Good morning gamers,
Last week, we got the scene-to-stats articles for both the Imperial and Rebel customizable leaders and boy are there some interesting options available to us now! This article will be reviewing the Rebel options and our next article will look at the Imperial ones (sorry, Din, your article will just have to wait). If you haven't seen the article yet, you can view it here and I gotta say, I'm pretty stoked about how well AMG is publicizing their products and I'm excited to give some of these combos a try! Also, while I'm giving my amateur thoughts, I think the special edition video from the Notorious Scoundrels
This article will attempt to puzzle through some interesting combos for the four different doctrines available in the kit, with the understanding that this is all very new and there will be much to be seen in the coming months for how you actually want to run these after some play testing and tournament use shakes out. We'll also be reviewing these profiles in comparison to an existing profile to see what the existing profile is giving you and whether it's better to slot in the old character or the new one. We'll start with my favorite of the batch . . .
Rebel Officer with Proven Tactician: 65+ pts
The Rebel Officer profile begins with 6 Wounds/Courage 2, but taking the Proven Tactician upgrade boosts that to 6 Wounds/Courage 3. The Inspire 1 that's provided in the base profile isn't augmented at all, but this Commander option is a slot-in for your support options with the old Padme Amidala trick of Quick Thinking/Exemplar (he just needed Authoritative to have the trifecta of Padme support abilities from last edition). While the utility of his last boost will only be found on the first turn of the game, getting a free Speed-1 move on all of your Corps that end the round within range 1 of this commander from Reinforcements can mean that Rebel Veterans and Mark II Medium Blasters (traditionally slow Corps units in a game where getting places is usually the name of the game) can "do their thing" of Speed-1-moving and shooting with a slow and steady advance followed up by another Speed-1, which gives them the same amount of ground gained as Snowtroopers (who I think most players would agree are pretty good). This doctrine is a 10pt upgrade, which makes it pricier than other doctrines but only marginally so and I think the benefits of it are clear: move-Quick-Thinking-Inspire every round to give your units access to an aim/dodge token when they need it and clear a suppression token. Doctrine Rating: A.
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| Photo credit: Tabletop Admiral |
The prime point of comparison is Leia Organa, who is very much in a sit-in-the-back-and-support role, though her ability to do damage with her pistol is likely to be more reliable than what this Officer is packing unless the Officer takes the repeater gun (which I don't think is worth the investment - but I'm willing to be proven wrong). Leia begins 10-points more expensive and has 6 Wounds/Courage 2 (so -1 Courage, which does matter a bit on a Commander) and Inspire 2 instead of Inspire 1 (which can matter very much if you have a lot of Courage 1 Corps running around). While these two flip-flops aren't exactly a wash, they're pretty much a wash in my book.
Instead of having Quick Thinking with Exemplar, Leia has Take Cover 2 with Exemplar, so you'll have a dodge token on someone and a dodge token on Leia that can be borrowed. The neat thing is that if Leia is being taken without another named Commander, taking her WITH a Rebel Officer who has Exemplar could be an interesting way to get more out of your Take Cover 2 (or Take Cover 3 if she's given the Portable Scanner) . . . something to think about. Finally, instead of giving people Reinforcements on the first round, Leia has Nimble to help keep her alive and Sharpshooter 2 to ignore cover saves . . . which is good if you find yourself getting a desperate shot out of Leia, but by no means is a dealbreaker.
Decision Analysis: in most cases, I'd say run Leia only if you already have a Rebel Officer in your list. In a Battle Force like Echo Base Defenders, you aren't limited to having just 2 Commanders, so you could have Leia, Han, Luke, AND a Rebel Officer in your list (or you could pass on Luke if you wanted to get a Rebel Agent, another Rebel Officer, or Chewie). In basically any other Rebel list where you have the option for a Rebel Officer, I'd just take the Officer.
