“Only begun, this Clone War has.”- Master Yoda

It’s time to follow up on last week’s post about the faction identities of the Rebels and Imperials with the two new factions coming to Star Wars Legion: The Grand Army of the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Of course, like the simpletons we are, we are going to reference them as Clones (GAR) and Droids (CIS), respectively.

What an absolutely exciting time to be a Star Wars Legion player. I think a lot of us can say that the prequels, when they first came out, really were a let down for the most part. Sure, Revenge of the Sith was actually really good and may have saved the trilogy; but overall it wasn’t what we all expected. However, the Clone Wars television show may have saved the era. After watching the Clone Wars, I have a new found respect for the prequels and enjoy them a heck of a lot more than I did say 5-10 years ago. Why is this all relevant you ask? Fantasy Flight decided to go with the cartoon version of General Kenobi, with his clone armor look, which makes me think they will use the show for reference going forward. (Please, give us Cad Bane!) People around our age (28 & 25) may find themselves a lot more excited for Clones versus the older, original trilogy crew (Caveat: Original trilogy is my favorite and always will be) and that’s okay! No matter what age you are or whether you decide to pick up the Clone Wars box as an existing player there’s one thing that’s for certain: we should see an influx of new players once these core sets release. It’s absolutely, positively the biggest thing for Legion to date. Between the assumed influx of players, the new plastic sprues, and the addition of two brand new factions; this is a big moment for Legion as a whole. How we react to the new players and factions is the key to this game’s success and it should be with open arms. All that aside, let’s talk about the faction identities before I ramble on even more!

The Grand Army of the Republic

First and foremost: I want to make sure that this doesn’t scare new players from playing the Clones. The Clones are going to be a difficult faction to master out of the gate. I don’t play Warhammer, but for reference everyone seems to compare them to the Space Wolves faction. What I can tell you is that Clones will be a highly elite faction that pays the premium for their elite status. Let’s go over the Pros and Cons to give you a better idea as to why they may be a difficult army that needs a lot of finesse.

Pros

• Elite Units
• Weapon Options
• Red Saves
• Fire Support
• Token Passing

If you are an existing player, and perhaps more so a Rebels player, have you ever said to yourself, “I wish I had a Z6 unit but with red saves!”? Well, have I got news for you. Now for the new players reading this asking “What the heck does this mean?”, lets talk about it in more depth.

The reason Clones are considered elite units is because the have the benefit of the stronger Rebel trooper attack dice while also rolling the stronger Stormtrooper defense dice. For reference: Stormtroopers roll white on offense versus Rebel troopers’ black and Stormtroopers roll red saves on defense versus Rebel Troopers throwing white defense dice. Black attack dice and red defense dice give the Clones the benefit of having fairly reliable dice (50% each) on both sides of the game, thus making them the elite army faction. Of course, it comes with the price of being the most expensive army option in the game, which we’ll get to in the Cons section.

Another aspect of the Clones being the elite faction comes with the heavy weapon options. Rebels have the Z6 as the most common heavy weapon and the Imperials have the DLT-19 as their most common heavy weapon. Clones? They have the option of both the Z6 and the new (old?) DC-15 as their heavy weapon. The Z6 rolls six white dice on offense while the DC-15 rolls two reds with Critical 1 and can shoot at range four. This is another great advantage for the Clones, however both weapons do slightly cost more for the brothers from Kamino versus the Galactic Civil War era faction counterparts. It pays to be the best.

A new mechanic in Legion is Fire Support. Right now, as this article is written, the Rebel Veterans and Imperial Shoretroopers are debuting this new mechanic, which presents a small taste of what is to come. Fire Support, as written on the card, is: When another friendly unit performs a ranged attack, if you have a face up order token, each mini in your unit may add an eligible weapon to the attack pool. If you do, flip over your order token facedown. Limit 1 Fire Support per attack pool. What this does, essentially, is give you a crazy dice pool at the cost of an activation.

An example I can give you is that Clone unit A moves and shoots at Target X. Clone unit B, with a face up order token, has range and is in line of sight on Target X and they decide to fire support. Let’s say in this example Clones A have a DC-15 and Clones B have a Z6, you went from rolling four black dice/two red dice to a dice pool of eight black dice/six white dice/two red with Critical 1. As previously noted, this does take away an activation from your Clone army, but if you can take an enemy activation off the board it’s extremely strong.

