Month: May 2019

Guest Post: Outer Rim Rebellion-Playing Off Meta

General

Image result for leia han chewie

 

My Experience with the Falcon Crew in Competitive Play

 

Star Wars Legion is a game of dice, chance, and calculations. We can influence the math by utilizing a plethora of different factors. You’ll see a lot of information being published by some really smart people on various websites and forums, and a lot of that will focus around player skill, generally accepted best practices, and various small detail strategies – all of this is designed to help you jump start your career as a Legion player, but today I want to talk about my experience pushing things off of the popular meta. Let’s focus on the Falcon Crew.

I’ve been spending a fair chunk of my Legion playing time by fielding some of my most beloved characters from the Star Wars Universe: Han, Leia, and Chewbacca. Together they form a trinity of dodge multiplication and piercing perfection, hunting for aim efficiencies, and using their powerful command cards and teamwork to amplify rebel synergy to new heights. This list archetype is considered off meta for, at least in my opinion, two primary reasons: it doesn’t include Luke, and it includes Chewie. Luke is definitely a powerful piece, there’s no argument there. Force push is perhaps the single most influential and powerful upgrade available in Legion right now. Articles have been written about it, lists have been dedicated to it, and World’s invites have been won from using it. It’s really great, basically. I’m not using it. And then there’s Chewie. Honestly, I feel it’s difficult to argue a case for using Chewie outside of this list. He’s over costed for what he brings, particularly with Bossk coming out soon, and his command cards don’t offer a lot due to their interactive nature with the other primary rebel commanders. However, when we combine him with two out of three of those commanders, suddenly the force is with us and his cost almost feels too cheap.

 

The Cast

First billed: the Falcon Crew

Han Solo: By far and large Han’s biggest asset is his command card set. Each of them is uniquely powerful and can often ruin your opponents plans. For me, Han is one of the most difficult Legion commanders to play. You need to really read your opponent and the table well in order to maximize the effects of his command cards, and even Han himself. I won’t say I don’t feel a tiny bit of enjoyment in seeing the frustration on my opponent’s face after a well played Change of Plans, or when I know they needed a unit to go first and I Apologize for the Mess while I shatter their meticulously thought out maneuver. This is a skill this article can’t teach you, you need to play a lot of Legion, read the table, and quite frankly – screw it up a bunch of times until it starts to make sense. His second asset is that big beautiful pistol of his. Pierce 2! What more could you ask for. Oh! It shoots at two different targets, you say? With Sharpshooter 1? This is obviously old news, but using this to maximum effect is critical in this list. All of the heroes need to contribute offensively and at the right time, and Han is the centerpiece to cutting through your opponents red defense dice and corps units. For this reason I love putting upgrades like Environmental Gear on Han so he can be in the right place at the right time.

 

Leia Organa: Fearless and inventive might have been a bit of a stretch, but not by much. Leia is a big part of the synergy and defensive balance of this list, but she packs an unbelievable punch and is underutilized by a fair margin, in my opinion. When I see people playing Leia behind walls, they’re missing out on her best tools: Sharpshooter 2 and Pierce 1. And three beautiful black attack dice, too. Leia brings more than dodges to this list, and it should be shouted from the highest trees of Endor. Take Cover 2 enables Han and Chewie to push forward and engage in an aggressive way, but she shouldn’t be far behind, and we’ll touch on why later. Leia contributes by helping everyone survive, inspiring suppression, and punishing reduced units in heavy cover.

 

The Mighty Chewbacca: At 6’7”, I certainly have an affinity and appreciation for other tall creatures. Chewie is no exception. Unlike Han, Chewie’s biggest asset are his keywords. Guardian 3 and Unhindered are my favourite parts, for the purposes of this list in general, but Expert Climber and Enrage have their benefits as well. I also love his command card set – each of them is incredibly powerful and provides some huge synergy bonuses to himself and his friends. Chewie has a different type of role in this list depending on what your opponent has brought to the table, as I usually use him as a character hunter, but he also soaks wounds for your critical units in critical situations. This can be immensely frustrating for your opponent as well.

 

Stunt Doubles

Every list needs to be filled out with corps, special forces, and support units. As I have been playing this variant across multiple releases, my list structure has changed. I used to use a unit of full commandos, for instance, but have since pulled back from that in the interest of bringing more Specialists into my lists. Let’s dive into units I like to use, and why.

Corps: Z6’s. Typically I was running only three, yes I said it, three corps units. If you’ve ever read anything written by anyone intelligent in the Legion community, this is strongly frowned upon. It hasn’t stopped me from going 3-1 in the YBTL and nearly undefeated in my local area. GengisJon came up and stomped me to the curb at the last RPQ in Vancouver. Thanks Jon. Otherwise I’ve had ridiculous success with only three corps. There’s a few reasons why, though, and the primary one for me is token mix. Having a lower corps count enables me to have a higher chance of pulling a commander or special forces token, and historically I’ve found it beneficial to have what I consider a nearly even pool of 3 token types: Corps, Special Forces, and Falcon Crew (Two Commander tokens and one Operative.) Lately I’ve been switching between 3 and 4 corps, as I occasionally take an FD turret, but more on that later. In this list Improvised Orders is incredibly necessary.

Special Forces: I love Hunter Snipers. And I mean it when I say I love them. Falcon Crew thrives on taking out characters and mopping up the remainder. Murdering Vader at the beginning of turn 3 feels good, let me tell you. I will often run three Hunter Sniper Strike teams, which is considered wildly off meta because of the 18 points of Hunter, just so we’re still on theme here, or two Sniper Strike teams and a single Sniper Commando squad with Hunter. Sniper Commandos are widely considered too fragile, as well, but you have Chewie to help these guys along. Full Commando squads are incredibly fragile, which makes running them very high risk. If you’re going to do it, you need to practice your timing and doing things like popping out or making sure you have higher priority targets available for your opponent, because they can focus fire your Commandos down before you know it. Five black and one white dice with Sharpshooter 1 is no joke, however, so these can pack a serious punch and ruin targets in any type of cover. Use them wisely.

Support: 1.4 FD Laser Cannon Team. It’s a mouthful. I get it. The FD cannon is actually really good, at least in my opinion. Range four and impact two are both things the rebels struggle with, and a naked FD provides all manner of area control and denial if used correctly. I usually run this piece as area control and denial and less so for impact, although having it is very handy if you do run up against some AT-RTs, for instance. It should be common sense that you want this to be behind a barricade or cover of some form, as it will strongly enhance it’s longevity. There’s also an argument to be made for a naked RT as well. Three red dice for using your toes isn’t too bad, but the mobile cover and recent rules changes that allow you to be in base contact with it to negate the cover are great for pieces like Han. Just don’t roam it too far up.

Specialists: Bring those Officers. Two of them, in fact. There’s also evidence that med droids could be beneficial but this list doesn’t seem to want it as badly as it wants Officers. It wants actions, really. Between Leia and the two officers you will have no problems with suppression, typically. You can also leave a suppression on an Officer z6 for that free mobile cover, or heavy if there is enough light cover on the board. To date I have found that most folks are strongly undervaluing Courage two, and the loss of actions from suppression. Death Troopers have the Rebel lists of the world shaking in fear, so ideally you don’t leave home without Officer squads any longer. I have yet to find a good purpose for the Comms Specialist in a Rebel list, unfortunately, and this list is no exception to that.

 

General Deployment and Tactics

For the most part you want to keep the Falcon Crew together. And the rest of the list, really. Han and Chewie should never really be beyond range two, ever. Just don’t do it. Leia should typically be within range one of Chewie at all times. This configuration allows her to dish out some dodges to both herself and to Han and Chewie via teamwork, or if she’s within range one of both, they can have two dodges each and play more aggressively that turn. You can look to set this up on the turn after Sorry About the Mess, for instance, as Han may be in a vulnerable spot. You want your Officer z6’s nearby Han as well, to control any suppression he may be stacking, be it from Reckless Diversion or otherwise, as well as controlling any on Leia as her having two actions is very important.

Your special forces get a bit more free roaming power, but they should be setting themselves up for shots against characters or multiwound units, at least by turn two. The idea here is we want to maximize Hunter, as the z6’s and the Falcon Crew will start making swift work of any corps coming your way. Typically I look for a Leia bombard shot on characters early, first turn if possible. It’s predictable but we’re looking for results, not surprises, with this move. If we can see any snipers with this, it’s great, but finding ways to terrain scope any valuable units is also good. This should become automatic for you as you play over time, but it’s a good opportunity to bring it up now, so next time you’re playing Leia and planning this, just look for these opportunities. As you’re looking for these things we’re also going to look for opportunities to hide our snipers from other snipers, and give them line of sight to enemy commanders or multiwound units to start getting those Hunter aims. It’s scary being able to roll into two crits occasionally, or two hits in the open, for example.

Your third corps in this list can set up shop wherever he or she pleases, just make sure it’s within command range and the plan is to move them in a way that will keep them there, nearby the Falcon Crew. These can act as objective grabbers, skirmishers, or anything you see fit.

Typically we’d be looking to push the Crew up into combat somewhat early, so they can deal some mean damage to your opponent, with the exception of when someone wielding a lightsaber is coming at you. It’s advisable to stay out of range until they’re far more whittled down. Getting Han into areas to maximize his gunslinger should be very high on your list, basically. Having Chewie shoot at multiwound models or characters is hugely important, one, because he’s a hairy crit monster, and two, because it feeds Han aims. Han doesn’t need aims, but the laws of the random number generators tell us that reds still roll blanks from time to time, so it’s nice to have. Leia can comfortably be giving out dodges and moving up, or shooting and moving, and so forth. If someone is targeting her it just means your other high value pieces are being less harassed and have more freedom to punish your opponent.

