TL:DR version: I'm a n00b. What are some basic tactics for infantry based squads [no beatsticks]? How does tempo work in this game? How can you create tempo? How can you best recover from tempo loss? What are some common mistakes to avoid?


I coach American Football and play Magic the Gathering competitively. What does that have to do with SWM? Well, in both of those communities, I can quickly and easily find resources to help new and experienced players. I also help other who are interested. Doing searches for SWM gaming has turned up very little. This was the best I could find. Very useful, but I could use a lot more.

It is also important to note that while I have casually played, mostly I just collected and used the minis in the RPG. My collection is made up of Rebel Storm through Universe with about a little bit of Bounty Hunter. I moved to Peru with my Peruvian wife two years ago and just recently my sister sent me my Star Wars collection [Minis, maps, RPG books, etc.] I am now introducing the game to some of the friends I have made since arriving. Sorry for the life story, but I thought some background would help. Also, it is important to note that I am not going to go out and just buy figures to make my army better. I have a sizable collection that I am happy with and might post pictures in the future.

What I would like to do is start a thread to ask question and talk about general game strategy. I want to get better, and my friends and I are the only ones who play, so we don't have "good players" to learn from. We know the rules, but really have no idea what we are doing. I am sure I would get destroyed against any veteran player, and if not, it would have more to do with owning good pieces than any strategy I have.

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Let me give you two armies I built to fight against each other: 100 point build total, Droids vs. Clones

Droids:
5 Super Battledroids
8 Battledroids
2 Battledroid Officers.
100 points

Clones:
8 Clone troopers
2 Clone Commanders
98 points

Just two casual armies to have a shootout with on various maps.

One thing I noticed right away was that Super Battledroids and their Charging Fire is a real game changer. More so if you can get Synchronized Fire working. A potential total of +12 attack against the Clone's base 13 defense.

We have played a handful of games [even the Wife and I played some] and it normally just comes down to the roll of the dice. Once the pieces are in place for an exchange, it really comes down to who wins initiative, and if the dice are kind to them or not.

The basic strategy for the Droids [when I use them and when my friends do] is to active the dinky Battledroids first. Open doors and set up in firing position [even taking a pot shot if it's available] and basically getting them in position so the next round they can combine fire with the Supers.

What tends to work best for the clones [in our experience] is to aggressively attack the dinky Battle droids so they aren't there to combine fire with the Supers. The Clones can't really go after the Supers because they tend to sit back and wait to unleash their Charging Fire... so at least taking out the support helps. When the Clones tried to it back and take advantage of the Clone Commander's CE, it hasn't gone well. They just get picked apart... but again, I don't know if I am just not using them right.

NOTE: For fun, I am thinking of increasing the point total to 200 and adding a pair of Destroyer Droids and 4 more Supers for the separatists and a pair of AT-RT walkers and who knows what for the Republic, but that is just to increase the chaos.

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The same question/ideas apply to the Rebels vs. Storm Troopers armies built. Piles of infantry with commanders - ATTACK!

Well, thanks for reading.

Playing with grunts as you are doing is an excellent way to learn the game IMO.

Far better than throwing a couple of undercosted hero's together and hoping that stats and abilities win you the game.

Your first observation of charging fire being a game changer is astute. In the SWM community, anything that allows a piece to move faster than their speed (or even just faster than 6 squares and attack) and attack is called a movement breaker. Any movement breaker is a huge addition to a squad purely because it opens up attacks that opponents may not be able to replicate and have to worry about or face the consequences. Movement breaking abilities define the most competitive sphere of the game and so learning the earlier, less powerful ones is a good start.
If you want to introduce a movement breaker to the clones you can do so by adding the Arial Clone trooper Captain who allows a follower within 6 squares to shoot at the end of the captains turn. This can allow you to move a piece 12 squares, then move the captain and allow the first piece to fire. It gives you the same 12 squares and attack that charging fire allows but its a 2 activation process and so has limitations. Still, if you can protect your commander and a follower then you won't lose the ability so long as he is around whereas charging fire will die with the last superbattle droid. Keeping this commander alive is a challenge but you can keep him behind a wall but within 6 of your follower who is the only piece exposed. Imperials have imperial officers for this also (imperial officer and heavy stormtrooper is a great heavy hitting combo. With rebels you have Bothan nobles (much later set than the ones you currently have bought from).

