I saved the trickiest subject for last, Objective Cards. There’s a lot that can go into each game mode, and you need to make sure you and your list are prepared for any Objective at any time because you’re not guaranteed Blue Player. Now, if you’re running a list that needs to be Blue Player, I highly recommend you take at least a 3 point bid or more. What’s a bid you ask? A bid is leaving points out of your list to try and have the lower army point number. The player with the lower point total is now Blue Player, or at least has the CHOICE to be Blue player (Keep it in mind, you have that choice) and now your Battle Cards are what you use to determine the battlefield. Why does that matter? I’ll give you an example as best as I can. I typically run some version of Wonder Twins and snipers, there are certain things I don’t want to see. Currently, in the meta and I have mentioned this already, I don’t want to see Hostile Environment and Major Offensive, and in order to guarantee I don’t see those the Battlefield. Now what objective do I cut? Well, that’s extremely difficult and let’s dive in.
Breakthrough
You know how we talked about Clear Conditions being boring….well Breakthrough is the Clear Conditions of the Objective cards. At the end of the game, each player gains a victory token for each of their unit leaders within an enemy deployment zone. The key to this card is the fact that it doesn’t say “Trooper Leader” but “Unit Leader” which means every unit in the game can score on Breakthrough. Personally, I tend to cut Breakthrough, because as a Rebel player I really don’t want to be going towards my opponent. I tend to play a stand your ground, let your opponent come to you type game (with some exceptions) rather than “Hey I need to cross the battlefield to score points with all of my white saves.” It’s just not ideal for most Rebel lists. Now! That doesn’t mean it’s not decent for other Rebel lists. If you have a vehicle heavy list, they have armor and they can move. You’re going to want Breakthrough in your battle deck, especially with lack of objectives that vehicles can partake in. That shiny new Landspeeder could be a good unit to bring on a flank and then plop into your opponents deployment zone, I think!
As for the Empire, there are definitely units that never want to see Breakthrough. I think those are pretty obvious, Palpatine and Vader. A constant theme for the two sith Lords is that they are slow, and you want your army to kind of move with them. There is a unit that absolutely loves Breakthrough though and thy name is Boba Fett. I guess the real question is, what is Boba Fett NOT good at. Just like that shiny new speeder, the shiny new tank is a good candidate for Breakthrough….considering it can cross the map extremely fast. Don’t let that one speed movement fool you!
Intercept the Transmissions
Intercept is probably the most neutral objective in the game because the objective tokens are determined by the card and not by the players. Now what needs to be kept in mind is that there are scoring rounds. At the end of rounds 2 and 4 you score a victory point for each objective they control. You control an objective if you have more TROOPER unit leaders than your opponent at range 1 of that token. Trooper is in all caps because as previously mentioned it works differently than Unit Leaders. This is where having multiple vehicles can hurt you. Remember, emplacement troopers still are troopers and they do count. With the Tauntauns and Dewbacks coming soon, we are expecting creature troopers to have some new ruling, so we’re not sure how that will all work just yet! Now, back to the scoring aspect of Intercept, “At the end of the game, each player gains 2 victory tokens for each objective token they control.” The important part to remember about this is that if you’re playing on a clock it doesn’t matter what round you end in, that final round you play in scores 2 points.
Rather than go into what faction units work better, because it’s kind of a moot point, I wanted to talk about some strategy. And we’re going to attack this from the standard, 6 round game being completed, not on a clock or a timer.
When playing Transmissions you need to assess the battlefield, your opponents list and then you need to come up with a game plan as to which rounds you want to score. I think a good strategy is to try and score the middle objective in the 4th round and the 6th round. Why? Because that means your opponent is moving forward and that means it towards you. This can allow you to dig in your heels, take good shots at your opponent from a defensive standpoint, try and whittle them down and then move in for the points on round 4 and round 6.
