Battle Deck Decisions - Deployments (Red)

Building a Battledeck for Legion is one of the most brain-melting things to do in the game. Each player must bring 4 Deployment, 4 Objective, and 4 Condition cards with every army. The Blue player is whose battle deck you use during a game. Players take turns voting on which cards to use for each game, only one of each type is used. Today I will talk about how to choose Deployment Cards (Red) for your Army.

If you are confused at any time with any of the wording, I have compiled some of the more pertinent ones here. For a deeper dive into the Core Rule Book, go here.

Advanced Positions is one of my favorite deployment cards. I am not usually a huge fan of short-edge deployments, but the L shape going to the middle is sufficient for me. The fun part is "During the deploy units step, each trooper unit gains Scout 1 and loses Stationary." This makes for some easier deployment in my experience, especially for my good buddy the 1.4 FD Canon. It allows you to scooch up just a little bit to where you might've wanted to be anyway. It saves actions on moving and has a really interesting effect on some of the objectives. The only downside I can think of is that it takes a while to set up when every trooper unit has scout.

Lists That Work Well:

1. Pretty much anything can take it. Pretty much anything can take most deployments, but there are a few exceptions.
2. Gunlines like this deployment for 2 reasons. You can start the game right where you want to be by utilizing scout and it also allows for some longer-ranged shooting.
3. I think an argument could also be made for lists that utilize infiltrate. There's a lot of open space on the board to infiltrate and you still gain the scout benefit even if you're not in the deployment zone.

Battle Lines is the base deployment. It doesn't get any easier than this. That, however, does not mean this is a bad choice or a boring one. Battle Lines allows you to really spread out or really clump up in a corner if you want. It offers pretty solid flexibility and gets the game to mid-range action pretty quickly. You can play it long-range if you want to though. I tend to take Battle Lines in almost all of my decks because it's generally not a deployment most people expect to see very often.

Lists That Work Well:

1. Everything. Maybe not Melee skew, but even then I think you can probably still use it.

Disarray is a fun one, and pretty competitive in the right hands. It is capable of causing chaos like no other deployment can. Players each get two opposite corners to deploy in and must deploy at least one unit in each of their zones. This deployment is really good at isolating part of your opponent's army. If you have two solid groups in your zones you can pick one of your opponent's zones to crash in on from two sides. This can be devastating if pulled off. On the same note, make sure not to let your opponent do that to your army. That goes for Disarray and all deployments.

I would only bring this if you have units that are fast, durable, or can be successful on their own with no support. You can also always just make the sacrifice play with a strike team, but if you're doing that then you shouldn't be bringing Disarray. I'd bring things like a group of Speeder Bikes, Tauns, or STAPs who can hang out as a group in one corner and cause a lot of issues. You can also bring a lone bounty hunter like Din or Bossk who can be fine on their own.

Lists That Work Well:

1. Once again, lists that incorporate groups of fast, annoying units.
2. Bounty Hunters.
3. Stuff like Sabine + Clan Wren, Iden + Inferno, or even two groups of commandos could work.

Long March is pretty much Battle Lines but sideways. Because of the size of deployment zones, some objectives can get a little bit funky. Stuff like Intercept will have the objective token placed halfway in and out of your zone. Stuff like Payload, Recover, or KP will be a little bit easier since there's significantly less room to put objectives.

Bring Long March if you have a gunline, long-range units, or both. The range from zone to zone is six. Keep that in mind when moving into positions. This deployment helps gunlines by making it a lot harder to flank them with speeders. On the same hand, if you're bringing speeders or flankers, don't bring Long March.

Lists That Work Well:

1. Gunlines. Specifically longer ranged gunlines like Veteran CMOs, Phase Two Mortars, or Shore T-21s.

Major Offensive is a fairly popular deployment card. It's a fun corner vs corner battle that I think can suit nearly every list. It has flanking routes, and decent areas to castle up as a gunline, and the zones are close enough for melee threats to get in there with relative ease. I will say though, that most people will expect to see Major in your battle deck, so sometimes the Major helps the most by not bringing it.

Lists That Work Well:

1. Pretty much everything works here.
2. Special note for flanking units.

I. Love. Roll Out. I honestly couldn't really tell you why though. I like the shape of the zones, I like the size and distance of the zones, and I love the special clause. "Vehicles may deploy within range one of a friendly deployment zone." Few things to me feel as fun or nasty as having double Landpseeders or triple BARCs lined up at the middle of the map on deployment. I won't say it is necessarily competitive, but it sure is fun to step on the gas with some speeders and start bugging your opponent on turn one.

Lists That Work Well:

1. Vehicles. Preferably transports that want to bum rush a unit of Shotgun P1s, Wookiees, or a Force User in. Vehicles that shine up close also work, think Flamer AT-RTs or Spiders.
2. I would also suggest taking this with Gun Lines. Even if you do not have any vehicles. You'd think that this could turn around on you without vehicles but if your opponent decided to rush any vehicles they brought, your gunline should take care of them.

Hemmed in is a fantastic deployment to bring. It might be the only deployment most people suggest bringing to every game. There are a few major benefits to this deployment that help you with a lot of objectives. Let me break them down one by one:

1. The blue player has the benefit of force concentration. Red player has two bad choices: A: Split their army up making them weaker to a full advance from your army or B: Deploy everything in one zone making them weaker to objectives.
2. The red player is weaker in objectives. Objectives like Intercept, Recover, or Payload. (Special note on payload: If you're red player, don't let Hemmed In and Payload be the cards you play. You will not have fun.) Also, imagine a range one-width barrier around all of the deployment zones. Those are where vaps get placed and boxes get placed. That leaves the area for objectives as a tiny little rectangle in the center and two large areas on either side of the blue player. Intercept, Hostage, and Recover are all special mentions here because all of them have something to do with the middle of the board, which the blue player starts in control of. Hostages are practically in blue's deployment zones. Bombing Run is easy for both sides.

With all that said, I would recommend bringing this along unless you have a very good reason not to.

Lists That Work Well:

1. EVERYTHING

The last of our current deployment cards is Danger Close. I'll be honest here, I think I've played Danger Close one time. It was a fun game but it didn't really persuade me to start including it in my battle decks. It is a neat deployment because of how close the zones are to each other, this shines with melee and close-range units. It also leaves a lot of free space in the center for Infiltrating units. It is very convenient for infiltrators because the middle of the map should be just around range three from your opponent, meaning you have pretty free reign over where you go. This deployment promotes aggressive play, so load up that bus full of Wookiees and have fun!

Lists That Work Well:

1. Close Range and Melee skew lists. Wookiees, Jedi, Mandos, Fleets.
2. Infiltrating lists. Iden, Inferno, Jyn, Cassian, Pathfinders. Padme even.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading! I hope this gave you some insight into how I look at deployments and when to bring certain ones. I am surprised I was able to write so much but clearly, I am more opinionated about them than I originally thought.

Please let me know what you think! Go out and play some Legion!