The Rule of Two: A Framework for Building Lists You Actually Know How to Play

Anakin gets Board Control first because of the sheer threat radius he projects. Swinging into red saves with Tempted triggers averages 5 wounds — his 2-pip pushes that to 7, and his 1-pip can hit 10 (enough to wipe a full Super Squad running red saves). That has to be respected. Once he's in their lines, Tempted lets him trigger that damage a second time per round if the opponent tries to trade into our list, so trading carelessly into Anakin usually backfires. He can stage deep on round 1, thanks to prepared positioning, behind good LOS blockers. With his movement potential, he can threaten almost any point on the table. Ignore that threat and you'll bleed attrition early.

Ahsoka earns Support and Primary based on how she's kitted as Padawan Commander, giving the army better order control and reducing early attrition. Eight dice with Pierce sounds lethal on paper, but I don't fully trust her dice pool to carry that role on its own — if you wanted to lean into Ahsoka as a kill piece instead, the right upgrades paired with her higher pip cards could get you there. I keep Primary as her secondary role specifically because she's natively Speed 3 with a red save body, and her low-pip cards let her contest and deny primaries — denying the objective is sometimes just as valuable as scoring it yourself.

This squad exists in the list as the structural Corps requirement, so I lean into what it's actually good at: sharing tokens natively, which keeps the whole army consistent round over round. It also makes an excellent secondary piece, since its actions can interact with objectives and support the army at the same time, without costing the list any lethality elsewhere.

Both ARC Trooper squads are kitted to be effectively 6 wounds with surges — closer to 18 effective with Impervious. That makes them brutally hard to dislodge from a primary objective. Their natural preference for melee range lines up well with how most POIs require contesting within half range, so setting up those charges is usually straightforward. I rank them second as a kill unit because they average around 7 hits on a melee charge, which attritions most objective-holders fast.

This squad sits primarily as a secondary objective piece — lists like this can fall behind on VPs quickly if you're not actively managing scoring in the early rounds. But in rounds 1 and 2 specifically, the sniper's ability to threaten characters at range and drop suppression makes the squad an excellent zoning piece. Most units lose an action per round just from the suppression alone, all while the Strike Team continues managing your objectives elsewhere.

Board Control comes first for the Commandos because, while it's tempting to take an early shot round 1, holding them back and infiltrating with their range-4 Pierce profile creates a threat your opponent can never fully ignore. Two aimed Commando shots are usually enough to kill most non-Impervious units, which makes them a major threat even with a relatively small dice pool. I rank Kill second because of how flexible their approach is — their efficient range-4 pool can pick off high-value targets early, then they can swap to Impact configuration to deal with armor, especially against players who get greedy. Tank routes are usually easy to read on most maps ahead of time, so placing Complete the Mission tokens to maximize crits is straightforward. If the opponent avoids the token entirely, that's still a win, because it means you forced them into a worse position, which is their first purpose: Board Control.

Running as Commander Skywalker, Luke gets Board Control first because of how quickly he can extend across the board and tie up important units. He also doubles as a genuinely difficult Primary holder — his durability and key words make him one of the harder pieces in the game to actually dislodge once he's parked on an objective.

Running as Reluctant Hero, Han projects a ton of threat with a potential 6-dice Pierce 2 profile that he can pull twice in a turn. His mobility lets him pick up activations quickly out on the flanks, which forces the opponent to condense their army rather than spread out — a real problem for them when their list wants to go wide. That dice pool also makes him a legitimate kill threat in his own right: left unchecked, he should be earning an activation and a half of value every single turn.

Din is arguably the best infantry killer in the game. His weapon and equipment combination means he can pick up whatever activation he wants at least once per game. With his mobility upgrades, he's also a serious Board Control piece capable of threatening deep into the opponent's deployment as early as turn 1, and his sheer lethality means he has to be respected and played around from the opening turn.

These are pure value. Cheap enough that you never feel like you're losing much if they're not doing anything, but with Charge available, they can flex into a real Primary role when needed and tie up enemy units safely in melee.

This unit is both Primary and Kill because of the sheer volume of Pierce dice it throws — enough that it kills most things it hits outright. What makes it an even better Primary holder is Cassian's ability to add a white die back for every body lost, so the squad stays both durable and dangerous; whatever hits it is usually getting deleted on the clap-back.

Similar to the naked fleet above, but built around the WLO-5 tank instead. Since it needs to stay near the tank — which is itself a Primary piece — this squad ends up contributing to the same objective while supporting the tank directly.

Same general profile as the naked Fleet Troopers, just inverted — Secondary first, Primary second. Dodge generation lets them survive at range far more easily, so they can sit back and continuously support the secondary game plan, while still being available to push for a Primary late if the list needs it.

Functionally the same role as Rebel Troopers, but more reliable thanks to their innate keywords. That reliability means they're typically tapping secondaries as early as turn 1 — something most units in the game simply can't do.

These play a similar role to the ARC Strike Teams from the first case study, but lean more into zoning than securing secondaries — this list already has enough dedicated objective pieces, so the Strike Teams are freed up to focus on board presence instead.

The Sleeper Cell's entire job is to pop out of the WLO-5 tank and double-tap whatever it wants before dying — usually somewhere around 26 to 28 black dice once you count Aims, delivered before the opponent gets a chance to retaliate. Like Din, this is a threat that has to be respected, which creates a zoning effect that often holds all the way through the end of round 1.

The Support role comes from how the tank delivers the Sleeper Cell and then, in round 2, repositions to block line of sight for the Sleeper that activated at the top of the round, maximizing its zoning potential. I usually don't even shoot with the tank in the first two rounds, since I'd rather recover HQ uplink on turn 1 and let the Sleeper Cell create more impact than a tank shot would on turn 2 if it survives the round. The tank can also split fire to knock off standbys, freeing up the sleepers to hit turn 1 without having to skirt them. The Primary role comes from the tank doing exactly what a tank is supposed to do: soak shots while sitting on an objective and blocking line of sight for the rest of the army.