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).