How to Pick the Right Primary Objectives for Your Archetype

Have you ever struggled to decide which objectives to tack onto your wild and zany list? Have you wondered if your zany build conforms to a known archetype? Richard Lavery is here to answer those questions and more as he gives us a peek into the mind of a man who just can't stop winning.

Legion 2.6 has been out for a while now and though many things have changed, one fact remains true: objectives win games. Legion 2.6 has given the community a set of six new primary objectives and introduced us to an additional six new secondary ways to score. 

Now that the dust has settled, I’d like to take a look at which primary objectives cater towards certain archetypes. We’ll have another article later to discuss secondary objectives in the same way.  Together these articles will lead you to make better choices in your battle deck building.  Please note, we will not be discussing advantages in the same way. There is already an abundance of discourse out there about which advantages are good, which are borderline auto-include, and which need some help. You don’t need us to ramble on about them, just take Advanced Intel, Cunning Deployment and then your favorite pick from among the rest of the litter. 

Before we get too much deeper into this article I want to take a second to talk about archetypes in Legion 2.6. With 1000 points there are now a lot of new ways to build lists and the community is working on developing more fun combinations than we’ve ever seen before. However, several list archetypes remain popular so we’re going to define them real quick for those who may be unfamiliar. 

“Aggro”

This list is aggressive and attempts to close the lines as quickly as possible to strike first and hard. Examples of “aggro” lists would be Wookiee Defenders, General Grievous & B2 spam, and Bright Tree Village. 

Gunline

Historically this list likes to sit back and play for late game objectives while relying on their range 3-4 firepower and the classic “aim and shoot” activation. This playstyle has been forced to adapt to the new Legion a bit, but we’ll circle back to that later. Examples include Director Krennic w/Death or Shoretroopers, Captain Rex scouting party lists, and the old Experimental Droids lists that ran rampant at the World Championship.

Vehicle Spam

A list archetype that previously focused heavily on skewed objectives due to vehicle's inability to participate in several of the objectives. Now, with the ability to participate in all objectives, this archetype has some new life! Examples include Blizzard Force Speeder Bike spam, Cody and friends, and Tempest Force.

Hero Spam

Does your list have 3+ characters in it? Congrats you’re hero spamming! A potent archetype in Legacy Legion that now has more army around to support it. Examples include any list that has 3+ characters where the focus is on what they can accomplish, with thoughts about the rest of the army as secondary. These lists succeed through the help of foreplanning, strong command cards and careful activation timing.  

Combined Arms

A healthy mix of melee to range 2 units (from here out referred to as “Bruisers”) along with some range 3+ firepower to support them. Not seen as often in Legacy Legion due to the power of skew lists, but now gaining in popularity. Examples include the 501st Legion, roughly half of all Rebel lists, and like 9 out of every 10 lists that include Dewback Riders. 

Finally, before we dig into the meat of this article we are going to make an assumption that the reader has read the objectives, has a way to reference them, and understands how and when the objectives score. If we took time to explain all of that you’d be reading forever. If you need a quick way to reference the objectives check out LegionHQ2.com for all of your list building and objective referencing needs!

Now then, let’s get into which three cards each archetype wants to bring!

"Aggro"

If you’re at all familiar with me and my playstyle then you'll know that “Aggro” lists are my favorite of the archetypes and my comfort zone (looking at you Wookiee Defenders). These lists tend to be “simple” in design, with lots of redundancy built in and a decision tree that reads “Are you in range to attack in the best way possible? No? Move. Are you now? Yes? ATTACK!” While there are more nuances to the style, as a generality the list wants to close lines as quickly as possible and begin chucking dice. Let’s talk about which primary objectives I would recommend for this archetype below:

The clear winner of the primary objective for “Aggro” players. Breakthrough gives close deployment lines that make range 2 shooting possible in the first round and range 3 engagements all but guaranteed. What’s better is that you don’t score points for securing your back objective but rather preventing your opponent from contesting it. That means you can press “W” for your whole army and roll on forward. The objectives are also set in a way that makes splitting your army rather easy, 500 points on one half 500 on the other can allow you to apply pressure to both sectors. Or you can choose to leave a smaller “stalling force" on one side while overloading the other to really surge forward and prepare for round two.  If you can score those 2 VPs for securing an enemy objective early, you’ll gain a commanding lead in your game.