My recommended upgrades for this build are Inspiring Presence, which gives the Officer a range 1-4 Courage 3 bubble for anti-panic support, Improvised Orders if you don't have it on anyone else and need order control, and Seize the Initiative if you need him to activate early for the token support and can't give him an order token from your command card. I think all three of these are optional takes and I wouldn't bother with any upgraded weapons on this guy - his actions probably involve moving and thinking, so paying for a gun is likely to be a waste on at least Turn 1 and probably on other turns too.
Rebel Officer with Frontline Commander: 63+ pts
I know that I'm nobody in the competitive sphere of Legion, but this looks like the combat Officer build to me. On its face, this Commander is still going to be doing support stuff - he's got 6 Wounds/Courage 2 for staying and providing those Courage 1 Corps guys from panicking, but he's also giving Dauntless to Trooper units within range 1, which not only helps your Courage 1 Corps units, but can also help your Commander, Operative, Special Forces, and Support troopers as well. That's . . . really handy. Yes, you gotta be within range 1 of him, but as a wingman to another powerful unit (Wookiees? Sleeper Cell? Bad Batch? Tauntauns?), it's pretty great.
To boot, he's also got Aid: Rebel Trooper, which means as you pick up tokens, you won't be lending them to units through Exemplar like you would with the previous build, but instead you can pick someone to give the token to. This solves an issue that Centaur has been bemoaning in Echo Base Defenders for ages: why can't anyone just get aims without having to pay for things like Offensive Push or On the Hunt? Well, now you can take one of these guys (maybe with a Proven Tactician Officer and Leia) to get the aims you want!
For his own boosts, he's got Indomitable to help manage his suppression (which he'll need to do), Spur to boost him to Speed-3 if he takes a suppression token (see what I mean?), and Tactical 1 so that he can pick up an aim (potentially to transfer to someone else with Aid) every time he moves. I think this doctrine requires some deeper planning than the previous and also will compete with other heroes who want to do the combat thing better than he can. Doctrine Rating: B+.
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| Photo credit: Tabletop Admiral |
As the combat hero - and in my opinion a melee combat hero - the Commander equivalent for comparison is Luke Skywalker, Hero of the Rebellion. Yes, you could take a repeater blaster or the dual-pistols to get a shooting variant, but giving this guy a Vibro Axe gives him Charge, which allows him to move twice and attack in melee (shoving one or both of his aim tokens to friends instead of keeping them for himself). To get a proper comparison to the Frontline Commander Officer with the Vibro Axe (71pts), I'm presenting my favorite build for Commander Luke, which is an alpha-strike option that locks him it at 144pts - or put differently, twice the cost of the Frontline Commander. Luke is given Burst of Speed (which is like having Spur for one turn without the suppression hit but with an Immobilize hit on the following turn), Offensive Push (for Tactical 1), and Recon Intel (for a free move action on the first turn - something the Frontline Commander doesn't have but offsets somewhat the long-term benefits of having Spur).
Luke has quite a few advantages over the Commander - he's got 6 Wounds/Courage 3 (+1 Courage), Inspire 2 instead of Inspire 1, Sharpshooter 1/Pierce 1/Long Shot/better dice on his pistol, better defense dice, surge for crit instead of surge for hit, Charge innate with a weapon that's a bit better than the Vibro Axe (but not massively), Immune: Pierce, and Block to boost his defense IF he has a dodge token when he's attacked. Is that worth twice the cost? I don't know.
Decision Analysis: in most cases, I'd say run one of these Rebel Officers instead of Luke in your list. I like Luke and I think some of his command cards are super good (even though this version of Luke lost access to Operative Luke's two best command cards). Still, saving almost 70pts means I can get FAR more into my list without taking Luke - heck, I can add another Rebel Officer with Proven Tactician in place of Luke and get some support abilities AND a decent hitter character. If you like the fast-hitting heroes, this guy certainly qualifies, though I wouldn't rule out running Luke AND one of these guys to increase the dive-bombing threat in your list (but Luke is a way better alpha-strike character than the Vibro Axe variant of this guy will ever be).
