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Mini of the Day
 

General Windu
Set: Champions of the Force
#26/60

Date Reviewed: August 18, 2006


Image from Wizards.com

Ratings:  Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.

100 pt:
200 pt:

 

Sorry, we don't have this card image.

 
Sith Dragon

 

General Windu
Republic
Cost: 72
HP: 150
DEF: 22
ATK: +16
DAM: 20

Triple Attack; Vaapad Fighting

Force 5: Force Absorb, Riposte, Sweep, Master Speed, Shatterpoint (range 6 - first attack of the round against chosen enemy is auto crit)

CE: Followers within 6 gain an extra attack instead of moving.

WOW! When I was thinking what minis to select, I was shocked that we had gone this far and NOT done the great General yet. He is a horse for the republic. He starts off as the highest costed republic piece in the game, and has the stats to back it up. His 150 HP can take a real pounding, and his other stats are very solid. Not only is this guy a triple attacker, but they brought back his Vaapad style fighting from his clone strike version, making him even deadlier.

He has 5 force points which is normal for a Jedi of his caliber, and has some very nice options to use them with. The force absorb will stop assaults and rages. Riposte instead of block is nice because you stand a better chance of hitting an opponent than making a block. Also, it means a Jedi has to be able to take 4 hits a round if they want to stand toe to toe with him. Sweep is also a nice counter if you are facing swarm armies instead of major pieces. Master speed is the greatest force power in the game to a character who is limited to melee attacks. It cuts down the time that he is forced to be in the open before making an attack.

Now shatterpoint is its own gimmick. Most times you wont use it as you have to give up your turn, and it would take a few rounds to make up for the damage you passed on doing. However, I do think it has its purposes against big guns like Jedi Hunter, Exar or Bane (characters that will take a couple rounds to kill. The strategy side of this is that by making the first attack of the round an Auto Crit, it forces opponents to block the first attack, opening the door to crits later. It also gives you an extra 20 DAM if they are thinking about pulling away form him to avoid the triple with Vaapad. Most times its not worth using, but played correctly it can be a real asset.

Now for the CE. This is what has really made Mace a hot commodity. All followers gain an extra attack. This can be anyone from Sev to Aurra to Jedi. The range of 6 is generally irrelevant due to Mas Amedda. My personal favorite use of his CE is to use either unique CS Jedi, or double attackers, effectively giving them triple attack. The CS Jedi are all very solid pieces, but the single attacks means that they simply won't cause enough damage compared to newer double and triple attackers. Mace fixes this and makes a great many of them worth playing. My favorite is Saesee Tiin. A double +17 for 30 DAM is hard to overlook if you get init.

100pts: Here he can be playable as he is a major horse, but with only 28 points , 19 with R2, you don't have much room left, but he can definitely do some damage here.

200pts: Here you can bring in the extra support. I prefer Jedi with him, but he is also a favorite to give super stealthed Sev's double attack. Your opponent can exhaust over half their squad trying to deal with every one else, and then - at the end- they have to deal with Mace (or vise-versa). He is an awesome piece and one of the elite characters of the game.


"Dude, the fat guy totally just blew up!" -Pink 5
 
Ten-Eyed
Man

 
One thing that I really like about Mace Windu in the miniatures game is that all three of his versions have exactly the same basic statistics, down to the Triple Attack and five Force Points. As you probably don't recall from my review of Mace Windu, Jedi Master, I strongly prefer the original Clone Strike version of the character to the ROTS remake. General Windu, however, has stolen my heart.
Ignoring for a moment one of the most blatantly powerful Commander Effects in the game, the General features the triumphant return of Vaapad-Style Fighting, allowing roughly one in seven of Windu's attacks to be a critical. He also features Lightsaber Sweep and Riposte, because that way he gets more attacks that might be criticals. As a nice touch, he has Master Speed, which helps him start making attacks sooner, and finally, he has Force Absorb, which will mostly be used to cancel attempts to block his attacks.
As you can see, General Windu likes to attack. He also helps his followers discover their own inner Windus, with a Commander Effect that just grants all followers Extra Attack. Take a moment and breathe that in... yeah. Republic Commando Sev? He should totally do 60 damage a round. Depa Billaba? She should definitely get three attacks per round to try and trigger her own Vaapad-Style Fighting. Gotal Fringer? Two attempts at that elusive Disintegrate per turn.
Two of the above examples are Good Ideas. The other one is Just For Fun, a euphemism for "not competitively useful." I recently did play General Windu and a load of Gotals in a tournament, and lost (as I deserved to). Not a single '20' the whole time, either. Gotals suck, but at least now I can cross them off the list of "things I haven't yet played in a tournament."
Where was I? General Windu, right. He has one last ability which is interesting enough to merit its own paragraph. Shatterpoint is an interesting way to spend a turn. You should NOT, repeat not, use it instead of a Triple Attack, if the choice presents itself. Giving up 60 or more damage so you can add 20 per round in the future is only a good idea against the AT-AT. But if R2 can't quite tow you up to the Big Bad on your opponent's squad, you can do a lot worse than having Mace take a moment to size up the guy's weaknesses.
All in all, General Windu is some of the most fun I've had in this game. He combos so well with so many pieces, and has so many great abilities himself, he might very well be my favorite piece in Champions of the Force.
Overall rating in 100: 2.5 (at 72 points, a Jedi with no defensive abilities is probably a bad buy for this point total)
Overall rating in 200: 4.5 (now we're talkin')
 

