Rebel specialists unit analysis:

The specialist pack is a unique expansion at this point in legion. Instead of giving you a new unit it gives you 4 different personnel upgrades to your other units as well as a generic commander option. So what’s so special about the rebel specialists?
Let’s find out.
Rebel officer (unit)

This is the unit version of the rebel officer, it’s a generic commander (no unique dot in the name) and works just the same as our other commanders with 2 differences. It’s not unique so you could have 2 of these in a single list, or even 4 in a team match. They also don’t have any unit specific command cards like Son of Skywalker for example.
Unit options and abilities

The officer comes in at 50 points and is a light version of Leia Organa. You get inspire, take cover and sharpshooter, but only value of 1 instead of 2. A weaker blaster, melee attack and you only get 4 hp instead of 6. You get one command slot and a gear slot. So at first glance there is a lot of stuff you give up for the 40 points you save. So Leia is in my mind a far more valuable choice when you want a support character. However those 40 points can give you a lot of other stuff or you could go with double generic officers for just 10 more points than Leia.
Builds and tactics
The officer
- Rebel officer 50p
- Esteemed leader 5p
Total 55p.

This is the best option for the rebel officer IMO. 4hp is very easy to snipe down and if your opponent is bringing Bossk or Boba then they have an easy bounty. Esteemed leader helps a lot and gear is not really worth it, if you load this guy up to much you are better off just picking Leia. The main thing about this unit is a cheap command bubble that can give some support with take cover and inspire for your backline or power units.
So instead of thinking how to build your officer, let’s check in what kind of lists ge works well in. Luke and Leia is a classic commander pair and it’s effective no doubt about that, however you pay a minimum of 250 points in 2 models, probably close to 300p with upgrades. Leia brings her command cards of course, but in a Luke and Leia list she is mostly backline support. Here you can swap Leia for a generic officer to get points to other stuff. Likewise if you play a Han&Chewie list you sink a lot of points into those guys and a generic officer is enough for some support and you want to focus on Solo’s command cards in that list anyway. With teamwork a single take cover Still gives 2 dodge tokens when given to Han or Chewie and the inspire 1 is enough to help Han from becoming suppressed or even panicked.
The generic brothers

This is something I have been pondering lately, since Leia’s command cards and take cover don’t synergies well with vehicles I think that for a vehicle heavy list the double officer is something to consider. Vehicles are costly and they are fast, especially the speeders so having 2 command bubbles help a lot.
List:
2x generic officer
- Esteemed leader
- 110p
1x Z-6 trooper squad 62p
1x Z-6 trooper squad with comms spec and comms relay 76p
2x Z-6 trooper squad with astromech 70p
3x at-rt
- Rotary blaster
- 255p
Landspeeder
- M-45 Ion blaster
- RPS-6 Rocket gunner
- Ryder Azadi
- 154p
Total: 798p
The landspeeder is kitted for anti vehicle and the astromech squads are meant to march up behind the cover of the rotary at-rt’s repairing as they go. The list have 10 activations and the 2 officers help with command range, inspire and take cover in a large area. The comms specialist is there for the comms relay that helps getting orders to your speeder or other vehicles with cards like covering fire. This list uses both 2 officers and 2 astromechs so try it if you have 2 specialists boxes and tell me how it went.
Specialists (personnel upgrades)
Officer

The officer personnel upgrade cost 19p and gives the unit +1 courage and inspire 1. He also uses the units weapons and profile so for a rebel trooper squad he is 9p more expensive than the extra trooper. With the amount of suppression the empire gives out, it’s always nice to have some extra inspire, especially from a corps unit. The big thing is the courage 2 however. Your commanders courage value helps against panicking, but having courage 2 means you need 2 suppression tokens after rally to lose your 2nd action, this is great. It also means that your unit can have a suppression token that increases their cover while still operating at maximum efficiency. For a rebel trooper squad this isn’t that life changing, you get to take a dodge action a little more often. For a trooper squad with ion though this is huge, since you want to recover that the gun as possible. Normally your opponent just needs to score a single hit on your ion squad before their activation to have a 66,6% chance of them being suppressed when activated. Another unit that really needs their second action is fleet troopers, regardless of heavy weapon choice since they will need to move often to get into range with their range 2 pistols. So if you have the points it’s a well worth add, to any fleet troopers squad or trooper squad with an exhaust weapon.
Comms specialist

A comms specialist gives your unit a comms upgrade slot and you have to add a comms upgrade to the unit. The interesting part is that the specialist cost 9 points and like the officer it uses the same profile as the unit it’s added to. So if you add this to a fleet trooper squad you get an extra trooper for just 9 points, of course with the caveat of buying a comms upgrade. You can think of it like a discount on the comms upgrade, as well as the opportunity to give one to a corps unit. So what kind of comms upgrades so we have and what should we take?
Comms relay 5p

