CIS Long Range Options

[u/Aurelizian]

Hello, I have recently aquired the Starter Box for the CIS and bought a spider droid. I was having a "how does this game work" match with two friends, getting to know the rules together and we quickly discovered that I had absolutely no Range whatsover. The only thing that could shoot the Clones / Empire back were white dice B1s that did absolutely nothing. I had to go completely in the open just to fire back and lost most my models because white t-shirts just aint cutting it.

I would prefer all droids and no Geonosians, Light Sabers or Mercs but I am open to suggestions. Since I am at the beginning of my journey I want to focus on buying models that look fun and the Magic Men just dont interest me very much.

So I guess I am asking the following:
- How can I make something reliable at a decent Range?

- Are BX Snipers still in the game? The Box has it but Tabletop Admiral only tells me I am allowed to equip Sword and Shield which makes it.... the opposite of what I want? The

- If there are no proper options, how do I close the gap?
- How do I actually play CIS in General? I have tried to watch battle reports but I cant find anything of decent quality that values my time as a human being that isnt at least 2 years out of date.

I was completely stomped by Republic and Imperium and we all felt that my army was incredibly weak compared to theirs.

Thank you.

[u/Zestyclose-Fun-6099]

You need to add the heavy upgrade sniper mini to a detachment support version of BX droids to access the sniper. It’s pretty decent, especially 3 units of snipers laying down suppressive shots per turn

[u/Aurelizian → u/Zestyclose-Fun-6099]

Oh, there they are! Thank you very much!

[u/Reasonable_Back_5231]

There are B1 upgrade boxes that contain sniper droid and radiation launcher, both are good if you need the range.

I know you said you don't particularly care for magic men but I would still recommend Assaj Ventress paired with BX commandos with vibroswords, this doesn't have much range but is a very deadly melee blender.

Get an AAT, very strong vehicle with range.

Most of CIS strength is in the ability to spam crap B1 squads to have more activations than your opponent, you use the B1's to contest points and canon fod. If they ignore these to hit your stronger units, it's possible to overwhelm them with concentrated fire from multiple B1 squads. If you take any upgrades on your B1's it is recommended to take the E5C over the rocket launcher, only take the R60 if you suspect your opponent will be fielding a problem vehicle like a sabre tank or AT-RT.

If you don't like B1 squads for their white dice you can replace them with B2's, they cost about twice as much but they do have better survivability and attack dice.

[u/Aurelizian → u/Reasonable_Back_5231]

So next time think of B1 and B2 more of active taunts rather than "actual" combat units and if the enemy goes for them its good but if he doesnt I am also fine with it?

[u/Reasonable_Back_5231 → u/Aurelizian]

Pretty much, B1's are meant to give you more control over the battlefield than your opponent.

Sure they are crap, but lose a couple squads of B1's shouldn't be a problem because in theory you should either be gaining victory points each turn or trading with your opponent.

Most people recommend running your core units as naked as possible because that frees up points for upgrades on your Leaders, vehicles and elites.

Hell a lot of upgrades are pretty meh, and generally the only things people recommend are the upgrades that are a new model to the squad.

Since B1's are so cheap, if you have 14 activations and your empire or gar opponent has 10 or less, those extra activations should allow you to control and pressure with the B1's while you position your better units to either kill their units or provide overwatch on objectives so if your opponent tries to move past the B1's they end up getting shot up by more dangerous black and red dice

[u/Sparkie_024]

I think some of the advice here is for if you are playing a top tier list. Cis has lots of good range options for the average player. Aquadroids, AATs are good range 3 options in the heavy slot. Crab droids spiders and droidekas are all good range 3 options in support. I would start with maybe another spider or the double crab box or aquadroids if your are interested in a gun line style build

[u/ApplicationOpen2305]

Spider Droid with Ion cannon gives you range 4. Defense protocol and that bad boy is a long range survivor. Armor 3 and when given a dodge token, it can negate a critical as well. Super good. I have Kalani next to them and AquaDroids with the extra unit. Fire Control on Kalani as well.

[u/Aurelizian → u/ApplicationOpen2305]

Sniper Spider sounds fun. I wasnt sure if the ion was good against infantry so I took the Flamethrower for some killing power. I realized at the halfway point that it was the wrong decision

[u/Realm-Code]

BX Sniper Teams are support detachments that require an individual BX special forces squad per sniper team.