 

Command Card usage and Timing

I can’t write about how to use Change of Plans, you have to understand your opponent’s list and what timing works best on the table in that moment. But we can start to talk about Brains and Brawn. This card can and should wipe a whole unit off the table under the right environmental conditions, minus those with impervious or pierce immunity, or more than six wounds. Don’t rely on rolling more than five hits, typically, though. An aim here is incredibly valuable for this reason. We want to use this when Leia is within range of two different units she can target, preferably without moving, but sometimes the sneak attack is worth it. Keep in mind that Chewie must be within his own range three of the targets, but typically he’ll be further up the field than Leia, so this shouldn’t be an issue for you. I like to consider this card the turning point card for this list. Removing an activation is huge, and it gives you that opportunity. The other reason we want Leia within range of two different targets is twofold: one, as this is a two pip, your opponent could run someone away, and two, Chewie can hopefully either finish them off on his activation or hit the other target if all went well with the first. Use this card to swing the game.

The Change of Plans into Notorious Scoundrels is a classic move, but keep in mind you can return Sorry About the Mess, or Reckless Diversion to your hand also. Both of those cards can be extremely powerful depending on the list you’re playing. Use it to your best advantage as you see fit on the field.

Finally, as discussed above, using Bombard early is a big part of the Strike Teams’ success. Use it wisely and you can really maximize your efficiency on those Hunter upgrades.

 

My RPQ list from April

– Leia Organa (90) + Improvised Orders (10) + Environmental Gear (3) = 103
– Han Solo (120) + Environmental Gear (3) = 123
Operatives:
– Chewbacca (110) + Hunter (6) = 116
Corps:
– 2x Rebel Troopers (40) + Z-6 Trooper (22) + Rebel Officer (19) = 162
– Rebel Troopers (40) + Z-6 Trooper (22) + Rebel Trooper (10) = 72
Special Forces:
– 3x Rebel Commandos Strike Team (16) + DH-447 Sniper (28) + Hunter (6) = 150
Support:
– 1.4 FD Laser Cannon Team (70) = 70

Total: 796/800

I went 2-1 with this list, and lost my third game in part to time and a couple of misplays on my end (learn to deploy your moisture Vaps to create a disadvantage for your opponent!) and a well timed play by my opponent. This list can shred opponents when wielded properly. It’s a ton of high powered pierce and offense, that needs to be a bit aggressive to win the day. I also love how the FD cannon looks, and it creates a big field for you to play in.

 

Final Notes

Thank you for taking the time to read this! You can find me on the discord as luunta – Jess, and I’d love to answer your questions about this list or any thoughts that may pop up for you. I really love playing variations of this list and using the non-meta units more than other folks. If you’ve ever seen my comments, you’ll know I have huge love for the wookies. My next RPQ will feature them or Pathfinders, two strongly off meta unit choices.

Hope you all enjoyed this guest piece and it’s something I’m sure we can do again! If you have something you want to talk about to the community, let me know! Every voice should be heard.

– GrandAdmiralThrawn

 

Battle Report: Wonder Twins vs Triple Deathtroopers

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It’s Rallypoint Qualifier practice time, so Fly Boys took a backseat in this one. Granted I’m starting to think Fly Boys are my list going forward after this RPQ, but for now I’m sticking to what I know best with the Wonder Twins. I also knew my
opponent wanted to practice his triple Deathtrooper list, this was the perfect  place for the list I built. I have been advocating for weeks that Rebels need Officers in list for inspire across the board to help with the incoming doom of suppression and suppressive weapons the Empire is starting to gather. Between the Deathtroopers and Krennics cards:

My List
-Luke Skywalker (160) + Force Push (10) + Jedi Mind Trick (5) + Emergency Stims (8) = 183
– Leia Organa (90) + Improvised Orders (10) = 100
Corps:
– Fleet Troopers (44) + Scatter Gun Trooper (23) + Rebel Officer (19) + Recon Intel (2) = 88
– Rebel Troopers (40) + Z-6 Trooper (22) + Rebel Officer (19) = 81
– Rebel Troopers (40) + Z-6 Trooper (22) + Rebel Trooper (10) + Recon Intel (2) = 74
– Rebel Troopers (40) + Z-6 Trooper (22) + 2-1B Medical Droid (18) = 80
– Rebel Troopers (40) + 2-1B Medical Droid (18) = 58
Special Forces:
– 3x Rebel Commandos Strike Team (16) + DH-447 Sniper (28) = 132

Total: 796/800

My Opponents List

Commanders:
– Director Orson Krennic (90) + Strict Orders (5) = 95
Corps:
– Snowtroopers (48) + Fragmentation Grenades (5) = 53
– 4x Stormtroopers (44) + DLT-19 Stormtrooper (24) = 272
Special Forces:
– Scout Troopers Strike Team (16) + DLT-19x Sniper (28) = 44
– Imperial Death Troopers (76) + E-11D Grenade Launcher Config (8) = 84
– 2x Imperial Death Troopers (76) + DLT-19D (34) + Overwatch (4) + Recon Intel (2) + E-11D Grenade Launcher Config (8) = 248

Total: 796/800

 

Battle Cards

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Since we were tied in points, we did a roll off for who was blue player and I happened to win and took blue. I wanted my cards specifically because I don’t want to see Hostile Environment. This was somewhat ideal for me at first glance with Disarray and two commanders, but we’ll get into how this actually ended up being pretty bad for me. Key Positions actually favored me with how we deployed them and I was not a fan of Clear Conditions coming out to play, even with all of my snipers and Leia. I had to try and play around the Deathtroopers.

Table Set Up

The table was pre-set from a prior game, and while it was a little dense and not Star Wars themed we both decided to keep it because it was pretty cool. As a Rebel player, I thoroughly enjoyed all of the line of sight blocking terrain! Three building that will be mentioned will be the building I deployed my snipers on which we wil call Farm Stand, the center building, and the general store. These were the key positions.

Round 1

Command Cards: Coordinated Bombardment vs Coordinated Fire

I decided to split my commanders, mainly due to how some of the line of sights were playing out. Where you can see the snipers above I deployed: two sniper teams, a medic Z6 squad and Leia. On the other side I placed Luke with everything else. Specifically with the fleets, to try and move in unison. Jeff, my opponent, placed Krennic, two Deathtroopers, two DLT Stormtroopers and his Snowtroopers in the side opposite of Leia. On the other side he had a set of Deathtroopers, two DLT stormtroopers, and his lone snipers.

He deployed his snipers out of LOS and on a side that I didn’t think would favor Leia in the first place. In order to get a Coordinated Bomardment out there, I knew I had to leave her behind some cover and outside of range 4. That way my opponent would have to move and shoot her….but this didn’t matter. Sigh. Her bombardment killed two stormtroopers, and the rest was all suppression on the Deathtroopers and another Stormtrooper sqaud.

After the Bombardment, it really turned into all positioning. I started to move a bunch of forces to the General Store and out of line of sight from the snipers and Deathtroopers as best as I could. The Deathtroopers on that side were out of LOS to start the round, I didn’t want to allow him to move up and shoot anything that great. Luke and the Fleets started to cut towards the middle of the board and out of line of sight to ensure they didn’t take any shots along the way. I know I took a few shots at DT’s with my snipers, that did nothing. A DLT potshot took out a sniper, which I brought back to life with the medic, but the reason for mentioning that is the aim they took passed over to the Deathtroopers. And then this was the catalyst of the first round and perhaps the game: His Deathtroopers, with an aim, shot at Leia….landing all 7 hits without(!) the aim. Leia, who was in light cover with a dodge then rolled all blanks and took five wounds. This was not something I was expecting necessarily. I put her in a decent spot and I had a nice hiding hole for the next round for her. However, now that she took these five wounds, I knew she was in trouble.

Round 2

Command Cards: No Time For Sorrow vs Voracious Ambition

I played No Time For Sorrow to try and get Leia into some more cover or out of range four. The issue here is on her right side, in the other Disarray deployment zone, are my enemies snipers with a direct line on her. I have two options: move directly right and stay in range four of the same Deathtrooper squad that just shot her but out of line of sight of the snipers or to move to my right, a little out of range of the Deathtroopers range and force him to pull his snipers. The thought process here is his Deathtroopers can’t recover, move and shoot if I do option two. The issue is Voracious Ambition allows him to have control of his tokens. I had to take this gamble no matter what, though. He declares he’s going to the bag, and all of a sudden I have hope. He doesn’t have Special Forces on the Voracious Ambition. This elation lasts all but ten seconds, as he then pulls special forces out of the bag allowing him to be able to aim and shoot Leia. I’m sure you can deduce from my grim tone that she died a valiant death. Those dang Deathtroopers! It doesn’t get any better for that side either, as I moved a sniper squad out to take a no cover shot on his snipers, and blanked out. He had a flanking Stormtrooper squad move into a good spot to get both models of my sniper team and wipe them out. Now I’m at a huge disadvantage on that side. I’m down to the medbot Rebel trooper squad and the one sniper squad. I had to make ten men fell like one hundred from here on out, basically. What I decide to do is on the other side is continue to move Luke and the fleets towards that building (note the picture above for reference) with the orange store front sign. On the other side of that sign are two Stormtrooper squads, but one is only able to get in range to shoot either Luke or the Fleets if they wanted, so I Jedi Mindtrick them to put them at three suppression to try and keep them from coming towards me. Over on the General Store side of things, his Deathtroopers shot a squad they had shot the round before to put them back up to 3 suppression, and I made a bit of a goof up here. I knew I moved Luke out of range of them to apply pressure on the other side, and I completely forgot about a Rebel Officer led unit on the General Store side and didn’t activate them first to Inspire. Genuine mistake that led to these Rebel Troopers to panic from their location. Luckily, not off the board. At the same time, he moved a DLT squad towards some area where I could thread shots with no cover and I decided to move and shoot them about two to three times and wiped them. Maybe things were going to start to turn around. The other side was mainly all positioning, I allowed no more shots to be taken on my side. I aimed and shot at the DLT squad that came around and wiped a sniper squad out and did some chip damage. He got a set of Deathtroopers perched onto some highground on a roof and started to funnel everything else towards the Key Position I was bunkered down on.

