Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Rebel Veterans

Hey Reader!

Following up on our last post on Leia Organa, today we're looking at Rebel Veterans (because my journey with Legion started with the Echo Base Defenders battle force, which my choices for the next few weeks will likely reveal!), one of four Core choices for the Rebels (as of this writing, and I don't include Pike Syndicate because they're mercenaries). 

Today we'll be looking at their stats (and what makes them so good), their synergies (as they don't have command cards, but they do have a lot of useful synergies with both other units and specific command cards), and some tactical use for them in your rebel force.

I.  Stats: Best Core the Rebels Have

From a stats perspective, I contend the Rebel Veteran is the best core troops you get. For ranged attacks their 1 black dice each is arguably more reliable than the two white dice of the Rebel Fleet Troopers, as you get better range with basically the same chances to hit, so it's just easier to get hits in as you have an extra 6" of range.

Similarly you're better than Rebel Soldiers, as they have the same rifle but no surge to hit, so you are slightly better on offense. And of course you're better than the Ewoks because they don't start with a ranged attack (so their ranged damage is low). 

In melee all Rebel Core (including ewoks) get 1 black dice, but as we transition to defensive stats, the advantage of the Rebel Veteran in close combat is that they last longer thanks to having easy access to a Dodge token, which is where we turn next.

Defensively all Rebel Core troops are the same: white dice, 1 wound, surge to block. But with Defend 1 baked into the profile, the Rebel Veteran is far better off than the Rebel Fleet Trooper (who has nothing to add), and it's arguably better than Nimble on the Rebel Soldier (as the only reliable way to get that is to have Leia hand out Take Cover dodge tokens to them and then keep it on them with Vigilance, which is a massive investment to get to the same plane as a Rebel Veteran straight out of the gate, not to mention Leia can do the exact same maneuver with them to bring them to 2 Dodge tokens if you really fear they'll take hits).

And this brings us to special rules. While Veterans are 8pts more expensive than the other choices (including ewoks), you get Coordinate to throw extra order tokens out, which we will discuss in the Synergies section below, and you get a Dodge token when you receive an order. So there's a big incentive to give them order tokens, but they give a lot back if you do that. This makes them reliable in terms of when they go, how long they stick around, and a streamlined order pool as you can use them to deplete your Core or Support tokens in the pool to make you more likely to draw what you want.

And while the special trooper choice for the Rebel Veteran may not be as attractive as a special trooper for some of the other squads (like the Z-6 in the Rebel Soldier squad, for example, is a crowd favorite as far as I can tell), it's actually the perfect addition to this squad, as it does two things that you really need. First, it adds 4 white dice (so almost as many as the Z-6, and more than any other) at Range 1-4 (so extending the threat range of your squad). But second, it also gives the squad Critical 2, which gives them a very reliable damage base, as a squad of 6 with all the guns possible in it will have 5 black dice (average of 3 hits) and 4 white dice (average of 1-2 hits), with on average about 2-3 critical hits. That's fantastic for hitting vehicles, units in cover, Nimble characters/squads - lots of things.

II.  Synergies: Strong Team Player (but an Order Hog)

To get the obvious out of the way, Rebel Veterans have great synergies with emplacement troopers thanks to Coordinate, so Laser Cannon Teams and their Mark II Medium Blaster Troopers are the natural synergy. But the big thing to remember is they can get your Support tokens on the board and out of your order pool if you keep a Rebel Veteran within 6" of a laser cannon team, which is very, very useful for making your order pool more reliable and streamlined.

Between these two emplacement troopers, it's hard to say which is better for you to take. On the one hand the Mark II Blaster Trooper has Fire Support, which allows you to really take advantage of your black die heavy attack pool and make it that much more powerful by doubling down on dice that will hit 5/8 of the time. A full squad of Rebel Veterans with an extra man is already rolling 5 black dice (average of 3ish hits), but adding 4 more increases your average hits to 5-6. And by adding Critical 2 to the attack, you can turn the 1-2 surge results you are likely to get on that attack pool into criticals, so far more likely to sneak hits in past cover and (most) Dodge tokens. And with the ability to easy get Aim tokens, a blaster trooper can easily throw an Aim token into your attack pool.

On the other hand, the Laser Cannon Team offers you both a larger pool of dice (5-7 dice) with the ability to deal more reliable damage to vehicles thanks to Impact 2 (or 3 if you take an upgrade), or it can pivot to being more of an anti-infantry weapon by retaining Impact 2 and instead gaining Suppressive (for keeping enemies down and reducing their actions). While it can't add its dice to a Rebel Veteran pool, this also means that 1) you don't burn through your activations as quickly, and 2) you can use these tools in different roles in the same turn. While the Rebel Veterans headhunt small vehicles like speeders with their CM-0/93 Blaster Trooper (giving them Critical 2 and 4 extra white dice to sneak those 3-4 wounds in), the Laser Cannon Team takes care of keeping that infantry squad suppressed, reducing their actions to moving or shooting on a given turn.

