Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Phase I Clone Troopers

Good morning gamers,

A while ago, I reviewed Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is the Commander you get in the Clone Wars Starter Set. Today, we're looking at the Corps units you receive in that set: the Phase I Clone Troopers. With lots of customization options and a HOST of competitive builds, I think these are some of the finest units in Legion right now. Let's see what's so great about these guys!

Phase I Clone Troopers: The Profile

Phase I Clone Troopers are my favorite profile in the Grand Army of the Republic, both aesthetically (I've always loved the look of an Episode II Clone army) and in-game. These guys are Corps units and like most Corps units, they begin with 4 minis and can add up to two additional minis (one Heavy Weapon, one Personnel). They have some pretty standard profile stats for Corps units - Speed 2, 1 wound/mini, Courage 1, and no innate surging (offense or defense).

Various Exemplar Phase I Configurations, ranging from 86-107pts each
Photo Credit: Legion HQ

Their offensive capabilities are fine - 1 black/mini in melee and 1 black/mini at range 1-3 (approx 2.0 hits/0.25 crits), which is nothing to write home about, but certainly not bad. On defense, these guys have a red die (again, with no surges), which is good for saving roughly half of the wounds you take if the dice are playing fair.

There are three things that make Phase I Clones really good: first, they cost 52 points and have seen no price modifications so far. This makes them more expensive than a lot of other Corps units, but not THAT much more expensive than other Corps units (only 1pt/mini more than Rebel Veterans, only 2pts/mini more than Pyke Syndicate Foot soldiers, 0.5pts/mini more expensive than Black Sun Enforcers, same cost as Shoretroopers, and almost 2pts/mini more than B2 Super Battle Droids or Geonosian Warriors). The only Corps units that cost more than Phase I Clone Troopers are Phase II Clone Troopers, who cost 2pts/mini more than them (we may get to these guys in a future post).

Second, Phase I Clone Troopers have Fire Support, which is a great way to pile on more dice to your shooting attacks. With Cover being ridiculously easy to get (especially if you follow the ~30% terrain recommendation from the core rulebook), removing just 1-2 hits from your final result can make any single squad's damage output turn into a trickle (before any defense dice are rolled). With Fire Support, you can often double the dice you're rolling or gain helpful keywords to mitigate the effectiveness of cover and get more damage on your target. Fire Support does require the Phase I squad to have an active order token and flip it facedown (so you're down an activation for the round), but if you can remove/severely cripple an enemy activation, it's usually worth it.

Finally, Phase I Clone Troopers have the Clone Trooper keyword, which allows them to borrow up to one aim, dodge, or surge token that's on another friendly Clone Trooper within range 1. This means that if your Clone Trooper units (be they Phase I Clones, ARC Troopers, Phase II Clones, Clone Commandos, or a Clone Commander/Rex/Cody) gain tokens, those tokens are available to more than just themselves. Since Clones have ready access to Exemplar, they can find themselves having access to a LOT of tokens. This is one of the strongest synergies that GAR lists have at the moment, but in order to maximize the effectiveness of your token sharing, you are required to keep your Clone units close together.

Okay, let's look at their upgrades . . .

Phase I Clone Troopers: Recommended Upgrades

Heavy Weapon

The first place to start with Phase I Clone Troopers is their heavy weapon slot - and there are seven options you can choose for these guys. First off, you have the DC-15 and Z-6, which come in the core set. The DC-15 Phase I Trooper provides 2 red dice at range 1-4 and Critical 1 (approx. 1.25 hits/0.375 crits), which gives you some reliable damage and the ability to turn your first surge result into a Crit, which is really good. Of the four generic heavy weapon options (24pts), this is the most expensive.

The Z-6 Phase I Trooper provides 6 white dice at range 1-3 (approx 0.75 hits/0.75 crits), which is not quite the same damage output as the DC-15 at not quite the same range, but it is twice as likely to get a crit since it's rolling three times the dice and doesn't have Critical 1. For 2pts less, I think the difference between these two choices is very negligible.

If you purchase the Phase I Clone Trooper Upgrade pack, you get access to two additional Heavy Weapon options: the DP-23 and the RPS-6. The DP-23 Phase I Trooper is the chepaest of the Phase I Heavy Weapon upgrades (20pts) and provides 2 black/1 white dice with range 1-2 and Pierce 1 (approx 0.875 hits/0.375 crits), which is likely to do about the same amount of damage than the DC-15 thanks to Pierce 1, but you have to be at range 2 for it to work (as opposed to Range 4). Is it better to get more range for +4pts? I generally think so - as does most of the competitive community.