 

Round 3

Command Cards: Deploy The Garrison vs My Ally is the Force

Once Deploy the Garrison is played and Jeff has stand-by’s and aims out I know he’s worried about Luke, as he should be. Once this happens, I can kind of play the waiting game over there to make sure I don’t walk into a hailstorm of shots. Nothing much continues on the Key Position I have locked down on the Leia side, as I take out the flanking Stormtrooper squads DLT unit and can kind of take a sigh of relief on that side since it’s just the commander, and I’m still in a safe position from the steady moving Deathtroopers, Krennic and Snowtroopers who are now making their way downtown to the Key Position even more. Over at the General Store, I take another Deathtrooper shot which does some damage, but nothing too overwhelming, I do lobby a shot or two back, which doesn’t do much. I also decided to move my sniper into view to try and get some luck against his snipers, because they needed to be dealt with. The shot fails, my snipers were very sub par this game. Some of it might have been positioning, but a good portion of it was dice. At this point, I know I need to move most of my units out of line of sight of those General Store Deathtroopers, and just bunker up against the Key Position. This is going to force them to move towards the open and towards the middle because there’s no way he can contest this Key Position when I have three or four units on it. On the Luke side of things, I decided to just stay put with Luke and not move into shots. I force push a unit with a stand by to knock it off, I recover to then refresh Jedi Mind Trick and Force Push, to then Jedi Mind Trick another stand by off. This was for if I wanted to move up the Fleets for a shot, they could do so undeterred. What I actually do is move them backward a little, but out of range of the perched Deathtroopers, and shoot at a set of Stormtroopers in the open. I do some chip damage, and ultimately allow Jeff no shots this round. It’s a somewhat wasted round with Luke, but it’s better than jumping a building and getting lit up.

 

Round 4

Command Cards: Covering Fire vs Push

Covering Fire seems like a strange card to play here because now I have no control of when I can activate Luke but there is always a method to the madness. I know he has Annihilation Looms and I need to save Return of the Jedi for when he drops that. If I play Son of Skywalker and activate Luke too soon, I’ll take multiple shots. I need him to activate some units, maybe get unlucky and pull a Corps unit over near Luke and have them activate. Then I can engage them and be safe, to then wreak havoc later on. However, none of that happens. It ends up being a more positional round again, as we know it’s time to start getting to the final position to score in round six. Krennic, Snowtroopers and Deathtroopers all move towards that Key Position. His sniper finishes my last sniper. His General Store Deathtroopers start to jaunt towards the middle, and my Fleets get into some complete line of sight blocking area to start securing the middle. Right now is when I decide what my plan is. I’m going to move Luke up and engage two units with Force Push. This will take away action economy from them and make them withdraw. I know he want’s the perched Deathtroopers to take a shot on Luke, which is fine. I can maybe weather that storm, shed some suppression and then move back towards the middle with Luke and put pressure on the middle objective. This is exactly what I do. I kill three, maybe four Stormtroopers. As I predicted, they both withdraw and Luke takes the DT shot. He suffers two wounds, two suppression, and the round ends. Annihilation is looming.

 

Round 5

Command Cards: Return of the Jedi vs Annihilation Looms

The most important part to note here is how strong Krennic can be. With his cunning ability, it allows him to activate first. With his Entourage ability, it allows the Deathtroopers in the perch to activate first. These are all things I didn’t want to happen, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m just going to trust the dice and hope Luke will rally after he takes this second Deathtrooper shot I know is coming. He recovers and takes his shot. I spend my dodge, and I take two more damage….and two more suppression. Luke is now up to three suppression and I’m at a cross roads. The Fleet Troopers have an officer on them and I could activate them, Inspire one off of Luke, but then the issue is that something else will have the chance to shoot at Luke and what’s the difference. I want to get Luke back towards the middle and relatively safe, so I decide to activate him. He rolls his three rally dice….blanks. I only have one action. I move Luke behind some terrain towards the middle, not in a great spot but it’s all I have to do. I could have recovered, but if I did, I’m open to another Deathtrooper squad. His Snowtroopers finally reach my bunker down Rebel Troopers that are all alone on the farm stand Key Position and hit them with Frag Grenades. The Trooper leader stands tall, but he’s back up to two suppression which is not good. On the other side of the building is Krennic and Deathtroopers. I know I’m going to lose this KP, but I need to make sure he can’t move to the middle if possible. Over at the General Store, I pop out some troopers while still in base contact of the objective to apply another suppression to the Deathtroopers who are now making their way to the middle. I need to limit their activations and stall them. I apply a suppression and hope for the best. That Deathtrooper squad rallies one off, but only gets one action. They remain in range from all my troopers on the General Store KP, though, which is good. His sniper flankers panic backwards and I eventually have a unit fail a rally and panic off the board by the General Store. However, it can’t be understated how important Rebel Officers are in games against suppression builds. I was able to inspire a unit and save them and of course the Officer Squad has a courage value of two. This was huge against the suppression. The Fleets decide to stay put behind the middle building, wipe out the remainder of a Stormtrooper squad and inspire a suppression off of Luke (who was now up to five suppression from DLT shots that did no damage) and bring him down to four. I have Son of Skywalker left, which will guarantee me initiative, and I need to trust the Dice Gods.

 

Round 6

Command Cards: Son of Skywalker vs Ambush

Luke, sitting on three suppression tokens, needs to rally one off. It’s all he needs to do. If he rallies, I have a plethora of options to take, one being to move to the center KP and get two units on there and hope it holds. Luke rally dice go in the air: blanks. I have one action. He’s so close to being to being able to get back to that central KP…..but he just can’t make it. The only thing I really have to do is shoot the remaining Stormtroopers off the board to take away a potential deterrent and it could mean something when it comes to points, but I already know I’m lacking in that department as I had not killed quite as much as I would have liked. I’m doing some calculations in my head, and I have a few ways I can still win, but it’s an uphill battle. The General Store Deathtroopers activate and they need to rally a suppression off, sitting at two, in order to make it to the central KP….the dice go in the air…one comes off. Essentially, this ends up being the game, unless my Fleets can move up and take out the Deathtroopers on the Farm Stand for points destroyed. The Fleets move up and end up taking out….all but one Deathtrooper. That Deathtrooper moves to engage my Fleets, who I cohered in a way to deny access to the KP, and it moved me off the objective. Ballgame, bad guys.

 

Final Notes

Although we didn’t play with a clock, this was a great practice game for our upcoming Rallypoint Qualifier. In my area, we have a lot of Imperial players and I really wanted to get a game against a suppression build like Jeff’s list. It was hands down probably the most intense, great game I’ve had so far when playing Legion. I was sweating bullets for the last two rounds. It’s honestly the third game in a row that I’ve played that came down to a result of a rally roll. If those aren’t the best games then what are? I think next time I don’t play as timid against the Deathtroopers and play a little more offensive, but I think I was right to play with some caution. Rebel officers in Trooper squads are going to be stapled in my lists, whether that’s one or two is yet to be seen. The two medbots did their job, they’ll also be finding their way into my lists. Those specialist packs are worth their weight in gold it seems!

Some new things about the blog: I changed the entire layout and hope you enjoy it! I’m in the process of starting up both a Twitter and an Instagram page for the blog to spread out on the social media, follow them and share them if you’d like! Where you’ll find those is that on the bottom of the screen you’ll see a plus button. That will bring you a drop down menu with community links and links to the blog Twitter and Instagram! I also set up an email account where you’ll find at the top of the page at the Feedback button! If you have any questions, critique, want a specific topic to be spoken about let me know! Hope you enjoy the new site!

 

May the Force be with You!

-GrandAdmiralThrawn

 

 

 

Battle Report: Fly Boys

Battle Reports

I have tried several lists that don’t include Luke over the course of my brief-ish tenure of playing Star Wars Legion, but somehow I always find myself just playing with both Luke and Leia. I have an upcoming Rallypoint Qualifier and I probably should be practicing what I anticipate to bring, but I have played enough Wonder Twins where I feel comfortable branching out right now and playing something different. I tried a nine and ten act Landspeeder list recently, which was a lot of fun, but not necessarily as effective as I would like. This past Friday I decided to play a variant of what is known as Fly Boys, which is Luke Skywalker and Han Solo with your typical supporting cast of Rebel units. It plays a lot differently than Luke/Leia and there’s a few things we can go over as I describe the game.

Army Lists 

My List:

– Luke Skywalker (160) + Force Push (10) + Emergency Stims (8) = 178
– Han Solo (120) + Esteemed Leader (5) + Emergency Stims (8) = 133
Corps:
– Fleet Troopers (44) + Scatter Gun Trooper (23) + Rebel Officer (19) = 86
– Rebel Troopers (40) + Z-6 Trooper (22) + Rebel Officer (19) = 81
– 3x Rebel Troopers (40) + Z-6 Trooper (22) = 186
Special Forces:
– 3x Rebel Commandos Strike Team (16) + DH-447 Sniper (28) = 132


Total: 796/800 

My Opponents List: 

– Han Solo (120) + Duck and Cover (8) = 128
– Rebel Commander (50) = 50
Corps:
– Fleet Troopers (44) + Scatter Gun Trooper (23) = 67
– 2x Rebel Troopers (40) + Z-6 Trooper (22) = 124
– 2x Rebel Troopers (40) + Recon Intel (2) = 84
Special Forces:
– Rebel Pathfinders (68) + Pao (22) + Duck and Cover (8) + A-300 Config (6) = 104
– 2x Wookiee Warriors (75) + Bowcaster Wookiee (35) + Hunter (6) + Tenacity (4) = 240

Total: 797/800

battle rep vs eric

Battle Cards

Limited Visibility/Intercept the Transmissions/Disarray

I was Blue Player and my opponent was a little surprised I had Limited Visibility in my deck. Now, while my opponent was a Rebel list, I could have changed my deck to bring Hostile Environment, which is what I’ve been cutting recently, but the thought process there is: In a tournament setting, my battle deck is my battle deck I can’t change it due to what faction I am facing on the other side. I want to practice what I know my battle deck is. Now I also know that Disarray is bad for Fly Boys, but it’s a deployment I wanted to practice as well. It’s a deployment that could come in handy against an Imperial list in the upcoming RPQ and having insight of how to play it is nice to have.

