Math Hammering: Ranking Rebel Special Forces Units

Good morning gamers,

We're back with another math model, trying to figure out what the "optimal" Rebel units for Legion 2.6 are. If you missed our previous posts on Corps and Commander options, you can catch up on the units that appear to be good. Both Corps and Commander are (generally speaking) required ranks to fill and today's post branches off into the rank that is probably the most contentious rank to fill out: Special Forces. There may be an argument that there's a three-way tug-of-war for what your Support slot should be - and there may even be an argument over whether or not you take one Heavy option over another - but Special Forces seems to be packed with good options that might only be rivaled by your options in the Commander and Operative ranks. The Rebels have a lot to like in this particular rank - and with only three slots that can be filled, we have a lot of decisions to make. Let's take a look and see how we're evaluating everything today, shall we?

Taxonomy Overview: What Is "Optimal" for Legion 2.6?

As has been mentioned before, because the objective conditions (both primary and secondary) are so heavily skewed towards having more activations than your opponent in pre-defined (and often stationary) parts of the board, Legion 2.6 is about both taking enemy units off the board (whole units - not just rendering a unit inert by killing off most of its models) and keeping your own units on the board. This means there are two measures of effectiveness (MOEs) that we can use to determine if a unit is "good": average expected damage and average expected health (AEH).

Average Expected Damage (AED) is computed by finding the average number of hits and crits that a unit is supposed to get. The greatest dilemma for finding this number in the real world is that it is affected by a LOT of variables - here's a few:

• There is a subtle but mostly irrelevant distinction between a Hit result and a Crit result - Crits really only matter if the enemy unit has the Armor X keyword, has dodge tokens, and to a small degree, has light/heavy cover (often if they also have Low Profile);
• The Pierce X keyword doesn't increase the damage that you do, but it DOES make the damage that you get more likely to actually take effect;
• The number of hits/crits that you get is all fine and good, but the quality of the target unit's save (and defensive keywords, dodge tokens, and visible models) can have a huge impact on how much damage you can actually do;
• The number of wounds previously suffered might reduce the expected damage of the unit (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has 1 wound) or it might have a slight impact once a certain amount of damage is done (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has multiple wounds), or might have no impact at all (in the case of single-model units); and
• The distance to the enemy target may affect whether or not a unit can aim before shooting - and the value of an aim token is highly dependent on which dice in your dice pool hit or missed in the first volley).

For the sake of a more simplistic model, I've made the following assumptions:

• Units will be evaluated at full strength, without respect to the degradation of their damage over time;
• The average expected damage of a unit will be a straight average of their expected damage at ranges 1-4, with the unit's preference of melee or range 1 as its range 1 score;
• The score for the unit as a whole will be the score of a reasonable loadout for the unit - we will not be meta-gaming upgrades to score well in the system, but will look instead at what upgrades would reasonably assist a unit with the role it's trying to fill (or the rules it wants to proc);
• Units are assumed to not take aim actions before they shoot unless that unit has a unique way to gain an aim token without spending an action; and
• The score for the unit will be the average expected hits for every 10 points spent on the unit (so units that are cheaper but do the same/more damage than a more expensive unit come out ahead).

Like the Commanders we viewed last time, the Special Forces options for Rebels tend to have one or more of these factors baked into their profiles, so there will be definite caveats for what was not factored into the analysis. Once again, I have attempted to be generous, but some of these boosts are highly situational and require understanding the target you are attacking or the rules of the unit attacking you in order to properly value them.

The Jar Jar Cup, Part 3

Good morning gamers,

Round three of our four-round escalation event (the penultimate round) was this past weekend and boy was there excitement! We had our first top-cut/bottom-cut of the event with three players sitting on 2-0, three players sitting on 0-2, and two players snug in the middle with 1-1 records. 

This time around, we were playing with 800-point lists, Standard list building constraints, and standard scenarios with the Turn 0 veto system. For the players less familiar with this, I sent a 3500-word write-up about how to think about the veto system and picking a scenario that works well for your army - that'll make its way to the blog at some point in the future (it needs some iterating). Let's look at the lists and then see how we did!

