Padmé Amidala may not fight on the front lines like the Galactic Republic’s clone troopers, but that doesn’t mean she’s not willing to put herself in harm’s way for the Republic. Mike Syrylo recently covered the basics of using this crafty Republic operative in your games of Star Wars™: Legion. Today, Mike Barry takes a deeper look, offering some advanced tips for using the Senator from Naboo!

Welcome to Padmé Amidala 201, your advanced tactics guide to the Galactic Republic Operative Padmé Amidala!

If you have not played with Padmé Amidala on the table yet, we would recommend you check out our 101 article to get a feel for the basic abilities she brings to your armies.

While that article gave an overview of Padmé Amidala’s baseline strengths and weaknesses for everyday games of Legion, this article will prepare you to bring her to a tournament. We are going to take a closer look at a few of Padmé’s abilities and synergies that work well competitively and how you can leverage them to gain an advantage on the tabletop. Once we do that, we’ll take a look at specific lists that allow you to take advantage of Padmé’s unique abilities to preserve the Republic for years to come!

Let’s pick out the key items on her unit card that make Padmé unique.

There are two keywords here that no other unit released thus far has: Authoritative and Exemplar. Additionally, she has access to three other notable keywords on her command card Diplomatic Cover, including Secret Mission, Infiltrate, and Reliable 1. While these keywords may have been seen before, they are fairly unique and have never been seen on the same unit. Let’s start with Authoritative and Exemplar because they are always available.

Authoritative allows Padmé to issue an order that she would receive to another unit at range 1-2. There are several ways to use this mechanic. First, you can use it to give Padmé’s orders she gets from her command cards to someone who is not Padmé. This is the most basic use of this ability, but it can be used to do much more than that. You can transfer this order to enable Fire Support interactions on units that have that keyword or allow a powerful unit in your army, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, to have access to two one pip command cards. You can also use it to transfer an order token to a unit that needs access to an order token to use the triggers on Strict Orders or Aggressive Tactics if you have those upgrades in your army. Beyond just transferring order tokens though, Padmé can use Authoritative as a Comms Relay effect if she is not the unit issuing orders that turn.

For instance, if Captain Rex is at Range 3 of Padmé Amidala and issues an order to her, she can then issue that order to a unit that is Range 2 of her, effectively extending Captain Rex’s command range to 5!

Exemplar allows Padmé to share her green tokens with any unit at range 1–2 of her. You’ll note that this effect is very similar to the Clone Trooper keyword effect, but it works on all units and notably Padmé cannot use other units’ green tokens. This allows Padmé to share green tokens with multiple units in your army at a higher range and, perhaps more importantly, allows units that normally cannot share tokens to use her tokens, including Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2-D2, and the Saber Tank.

Taking the example of Obi-Wan Kenobi further, he can spend Padmé’s standby tokens to move and then trigger the Charge keyword, or spend Padmé’s dodge tokens to use his Soresu Mastery keyword and protect your valuable clone units. The combination of these two keywords allows you to have a hero that is truly a support character in function, providing you with the capability to hand out orders and tokens to exactly the right units at exactly the right time.

Now, let’s take a look at Padmé’s defining Command Card, Diplomatic Cover, and how it interacts with the rest of her kit. This card has two modes and we will walk through both of them. The first option you have with this card is to not Divulge Diplomatic Cover, allowing Padmé to gain the permanent ability Reliable 1 when you play it. Choosing this option means you should play Diplomatic Cover as early as possible in order to get maximum value out of Reliable 1, which she can then utilize alongside her Exemplar mechanic to give your clone units, vehicles, or Jedi surging red armor saves. If you elect to go this route and do not play it early, it’ll be difficult to find a good spot to play it later in the game due to its slow initiative and low order count. Try and play this on turn 1 or turn 2 to maximize its value and efficiency. This mode is less aggressive, creating a character that is purely support in nature and only there to back up your army.

The second option you have is to divulge Diplomatic Cover when you deploy units, giving her Infiltrate, Secret Mission, and a dodge token when deployed with a cost of requiring this card to be played on turn 1. Going this route fundamentally changes how Padmé will be played, making her more aggressive and giving her a vital objective to accomplish over the course of the game. This option also is one of the reasons Padmé is an incredible asset to have in your competitive army. Many game objectives result in ties or low scoring games, especially with the new objectives from the Vital Assets Battlefield Expansion. With Secret Mission, Padmé allows you to pick up an extra victory point, sometimes quite easily, to help you literally win the game.

Some games you may be able to set up Padmé in your opponent’s deployment zone safely and then rush her back to your army. However, most savvy opponents will not allow that to happen; while you can leverage Infiltrate, you should use Padmé to support the advance of your army while they make a hole in the enemy lines for her to gain access to their deployment zone to score. Additionally, in concert with R2-D2, this allows Republic players access to 2 objective points without having to interact with an objective card, possibly completely changing the flow of a game. For instance, if you are playing Key Positions and have both R2-D2 and Padmé, you no longer need to score the middle objective to win - you just need to hold your own and score both Secret Missions.

Let’s take a look at several lists that could be fielded in a competitive environment to best use Padmé’s suite of abilities:

This list is your basic double secret mission list. It leverages both Secret Mission units as well as Rex’s Scouting Party ability in order to setup an advantageous advance and keep your Secret Mission units safe. The corps and special forces of the army are there to back up your characters’ secret missions and compete on the normal objectives. You’ll need to watch out for armies that are packing more heat on firepower than you are and are aggressively attacking you if you decide to play a list like this, however, as it does have problems holding up in a sustained fight.

Let’s take a look at another list that takes a different approach.

This list is really all about Obi-Wan, and Padmé is there to support him specifically. By leveraging her Exemplar and Authoritative abilities, you are effectively giving Obi-Wan Command Card orders on all 6 turns and allowing him to share Padmé’s Standby token every turn. Once Obi-Wan clears the way, Padmé is then free to score her Secret Mission. Being primarily combo-oriented through the dual use of Padmé and Kenobi, you’ll need to watch out for opponents interrupting your combo by disrupting either character’s progress.

This list focuses on Padmé supporting the army. With the addition of Strict Orders and Aggressive Tactics it wants to make sure that your valuable corps units have the orders available to them while leveraging your command cards. The Phase II Clones can use Padmé’s tokens to spend standby tokens out to range 3 and also use her aim tokens to increase their lethality.

Whichever type of list you choose, Padmé will bring a swathe of new options to your Republic army to allow you to maintain freedom in the galaxy.

Mike Barry is one of the co-hosts of a notorious Legion podcast and a blogger. You can find articles and other great content by Mike and his colleagues on their blog.