Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Leia Organa

Hey Reader!

Long time no see (dang, has it really been 8 YEARS since my last post!?!?)! As our gaming group is getting into Star Wars Legion, I decided to plop down money on a battle force, and aesthetically I've always loved the Battle of Hoth, so I made a gut decision and bought it. I love support characters, so having Leia in the set was a plus. But as I've started playing, I've found myself unable to leave her at home, regardless of points level, and today I wanted to share just a few reasons why.

It's likely that none of these thoughts will be original; you'll find some similar thoughts shared by Crabbok in his video reviewing her, but to guide my discussion, I'm going to start by looking at her stats and abilities, then take a look at her command cards, and then talk through some tactical aspects to maximize her effectiveness.

I.  Stats: Cheap Quality Support Hero

Leia's cost has gone down over time; she started at 90pts and has since been errataed down to 75pts. So she's actually better costed now than she was when she was first released. And what you get is actually really good: she gets 3 black dice in melee (1-2 hits reliably) with surge to crit, so she's surprisingly good at melee for a 75pt hero. 

And with 3 black dice at Range 1-2 with Pierce 1 and Sharpshooter 2, she's actually really good at range too, as that's 1-2 hits that probably result in at least 1 wound against most targets, so if you need to finish off a squad that's hiding behind cover to hold an objective, she's a solid take (and more on that in the next section too).

Defensively Leia is also pretty good: not only does she have the Nimble keyword (which effectively means she can always benefit from a Dodge token when attacked, as long as she has one on her), but she has Take Cover 2 as an action, meaning that she can not only give herself a Dodge token (which triggers Nimble), but she can also aid another Rebel trooper in their resilience for the turn. And sure, rolling a White Dice for defense, even with surging for blocks, means she's only blocking 1/3 of all hits against her, that 6 Wounds means she's likely to survive at least 1 round of heavy shooting. If you keep her behind cover, she'll probably last through 2-3 serious attacks trying to remove her.

But why people actually take Leia from a stats perspective (and why I've never left her at home for any game I've played) is because she's a solid support hero. She has Inspire 2, which means you can reduce the chance that your units are suppressed at the start of their turn, allowing them to not only provide the firepower that Rebel armies need, but also to allow them to aim, dodge, or recover as needed to keep their tools working for you. And with Inspire being a free thing you perform after your Rally step, it's not keeping Leia from handing out Dodge tokens, moving, or performing actions to accomplish the scenario objectives.

So just purely on the stats, I think she offers a lot for only 75pts. Arguably the best support hero for cost in the game, and thus why you tend to see her in a lot of lists. But this is not the only reason to take Leia.

II.  Command Cards: Straight Fire All Around

Most heroes in the game have 1-2 command cards that are really good, and 1 more that's the "tax" for taking them, because why would we want every command card in the list to be awesome? That would be crazy, right?

Well, Leia's cards are all good to great in quality, and that's a huge part of why you tend to see her fielded. To start, she has a 1-pip card that allows her to attack units at Range 4+ from her (so beyond 18" of her), which is surprisingly easy to trigger. It means only she gets an order token, so you might consider having an HQ Uplink or similar upgrade on your units if you want them to be able to get order tokens on their own that turn, but that's not uncommon for 1-pip cards. 

After she activates, you get to attack up to 3 enemy units with a 2 red dice attack (so 1-2 hits on average), and it's immune to Deflect, so there's no fear that you're going to take wounds in return (which is good, considering you don't want to take wounds with her). A lot of people play this first, as it means you stand a chance of going first on the first turn, and you're more likely to find enemies at Range 4+ from you on that turn. And that's a fine way to play, though I think with planning (and premeasuring) you can still get 3 units in range later in the game when your opponent has used up their 1-pip cards. What it's very effective for is punishing those weak units that are trying to hold a far-flung objective in your opponent's backline, where if you can remove the squad they don't really have anything else to secure the objective, denying them Victory Points. So saving it is actually quite useful.

Her 2-pip card is the actual reason a lot of people take her: not only does it apply to any 2 troopers (so you don't have to give Leia an order if you don't want to), it also allows any trooper unit that is issued an order that turn to perform a speed-1 move. So if you run troops with Coordinate, or you have HQ Uplinks on trooper units, or you relay the token from one person in range to someone else beyond range, you can get the troops you need moving. And if you take Commanding Presence, you can extend her range for issuing orders to Range 4 (so 24"), you can reliably get people pretty far afield from Leia even further forward. It also allows you to slightly move up emplacement troopers that don't have Stationary without them spending a move action, which means Cumbersome doesn't apply. 