 

Game Overview

I’m going to go over the first two rounds in depth, because I want to explain in detail some plays I made and they all come from playing the game often and gaining experience. Something that we can all do, and this is a blog for beginners after all, but this is how you can take that next step. I’m not saying I’m any good, yet, but I’m certainly starting to make some plays I didn’t expect myself to make even a few weeks ago. Reps really matter, so get to playing!!

Round 1

This was the first time I played Rebel vs Rebel in a few weeks, and it was a nice change of pace. Looking at my opponents list, he had 10 activation’s that could and would play for objectives, so I did something that normally isn’t recommended but I deployed my snipers in positions to reach the transmissions if I really needed to do so. Knowing that he didn’t have snipers made this decision easier for me. One side of my table had a regular Z6 Rebel Trooper squad, a Rebel Officer Z6 Squad, two snipers, and Luke. The other side of the table had the Officer Fleets, a Z6 squad, two sniper teams and Han. My opponent did a similar type thing of splitting his forces, because we have two commanders it’s okay to do this in Disarray. He put a set of Wookies, two naked Trooper units, two Z6 units and Han in the corner opposite of my Luke. On the other side he put the Rebel Officer, Fleet Troopers, naked Rebel Troopers and Wookies. The Pathfinders deployed somewhat towards the middle but towards his side with Han in it.

With the game being Limited Visibility, we both played Standing Orders round 1. It was a lot of moving and maneuvering but more shots than you’d expect happened. I took the Fleets and moved up to take a shot at the Pathfinders, this put my Fleets in a precarious position, but an early shot was something I felt like I needed to do. It killed all but one Pathfinder and Pao, which was a good trade off I felt. (The Pathfinders did eventually return fire later in the round and kill two of my Fleets) I was trying to do my best to deny shots from my opponent while moving up to the objective/staying out of range two, but I failed with one of my units doing so. I moved a Z6 squad on the side with my Han up to this big rock, thinking I could do a few things: stay out of Line of Sight of some units, gain heavy cover from other units, and dig myself into the transmission spot behind a big LOS blocker. However, my opponent was able to dwindle them down to the trooper leader only by the time the round ended. That said, I had a plan already in motion. On that same side, I decided to move a sniper unit up, in range of the transmission, and take a shot on a unit at range 2. (We both played a little aggressive) Now this is something I wouldn’t think I would do normally with snipers, but with Han and his Command Cards, I deemed it necessary.  On the other side, it wasn’t as active. I took out one Wookie on his approach and played very conservatively with everything else, knowing I was being very aggressive on the other side of the table. I double moved Luke into a somewhat safe area and went to round two with a game plan, that ended up working.

Round 2

It’s time to get my plan going, there’s only one caveat: I was worried my opponent would play his Change of Plans. This is really the whole reason I’m doing this game as a Battle Report, for what I did on round 2 as an example of how to make better plays after experience. I played Reckless Diversion and my opponent played Covering Fire. I really needed Reckless Diversion to go through, because I placed Han strategically and had a full Z-6 Rebel Trooper squad almost perfectly placed as well to take the brunt of whatever second round attacks my opponent could get. Remember, it was Limited Visibility, which means now attacks from range 3 are good. In playing Reckless Diversion, I ensured that the lone Rebel Trooper leader would live and that my aggressive sniper move wouldn’t get them wiped out. Basically, Reckless Diversion won my that transmission on its own. Han took a few wounds, as expected. But I was able to dwindle his Fleets to two troopers and his naked squad to two troopers, setting up a Han finishing shot at the start of round 3, perhaps. My opponent used his Han towards my Han, but not in range, and took a shot at my Fleet troopers, killing two troopers. The Fleets, having not much else to do, decided to go into melee with his Han. This is a tactic I wanted to use to slow up his Han, and not allow him to turn a corner on round 3 and start deleting things. Han rolls awful dice in melee, and when you can lock him up you do it. It made my opponent waste his Wookies on that side, who ran all the way over and take a swing at two Fleet Troopers. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make, because he now used actions that he didn’t really want to use.

On the Luke side of things, we exchanged some Trooper shots, his Wookies shot a sniper team off the board (played them aggressive as noted before) and I want to say I brought a Z6 unit to just the leader and the Z6. He took some pot shots at Luke, and put two or three damage through, but it didn’t stop what was coming towards the end of the round. I double moved Luke into the transmission range, and in range 1 of a Rebel Trooper unit also in range of the transmission. Can you guess what happens next? Force Push. Force Push is more the reason of why I can’t put Luke down. So on the far left transmission I captured a VP because of Force Push, on the far right I took the transmission because of Reckless Diversion, and my opponent held onto the middle which was something I knew would happen anyways.

Round 3

Both me and my opponent play Sorry About the Mess and I won the roll off. Which is pretty huge because it allowed me to use my Han before he could use his Han or the Wookies. Han deletes the two trooper units my opponent had left, and moves as far as he can away from the Wookies. Ensuring that they need to double move if they want to engage him, and at this point Han has 4 wounds on him. My opponent charges with the Wookies, and this is where things get funky. Han eats the Wookie charge like a champion and stays upright with 5 wounds, not even having to go to stims. Now he’s safe until the next round, which is nice. The lone trooper decided to engage his Rebel Officer, to stall him and make him throw one less die trying to take him out. And in the off chance my lone guy lived, he was in range of the transmission. He didn’t live, but this allowed me to move behind this rock with a leader and a Z6 and rip a shot on the Rebel Officer…..who dies on the one shot. It was a big turn of the tide on that side. Z6 dice can be really fickle, but this was a nice roll! On the Luke side of things, I dwindled my opponents second set of wookies down to one wookie, who then will retreat. And I set up Luke for an apparent Son of Skywalker, with I think four wounds on him. I also have a few very healthy Rebel Trooper squads over here, getting ready to score on round 4.

Round 4

I play Son of Skywalker, looking to get more of a stranglehold on the transmission, but my opponent Change of Plans’ it. I end up dropping down My Ally is the Force, to protect Luke, and my opponent plays Sabotaged Communications. He gives the Wookies an order and it’s time to swipe on Han, with hunter they get a free aim, so he didn’t take an aim and just punched. With hopes of having another action, should he kill Han. Han says not today, and gets pushed to stims. He will die after his next activation this round, but it meant the Wookies were stuck. My lone trooper unit on that side, consisting of the leader and the Z6, move into melee with Han. This ensured that Han doesn’t come around the corner and ace them with his DL-44. On the Luke side of things, I recovered force push, charged a barely wounded Z6 squad, and took out all but one I want to say. I then force pushed his Wookie, who was in the area, to ensure a few things. He would have to make a choice between charging Luke or double moving into the transmission range to challenge it. He chose to charge Luke, and dealt one more wound to Luke. The lone Rebel Trooper aimed and punched my Luke to stims, but Luke tying them all up, allowed me to score this transmission again. With a tie on the Han/Han side, Luke side winning one, and my opponent having the middle locked down, I have a temporary edge at 3 VP’s to 2 VP’s heading into round five.

Round 5

This ends up being the turn I use Son of Skywalker and my opponent using I want to say Push. Luke deletes the Wookie and the lone trooper, and then dies off the board. But now that entire side is empty of my opponents ranks, and it allows me to leave my sniper squad back for round six scoring and double move the two trooper units towards the middle, where my opponent has very wisely moved Pao and a Trooper leader in very, very safe spots. Back to the Han side, the Wookies finally take him out. His Han takes out the Z-6 in the unit that engaged him, and then I just aim and punch back to take us into the final round.

Round 6

We’re both doing some calculations on what we want to do, I put my Leader token on the Officer led Rebel Troopers, which gives my other squad a courage value of two, just in case they were to take two shots from the enemy lone trooper or Pao. My opponent tries to use his Han to wipe out the lone trooper, but I block the one hit. I then moved that trooper into base to base with the Wookies. This ensured they could not make a last ditch effort towards the middle. I don’t think they could have made it, but I wasn’t taking a chance. Then things got interesting. My opponent moved his Pao out towards the squad that didn’t have the Rebel Officer on them and took a stand by. He was trying to set up a bubble to shoot me on the approach to potentially deter me from making it in range. So what I decided to do was double move the other Rebel Troopers, the ones with the Officer, into base to base with Pao and deny any kind of shot. His lone trooper stepped out, applied a suppression token to make things harder for me. If I rally, I win the game. If I don’t rally, I would have had to take a heavy cover shot on his lone trooper and kill him, which is no guarantee. The die goes in the air…..Rally! Ball game, Fly Boys. Final score of 5 VP’s to 4 VP’s.

Final Notes

This turned out to be quite a lengthy Battle Report, and it’s kind of a test run of if this is something I want to keep doing or if it’s just something I’ll occasionally do. Trying to keep the content diverse and ever flowing! Feedback will be greatly appreciated! Trying Fly Boys was a lot of fun, and I look forward to playing them more after my RPQ next month! Thanks to my great opponent and friend, it was a great game that came down to the wire!