So I don't think you can go wrong with either, except that too many Laser Cannon Teams might mean you can't actually activate them all with Coordinate, so I don't recommend more than 1-2 of them.

The other synergies, though, are what make Rebel Veterans so great (and I suspect are less apparent). As a general rule they work well with units that either have Independent (like Din Djarin), as they really want the order token to trigger Defend 1, and the Independent hero doesn't, so they work together. But in addition, they work really well with slayer heroes, because they provide a good base of fire to soften targets in preparation for the slayer (or vehicle, or laser cannon, or any other high attack model), and they are generally not considered as much of a threat because, you know, they're just a core unit, right?

What they DON'T synergize well with are both units that want an order token (Han Solo and Luke are unfortunately two of them), and fast-moving units, as the Veterans move slowly and they may not be able to support the swift units due to their Range 1-3 limitation (and you don't want an attack pool of just 4 white dice from your special trooper if you can avoid it). But once again, a solid base of fire is generally useful, so as far as things go, they generally work with almost anyone.

From a command card perspective, there are four cards that synergize very well with them. In the Echo Base Defenders battle force, Hold At Any Cost has phenomenal synergy with them, mostly because they're the only Core units you have. But this does three things that you love. First, it requires you to assign orders to 3 Core units...which is great, because that's who you want getting those anyway. So that's 3 Dodge tokens right there as long as you can keep them in range (which, if you take the Comms Tech and the Long Range Commlink, you can always do).

Second, all Core units gain an Aim token, which is AWESOME, as this includes not only your Rebel Veterans, but also your Medium Blaster Troopers, so if they are also issued an order (through Coordinate), and you happen to have the Linked Targeting Array on them to give them an Aim token when they receive an order, they are getting 2 Aim tokens this turn. Oh, and then...

Third, all of your emplacement troopers (Laser Cannon Teams and Medium Blaster Troopers) gain a Standby token. Not necessarily the greatest benefit, but it's still very useful, as it gives you interrupt abilities within Range 1-3 of your emplacement troopers (as both of them have Sentinel). So it gives you interdiction for the turn, which is very nice.

But the big win for Rebel Veterans is that this loads them up offensively. Aiming and Attacking are not common actions you'll be taking with Rebel Veterans unless you've heavily invested in tauntauns or vehicles to push at far-flung objectives, so getting Aim tokens on them is actually quite difficult. This makes it a lot easier for one turn of overwhelming punchiness.

The rest of our choices are not tied to the battle force. Rebel armies generally have access to Covering Fire, which really plays into the strengths of Rebel Veterans and what they want to be doing. The card is simple: whenever a friendly Core unit performs a ranged attack (so not as useful if you are running tons of ewok skirmishers), another friendly unit at Range 1-2 gains 1 Dodge token. 

So this has obvious synergies with Rebel Veterans, as by attacking with one squad you can buff the defensive abilities of another squad. But it's actually better than that: when your Rebel Veteran squad near a Laser Cannon Team attacks, they can give a Dodge token - which is basically NEVER called by Laser Cannon Teams - to the Laser Cannon Team, increasing their survivability on the board (which they need).

It also allows you to save friendly characters, potentially protect a snowspeeder or other vehicle (as it can give the Dodge token to any friendly unit as long as it's within 12" of the attacking core squad), help out a Rebel Soldier squad near them by setting up their Nimble for the turn, or of course double down on the Dodge tokens you already have on another Rebel Veteran squad. You can make your force quite potent by doing this, as you're more likely to have Core units alive and able to attack when you run Rebel Veterans.

The third option we talked about in our Leia post, but No Time for Sorrows is great because it allows your Rebel Veterans to not only get the Dodge tokens they need, but it allows them to perform a speed-1 move before the turn begins. That's huge, because it gives them the freedom to Aim and Attack, Attack and Dodge, or Attack and Move to gain even more ground on a given turn.

This is also a great card for them because, if you take the Comms Tech on, say, 2 of your 4 Rebel Veterans squads (I don't tend to take more than 4 in any list I run), and then you take the HQ Uplink on those 2 squads, and then you use this card to issue orders to the 2 that don't and trigger your HQ Uplinks on the others, you can not only get all 4 Rebel Veteran squads orders (plus any Coordinate orders they may hand out), but you can then perform a speed-1 move with any of the trooper units that received an order (not "an order from this command card"). So your 4 Rebel Veteran squads and any emplacement troopers that also got an order (and are not stationary - sorry Laser Cannon Teams) can move up. That's phenomenal for a coordinated, concentrated push.

