he can still roll up to 9 attack dice if you focus. His attack expertise is actually really good here. Adding only crits is nice and easy to use. This expertise makes this stance a little more reliable, but you trade reliability for what is essentially weakened offense and defense.

This combat tree is the real reason to be on this side at all. It maxes out at 4 successes in any branch. You have a chance to do a maximum of 7 damage with 4 successes or up to 6 damage and 4 heals with 4 successes. Even though he's only throwing 5 dice here, with his expertise, it essentially guarantees 3-4 successes against anything other than a Crit deleting primary. If you're really in a pinch and need some heals on him or someone who will be near him, you can go after supports to maximize your success.

He's rolling 5 defense dice at range and 6 in melee. Against a ranged attack, with no cover (kinda unlikely due to mass hunkers and So Uncivilized...), he's averaging less than 2 per icon. The hope is to roll 4 natty blocks and one expertise to net 6 blocks, but that rarely happens. 6 defense die in melee is good, but still only averages him 2 of each icon so he'd only end up with 4 blocks. His defensive expertise on this stance is once again, reliable but not flashy. 2 blocks for 1-2 and 2 blocks plus a jump for 3+ is really solid. He should be blocking a decent amount of I would probably suggest mostly using this if he is in a relatively safe spot, if you're 1-4 damage away from becoming wounded I would flip to the other side if you can.

Form IV Ataru

Ataru is Obi's more combat-oriented stance. This is where he trades some dice reliability for higher damage output and improved defense.

He's throwing 2 more attack dice at 7 in melee, this gives him up to 11 with Hello There! and a focus. His attack expertise is worse than with Soresu, not really by number, but more in reliability. He has less chance of getting crits en masse with this stance. If you wanted to go absolutely crazy, you can pair this stance with a focus, Hello There!, and Faithful Padawan on Barriss for 13 dice.

The Combat Tree with this stance is a bit funky to look at. It maxes out at 6 successes on one branch while the other options end at 5. It's pretty easy to see right off the bat that this tree, in comparison to Soresu, has the chance to do a lot more to your opponent, but very little to support you. It's maxing out at 9 damage with 6 successes, but unlike other stances, you don't need a full 6 to actually reach the last column. If you manage 5 successes you can get 7 damage, one pin, and 3 shoves! Having access to that many shoves is incredible for objective play.

He's rolling a slight bit more defense dice than Soresu, but not by much. With this stance, he gets 6 dice at range and in melee. That just slightly improves his chances at blocking from ranged attacks. The important part here is his defensive expertise. 1-2 expertise icons will give him 1 block and 1, what I've been calling a "Crit-Delete." Essentially just allows him to switch 1 critical icon to a failure icon on the attack roll. When you roll 3+ he gets 2 blocks and a Crit-Delete. This is actually better than an extra block because you don't have to waste a block on any extra dice. Another reason this is better is that it allows you to proc So Uncivilized... off of the Failure that you created. Neat, huh? Force those 3 extra wounds!

This is the stance I would use if I needed to make sure I stayed unwounded or really needed to wound an enemy unit. You're just going to have more luck wounding big with this side. It can be a bit of a gamble, but with 7-13 attack dice, you should be fine.

Squad and Strike Team Ideas

Before I wrap up today's article, I am just going to cover a few different Squads and Strike Teams I have tried, I recommend trying, or I think could be good.

Pure Clones

• General Obi-Wan Kenobi
  • Commander Cody
  • 212th Clones
• General Anakin Skywalker
  • Captain Rex
  • 501st Clones

This is definitely the most popular and common Republic list out there right now, and it's for good reason. This list maximizes the abilities of almost all of your units and Obi-Wan is a lynchpin. Rex Helps Obi and Ani, Cody helps the supports, Obi helps everyone, and Anakin murders things.

You can also consider swapping Rex or Cody for Padawan Ahsoka and swapping the 212th clones for Commandos.

Masters at Work

• General Obi-Wan Kenobi
  • Padawan Ahsoka
  • 212th Clones
• Master Luminara Unduli
  • Barris Offee
  • Clone Commandos

This is a list that I've been wanting to try out. I think the defensive style of the primaries will fit well with the more aggro Secondaries and Supports. I think this is another one of those lists where you can pretty freely swap Ahsoka for Rex or Cody, I would suggest keeping Barriss around as a way to offensively buff Lumi and Obi.

The Bad Ending

• General Obi-Wan Kenobi
  • Padawan Ahsoka
  • 212th Clones
• Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter
  • Captain Rex
  • 501st Clones

This is like if Obi-Wan and Ahsoka joined Anakin in bringing down the Jedi order and the Republic. It's surprisingly good. This Vader, for some reason, has the Galactic Republic tag, so he benefits fully from all abilities on the table just like Anakin. The difference is Vader can help all of your units offensively whereas Anakin would try to carry the game on his own back. I'm still not sure which one does better, but I will keep testing to find out.

Overall, I think General Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of the best units we have in the game. His support and abilities are essential to a successful Galactic Republic list. He is able to hold his own both offensively and defensively while healing himself and his allies. I think it could be a while until I run a Strike Team without bringing him along.

This was a long one, but thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you think and how you like to run Obi-Wan!