May the Force be with You!

-GrandAdmiralThrawn

Sabine Wren: Explosive Artist

Rebel Analysis

Most of the information on Sabine has been out for quite some time, and this week we saw the article which finished off the details we were missing. Also, if you have been following or played in the Invader League, she’s been legal to use and test run. I happened to run her in all of my games, in which I went 2 and 2, and she was a key piece in all of the games even the losses. We’ll go over her from a beginners standpoint, as always, by breaking down her keywords, health pool, courage value, attack and defense, Command Cards and last but not least tactic suggestions. If you never watched Star Wars Rebels, you’re probably like “who the hell is Sabine Wren” and the short term on that is that she’s a Mandalorian Rebel that is an expert when it comes to explosives and funky colored hair. She’s also known for her art skills with paint, which she paints multiple things over the course of the show. I highly recommend Rebels to any Star Wars fan, it was a fantastic series and I actually miss it.

Sabine Wren

Sabine Wren

Is she the Rebel version of Boba Fett, you ask? Kind of, but I’d argue that she’s a little different. Boba has more weapon options and range options than Sabine, and more importantly a higher courage value for suppression. Speaking of, Sabine has a healthpool of 5 and a courage value of 2 which is somewhat of a downfall in comparison. In lists without Luke, she’s susceptible to panic if she has 4 suppression on her as opposed to Boba who would just lose an action. She has Jump 2, which allows you to ignore terrain at height 2 or lower and moves speed 3!! She has Gunslinger, which if you remember from Han Solo is the ability to shoot two different opponents when performing a ranged attack. She has Impervious, which allows her to roll extra dice in her defense roll comparable to the amount of pierce your opponents attack has. Last but not least, she has Nimble, which basically allows her to keep her dodge token once she gets one. On offense she surges to crit, which is always nice, while rolling rainbow colored dice, and keep in mind it’s Gunslinger. On defense, she rolls the rare red defense dice for Rebels with surge to block, that damn Mando armor! Now while she does roll 2/3 for saves, don’t rely on them! You can, when needed, but don’t toss her somewhere and be like: She’ll be okay. That might not be the case.

Sabine Wren Upgrades

Electro Grappling Line

Electro Grappling Line

This was the final piece of information for Sabine and it was released earlier this week. There had been some question marks about her 2 pip Command Card, see below, but it starts to make more sense. The Grappling Line is very similar to Boba Fetts whipcord, however it’s not in the form of a command card, it exhausts, AND it costs an action. It’s caused quite a bit of questioning of whether it’s worth it, and if you have the extra points I say you toss it on. Even if you don’t use it often, it’s nice to have. Now, if you’re building a list and have 8 points left and it’s either Emergency Stims or this? Take Stims, every time. That said, I don’t think Stims is 100% necessary in CERTAIN list building which I’ll get into in the Final Notes segment.

Personal Combat Shield

Personal Combat Shield

Sabine’s Personal Combat Shield, if anything, is a sign of things to come when the Clones and Droids roll out….speaking of rolling out, Rolly Bois!!!!

How it works is that if Sabine is defending, she may use her shield token to add a block to the dice results before she rolls. This is good, because it works against a crit that gets through, unlike a dodge, but it will not work against pierce. I, personally, don’t think it’s worth the 10 points but that’s my opinion. It does however need a recover to bring it back to use, which again ties in with her 2 pip Command Card.

The Darksaber

The Darksaber

This is the most interesting of the group of upgrades. It’s sort of expensive at 25 points but it gives Sabine Dauntless, which allows her to gain a suppression token if she is suppressed but not panicked to perform a free move action. This is a way to preserve two actions with Sabine, but it goes hand in hand with her courage value of only being two and why I think she needs to be run with Luke or Jyn for their courage 3 bubble. Example: If Sabine doesn’t have Luke/Jyn with her and she has 3 suppression on her, she can gain one to move. Now she’s at panic levels, though. If she has Luke/Jyn, taking that extra suppression isn’t as scary. Now another note is the common issue of misunderstanding what Suppressed really is. It’s not having a suppression token on her, but suppression tokens equal to or above her courage value. It’s a common misconception. Sabine also gains Immune:Pierce in melee, which is a good contingency against Luke/Vader and even Bossk, who has pierce in melee. I think the Darksaber is an auto include for both of it’s added keywords. In my games, I only used Darksaber in one of them, but those added keywords. It sounds crazy, but they’re worth the points.

Recommended Upgrades

If you have room for the points the ideal loadout for Sabine is probably: Emergency Stims, Grappling Line, Darksaber which puts her at 163 points total. Some might prefer to put Recon Intel on her and perhaps Tenacity, even though I think Gunslinger Sabine is better than Darksaber Sabine….but still taking the Darksaber for the keywords. I was running Sabine with Recon Intel and Darksaber in the Invader League but that’s ONLY because I was running a Luke/Leia/Sabine list in three of those games and I wanted to get 10 quality activations out of it. Loading her up with more points would have meant that I would need a naked Trooper squad or drop down to 9 activations.

Command Cards

Explosions!

EXPLOSIONS! This is extremely fitting for the explosive loving Sabine. For anyone that plays Imperial Assault, she tosses a grenade in there as well. If there’s something FFG does great, it’s keeping things super thematic which is great. Sabine gains Arm2: Thermal Charge which works just like Saboteurs. The grenade has to land flat on the board and in line of sight in range 1 of Sabine. Unlike Saboteurs, Sabine gains a free speed 1 move to get away from the blast if possible. Right now, it’s not very clear if the free move actually allows you to detonate but that’s how we played it in Invader League. Remember, Detonate can be set off at anytime after any action. Also, from what I understand: when Sabine detonates her thermal charges, you have to detonate both. You can’t choose to detonate one or the other, it’s both or none. So keep that in mind if you’re trying to save them for later.

Symbol of Rebellion

With two upgrades that exhaust for Sabine it makes sense that her 2 pip command card gives her a free recover. This is also pretty large for if she gets focus fired by your opponent and starts to rack up suppression tokens, which is less than ideal. Now the interesting this is the graffiti token, which has to be in range 1 and in line of sight, while also touching non area terrain. What the Graffiti token does is quite interesting in itself: it allows units in your army roll an extra rally die when in range 1 to 2 and in line of sight of the token, I believe. This could come in handy for units that are suppressed and need to remove a token or two, that extra die is nice to have.

Legacy of Mandalore

Legacy of Mandalore not only allows you to give an order to Sabine but it allows you to give orders to two trooper units. If those units happen to be a commander, operative or a special forces unit, she gains either an aim token or a dodge token for every one that meets the requirement. She also gains Inspire 1 for the round. Keep in mind, the order on herself DOES count towards her receiving those tokens!

As someone who has run her with both Luke and Leia, I did find myself using this early simply for activation control. I know that may be an odd strategy and maybe not the most optimal use of the card, but I like to have control of who I activate and when, and doing it this way allows me to take all three tokens on Sabine. I specifically put 3 dodges on her in one game to deter a Maximum Firepower shot from Veers. Just an idea!

Final Thoughts

Sabine is a nice addition to the Rebel side of things and she needs to be used very wisely. Don’t toss her out there with the mindset of “well she saves two thirds of the time, she’ll be okay” because there are flaws to that. First: red dice can and will fail you. Second: She only has a courage value of 2, panics at 4. (unless you bring Luke or Jyn) You’re better to use her as a unit that can play objectives well and like a scalpel not a hammer like Luke. Don’t look at her and think: play super aggressive and delete units. That’s not what she’ll do. She’s better at being maneuvered into wide open gunslinger shots, playing objectives, and using her speed 3 to her advantage positionally. Then the moment your opponent bunches up their army, drop Explosions! on them! Red dice save characters for the Rebel side of things is nice to have and I see Sabine fitting in very well in a lot of Rebel listbuilding. I think she’ll see the table quite often! I guess the interesting thing about Sabine is all the ways you can load her out. If you can afford those stims, do it! Recon Intel, the grappling line, personal combat shield will all be in a battle for each other in her gear slots. I still think you take the Darksaber but don’t use it unless it’s absolutely necessary! It’s there to give you dauntless and immune pierce in melee more so than to make you play aggressive with her. Of course, these are just my opinions! If you want to go slice and dice with the fabled Darksaber, do it!

May the Force be with You!

-GrandAdmiralThrawn

How to Learn from a Loss

Strategy

This past week I had a game that was rather frustrating. It’s, perhaps, the first time I got “mad” at the game of Legion. Not my opponent, but the game itself. The dice gods were out to get me that day, and I think this is a fine time to address losing and how to deal with it. We’re human after all, which means we are flawed. We all want to win when playing a game, it’s natural and it’s a fact. But when you lose there are a few things you can do. You can either take the loss and learn from it or you can make excuses/blame the variance. Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes it truly will be variance. My loss this past week, was variance for the most part and we’ll get into it deeper later on, but after reflecting on it there are still things I could have done differently and still won.

Game Overview
To give some context of where we’re headed with the post, let’s go over my game very briefly. I was Red Player with a Luke/Leia/Landspeeder against a Krennic/Boba/Deathtroopers variant. It was Clear Conditions, I vetoed condition cards twice because the middle card was Hostile Environment and I don’t want that against a list that can toss out suppression, Battle Lines and Moisture Evaporators.

