Double Commanders and Command Cards

By Shanturin, in Star Wars: Legion

I know it's quite early in the game and that we do not know all of Leia's and Veers' Command Cards, but we at least know one of each (Maximum Firepower for Maximilian and Coordinated Bombardment for senator Organa). When fielding double Commanders, would you rather drop their card, Luke's Son of Skywalker/Vader's Implacable, Leia's/Veers' card or basic Ambush card?

I believe that Rebels (at least in the beginning) will be the ones to field double Commanders more often, so it's actually a question of one's need to activate particular unit first being more valuable to Luke's double attack or Leia's early bombardment and suppression placement. Based on the limited amount of games I was able to lay it seems like it might be beneficial to drop Son of Skywalker in favor of spreading suppression early with Leia, and then, on critical turn activating that one all-important unit.

What are your opinions/wild guesses/hunches on this? Do you see a possibility when basic command cards will be more valuable than those of one of your commanders?

Edit: Forgot about Sharpshooter and Leia’s surge to crit... which severely changes my estimation of Coordinated Bombardment. See below.

For Rebels: I don’t think you should drop Son of Skywalker for Coordinated Bombardment. I can see the case for dropping Ambush to take both. But Leia’s card has some significant drawbacks. First, you need line of sight to three separate units Range 4 or farther (and limited visibility basically negates this). Cover will severely mitigate the damage that she is able to do. And you want to trigger the card ability in the early rounds (before everything moves into closer range), but it seems like priority would be more useful to have in later rounds. Finally, handing out suppression is nice, but I’d still rather focus fire something to killl it than spreading out damage in order to lay down suppression tokens (that the opponent might clear anyway).

Son of Skywalker’s priority and ability are much more synergistic, and it’s a lot more straightforward to use.

Im not saying Leia’s card is bad. Just saying that it’s not very easy to use well and will require a more thought-out strategy.

Addendum: I should mention I’ve only played the demo game. Also, my theorycrafting has always assumed that there will be plenty of LoS blocking terrain. If you’re just playing with barricades and willing to spend a veto on Limited Visability, I think Coordinated Bombardment shoots up in value.

Edited by WAC47
44 minutes ago, WAC47 said:

Cover will severely mitigate the damage that she is able to do.

I feel the need to point out this is incorrect. Leia is still the point of origin for the attack and has Sharpshooter 2 which basically negates cover (and she also gets the offensive surge to crits as well making it a 7/8 hit chance). The damage is actually quite solid as it fairly reliably drops 1-2 troopers per target making it more effective than un-upgraded trooper units.

1 minute ago, MasterShake2 said:

I feel the need to point out this is incorrect. Leia is still the point of origin for the attack and has Sharpshooter 2 which basically negates cover (and she also gets the offensive surge to crits as well making it a 7/8 hit chance). The damage is actually quite solid as it fairly reliably drops 1-2 troopers per target making it more effective than un-upgraded trooper units.

Oh... right. :blink:

Never mind. Nothing to see here. Coordinated Bombardment is awesome. Move along.

Will have to see how it plays out, but I would likely drop a neutral card instead of a commander card.

I think you will typically want to drop a neutral card. If the game state doesn't allow you to fully utilize the ability on the command card, it essentially becomes a neutral card, but at least you had the option. Unless something prevents you from using a command card if you can't fully activate the power, I don't see why I wouldn't want to use the commander's cards.

The only real drawback I see is that if you lose both commanders, you only have one command card left. In that instance, though, I think you have bigger issues.

8 minutes ago, Darth 2Face said:

If the game state doesn't allow you to fully utilize the ability on the command card, it essentially becomes a neutral card, but at least you had the option.

Not necessarily. All four command cards with 1 pip that comes with the leader allow only to issue an order to that specific leader, while basic "Ambush" lets you pick and choose whatever unit you need activated, with the best possible initiative. I believe that to be a value of its own, hence my question in the first place. Activating a unit of troopers struggling to maintain control over objective, or that has a nice ion-shot lined at enemy ATST might be more beneficial than activating Luke that has no obvious targets or Leia, whom I believe will mostly stay back ant won't attack often.

But it seems I might be overthinking this :P Maybe I just don't see that much value in dual attack from Luke ;)

20 minutes ago, Shanturin said:

Not necessarily. All four command cards with 1 pip that comes with the leader allow only to issue an order to that specific leader, while basic "Ambush" lets you pick and choose whatever unit you need activated, with the best possible initiative. I believe that to be a value of its own, hence my question in the first place. Activating a unit of troopers struggling to maintain control over objective, or that has a nice ion-shot lined at enemy ATST might be more beneficial than activating Luke that has no obvious targets or Leia, whom I believe will mostly stay back ant won't attack often.