This is the cheapest one and it gives you some extra order control and range. Like I pointed out earlier it can help to give orders to speeders or other units that moves ahead of the army and moves out of command range, this can be achieved by giving the vehicle a comms upgrade, but this is cheaper. It also combines well with the covering fire command card since that specifies 3 corps units, this could give an order token to a vehicle, commander or well anything other than a corps unit. The effect of the card triggers with corps unit of course, but 2 is enough to give you activation control for your corps. I would use this on comms specialist in a rebel trooper squad when using vehicles or a lot of special forces/operatives or if you run a single commander.
Hq uplink 10p

FFG have a history of putting Toryn Farr on good cards and this is no exception. It suites units that really needs and order like a single heavy or lone special forces unit. You will have a pretty good chance to draw corps order token from your stack anyway so it’s not super crucial. There is 2 things about this though, if you play a Luke and Leia list it gets a little bit more value. Both their 2 pip command cards gives out bonuses when a trooper unit is issued an order, it doesn’t have to be order from the commander so the hq uplink lets you get more bonuses out of those cards. The second thing is the Solo trick. Solo’s 0 pip command card that guaranteed gives you priority combos with hq uplink, His card gives order only to himself, but with hq uplink you can get a first activation with another unit like a scattergun fleet trooper squad.
Long range comlink 10p

You will most likely be able to stay within command range so I don’t recommend taking it.
Comms jammer 15p

You will have a hard time getting to range 1 and even harder to stay alive there so this is more suited for faster units like the landspeeder or airspeeder.
Astromech

This little guy comes in at only 8 points and gives the unit repair with 2 charges as a free action. Unlike the officer and comms dude he doesn’t have any arms to hold a blaster so you don’t get to add any attack dice from him, ge also gets removed last from dmg (except for the unit leader). I really like the astromech since the rules changes to repair allowing the mech to repair repulsor vehicles. This changed the potential targets from 1 to 3 and makes it much more useable. Add this dude to a Z-6 trooper squad and pair them with an at-rt and you got a potent formation where the troopers can stay behind the cover of the at-rt and repair it when needed. At-rt’s comes in at a minimum of 80p if you buy a weapon hardpoint and with only a â…™ chance of blocking dmg they will be wounded very quickly. The astromech can give your vehicles 2 extra health or remove the crippling immobilized dmg token from a flamer at-rt. The repair to repulsor vehicles is a nice bonus, however I recommend pairing these dudes with at-rt’s. Losing 1 black attack die from a trooper squad is a small price to pay for a potential extra attack with a at-rt that would have been destroyed otherwise.
Medical droid

Very close to his astromech cousin he has the noncombatant keyword and gives a free action with 2 charges although this is for troopers and not vehicles. Unlike the astromech it doesn’t only remove wounds from damaged troopers, it can also restore a model to it’s mother unit. With the restriction that the model died in the current round and it’s mother unit is still alive. Models with multiple wounds gets restored with 1 hp remaining.
The medical droid is expensive though with 18 points and non-combatant it’s a heavy investment. So you really want to use both charges before the game is over and hopefully in something more expensive than just a rebel trooper. It’s about target priority with the medical droids, where can you get the most value and greatest effect. I remember seeing a table with how much wounds were worth in points depending on point cost and armor save and It’s true that expensive wounds can be a priority and depending on the save, you get more out of the wounds sure. I however also look at what effect the extra wounds or models can bring. So for example Chewbacca and wookies have a terrible save as they only block â…™ hits, however they have very good offence. If you restore a wookie to a unit with tenacity, you get 2 black and 1 red dice extra of they can make a charge before taking more hits, same with Chewie as his offence in both melee and ranged is great, it is worth it to keep him alive. So while I still agree that using medics on targets with high cost and good save, I recommend that you don’t always go that route and think about what needs healing right now.
I decided to put down a list of units that pair extra well with medical droids:
- Luke every wound on Luke is precious, he will most likely take about a quarter of your points and with red defence with deflect and immune pierce, he isn’t a fun target for your opponent to shoot. Since he is such a priority for your opponent, you might as well make it hard for them.
- Han with the reckless diversion command card, you can force your opponent to shoot at han if possible. Thanks to low profile he will almost always have heavy cover and uncanny luck on that. He isn’t super tanky, but he will be a great dmg sponge for one round when your other units can operate almost without danger. A medical droid or two can help him survive a round like this, the more shots against han the better since it will keep your other fragile units alive.
- Sabine same reason as Luke, she has very good save and is a huge threat.
- Commandos and strike teams these units have the same durability as a normal trooper, but much higher cost. Keeping these units alive is key. The trick with strike teams is to try and Keep 1 member out of sight so ge can’t be targeted by hits. Then you use your medical droid to restore the lost model. This can make proton charge teams an endlessly annoyance in games.
- Emplacement troopers coming in at 70 points minimum, this is a great unit to heal, since they will mostly be hit by sniper dmg that only deals 1-2 dmg at a time.
- Pathfinders again price is a factor, but also the danger sense, the more shots they take the more dice they can throw in defence. A unit like this can be very hard to eliminate if placed on an objective and has a medical droid as support.

So that’s my analysis of the rebel specialist pack, agree disagree? You have some great tactics or lists with the specialist?
Let me know in the comments!