Good morning gamers,
You find us on this marvelous
Monday addressing Skirmish Upgrades again and today we have a marvelous card
courtesy of the Bespin Gambit expansion: Under Duress. While most Mercenary
figures are all about that offense, ‘bout that offense (no defense), the Bespin
Gambit expansion introduced the Wing Guard, who are predominantly focused on
protecting nearby figures – and one of the ways they do this is the threat of
dealing a Strain to the attacker if you shoot someone adjacent to them. While
they are limited to only one retaliatory shot against the attacker (even if
there are more than one adjacent to the target), it’s still enough to make any
low-health figure wonder if it’s worth it. With the release of Under Duress
(which was clearly designed for these units to use), let’s begin our post today
by looking at the power of the “Strain Game.”
Under Duress: The Power of the Strain Game
Strain in the Campaign mode and
the Skirmish mode are two very different beasts. Heroes take strain up on
themselves to perform special abilities, though some Imperial/Mercenary Deployment
cards – or Imperial Class deck cards – might have ways of inflicting Strain. Once
you’re maxed out on Strain, heroes can’t voluntarily Strain themselves (though
Imperial applications of Strain get converted to damage – ouch). Strain is therefore
the first damage to be healed in the Campaign mode when resting, so every few
turns you tend to find yourself resting just to be able to do special things (or
you need to attack a lot if you use your surge results to recover a Strain).
In the Skirmish mode, however,
Strain works differently: Strain automatically becomes damage to the target
UNLESS he discards a Command card from the top of his Command deck. With only
15 cards in a Command deck (and a starting hand of 3 cards), there aren’t that
many Command cards to discard. Still, if you only need to discard 1 card each
time you suffer a Strain, you could conceivably block 2-3 Strain from becoming
damage without losing too much from your beloved Command deck. But this begs
the question…what happens if you build a deck that focuses heavily on
doing Strain?
The short answer is: your opponent
will be taking a lot of damage. Even if your opponent blocks every Strain that comes at
his figures with a Command card, eventually you’ll run out of Command cards. Since the first
turn is usually spent maneuvering, someone who is playing against an army that
focuses on Straining their opponents probably has ~10 Command cards in his
deck. If you have to suffer multiple Strain results each round, you’re looking
at running out of your Command card deck in 2-4 turns…that’s about half-way
through most Skirmish games. While your Command deck isn’t necessary for
victory, you will lose the element of surprise that Command cards provide (not to mention cool things you
can do to get more out of your figures).
This is what we mean in this post
by the “Strain Game:” Strain can ultimately be thought of as damage, but it has
a tactical element as well: in most cases, your opponent won’t be served by
choosing to discard an unknown card to block a single point of damage from
being scored (unless it means the life or death of an important piece).
However, by using cards like Under Duress, you can effectively force your
opponent to take the Strain as damage because he will run out of his Command
deck much, MUCH faster if he doesn’t take it as damage. This makes it not only
more likely that you defeat figures faster, but also makes your units that have
only marginal offensive capability more potent (which has psychological
advantages if not actual ones).
With that, as we did with the
Black Market skirmish upgrade, let’s look at a sample list for getting the most out of
this card…
Under Duress: Sample List
·
Wing Guard x2
·
Under Duress
Command Cards:
Let’s start with a quick overview
of the Command cards: many of the cards focus on providing Strain (Toxic Dart,
Dirty Trick) or making/allowing your opponent to discard Command Cards
(Merciless, Shoot the Messenger) or you drawing Command cards faster (Planning).
Other cards play to the VP-generating part of this list (Merciless, Of No
Importance, Pickpocket, Price on their Heads). Still others are more fun and
give you better offensive power (Assassinate, Blood Feud, Tools for the Job).
I’ve also included two of my
favorite Command cards that just feel good in any list to help you get more out
of your characters: To The Limit and Strength In Numbers – since many of your
models have options (either on their Deployment cards or via Command cards) to
perform special actions, To The Limit can allow you to move, shoot, and gain
VPs with Trandos or allow you to draw a Command card and activate a friendly
figure with Jabba the Hutt. You can also run any number of combinations with
Strength in Numbers since most of your Deployment cards cost 6, so you can
sneak an activation in if you’re very careful.
I will say the following though:
while all of the Command cards have their use to this list and provide benefits
to the team as a whole, there is another use for these cards: many of them are
expensive (2-3 points) and can be turned into quick cash if you need them to
via Black Market. I’ve already talked about some of these cards in the Black Market post I put up last month, so read there for more info, but as a
commander, you’ll want to identify if it’s worth you giving up the ability to
deal 3 Strain with Dirty Trick to gain 2 VPs (which will pay for Order Hit) OR
if it’s worth getting 3 Damage added to an attack in order to gain 3 VPs. Some
of these choices are hard, but one of the greater benefits of Black Market is
that you can “buy” 0-cost Command cards for free, effectively drawing a Command
card at the cost of 1 Strain.
Ok, character evaluation time. You
might have noticed something about this team…
All the characters in this list use Strain
as a tool for dealing additional damage.