The last of the generic Heavy Weapon upgrades is the RPS-6 Phase I Trooper, which provides a rainbow die pool (1 red/1 black/1 white) at range 2-4 (approx 1.125 hits/0.375 crits) with Cumbersome (no moving and shooting) and Impact 2. This is probably the most ideal Fire Support unit, since you can ignore the Cumbersome rule (as you don't get to move) and you can make whatever unit you're helping perform better against Armor units. Whether you're just getting the RPS-6 or if you're getting the rest of his squad helping out, this is great for Fire Support. The DC-15 is expected to do the same amount of damage, so if you'd prefer to not have the Cumbersome rule and don't mind having to get crits against armor the normal way (along with your first surge icon), then the DC-15 might be a good alternative option for you (if you have 3pts to spare).

Besides these generic options, there are two named Heavy Weapon options for Phase I Clone Troopers: Echo and Fives. Echo is basically a more expensive version of the DC-15, but with additional keywords. Echo has 2 red dice with Critical 1, but has range 1-5 instead of range 1-4. He also picks up an extra wound, Reliable 1 (gains a surge token at the start of the round), Lethal 1 (can spend an aim token to add Pierce 1 to his results), Immune: Deflect (so if you happen to shoot at Force Users, you can't take damage on their defensive surges), and Leader (so he's the last mini to die in the squad). While all of this sounds really good, for 42 points (+18 points over a DC-15), the DC-15 is probably the better answer if you're looking for long-range threat. Additionally, Echo's keywords (especially Lethal 1) are much better employed in a unit of ARC Troopers, rather than a Phase I (or even a Phase II) Clone Trooper squad.

Fives, on the other hand, is fantastic in a Phase I Clone Trooper squad. He's also expensive (40 points), but he has an extra wound, boosts the Courage of a Phase I squad to 2, he gains Coordinate: Clone Trooper (which is a great way to make sure that you have two Fire Support units in a round), and he has Leader (so he's once again the last mini to die in the squad). With 3 black dice (approx 1.125 hits/0.375 crits), he's bringing slightly less damage to the table than the DC-15, and he does so for +16 points . . . so if Coordinate isn't your thing, you can leave him at home (though I think it's quite useful).

Our final Heavy Weapon upgrade is . . . to take none of these. We'll see why this might be a tempting option as we turn to look at our Personnel options, but suffice it to say that if we don't intend for this unit to do much shooting, we might want to consider NOT paying 20-40pts for a heavy weapon option that's "just another wound."

Personnel

When it comes to Personnel options, Phase I Clone Troopers are flush with options again - TEN options in total (three of which are exclusive to Phase I Clones). The simplest of the exclusive options is the Phase I Clone Trooper (aka, "just another body"). For 10 points, he's slightly cheaper than the 13 points/model that you're paying for the base squad. If you don't have the handful of points required to get one of the other options, this guy's not a bad shout.

If you picked up the Phase I Clone Trooper Upgrade pack, you'll have access to the Phase I Clone Captain and the Phase I Clone Specialist. Starting with the Specialist, you're paying 11 points (+1pt over "just another body") for an exhaustible free action to gain an aim, dodge, or surge token. Since Clones share tokens, this is an ability that you can trigger at least once to get something useful on the table. If you just have 1 point lying around, you could consider this guy.

Alternatively, for 12 points (+2pts over "just another body"), you could get the Phase I Clone Captain, who gives the unit a Training slot, has the Leader keyword (like Echo and Fives - so you can't run them together), and can be exhausted to prevent the unit from counting as suppressed (though they also can't remove suppression tokens during their activation). Since a Courage 1 unit will count as suppressed after taking 1 suppression token, taking a Captain allows a Phase I unit to avoid being suppressed after they've been shot. While you could get the same thing from Strict Orders, the Training slot is what makes this upgrade really nice. True, taking a Training upgrade will make the unit more expensive, but having access to upgrades like Situational Awareness (which lets you use dodges against crit results), Offensive Push (so you can pick up an aim token), or Up Close and Personal on a DP-23 squad (so you can pick up a dodge token) could be really great. If you're looking for the most competitive option, you'll want to look at Situational Awareness.

