Strategic: Worth the hype?

In the coming release of fighters, one of the most hyped new Keywords is Strategic.  This ability allows the squadron with Strategic to pick an objective token within range one, and move that token to another space still within range 1.  This ability to will effectively allow a player to move a token just shy of distance 3 on the map.  With Corellian Conflict adding so many new objectives, this ability could be exceedingly powerful.  There are currently 2 Yellow Objectives that use Objective Tokens, and 3 Blue that use them.  This number is going to expand by 1 red, 2 blue and 3 yellow objectives will use moveable tokens (I’m not counting Nav Hazards, since you remove those tokens at the end of the round anyways).  This ability to manipulate the battlefield for your own use could pay huge dividends, especially since the two ships that will have it also have the Relay keyword (Relay 2 for the Lambda Shuttle, Relay 1 for the VCX-100).  It could mean an ever extending Jamming Barrier to help protect a vulnerable flank , or keeping a targeting beacon at a good distance away from your capital ships. 

With so many potential uses, are we going to see ubiquitous use of these two transports?  It’s possible, but the point cost for each squad is set at the fairly steep 15.  Neither has any inherent defense tokens, and will likely be a prime target for enemy squads to take down early to prevent such shenanigans.  It can also be highly situational.  Depending on initial set up, all the Tokens might be either out of distance that you can get to, or are already placed to your maximum benefit.  I’m also quite fearful of an opponent seeing that I have a couple of strategic squads and deciding they’re better off taking another objective that has no tokens to play with.  This could be especially bad for the VCX since its Relay 1 is handy, but not super useful for getting squad activations and its 3 blue dice is pretty average at its price point.  The Lambda is in a  slightly better position with Relay 2 to be able to get a couple of escorts into the fight if need be, and its 2 black anti squad dice are a bit better really since these are not the squads you want going after uniques with  scatter. 

Overall I don’t think Strategic will be the huge game changer some folks are thinking it will be, simply because you can’t guarantee objectives that use it will get picked and even then you might be able to only swing a couple of tokens in a given game with a couple of the Strategic squads in your list.  It will however give a chance for some real fun, especially in a list designed to take advantage of a very fluid battlefield.