Cad Bane will do anything to capture his target and claim his bounty, including laying traps to keep his enemies off guard. While this makes him a versatile unit in Star Wars™: Legion, it also means he can be tricky to play well. Today, Kyle Dornbos is back to further demystify using this Separatist Operative in combat. Join him as he discusses advanced strategies for Cad Bane in today’s article!

Welcome to Cad Bane 201, the Advanced Tactics guide to the Separatist Operative Cad Bane! If you haven’t already, please check out our article covering basic strategies for Cad Bane’s here. This article will focus on some advanced strategies for using Cad Bane in competitive play. We will take an in depth look at Bane’s three pip command card, I Make the Rules Now , and how to use Bane Tokens. We will also take a look at Cad Bane’s Electro Gauntlets , some competitive list ideas, and leveraging order control with Cad Bane.

While Cad Bane is perfectly playable without leaning into I Make the Rules now, this command card drastically changes how he functions, so let’s dive into it.

I Make the Rules Now

Divulge is a new keyword, which basically means you reveal a command card to your opponent at the start of a specific step to gain an effect. In Cad Bane’s case, you reveal I Make the Rules Now at the start of the Deploy Units Step, and you are then required to play it as your command card in round 1. Alternatively, you can choose not to reveal it, and just play I Make the Rules Now like a normal command card, in which case you place just one Bane Token instead of three.

Bane Tokens are placed face down on the battlefield.  When a unit moves, deploys, or is placed at range one of an enemy Bane Token, the effect is resolved.  There are three possible effects:

Here I Am: The Bane Token is replaced with the Cad Bane miniature and he issues himself an order. This token can also be revealed voluntarily at the start of any command phase, without an enemy unit having to trigger it.

Kablamo!: The token detonates using the area weapon on the I Make The Rules Now command card. 

Smoke and Mirrors: The token is removed and nothing else happens.

Basically, the token can blow up, spawn Cad Bane, or do nothing.

The most important of these effects is the one that places Cad Bane on the table. Like units with the Infiltrate keyword, Cad Bane can deploy almost anywhere on the battlefield, excluding in your opponent’s deployment zone. One key disadvantage relative to Infiltrate is the Bane Tokens are placed before any units are placed, which means A) you have to decide where Cad Bane is going to be before your opponent deploys any units and B) your opponent can respond to your token placements with their own deployments, including potentially revealing the tokens during the deployment phase with abilities like Scout.

The first couple of times you play Cad Bane, make sure to place the Here I Am token in a location where Cad Bane will be safe when he is revealed. It is okay if it ends up being obvious to both you and your opponent which token is the Here I Am token. It’s easy to get cheeky and aggressive with your token placements, but if Cad Bane is revealed prematurely in an exposed location, he can get quickly eliminated before he has a chance to impact the game. I generally place the Here I Am token behind a line of sight blocker near the center of the table, so he can react to how my opponent deploys.

There is a bit of tension between the two effects on these tokens; you want the Kablamo! token to be in a spot your opponent is likely to go, while you want the Here I Am token to be in a useful but not exposed position. I usually use the “Smoke and Mirrors” token as bluff for Cad Bane’s location, placing it in a plausible spot he should be, and then put the Kablamo! token near one of my opponent’s objectives or in a key lane they need to advance through. You could also use the Kablamo! token as a third bluff for Cad Bane’s location. I tend to do this most against opponents that either have a lot of scout moves and can thus reveal closely placed tokens early, or have access to mechanics that can mitigate the damage on the Kablamo! token before walking into it.

Instead of Divulging I Make the Rules Now, you can also just hold it in your hand and deploy Cad Bane normally, dropping a Bane Token sometime during the game. If you do this, Cad Bane will appear at that token’s location when it is revealed, regardless of where he currently is on the battlefield. This can be handy for getting Cad Bane out of trouble, or running away with an objective.

Electro Gauntlets

Cad Bane’s exclusive armament features a strong four red dice attack and suppressive, along with passing out immobilize tokens to a target wounded by this weapon. Additionally, Cad Bane can disengage from a unit that has at least 1 immobilize token, even while this card is exhausted. The disengage ability works nicely with Cad Bane’s two-pip command card, I’m in Control , which also hands out immobilize tokens.

As Cad Bane does not have Charge or Relentless, a blow with the gauntlets can be somewhat difficult to land. I find them most useful once Cad Bane is already in melee at the start of a turn. If you want to set this up offensively, take a move action, use Steady to perform a ranged attack, and then use Cad Bane’s second move to engage a unit in melee, preferably one that has already activated. On the following turn, attack with the gauntlets and then disengage and run away. This works well coupled with Cad Bane’s one-pip command card, I’m Your Worst Nightmare , where you can attack with the gloves, move away, and then take a shot with Cad Bane’s pistols.

Sample List

The Separatists currently only have two commander choices: General Grievous or Count Dooku. Both of these iconic characters are expensive centerpieces in their own right. Taking Cad Bane alongside one of these two saber wielders essentially gives you two focus pieces; one close range melee threat and one mobile but fragile flanker.

Let’s take a look at Cad Bane paired with General Grievous.

This list has Grievous, Cad Bane, 6 B1s with heavy weapons, and two BX droid snipers for stripping standby tokens or picking off units at long range. Crucially, it also has two HQ Uplinks on B1 units.

If you position your units correctly, you should have perfect order control on every turn, including on turns where you are only giving out one order. I usually put my HQ Uplink units on each end of my B1 chain, and then put both my BX snipers on one end of that chain, in range of both the end Uplink unit and at least one other normal B1 near the end of the chain.  In this way you can use both uplinks to bounce orders to your B1s and BX snipers, leaving either Grievous or Cad Bane’s token as the only token in your bag.

You could run a very similar list with Dooku, though I prefer Grievous for his command cards; Dooku’s cards, like Cad Bane’s, tend to be best when saved for the mid to late game. Alternatively, Grievous has two command cards that are perfect for bridging that gap from turns two through four in Supreme Commander and Crush Them .

This concludes our Cad Bane: 201 article. Go collect some bounties!

Kyle Dornbos is one of the co-hosts of a notorious Legion podcast and a blogger. You can find articles and other great content by Kyle and his colleagues on their blog.