I, of course, started with Leia’s Coordinated Bombardment and wiped a sniper team but that was all it did, and this started the cavalcade of dice rolls we will get into. With Rebels, I tend to play a “let my opponent come to me” type of game, and this is what I did. Allowing him to move forward allowed me to move and shoot or aim in shoot in a lot of instances, especially the first round. Including the Bombardment saves, which after the sniper squad, my opponent rolled three for three saves on those. Followed that with five for five saves with Boba, which is common because he does surge. Two for two with a Stormtrooper squad in heavy cover. He had a set of bikes roll three for three, with white dice! And the Royal Guard rounds it out with a combined eight for eight on saves. If we add all of this up, my opponent rolled twenty one for twenty three in just the first round of the game on defense. I was, simply put, aggravated. Again, not at my opponent, but at the dice. After that, things just simply didn’t go my way. I had a gameplan in motion, it needed some of those shots to land and they didn’t and it set me back a bit. Not a lot, but enough. As mentioned last week, Moisture Vaporators is such an action economy game. None of those shots going through meant I needed to put more actions into more shots than I needed. So, in retrospect, instead of double moving into an objective, I needed to shoot at these threatening targets again. Especially the IRG, who were threatening a Vaporator that I needed access to. I didn’t want to plunge into their charge range. I ended up losing 3 to 2 on Vaps, which is a weird score for Vaps, but it has a lot to do with some intricacies in the game such as the moments laid out for you above.

Rather than write a full battle report, I want to just use the example placed here to go forward with what the post is about: Subsiding the anger towards the dice and realizing and accepting that that’s part of the game.

Dice Gods Giveth and Taketh Away

Any game that involves dice, there’s going to be variance and we as players need to be accepting of it. I got angry at the dice in this game, but I knew that one of my games it will be the other way around. Ironically, I fired up a game with a local guy the night after and the dice were the exact opposite of the game that I lost. The morale of the story here is: Don’t let a game that you lost because of dice, primarily, get to you. The game should, and will, balance out. It just simply has to.

Mental Game Recap

The best thing you can do after ANY game, is to go over some things that you did that perhaps could have been better. This is even more important and glaring in a loss. Think about as much of the game as you remember, and figure out ways you can make yourself a better player. While the dice in that game most likely cost me that game, it wasn’t the only factor!

I spread my army out a little too much, and I knew that when deploying, but I had a plan or two to somewhat justify it. In the end, I should have kept them more close than I left them. I played some command cards in the wrong time, after reflecting on it. Not having enough inspire in my list, certainly hurt. I’ve been talking about Rebel Officers being a staple in Rebel lists because of the amount of suppression the Empire has been conjuring up as of late. Did I listen to my own advice? Certainly not. Did it result in a loss? It actually did. My opponent panicked two of my units because of failed rallies and no inspire around to help them. This was a direct effect to being spread out too thin from my commander/rest of my army, my list building and poor action economy from earlier in the game. What do I mean by that? Well, rather than double moving and hitting the Vaporator right away, I decided to aim and shoot or move and shoot with units out of fear. Maybe that’s because of Rebel white saves, and maybe I worried too much about the Royal Guard, but in my mind it was open shots against a one in three save. Take a model or two out, then move up. Instead, they stood their ground and my plan started to backfire somewhat. I think next time, in a Vaporator game, I need to worry less about an area threat and just get the wounds off the Vaporators. Worry about handling that threat after I’ve hit the objective. My decision making, on top of the hot dice, ultimately cost me the game and I need to account for that. I need to take the game in and learn from my own mistakes. Does the game change if some of those shots go through? Sure. But these are the results, and I have a choice: make the excuse or learn from the game.

Final Thoughts

The post is somewhat all over the place, perhaps, but there’s a few underlying things that it’s meant to touch base upon: keep a clear head, even when the variance goes against you. Never get mad at your opponent for those rolls, either! Not that I did! But just a clarification. Always reminisce on the games you play, win or loss, and find things you could have done better. Every game is something to build upon and learn from. The last order of business is a bit more difficult but: always have multiple plans or at least multiple ideas of plans. You can’t enter a game with a Plan A and only a Plan A. You need a Plan B, a Plan C, maybe even a Plan D. The game of Legion is so unpredictable, thanks Dice Gods, you need to be able to change gears on the fly. But there’s only one way to do that: hit the tables and learn from your mistakes. Always have fun, even if the dice make you want to believe otherwise, because after all: it’s only just a game!

May the Force be with You

-GrandAdmiralThrawn

Objectives as a Beginner

Battle Cards

Image result for star wars moisture vaporators

I saved the trickiest subject for last, Objective Cards. There’s a lot that can go into each game mode, and you need to make sure you and your list are prepared for any Objective at any time because you’re not guaranteed Blue Player. Now, if you’re running a list that needs to be Blue Player, I highly recommend you take at least a 3 point bid or more. What’s a bid you ask? A bid is leaving points out of your list to try and have the lower army point number. The player with the lower point total is now Blue Player, or at least has the CHOICE to be Blue player (Keep it in mind, you have that choice) and now your Battle Cards are what you use to determine the battlefield. Why does that matter? I’ll give you an example as best as I can. I typically run some version of Wonder Twins and snipers, there are certain things I don’t want to see. Currently, in the meta and I have mentioned this already, I don’t want to see Hostile Environment and Major Offensive, and in order to guarantee I don’t see those the Battlefield. Now what objective do I cut? Well, that’s extremely difficult and let’s dive in.

Breakthrough

Breakthrough

You know how we talked about Clear Conditions being boring….well Breakthrough is the Clear Conditions of the Objective cards. At the end of the game, each player gains a victory token for each of their unit leaders within an enemy deployment zone. The key to this card is the fact that it doesn’t say “Trooper Leader” but “Unit Leader” which means every unit in the game can score on Breakthrough. Personally, I tend to cut Breakthrough, because as a Rebel player I really don’t want to be going towards my opponent. I tend to play a stand your ground, let your opponent come to you type game (with some exceptions) rather than “Hey I need to cross the battlefield to score points with all of my white saves.” It’s just not ideal for most Rebel lists. Now! That doesn’t mean it’s not decent for other Rebel lists. If you have a vehicle heavy list, they have armor and they can move. You’re going to want Breakthrough in your battle deck, especially with lack of objectives that vehicles can partake in. That shiny new Landspeeder could be a good unit to bring on a flank and then plop into your opponents deployment zone, I think!

As for the Empire, there are definitely units that never want to see Breakthrough. I think those are pretty obvious, Palpatine and Vader. A constant theme for the two sith Lords is that they are slow, and you want your army to kind of move with them. There is a unit that absolutely loves Breakthrough though and thy name is Boba Fett. I guess the real question is, what is Boba Fett NOT good at. Just like that shiny new speeder, the shiny new tank is a good candidate for Breakthrough….considering it can cross the map extremely fast. Don’t let that one speed movement fool you!

 

Intercept the Transmissions 

Intercept Transmissions

Intercept is probably the most neutral objective in the game because the objective tokens are determined by the card and not by the players. Now what needs to be kept in mind is that there are scoring rounds. At the end of rounds 2 and 4 you score a victory point for each objective they control. You control an objective if you have more TROOPER unit leaders than your opponent at range 1 of that token. Trooper is in all caps because as previously mentioned it works differently than Unit Leaders. This is where having multiple vehicles can hurt you. Remember, emplacement troopers still are troopers and they do count. With the Tauntauns and Dewbacks coming soon, we are expecting creature troopers to have some new ruling, so we’re not sure how that will all work just yet! Now, back to the scoring aspect of Intercept, “At the end of the game, each player gains 2 victory tokens for each objective token they control.” The important part to remember about this is that if you’re playing on a clock it doesn’t matter what round you end in, that final round you play in scores 2 points.

Rather than go into what faction units work better, because it’s kind of a moot point, I wanted to talk about some strategy. And we’re going to attack this from the standard, 6 round game being completed, not on a clock or a timer.

When playing Transmissions you need to assess the battlefield, your opponents list and then you need to come up with a game plan as to which rounds you want to score. I think a good strategy is to try and score the middle objective in the 4th round and the 6th round. Why? Because that means your opponent is moving forward and that means it towards you. This can allow you to dig in your heels, take good shots at your opponent from a defensive standpoint, try and whittle them down and then move in for the points on round 4 and round 6.

 

Key Positions

Key Positions

Key Positions is a card that has since been errata’d and I never played the original versions. What I do know, is that it’s a good thing they fixed it because I know there was the Legion dark ages of 20+ point bids. How it works is the first token goes on a piece of terrain closest to the center. Then starting with blue, you place one more token each on a piece of terrain. This objective is scored at the end of the game, and it is scored by having the most unit leaders in base contact with that terrain piece. Now, like Breakthrough, vehicles can score on Key Positions for what that is worth. It certainly will be a card you take if you frequently run vehicles. Personally, as a Rebel player, I’m not to keen on Key Positions and my only reason for that is that if my opponent and I start exchanging shots, and they’re Imperial, I’m not going to have units survive to score later on. Now that said, there are ways to just play the long con and wait it out as much as you can and play it safe. Fine line of sight blocking terrain, make sure you always have cover. There’s no need to rush until it’s that final round and you need to score. I would think Key Positions finds itself in most lists, especially lists with higher activation count. Of course, if you run a low activation count there could be means to cut it from your deck.

 

Recover the Supplies 

Recover Supplies

Recover the Supplies is basically a grab the box situation. On the map, you’ll place 1 box in the middle and then 2 boxes each in various areas. How it typically works is a massive battle in the middle for that center box, which is probably the only approach that makes sense. Jyn and the Pathfinders are obvious candidates for dropping on the field with infiltrate and immediately grabbing the box, if you’re running those units you’re doing two things: taking a decent bid and auto including Recover the Supplies. But let’s slow that talk down here for a minute, because it is also a trap. What I mean by that is that center box is of course a juicy candidate for infiltrate, but you need to be VERY aware of quick units like Luke and Boba Fett. You could drop, claim and move, but next thing you know that Mandalorian is hopping over a building and in your face with his menacing weapon arsenal. Or Luke is coming over the Tatooine pasture and force pushing towards him. Always be aware of good, quick units like that. Boba and Luke are awesome box snatchers.

