Eric Maylott tells you why you should run Pathfinders

This article is written by another Crit2Block team member, Eric Maylott. Eric is an avid Rebel enthusiast who also dabbles in Bright Tree Village and Shadow Collective. Of all the players I (Kentucky Dan) have played, Eric is easily one of the nicest and I'm proud to be on the same team with him. Eric's love for Pathfinders has never encountered a speedbump and he plays them whether the meta calls for them or not. Consequently, he finds success with them whether his opponents like it or not. So join me as we get a peek behind the curtain of Eric's mind and discover how to make the Rebel Pathfinder shine.

As a guest writer filling in for Dan while he does other things in life, I have the joy of writing about whatever unit I like most. Therefore, please join me as I dive deep into my favorite non-hero unit in the game, Rebel Pathfinders! I will try to stick to Dan’s general outline for some modicum of consistency because as you will see, me and Dan approach this game very differently. This is reflected in our tournament success rates.

1) Listbuilding decisions that you should be making. These are what I would consider to be the optimal builds for a unit and the best way to invest your 800 points. If you're looking to do well with your list and do it "right" than you should start here.

2) Listbuilding decisions that are "neat." This section will be comprised of build choices that are either sub-optimal (but not terrible) or that offer fun and interesting interactions that may not be obvious at face value. The options presented here could easily be part of a tournament winning list, but probably shouldn't comprise the entirety of it. Neat "one-offs" that offer great value can often distract or surprise your opponent and give you an edge that did not exist previously. Alternatively they may provide solutions to issues that your list struggles with or simply "budget" versions of other entirely different units.

3) Listbuilding decisions that you should not be making. These are the decisions that I don't make and won't advocate for you to make either. While I am by no means infallible, I do believe these are the decisions that cost you games. You've only 800 points to spend in an army; don't waste them on prodigal decisions that hamper your ability to respond to your opponent. I won't cover every poor decision you could be making, but I will cover those that I see others making and advocating for that I disagree with.

Just in case it’s been a minute since you’ve seen one in the wild, let’s go over their keywords.

Danger Sense 3: Pathfinders live and die by white dice on offense and defense. All the white dice. This makes them one of the swingiest units in the game but this article will hopefully help you keep them in favorable situations so they can really shine. Their main attraction is Danger Sense 3. In my experience, Danger Sense is only really worth game planning around at 3 or higher. Danger Sense 2 on Pykes is nice to have but not reliable for damage mitigation. Once you get up to 3 extra white defense dice the math tells you that you are likely to get at least one extra save out of it.

This is brings us to our most important thing to keep in mind about Pathfinders: THEY DO NOT WANT TO SEE LARGE DICE POOLS. I’ll say it again for the kids in the back: THEY DO NOT WANT TO SEE LARGE DICE POOLS. If you can get your opponent to try and plink at your army from range 4, I would be willing to bet by the end of the game they will curse the name of Danger Sense forever. I’ve had multiple opponents tell me Pathfinders are busted, which, let’s be honest, is so far from the truth it hurts.

The most favorable matchup for Pathfinders is a sniper without Pierce, but even at Pierce 1 a lot of snipers fail to deal a wound to Pathfinders once they have their Danger Sense all fueled up. This also means they are pretty good at surviving shots from heroes as they tend to have small dice pools.

Dauntless: Pathfinders also come with the Dauntless keyword. This is probably their most underutilized keyword but it’s what makes them surprisingly mobile for objectives like Recover the Supplies, Breakthrough, and even Bombing Run. I suppose I will mention here that I only ever recommend running Pathfinders with Jyn if you want to get the most out of them. Her courage 3 will allow you to keep their Danger Sense maxed out while allowing you to stay mobile with Dauntless.

Infiltrate: Their final keyword is Infiltrate. I remember when people first started using Pathfinders and they would put them in the middle of the board and be surprised when they died instantly. While I use Infiltrate in virtually every game, I use it to put them behind my favorite LOS blocking piece of terrain. Pathfinders should only ever enter the firefight on their terms (obviously, have you seen Rogue One?). The main goal is to eliminate the chance of Pathfinders getting knocked off the board by an alpha strike.