Another new mechanic for the Clone Wars release is the sharing of tokens between the units marked as Clone Troopers. Clones are essentially brothers and they work together as if they are one, right? Well FFG has encapsulated this pretty well with this mechanic and continues to do their best with making Legion thematically awesome. Straight out of the Star Wars Legion Rules Reference Guide:

» A clone trooper unit may spend the green tokens of a
friendly clone trooper unit at range 1 and in line of sight
as if they were their own.

» Green tokens include aim, dodge, standby, and
surge tokens.

Surge tokens are a new token type entering Legion and how they work is that you may spend these surge tokens on your dice. For example, say you roll three defense dice and you get two blocks and a surge. If you have a surge token, you may spend that surge to turn that die into a block. The fun part, obviously, is the fact that the Clones get to share those tokens. This is going to be absolute INTEGRAL to the faction and it’s identity. This is part of the reason I think Clones will be difficult to master, as this will take a lot of finesse to figure out, but golly it is good. We’ll touch on the tactics of this mechanic later on in some detail! To the Cons!

Cons

• Army Cost
• Activation Count
• Fire Support
• Ways to deal with Suppression

As you can see, some of these cons echo and may seem redundant. However, it’s important to touch upon all these aspects even if it is repetitive. As you learn to build lists with Clones you notice something: you hit 800 points real, real quick. Learning ways to maximize your points is going to be crucial in order to successfully run the Grand Army of the Republic. Choose your points and upgrades wisely.

Due to the high cost of the Clones, you’ll notice that your activation count will be lower than  Rebels and Imperials. Right now, the Civil War factions hover around ten activations, whereas the Clones will probably come in at around eight or nine. This is why they have Fire Support, though, as it will help them even the activation counts as quickly as possible. Learning how to play while down activations is something that needs to be highly considered when choosing to play GAR.

Speaking of being down activations and Fire Support….why is Fire Support both a Pro and a Con? Well, because you will most likely have fewer activations from the outset of the game, using Fire Support in the wrong situations can lower your count even further. Picking and choosing your spots to use fire support is going to make or break games. You can’t use it too often, you’ll allow your opponent to run amok even if you start deleting units off the board. This plays into the finesse aspect that we’ll touch upon in the tactics next.

A major concern out of the gates for GAR is going to be suppression mitigation. When the core set comes out the only two ways to remove suppression are going to be from Hope, a new Force card that gives Inspire 1, and Strict Orders. Strict Orders allows you to remove a suppression from a unit with a face up order token rather than roll rally dice. Another good thing is that fire support could help GAR avoid panic and manage their suppression. What I mean is that if a unit has a faceup order token and they start piling up suppression tokens….fire support with that unit. Because fire support takes place outside of a unit’s activation, it will ensure that unit doesn’t panic because they will completely skip the rally phase of the round.

Strategy

An example of a lone Clone Trooper mini, safely tucked behind a barricade, passing its standby for a full unit to use

It’s pretty hard writing about a faction I have yet to play, but I intend to give you the best advice I can give you here. There are some easy strategy options on the surface. You’re going to want to play Obi Wan somewhat defensively rather than aggressive, which is completely opposite any other lightsaber wielder currently in the game. Obi Wan has a plethora of ways to get green tokens on the Clones around him, and that’s super relevant and leads to our next point. You want to keep Clones close together. You want to be in line of sight and in range 1 of other Clone units as much as you can due to the token passing. As I spoke about in the Rebels article piece last week, Rebels rely on gimmicks. Well, so does the Clone army. The ability to pass those tokens is going to be crucial. Something you could see happen quite a bit could be some Standby token shenanigans. A unit in the back moves and standbys while being in range 1 of a unit in front of them, then that unit has an enemy unit move near them that would trigger a stand by had they had the token on them. News flash to your opponent, they actually have that stand by token thanks to the Clones having this ability to pass. That might be a super corner case or a niche instance that’s in my head, but it might also have some gumption behind it. Taking a shot on your front lines but have a dodge on your back lines? Here you go, brother! It’s funny to think Clones can pass dodge tokens when they have the DNA of Jango Fett, ya know the guy who definitely did not dodge Mace Windu’s purple lightsaber.