List #1: 14-activation Rebel Alliance

This is my list - and I'll be honest, this list was not my first choice. What I wanted to do was either run my 650 list from last time with the Bad Batch OR drop the Landspeeders from my last list to boost my activation count a little with the Bad Batch. As you'll see in a moment, however, the Bad Batch were swooped up before I submitted my list, so I instead decided to level up my winning 500-point list and add Luke and four more activations: 

• Luke Skywalker (Commander) with Burst of Speed, Underworld Connections, Offensive Push, and Recon Intel
• 2x Rebel Veterans
• 1x Rebel Veterans with Smoke Grenades
• 1x Rebel Troopers with SX-21 Trooper and Prepared Supplies
• 3x Mark II Medium Blaster Troopers
• 1x Rebel Sleeper Cell with R4 Astromech
• 2x Ewok Slingers with Forest Dwellers
• 3x Rebel AT-RTs with Laser Cannons

My first list had 1 Vet/Mark II pair and 3 Rebel Troopers, which I've upgraded to 3 Vet/Mark II pairs and 1 Rebel Trooper (the SX-21 squad). I still have 2 Slingers but have added a third AT-RT and upgraded the Rebel Officer to Luke (who gives me a TON of shenanigan power). Like I did in the last game, my plan is to lead off with My Ally is the Force, issue the orders to Luke and the Smoke Grenade Rebel Vet squad (and coordinate with one of the Mark IIs), lead off with the Smoke Grenade guy so he can give/boost the cover of my Vets and trigger Low Profile. Hopefully this keeps us in the game early (with 1-2 dodge tokens supplementing the cover saves) and helps me out-activate my opponent.

The next two turns are probably Son of Skywalker/I Am a Jedi to surge Luke into action (either by shooting things or slashing with a lightsaber, depending on the setup) and then neutralizing a dangerous piece or two on the other side for a turn so my high-activation list doesn't lose as many guys. After that, we have two generic command cards in Push and Assault if Luke dies and You Serve Your Master Well if he's still around.

I did learn from the skirmish game that a high-activation list like mine really wants to force the enemy to secure objectives, so I've taken Close the Pocket, Bunker Assault, and Shifting Priorities. With 14-acts (and Luke/Ewoks to get extra tokens on the enemy bunkers in Bunker Assault), I'm hopeful I can get a leg-up on my opponent early-on and then maintain that lead as the game progresses.

Secondaries are a little murkier, but I've gone for Sweep and Clear (as I should have units that can both shoot from friendly territory AND get into enemy territory to get kills), Bring Them to Heel (lots of activations means a lot of suppression is coming out), and Destroy Enemy Base (mostly because I can tuck my base behind all of my Prepared Positions units and keep my opponent from securing it - and possibly race off with Luke to secure a base on his Son of Skywalker/Burst of Speed turn).

My advantages are the ones I always take - Advanced Intel (because #busted), Fortified Positions (to trigger Low Profile early), and Cunning Deployment (to keep my Vets/Mark IIs alive on the first turn). We'll see how these go (but honestly, I don't really care what I get.

Math Hammering: Ranking Rebel Commander Units

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at what the "best" Rebel Corps unit was, based on how well it fulfilled the needs of the scoring system that's in place for Legion 2.6. Today, we're turning to the other required rank class in Legion: the Commander. The Rebels have access to nine Commanders at the moment (no new ones appear to be on the horizon, though new sculpts are coming!), but it would appear that in an interview with Grey Squadron Gaming, one of these Commanders will be migrated to Operative. Let's take a look at how we're going to be ranking things and then we'll dig into who's the best Rebel Commander around!

Taxonomy Overview: What Is "Optimal" for Legion 2.6?

As discussed in the previous post, because the objective conditions (both primary and secondary) are so heavily skewed towards having more activations than your opponent in pre-defined (and often stationary) parts of the board, Legion 2.6 is about both taking enemy units off the board (whole units - not just rendering a unit inert by killing off most of its models) and keeping your own units on the board. This means there are two measures of effectiveness (MOEs) that we can use to determine if a unit is "good": average expected damage and average expected health (AEH).

