Legion Quest Commander on Deck Abandoned Where Do I Pick It Up Again

This week I wanted to take a wait at my virtually played non-Warhammer miniature war game: Star Wars Legion. Legion allows you to play out ground battles from the titular Star Wars franchise diggings away with Stormtroopers equally Darth Vader leads the charge against Luke Skywalker and his plucky band of rebels. Or, if the Clone Wars is more your speed, General Kenobi leading the charge as clones fight to save the commonwealth against Grievous and his droids.

The Cadre Sets

The cadre sets come in two flavors. The initial starter covers the Galactic Ceremonious State of war and contains the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empireand the more contempo box set covers The Clone Wars and contains the Galactic Republic andSeparatist Alliance. The game doesn't actually care near timelines and then yous can have the Empire vs the Republic. Information technology'due south fine, just get with it.

The two core sets are pretty comparable and let you to play a game right out of the box. You're going to want to selection upwards one of these boxes because aside from being a good deal on the models inside, Fantasy Flying Games loves all their proprietary bits and bobs that are necessary to play the game. In this instance that includes custom die, measurement, and movement tools. There aren't actually enough models in the box for two players so heavily consider buying 2 if you lot're splitting with someone. You lot'll probably use everything that comes along, and it puts yous pretty close to a full list.

Each faction also has a character that is unique to the starter set and to date has not been released outside of it. Imperials become Darth Vader, Rebels get Luke Skywalker, Separatists get General Grievous and Republic gets Obi-Wan Kenobi. This is e specially notable if you play a Clone Wars faction; there is only 1 other graphic symbol choice at this point and so you'll be left with only i choice if y'all choose to go forward without a starter set.

This tin brand things a little catchy if yous can't discover someone who wants to split the box with but the price is quite reasonable for the sheer amount of stuff you get.

The Factions

Reviewing the factions on the whole is a chip hard because the starter box doesn't give you the best idea of how they play. The starter boxes incorporate a commander, two corps (bones infantry), and a support unit for each side. The downside to playing with simply the starter boxes is you become the vague impression all the factions feel very similar. I personally chose to play the Rebel Alliance considering it'south my favorite force from the movies simply if you're more influenced by how a faction plays then this handy guide will give you a vague thought of how they work, once expansions start being added in.

Rebel Alliance

In the cadre set you get: Luke Skywalker, ii squads of Rebel Troopers (with optional trooper with a mini gun or Ion cannon) and an AT-RT walker.

The Insubordinate Alliance is Luke and company from the original trilogy. Nosotros don't see too many army for the Rebels in the original trilogy simply information technology gives you a adept thought of how they play. They prefer skirmishes from the shadows as their armor saves are generally pretty terrible, but they're much amend shots than the Imperials. In open warfare they will go absolutely pummeled so it requires y'all to leap from encompass to cover, never leaving them in the open up. They're a fleck of a glass cannon faction and have come a long way since launch, where they only seemed to be to exist dunked on by the Empire. Luke Skywalker is ane of the best Heroes in the game too, making up for the poor defence force of the faction with a guy who can deflect blaster bolts and decimate the enemy with his lightsaber .

Galactic Empire

In the core set you get: Darth Vader, ii squads of Stormtroopers (each with optional troopers holding a rocket launcher or heavy blaster rifle) and a squad of 2 speeder bikes.

Imps are the polar opposite of the rebels. Terrible shots in general—as the movies portray—but they're much better armored, have access to better equipment, and have stiff Commanders to keep them in line. For a while, Imperials were the dominant faction no contest but they've evened out a little bit since and so. The Imperials are more of an "elite" faction overall: their stuff is more expensive but synergizes powerfully. It's easier to jump into the game with Imperials because they're a much more straightforward faction in terms of crushing the enemy with overwhelming power. Your hero in the starter, Darth Vader the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, is arguably one of the best melee characters in the entire game, merely hes very deadening and then he has to become there first. He's also unique as the only graphic symbol who is impossible to make panic, which means his troops near him won't panic either (I'm sure they're more terrified of what would happen if they run abroad from Vader than getting shot at by rebels).