Another astute observation of yours is the importance of grunts. In SWM we call cheap pieces like battle droids "fodder". They don't seem to do a lot but are hugely important to a squad build for a variety of reasons.
A) they increase your activation count. Activations are HUGE in SWM. If you have more activations than your opponent then you will get a period of time at the end of each round where you move several pieces without your opponent moving anything until the next round. This process is so strong that competitive games had fodder pieces in them purely to spin and do little else just so a squad can attack without reprisal at the end of the round.
b) they open doors. Doors are such a large strategic part of the game and without playing with door control (Override, satchel charge, door gimmick) the need to be opened by figures. Because doors open at the end of a turn, you need to open it with figures that are expendable or are poor attackers. Often, opening a door will expose a piece, something you don't want to do to an important commander and thus fodder saves the day by being expendable. The expandability of fodder leads us to the next point
c) target blockers - until you get into special abilities like accurate shot that break the conventional targeting rules, fodder can take the hits that would otherwise go in your damage dealers. When playing with fragile figures that do good damage (Super battle droids and clones in your squads - so called "glass cannons") you need to offer up pieces that are more expendable. So by making use of cover and putting expendable pieces up front oppenets are forced to attack the expendable blockers saving your damage dealers for more offense later
d) Combined fire - kind of a lost art in this day and age but the SWM is a game of positioning and statistics. Anything that increases your chance to hit is a powerful tool. Combined fire using cheap pieces is a great tactic (a good one for the republic to use are Naboo troopers, 5 point shooters that combine with the more expensive clones). I know you already use this with battle droids but the cheaper your combined fire options the better.
Bear in mind that combined fire only works on teh characters turn so you cannot combine fire when a commander grants an attack to a follower.

Last bit about fodder - they arn't really expendable. In fact, usually they are my first targets. Taking away door openers, combined fire pieces or just general activations can have huge consequences for the options of opponents and really means that you should protect every piece until the trade is worth it.
Don't open a door unless you intend to attack, don't run a piece into the open without a reason. Stay out of LOS until the situation benefits you. Don't rely on cover, rely on not being seen. Move up out of LOS, and stay out of LOS even if it means a more guarded and cautious approach.

Your separatist builds have a good amount of fodder (Battle Droids) but your clone troop is lacking. Hence why i suggest naboo troopers as they are cheaper and you will be able to fit a few more on at the expense of 2 or 3 clones.

In the 2 squads that you suggested i would pick the droids to win. I would essentially wait out the clones by spinning or moving my battle droids out of LOS until your clones had gone and would then rush your clones end of round with charging fire trying to get no cover shots on your clones. Even with a lost initiative you might still have done enough at the end of the previous round to ensure you the win.

BTW - about initiative. When players of equal skill play, initiative does generally determine the winner. Or when skill is even, luck decides. Plenty of abilities alter the initiative gamble, for your collection i think its just recon, anticipation and master tactician which is only found on uniques in your collection.

I admire you propensity to play the game from an early set without heros, in fact i quite envy you. The core rules of the game make positioning more simplistic, more fun and more important compared to the ridiculous movement breaking that dominates often these days.
Still the fundamentals that you are learning now will serve you greatly as you delve into more complicated squads and abilities.

I hope this is helpful for you and enjoy the game. Its been a large factor in my life for almost a decade.

One thing I can suggest to mitigate some of that is to always play as if you're going to lose initiative, even if you've got Master Tactician. Being conservative like that will help keep your squad alive.

Also regarding imitative, are you aware of the popular change made to it for sanctioned play? Basically, whoever goes first in the round only activates one character on their first phase of the round instead of two. It really prevents situations where the game hinges on a single initiative where both characters have their main beats trained on each other and whoever wins the dice roll, wins the game.

While that may work for what you play with, it is a very bad idea to implement with the later pieces.
There are a lot of abstractions in this game. Given the grid nature of the game, I don't understand why the square nature of range is more "accurate" than your near circular range. And I find it would mess with how quite a few maps were set up. Having diagonals only cost 2 when moving onto Rough Terrain and Low Objects is really, really big.

