Rogue Destiny- Setting the Tempo

A topic that was suggested to me in regards to Star Wars Destiny related to the game’s tempo. This can be interpreted a number of ways but what is of interest to me is how fast you want to resolve a round and be able to claim the battlefield. Is it better to go quickly, playing cards and resolving dice in as few actions as possible, or to go slowly and focus on winning the long game rather than maximizing per round gains?

Now, when you want to claim the battlefield will depend on which one it is and how your opponent is trying to use it. Is your opponent Kylo Ren with the Emperor’s Throne Room and he keeps drawing your high cost card every round? Or Poe/Finn in a Starship Graveyard with an AT-ST he keeps discarding to hit you for five damage? Or Padme in the Command Center casually throwing your entire deck away? In cases like these where your opponent’s control of the battlefield wins them the game you’ll need to be ready claim it for yourself if for no other reason than to deny it to them.

Quick Like a Bunny

This very possibility suggests being able to move through your turn at a rapid tempo is important. If you can resolve all your dice in a handful of actions you can be ready to claim the battlefield at the most opportune moment. This can also play into the psychological game. If your opponent feels rushed they are more likely to make a mistake.

There are a two main strategies to maximize your tempo. The first relates to action economy, ie getting more than one action on your turn. Jango Fett is the master of this. Every round you get to activate him for free when your opponent activates one of their characters. Then it likely becomes your turn and you can immediately start resolving dice. Tusken Raider and Rey similarly give you more actions via their character ability, though their triggers are more costly or difficult to pull off.

The biggest benefit to tempo is the Ambush keyword. Gaining a second action really helps you do everything you need to do without skimping. Cards with ambush include It’s a Trap, Hit and Run, Holdout Blaster, Shoot First, Daring Escape, DL-44, Unpredictable.

There are a few other contenders that can increase your tempo. Some let you do multiple things at once, others end the round early: Infamous, Fight Dirty, Tactical Mastery, Retreat, Hyperspace Jump, Squad Tactics, All In.

The second way to maximize tempo involves consolidating your options. The more dice you can resolve at once, the fewer actions you have to spend to use them. This means building a deck with very similar card types. If you’re focusing on damage, don’t mix melee with ranged. When your damage is all the same type you can resolve it all at the same time.

This consolidation applies to more than just damage though. There are eight different type of die results. With any given deck only a few of them will be of particular interest to you. This will affect everything from the characters, upgrades and support cards you select. The biggest ones to think carefully about are Disrupt, Discard, Focus, and Special. If you don’t have a particular strategy built around using Disrupt or Discard then more times than not they are just an unwanted die result, especially when you are trying to keep a quick tempo.

Focus is a great result…if you have a bunch of dice, some of which are unreliable. Without a lot of dice results, or a strategy centered around getting a very specific dice result, a Focus can be as a good as a blank. Similarly, Special results often are quite powerful. Unless you spend several rounds trying to chance that one particular special trying to get it to trigger.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

But a quick tempo isn’t the only way to play Destiny. Sometimes, slow and steady does win the race. While this does leave you vulnerable to losing control of the battlefield it also gives you a lot of more flexibility in how you approach each game. If you’re not racing through your turn you can afford to resolve dice at the best time or spend your actions trying to make use of every die, even the blanks.

One of the biggest advantages to taking a slower approach is the freedom to include some support cards. Generally, dice from upgrades are superior to support because they get rolled together with a character. Each support has to be activated separately. This can be tedious but also rewarding.

A General Veers list with multiple vehicle support cards is never going to get set up or do things quickly. But when established it can absolutely wreck your opponent. AT-ST and TIE Fighters can dish out significant amounts of damage.

A far more efficient style of play is multiple cheap support cards. My Kind of Scum, Underworld Connections, Play the Odds, Back Up Muscle, BB-8, Street Informant, Power of the Dark Side, Supporting Fire and Resistance HQ are all relatively cheap to get down (especially compared to AT-ST) but in the long run can net you some great benefits. They can take up additional actions to pull of their effects but in turn you are able to pull of even more powerful combinations later.

Going slower also makes you less vulnerable to die removal. If you have multiple dice from upgrades and support cards losing one isn’t a very big deal. Additionally, if you take your time and your opponent rushes to the claim the battlefield, you are also free to activate your cards in whatever order without interference. If you take your time and leave some dice blank for awhile and only resolve your Disrupts and Discards, you can lull your opponent into claiming early. Then you can pull off some rerolls until you get the perfect mega attack that they are powerless to counter.

Going slow carries a lot more risks but it also has the potential for much greater rewards.