Galactic Commonwealth

In the cadre set you become:Obi-Wan Kenobi, 2 squads of Stage 1 Clone troopers (with an optional trooper with a mini-gun or long range blaster burglarize), and a BARC speeder bike

The Clone Wars factions are new and so people are still trying to experience out their "thing" but the Democracy looks on paper to be like an even more elite version of the Empire. Their stuff is expensive but has good armor and good shooting. They likewise coordinate very well; when a unit is shooting or anticipating an attack, that unit may steal a token from an adjacent unit that allows them to aim or dodge. This encourages Clones to work together as a team to share resources and coordinate their attacks against targets. Your included Hero, General Obi-Wan Kenobi, is a defensive Jedi who can take shots for his comrades and deflect them back with his lightsaber.

Separatist Alliance

In the core gear up you get:Full general Grievous, ii squads of B-1 droid troopers (with an optional trooper with either an improved equalizer rifle or a rocket launcher) and a squad of 2 Droideka ball droids.

Equally the closest thing the game has to a "swarm" faction, B-i battle droids die fast and ignominiously. That's ok though. Yous get a lot of them and they aren't suppressed when shot at and you get a ton of them so they tin proceed marching on the enemy. They likewise tin can synergize with side by side targets, though in a different mode than clones. See, droids are terrible shots, but when they shoot, a nearby ally can also shoot, creating a chain of fire. So while they may non be able to hit anything, the sheer number of shots will eventually prune something past raw statistical odds and also cause them to duck and encompass, or even run away in fright! General Grievous is, every bit you would expect with someone with multiple lightsabers, a blender. He has an advantage fighting confronting Strength Users and since Forcefulness Users are often the most powerful Commanders your opponent has, he can exorcise the strong link keeping them together.

Bones Gameplay

The basic gameplay is broken downwardly into 6 rounds and plays like a lot of skirmish wargames you lot might already be familiar with, with each turn beingness cleaved down into distinct phases. The game has a adequately standard "Yous go, I go" structure where one player activates and completes a units turn, and and then their opponent does the same, until everything has had its take a chance to activate.

Measuring the battleground

Fantasy Flight loves their proprietary stuff and this is no different. You lot demand these tools to play, and they come in the Cadre boxes but are also sold separately.

Range Rulers

The range rulers aren't anything fancy. Just plastic bits that you can connect together to determine if something is in range or not. If a weapon is range 2, put two sticks together and measure out from the model.

Movement markers

The movement markers assistance remove some ambiguity from simply measuring from base to base. On a basic infantry model, yous can motility as freely as you tin in most war games, the motion markers are pretty flexible. Vehicles have notched bases however, which you tin can only move when the movement marker is placed inside this notch. Otherwise, motility is pretty uncomplicated: place the marker against the base, arrange information technology to your desired destination and identify the model at the other stop. They don't take to move the total amount if yous don't want to.

Dice

The game uses proprietary dice which I'm a trivial iffy on. The core prepare really doesn't give you plenty to be able to roll your corps shots in ane become, so you'll probably need to buy more if you get farther in the game. Which die yous used is based on the weapon or defense value listed on the unit carte, with d6s used for saving throws and d8s for attacking. White dice = Terrible, Black dice = Mediocre, Scarlet dice = Cracking. Blanks mean zippo happens, solid symbols mean a success, empty symbols mean a crit (attack that deceit be dodged) and a symbol with a line through it is a surge, which might mean a crit or nothing (depending on the card as explained in "Anatomy of a Carte").

Beefcake of a carte du jour

In that location's a lot here only it's not that bad once you recognize it. On the left side is the bespeak value of the carte and their upgrade slots. If an upgrade card has the appropriate symbol, they can equip it.

On the upper right (side by side to the portrait) is theirRole. Every bit is of typical well-nigh wargames, you're limited in how many of each function you lot may take, the number under that is how many models are in a unit by default. The light-green number beneath is the health value, if information technology hits 0 they die. The yellow number is their bravery. If you take suppression tokens equal to it, they get suppressed. If they accept double, they flee! The die next to these is the defence force dice they use when rolling saves, and the symbol below tells you which surge values you tin can convert on the dice (if any)

On the bottom is the weapons. By default you may utilise ane weapon a turn, and the symbols are straight forrad. If we want to use the equalizer pistol, we get to roll 2 crimson dice. The pregnant of the abilities is constitute in the rulebook, in this case Pierce 2 gets to ignore 2 successful saves.

Command Phase

The Command Stage is probably the part of Star Wars Legion that'south most unique in its structure as it attempts to model both the unique powers of the Commanders players accept chosen and as well to emulate fog of war. Rather than beingness an omniscient full general, able to outcome orders to all of your units with pinpoint accurateness on the fly, your commanders have to generally be near their troops to issue orders to them. Even then they can only issue orders to so many units at a time.

