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Tamteel Skreej Set: Bounty Hunters #47/60 Date Reviewed: February 19, 2007 Ratings:  Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst. 3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating. 100 pt: 2.25 150 pt: 2.50 200 pt: 2.50

 

Sith Dragon	Tamteel Skreej Fringe Cost: 23 DEF: 18 ATK: +8 DAM: 20 Counts as Lando; Cleave; Double Attack; Melee; Opportunist; Stealth The last stealth character of the week is - fittingly enough - Lando in hiding. Before moving on i fail to understand why this counts as Lando, while Boussh does not count as Leia. Oh Well. His cost is typical Lando, but his stats are lower than every one's fav hero. This version loses 10 HP, and -1 ATK, but gains 10 DAM. Basically Tamteel makes his cost equal to the Hero of Tanaab's cost by gaining Cleave and stealth. Tamteel is a very good character. In fact he is one of the better scrub killers in the game. However, the problem with a double attacking opportunist is that you have to wait for the adjacent character to activate first before you double. With only 50 HP, Tamteel won't hang around long. Like yesterday's piece, He is going to be used almost exclusively in Nom bomb squads. There he can be a very effective piece, especially being a clean up piece with a +12 ATK for 30 DAM. 100pts: Sorry no uses for him here. 150pts: Here he really doesn't see much love either. He is just too expensive to run with Nom. It can be done, but you would be better off running Aqualish assassins instead. The melee and low HP really hurts him. 200pts: Here he can be a great piece with Nom. Just make sure you don't send him in first. Let you cheaper bombs do some damage before sending him in to mop up. Also, here he can be a good fit with Thrawn. At the end of a round Thrawn can swap him in for his big double. He doesn't really fit the Imp mold, but he is still useable there. Good piece despite the high price tag. In most cases Hero of Tanaab is the better piece, but Tamteel can most certainly have his uses, too.
Ten-Eyed Man	The next time you watch Return of the Jedi, watch for Tamtel Skreej. He's the guy in Jabba's palace who looks suspiciously like Lando, but apparently belongs to some species that sees through its facial hair. My evidence is that when we get our first close-up on Tamtel's face, he pulls his visor/facemask thing down a little, apparently just to let his mustache look around. I know they needed to make sure we understood that this was Lando, but I defy you to explain the character's motivation in the moment for this bit of exposition. In the miniatures game, Tamtel Skreej represents another piece of evidence that Wizards of the Coast wants you to use exactly one version of Lando, and that version is the Hero of Tanaab. After the dramatic upgrade between the original Rebel Storm Lando and the HoT version, I was wondering what strange new direction they'd take the character in his third incarnation for the game. As it turns out, they took him in the Melee Attack direction, which was a suboptimal choice. To be fair, they didn't just tack Melee Attack on the Hero of Tanaab and try to charge you the same number of points for him. They also lowered his Attack and Hit Points and took away his Mobile Attack and Commander Effect. And, technically (if you want to be extra super fair), they also increased his Damage and added Stealth and Cleave. I'm oversimplifying, of course. Tamtel is a 23-point piece that can theoretically do 90 points of damage in a single activation (Double Attack with Opportunist, and Cleave to get a third attack in against another target). Unfortunately, that's not going to happen all that often, as Skreej suffers from the eternal melee problem of getting to the fight alive. To help with this, he has Stealth. In the competitive game, Stealth, in and of itself, just means that most scrubs can't shoot you, because most of the real shooters have Accurate Shot (one of the primary indicators that they're a real shooter, in fact). What Stealth does for you is allow you to be enhanced by the Stealth-enhancing Commander Effects. Specifically, either of the two Vigos or Nom Anor will improve Tamtel's survivability dramatically, and he probably shouldn't be used without one. Okay, so we know how to make him survive. How do we make him deal his impressive (if purely theoretical) damage? This is