Welcome back to the Road to Worlds! We may still be in quarantine – but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to think about the future.
While the outside world is starting to figure out how to get back to normalcy – The Legion Discord’s Invader League has kicked off in all its glory. Now that clone wars factions have strike teams there is a solid 4 faction meta that will grow and develop. Today we’re going to talk about the list I took and why I think the Clone Wars factions will likely dominate Round Robin and at a minimum make a deep run into the elimination brackets.
791/800 (11 activations)
Commanders:
– Captain Rex (90): Aggressive Tactics (10), Recon Intel (2) = 102
Operatives:
– R2-D2 (35) + C-3PO (15): = 50
– Padmé Amidala (90): Strict Orders (5) = 95
Corps:
– 2× Phase II Clone Troopers (60): Z-6 Trooper (27), Overwatch (4) = 182
– 2× Phase I Clone Troopers (52): Z-6 Trooper (25) = 154
– Phase I Clone Troopers = 52
Special Forces:
– 3× ARC Troopers Strike Team (21): DC-15x ARC Trooper (31) = 156
•You Can Call Me Captain, •Our Fate is in Your Hands, ••Eat This, Clankers!, ••Push, •••We’re Not Programmed, •••Diplomatic Cover, ••••Standing Orders
Objectives: Recover the Supplies, Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators, Hostage Exchange, Key Positions
Deployments: Disarray, Advanced Positions, Danger Close, Battle Lines
Conditions: Limited Visibility, Supply Drop, Fortified Positions, Minefield
Alright – let’s take a look at each unit individually and how it contributes to the whole:
Captain Rex – Aggressive Tactics – Recon Intel – While Rex is the commander of this list, he is really here for spamming tokens. On all non Padme Command turns, Rex spits out a few surge tokens and often will hand out a number of green tokens by acting as a green token battery for the rest of the clones. Often this is either 2 aims via tactical, or 1 aim via tactical and 1 standby token. Additionally Rex can set up some very cool and interesting situations with Scouting Party. Since the list has a decently high activation count, it’s possible to hold R2, Padme, and Rex until late phase deployment and really push you Secret Mission Characters (More on this later) towards a zone. We’re playing a deployment deck that plays Battle Lines, Danger Close, Disarray, and Advanced Positions to make it extremely awkward for an opponent to cover their deployment zone so this can give us a significant victory point edge.
Padme Amidala – Padme is the crux of this list and really stitches it all together. She’s the ultimate team player. At the start of the game you have to figure out if you want to divulge her 3 pip command card that gives her infiltrate and Secret Mission. I believe that it’s right to divulge this most of the time, particularly if you secured blue player and were able to snag a good deployment (of which we have 4 in our battle deck for Secret Mission). While Scoring Secret Mission is clearly great – don’t get too aggressive and put Padme some place dangerous just to score it. She’s first and foremost a support piece in your army and Infiltrate should be used mostly to make sure that she’s some place safe and can support your army by taking the Quick Thinking Action and then either Aim, dodge, or standby. It’s worth noting that she works really well with R2 as a calculate odds target, as she can make sure the aim and dodge get used in the best place at the best time and she doesnt care about the suppression.
R2D2 – R2 is here as he is just super good value. I’m sure most of you reading this see him in almost every Republic or Rebel army you play against. For the low cost of 50 points you can threaten an extra victory point through secret mission while simultaneously providing your elite clone army with additional tokens to share. Since we’re not playing any Blast Off (R2’s 1 pip) we do need to be careful about the distance required to score secret mission – again though, we’ve tailored our battle deck to specifically abuse Secret Mission and R2.
2x Phase II Clones with Overwatch/Z6 – These are the most valuable corps units in the army and are here to leverage the clone trooper mechanic by enabling standbys to hedge your opponents out. It’s good to point out that we only have 4 corps units that can do a significant amount of damage with their heavy weapons and in this case all of our corps are range 3. While not ideal, the range 3 fire base is very powerful when you can put yourself in a position where the enemy has to come to you – whether that is through objective card play, blue player, or Secret mission. These units are there to punish enemy players that have to play aggressively against you to win.
2x Phase I Clones with Z6 – These guys are just bread and butter clone units that increase our Clone Trooper type count and also provide additional firepower. There’s not a ton to talk about here – they’re our filler shooty corps units.