Average Expected Damage (AED) is computed by finding the average number of hits and crits that a unit is supposed to get. The greatest dilemma for finding this number in the real world is that it is affected by a LOT of variables - here's a few:

• There is a subtle but mostly irrelevant distinction between a Hit result and a Crit result - Crits really only matter if the enemy unit has the Armor X keyword, has dodge tokens, and to a small degree, has light/heavy cover (often if they also have Low Profile);
• The Pierce X keyword doesn't increase the damage that you do, but it DOES make the damage that you get more likely to actually take effect;
• The number of hits/crits that you get is all fine and good, but the quality of the target unit's save (and defensive keywords, dodge tokens, and visible models) can have a huge impact on how much damage you can actually do;
• The number of wounds previously suffered might reduce the expected damage of the unit (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has 1 wound) or it might have a slight impact once a certain amount of damage is done (if it's a multi-model unit and each model has multiple wounds), or might have no impact at all (in the case of single-model units); and
• The distance to the enemy target may affect whether or not a unit can aim before shooting - and the value of an aim token is highly dependent on which dice in your dice pool hit or missed in the first volley).

For the sake of a more simplistic model, I've made the following assumptions:

• If a model pays for an upgrade that increases its damage once injured (like Tenacity), we will use the upgrade to improve whatever offensive range bands would be affected;
• The average expected damage of a model will be a straight average of their expected damage at ranges melee-3 (for Corps, we did ranges 2-4 and preference of melee or range 1, but since most Commanders can't do damage at range 4 - Cassian is the only exception - it seemed silly to both penalize basically everyone for a very understandable design choice by the AMG crowd AND reward characters that can do melee well over those that can't);
• The score for the model will be the score of a reasonable loadout for the character - we will not be meta-gaming upgrades to score well in the system, but will look instead at what makes a Commander function well in army lists;
• Units are assumed to not take aim actions before they shoot unless that unit has a unique way to gain an aim token without spending an action; and
• The score for the unit will be the average expected hits for every 10 points spent on the unit (so units that are cheaper but do the same/more damage than a more expensive unit come out ahead).

The Jar Jar Cup, Part 2

Good morning gamers,

Round two of our four-round escalation event was this past weekend and it was a blast! We were going to pair off winners and losers from last time, but the organizer decided to do a full random allocation again, so I wasn't all but guaranteed to face my son (which is good, because after facing him four times in practice, I still hadn't won a game). 

This time around, we were playing with 650-point lists, Standard list building constraints (though we used the "Team" option in Tabletop Admiral, since that's a 600pt limit), but instead of playing with POIs and the standard scenarios, the tournament organizer decided to have us play what he and his brothers usually play: "total annihilation" (or as I will be calling it, "King of the Hill", since it's actually pretty hard to totally annihilate someone's army in five rounds). Let's look at the lists and then see how we did!

List #1: 9-activation Rebel Alliance

This is my list - and I'll be honest, while I dabbled with an Empire list and a Republic list that I thought could be fun, I knew there was a good chance I'd be facing my son Gorgoroth's list and that meant that Impact was gonna be necessary. Also, people in my group have been talking trash about Commander Luke, so golly I needed to take him this round! 

• Luke Skywalker (Commander) with Burst of Speed, Offensive Push, and Recon Intel
• 3x Rebel Troopers
• 3x AT-RT with Laser Cannon
• 2x X-34 Landspeeder with RPS-6 Rocket Gunner, Unstable R5 Astromech, and Mark II Medium Blaster

While I played a lot with an alpha-strike version of the list that had M-45 Ion Blasters on the X34 Landspeeders along with Rebel Vets with CM-0/93s and a squad of Rebel Troopers with MPL-57 to lean hard into anti-armor, I really wanted to get Luke into the list and I got a clear signal from Centaur that he wasn't using Luke. 

The Landspeeders are really great on the first turn, since I can shoot twice with 1 red/5 black/3 black at range 2 with BOTH Landspeeders . . . hopefully this gives me a quick lead with only minimal damage suffered from the Astromech upgrade. All this piles in with the damage from three AT-RTs. Turn 2 opens up Luke as an attack option, along with any of the remaining armored units.