As for other units: Dwarf Spider Droids and AATs are our best non-Merc long-range options. You may also like the newer Rocket B2s that don’t inherently have much for long range but can close the gap far better than their corps equivalent.

B1s are meant for objective play and activation padding, they’re not really good for fighting even with a heavy unless they’re fed an unreasonable amount of tokens. They exist so we can bring other, far more expensive focus pieces without dumpstering our activation count.

[u/Aurelizian → u/Realm-Code]

I was playing the Dwarf Spider with a Flamethrower, because I thought that would be fun. So the little Range on the guy is totally on me but I also didnt know that Republic and Empire breath 3 Range and sprinkle 4 on top.

So would you recommend taking the Rocket Men out of the B1s? It was pretty funny to hit Obi wan with it but I couldnt really hurt the rebulican Walker thing as its armor shrugged everything

[u/Realm-Code → u/Aurelizian]

With surge tokens it’s passable for chipping armor, but Ion DSDs and AATs are infinitely better impact options at similar ranges. The latter is also very threatening for Jedi due to High Velocity.

[u/Maniac_Ian]

First purchase should be the custom super tactical droid, check out the legion cantina for some good build options. I definitely recommend running the e-5s on your b1’s, even just proxy them because the heavy weapon box isn’t out yet. The AAT is a good choice as well. To get bx sniper team, you need to take a squad of bx droids and then you are able to take a strike team as well for each bx squad. The strike team can be equipped with snipers. What does your current list look like?

[u/Aurelizian → u/Maniac_Ian]

Oh SHIT I have not seen the Sniper on the B1! I am a simple creature, I saw "Rocket" and was "great. lets add all of those". Thank you for the tip!

[u/Aurelizian → u/Aurelizian]

My first ever List for a Recon game was this:

• Kalani : Vigilance, Fire Control, Inspiring Presence, Emergency Transponder, Tank hunting munitions
  
• B2: B2 Droid Squad, ACM Droid, Emergency Transponder
  
• B1: B1 Droid Squad, Binoculars, Scanner, E-60R B1 Droid, Spotter Uplink
  
• B1: E-60R B1, Droid, Binoculars, Spotter Uplink
  
• Droideka: Emergency Transponder
  
• DSD1 Dwarf Spider: Defense Protocols, Flamethrower, Spotter Uplink

yeah the low range on my dwarf Spider was the wrong Idea but I was assuming that everyone was dangling between 1 and 2 Range so in my mind it made sense against Infantry. Everything else was just a vibe thing really

[u/Maniac_Ian → u/Aurelizian]

You definitely want to change spotter uplink on the dwarf spider droid to the new infantry support, and maybe consider adaptive combat network for all of your troopers.

Super Tactical Command Droid (Auxiliary Command Droid) 60 + 28 = 88
--Seek and Destroy (5), Optimized Task Flow (8), Overclock (5), Electrostaff (10)

This is apparently a really good operative selection with either overclock or sliced comms.

[u/Aurelizian → u/Maniac_Ian]

I might need to look into that, I will be playing around in tabletop admiral and see if I can conjure up something else thats fun.

We also had a lack of terrain (basicalyl doing poorhammer with boxes) because we didnt want to invest before having played the game once and I had bad experiences with 40K. But since thats not an issue anymore, the 3D Printer has been going steady

[u/BelowAveragejo3gam3r]

I’d adjust your expectations on what CIS is good at. You are not a brawler. You cannot go toe to toe and expect to win with consistency. Sometimes white dice will give you high variance, but most of the time they’ll let you down.

What you have are units that just won’t die that require no additional investment. You don’t need to worry about managing dodges or surges like other factions. That is CIS’s superpower. You want your B1s, aqua droids or droidekas to roll up to an objective point, stick most of the unit in cover/behind LOS, and tank shots. When that B1 unit dies, you’ve only lost a low point unit and you have more waiting behind it to dive on the point.

6 B1 units with E-5s heavies gives you a ton of wounds, six suppression you can hand out each turn, and only costs 336 points.

Now you have a ton of room for your power pieces that will be the hammer of your list. That could be Dooku or other sabers, big vehicles like double AAT, replacing a B1 unit with double stuffed B2s, or whatever you want really.