Yeah, I was just trying to show the difference of a more accurate/logical measurement.

A square is a representation of a 5 foot area. a 1-2-1-2 count for diagonal squares is more accurate. WotC knows that. That's how their other games are set up. SWM is just a simplification of the RPG, which is a re-skin of D&D. To keep things light and simple, they implemented a "diagonal movement = 2 squares" rule. 1-2-1-2 is the right way to do things... though more difficult to enforce and keep track of. Especially at a DCI event.



If you are used to one system, than changes to it might sound monumental, but it really isn't. The square grids are really there to make life simpler. Much easier and faster than Warhammer [40k] and Mechwarrior/Battletech games that require you to use a measuring tape and such. Plus, with squares, it's much easier to mark where a piece is if you have to move it, or it gets moved accidentally.

You don't have to use the custom rule, but I suggest you give it a shot. People I had never met before back home in the states thought that was the rule, after having come from other D20 systems, and when posted about this in the rules section here at Bloo Milk someone else also said that is how they used to play for a long time not knowing it wasn't the rules.



Door closed




Door Open




SWM standard rules door closed




SWM standard rules door open

Most house rules do. They may seem innocuous at first, but tend to cause a butterfly effect or cascade reaction that makes the game completely different that how it was meant to be.

I think the only house rule I've ever been comfortable with was no Oddjob in Goldeneye.

either way counting diagonals 1-2-1 or 2 -2 -2 your still just counting squares and knowledge of the limits of your movement is basic addition.

The above modification might make commander effects easier to use but the game has has almost a decade of convention which, if you start to learn it in a different way, then you will only encounter issues when you play with others who play conventionally.

D&D had the 1-2-1 convention when SWM was released. As far as i remember, the designers of WotC knew about that but decided to use the 2-2-2 convention in order to separate the two games. They also focused on a ranged based attacking style to further differentiate. Perhaps the two statements above are linked? Who knows now but there is not a huge amount of difference between the 2 and it will come down to personal preference as to who prefers what.

you can play in whatever fashion you want to in a house but when it comes to the SWM community the convention is established. I have less of a problem with the treatment of diagonals than the treatment of lightsaber attacks sometimes not being melee and i feel no compulsion to re-set either.

With lancers, yobuck and some of the incredibly fast pieces they grow so much stronger with a 1-2-1 diagonal range.

The game is balanced to a 2-2-2 diagonal. The conversation on the treatment of diagonals thus ends with "it is that way because that is how it was/is designed."

I'd suggest against the Aerial Clone Trooper Captains. For their price, they really aren't worth it unless you can give the CE to someone who can deal decent damage, like an AT-RT or an ISP Speeder.

The Sergeant tends to be worthless, unless you're building a squad revolving around crits, which usually never works and also requires using a Chagrin Mercenary Commander.

For the points, you're better off with another ARC Trooper (Or better yet, an ARC Trooper Sniper) + filler instead of a Captain.

If you're thinking of adding a unique to the mix, why not one of the versions of the Clone Commanders (Cody, Gree, Bacara, Rex)? In addition to being excellent fighters, all 7 versions have excellent CEs that give a massive boost to troopers.

Otherwise, something like:

Clone Trooper Commander
ARC Trooper x2
Elite Clone Trooper x2
ARF Trooper
Clone Trooper x2

would make for a decent enough squad if they're only going up against basic droids.

Yeah, the ARc Trooper is notorious for that. Lucky for me, I pulled mine in the first starter set I ever got!

Yeah, the ACTC is a good choice. Like fingersandteeth pointed out, you don't really have to worry about giving the shots to high damage pieces like the AT-RT if you aren't shooting high HP pieces. Since you're mostly talking about killing Battle Droids or Super Battle Droids, just 20 damage is enough. In addition to the movement breaking of getting to move 12 squares with a character and then have the shoot on the ACTC's turn, you also have the option of just moving 6 or less with that first character and getting 2 shots in a phase with the ACTC, in addition to the ACTC's own shot. So most phases you're killing 2 droids max, but in the ACTC's round you get to kill 3. That's good stuff.