The thing about Recover, and coming up next Sabotage, is it messes with action economy. What I mean by that is you have to claim a box to score that point, and it’s going to cost you an action to do so. You need to be aware of every move you make and make sure each box you go for is what makes sense. A suggestion with said infiltrate units above is to maybe not go for that middle but go for a box your opponent wasn’t expecting on a flank or something. Try your best to keep the two boxes you place in a good area for you to move to, claim, and then get behind line of sight blocking terrain. There’s no shame in dodging and stand-bying for the rest of the game if it means you’re securing VP’s. The last thing you need to do is have a unit panic and drop the box or have that unit lose it’s unit leader and drop the box. On that note, make sure your unit leader has other minis in line of sight, because you don’t want that unit leader getting terrain scoped. He will drop that box. You’ll learn all of these little in’s and out’s as you continue to play and perhaps play more competitively.

 

Sabotage the Moisture Evaporators

Sabotage Moisture Vaporators

I don’t try and put personal emphasis on these posts and I try to keep it neutral, but man do I just loathe Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators. It just sucks, I don’t care that I’m saying it. It’s just a nuisance of a game objective. You want to talk about bad action economy? You’ve found it. You place 2 vaporators each over the board and they all need to be outside of range 1 of the deployment zone. That basically secures that unless you have recon intel, you need to double move to the Vaporators in order to set up a Sabotage/Repair, which will cost you an action next turn.

The issue with Sabotage is that often you’ll find yourself in a tie and in doing so, it will go to points destroyed. In the event of a tie, Blue Player wins. That’s a long way of saying if you’re blue player, you want to play defensive for as long as you can afford, and if you’re red player you need to be aggressive when the opportunity is at hand. You’ll need to do one of two things if you’re Red Player. First option is you attack one of the Vaporators of your opponents and your second option is to kill more units for points and then turtle away to make sure you win on points in the event of the tie. Even though Sabotage is something I don’t like, I think it’s a card we all keep in our deck for the chance if you’re blue player you can play it as safe as you deem necessary.

 

Final Thoughts

Objectives are what Star Wars Legion is all about. They’re how you win or lose the game, and they should always be your main thing. Tabling your opponent to win is always something on the backburner, but it something you need to consider if you realize you can’t win on objectives. That said, 95% of the time you’re gunning for those objectives one way or another and the only way to get better is to play each objective as many times as you can. You’ll start to formulate game plans and how you want to approach certain things as you go along. Sure you can read all of this, and hopefully it helps, but practice will always be what makes perfect! So hit the tables or TTS and play, play, play!

May the Force be with You!

-GrandAdmiralThrawn

 

PS- I was going to put up an open poll on what you, the readers, would like me to go over next and it wouldn’t work! So if you want, drop a comment on the post about what YOU would like to see next!!

 

 

Condition Cards as a Beginner

Battle Cards

Image result for hoth

 

Last week we went over the deployment zones and today we’ll continue onward with the Battle Cards. There’s not really much in depth needed with Condition Cards but there are some trick and tools you can use in a few of them so let’s carry on!

Clear Conditions

Clear Conditions

If any of you listen to the STABcast crew you know about their disdain of Clear Conditions. (And if you don’t listen, do yourself the favor and do so!) Disdain aside, a lot of list building revolves around needing or wanting Clear Conditions. Leia, Veers, snipers and Deathtroopers all want clear conditions for those long range shots.

Hostile Environment

Hostile Environment

I always forget about Hostile Environment when I play it, don’t be like me! Forgetting about Hostile is not good because it could mean that suppression token won’t get removed. You always want to try and keep every unit on terrain when you can. Always think of it as this: you have 12 actions a game, they’re all precious, don’t lose them because you brain farted and didn’t get on to terrain and can’t remove one at the end of the round!

If you’re a Rebel player this might be the card you currently cut because of how much Suppression the Empire is bringing. Sure, they always had suppression, but even more so with Krennic, the Deathtroopers, Bossk (soon), the Tank, and the upcoming Shoretroopers. The good news is the Rebels have many ways to remove Suppression.

If you’re the Empire, you want Hostile in your list because of how much suppression you’re sending your opponents way, you’ll want to hamper them down as much as you can. Krennic and the DTF-16 Deathtrooper have Compel, which can go a long way to deal with suppression.

Limited Visibility 

Limited Visibility

Limited Visibility has been errata’d, just so you all know. The original version of the card played somewhat weird. Rather than focusing on that, we’ll focus on how it functions now: like normal measuring of range. In the first round, you can’t perform attacks beyond range 2 and in the second round, you can’t perform ranged attacks beyond range 3. There’s a few things to keep in mind, but primarily: don’t cohere units ahead of your unit leader just because it’s limited visibility, they will still be shot if they’re in range 2 or 3, in their respective rounds.

For the Rebels this was a card you cut for the longest time because you probably had Leia and snipers. However, I think you start taking it with all the new Empire guns coming out. It can allow you to start getting into good positions the first two rounds. Find some safe terrain to use to hide Luke or Han and some Rebel Troopers. Sure, you lose value from Leia and the Snipers for two rounds, but it’s better than eating Deathtrooper shots.

For the Empire, ironically, they might have wanted to take this before all of these range 4 units, however now with all of their shiny new toys they need to start contemplating cutting it. If you can take away limited visibility from a Rebel player and get those DT shots you want, that’s a win. Of course, Vader and Palpatine lists love Limited Visibility.

Minefield 

Minefield

Minefield can really spice things up. How it works is you alternate placing condition tokens on the field, starting with Blue, and they need to be placed beyond range 1 of deployment zones and range 2 from each other. After that, if you move a unit into range 1 and in line of sight of the token, roll a red defense die for detonation. (Note the non-repulsor unit aspect of the card. Landspeeders, Airspeeders and Bikes do not detonate the mines) If you get a block result, it detonates once. If you get a surge, it goes off twice (Nooooo). However, if there is a blank result it does not go off and the mine stays on the battlefield as is, dangerous! The mines roll one black, one red with Blast, Impact 1 and surge to crit.

As I learned very early on from watching more experience players play, you can use unit cohesion to somewhat play some tricks with the mines. Of course, avoiding them at all costs is ideal, but not always possible. The cohesion trick is to move towards the mine, keeping most of your troopers out of LOS, send some poor schmuck forward as the sacrifice, and see if it detonates.

Minefield is probably a card that slots into everyone’s Battle Cards solely on the premise of other cards not being ideal. It is a bit less forgiving for Rebels because of white saves versus Imperials and red saves but either way the table plays the same for both sides. Using that cohesion trick is a good tip you should try and use when you can!

Rapid Reinforcements

Rapid Reinforcements

At the beginning of the game, starting with Blue Player, each player sets aside at least one unit of non commander or operative trooper unit with a maximum of two. Those units are marked with a condition token and their normal tokens are shuffled into your bag or stack. As the first round progresses, if you have used all of your units on the table that coincide with the token with your off the board unit, it’s time for them to infiltrate on the board. They need to be beyond range 2 of all enemy units, if able, and they are treated as activated. Basically, you want to try and set a close range unit up for a big early start of round two swing.

For the Rebel options as to who you would want to set aside: Fleet Troopers are super ideal and so are Wookie Warriors. If you happen to be running the FD Cannon, remember it is an Emplacement Trooper and it is viable! As someone who has been running a lot of Z6 units, sometimes that’s all you have to work with and that’s okay. My advice is that when you do drop them: don’t get too greedy. Get into some line of sight blocking terrain and play it safe, especially with white dice saves!

For the Empire, it’s similar to the Rebel side of things. Rapid Reinforcing those snow troopers with the flametrooper? Oh hell yeah. The E-Web is similar to the FD Cannon as it is an Emplacement Trooper, and that’s a great way to get them into the fracas nice and early compared to most other games. As opposed to the Wookies, I don’t recommend Reinforcing the Imperial Royal Guard if they’re in your list to Guardian shots. If you are using them as a more offensive unit as opposed to a defensive unit, you could make a case for it perhaps.

 

Final Thoughts

Much like last weeks post about Deployment Zones, Condition Cards are a tricky thing to write about. So many variables go into these cards and decisions in Turn 0. Some conditions favor certain objectives and so on. I’m giving the advice as best as I can, and I wish I could give even more but there’s only so much you can go into. Someone last week mentioned how they wished there was a website that could break down all the data and what cards apply best to every unit, and as much as I wish that were possible, there’s too many variables! I just hope these help you in your endeavors with this amazing game as much as possible. Just remember, something I think works for a unit might not work the same for someone else! That’s the beauty of Star Wars Legion.

May the Force be with You

 

-GrandAdmiralThrawn

Deployment Zones as a Beginner

Battle Cards

Image result for deploy the garrison krennic

 

I wanted to get a few more games under my belt before tackling something like Deployment Cards, in order to give myself a better understanding of what sort of lists will like certain deployments and stuff like that. Playing a lot more recently, I think I’ll be able to give some coherent advice about each deployment. Battle cards and the veto stage are so vital to the success or failure of a game. So let’s go over the basics of each card and perhaps some advice you can take with a grain of salt.

Advanced Positions

Advanced Positions

‘During the Deploy Units step, each trooper gains Scout 1 (After you deploy, you may perform a speed-1 move) and loses Stationary (You cannot perform moves, except pivots.)

Getting a free one speed move at deployment is generally pretty good. Remember, if anything has scout or Recon Intel on it, it stacks. As for the deployment zones themselves, they’re pretty big all things considered. You’re basically making a 3 foot by 3 foot by 6 inch L on each side, add in the scout moves and you have some early action. As a caveat, the numbers on the cards are for using your measuring tools to lay down deployment marker. Each section of the tool is 6 inches long.