All of this is great: Rebels have a serious issue with mobility and survivability, which means crossing open space, moving to far-flung objectives, and/or being able to get to better cover is a huge priority for a white-dice heavy faction, and Leia helps you do that without having to use action economy.

And then there's her 3-pip card, which is arguably the one most people don't like, but I think there's a lot going for her with it. To start, you can activate any 2 units with it, which means you can choose vehicles if you want to, which is nice to have. But more than that, she allows you to take advantage of - if not abuse - the ability to do force concentration on this round. Since the card allows you to immediately activate a unit with a face-up order token after she finishes her activation, there's three critical things you can do in this turn that, as far as I know, no one else can do.

First, you get to do two back-to-back turns, which is crazy good for Rebels. In a game where a lot of the balance comes from alternating deployments, when a hero can, for one turn, allow you to cut the line and activate two units in a row, that is a powerful ability. So don't sleep on it (more on that in the Tactics section below).

Second, this is not limited to a unit who got an order token from the command card: it's any unit with a faceup order token. This means that a snowspeeder with an HQ Uplink that gave itself an order token far away from her can activate after her, causing havoc in another place beyond Leia. A laser cannon that received an order token from a Rebel Veteran could activate, allowing you to pump up your defense with Leia, and then bring the pain against someone with your supporting firepower. You can activate Leia, buff the defense of a power hero like Luke or Han, and then activate them and get some firepower brought to bear against the enemy. Lots of options, and easy to use.

But finally, and this is the critical one, is that you can actually technically activate 4 units in a row with this card if you build your list correctly. If you take Rebel Veterans and an accompanying 2 Mark II medium blaster troopers, and you give the Rebel Veterans (who have Coordinate) order tokens that trigger order tokens on the blaster troopers, you could do the following on a single turn, assuming you are within Range 1-3 of the blaster troopers with your attacks:

Activation: Leia, who attacks a target and gets Fire Support from Blaster Trooper #1, adding 4 more dice to the attack pool (and possibly an Aim token, if it has the Linked Targeting Array). Then she does whatever else she wants, but probably something defensive like Take Cover 2.

Activation: Rebel Veterans, who then attack another unit (or the same unit if desired), and Fire Support with Blaster Trooper #2, adding 4 more dice with Critical 2 (and possibly an Aim token, as noted above) to the attack pool. And this could be before performing a Move or Dodge action, or after performing an Aim action, or whatever you need the veterans to do.

And then, after you've dealt out all of this, your opponent gets his first activation for the turn. It's crazy. So with all of this in mind, let's talk a little about tactics with Leia.

III.  Tactics: The Hero Rebels Need

Leia is basically the perfect hero for a Rebel force, because everything she does helps Rebels a lot. This is not going to be an exhaustive talk, because I'm still pretty new to Legion, but suffice it to say for now, there are four things that pair well with Leia.

First, Leia is perfect for Echo Base Defenders, because she gives them more survivability, allows them to get the mobility they need, and takes advantage of the extensive firepower it provides. While you get access to Han and Luke as well, Leia is a budget bargain compared to both of them, and far more useful for your force, considering that Rebel Veterans are best when you can give them order tokens, and Leia generates a lot more orders than the boys do.

Second, Leia is excellent for low mobility armies that focus on supporting fire and footslogging infantry than fast-moving vehicles or mounted troops, as she doesn't move very quickly herself, but she can move those troops as needed (and free up useful actions for her troops by both keeping them from being suppressed and giving them Dodge tokens, allowing them to move on their turn with less impunity). And with lots of firepower from supporting troops, infantry squads, and vehicles, you don't really need her to be a power slayer for your force.

Third, she works best in a bubble: you want her in cover, but you also want her close to your troops so that she can hand out those Dodge tokens and remove their suppression tokens. So while you can tuck her away in the backfield, she's far more effective close to (but not in) the front lines.

And finally, Leia is a good small unit removal piece: with Sharpshooter 2 and the ability to get criticals through with a level of reliability, Leia can be used in the final few turns to cull the herd and thin out the smaller units of the enemy. She's decent in dealing 1-2 wounds to a squad, so don't sleep on using that ability! And if you can call in fire support, do that to make her even more effective.

Conclusion

Leia isn't an S-tier "broken" hero, but she's an A-tier support hero who is truly multi-role: she can deal damage, she can support allies and keep them in the fight, and is decently good at securing and keeping objectives. So if you want to round out your rebel list, consider using Leia!

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"Will they follow me?" ~ High King Peter
"To the death." ~ Oreius