Key Positions
Key Positions is a card that has since been errata’d and I never played the original versions. What I do know, is that it’s a good thing they fixed it because I know there was the Legion dark ages of 20+ point bids. How it works is the first token goes on a piece of terrain closest to the center. Then starting with blue, you place one more token each on a piece of terrain. This objective is scored at the end of the game, and it is scored by having the most unit leaders in base contact with that terrain piece. Now, like Breakthrough, vehicles can score on Key Positions for what that is worth. It certainly will be a card you take if you frequently run vehicles. Personally, as a Rebel player, I’m not to keen on Key Positions and my only reason for that is that if my opponent and I start exchanging shots, and they’re Imperial, I’m not going to have units survive to score later on. Now that said, there are ways to just play the long con and wait it out as much as you can and play it safe. Fine line of sight blocking terrain, make sure you always have cover. There’s no need to rush until it’s that final round and you need to score. I would think Key Positions finds itself in most lists, especially lists with higher activation count. Of course, if you run a low activation count there could be means to cut it from your deck.
Recover the Supplies
Recover the Supplies is basically a grab the box situation. On the map, you’ll place 1 box in the middle and then 2 boxes each in various areas. How it typically works is a massive battle in the middle for that center box, which is probably the only approach that makes sense. Jyn and the Pathfinders are obvious candidates for dropping on the field with infiltrate and immediately grabbing the box, if you’re running those units you’re doing two things: taking a decent bid and auto including Recover the Supplies. But let’s slow that talk down here for a minute, because it is also a trap. What I mean by that is that center box is of course a juicy candidate for infiltrate, but you need to be VERY aware of quick units like Luke and Boba Fett. You could drop, claim and move, but next thing you know that Mandalorian is hopping over a building and in your face with his menacing weapon arsenal. Or Luke is coming over the Tatooine pasture and force pushing towards him. Always be aware of good, quick units like that. Boba and Luke are awesome box snatchers.
The thing about Recover, and coming up next Sabotage, is it messes with action economy. What I mean by that is you have to claim a box to score that point, and it’s going to cost you an action to do so. You need to be aware of every move you make and make sure each box you go for is what makes sense. A suggestion with said infiltrate units above is to maybe not go for that middle but go for a box your opponent wasn’t expecting on a flank or something. Try your best to keep the two boxes you place in a good area for you to move to, claim, and then get behind line of sight blocking terrain. There’s no shame in dodging and stand-bying for the rest of the game if it means you’re securing VP’s. The last thing you need to do is have a unit panic and drop the box or have that unit lose it’s unit leader and drop the box. On that note, make sure your unit leader has other minis in line of sight, because you don’t want that unit leader getting terrain scoped. He will drop that box. You’ll learn all of these little in’s and out’s as you continue to play and perhaps play more competitively.
Sabotage the Moisture Evaporators
I don’t try and put personal emphasis on these posts and I try to keep it neutral, but man do I just loathe Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators. It just sucks, I don’t care that I’m saying it. It’s just a nuisance of a game objective. You want to talk about bad action economy? You’ve found it. You place 2 vaporators each over the board and they all need to be outside of range 1 of the deployment zone. That basically secures that unless you have recon intel, you need to double move to the Vaporators in order to set up a Sabotage/Repair, which will cost you an action next turn.
The issue with Sabotage is that often you’ll find yourself in a tie and in doing so, it will go to points destroyed. In the event of a tie, Blue Player wins. That’s a long way of saying if you’re blue player, you want to play defensive for as long as you can afford, and if you’re red player you need to be aggressive when the opportunity is at hand. You’ll need to do one of two things if you’re Red Player. First option is you attack one of the Vaporators of your opponents and your second option is to kill more units for points and then turtle away to make sure you win on points in the event of the tie. Even though Sabotage is something I don’t like, I think it’s a card we all keep in our deck for the chance if you’re blue player you can play it as safe as you deem necessary.
Final Thoughts
Objectives are what Star Wars Legion is all about. They’re how you win or lose the game, and they should always be your main thing. Tabling your opponent to win is always something on the backburner, but it something you need to consider if you realize you can’t win on objectives. That said, 95% of the time you’re gunning for those objectives one way or another and the only way to get better is to play each objective as many times as you can. You’ll start to formulate game plans and how you want to approach certain things as you go along. Sure you can read all of this, and hopefully it helps, but practice will always be what makes perfect! So hit the tables or TTS and play, play, play!
May the Force be with You!
-GrandAdmiralThrawn
PS- I was going to put up an open poll on what you, the readers, would like me to go over next and it wouldn’t work! So if you want, drop a comment on the post about what YOU would like to see next!!