tricky, because Double Attack and Opportunist on a melee piece mean that you sort of need the enemy to walk up to your unactivated Tamtel, and most opponents are not this accommodating. You can walk up to them, but then you'll only get the one attack (or possibly two with Cleave). You can base them at the end of the round, then attack next round, but Opportunist means that you want the enemy piece to activate before you attack it. Hmmm. When trying to solve a transportation problem in Star Wars Miniatures, your answers are pretty much always R2-D2, Astromech Droid and Grand Admiral Thrawn. Either one of these can transport Tamtel where he needs to go to hurt people, but both of them are in factions with far more powerful melee beatsticks. Probably the best that can be said for Tamtel is that he's a reasonable backup melee combatant, especially for the Empire. Since almost all of the Empire's melee powerhouses are versions of the same fallen Jedi knight, it can difficult to get a couple of melee characters together for them. Think of Tamtel Skreej as a Dark Side Marauder that trades some hit points for better damage potential and Stealth. It's not much, but I told you that the Hero of Tanaab version was better right at the beginning. Overall rating in 100: 2 Overall rating in 200: 2
~The Jumping Flea	T.G.I.F! Today we close our Stealth Week with the disguised Lando, Tamteel Skreej. Here are his stats: Cost: 23 Hit Points: 50 Defense: 18 Attack: +8 Damage: 20 Special Abilities: Cleave Once per turn, if this character defeats an adjacent enemy by making an attack, it can make 1 immediate attack against another adjacent enemy. Double Attack On its turn, this character can make 1 extra attack instead of moving. Melee Attack This character can attack only adjacent enemies. Opportunist +4 Attack and +10 Damage against an enemy who has activated this round. Stealth If this character has cover, it does not count as the nearest enemy for an attacker farther than 6 squares when choosing targets. Unique (counts as Lando Calrissian) Now this is a fairly difficult piece to play. He has mediocre statistics, but some good abilities. Stealth allows him to stay hidden as much as possible, Opportunist and Double Attack allow him to effectively swing twice at +12 for 30 damage. Cleave may come in handy too, under the right situations. He is also a follower and can benefit from most CE's. The problem is his 50 HP. That is very low even for a 23 point guy. Also, while he has double attack, he needs to use his opportunist to attack efficiently. This makes it very hard for him to do the maximum damage he can because he will need to have based someone who has already moved. Either he would only get off one attack at +12 for 30 (basing an activated enemy) or two attacks at +8 for 20 (Doubling an unactivated enemy as no enemy is going to base Lando and allow him to get off that opportunist blow). The biggest thing to compare this Lando to is him as another Mini, the famous Lando, Hero of Tanaab. Here are his stats: Cost: 23 Hit Points: 60 Defense: 18 Attack: +9 Damage: 10 Special Abilities: Double Attack On its turn, this character can make 1 extra attack instead of moving. Mobile Attack Can move both before and after attacking. Opportunist +4 Attack and +10 Damage against an enemy who has activated this round. Unique (counts as Lando Calrissian) Commander Effect: Non-unique followers within 6 squares gain Mobile Attack (Can move both before and after attacking). So right off the bat with this Lando you gain +1 attack, +10 HP, Mobile attack, and a killer CE. You lose Melee attack (A good thing), +10 damage, Stealth, Cleave and it is all for the same point cost. In nearly EVERY situation I would pick the Hero of Tanaab over the Skreej. This is do to the fact that the Hero can move, shoot, and move. This allows him to stay away from the battle and do damage without taking any. The only situation I can think of Skreej being more useful is with Nom Anor. With Nom Anor, Tamteel Skreej becomes a great miniature. He gains the "Super Stealth" ability, making him untouchable against non-adjacent enemies. He also gains Self-Destruct 20 making him a threat to watch. 100:(2.5)(3.0 with Nom) He is decent here, mostly for fun. 150:(2.5)(3.5 with Nom) He can have more support here and works well with Nom. 200:(2.5)(4.0 with Nom) Here he can shine, with Nom only though.