I was wondering the other day... when to play these less popular objectives? What types of fleet benefit from these? (I play rebel)

DT is probably one of the most popular blue objectives, isn't it? It's the kind of low risk alternative you take when nothing else fits better.

DT is probably one of the most popular blue objectives, isn't it? It's the kind of low risk alternative you take when nothing else fits better.

It is? I was under the impression no one played that one. That's good to know, I looked at the card and thought it could be fun.

I take dangerous territory when I have low yaw/large base ships.

The ability to ignore asteroid damage is not to be underestimated.

I like DT with grav shift Interdictor. Minefields is good too. Controlling the flow of the battle seems to account for a bunch in my games.

Minefield is very effective with jousting fleets. You can cut off big sections of the board and force the engagement to take place where you want. Or, if your opponent refuses to change course, they'll be quite banged up by the time you start shooting each other. Small fleets like the Rebel swarm are particularly vulnerable to mines, because the damage goes straight to their low hull values. I've seen CR-90s and Raiders try to go for a flanking maneuver, run afoul of a couple mines, and die before they ever even get shot at.

Actually, the reason it's so effective is part of its problem. It can encourage your opponent to never engage and instead stalemate you, which happened to me in two of three games at a recent tournament. You want to slow-roll toward the enemy, but the enemy refuses to budge, and instead either sets up to pick you apart as you approach, or else it takes so long to get to each other that no damage ensues. If nobody shoots anything, you win the game 0-0, and take 6 tournament points. One of the Organized Play changes was to award victory to the second player in the case of a tie. So, if you bring Minefields to a game and your opponent plans to stalemate you, do what I didn't do and remind them that stalemating will be a 5-6 loss. That's a pretty conservative win for you, but it is a win nonetheless, and knowing that stalemating means losing might motivate your opponent to come at you.

If you're ultra-competitive, trying to take first place at the event and go on to Worlds: Don't take Minefields. You're going big or going home, and a stalemate can spoil your record.

If you're anyone else: Take it if you want. It can give you awesome control over the battlefield, provided you put the mines in such a place that they blow up on your enemy and not on you.

Dangerous Territory is actually a fine substitute for fleets that want to deny areas to the enemy.

DT is one of my favourite to take. Ignoring obstacles alone is worth it, and having a Grav Shift Reroute available when I take it with the Interdictor fleets really lets you conduct how the initial engagement will run.

Minefields nearly always results in a very low-intensity games in my experience. The 1st player typically castles or maneuvers in such a way that shots are rarely fired before turn 5. It is a strong deterrent to having this mission in my fleets. I want to fight!

I like Dangerous Territory when I'm fielding a fleet with a lot of ships, so I can afford to jump up and grab those victory tokens.

Superior Positions is where it's at. It is extremely effective in a bomber fleet that also has Precision Strike and Contested Outpost. Since CO will never get picked, it comes down to who has more bombers or who is more maneuverable. Very tough choice to make.

My experience with DT is kind of bland. Don't love or hate it, but it doesn't feel very risk/reward based. And MF I think is the worst of all because I simply don't care where you put the mines. I'm going for your ships and I'll either jump over them or run through them.

Dangerous Territory is my preferred blue objective when my fleet is a little concerned about bomber swarms. Being able to hide in terrain without taking damage to gain obstruction from bombers on crucial turns can be extremely useful. Enemy bomber fleets don't generally like to pick it because they don't like their lower number of ships (due to 100+ points spent on squadrons) having to eat asteroids/debris to contest the points, either. Extra fun with Grav Shift Reroute, too.

Minefields is bleh for the reasons already given. If I'm running a fleet that expects to be outnumbered and would like to funnel the enemy towards me I'd rather use Superior Positions in most cases to simply deploy better/not get out-deployed. Minefields only works with the expectation that the mines provide a disincentive to approach from certain areas: if a good opponent sees you're leaning too hard on the mines, they'll barrel right through and hit you from someplace you weren't expecting; follow up is you aren't as weak to this ploy if you're not relying much on the mines to dictate enemy maneuvering, but in that case why did you take Minefields in the first place? Alternatively, your opponent might just stalemate (as has been discussed) which makes for a boring game.

^ This. Too many players reflexively drop their three obstacles in a line and then go to grab the token, leaving the center of the board devoid of cover when instead you could play some tricks on your opponent. Must be weighted against the risk of having your opponent grab YOUR tokens