ARCHIVES – Condition Cards as a Beginner

 This is an archived post relevant to Star Wars: Legion in its original iteration. We are keeping it on the site for historical purposes but it should not be used for reference to the current version of the game

Last week we went over the deployment zones and today we’ll continue onward with the Battle Cards. There’s not really much in depth needed with Condition Cards but there are some trick and tools you can use in a few of them so let’s carry on!

Clear Conditions

If any of you listen to the STABcast crew you know about their disdain of Clear Conditions. (And if you don’t listen, do yourself the favor and do so!) Disdain aside, a lot of list building revolves around needing or wanting Clear Conditions. Leia, Veers, snipers and Deathtroopers all want clear conditions for those long range shots.

Hostile Environment

I always forget about Hostile Environment when I play it, don’t be like me! Forgetting about Hostile is not good because it could mean that suppression token won’t get removed. You always want to try and keep every unit on terrain when you can. Always think of it as this: you have 12 actions a game, they’re all precious, don’t lose them because you brain farted and didn’t get on to terrain and can’t remove one at the end of the round!

If you’re a Rebel player this might be the card you currently cut because of how much Suppression the Empire is bringing. Sure, they always had suppression, but even more so with Krennic, the Deathtroopers, Bossk (soon), the Tank, and the upcoming Shoretroopers. The good news is the Rebels have many ways to remove Suppression.

If you’re the Empire, you want Hostile in your list because of how much suppression you’re sending your opponents way, you’ll want to hamper them down as much as you can. Krennic and the DTF-16 Deathtrooper have Compel, which can go a long way to deal with suppression.

Limited Visibility 

Limited Visibility has been errata’d, just so you all know. The original version of the card played somewhat weird. Rather than focusing on that, we’ll focus on how it functions now: like normal measuring of range. In the first round, you can’t perform attacks beyond range 2 and in the second round, you can’t perform ranged attacks beyond range 3. There’s a few things to keep in mind, but primarily: don’t cohere units ahead of your unit leader just because it’s limited visibility, they will still be shot if they’re in range 2 or 3, in their respective rounds.

For the Rebels this was a card you cut for the longest time because you probably had Leia and snipers. However, I think you start taking it with all the new Empire guns coming out. It can allow you to start getting into good positions the first two rounds. Find some safe terrain to use to hide Luke or Han and some Rebel Troopers. Sure, you lose value from Leia and the Snipers for two rounds, but it’s better than eating Deathtrooper shots.

For the Empire, ironically, they might have wanted to take this before all of these range 4 units, however now with all of their shiny new toys they need to start contemplating cutting it. If you can take away limited visibility from a Rebel player and get those DT shots you want, that’s a win. Of course, Vader and Palpatine lists love Limited Visibility.

Minefield 

Minefield can really spice things up. How it works is you alternate placing condition tokens on the field, starting with Blue, and they need to be placed beyond range 1 of deployment zones and range 2 from each other. After that, if you move a unit into range 1 and in line of sight of the token, roll a red defense die for detonation. (Note the non-repulsor unit aspect of the card. Landspeeders, Airspeeders and Bikes do not detonate the mines) If you get a block result, it detonates once. If you get a surge, it goes off twice (Nooooo). However, if there is a blank result it does not go off and the mine stays on the battlefield as is, dangerous! The mines roll one black, one red with Blast, Impact 1 and surge to crit.

As I learned very early on from watching more experience players play, you can use unit cohesion to somewhat play some tricks with the mines. Of course, avoiding them at all costs is ideal, but not always possible. The cohesion trick is to move towards the mine, keeping most of your troopers out of LOS, send some poor schmuck forward as the sacrifice, and see if it detonates.

Minefield is probably a card that slots into everyone’s Battle Cards solely on the premise of other cards not being ideal. It is a bit less forgiving for Rebels because of white saves versus Imperials and red saves but either way the table plays the same for both sides. Using that cohesion trick is a good tip you should try and use when you can!

Rapid Reinforcements

At the beginning of the game, starting with Blue Player, each player sets aside at least one unit of non commander or operative trooper unit with a maximum of two. Those units are marked with a condition token and their normal tokens are shuffled into your bag or stack. As the first round progresses, if you have used all of your units on the table that coincide with the token with your off the board unit, it’s time for them to infiltrate on the board. They need to be beyond range 2 of all enemy units, if able, and they are treated as activated. Basically, you want to try and set a close range unit up for a big early start of round two swing.

For the Rebel options as to who you would want to set aside: Fleet Troopers are super ideal and so are Wookie Warriors. If you happen to be running the FD Cannon, remember it is an Emplacement Trooper and it is viable! As someone who has been running a lot of Z6 units, sometimes that’s all you have to work with and that’s okay. My advice is that when you do drop them: don’t get too greedy. Get into some line of sight blocking terrain and play it safe, especially with white dice saves!

For the Empire, it’s similar to the Rebel side of things. Rapid Reinforcing those snow troopers with the flametrooper? Oh hell yeah. The E-Web is similar to the FD Cannon as it is an Emplacement Trooper, and that’s a great way to get them into the fracas nice and early compared to most other games. As opposed to the Wookies, I don’t recommend Reinforcing the Imperial Royal Guard if they’re in your list to Guardian shots. If you are using them as a more offensive unit as opposed to a defensive unit, you could make a case for it perhaps.

Final Thoughts

Much like last weeks post about Deployment Zones, Condition Cards are a tricky thing to write about. So many variables go into these cards and decisions in Turn 0. Some conditions favor certain objectives and so on. I’m giving the advice as best as I can, and I wish I could give even more but there’s only so much you can go into. Someone last week mentioned how they wished there was a website that could break down all the data and what cards apply best to every unit, and as much as I wish that were possible, there’s too many variables! I just hope these help you in your endeavors with this amazing game as much as possible. Just remember, something I think works for a unit might not work the same for someone else! That’s the beauty of Star Wars Legion.

May the Force be with You

-GrandAdmiralThrawn