Again,I think the trickiest thing will be how and when to use fire support. It’s going to be an extreme learning curve for all players on how to play this faction and you should not get discouraged if it takes several games for you to feel comfortable running them. Theed wasn’t built in a day! No matter what you do: have fun with the shiny new toys!

-Zach

The Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS)

Speaking of shiny toys, the CIS faction officially releases to the general public this September. Seeing as it’s still August, much of this information will be gleaned from proxying, TTS play, and reports from those who purchased a GenCon Core Set. The CIS function in a min/max manner, which means that they have the cheapest of the cheap and the cream of the crop in one army. Interestingly enough, many of the droid army’s advantages and disadvantages are two sides of the same coin. As you will see, the CIS appear to be quite user friendly, and contains more advantages than disadvantages. However, just like Anakin blowing up the Trade Federation hub at the end of Episode I, when things go wrong, they go wrong quickly. Let’s dive in.

Pros

• Cheap units
• Elite units
• Order control

The first advantage for the CIS is their cheap corp units. And when I say cheap, I mean 6 points a droid model cheap. And when you can stack eight of these models into a single squad for 62 points (including the heavy weapon), you can quickly build an army corp of 48 models. It takes most opposing units a long time to chew through 48 wounds of just corp units. There are two other advantages to having cheap corp units: disposability and list building space. Inexpensive, numerous corp units present an interesting dilemma for an opponent; do they spend the time trying to shoot through 48 healths worth of 6 point models, or do they focus on the opponents major pieces? However, this is a double edged sword, as ignoring 48 models can lead to a player being overwhelmed by sheer numbers for objective scoring.

The second advantage is list building space, with 6 properly outfitted corp squads coming in at roughly 392 points, leaving over half your points available for other units. This is in stark contrast with the phase 1 clone troopers, where a set of 6 outfitted troopers comes to roughly 480 points. This extra space is heavily needed for the CIS, because their commanders and heavy units pack quite a punch to the points wallet; General Grievous begins at 175, the AAT at 170, and Count Dooku at 205. However, these units are expensive for a reason.

For the most part, expensive units in Legion tend to be elite, and the three main heavy hitters for the CIS fit the bill. Lets begin with General Grievous. Clocking in at 175 points base, a fully outfitted Grievous can walk onto the table at 208 points, a whopping quarter of your army. However, he packs quite a punch, with the ability to move across difficult terrain at will, and perform climb actions for free with his Scale ability. This ability proves useful when preparing to annihilate the enemy with his 1-pip command card, Trained in Your Jedi Arts. This card allows Grievous to perform an attack, with a special weapon, against every enemy unit within Range 1 of himself at the end of his activation. Oh, did I mention it’s Suppressive? Yeah, I’d be running from this monster too.

Count Dooku and the AAT are no slouches either. A fully tooled up Dooku can max out at a ridiculous 250 points, putting him on par with the Emperor, his old master, in Legion scale. Dooku possesses two weapons with Pierce, both at range and in melee, and comes with a new keyword called Makashi Mastery, allowing him to reduce his pierce levels in order to remove the opponent’s ability to use Impervious or Immune: Pierce. The gentleman is a duelist, and he wants you to know it. The droid AAT tank begins its existence at 170 points, before adding on weapons to maximize its Arsenal ability. Capable of throwing multiple red dice out to Range 4 with High Velocity, which negates an opponent’s ability to spend a dodge token, there is no hiding from the guns of this tank. Clocking in with 9 Health, Armor, and red dice saves, it will take quite an effort to bring down this assault vehicle.

One of the most obvious advantages to playing the CIS army is their unique form of order control. The B1 Droid unit contains a keyword called Coordinate: Droid Trooper. This keyword allows a B1 droid to issue an order to another droid trooper whenever they are issued one themselves; effectively creating a chain of orders throughout your corp units. This ability is incredibly useful, and allows for a number of turns of perfect activation control for your army; let’s focus in on that.