A wonderful objective where two armies almost pass each other in the night while trying to take each other’s Points of Interest. If you have melee-heavy armies then this objective is going to work well for you. Your opponent has two choices: 1, hang back and try to keep you off their points or 2, try and elude you on their way to your points (a difficult task considering how “Aggro” lists typically have larger dice pools thanks to their Bruisers). The idea is to force your opponent to close the distance with you and then give them hell for it. 

This is your “flex objective” and could just as easily be Intercept Signals. The premise of this “flex objective” is that you are forcing your opponent to be somewhere, and in this case it’s the center objective. You don’t need to wonder where they’ll move or what flank they'll push, because you know they have to be in the center or else concede two points each round. That means round one you can sprint to the middle and set yourself up as a wall for the enemy to break upon. 

Alternatively, you can spend the first two rounds luring your opponent into position before crashing down upon them in round 3 when they’re clustered up on that center POI. Identifying which of your opponent’s pieces are key to the center battle and then taking them out early will pay dividends. So make sure you are keeping those battlefield identification/threat assessment skills sharp! 

Gunline

This list archetype was thriving at the end of Legacy Legion, playing for the round six objective game with Key Positions and Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators. However, in 2.6 it’s struggling a bit more (thank goodness). The game now forces a greater level of interaction, with scoring happening from round two onwards and a capitalization on the necessity of being close to POI’s. Gone are the days of snipers taking a handful of shots at each other round after round and only removing one or two models for 5 rounds straight before the game climaxed in a mad dash to the center. While this strategy is no longer viable, there is one aspect of 2.6 that behooves Gunline lists. They benefit from the action economy of a 5 turn game.

Each unit effectively gets 10 actions in a total game. And the sooner you can start shooting your opponent, the sooner you can start taking away those actions by either eliminating a unit or suppressing it. Gunlines typically bring a significant amount of range 4 firepower which can translate into round one shots immediately after walking on the board, thereby giving you a leg up on your opponent. So then, what objectives work best for Gunlines?

Recover the Research works wonders for Gunlines. You score the maximum amount of points by contesting four objectives, and three of them start right on the edge of your friendly territory! This POI layout also forces the game to go wide, allowing your range 4 units to sit on the fringe objectives while still participating in the fight. Recover the Research is a slow and steady objective and if you’re playing with a Gunline you need to remember to focus fire and eliminate units sitting on objectives alone. This will force your opponent to divert resources in order to maintain their scoring parity. Doing so will expend further precious actions on movement instead of responding to your withering fusillade! 

This is a tricky choice for a Gunline because it behooves you to give up the center POI and hold the two side objectives instead. If you do so you'll keep scoring parity with your opponent while also gaining the opportunity to shoot them off the board from round 1 onwards depending on how deployments work (assuming speed 2 moves and range 4 shots). This is an objective where you are focusing on leveraging the secondary objectives to get ahead while staying even on the primaries. An honorable mention goes out to Bunker Assault which can play a very similar game to what we just described. 

One of the mainstream strategies that has developed for this objective is to send whichever objectives your opponent has chosen to score far into the corners of the map. You know who isn’t bothered about that? Long range units who can still participate in the fight while being on a far-flung POI. (Outer Rim dwellers if you will.) This response requires the Gunline to move a bit more than it would perhaps like to, but as long as you’re able to move, shoot and score each round you’ll be in a good spot to eke out that victory.   

Vehicle Spam

What was once a skew list has become viable in Legion once again! In Legacy Legion only a few objectives allowed vehicles to score, but with the new POI rules vehicles can participate in all of the primaries. Vehicular spam can look very different depending on the faction that fields it. Speeder Bikes and AT-STs in Tempest and Blizzard Force play very differently from double Snails deployed in Experimental Droids. Regardless of what style of vehicle list you’re playing, there are still objectives that dovetail exceptionally well with motorized units.

Most vehicles have long range weapons and are hard to remove from a position (i.e. Snail, AT-ST, Gav, AAT, etc.) which makes them perfect to hold one (and in the case of Snails) two points all game while contributing to the downfield fire power. Knowing that you have a Heavy Unit that is consistently contributing to the effort frees up the rest of your army to push forward to the other POIs you need to contest. 

Another objective where larger base sizes can help contest and score multiple POIs in a single turn. Additionally, Vehicles tend to move across the board much faster than infantry. So if your opponent tries to get cheeky and move a POI out of the interior, your vehicles can still chase it down and score you those points. 

Poor one out for a real one that didn't make the transition.

