Mission Setup: Breakthrough

The Core Set comes with 4 different Objective Cards. Understanding these cards is of paramount importance since whoever plays the objective better wins. I will examine each of these, beginning with Breakthrough.

Breakthrough

Victory: At the end of the game, each player gains 1 victory token for each of their unit leaders within an enemy deployment zone.

Breakthrough is unique in that the maximum number of victory tokens for each player will depend on their army composition. In general this objective favors a larger number of units with some measure of mobility. If you have fewer units than your opponent or your army is geared toward hunkering down rather than maneuvering than you may want to eliminate this possibility early on.

While speed is not necessarily of great importance, depending on the deployment zones you may need to traverse much of the map in order to score. You'll want do this with minimal losses, and without getting bogged down by difficult terrain or enemies looking to suppress you or tie you up in melee.

The Red player has more units and has decided to deploy 2 corps units away from her main force. The Blue player must now decide whether or not to split his forces as well. If Blue ignores the 2 corps units then he gives up 2 easy victory tokens to Red. If Blue does divide his army to pursue the 2 corps units, then his main force might not be strong enough to stop Red's main force.

If you have superior numbers, you may want to avoid contact with the enemy entirely. Your opponent won't be able to afford to let all of your units score, and will be under pressure to come after at least some of them. You can use your support and heavy units to occupy the enemy and screen the rest of your troopers' movement. If the numbers disparity is large enough, you could even sacrifice 1 or 2 corps units to this cause as well. Also note that the conditions Limited Visibility and Rapid Reinforcements can be used to avoid unwanted contact with the enemy.

If you find yourself pushed into playing this objective when the numbers favor your opponent, don't panic. Remember, they can't score points if they're dead. If you can bring all or most of your army to bear against a smaller portion of theirs, then you can use this local superiority to destroy some units and eliminate the numbers advantage.

In the face of superior mobility, pushing for a deployment like Long March can leave your opponent with less room to maneuver on the flanks. This in turn will make it easier to hunt, block, and kill their units. You don't even necessarily need to destroy the enemy army if you can reliably dish out enough suppression tokens to hamper enemy troopers' movement or even rout them from the field. The Hostile Environment condition can also be helpful in accomplishing this.

With Long March, there is much less room for the Red player to try sneaking her units around the Blue army.

In all cases you should be aware of the layout of terrain. Take note of any obstacles that can block line of sight or hinder movement and where they lie in relation to the deployment zones. Can you chart a path that doesn't expose your troopers to much enemy fire? Can your opponent do the same? In most objectives, you and your opponent will be converging at objective markers, but not in Breakthrough. Being able to predict what path your enemy wants to take will help you to either trap them or avoid getting held up yourself.

Continue to Intercept the Transmissions
Return to Mission Setup