Say you open up your core sets and build a list; let’s take Grievous, six B1s and two droidekas. Turn 1 you decide to play Assault, the generic 3-pip card. You issue orders to both droidekas, and one to a single B1. This B1 uses its coordinate ability and passes along the chain of other corp to get six total corp orders out. This leaves just the token for Grievous in your bag, allowing you to activate any unit whenever you want. Not bad right? You can do this multiple times per game. Order control is one of the fundamental skills that requires mastery to be elite in Legion, and the CIS army provides a number of shortcuts to attaining perfect control over your forces.

Cons

• Top heavy reliance
• Potential chaos
• Poor dice

As I mentioned earlier, many of the CIS’s advantages also reflect their greatest disadvantages. While the droid corp units are numerous and inexpensive, they tend not to do a whole lot offensively. This leaves the burden of enemy unit removal to their heavies and commanders, which has two main downsides. The first is that it’s predictable. While Grievous may be hard to pin down, it becomes apparent very early on where he wants to unleash his trophy lightsabers. Once this target area is identified, the defending player can begin to prepare a response with the rest of their army in an attempt to mitigate or even prevent his assault. The second downside is dice variance. When most of your points are tied up in one unit, a single bad roll can wreck even the best plans. If a defensive roll ends up cold and Dooku drops to a single shot, the CIS are often left hanging in the breeze.

We touched on the coordinate keyword possessed by the B1 droids earlier, but that is not the only keyword they possess. Remember when I said action control is essential? Well, if the opponent denies your droids an order token, your activation control turns to activation chaos. They also contain AI: Attack. This keyword means that if a droid trooper does not have a face up order token, their first action must be an attack. That exhaustible, Range 4 rocket launcher you were saving for the advancing enemy tank? You just shot at an enemy squad in heavy cover with it and only it. Not only is this a negative as it derails your plans, but it also means you cannot move to eliminate cover first or take an aim, as the attack must be your first action. Keeping orders on your droids, especially your B1 corps, is essential to any kind of success with the faction. However, there is one small silver lining. If the unit does not have a face up order token, but cannot legally perform an attack, it keeps both actions as normal.

The final major disadvantage to the droids is their generally poor dice pools, especially in their basic corp units. For example, the B1 units throw both white dice for attack and defense, and neither die surges. Many of the other units do not have any native surges either, and if you do not play your command cards or green tokens correctly, they can lag behind the game’s other units in terms of dice consistency. Even the Droidekas and the AAT do not possess enormous dice pools, but rather rely on strength in numbers to overwhelm enemy defenses.

Strategy

We’re going to keep this short and sweet today. The general concept of the CIS army involves keeping your corp units within a range 1 ball of each other while your commanders and heavy units lead the charge from the frontlines. As touched on early, by maintaining that link between your corp units, you are able to issue orders with near perfect accuracy to your army, allowing you to react and provoke with any unit at any time, eliminating the luck aspect of drawing a token from your bag. Crucially, this also means that you will not be activating a high impact, elite unit at an inopportune moment. Seeing as most major pieces for the CIS are over 200 points, leaving them exposed is a quick way to certain defeat. However, these pieces are capable of single-handedly winning you matches, and for a more coherent, visual example of this I invite you to watch the TTS stream between TalkPolite and DrRizzle from the most recent round of the Yavin Base Team League. In this match, we are fortunate enough to be able to watch TalkPolite keep his corp in a cohesive ball, maximize his order control, and unleash chaos with General Grievous.

-Mike

We hope that over the last two weeks we have been able to give you some insight in the basic concepts of each of the four factions available in Star Wars Legion, and potentially provide some reasons for playing each faction. As of the current standing, the game is still quite balanced, and all four factions have a reasonable chance of victory when they deploy to the table. As remove further and further towards Worlds 2019, each of these factions should begin to splinter from their mirror faction and four cohesive identities and play styles will emerge. We as a community are currently looking for the next wave of players to establish themselves as the new experts on the GAR and the CIS, are you willing to step up to the challenge? Until next week, thanks for reading!