Control Cards

Earlier the game, players construct a deck of vii command cards. The structure is always the same: each card has ane-4 pips on information technology and players need to make a deck consisting of two 1-pip cards, two 2-pip cards, two 3-pip cards and a unique iv-pip card chosen "continuing orders". In general the more pips a card has the "stronger" it is, and allows the Commander to issue orders to more troops. Once the command card is used upwards, information technology's gone for the residual of the game. Since you take 7 cards, you have one bachelor for each round. The cards come in generic varieties that whatsoever commander tin use, and ones locked behind specific characters which usually reflect the characters unique talents. These are oftentimes named something meme-able (Obi-Wan Kenobi's "Hi At that place" or Vader's "Fear and Dead Men" come to mind). Standing Orders is a frankly terrible card reserved in example you get yourself stuck and are unable to use one of your "real" command cards.

In the actual game, what this translates to is each circular both players describe a control carte and reveal them to each other at the same time. They "outcome orders", which means to assign tokens (Containing the symbol of the character's "Role") side by side to units inside ane-3 of the commander issuing the Command Card on the included range ruler and put the balance of the part tokens face down in a random order, or placed in an opaque container or bag. The meaning of these volition come up up in the activation phase.

The twist now is that whichever player had a command card with thefewest pips gets to go first! In the case of a tie, players roll off but this adds a level of strategy to the game. Do yous take a chance the (more often than not more powerful) higher pip card knowing you volition probably go second, or get in a quick strike on the opponent, sacrificing your army's cohesion for a turn.

Activation Phase

Whichever player's plough it is, they may now cull a unit. Remember how in the command phase we put downward tokens adjacent to units and threw the rest face downwardly? This is where the game's fog of war mechanic comes in. Y'all tin can either actuate 1 of units with a token you placed face down, or draw from your random stack of remaining tokens. For instance, if you depict a Corps token, y'all can choose any corps unit that does not already have a token next to it. In essence if you choose to go first you're sacrificing direct command over the order of activation of your troops, as your commander is more focused on the attack. A primal piece of the games strategy is keeping ground forces cohesion together, and working around the semi-randomness of activation.

Either style, once yous activate a unit you have a choice of actions. Each unit of measurement tin can perform two actions under default circumstances, though if they are suppressed from beingness shot at a lot, it reduces their action to ane. Maybe none, if they're completely panicked and are running for their life. They tin perform any action twice if they wish, except for attacking.

Movement- Move the unit, using the movement tool, the distance it says on the card. Quick notation that I really like how movement is handled in the game. Rather than measure out every model'due south motility, you lot but have to motility the commander. Once they're in place you can move the rest of the unit in coherence (Range 1 on the range ruler). Thisdrastically cuts down on game fourth dimension wasted faffing well-nigh with motion, every bit the game abstracts movement substantially enough to avoid quibbling over whether each model moved correctly.
Assail-Hit the matter. Unlike a lot of games the game isn't broken downwards into shooting and melee phases. You can simply pick a weapon and attack with it, range permitting of course. If you hit the unit of measurement makes an armor gyre and if they fail, a model takes a wound. They besides accept a suppression token, if they get a number equal to their courage value, they get suppressed and merely get one action. Double it or more than and they flee! Most troops have poor bravery but can "borrow" a commander who is within Range 3's. Commandersordinarily have better bravery.
Aim –Give yourself an Aim token, this lets you lot reroll ii dice when rolling to hit a target.
Contrivance –Give yourself a contrivance token, this lets you ignore 1 non-critical hitting.
Overwatch –If you did not shoot you tin can have a unit become on overwatch instead, and it tin peg a target that stops its movement within its shooting range. Only one time though.

That'due south it really. The game gets drastically more complicated one time you factor in all the dissimilar tokens and abilities each menu has simply this is just to go started. Each unit has access to a bunch of different equipment which tin can give them more abilities and more ways to answer to the opponent's deportment. These include things like grenades, suppression weapons, Force Powers and so on.

In one case a unit is finished its activation, you flip the token next to them face downwards (To stand for that they take gone and cannot activate again) and your opponent follows the same procedure. Repeat until every unit has had a adventure to human action.

