Part of my drive to return to the cantina this year was to write some articles about Star Wars Legion. I spend most of my online writing talking about the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game by Games Workshop, but thanks to my son Gorgoroth and my good mate Centaur, I took the plunge early this year with Legion and I have to say that with about 20-30 friendly games under my belt, I feel like I have a few things I can safely say I like about the game. The more I've played, the more impressed I've become with the system - though no gaming system is perfect. Here's five of the things I've come to appreciate about Legion.
Love It #1: The Command Card System
I've played three Fantasy Flight Games (now acquired by Atomic Mass Games) Star Wars systems to date: Imperial Assault (which I love - see my previous work here on this blog), Armada (which I kinda know how to play - Rythbyrt and Centaur are the real Armada players), and Legion (which I also like, possibly more than Imperial Assault). In Imperial Assault, one player gets to go first on the first turn, then the "Initiative" token gets passed to the left, so if you're playing a four-player game, if you get to go first on the first round, you're probably not going first again during the rest of the game. This . . . usually isn't great. In Armada, two players alternate who gets to go first each round, which means you're guaranteed to go first over half the rounds. That's fine, but also gives you no opportunity to change that.
Legion has an advantage over both of these systems in that players have a "deck" of Command Cards that they use to determine who gets to go first each round. Each deck is (usually) composed of two 1-pip cards, two 2-pip cards, two 3-pip cards, and one 4-pip card. Certain characters have command cards that can manipulate how many pips are on different cards (like having a 1-pip card that counts as a 3-pip card when building your deck, or having a 4-pip card that counts as a 3-pip card), but in the main, both players have the same basic tools as each other (though the specifics of each command card might be different).
Each round, players will pick a card to play - the higher the pips, the more powerful the card. However, the player who played fewer pips than the other player gets the first activation. This means timing your "1-pip" cards vs. your "3-pip" cards is a matter of skill and patience. While there are shenanigans that you can use to deal with ties (by having the Cunning or Interrogate keywords), the main thing that's going to determine who goes first is player skill (and if you tie, a random roll). I like this a lot better than what you get in the other two systems (which are more deterministic) and it also gives a bit more control than what you get in other gaming systems (like MESBG, which is my favorite tabletop game).
The Objective-Deployment-Condition system is sort of present in Armada, where you can pick different scenarios in your battle deck and you and your opponent veto two of the scenarios to play the third. A similar mechanic has shown up in the MESBG community too (though it's not in the rules as how you're supposed to choose scenarios). In IA, the rules are what the rules are for each scenario - and you might be able to get some free VPs from your deployment cards or your command cards, but you really don't have any kind of control over the scoring in that scenario.
Legion is different - each battle deck has four possible objectives, four possible deployment configurations, and four possible environmental conditions. There are eight of each to choose from, so you can kind of prepare for what might be in a battle deck (and there may be elements that are shared between your battle deck and your opponent's battle deck). Once you've determined who is the blue player (you use his deck) and who is the red player (who picks their board edge first), the blue player shuffles each of the three components from his battle deck and deals the cards out: each player then gets two attempts to veto whatever scenario component is furthest to the left (or they can pass) and after that, whatever's on the furthest left is the element you use for the scenario.
This is really cool - it gives you the opportunity to tune what your deployment configuration is AND the objectives that you might need to play AND the environmental conditions. While you won't be able to affect all three, you can quickly identify which category is the most painful for your list (and which one you're fine with) and you can say, "I don't want to play that one." That level of control is unheard of in any of the other systems I've played, but you still have to work with your opponent in what the final scenario constraints are going to be (which, again, rewards both skill and luck). I like it.
Love It #3: The Emphasis on Unit Leaders
In MESBG and IA, if you spam out models in an objective-based scenario, you have a huge advantage over lists with fewer models. That doesn't mean a good player can't win with a smaller (probably more elite) list, but it's hard. In Legion, the number of models you have near an objective isn't as important as the number of unit leaders you have - and since the difference in activations in a standard game are usually pretty close, even a "spam list" is still going to have a chance if they can clear out some objectives.
But even if you're not playing an objective-based scenario, the unit leader retains a lot of importance: if you want to benefit from certain special rules (like Coordinate), the Coordinating unit's unit leader needs to be within a certain distance of a unit in the receiving squad. If you want to declare an attack, your unit leader needs to be able to draw line of sight (and range for at least one of your ranged weapons) to at least one model in the target unit - so where he is matters a lot. This is really cool and makes each unit leader valuable.
Love It #4: Dice Variance
When I first got into Legion, my son's B1 Battle Droids were rolling 1 white die per model (plus more for your heavy weapon upgrade - assuming you take one) and they had a 1/4 conversion rate from dice to hits . . . that didn't feel great. I was playing with Clones, who roll 1 black die per model (plus more for your heavy weapon upgrade - and you usually take one), which have a 1/2 conversion rate from dice to hits . . . which is a lot better. Since a bare-bones B1 squad costs fewer than 20 points less than a Clone squad, it's hard to get your numbers advantage with B1s to measure up to the damage coming out of Clone squads . . . and it just didn't feel great.
But the way dice can be combo'd together is quite interesting in Legion - white dice aren't better in any way than black dice, but having a black and a white (like you can have with ARC Troopers at/within range 2) is much better than having just 1 black die. Similarly, if you have two white dice, you will either be better than 1 black die if you can surge to hit/crit, be the same as 1 black die if neither unit can surge to hit, and will be worse than 1 black die if the black die surges to hit and the white dice do not. This interaction is quite interesting when thinking about what units you want to field (and how you value average hit results vs. max hit results can be an interesting exercise).
While I think Imperial Assault has the best die system (four offensive dice that each specialize in a different facet of the game), I've come to appreciate the simplicity of the dice used in Legion. I think it would be more interesting if there were slight variances in the dice (white dice swap their hit icon for a crit icon and red dice swap the crit icon for a hit icon), but the straightforward implementation we have is fine.
Love It #5: Battle Forces
When I first weighed in on Legion, one of the things I critiqued was the force construction requirements (for a standard game, this is 1-2 Commanders, 0-2 Operatives, 3-6 Corps, 0-3 Special Forces, 0-3 Supports, and 0-2 Heavies). For some force builds (like those that want to run Luke, Han, and Leia - all of whom might be Commanders - or all-Wookiee builds), these build requirements are prohibitive and keep you from running a list you might want to do. While there are force requirements in Armada (up to 1/3 of your points can be spent on fighters), there are no force requirements in Imperial Assault (and my beloved MESBG) - which can lead to force skews.
But then, I was told about battle forces - which are similar to MESBG's Legendary Legions. The intention of battle forces is to alter the available units and force construction limits to allow for more thematic play. To address the two examples above, the Echo Base Defenders battle force (and later the Bright Tree Village battle force) were created in order to allow players to use all of those beloved Rebel heroes in your list, while the Wookiee Defenders battle force was created to allow you to play with an all-Wookiee list (though Yoda and a limited selection of Clones are available for thematic purposes). I modified my initial review to account for this and I'm glad that there's been an effort to modify the force requirements in order to promote thematic play.
Conclusion
All told, I like Legion - it's not my favorite tabletop game, but it is fun and very engaging. I've got loads of ideas for lists (and variants within those lists), which says something positive about the game. If you're just getting into Legion (or if there are other advantages that you like about it over other systems), let us know in the comments below!
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