Phase I Clone – This singular squad with no upgrades is here to do a few things. The first is to provide the more robust clones a cheap source of tokens. These guys can act as a green token battery and can pass their attack to a more lethal unit like the Overwatch Phase IIs with standby sharing. The second reason these guys are here is to do objectives – Whether that’s sabotaging Vaporators, carrying boxes, or rescuing hostages.
3x Arc Strike Teams with DC-15x – These guys are mad good for 52 points. I think they’d probably be mad good if they were 65 points, honestly. They provide your ranged firepower in this list and are the backbone of your damage. It’s likely that these 3 units will do most of the damage you deal out over the course of the game – on turns 1 and 2 they are often pulling from a pool of 10+ aim tokens to reroll into 2 crits with pierce 1. These Arc teams are the main reason Republic is going to really be a viable competitor this season and they are incredibly versatile. I’d like to find a way to make one of these teams a full squad – but I have not messed around with that list yet. If your opponent doesn’t respect these units, they will make their lives difficult. Abuse aim token sharing and profit.
Call Me Captain – This card is probably the card I play the least in this list. It’s strong when it works (Which is to say Rex starts the turn at range 2 of enemy units and survives) but often I want to be giving orders to units other than Rex and I tend to not put myself in positions where aggressive plays are required with this list specifically. It’s great to have in your toolkit – I have considered subing it out for Ambush or Blast off though.
Take That Clankers! – This is my favorite Rex command card. While not super spicy in this list (There’s no offensive pushes) it tends to catch opponents off guard when Padme increases to range 3 or 2 of the Z6s can hit at range 4. Often I find because it doesn’t look like this card would be threatening in this list, people play right into it. It’s also totally okay to just play it as a Push.
We’re Not Programmed – This card enables Aggressive Tactics and allows you to throw down a lot of surge tokens. Use this card to enable fire support plays with Padme as the main operator if circumstances allow.
A note on Rex’s command cards: Overall I think these cards are pretty replaceable and are very close in power level to the generics that could go in these slots (Ambush, Push, Assault). I’d encourage you to mix and match how you see fit – I prefer Rex’s command cards. If you’re finding Rex dies a ton, maybe swap 1 or 2 out.
Our Fate is in Your Hands – This is Ambush with significant upside due to Authoritative. Often you’ll be handing her token to someone that is a more dangerous threat like an Arc team or a Phase II squad but ultimately this card is about flexibility.(And by this point I suspect you are seeing the trend in versatility coming up a lot in this list)
Diplomatic Cover – This is here to give you a second source of Secret Mission and to allow Padme to Infiltrate to open up deployment options. This is almost always played on turn 1, even if you don’t divulge it so that you can get the full use out reliable. Remember that you can Authoritative Padme’s token to someone else that needs it.
Push – This is mostly here because we don’t know what Padme’s 2 pip is yet. I suspect this will be converted into whatever that ends up being. For now, it allows Rex a 4th command card to proc his Aggressive Tactics off of.
This list is completely about adapting to overcome the situations at hand. You’ll note that a lot of the units can fill the same roles and swap if necessary. There is no one hard hitting unit in this list like a full Death Trooper Squad or Taun Taun unit – this list wins by leveraging your position and forcing your opponent to do awkward things. Some games you barely care about the main objective card and score almost all of your points off Secret Mission. I suspect I may end up wild carding into a more hard hitting list later in Round Robin/ Taking a harder hitting list in eliminations(assuming I make it) once it’s more clear what the meta shakes out to be.
The Meta in Invader definitely seems to continue with the track of take 2-3 Sniper Strike teams in every list. While we could have a conversation about whether that’s good or bad for the game the fact of the matter is that’s where we are. So why do I think Clone Wars factions, particularly Republic is in the most advantageous place? They’ve got the best strike teams, by a lot. In the opening turns of a game it is very difficult to win the strike team battle against Arcs and even if you’re able to get out of turns 1-2 with most of your strike teams intact, it’s likely the Arcs are ravaging the rest of your army. Red Save Impervious really makes them difficult to kill on defense. Their access to copious amounts of aim tokens augments their already powerful attack on offense. We’ll see how it plays out – but I would be pretty surprised if Republic didn’t take down the whole tournament on the back of Arc Troopers.
Well – hopefully this gives you some insight into how I’m still preparing for Worlds and what a double secret mission list might look like in this season of Invader League. Go try out Rex, Padme, and Company!
May the Dark Side be with you, Always
Mike/Dash
Copyright © 2024 The Fifth Trooper. All Rights Reserved.