My recommended upgrades for this build are Endurance, which further helps the Officer manage his suppression, Improvised Orders if you don't have it on anyone else and need order control, and the Vibro Axe for increased damage. I think the only optional pick in this lot is Improvised Orders - I think the other two are absolutely necessary to make sure he's doing what you want. This is also the only Rebel Officer build that I would consider taking the repeating blaster on - 6 dice with range 1-3/Long Shot could be pretty great, but reducing yourself to Speed-1 and slotting yourself into a scoot-and-shoot and basically invalidating Aid entirely just doesn't seem worth it to me. I think you have better options for your repeating blaster, but you COULD take it here if you don't mind being stove-piped into your actions.
Rebel Officer with Unseen Saboteur: 60+ pts
This upgrade is a crossover between Rebel Officers and Rebel Agents, but because it's unique, if you choose to take it on an Officer, you're opting to only have one Rebel Agent. Maybe that's fine - we'll dig into that more later. I will say from the get-go that I think this is a better upgrade on a Rebel Agent, but we'll review this for completeness anyway.
This doctrine gives the Rebel Officer Low Profile and Prepared Position - in short, he's a Speed-2 Rebel Veteran. Additionally, he can pick another Corps, Special Forces, or Support Trooper unit to get Prepared Position too. If you're already leaning into Prepared Positions with Rebel Veterans and Mark II Medium Blasters, this is a great way to get a head-start up the board with something like Tauntauns or Ewok Slingers.
But this is actually it - that's all the Officer gets and frankly, compared to the last two upgrades, this feels a bit constrained. Yes, I know that forward-deploying on Turn 0 has advantages (we'll look at that a bit below). Yes, I know Low Profile can be awesome (I've used a lot of Rebel Vets this year). While all of that is true, I do feel like the boosts are a little light here and I fully expect to have to work harder to make this doctrine worth it. That being said, the primary use I see in giving this doctrine to a Commander is for the Courage 2 bubble that can be passed along to Courage 1 Corps at the start of the game. Doctrine Rating: B.
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| Photo Credit: Tabletop Admiral . . . also, there are a LOT of potential options to explore on this guy but don't buy them all, for goodness sake! |
The character who compares most to this kind of Commander is . . . well, the Rebels don't really have one! You could probably compare him to C-3PO or some other support Commander in Bright Tree, but he's not really doing that. He's not exactly like Wicket who can give Scout to units who don't have it - and he's not like Lando or Han because of their Stead/Uncanny Luck combos (to say nothing of their damage output, support abilities, etc.). This guy is, quite literally, a completely new kind of beast for Rebels . . . and I don't really know who to compare him to except the Proven Tactician if you're planning to have this guy in a support role - or to the Frontline Commander if you're planning to have this guy in an offensive role.
Decision Analysis: this can be a cheap Commander who can make sure your Prepared Position units don't Panic. Seriously, that's it. Before the old Rebel Officer profile left the game, I was looking into lists that ran two of these guys with 6 Rebel Vets, 6 Mark IIs, and some Ewok Slingers - that list could work in the new edition if you're looking for a high activation count and you know there are guys who are gonna start on the board that might need a Courage 2 anti-panic buff (more on this when we get to the sample lists below).
I'm sort of tempted to recommend taking the Repeating Blaster for long-range damage. In effect, we're putting this guy on the board on Turn 0 and the only way we get more out of him than anyone else is by giving him access to range 4. The problem with taking this upgrade is that you can only shoot at range 4 with an aim token, so you're running this guy with ANOTHER character who can hand out aim tokens (like a Proven Tactician Officer?) OR you're buying Electrobinoculars on someone (which could be this guy) in order to give this guy an aim token to use for Long Shot. This gun is an expensive-but-improved Z-6 and it really wants two aims (one for Long Shot, one for rerolls) and I'm just not sure that you're going to get it. Still, it's an option.