Units that like Advanced Positions would be pretty much everything and anything, in my opinion. Vader and the FD Cannon especially like it. A unit that may like it is Jyn, or seemingly so. I think it’s a trap for Jyn on a box grab situation though. Advanced can give your opponent a good position to get to Jyn fast enough before she can hightail it with the box. I’ve actually been a victim of this exact scenario in my very few games with Jyn, but that’s what I brought her for and I wanted to see how it went. Narrator: “It did not end well for Jyn,” The scary part of Advanced Positions, as a Rebel player, is that if your opponent has a range 4 gunline on the opposite side they’re getting into position a lot earlier than you would like.  If you’re running Boba Fett with Recon Intel, he’s starting the game with a speed 2 move, which seems pretty good to me.

 

Battle Lines

Battle Lines

Battle Lines is about as vanilla as it gets, but it’s something we’re all comfortable with. You deploy 6 inches off the board edge and go all the way down the board. Pretty straight forward. Battle Lines can either be good or bad and it will really depend on the objective and condition cards that go with it. I don’t think I need to go in too much depth in here. The weirdest thing currently with Battle Lines, and with Disarray, is the tank has to deploy sideways because of how big it’s base is. Which is pretty wild.

I think a common mistake as new players on Battle Lines, coming from someone who has done this, is deploying across the whole table and being somewhat spread out. My advice would be to still keep your army close together and clumped together if you can do it rather than go spread eagle. If you’re worried about objectives, I get it, but you’ll still have plenty of flexibility to attack an objective. Don’t let a box or moisture evaporator cloud your judgement!

 

Disarray 

Disarray

Disarray is a bit of an odd ball. A part of me says “play it and learn it because it might make your opponent uncomfortable” but I mean….it makes me uncomfortable. I’m not too keen on splitting up my forces and neither should you, but there’s definitely upsides if you do practice Disarray enough. I’ve seen some players actually put just one unit in the opposite deployment zone and call them a lost cause, and while I’m not an advocate of that situation, I do understand the thought process. Especially as an Empire player with only one commander.

Speaking of that, this deployment definitely was in favor of Rebel lists up until Krennic perhaps. Until Krennic dropped, Empire lists were used to only having one commander in their lists. Now with cheaper options, they are starting to have two now. The reason for this is because if only one commander is on the board, units in your other deployment zone can get focused on and panic because they have no commander to protect them in the courage bubble. The advice here is: if you have two commanders in your list, keep Disarray in and practice it as much as you can. If you have one commander in your list: cut Disarray immediately.

 

The Long March 

The Long March\

The Long March is exactly what it means. Instead of deploying on the long sides of the tables, you’re starting on the 3 foot sides of the tables and going 18 inches out from that table edge. A common theme on this post is talking about the Imperial gunline that is starting to form with the Deathtroopers, tank and eventually Bossk. That’s a lot of range 4 weapons and Long March can go a long way in allowing yourself to move down the field in the early rounds and not get shot. I was personally a fan of Long March running Leia and snipers with Coordinated Bombardment and infinite range snipers. Now that those very good range 4 weapons exist, I’m not sure if I like Long March anymore.

I can tell you who doesn’t like the Long March: the two Sith lords of the Empire. Vader and Palp move slow and a longer direction into the battle is not a fun thing. Unless there’s good terrain to block line of sight constantly down the board, you should be able to get at them with some ranged attacks. I guess you could always go for the Vadermobile or Palpmobile, for some fun. Not sure how competitive that will be, and it could make both units vulnerable to wounds pinged off the tank. The reason other melee units don’t mind Long March as much is because they’re a lot more mobile than the two Sith. Looking at you, Luke and Sabine.

 

Major Offensive

Major Offensive

Major Offensive, up until now, has been the card everyone takes I think. It can start the action pretty early, depending on how you deploy, and the game moves pretty fast. The way you would want to deploy is towards the corner of the L your deployment markers make. The area that juts out, or a panhandle, is a trap. You will look at it and think let’s get some units there, but it’s a trap. I’ve done it in recent games, thinking it would do me some good despite knowing better to do so. It ended badly both times I put a few units in that area.

Going forward with all the range 4 weapons coming out Major Offensive might be a card you want to consider cutting out of your deck, especially as a Rebel. If the map has heavy line of sight blocking terrain, then you’ll be okay. If the map is somewhat open, those firing lanes are going to be easily accessible to those range 4 weapons and every early. I think the major problem will be those diagonal lines of sight you won’t necessarily think about as much when deploying. Then the next thing you know, your opponent moves a unit up and has a no cover shot on your Z6 squad and that just feels bad, man.

 

Final Thoughts

In what you’ll hear on blogs and on podcasts, which you should be reading and listening to, be referred to as “Turn zero” is the selecting card stage and deployment. You’ll have the power to veto battle cards, two a side, and starting with blue player. The reason I’m rehashing this towards the end is to caveat a few things: you can always pass your veto. The deployment zones will really depend on the objective cards, condition cards and the make up of your list. Practice a list and get used to playing on all of them, if you can, and start to learn the ins and outs of your list. Then in the veto stage, you can try to force a game mode/deployment zone your list really likes. Deploying your troops properly could honestly make or break a game from the get go, so when practicing these deployment zones also make sure you’re being smart about where you start your troops. I’ve certainly had games with bad deployment and it was an absolute uphill battle from the beginning of the game. That’s just inexperience. The more you play, the more comfortable you’ll get with everything. It’s just like anything else in life: practice makes perfect.

 

May the Force be with You!

-GrandAdmiralThrawn

Invader League May Madness!

General

32-team-bracket-1024x660

 

If you’re on the Discord already you’re probably aware of Invader League and what is about to be the first May Madness. Now if you’re not on the Discord and you’re like what the heck is Invader League and what is May Madness, well you’ve come to the right place.

This past month has been the round robin stage of the Invader League. What’s Invader League you ask? The Invader League is an online Star Wars Legion league on the Table Top Simulator mod. In fact, it’s not JUST a Star Wars Legion League but the biggest one put together to date with 96 participants from all over the globe. This season (3) consists of 5 member per group where you play on a different, pre-constructed map, and the top 2 from each group moves on to the single elimination stage. The unique thing about Invader League is you know what faction your opponent plays before each match and you get to study the maps before, as well, and perhaps build your list around that map and/or around your opponents faction. Another interesting and fun aspect is that the league allows you to play unreleased units, such as the tank and landspeeder (since released) and everyone’s soon to be favorites Sabine and Bossk. I have run Sabine in all of my games and she is a lot of fun. I’m currently 2 and 2, and have a slim chance of making the single elimination round.

That said, win or lose/make the single elimination round, I can still participate in the single eliminations and so can YOU! There had been some chatter and joking around about doing a bracket style pick-em for the single elimination rounds….but you kick the can enough, and something comes out of it! Funnily enough, 32 people move on to the single elimination round which gives you a very ideal number for running a bracket challenge. Toss in the fact that Challonge has a free bracket generator and voila. So just like March Madness and College Basketball, there’s going to be a pick em style bracket with all of the 32 players remaining all the way to the final game and winner of the league.

It will be free to enter, and if you join the discord you’ll see most (if not all) of these single elimination games being streamed on Twitch. So just as if you’re rooting on Coach K and Duke, you can tune in and start screaming and clapping when Orkimides starts taking shots with Bossk. Star Wars Legion with a bracket on the line? Sounds fantastic to me.

But what’s a bracket without prizes? We’ll be keeping track of all of the brackets and points accumulated, and there will be prizes as follows for the top 3 brackets:

1st Place – $75 in gift cards to Miniature Market

2nd Place – A Bossk or Sabine miniatureJournal

3rd Place – A Bossk or Sabine miniature

Round Robin games end on May 5th, and brackets will need to be in May 7th by 9 am EST. It is quite a bit of a quick turn around, which means you’ll need to be on top of things. If you’re not on Challonge, it’s very simple to set up an account. Then follow the link that I will put at the end of this post, it should bring you to the Invader League S3 Bracket Challenge. From there, all you need to do is hit the ‘Create a Prediction’ button which brings you to a screen with all of the participants and how the bracket will snake. Simply click on the name of the person you expect to win and they will move to the next round, so on and so forth until you have the final winner projected. Give the bracket a name, put in your email address, and bing, bang, boom you’re in on the Bracket Challenge and May Madness! If you want more information and to look at the standings as of right now, here’s the link to the Invader League Season 3: http://invaderleague.com/league/season-3 (might need to copy and paste, not showing up as a link on my writing screen)

As for the bracket itself: Invader League S3 Bracket Challenge – Challonge

Keep in mind, the bracket isn’t completely ready yet because the 32 players are not all yet decided!! It will be updated accordingly.

Some final notes about this, all the thanks needs to go to the Invader League crew for putting all of this stuff together, especially LJ Pena aka Talk Polite on the Discord. Speaking of LJ, while we’re on the topic, I want to mention the newest addition to the Legion community with the Legion Tournament Circuit website. He’s been hard at work on the project for a little bit, and I’ll give a brief overlay of what the objective is for the website. It’s, hopefully, going to be the gold standard of information and data of how to run a Star Wars Legion tournament. It’s going to have suggestions, tools, terrain tips, and general breakdowns of what’s necessary when running an event. Already there’s a plethora of information, such as a list of all the Rally Point Qualifiers and how year 2 Organized Play works. There’s a page dedicated to recommended formats, depending on how many players you have for the event. Terrain tips and how a table should be for tournament play. And the best thing, in my opinion, is going to be the community locator map. It’s not quite ready yet, from what I understand, but once it’s up it’s going to help find players find their local community which is pretty awesome! Here’s the link to that, you should definitely check it out! https://legiontournamentcircuit.com/

Join the Discord! (https://discord.gg/emtvkGC) and join in on all the fun that will be May Madness!!

May the Force be with You!

-GrandAdmiralThrawn