We also mentioned in that article how Leia provides great synergy with them through her use of Somebody Has to Save Our Skins, but we won't discuss that there as that's really more of a Leia boon than a Veterans boon, as you can only activate two of them, and not three. But suffice it to say, Leia is a great friend for Rebel Veterans.

But the final one we want to discuss is actually a Luke card (not known for being a great benefit to troops, but here we are!): My Ally Is the Force. This just doubles down on what Rebel Veterans already do: when they're issued an order, they get a Dodge token. That means if you do the HQ Uplink trick mentioned above, you can give orders to 4 Rebel Veterans + any Coordinate orders, and then all of those troopers (including the Laser Cannon Team this time, as it's a trooper!) gain a Dodge token. The cascade abilities of this card are CRAZY, and it's one of the primary arguments for running Luke in the Echo Base Defenders list.

Now it's worth noting, as we prepare to leave the synergies discussion and head toward tabletop tactics, that you can use this same trick with Luke to setup your Nimble on Rebel Soldiers: they also really benefit from starting the round with a Dodge token, as they'll have it against any and all attacks for the turn, which is really nice. I'll note here, though, that this is far better with Rebel Veterans, not only because they'll have 2 Dodge Tokens instead of 1 (which might actually be better than Nimble depending on how many hits the squad takes in the first round), but also because they're more likely to be alive in force on the turn you play this card thanks to having had more Dodge tokens on them in earlier rounds without having to dig deep. So Luke is also great with Rebel Soldiers (and yay for the starter set that gives you Luke with Rebel Soldiers!), but I think it really shines with the veterans.

III.  Tactics: The Slow Roll

Veterans work best when, each turn, they can either Aim + Attack, or Move + Attack. You'll probably need them to take and hold objectives, and they can do it, but it's slow going. Leia helps (see our last post), but it's still slow. So ideally you couple them with units that can take objectives in their place, and keep these guys doing base of fire for the whole game.

They also work well with Fire Support on the blaster troopers as we noted earlier, as your solid base of fire becomes even better thanks to the extra 4 black dice plus the Critical 2. What's more, though, adding the Blaster Troopers allows you to add a very cheap activation (43pts fully upgraded if you take the Linked Targeting Array, which is basically as cheap as a baseline core unit)

They get good work out of the Comms specialist, as you can take Long Range Commlink or the HQ Uplink, though keep in mind that this means you lose a rifleman. But being able to guarantee your order token is really nice, especially since it comes with a Dodge token.

They also synergize really well with Leia, as she bumps their Defense, hands out lots of order tokens, and maximizes their supporting fire. So keeping them within Range 1-3 of Leia (or 4, if she takes Commanding Presence, or anywhere if you take the Long Range Commlink on the veterans) is very useful, and even more so being within Range 1 of Leia, as she can hand out even more Dodge tokens to them.

And while they naturally work well with Echo Base Defenders, they also work surprisingly well with Rebel Pathfinders, as the Pathfinders can deploy far up to take objectives, while the Veterans play more defensively and provide a base of fire to keep them safe. And since Pathfinders don't need order tokens at the start of the round, and have Danger Sense to help keep them alive, they aren't fighting with each other for order tokens.

Pathfinders basically have everything you need to round out Rebel Veterans. Infiltrate and Dauntless allows them to push up and take objectives while the Rebel Veterans take care of suppressing enemy units. Danger Sense allows them to stay alive longer in the field, increasing the odds that they will live long enough to receive an order token deep into the round. They still want to use cover, like all Rebels do, but they allow you to have a relatively swift strike force if you want one to take far-flung objectives, which is what Rebel Veterans do not want to spend the game doing.

But to be completely honest, most units work well with Rebel Veterans, if for no other reason than veterans provide one thing every force needs: a reliable base of fire. Not only are their weapons good, they are likely to have a decent number of models in the unit when they activate, making their base of fire more reliable.

Conclusion

Rebel Veterans are not the best Core unit in the game (I think the Grand Army of the Republic has the corner on that). And I'm not even sure they're top three. But they are the best choice for the Rebels, if for no other reason than they encourage you to play the Rebels the way the Rebels should be played: taking advantage of cover and Dodge tokens to help cover the weakness of the white defense die on almost everyone in the list (like, Luke and the Mandalorians you have access to are the only things in the whole Rebel list that get red defense die - it's very, very rare). So by taking Rebel Veterans, the card itself will remind you how to play most optimally with the underdog heroes that are the Rebels.

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"I watch the stars, for it is mine to watch." ~ Glenstorm, Prince Caspian