There are other upgrades that could be interesting on this guy, mostly to play off of the Low Profile that he picks up and to make him a hide-in-the-back-line-and-
Rebel Agent with Unseen Saboteur: 55+ pts
The Rebel Agent is, in my opinion, a much better chassis for the Unseen Saboteur than the Rebel Officer if you're looking for more than just a Courage 2 bubble on Turn 1. For 5pts less, this guy loses 1 wound (5 Wounds/Courage 2) and trades Inspire 1 (which is positioning-dependent) for Independent: Dodge 1 and Nimble (which is not positioning-dependent). Prepared Positions will begin this character with a dodge token and not giving this character an order on the first turn will grant a second dodge token. In addition, you can pick another Corps/Special Forces/Support Trooper to pick up Prepared Positions as well, which could be a Special Forces unit that you augment with Strike Team Leader. Pair this with a gun of your choice (based on the kind of unit you want to lead) and you're in a good place. Doctrine Rating: A-.
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| Photo credit: Tabletop Admiral |
The inevitable point of comparison for this character is the newly-revamped and recosted Cassian Andor. Cassian has a few advantages over this guy - he's a 90pt unit to start with (+35pts), but he's got Field Commander so you don't have to buy a Commander (but I'd consider the Proven Tactician build above for sure), you have Danger Sense 3 instead of Independent: Dodge/Nimble/Low Profile, he has Infiltrate instead of Prepared Positions, and he's got a better base offensive suite with his free A280 config, Marksman, Tactical 1, and Sharpshooter 1. Cassian is doing more things . . . for a lot more points.
Cassian is also in a bit of a spot, since his defensive augments are tied to suppression and that means he's seriously considering getting Endurance to manage those suppression points, while the Rebel Agent just need to not get orders issued to himself. Strike Team Leader looks pretty good on both characters if Cassian isn't also getting Duck and Cover to give himself more suppression to trigger Danger Sense and if the Rebel Agent takes the Repeating Blaster, he's quite likely to be shooting from behind cover with a long-range gun and won't be too worried about being suppressed. Cassian's got long-range firepower too if you don't mind Cumbersome, but his dice pool is SO limited when he's shooting from far away that most of the time, it just doesn't seem worth it. Also, Cassian probably wants K-2SO to help him get tokens, while the Agent doesn't need anything (though one could argue that the new Proven Tactician might replace K-2SO or at least augment to the tokens Cassian has access to).
Decision Analysis: this is a cheap Operative who can't keep your guys from panicking, but can provide supporting fire from longer range OR potent damage up close with a pistol. If you're looking for someone to start on the board and make your opponent fear an alpha-strike, this is a pretty good option. Even when he's given the repeating blaster, he's probably coming in below 90pts, which is going to be better than most other Rebel Operative options that aren't Rebel Agents or Jyn Erso (more on her next).
My recommendations for upgrades are that this is the best character for the Repeating Blaster. This guy still has limited access to aims, but you're less worried about his positioning relative to the rest of your army because no one is borrowing his Courage value and he's not bringing Inspire. As a result, you can drop this guy somewhere with whatever gun you want and see if you can do something fun and interesting with him. The only other upgrade that I think you should seriously consider taking is Strike Team Leader, but only if you have a Special Forces unit that you want to augment. It's not like you NEED Sleeper Cell to have more tokens, but starting off with a dodge token is always nice when there's Nimble to be had and this guy generates his own token with Nimble, so the two together can become much stronger. I'd definitely take the Heavy Blaster Pistol if you're going to take Strike Team Leader though - you're gonna need to keep up (and this guy clocks in at only 71pts with the pistol and Strike Team Leader upgrades)!
Rebel Agent with Reluctant Hero: 60+ pts
Our final build is the Reluctant Hero version of the Rebel Agent. For 5pts more than the Unseen Saboteur, the Rebel Agent adds Infiltrate and Relentless to their profile, which means that you can start with a dodge token/Nimble before you activate and you can move-move-shoot with the dual-pistol-mode during your activation . . . that's pretty crazy! Also, piling on Strike Team Leader if you're running around with Sleeper Cell is pretty strong and you're only 76 points instead of the 71 points for the previous build! 1 red/1 black/3 white isn't the best dice pool in the world, but with Lethal 1, potentially multiple stacks of Critical 1 depending on your suppression level, and surge for hit if you don't have enough Critical in your pool, this looks like a zippy, smashy kind of hero! That said, this hero really wants Aim tokens and there's no Tactical 1 to provide them here, so you might consider dropping Strike Team Leader and getting Offensive Push instead . . . or just run alongside the Frontline Commander from earlier. Doctrine Rating: A-.