This is a bit of a controversial one, but hear me out. Vehicles with the Intel token are going to be hard to shift away from the objectives (looking at you Defense Protocol Snail tanks) allowing you a bit of breathing room since you know you’ll score your 1-2 primary points every turn. This allows you to focus on your secondary objectives to get ahead while your tanks hold down that primary. Additionally, that vehicular speed comes into play again if you’re able to clear off the opponent’s back point and contest them at home too. This’ll further aid your primary victory point advantage and give your opponent the sweats while you steal their home plate.

Hero Spam

There are as many flavors of hero spam as there are Legion lists out there. Han, Luke, Rebel Chewie, Dooku, Maul, Ventress, Cad, Rex, Anakin, Bad Batch, Waxer, etc. & etc. What makes these lists effective is their ability to use hammer and anvil tactics to wipe squads quickly and efficiently while forcing your opponent to react to your choices. Typically these lists also have higher Pierce amounts and specialize in area/zone control (rather than spreading wide) since the synergy concentrates around said heroes. With this premise established, I recommend the following objectives:

The fight is going to be on that center point since it alone holds half the available points. Obviously, you might as well send the squad into the fight there. Regardless of which characters you’re playing, it’ll be most efficient to go fight together at one central zone instead of spreading those powerful keywords/commands cards out across the battlefield. 

This is basically a re-hash of my previous paragraph. This objective is slightly less effective than the last since you’ll have to cover two spots on the field rather than one (we don’t wanna split if we don’t need to). But, if your hero ball claims one point while the rest of your army takes the other then this objective could work out in your favor. Heroes tend to survive a little bit longer than regular troops so having that Intel token on them when all you need to do is survive/contest in order to score works in your favor. 

My last recommendation for a Hero Spam list is a toss up between these two objectives. You’ll want your characters to have a clear destination in mind when they set out onto the battlefield, which is granted by each of these objectives. The decision is really going to come down to what type of heroes you brought. If you pushed the “whoops all sabers” button then I would suggest Bunker Assault. Bunker Assault lets you force your opponent to cross your path while you chase down their back points quickly in order to score the bonus three VP swing that comes from destroying them.

If you pushed the “all mobile heroes” button (fine folks such as Luke/Han/Chewie/Cad Bane/Sabine) then you’d play better with Breakthrough instead.  This objective will allow you to close into that range 2 band and start throwing dice round one. The more shots that are taken with characters the better, since the game is now only 5 rounds and they need to start participating quickly to justify their points.  

Combined Arms

Legacy Legion didn’t see a lot of Combined Arms builds due to the power that skew lists held under the old objectives set. In Legion 2.6 though you’re forced to draw a bit closer to your opponent which has been a boon for those Bruiser units. A healthy mix of close and long range units goes a long way here. The objectives I’m going to recommend are all of the same combination, you gain something by leaving a unit behind and something from throwing others into the mix. Recover the Research, Bunker Assault and Close the Pocket all have outside objectives that require babysitters while also sending an element to go assault the enemy’s location. Range 4+ units can babysit points while your Bruisers dive in. 

If you’re going to play this archetype I would strongly suggest experimenting with all available objectives to be sure you’re not missing out on any secret recipes. Legion has a lot of list variety right now and knowing what your individual strengths are as a player is monumental in helping you pick the objectives that fit your playstyle.

And that’s a wrap for now! Adding in secondaries can obviously change up the key strategies for each of these objectives. I'll be back later with another article addressing those, but before I go I’d like to leave you with a few final thoughts: 

First, when the objectives lock in after turn zero make sure you understand where you’re going to be scoring your points. Will you focus on the primaries to get ahead or are you just looking for parity and pushing the envelope with secondaries? 

Secondly, while they are still viable, skews aren’t the final answer anymore. Mix up the builds you already have. Change out 10-20% of your list at a time and fiddle with something new, the new product might just surprise you. 

And finally, we are playing with new objectives and new rules. What worked before isn’t guaranteed to work now. Try a new playstyle, faction, centerpiece and experiment away! We are only 4 months into Legion 2.6, there’s still loads more to be discovered and worked out! 

This edition has been the breath of fresh air that the game needed. So pause for a second, take a deep breath, then get back to rolling some dice. 

Thanks Richard for the articulate article about army arrangements! 

If you’ve any comments feel free to leave them below or hit up Richard on Discord (@sneakyleviathan) if you’d like help picking the right objectives for your archetype!