Cease Phase

Standard clean up stage. Become rid of all your tokens (and 1 suppression token) and prepare for the next round. Repeat until 6 turns have passed or one side is wiped out.

Expansions

As mentioned above the Cadre Set is pretty barren in terms of teaching y'all the extent of abilities your faction gets, as each army is basically given the same units. The expansions are varied and besides numerous to list off but they're slowly hit all the major stuff you'd expect. Rebels get admission to characters like Princess Leia and Han Solo, while Imperials get Palapatine and Boba Fett. Republic and Seperatists are still early on so for right now they get access to Captain Rex and Count Dooku respectively. Units include familiar faces like the soldiers and lookout troopers from Hoth, to vehicles like snowspeeders and AT-STs.

The game falls rather cleanly under the Disney license just they're grabbing units from a pretty wide diverseness of sources. The starting time 6 movies of course, but likewise from Rogue One, the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons. Recently, the Inferno Team from the newer EA Battlefront game was announced for Imperials. Then Fantasy Flight seems to be able to draw from a pretty deep well and if your favorite character or unit isn't already in the game it probably will be.[Editor: Glad to come across they didn't wait forever to bring in Clone Wars stuff, like they did with 10-Wing]

The game does a lot of "mirror" units. For example both Rebels and Imperials have admission to a commando squad of snipers which seem virtually the aforementioned on paper, and Seperatists and Republic take their own snipers coming soon as well. This helps go along the balance more or less intact and while on paper information technology may reinforce the idea that there's no difference betwixt the factions, the interplay between units can drastically change how they play on the field. Each faction has its own models that aren't replicated across factions either, so the diversity does remain intact.

The Good

Fantabulous turn system:The activation arrangement is one of the best I've played in a wargame. The alternate activation and command bill of fare priority mean y'all take a lot of control over how your turn is going to play out. It's simple to acquire but difficult to master. If you know a lot about your opponent's army you can often approximate what bill of fare they might use and play something that will allow y'all to become first.
No core book or codexes to mess with: The box doesn't come with a core rulebook, but that's considering the cadre rules are published in a pdf and ofttimes updated. The cards come with the units themselves so you don't demand another rulebook to know what your models do.
Cards assist the learning bend:Having cards in forepart of yous reminds you what each card does and you don't need to flip through an unwieldy codex to check. It besides lets you recall what gear y'all take and so y'all never forget. FFG has received criticism in the past for making upgrade cards difficult to obtain, requiring y'all to buy units you won't use just to become the cards. Thankfully they created a cheap upgrade pack that includes nigh generic upgrade cards off the bat.
Faction balance is pretty solid: You lot can play a game and have a good time with whichever faction you similar. While Clone Wars factions might struggle for now, they have time to take hold of up. Galactic Civil War factions are pretty balanced, after a few months of Purple supremacy.

The Bad

Lots of terms to remember:The cards can go heavy on unique terms. Similar to a Magic the Gathering carte when a new power is introduced, some cards take descriptions, some don't. It can be wildly inconsistent and it'southward a lot of terms to remember. Information technology can be inconsistent which doesn't help the learning curve.
Model quality is then-and then:These aren't GW models and there'south a lot of flash on them. Lightsabers are particularly bad about angle on you lot and might crave some hot water to ready. Nevertheless, the item is pretty solid and there's been a strong improvement since launch in build quality.
Lack of Generic Characters: This is going to vary from "not an result" to a huge pet peeve depending on who you are. Some people don't like that every battle in a wargame has to involve a named character so if that's a problem for you expect elsewhere. Imperials and Rebels get a generic general option which isok but probably not going to be replacing named characters entirely. They exist more every bit a budget option when running low on points. Of class, you could always make your own model and run them as "counts as" but that may not exist sufficient for some who want their own original characters to have their own identities.

Determination

Star Wars Legion is i of my favorite war games to come out in years. It has some very clever systems and one time you sympathize how everything goes together its a very fast paced game. The initial hurdle can be difficult, the game throws a lot of terminology at you fast and it's similar plenty to other wargames simply just different in a manner that tin throw you off in the early on learning phase. In one case you get by it, it incentives fast, aggressive play and clever employ of terrain. I would highly recommend it in general butespecially to Star Wars fans. Fantasy Flight Games has been supporting the competitive scene and it'due south continued to grow essentially, specially since the Clone Wars expanded the game by the initial 2 factions.

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Source: https://www.goonhammer.com/boardhammer-star-wars-legion/