All told, I have 3 activations that can shoot at range 4, 2 activations (technically three with Luke/Long Shot) that can move up to range 3 and crack through armor, and all of these units are equally happy if armor isn't in the mix and we just have to clear "guys upon guys."  I also have three Corps units . . . yeah, I didn't have the points for SX-21s or MPL-57s to make them dangerous against armor (or unarmored) matchups. I'm really happy with the list and glad that I got to use Luke since Centaur didn't need him. Speaking of Centaur . . .

Math Hammering: Ranking Rebel Corps Units

Good morning gamers,

I played a lot with the Republic at the beginning of 2024 and then moved to Rebels as the summer hit. With Legion 2.6 changing a lot of things, I went back to the Republic for a while, got into a good swing with them, then moved back to Rebels. Their play style . . . is very, very different from the Republic.

One of the advantages of starting my plunge into the world of Star Wars Legion is that every unit in the Republic is not only elite (especially since the Phase I Clone Trooper profile got merged with the Phase II Clone Trooper profile to get the Courage/Reliable boost from the latter profile at roughly the same price as the former profile), but their costs are also heavily optimized for value. Whether it's Clone Trooper Infantry, ARC Troopers (both full squads and Strike Teams), Clone Commandos, and Anakin (my son's preferred cup of tea)/Obi-Wan (my preferred cup of tea), it's not hard to find a "good" unit in the Republic - and you can build your list around any number of the aforementioned choices and you'll do just fine.

Rebels . . . don't have that simple of a calculus. In fact, part of the reason why Republic list building is so easy is because you can pretty much pick one unit in each unit type (Corps, Special Forces, Support - and to a lesser extend, Commander) and if you just run those, you're going to get a very optimized list. Until ARF Troopers and Clone Marksmen are released later this year (ARFs are on pre-order right now), the Republic really only has one Corps option and one Special Forces option (with a Strike Team variant) that can "do the Clone thing", so list building is easy. Rebels have TONS of choices and to activate some of them, you might have to tailor your list in other unit types to really get the benefit of the juice.

Today's post kicks off a six-part series on Rebel list building where we'll be wielding the "math hammer" to understand what units - and upgrade suites - are the "best" option for Rebel players. Because you have to take at least 3 Rebel Corps options in your list, we'll begin with Corps and then move on to the other unit types (Commander, Support, Special Forces, Heavy, and Operative - probably in this order).

Taxonomy Overview: What Is "Optimal" for Legion 2.6?

Because the objective conditions (both primary and secondary) are so heavily skewed towards having more activations than your opponent in pre-defined (and often stationary) parts of the board, Legion 2.6 is about both taking enemy units off the board (whole units - not just rendering a unit inert by killing off most of its models) and keeping your own units on the board. This means there are two measures of effectiveness (MOEs) that we can use to determine if a unit is "good": average expected damage (AED) and average expected health (AEH).

The Jar Jar Cup, Part 1

Good morning gamers,

The Wretched Hive team is helping to run an escalation tournament for some local guys in our area. We're all pretty new to Legion, so if our stuff isn't as competitive as it could be, that's just us being green. Our tournament director is allowing proxies, which is good for a group of guys who are just getting into it (but as far as we can, we're trying to use/acquire the real things). We have eight participants and we'll be running the event over four weekends, each day with an increasing number of points (500/Skirmish, 650/Standard, 800/Standard, 1000/Standard).

I'm not organizing this event (hooray), though I have become the point of contact for terrain (and have provided feedback on lists that have been submitted to help our newer guys think through how list building for the actual scenarios they'll have work). Our first event was this past weekend, so without further ado, let's dig into the lists that were present for the first round!

List #1: 10-activation Rebel Alliance

This is my list - and it's very much the way I see Rebels working in Skirmish (and sort of how I see them working in Standard games as well). Rebel units melt away when they run into large dice pools (which basically any faction can do, but Republic lists especially can bring on the pain pretty easily), so I've compensated for having an easily-killed army with an army with a LOT of activations. The traditional (but soft) activation limit for any non-battle-force list in Skirmish is 11 (1 Commander/Operative/Heavy, 4 Corps, 2 Special Forces/Support) and this list reaches 10 activations with only one detachment to push back gently on a soft spot of the list building rules.