The A-300 Rifle Config: Lastly, they do come with a free config gun that can be set to either long range or short range. I can count on my beard hairs (one) the number of times I have used the short range config in a competitive game of Legion. Essentially, this is a free gun to give them some more poke at range 4. Mathematically, their standard ranged gun of 2 white dice per model is relatively close to a single red die per model on offense so you might as well take the bigger dice pool and double your chance at crits to push through armor or cover.

Listbuilding decisions that you should be making.

"The Bare Minimum"

Duck and Cover is the only training upgrade I would truly recommend on Pathfinders. They are by nature a defensive unit and you want to play to their strengths. This upgrade will allow you to get those 3 extra defense dice by the second time they get shot (or sooner depending on command card choices or other tricks) and once that happens they can be tanky. A-300, obviously, because it’s a free gun. I start the game in the range 4 config 100% of the time as this unit really does not want to be at range 2 until very late in the game. Prepared Supplies is a recent addition to my “bare minimum” loadout, but as dice pools get bigger it can help you weather that first shot so you can stick around and be annoying until the end.

"Yes Please"

I don’t think I’m saying anything new here: Bistan is the reason people take Pathfinders. 5 dice at range 4? Good. Impact? Good. Ion? Great. 2 Health? Love it. His obvious downside is that you have to exhaust him to use his gun, but you should be able to shoot it at least twice a game, and honestly depending on the matchup, that’s all you’ll really need out of him. It’s not uncommon for him to just sit there soaking up your opponent’s attention and/or adding two white dice at range 3. There are other times where I can infiltrate him into a great spot and he just recovers and shoots for the first 4 turns, but that depends on the matchup and how your opponent prioritizes targets.

Listbuilding decisions that are "neat."

I’m going to put in a caveat here and say that I don’t normally run a single unit of Pathfinders. If you want a single unit, Bistan and "The Bare Minimum” upgrades are your starting point. I tend to run my Pathfinders in 3’s, so that means Bistan, one unit of “The Bare Minimum”, and the following upgrade (Pao) are my starting point unless I fully succumb to madness and run triple Paths with no heavies.

Ka-Pao!

Pao is commonly thought of as the “meh” upgrade for Pathfinders but I’m here to say…that can sometimes be true. However, his attack dice are an upgrade across all three options (native dice pool and two config options) and add a little color for consistency with the red die. The most obvious upgrade is at range 4, but at the same time Paths rarely are pushing hits through cover at range 4 anyways so it’s mostly there to reliably force a suppression on someone if you want it.

While Pathfinders and their (imo) required commander, Jyn, love suppression, they pair well with Cassian and you have to take some version of corps, who all hate having suppression on them. If you don’t infiltrate Pao too far away, his Inspire 1 can be quite good in certain situations. While I put Pao in the “neat” category, I staple him into my Pathfinder lists since I like running 3 of them, and he’s a great addition.

More Upgrades

If you really want to make your Pathfinders an offensive weapon, you can build your list around giving them as many aims as possible to get those white dice to show some paint. My go-to list for a while did exactly that using Transponders and a bus with Tactician (see below) and scopes help make those aims count. Now, if you have read a lot of Dan’s work you’ll know that he is a staunch believer that scopes aren’t worth the points, to which I have no response because I don’t do math. He may be right, but I also know if you get two or three aims on a unit with Bistan and scopes, you can pretty reliably get 8+ hits.

Listbuilding decisions you should not be making.

O-Push, HQ Uplink, or any grenade

I don’t hear a lot of people talking about Pathfinders but occasionally I hear someone mention putting O-Push and/or HQ Uplink on Bistan to get that sweet, sweet value out of a recover action. I get that you want to make that action count but I’m here to say “It’s a trap!” Duck and Cover is too good on this unit to get one or two extra aims a game and the timing is weird with Bistan. You need to have taken a recover action the turn before or recovered with Cassian’s 3-pip to be able to move and shoot with the free aim. HQ uplink is simply too expensive for what it does. Pathfinders are pretty timing-neutral and if you really want to have some control over activating them just run 3 Special Forces units for token saturation and get orders on other units that need it more.

Finally, grenades. Just don’t. Pathfinders should not be armor hunting things with impact grenades and or throwing a concussion grenade with short range configs, they should be long range objective grabbers that soak up a lot more shots than your opponent expects. They’re already overpriced so the goal is to keep them trimmed as much as possible.

