"'Insolence?!' We are pirates! We don't even know what that means.”
The Clone Wars animated series introduced a wide range of interesting characters into the Star Wars universe, but I think you’d be hard pressed to come up with one who’s more downright
fun than Hondo Ohnaka. The gregarious pirate can always be counted on to put his own interests first, which often involves double-crossing the likes of Obi-Wan Kenobi or Ezra Bridger, but he’s never cruel or cowardly about it – it’s just good business. And every once in a while he does the right thing in spite of himself.
Thematically, Hondo is the perfect character for a game like Shatterpoint. He’s just as likely to work with the Separatists as the Republic, and while he probably doesn’t have any love for the Empire, he’s not above siding with them against the Rebel Alliance if the price is right.
Hondo Ohnaka and his gang of pirates. Image © Lucasfilm.
How He Plays
"What to do, what to do, what to do. I don't want to kill you... per se. In fact, you seem like decent fellows...”
Hondo is at his best when he’s interfering with your opponent’s plans. He refreshes Force when your opponent is controlling objectives, doles out a lot of conditions to slow down opposing units, and has a revenge trigger that will keep his squad-mates moving. He’s not what you would call a heavy hitter, but he’s not really the type to lead from the front anyway. He gives his
Scoundrel squad-mates a pretty good attack bonus when they gang up on an enemy unit, giving him incentive to keep his Secondary and Support units in the line of fire instead of putting himself in danger.
Hondo’s Stamina of 9 and Durability of 3 are fairly average, but should be enough to keep him alive as long as he avoids confronting major damage dealers. That said, his combat stances are still pretty respectable, giving him options to deal out a fair amount of damage in close combat, or run a fighting retreat if that seems like the better part of valor.
Stances
Which of Hondo’s stances you’ll want to use depends primarily on whether he’s engaged with an enemy unit or not. If he is, you want
Pugnacious Pirate – its attack expertise table adds a lot of extra critical and regular hits in melee, and for defense he’s got heal and jump results along with extra blocks. The jumps will be especially useful, as you really don’t want Hondo fighting a sustained melee battle. His combat tree should help with that as well. He can do a fair amount of damage but also adds some shoves as well as Exposed and Pinned conditions to keep his opponents off-balance.
Image © Lucasfilm © Atomic Mass Games
Once he’s disengaged, Hondo’s
Clever Captain stance shifts those extra hits and crits to his ranged attack, and the defensive expertise table helps keep him from taking hits by providing extra blocks and turning critical hits into misses. The combat tree on this side does less damage, but still has a few shoves and conditions, along with some Heal results to help keep Hondo and his squad on their feet and free of conditions.
Image © Lucasfilm © Atomic Mass Games
Abilities
Hondo’s abilities focus primarily on keeping the playing field level by refreshing Force, slowing down opposing units with conditions, keeping his own units moving, and increasing their attack strength.
Strategy tip: Most of Hondo’s abilities will work better later in the game, so you will want to try to keep your reserve slot clear so you can put Hondo in reserve if you draw his order card too early. Being able to activate him at just the right time will be important, and let’s be honest, Hondo is the type of guy to let his minions run into danger well before he does...
Image © Lucasfilm © Atomic Mass Games
Tactic: That’s Just Good Business
Four of Hondo’s five abilities cost Force to use, and he only starts with two Force. So even if he’s got a force-wielder in charge of your other squad, he’s still going to struggle a bit to pay for his abilities. That’s where this ability comes in, refreshing one Force for each objective your opponent controls. This is one of those abilities where timing is crucial – you will want to activate it when your opponent is ahead of you on control, and after you’ve spent some of your Force so you have it to refresh.
Active: Inspiring Stories, So Many of Them True
For one Force, Hondo and an allied unit get a dash move. Out-of-activation moves are always useful in Shatterpoint, and positioning will be especially important if you want to take advantage of Hondo’s other abilities.
Active: What Have We Here?
For one Force, an enemy unit within range 2 gets Pinned and Strained conditions, and if their order card is in reserve you can pay another Force to shuffle it back into your opponent’s deck. This is great for neutralizing nearby threats without actually having to attack, or even spend a regular action, on them. Pinned will restrict their ability to move, and Strained will punish them when they do. And hopefully taking them out of reserve will foil whatever plans your opponent has brewing.
Reactive: This Effort is No Longer Profitable
This is a pretty basic revenge trigger that allows Hondo to reposition when an allied unit within range 4 is wounded. At the very least it could help Hondo avoid a similar fate, and at best get him closer to a different active objective that might be easier to control. It’s just the sort of opportunistic move that is both useful and very on-brand for Hondo.
Identity: Fair? What’s Fair?
Giving his allies a 2-dice bonus for ganging up on an opposing unit, at the cost of a Strained condition for the attacker, is arguably Hondo’s most useful ability, and likely to be the main reason for including him in your strike team. This ability is a little complex, so it’s worth picking apart the wording to make sure you get the most out of it.
When an allied Scoundrel character makes an attack
as part of a combat action (not usable during an attack granted by another ability), if the defender is Engaged with one or more characters in
other allied Units (not another character from the same attacking unit) that are not Wounded, it may add 2 dice to the attack roll. If it does, after the attack is resolved, each allied Unit within range 2 of the defender, except the attacking Unit, gains a strained condition.
Note that every allied unit within range 2 gains the strained condition, but you only need one other allied unit engaged with the target in order to gain the attack bonus. So ideally, you want to do this with a supporting unit of two characters, so each of them can attack with the bonus, and only one additional allied unit engaged with the target, preferably one tough enough to take a strained condition for the first attack and a damage in place of a second strained condition for the second attack. And if the attack can manage to shove the target out of range 2 of the other allied unit, they won’t have to worry about the conditions at all.