But it seems I might be overthinking this :P Maybe I just don't see that much value in dual attack from Luke ;)

I hadn't considered that. That's a good point.

The challenge is that you never know what the game state will be (that's what makes this so fun!). For me, it comes down to what I am most likely going to use. Having an additional, one time ability seems like it will benefit me more frequently than activitating a specific unit first. Maybe I'll change my mind after some gameplay.

Coordinated attack is something you'll probably want to use at the beginning of the game based on the deployment of course, but there will be a lot of times that after turn 1, you'll either be out of LOS or the enemy with move to within range 3. It's something to consider. I like veer's card better for this reason, just because you'll almost always have at least 1 option through the first couple of turns and the dice you throw can really mangle a unit or a vehicle.

12 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Coordinated attack is something you'll probably want to use at the beginning of the game based on the deployment of course, but there will be a lot of times that after turn 1, you'll either be out of LOS or the enemy with move to within range 3. It's something to consider. I like veer's card better for this reason, just because you'll almost always have at least 1 option through the first couple of turns and the dice you throw can really mangle a unit or a vehicle.

It's easy to underestimate being able to just drop a suppression token on 3 units super early in the turn and Leia usually wants to activate early anyways to toss out dodge tokens.

I will say that almost none of the commander specific cards are straight power adds. Most of them are relatively specific in terms of what they give orders too. For example, if you put all of Luke and Leia's command cards in your hand, how many options would you have to give orders to a T-47? How many ways could you give orders to non-Luke/Leia models with 1 pip cards?

This is a pretty significant question for building your command hand.

12 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

It's easy to underestimate being able to just drop a suppression token on 3 units super early in the turn and Leia usually wants to activate early anyways to toss out dodge tokens.

I will say that almost none of the commander specific cards are straight power adds. Most of them are relatively specific in terms of what they give orders too. For example, if you put all of Luke and Leia's command cards in your hand, how many options would you have to give orders to a T-47? How many ways could you give orders to non-Luke/Leia models with 1 pip cards?

This is a pretty significant question for building your command hand.

^^^^^^

absolutely. I know one of Luke's cards affects Him only, 1 affects Troopers only and 1 affects units. So there is a mix. I think you're right though a mix is definitely going to be the way to go with most lists. However, a more trooper-centric list is always going to be there. The t47 may not be in all lists or may not be the focal point. I like how the designers have worked all this in to the crafting of the game and list-building. I can't wait to see the next couple of Commanders released as I think that's when we'll see the game really open up

33 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

^^^^^^

absolutely. I know one of Luke's cards affects Him only, 1 affects Troopers only and 1 affects units. So there is a mix. I think you're right though a mix is definitely going to be the way to go with most lists. However, a more trooper-centric list is always going to be there. The t47 may not be in all lists or may not be the focal point. I like how the designers have worked all this in to the crafting of the game and list-building. I can't wait to see the next couple of Commanders released as I think that's when we'll see the game really open up

I think Veers is one of the most interesting upcoming releases at the moment simply because of the potential his priority-2 command card might affect vehicles, which would be huge for speeder bike and AT-ST lists.

Edited by Squark
1 hour ago, Squark said:

I think Veers is one of the most interesting upcoming releases at the moment simply because of the potential his priority-2 command card might affect vehicles, which would be huge for speeder bike and AT-ST lists.

I think they'll release some sort of Repulsor tank as well before the end of the year. RtHoth in IA has a tank and the Rogue One movie has a similar tank. I think some sort of transport system would really turn the game on it's head as well. I guess we'll wait and see.

1 hour ago, buckero0 said:

I think they'll release some sort of Repulsor tank as well before the end of the year. RtHoth in IA has a tank and the Rogue One movie has a similar tank. I think some sort of transport system would really turn the game on it's head as well. I guess we'll wait and see.

Repulsor tanks or a light walker like the AT-PT or AT-DP seem like likely candidates for releases after we get the first special forces units.

I think "hover tank" appears in the L2P so that's just a matter of time. Could be a 2-M/SC2-M (2-M is canon and the SC2-M is the variant FFG made for IA) or the TX-225 GAVr (which I think would be real interesting if they had basically the GAVr and GAVw in the same box and you can pick which one to deploy). Could compare to the rebel T2-B.