Synergies to Consider:

The Rogue One Heroes

As mentioned before, I think running Jyn is a must with Pathfinders. Her courage 3 combined with the Pathfinders’ Dauntless is a must to keep them mobile while also keeping their Danger Sense running at maximum efficiency. She also has the highest Danger Sense in the game at 4, making her pretty darn tanky for a white save hero, especially if you get dodges on her to trigger Nimble.

Cassian is the current Rebel hotness and the starting point for a lot of lists lately. In a list that wants to sit at range 3 or 4 and just plink away while soaking up shots, Cassian is even better. Sit him at range 5+ and slowly walk him towards an objective each turn (thanks to the Cumbersome change) while easily pushing one or two crits through with Marksman, then switch to the pistol mode and clean up. He’s fantastic and shouldn’t really start getting shot until late game if you’ve left your Pathfinders in good spots to tempt your opponent to invest in shooting them.

If you go full Rogue One with both heroes, K2, and triple Pathfinder you get SIX different units that Infiltrate and start the game right where you want them. I’m not saying it’s optimal, but I will tell you that it is an absolute blast to play and can make some objectives incredibly favorable.

Free Suppression

Anything that hands out free suppression is basically free money for Pathfinders. One of my favorite units to run with them is a purely support version of the bus with Shriv and the Medic. I usually use Shriv to hand out a free dodge and suppression to Jyn, but you could just as easily do that to Pathfinders with the same effect. Once your Pathfinders start suffering losses, bringing a model back with the Medic is not only frustrating for your opponent who hopefully spent two or more shots trying to wipe that unit, but it also has the chance of giving them more suppression and making them even harder to kill. It’s the same thing Dan describes in his Pyke article and it is tough to describe in words the kind of joy it brings, you just have to experience it.

Action Economy Missions

As mentioned earlier, you can steer really hard into Infiltrate when making a list with Pathfinders. The rules change saying you can’t Infiltrate into base contact with an objective was actually really devastating and I don’t understand why they had to take away the best thing about my favorite list, but it’s still very much an advantageous objective. By the start of round 2 you can be running away with the center box and putting your opponent behind early on.

Breakthrough is another strong objective from an action economy perspective. While your opponent has to spend actions moving towards your deployment, you can infiltrate closer and hopefully be taking some quality shots from cover while your opponents scamper towards you and again, if Jyn is around you are surprisingly mobile and tanky when played correctly. Sometimes that Pathfinder unit leader is all that’s left and he’s got 2 or 3 suppression, but he can still double move with Dauntless and have extra dice to whether that sniper shot that tries to finish him off from afar.

Bombing Run?

Hot take alert! I think Pathfinders are actually pretty okay at Bombing Run. If you Infiltrate them they can’t start with a bomb, but they throw enough dice that you should be able to blow up something trying to deliver a bomb before it gets to you and then they are free to pick up that bomb and send it back to where it came from. Now I know there are some lists that are very good at bombing run, and I wouldn’t recommend getting into this objective against them. But where Pathfinders (and the Rebel faction in general) shine is in making your opponent spend actions that aren’t attacks or things to make their attacks more potent. Gunlines are pretty strong in Legion, and the one thing they don’t want to do is move. Therefore, any objective that doesn’t allow my opponent’s entire army to stay in one place can be used to my advantage.

Long March

For all of the reasons I just mentioned in the objectives listed above, Long March is your best friend. Pathfinders want to both Infiltrate and sit range 3/4 and this is the best deployment to do just that. Battle Lines and Major Offensive are fine, but I want this 100% of the time I play Pathfinders.

Finally, I leave you with my favorite way to play Pathfinders. Really it’s just all the pieces I mentioned in the synergies section along with the mandatory three corps units. It is built around getting Pao and Bistan aims so they can be the offensive juggernauts while Cassian, K2, and Jyn clean up whatever is left with Pierce. If you enjoy this list or find success with it, I'd love to here about it!

Hopefully Eric's inspired you to pull your Pathfinders out of their foam and find a path to get them back on the tabletop! As always, feel free to challenge/roast our opinions in the comments below. If you enjoyed this article, consider reading our other posts as well as tuning into our youtube channel for fresh battle reports. That's all for now, be on the lookout for the next Holochronicle coming soon!