-Mike and Zach

Welcome back to the Jedha Journal! Now that tournament season is in full swing and Legion has officially moved into its Year 2 cycle, Zach and I thought it would be useful to put out an overview of sportsmanship in Legion and how it applies to everyone. We would like to casually discuss the topic without diving down the rabbit hole too much, but think it’s something that is worth at least brushing upon.

The easiest way to be a good sportsman in Legion, and really any game, is to know the rules and know the cards you brought with you inside and out. Simply knowing what you are playing with, and having the respect for your opponent to be knowledgeable about both your own and their own units, can prevent so many discussions, arguments, and inconsistencies before they even begin. Just think how much easier driving would be if everyone knew what to do….

I want to give a quick kudos to Jay from The Fifth Trooper for this next point, as anyone who listens to Jay’s casts knows that he is a huge proponent of this idea. Narrating your actions is the best way to preemptively halt an argument from beginning. Think back to the last time you had a disagreement with another Legion player; it probably went somewhere along the lines of “Hey, that wasn’t range 3 before!”, didn’t it? By talking through all of your movements, actions, and ranges, you are able to keep the game-state as accurate as possible, and have a more enjoyable playing experience with your opponent. This plays directly into the idea of being open about accidents. Everyone who has ever played a tabletop game has accidentally bumped a model or a piece of terrain. When this happens, it is the responsibility of the player to announce that something has been bumped and for both players to acknowledge this. By ensuring that both players understand and can fix any mistakes, arguments can be avoided and the game-state can remain legal and fun. This player discussion can also avoid the necessity of calling a judge for an issue that should never escalate.

There are two generic rules we would like to present on sportsmanship, and they’re potentially easy to understand yet the most common ones broken: don’t twist the rules, and don’t be a schmuck. Legion has quite a few rules, and even more exceptions, and it’s extremely likely that a newer or intermediate player does not have every single bullet point memorized. This is absolutely no excuse for a player to twist a rule or an interpretation for his or her own benefit. If you suspect something like this is happening, calling a judge is the very next action you should take. However, if there is a situation that arises that you are not one hundred percent confident about, there is nothing wrong with checking the Rules Reference Guide, asking your opponent for clarification, and attempting to find a compromise before calling the judge.

Knowing when to call a judge, as well as having the right mindset about it, can play a crucial role in sportsmanship. There is absolutely nothing wrong or impolite about calling a judge when a dispute or potential dispute arises, it is quite literally the only reason that person is at the event. The very first page of the new FFG Floor Rules documents reads, “It is the Judges’ duty to determine the proper resolution to any issues that may occur over the course of an event…”, pretty straightforward right? 

Next, and certainly not least, just don’t be a schmuck. Everybody reading this knows what kind of behaviors they don’t like to see across the table from them, so don’t be that person. If you think something you’re doing would cause another player to become agitated, resist the urge and act another way. Legion is still in its infancy as a community, and the negative connotation that comes with a lack of sportsmanship is a black mark we cannot afford to have. If there is one Golden Rule you take from this, it is such: Be the player who draws a new person into the game, and not the player that creates snarky internet comments. Remember: at the end of the day we’re pushing plastic toys that we assemble like the grown children that we are, from a Galaxy far, far away….that doesn’t even exist. Having fun is what Star Wars Legion is all about!

As readers of this small time blog, we’re sure you also listen to The Notorious Scoundrels. A few episodes ago they had an entire episode dedicated to this topic and brush upon it again this past week after some recent incidents. (No we will not go into details about it nor should anyone else. If you have heard about it, use it as a learning experience.) One thing the Scoundrels brought up in this past episode is how to start off on the right foot with your opponent. This doesn’t need to be a stand off-ish thing right from the get go. Speak to your opponent like how you’d like to be spoken to. Get to know them. Ask them “we’re they’re from?”, “how often they play?”, “what’s their local scene about?”, “are you on the Legion Discord?” to try and put a face to a name. Things like this can go a long way in setting the tone for the rest of your match, potentially you’re entire day.

If you’re looking to practice your sportsmanship, there are two great events coming up, the London Grand Championship and the Canadian Grand Championship. The London GT runs from September 12-14^thand includes a host of prizes for top 3, a swagbag for anyone who attends, and 32 custom tables made by Ellis Priestley and Nicky Myland. The Canadian GT, now being head-manned by the ever moving main judge Brendon Franz and World Champion Luke Cook, runs from August 24-25^thand spots and prizes are filling up quickly. Both tournaments include tickets on the line for Worlds and will be fantastic experiences.

