Shatterpoint Key Operations Recap – Ministravaganza 2024

Some players enjoy the core Shatterpoint experience but find the first three missions a little same-y. Some players want to play more narrative formats. Some players want a game mode that accommodates three players at once. If you fall into any, or all, of these categories then I have some news for you! We got a bunch of news coming out of Ministravaganza with the Friday featuring a panel discussing the new Key Operations game mode (and more).

In addition to discussing the Key Operations formats, the developers also gave some insight into the design philosophy for the first three core missions, a hint about the fourth, and previewed the Galactic Legends game mode. I’ll discuss the news in the same order that they presented it. If you want to watch a VOD of the stream you can do so here.

Core Missions

The first few minutes of the stream were spent discussing the design intent of the first three missions: Shifting Priorities, Sabotage Showdown, and Never Tell Me the Odds. While this was very interesting, it’s probably not why you came to read this article so I’ll just recap quickly:

• Shifting Priorities was intended to be a nice balanced, evenly spaced mission to start off with
• Sabotage Showdown aimed to spread things out and to favour more aggressive/attrition focused lists
• Never Tell Me the Odds was meant to widen the map and favour more cagey/board control lists. The Challenge the Odds mechanic was meant to help more attrition focused lists keep pace

We also got a small hint about mission pack number four: it won’t use priority objectives. That will mark a big break in tradition and hopefully result in a mission that feels quite different from the current three we have. While the fourth mission pack is finished it doesn’t seem like we’ll see it for a while, especially given that it wasn’t included on the roadmap. It was also said that there would probably be some sort of mission rotation down the line as more missions get introduced. Less options for missions can feel bad, but if you have to build lists that can compete in, say, five different missions then that will limit options a lot more than if there are only, say, three missions in the rotation.

Key Operations

The first chunk of big news comes in the form of the new Key Operations game mode. These are special narrative missions with asymmetric objectives. It was also noted that they are not necessarily balanced as 50/50 but rather some sides may be slightly disadvantaged and fighting an uphill battle.

The rulebook for Key Operations and the first two scenarios, Trigger a Chain Reaction and Extract the Agent, are available now as print and play here on AMG’s website. I won’t go too far into detail since you can read the full rules yourself (and play a game right now if you want to) but here are some very quick summary notes:

• Each Key Operation will have an “Aggressor” on the attack and a “Sentinel” on defense
• The struggle tracker gradually fills up with momentum and the Sentinel will eventually win if the Aggressor cannot complete the mission before the struggle track is full of momentum
• Wounding units can remove momentum (for the Aggressor) or add momentum (for the Sentinel) to provide the Aggressor more or less time, respectively
• Each of these Key Operations takes place in two stages and the objectives change between stages
• Special “Armored Targets” exist where you fill up their tracker by sequentially matching icons to results you get from your attack tree
• Not all missions are pass/fail – for example Extract the Agent can result in Defeat, Mournful Victory, or Major Victory

There’s also a third Key Operation coming out soon, about 4-6 weeks is the plan. The developers noted that these first three missions can be played as a mini-campaign and there will be some guidance in the future for how to string them together.

Galactic Legends

A significant portion of the stream was dedicated to a surprise upcoming game mode – Galactic Legends. These are quite similar to Ultimate Encounters for those who are familiar with MCP (I am not, but I’ve heard about them). Essentially one player gets a super-charged hero character (Anakin, Asajj, and Vader were name dropped specifically as upcoming Galactic Legends) and their minions to battle against two players rocking “regular” teams. Now, these teams aren’t quite what you’d see in a regular game because there are no primaries but rather extra supports and/or secondaries (I’m not 100% clear, just extra bodies generally). Basically you’re simulating the grunts/less important characters having to deal with a main character.

The Galactic Legends also get a mix of special order cards of three different varieties – Aggression, Defensive, or Mobility. We got to see a very early build of Asajj’s Galactic Legend card on stream along with one of her Aggression order cards. As we can see below, the card gives Asajj an extra ability on her turn, tells her how many minions she can activate before she goes, and provides a special Legend Ability. This ability occurs when you reveal and discard the Shatterpoint card, so presumably something you’ll be doing around 1/7 turns if standard Shatterpoint is any guide. Maybe more often, maybe less, we’ll see.

In addition to Assaj, it was said that Anakin is in the works and Vader looks to be next up after that. Even cooler is that all scenarios and legends are meant to be interchangeable. When Galactic Legend Vader shows up with his scenario you can plug him into Asajj’s scenario and vice versa. “But Matt,” I hear you say, “won’t that create an exponential growth in the number of combinations? That would require a lot of playtest data to balance effectively.” If you said that then you would be correct! Luckily, there’s going to be a public beta test coming out for this mode as early as September (though maybe later). I’m not sure if all Galactic Legends will be tested publicly or just the initial wave, but regardless a public beta should ensure a stable footing and, as the developers noted, direct input from the community should shape it into a mode that delivers what the community wants.

Personally, I’m most excited to have a game mode that caters to three players. So many times you go to game night at the local store and there’s an odd number of players. You need one player to sit out, then someone says “I write blogs and have a YouTube channel, I am too important to sit out a game!” then someone punches the YouTuber in the face and then I end up in the hospital overnight (deservedly)… Anyway, I’m hoping Galactic Legends can fill that void nicely.

Wrap-Up

That’s it for the main Ministravaganza Shatterpoint news. There are a lot of new ways to play coming to Shatterpoint so hopefully one of them tickles your fancy. If you missed the road map stream or want a refresher on all the spoiled units then you can check that recap article here.

Cover art by ArcadeRunner