If you really want to set this up right, you’ll have Hondo in reserve so he can activate on your next turn, make a successful attack with his
Clever Captain stance, and heal the strained condition and damage that the other unit took earlier. Devious, sure, but what do you expect from someone like Hondo?
Building a Strike Team Around Hondo
"You lied to me? I knew I liked you!"
The general consensus in the Shatterpoint meta seems to be that Hondo’s squad pack mates,
Gwarm and the
Weequay Pirates, are...underwhelming, to say the least. They both got a boost from the May 2025 rebalancing, but it remains to be seen whether that will improve their standing in the eyes of tournament players – although the Weequay Pirates were included in the list that won the Atlantic City Open Grand Tournament (see Goonhammer’s
coverage of the summer tournament season for details).
The balance changes have expanded Hondo’s era to include Reign of the Empire and Age of Rebellion, greatly increasing the list of his potential squad-mates. However, Hondo only has seven squad points, so choosing a new Secondary and Support unit for him will still be a little challenging.
In spite of his relatively
low ranking, Hondo did make a few appearances in various Grand Tournaments this summer. Evan (Must Play Faster) Ritt teamed him up with
Dengar as his Secondary, who seems like a great choice to take advantage of
Fair? What’s Fair? Dengar has Steadfast so he should be able to stay in position, his melee defense is pretty good, and his defensive expertise adds some extra blocks. Plus his melee attack is quite high at eight, giving him a devastating 10-dice attack when benefiting from
Fair? What’s Fair?
Image © Lucasfilm © Atomic Mass Games
Evan’s GT list also included
Lando and R2-D2, Inside Job as Hondo’s Support unit. This also seems like a good choice, as their
Element of Surprise ability coupled with
Fair? What’s Fair? gets them up to a 10-dice melee attack or a 9-dice ranged attack. They’ll take some conditions and damage as a result, but their combat tree includes some healing that could help mitigate that.
Image © Lucasfilm © Atomic Mass Games
Another possible option as a Secondary for Hondo is
Ezra Bridger, Spectre-6. He’s got the Scoundrel tag, and his Force Jump ability should help him stay in position to make use of Hondo’s various abilities. Plus, it makes thematic sense as Ezra is one of the few Star Wars characters who seems to demonstrate a genuine fondness for Hondo.
"One of my best friends was a Jedi. I'm pretty sure we were friends."
Hondo will be best served by pairing him with another squad of Scoundrels, and there is no shortage to choose from. In my original squad pack review I suggested pairing him with Lando Calrissian, and it’s not a bad choice, although I have found that Lobot is the real star of an out-of-the-box Lando squad.
Hondo and Lando embark on a possibly ill-fated partership. Painting and photo by Jefferson Powers.
Jyn Erso could work well, although a few of her abilities only work on Rebel Alliance units so she would need some Rebel Scoundrels to back her up. One summer GT list even had Hondo paired with
Lord Maul (he is a Scoundrel, after all), and another put him with
Princess Leia, Charming to the Last – only one of her abilities requires a specific keyword, and she can heal allied units as an active ability.
Personally, I would love to see a live action Hondo (I’m not counting the animatronic at Disneyland’s
Smuggler’s Run ride), but the next best thing might be to team him up with
The Mandalorian on the Shatterpoint table. Mando is incredibly tough, and as such would be good at soaking up the conditions and damage taken from
Fair? What’s Fair? Additionally, Mando’s
This is the Way could get rid of those conditions before they have a lasting effect.
Plus, “Hondo and Mando” works just as well as “Lando and Hondo,” maybe even better...
Missions
A strike team built around Hondo will probably benefit the most from
Sabotage Showdown. Healing damage and conditions and especially refreshing Force will be extremely helpful.
First Contact would be a good second choice – Hondo isn’t the strongest Primary out there, so having a built in catch-up mechanism like being able to exert some control over the location of the active objectives might prove useful.
But depending on the squad Hondo is paired with, he shouldn’t have much trouble with any of the mission sets either. If he needs to, Hondo can handle
Never Tell Me the Odds, dealing damage and wounding by setting up
Fair? What’s Fair? for maximum effect, and
Inspiring Stories should keep his squad nimble enough to handle the moving objectives in
Shifting Priorities without too much trouble.
Hobby Tips
Hondo wears a couple of different outfits over the course of his appearances in Clone Wars, Rebels, and the Disneyland ride, but the sculpt is based squarely on the red and green jacket he wears in his early appearances. That said, he’s a flamboyant guy who may well have a closet full of different coats, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t spread your painting wings and try something new.
Hondo Ohnaka painted for Star Wars: Shatterpoint. Credit: McWhat.
If you want to stick to the way he looks on screen, Goonhammer has published a
How to Paint Everything guide for Hondo and his crew.
Final Thoughts
At the time of this writing, Hondo is ranked 32
nd out of 42 on
Longshanks, the official tournament system for Shatterpoint, with a win rate of 43% but only 302 reported games where most of the more popular Primaries have over 1000 reported. I don’t think this necessarily means he’s a bad character, it may just be that he’s not as interesting to tournament players in an environment that includes fan favorites that are also tactically solid pieces like Cassian Andor.
Hondo certainly has potential given the right squad and strike team to back him up. He might still betray you in the end, but he’ll do it with a friendly smile and a wave, and you won’t be able to help yourself – you’ll forgive him for it.
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