This tournament has a "rule of one" in play, so I had to check with Centaur (who's running the next list) to see if he needed Leia to make his list work. He did, so I opted for a 10-act Rebel Officer list instead of a 9-act Leia list (which I contend is actually better than what I'm running). The list has 2 AT-RTs for long-range fire support and hopefully some resiliency (more than my Corps are going to provide), 2 Ewok Slinger squads (thanks to Underworld Connections on the Rebel Officer) for decent range damage and lots of bodies, 3 squads of Rebel Troopers (one with an SX-21, the other two with a fifth trooper, and all three with Prepared Supplies to trigger Nimble before we've moved), and a Rebel Veteran/Mark II Medium Blaster tag-team to fill out my Corps requirement and get an extra activation. All told, I should be able to outnumber all of the other lists and hopefully can steal some quick VPs on rounds 2-3 to have an edge as we get into rounds 4-5.

• Rebel Officer with Underworld Connections
• 2 Rebel Troopers with Rebel Trooper and Prepared Supplies
• 1 Rebel Trooper with SX-21 Trooper and Prepared Supplies
• 1 Rebel Veteran
• 1 Mark II Medium Blaster Trooper
• 2 Ewok Slingers with Forest Dwellers
• 2 Rebel AT-RTs with Laser Cannons

Overall, I'm pretty confident that I can do well in all three scenarios, since I can spread out without worrying about needing synergies (beyond the Coordinate rule between the Vets and the Mark II). I've got a bit of long-range threat with the AT-RTs, good mid-range threat with four of my Corps squads, and good close-range threat with my Slingers and the SX-21 - all in all, I'm cautiously optimistic that I can survive with more units on the objectives than my opponent can.

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Jyn Erso

Good morning gamers,

This is our first post in 2025 - and we're covering the first Rebel hero I purchased: Jyn Erso. I got her used because I thought she was cool - and if I was going to collect Rebel models, it was going to be a Scarif-themed list. Well, I've been playing with her for the better part of the year (on-and-off to experiment with other Rebel builds), and I've got to say, she's not the best Rebel Commander option, but she sure is tough to deal with (and two of her command cards are really good). So let's take a look at Jyn Erso and see what she brings to the table that the Rebels want.

Rebel Jyn Erso: The Profile

Much of Jyn's profile looks like a lot of other Rebel heroes - she's got 6 Wounds, Courage 3 (pretty rare, actually), surges for crit and block, rolls a white defense die, and is Speed-2. She's a commander with a nice array of upgrade slots (Command, Training, Gear, and Armament) and by default only has a melee weapon (though her Armament slot gives her a choice of gun options).

Two ways you can run Jyn - 102-109pts
Photo Credit: LegionHQ

Her keywords are reminiscent of Leia and Padme - she has Quick Thinking (Leia has Take Cover 2), Nimble, and Sharpshooter 1 (Leia has Sharpshooter 2). Quick Thinking is great on a Nimble character (as you want the dodge every turn, but you can also get a free aim token to help you out on offense) and any character with Sharpshooter 1 (or 2 if possible) is going to get more damage through cover than those without it (and if you can reduce your opponent's cover to 0, they won't benefit from Low Profile).

These keywords are pretty good, but Jyn's defining attribute compared to these two characters is Danger Sense 4. Danger Sense is pretty rare and appears on Cassian Andor (Danger Sense 3/Courage 2), Pyke Syndicate Capos (Danger Sense 2/Courage 2), Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers (Danger Sense 2/Courage 1-2, depending on the Personnel choice), and Rebel Pathfinders (Danger Sense 3/Courage 2). If you take Cassian's 3-pip Command card (Volunteer Mission), you can add Danger Sense 1 (or boost an existing Danger Sense by 1) to any Commanders, Operatives, and Special Forces units you have that receive orders. Outside of the Rebel Alliance, you can only find it on Cad Bane (Danger Sense 3/Courage 3 - well, him and the Pykes who are available to everyone). Given this list, Jyn is the only person with Danger Sense 4 innate (and could have Danger Sense 5 if paired with Cassian during one round) and is one of only two units that pairs Danger Sense with Courage 3 (which makes panicking her very difficult).