It’s important to note that we might
do better to take two squads of regular Trandoshans and a pair of regular and
elite Wing Guard (vs. two squads of regular Wing Guard and the regular/elite
pairing of Trandoshans). The more defensive-oriented players will see the
advantage to having healthier units who can Recover regardless of whether they
do damage to their targets, vs. the marginally better damage output of the
Elite Trandos. Either way, you’ll see the benefits of keeping your figures
alive and running your opponent scared.
The heart of this list is actually
the Wing Guard: these troopers – similar to Stormtroopers in many respects –
provide you with the ability to suffer Strain (which you can take as damage – you
can Recover it, after all) to deal Strain to an enemy figure who is attacking a
non-Guardian figure adjacent to you. As we have taken six Wing Guard figures,
it seemed like a good idea to me to also bring along six non-Wing Guard figures
for them to escort.
Marching off in pairs can be
difficult to do, since you activate one deployment card at a time, but your
goal is simple: make sure the Wing Guard are around whenever someone attacks
your figures. If your opponent targets the non-Wing Guard, you can deal damage
to him before the attack begins (which is really hard to recover in the
skirmish game). Once the attack is underway, you can use the Guardian Stance Command
card to reroll offensive/defensive die, making it less likely that you’ll take
quite the punishment your opponent intends. If your foe wearies of the Wing
Guard and targets them instead, your more important units (Trandos are painful
and Jabba and the Jawa are annoying as anything you’ll find) effectively gain
additional health because their armed escort is being attacked instead.
Unlike the Wing Guard, the
Trandoshan Hunters and the Jawa Scavenger are more straight-forward in their
use of Strain: attack people who are near you. Trandos have been go-to
Mercenary units since the Core game was released and are undoubtedly some of
the strongest offensive units you can acquire – 2-3 free damage each time they
attack so long as they’re in your face is basically like getting a free Red die
added to their attack profile. With the Assassinate and Tools for the Job
cards, you can add additional damage to these guys, but if you don’t feel like
moving (aka, you started adjacent or very near to your target), you can get
additional mileage out of these guys thanks to Merciless and Toxic Dart –
Merciless allows you to drain your opponent’s deck faster OR give you VPs (but
requires you to be adjacent and spend an action), while Toxic Dart allows you
to Strain and Weaken a target figure within 3 spaces of you without spending an
action. These little bonuses can add up in the end game – don’t underestimate them.
The Jawa is different: he’s the
only Smuggler who’s likely to be adjacent to anyone (Jabba is the only other
Smuggler), so Pickpocket is all his. This is a great way to gain a little extra
cash (at the expense of your opponent) and it complements cards like Merciless
and Price On Their Heads quite well. If your opponent singles out the Jawa as
the weak link in the army (he is), you can laugh very, VERY hard if you can
play Of No Importance when he’s defeated – no VPs for you for killing this guy!
Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
Yeah, on a less sinister note, the
Jawa is cheap and efficient – allowing you to Strain your opponent even if you
don’t do damage. Like the Trandoshans, this is an “automatic” thing that your
opponent can’t deal with very well. Should he choose to discard 2 cards instead
of taking this damage, he’ll quickly run out of cards in his deck, leaving you
to only have to worry about what’s on the board. For 2 points, that’s a pretty
good model.
Finally, we have Jabba the Hutt – I’m not
going to write too much here on him mostly because he’s been covered so much
already on this blog. We’ve included To The Limit for him – because he’s
awesome at it. We’ve also included Planning because why not draw more Command
cards…it doesn’t hurt, right? Blood Feud is on the more expensive side for
unique cards but is well-worth it – and most handy when trying to take out a
two-dice defense pool figure (like Darth Vader or an AT-ST). As both a Hunter
and a Smuggler, Jabba can use almost all of the Command Cards and can Bully
anyone who rushes towards him – don’t underestimate the power of dealing 3
Strain when it runs the risk of discarding half of a Command card deck! If you’re
concerned about taking damage from Black Market (and yes, you want to take it
on Jabba because your only other option is the Jawa…), you might consider
dropping Guardian Stance and picking up Smuggled Supplies – it’s a bit of a
niche Command card since you only have 2 Smugglers, but given how quickly you’ll
be drawing cards, you’ll probably get it in time to use it. While it can be
used to heal Jabba (or the Jawa), it can also give the Jawa an automatic Surge
result (which might be overkill given the double-yellow, but you never know).
One caution about using this
list: it will make some players very, VERY angry. Don’t take this the wrong way
– it’s not cheating. This list (like some others I will post in the future)
allows you to focus on one element of the game – the Strain game – and maximize
its benefits. Many players will take Strain as damage anyway, but when you’re
dealing Strain left and right and you’ve effectively neutralized one option of dealing
with it, it can make an opponent mad. I don’t say this to dissuade anyone from running
this list or to make them change the way they play – I say all this to drive
home something much bigger:
Be nice about it.
While I don’t think this can be
said enough to gamers, smack-talk with this list is a really, REALLY bad idea.
Anytime you run a list that’s going to take away an escape option for your
opponent, don’t talk up your army. It’s just not cool. Instead, be
matter-of-fact about it (though don’t rub it in). Apologizing for how much this
is going to hurt – but not that you’re doing it, of course - can help too.
In our next post, we’ll be looking
at the Vader’s Finest skirmish upgrade and the applications it has for Troopers
in an Imperial list. Until then, happy gaming!
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