If you get the Clone Specialist pack, you unlock four other personnel options for the Clones: the Clone Commander, the Clone Comms Technician, the Clone Engineer, and the Clone Medic. The Clone Commander is expensive (18 points, +8pts over "just another body"), but like Echo he has the Leader keyword and Reliable 1, as well as Inspire 1 (which is a great way to clear suppression on another unit - like one being led by a Clone Captain). Besides the increase in cost over a Captain, the biggest problem with running a Clone Commander in a Phase I Personnel slot is that to use Inspire 1 . . . you have to not use Fire Support. Personally, my Phase I units try to set up long-term Fire Support shots early in the game and then hardly ever activate (which means suppression really doesn't matter), so Inspire 1 really doesn't come into play for me very often for these guys.

The Clone Comms Technician is in a similarly difficult situation: for 11 points (initially +1pt over "just another body"), you gain a Comms slot - and you have to take a Comms upgrade. Most of these upgrades live in the 4-5pt range, so you're going to pay 5-6pts more than you would for "just another guy" - though you could pay 10 points for an HQ Uplink, I guess, to guarantee you get an activation token . . . but I wouldn't. 

Since Clones generally want to stay together to benefit from their token sharing rules (avoiding the Long-Range Comlink) and they generally want to avoid being charged because their Heavy Weapon slots are so good (avoiding the Hacked Comms Unit and the Comms Jammer), the two most logical upgrades to take on a Clone Comms Tech are the Comms Relay and the Emergency Transponder. If you take the Relay, you won't have an order token and so won't be using Fire Support. To use the Emergency Transponder, you have to draw your order token from the order pool . . . which means you won't be using Fire Support. I have struggled to find a good place for this guy - especially since I could just get the Phase I Clone Specialist to get an aim/dodge token (what you get once per game from the Emergency Transponder) or Fives (who can generate an additional order token with Coordinate).

A third option that you have is the Clone Medic, which I think most players would hold to be either the best or the second-best personnel option available to Clones. For 15pts (or +5pts over "just another body"), you gain Treat 1: Capacity 1 as a free action - or, you can either remove a wound/poison token from a friendly figure or restore 1 mini (with 1 wound remaining) that was killed this turn. Unlike every other faction in the game, Clone Medics are healers who do not have the Noncombatant keyword, which means that they can shoot and once you use their ability, you can lose them as a casualty (before you lose your heavy weapon option if it doesn't have the Leader keyword). I usually run a Medic with Fives - and this guy is probably the biggest reason why you'd want to buy multiple Clone Specialist packs.

Finally, you also get the Clone Engineer in the Specialist pack. The Engineer costs 14 points (+4pts over "just another body") and does the same healing thing for vehicles (removing a wound token or an Ion/vehicle damage token from a friendly vehicle - restoring a mini isn't possible because all of the vehicles in the Republic faction are single-model units). If you like running BARC Speeders, AT-RTs, or any of your Heavy unit options (and can have a Phase I or Phase II squad near them), this isn't a bad option (but I think most players would jump for the Medic for +1pt - more of your army can benefit from him).

Two additional unique personnel upgrades are available if you pick up the Commander Cody pack in the form of Waxer and Boil. Waxer has the Leader keyword (so once again, you can't take him in the same squad as Fives/Echo, but he'll also be the last mini to die), Scout 1 (free speed-1 movement after you deploy, perfect for getting that RPS-6 in position), and Disciplined 1 (which removes 1 suppression when he's issued an order - great for Phase I Clone Troopers). For 15 points, he costs as much as a Medic, and while Scout and Disciplined are perfectly good keywords . . . you can get Scout 1 with Recon Intel for 2pts and you can ignore suppression entirely by using Fire Support. As a result . . . Waxer isn't viewed as a great option by most players (especially if you're going to be using Fire Support a lot).

Boil shares two of Waxer's keywords (Leader and Scout 1), but trades Disciplined 1 for Guardian 1, which means Boil's squad tends to be the squad that slowly absorbs damage from other squads or characters. While this isn't the Guardian 3 that we saw on Obi-Wan earlier in the year, it's still something. I mentioned under the Heavy Weapon upgrade that some players don't think you need to fill the Heavy Weapon slot all the time - and a squad that brings Boil is one of those candidates. For 15 points (+5pts over "just another body"), Boil isn't a taxing add and can keep your more valuable Phase I units (to say nothing of your heroes, ARC Troopers, or Phase II Clones) alive longer.