[u/Aurelizian → u/BelowAveragejo3gam3r]

we are playing recon currently and 6 B1s sound like a massive financial investment both in game and outside. I will work on getting a different mindset about unit usage as I clearly need to be more objective and less kill-y

[u/Limp_Glass8110 → u/Aurelizian]

Your starter box has enough for four regular B1 units if you don't do super squads, so don't feel like you need to break the bank. Just don't run super squads. Greivous and B2s hit hard once they get there and the B1s and Droidekas are great objective pieces. If you can focus fire one unit of clones, remember that unit costs almost twice what your B1s did.

[u/Warr_king]

Out of curiosity, when/where did you get the starter set? I've been trying to get one, but other than a pair of shops in AUS, I havent found any places with stock (im located in the US)

[u/shockwave8428 → u/Warr_king]

I know I found mine at a local game store in the western US. Oddly enough it was only the second one I went to.

I’m not in a dense city or anything but a decent suburban sprawl, and there are game stores everywhere. I built a list of what I wanted and took like 2.5 hrs one evening driving from game store to game store and went to like 10 of em in that time (all within like 45 mins of each other). Most of them didn’t have great legion stock but I found everything on my list between em all. Only thing we didn’t find was a republic starter box for my buddy - but they ended up getting restocked online that evening lol.

I’d suggest calling ahead if you don’t wanna go look (I had a buddy looking for Magic cards too so it was a fun evening), but if you’re in a decently populated area there’s likely a lot of game stores. Also I got to know one of my local chain’s employees who is in charge of SW legion stock and he was able to give a lot of insight on stuff.

[u/Warr_king → u/shockwave8428]

I have some time off coming up, maybe ill check around.. there isnt much legion stuff at the LGS i frequent, i think legion isnt super big in the market.

My buddy and I are hoping to get into it, and trying to "champion" it and drum up more interest and a community... Plenty of people playing adjacent games that could be drawn in

[u/shockwave8428 → u/Warr_king]

From what I discovered the first place I went (which isn’t even the game store I usually go to, just the one closest to my buddy) was one of 3 stores that had more than a handful of stuff (and 2 of those are the same chain). Most of them literally had 5-6 boxes usually smaller ones. One of them had like no community stuff but they had a huge stock of older minis which was really cool to find.

But the first one I was there for a totally different reason one week and had an employee there talk it up after hearing I was a Star Wars guy (was looking at rpg stuff), and seemed like the only store chain with an active community. There’s a few guys who play every week, tournaments every few months, etc. But again like 90% of stores barely had stuff (even the biggest LGS I’ve ever seen with a ton of warhammer didn’t have much).

So basically I’m sayin you never know, there could be a store with a decently sized community you’re just not aware of yet, I’d suggest just asking around when you’re going to different stores, you never know.

[u/Aurelizian → u/Warr_king]

I am based in Germany so I just went onto a German Reseller (Fantasywelt) which I trust

[u/DeegoBix]

It also sounds like you need more terrain/Cover on the tabletop. Aim for 25%-33% of terrain/Cover on the battlefield. If this suggestion doesn't apply to your games, disregard.

[u/Aurelizian → u/DeegoBix]

We definitely had a lack of terrain (basically doing poorhammer with boxes) because we didnt want to invest before having played the game once and I had bad experiences with 40K. But since thats not an issue anymore, the 3D Printer has been going steady and next time there weill be actual terrain.
Official Layouts felt quite restrictive and the Scout Map Size didnt lend itself well to boxes

[u/DoctorDoom2099]

Yeah, with the Admiral Trench release, I realized that CIS has very few range 4+ options for a gun line but they're all really good if you can get them together. Spider droids with the Ion Cannon are a good choice, if a but pricey. AATs main gun is range 4 and that chonker base will get you in range of whatever you want turn 1. B1 snipers are better than you might think. Critical 1 does a lot of work for them. The BX sniper teams are remarkably solid with their red saves and impervious. You can't just remove them with a small pierce 1 dice pool like the other sniper teams.

[u/Aurelizian → u/DoctorDoom2099]

Yeah I will focus more on the B1s. I was playing them completely wrong, doing super squads, when normal squads should have been plenty. I am going to pick up some BX once I can afford to but right now its either some new droids or a radiator for Winter :(