Zeroph Zeal
General Windu
08/17/06

Points: 72
Hitpoints: 150
Defense: 22
Attack: +16
Damage: 20

Abilities: Unique, Melee Attack, Triple Attack, Vapaad-Style Fighting

Force 5, Force Absorb, Lightsaber Sweep, Lightsaber Riposte, Master Speed, Shatterpoint

Commander Effect: Followers within 6 squares gain Extra Attack.

Oooh, pulling General Windu from a pack is just so sexy. I don't think I was ever this excited about pulling a Rare before... with an exception of the Darth Maul-Champion of the Sith I pulled just before it... ;-)

General Windu is simply a great all-around piece.
That's also the problem, though. He's a good combatant as well as a good commander. When using Windu, you often get the urge to go out and attack, yet you want to protect him too as the commander effect he holds is extremely good. Of course, you can't just let 72 of your points just sit back and do nothing. The key to using this character is to find a balance of attacking and keeping him out of trouble.

His stats are definatly good, and they should be for a character of this calibir. 150 hitpoints means its going to be tough to kill, expessially with a solid 22 defense. +16 Attack all but guarentees sucsess in hitting, and the normal 20 damage for a jedi is nice.

Mace Windu has Triple Attack, which is no surprise for a jedi that is over 60 points. This allows a maximum of 120 damage to be dealt per turn, if all of them turn out critical, and Vapaad helps you getting those criticals. Vapaad is simply one of my favorite abilities in the game, and it is simply brutal on Mace Windu. 5 Force points is solid, and he has a nice array of force abilities to match. Force Absorb costs
2 force points to negate a force ability of an adjacent character. More often than not, this will be Lightsaber Block, but could be useful in other scenarios. 2 Force is a large price to pay, though, and would only really be worth it if it would kill the enemy unit... In my opinion. He also has Lightsaber Sweep and Riposte, which are standard jedi abilities.
Master Speed, as mentioned yesterday, is one of my favorite abilities. This allows Mace to move away and into battle quite easily, for a mere 1 force point.
The last ability and the one that I want to pay most attention to is Shatterpoint. It's a fairly simple ability. Instead of activating Mace Windu, you target one enemy unit within 6 squares of Mace. For the remainder of the skirmish, Mace will roll score a critical hit guarenteed on that unit for the first attack of each round. In my opinion, this ability isn't very good. Sure, it has its uses, but requires you to use an entire activation of Mace Windu to use.
It wouldn't be that bad if you could use it from the other side of the board, but this is further restricted by making the target unit be within 6 squares. This means that that unit can possibly shoot at Mace that turn, and that Mace would be in range of an attack. Attack > Shatterpoint, definatly. Vapaad is enough to let Mace unleash critical hits. I feel that Shatterpoint is unnessissarry. Powerful effect, but it really fails ingame.

The real reason that this piece is being looked at though is its amazing Commander effect. It's rather simple, all followers gain an extra attack. This means that all the single attackers now have Double Attack... units with Double Attack already become Triple Attack, Triple to Quadruple, Quadruple to whatever comes next... xP This is where the conflict begins. Stat-wise, Windu is not a commander. He seems to be the massive beatstick he was in Clone Strike.
The problem occurs: Do you want to keep Windu out of fighting or march him up like the beastick he is? If you march in fighting, you risk losing him, and his game-winning commander effect. To sit him in the back row would be a waste of 72 points. It's really up to you... and its difficult to decide and could be the difference of victory and defeat.

100 points: 3.5/5 Beasticks rule in this format, Windu is no exception. Who cares if he can't put his Commander Effect into full use here? He can kill stuff.

200 points: 4/5 Would score higher if he was either a commander or a beatstick. Characters in between I simply don't like.

Scuplt: 5/5 Near perfect. He looks like such a badass in this pose. :)
 


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