Our final option is, once again, to not fill the personnel slot. Since your Heavy Weapon slot is going to cost you 20+ points and your personnel slot is going to cost you 10+ points, there may be points level constraints that require you to pick and choose whether the squad is going to fill the Heavy Weapon slot only or the Personnel slot only. The Personnel options give you some nice tricks, but some of them can only be used once (like the Medic/Engineer, possibly the Comms Tech) and others can only be used more than once if you perform a recover action (Clone Captains/Specialists). If you focus on using Fire Support, the only options that might actually help you are Boil, Waxer, and the Clone Commander (possibly the Comms Tech), so you could take the points from these slots and pick up another squad (almost) if you wanted to.

Gear

As of the writing of this article, there are nine gear upgrades that could be given to Phase I Clone Troopers - and about half of them you can ignore if you're planning to do a lot of Fire Support. Because green token sharing is a thing for Clones, upgrades like the Electrobinoculars, Portable Scanners, and Prepared Supplies (which can't be shared, but a dodge is still a dodge) can help you lean into that, but two of these require you to actually activate and the other is a one-time boost.

Three of the gear options assist with movement (Ascension Cables, Environmental Gear, and Grappling Hooks) - whether these are good or not very much depends on what your boards look like. If you find yourself constantly having to get over walls or through difficult terrain, paying 2-4 points to make sure you get the firing lanes you want for Fire Support isn't a bad option (though this will add up as you add them to more squads).

Three gear options remain: Targeting Scopes, Recon Intel, and Emergency Stims. Targeting Scopes allow you to reroll an extra die when you use an aim token - and if you're doing aim-based token sharing, this can make a weapon like a Z-6 far more reliable than if you don't have it. For 4pts, I think it's a fair upgrade, though again an expensive one.

Recon Intel is a go-to for my Phase I squads if I have the points for them, since I usually pair Phase I Clone Troopers with ARC Troopers (more on them in the next post) and they start with Scout 2, so making sure that you get advanced movement on all of your Corps/Special Forces units is a great way to get into engagement range quickly. I would generally take this upgrade over the others, except possibly . . .

Emergency Stims. When I first read this card, I was like, "Oh cool - if I get shot, I can keep two guys standing so I can return fire with them and deal a little more damage before I die. Neat!" Yes, I used the word "neat." I then dug around in the AMG Legion forum and it turns out, that since the text for Emergency Stims says that you take the damage on the card after you perform an activation, a unit that uses Fire Support won't have activated and so can use Emergency Stims as a bonus 2 health so long as it doesn't activate for the rest of the game . . . and if Yoda tells them to perform a Recover action, you can un-tap Emergency Stims and not take the damage at all AND absorb up to 2 more damage on that unit . . . which is a bit bonkers and makes this the most cost-effective way to absorb wounds.

It's also really easy to mess up - Fire Support itself requires that you have ANOTHER unit that can perform the initial attack and the unit that's doing the Fire Support needs to be able to target the same defender. Additionally, if too many of your Phase Is are planning to use Fire Support, you may end up with a weird situation where a unit you were counting on to trigger a late-round Fire Support action gets sniped by your opponent, which is not good. Furthermore, to use Fire Support, you actually have to have range to someone - and if your opponent only has one unit in range and they back up to be out of range, your Phase I unit has to activate . . . and they'll then take 2 damage. Depending on how much cover/dodge support they have, it's entirely possible that the enemy squad will do more damage by moving away from the Phase I squad rather than shooting at them . . . so yeah, there are concerns with this maneuver, but it's still pretty cool. For 8pts/squad, I've tried spamming this out and it kind of works sometimes . . . but definitely worth trying at least once. :)

Grenades

There are currently six grenade options and I'm going to lump four of them together: I don't think there's much value for a Phase I Clone Trooper squad in Concussion Grenades, EMP "Droid Poppers", Impact Grenades, or Sonic Imploders. All four of these give the squad members who want to use them 1 black die at range 1 (which they already have) and besides the keywords (Impact X from Impact Grenades, where X is the number of Clones that choose to use it; Blast/Ion 1/Suppressive for the others - with no more than one application no matter how many people use it), there just isn't enough going on with these grenades to make them truly useful.

