Another week, another dissection with my good friend and fellow UK gamer Steve Mcgillivray. I must first put out that the discussion below is going to be based on my experience in playing against Jango Fett (AW21), rather than personal play. Even though Jango smashed my decks on several occasions, he is an amazing card and I plan on testing with him myself very soon.
The Art
Jango’s art is simple but effective. We are all so familiar with Boba Fett, Jango’s son, and his battered armour that Jango Fett’s art threw me for a loop the first time I saw it. Shiny, clean, and not yet battle scarred, Jango still looks like he is ready to kick some serious butt. Menacing but cool and collected, it really encapsulates who Jango was within the Star Wars Universe (SWU).
Point Cost
Jango is a cool 12 points for one die, and 16 points for the elite version. This makes him incredibly versatile if you were wanting to run a three-character deck, even in his elite state.
Health
Jango has 10 health, which puts him on the same level as General Grievous (AW3) or Count Dooku (AW9). He is a hefty piece of meat to try to chew through considering his point cost is so low, and many players run him with two other characters. Even running him as elite and pairing him with only one other character in their elite state, like eKylo Ren (AW11), eJabba the Hutt (AW20), or eGeneral Veers (AW4) is a lot of health to eat through when playing against Jango.
Die
Jango’s die faces are 1 Ranged, 2 Ranged, 1 Melee, 1 Resource, +1 Modified Resource, and 1 Blank. While not an entirely black die, Jango can still throw out some form of damage 50% of the time. The mixture of ranged and melee damage allows Jango to link with other characters and weapons that you may want to throw his way, although unsurprisingly, his ranged damage is what most people will rely on.
Ability
The card reads, “After an opponent activates a character, you may activate this character.” I am not sure you could find another card in the Awakenings set which is more connected to their own abilities in the SWU. Personally, I read into his ability as something more. When your opponent activates a character (read the Grand Army of the Republic) you may activate Jango (and his many, many, many clones). A bit of a silly interpretation? Possibly. But it makes my game play fun. It also fits well within the Yellow cards, with the sneaky ambush actions and incredible mitigation cards.
All of that aside, Jango’s ability is essentially a free action. Where your opponent must roll and then wait until the next turn to utilise their dice, Jango has already rolled on their activation of a character. Thus, unless your opponent has an ability like that seen on the Tusken Raider (AW22) where they can discard a card to immediately resolve one of its character or upgrade dice, having already rolled Jango, you can immediately resolve one or more of his dice depending on what you rolled. This makes using Jango a bit more tactical. If you are playing against him, as I always have been, you want to spend your first few rounds getting weapons out quickly and smashing his face as much as you can. Worrying about when your opponent is going to trigger Jango’s ability is useless.
Strategies
I will admit, when I first played against him, I passed on many rounds, trying to force my opponent to activate Jango without me triggering any of my characters. While that may have been a bit of a noob move, there was some thought behind it. If I don’t trigger, I can’t let Jango have an extra action for free, right? True, but in doing that I was allowing my opponent to play the rest of his characters as essentially free actions without any consequences. After some particularly frustrating games, my opponent figured out what I was trying to do and we analysed Jango and his ability a bit more, working out how best to mitigate him. And in our humble opinion, it is to smash his face in. He is going to trigger (or not) no matter what so why wait to get your dice out on the board? He only has 10 health, and while it is still something to chew through, it is not Vader, who has 13 health.
If you are playing Jango, as my opponent did for about a weeks’ worth of testing, it really depends on who you are playing him with as to when and if you trigger his ability on your opponent’s first character trigger. Playing another of your characters before Jango may allow you to get some damage ready to use for when you trigger Jango’s ability. Take for example playing Jango/eBala-Tik (AW19)/First Order Stormtrooper (AW2). If you exhaust Bala-Tik first, and he rolls ranged damage (or heaven forbid a modified ranged side), you can trigger Jango’s ability when your opponent rolls their character and hope for Jango to roll ranged damage as well. Then when your turn comes around you have both Bala-Tik and Jango’s ranged damage to throw out. That is possibly up to 6 damage if Bala-Tik rolls both of his modified ranged sides. Not half bad.
Deck Options
The current Jango meta in my area is heavy on Jango/eBala-Tik (AW19)/First Order Stormtrooper (AW2). The Trooper is something we all have played and loved as a secondary character but I have to say, the Jango/Bala-Tik pairing is something beautiful to behold. Bala-Tik really deserves his own dissection, but his ability allows you to ready him if an opponent’s character is defeated. Playing against this with a three-character deck of your own, I have found it better to go for Bala-Tik first. If you don’t, and one of your characters are defeated, he is immediately readied again. And that could happen even before your opponent has triggered Jango’s ability. If you are playing with a two-character deck, go for Jango’s higher health first, as Bala-Tik can only be readied again once. I have found that by not going for Bala-Tik first in this deck, if one of my characters falls, another is likely to fall soon after because Bala-Tik and any weapons or upgrades on him can take advantage of being readied again. Add that to Jango’s triggering ability, its essentially a domino effect. This Yellow/Red deck is incredibly powerful not only for throwing out damage, but also for the tactical side that Red brings to it through the Trooper. Putting in cards like Tactical Mastery (AW74) or Leadership (AW141) can really screw with your opponent’s ability to mitigate anything you are doing.
Jango can also be great in two-character decks, like a Yellow/Blue with eKylo Ren (AW11), Yellow/Red with eGeneral Veers (AW4) or mono-Yellow with eJabba the Hutt (AW20). The Kylo Ren or General Veers pairing would be quite aggro, but pairing Jango with Jabba would be much more controlled and a slower paced attack. With Jabba’s two focus sides, that could be helpful against a bad Jango triggered roll and may be more useful if Jabba is exhausted first each turn.
Final Thoughts
Jango takes testing. Testing and testing and testing against a lot of different decks. He is consistent though, and very much a psychologically tough character on your opponents. The second-guessing game is strong with this one! But it doesn’t have to be. Whether you are playing Jango or against him, know his ability is something you can address and mitigate if you think through your actions. Just understand he can and will trigger when you (or your opponent) feel it is time to do so.
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