We hope that this rambling article has brought a basic understanding of how to act when attending a Legion event, and once again invite you to listen to the Podcast episodes listed above. As Legion continues to grow, we hope everyone reading can continue to grow our community in a positive light, and be the ambassadors that Legion needs. Luke, Alex, and all the staff at FFG have done a phenomenal job at engaging with the community, and its up to us to take that next step. Mike looks to be a good sportsman and have a great run tomorrow at the Maryland Rallypoint Qualifier! (No pressure) Until next time, thanks for stopping by the Jedha Journal!

-Mike and Zach

Welcome to our initial installment of Jedha Jank! In this series, Zach and I will attempt to come up with an off the wall, yet functional list. Once we’ve developed an idea, we’ll explain what specific tactic or gimmick the list excels at, in an attempt to make a case for why you should give this list a shot for your next casual gaming night.

Vandor Dreaming

Commanders 

Jyn Erso (130) + Duck and Cover (8) + Environmental Gear (3) + A-180 Rifle Config (0) = 141

Operatives

 Sabine Wren (125) + Recon Intel (2) + Electro Grappling Line (5) + The Darksaber (25) = 157

– Chewbacca (110) + Hunter (6) = 116

Corps 

 Fleet Troopers (44) + Scatter Gun Trooper (23) + Rebel Officer (19) + Environmental Gear (3) = 89

 3x Rebel Troopers (40) = 120

Special Forces 

 2x Rebel Commandos (60) + DH-447 Sniper (28) = 176

Total: 799/800 

This list involves a small, 9 activation strike force led by Jyn Erso, mainly supported by Sabine and Chewbacca. The concept as whole involves Jyn and Sabine running amuck behind and in-between the opponent’s lines while Chewie takes the main body of the force into the action. Jyn’s infiltrate combines nicely with Sabine’s natural speed 3, and the two ladies can quickly begin throwing bombs and small piercing shots to draw out opponents and put pressure on normally safe objectives. Oh, and there’s six units with pierce, and four of those shoot at range three.

Chewie takes the important task for the list. As anyone who has faced a competent Chewbacca knows, killing minis in his guardian bubble, especially when they’re in cover, can be a difficult task; as you tend to become crit reliant. Killing minis is important in Legion, even more so when those minis come equipped with pierce, sharpshooter, or giant dice pools. Full commando squads and fleet troopers bring all of that to the table. 

Hopefully the concept is quickly becoming clear. Chewie, Officer Fleets, and two Hunter Commando squads with snipers bring a tremendous amount of stopping power, and not much can stop that freight train once it starts (literally) rolling. By distracting the opponent and putting pressure on areas they consider to be safe with Jyn and Sabine, you can casually push your death ball up the board until its too close for your opponent to handle. The three naked rebel troopers function as objective grabbers and filler. They basically replace the triple snipers in most meta lists, so the order pool stays functionally the same. 

The best competitive features of this list arrive in its access to pierce and relatively easy order control. Placing orders on Jyn and Sabine goes a long way to giving you great timing. Because each of your heavy hitters has pierce and either sharpshooter or a double digit dice pool, going to the bag generally means that you will be able to draw enough firepower to do some heavy, piercing damage to an enemy unit. Additionally, having four corp tokens but only one true corp attack allows you to keep the fleets flexible with their activation timing, which is crucial considering their range two attack band.

In the build up to the Northeast Open, I ran this list about five times to get an idea of how it works. I was originally taking this in an attempt to win the Golden T-47 for the jankiest list, but decided to take a competitive list instead. I encourage you to try something in this vein for your next beer and pretzels event or casual local tournament; there is also a fun variant where Han, some upgrades, and a medic replace Sabine. One of the best parts of Legion is building a fun, thematic list that specializes in a dastardly tactic, and we will try to highlight some of these over the coming months. Feel free to comment with some of your favorite Jyn Jank lists, and share the ideas with your friends!

-Mike