For the same cost as the grenades above (3pts), you could instead get Smoke Grenades, which are a one-time use item that allows you to use Smoke 1 for the round (which basically increases your cover if you're within range 1 and line of sight of where the token is placed). Clones already get dodge support from each other and many of their leader units, so why not knock off an additional hit? I find this to be far more valuable than the previous grenade options - and though it's a once-per-game application of cover, it can be used in a critical turn on Intercept the Transmissions, Bombing Run, or Key Positions to make sniping your units off of objectives much, much harder.

Finally, we have the Fragmentation Grenades, which are slightly more expensive (5pts), but give all units who choose to use that weapon pool 1 red die and your attack pool gains Surge: Crit - which is awesome! You do have to be at Range 1 to use this, so you're probably not putting this on an RPS-6 unit or a DC-15 unit (both of whom benefit greatly from being up to range 4 away - and the RPS-6 can't be used at range 1), but if you were planning to get close to the enemy anyway (with a DP-23, perhaps), this might be an option. If you were planning to use a Phase I squad to trigger Fire Support, this would also be an easy way to get surge conversion into the attack as well. Having to be at range 1 of the enemy, however, makes this upgrade usually a no-go for me (that and Clones can usually get surge tokens to turn their surges into hits, so this would be most useful if you were targeting armor/units in heavy cover and needed crit specifically).

Okay, let's look at a list!

Phase I Clone Troopers: Sample List and Strategy

The list you're about to see isn't mine - it's from AJ-ST from the Fifth Trooper and it's his sample list of a Yoda-Padme Clone list for Worlds 2024. This is an 8-activation 800-point Republic list that features three different Phase I squads, supported by 3 ARC Troopers, Yoda, and (of course) Padme:

• Yoda with Force Guidance, Force Barrier, and Force Push
• Padme with Seize the Initiative
• Phase I Clone Trooper with Z-6 Trooper
• Phase 1 Clone Trooper with DC-15 Trooper
• Phase I Clone Trooper with RPS-6 Trooper and Recon Intel
  
• 2 ARC Troopers with DC-15X ARC Trooper
• 1 ARC Trooper Strike Team with Echo
  

The RPS-6 trooper has Recon Intel to help him get in position (as we discussed above) and he can Fire Support from range 2-4 for the entire game and be perfectly happy. The Z-6 and DC-15 can be used for Fire Support if you want (both are good at it), but they can also be used as mobile units if you need that in your scenario. The ARCs are great for triggering Fire Support with their Sharpshooter 1 - and with two of them being full ARC Trooper squads, they can bring a LOT of dice to the fight before you stack on any extra dice from your Phase Is.

Making this wagon train actually run are Yoda and Padme, both of whom will get their time in the sun later this year. Suffice it to say for now that Clones do best when they can borrow green tokens (aim, dodge, and surge tokens) from others - and both of these heroes do that really, REALLY well. These guys are hard to deal with if their heroes can stay alive - and I've run Kenobi-variants of this list that have been really fun (I'm working on my Yoda game now and much to learn I still have). Of course, this list came out before Clone Commandos, which I am also experimenting with now - and while the Phase I units are good, the ARCs are seeing more time on the bench.

Phase I Clone Troopers: Final Review

These models are easy to put together, you have ready access to them in the core set, and they're a joy to use on the table. When they've taken both a Heavy Weapon and a Personnel option, they're sitting around 80-90 points per squad, so they can be quite expensive, but they can also pack a punch and can be survivable with the right support.

Overall character review: 5/5 stars. I think these are some of the best units in the game - both aesthetically and mechanically, rewarding skillful play and giving you a good foundation for any Republic list. I also didn't glue my fingers together very much trying to put them together, which cannot be said for those droids that come in the core set . . .

As has already been alluded to, we'll be looking at ARC Troopers next time - and besides Phase I (or Phase II) Clone Troopers, these guys are the most likely units that you'll see on the table (or were the most likely before Clone Commandos dropped). With options for dealing pain and destruction up close or from afar and the Clone Trooper type to share tokens with their other buddies in plastoid armor, these guys are really flexible, but take time and practice to learn to use well. Find out what there is to know about these guys next time - and until then, happy hobbying!