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| Photo credit: Tabletop Admiral |
The inevitable point of comparison for this character is the newly-revamped and recosted Jyn Erso . . . and I gotta agree with Mike Barry a little here and say that Jyn looks like she could use the Padme treatment and come down a few points. Jyn's got Independent Move which can trigger Agile 1 for a free dodge token with Nimble, so she's effectively got what the Rebel Agent has in its base profile. With innate surge for crit, she doesn't need to take suppression to get Critical 4 on her attack pools and she's a pip ahead in the attack department in melee and a tad behind in the range department (depending on your view of white dice - she's expected to get 2.125 hits/Pierce 1 per attack without aim support while the dual pistols of the Rebel Agent is expected to get 2.625 hits/Pierce 1 per attack with 1 aim to trigger Lethal 1). Jyn doesn't have Relentless, but with Disengage and a free move, she can effectively move-move-attack just like the Rebel Agent. Both have Infiltrate, so they're in pretty similar spots . . . except Jyn costs 7pts more. Could she come down 5pts and be a competitive option? Sure. Could she be a fine option now? Sure.
Decision Analysis: this is also a cheap Operative who can deal potent damage up close with a pistol. For 68-76pts, this Operative is a bargain as a filler unit in an army that's trying to reach absurd activation counts while still having good damage output. 2.625 hits/Pierce 1 isn't the best in the world (heck, it's coming in WAY behind 7.5 hits that Sleeper Cell is getting for around the same price), but it's better than a lot of other Commanders and Operatives are doing, especially when you factor in their costs! I like these guys a lot, but keep in mind that you're gonna need some aim support to make them operate at full effectiveness (and it's probably gotta be mobile).
My recommendations for upgrades are simple: get the Heavy Blaster Pistol and Strike Team Leader if you have a good unit of Special Forces to bring along with you (like Sleeper Cell). This gives you a very flexible attack option and a cheap hero to contest objectives while advancing and I think paired WITH Jyn, you could have some very interesting options ahead of you. The only other upgrades I'd consider getting are generally useful upgrades like Improvised Orders or Underworld Connections, but I'm not sure you'd want to add 5pts to this unit - there's a very good chance this unit dies at some point in the game!
Sample Lists
Our first list shows off the Proven Tactician Rebel Officer and the incredibly questionable Unseen Saboteur Rebel Officer (who is carrying the Repeating Blaster). It's also a 19-act Rebel list with 6 Rebel Veterans, 6 Mark II Medium Blasters, 3 Rebel AT-RTs with Rotary Blasters, a squad of Ewok Slingers (who will benefit from Prepared Positions), and some Rebel Sleeper Cell:
- Rebel Officer with Unseen Saboteur, Duck and Cover, and Repeating Blaster ("Sab-Officer")
- Rebel Officer with Proven Tactician ("Tac-Officer")
- 5x Rebel Veterans
- 1x Rebel Veterans with Smoke Grenades
- 6x Mark II Medium Blaster Troopers
- 1x Rebel Sleeper Cell with Astromech
- 1x Ewok Slingers
- 3x Rebel AT-RTs with AT-RT Rotary Blaster
19 activations is a sweet thing indeed and the list moves fast! Fourteen units (including the Ewok Slingers) have Prepared Positions and if you start with all 6 of them within range-2 of the Sab-Officer, you can land the Tac-Officer near them all and give most or all of those Corps guys a free Speed-1 move on the following turn! Besides the Tac-Officer, the other four units have Scout 1-2 on them to get some extra movement at the start of the game, which means pushing into your opponent's space shouldn't be that difficult. I've also opted for the range-3 might of the AT-RT Rotary Blaster - I used Laser Cannons a lot before the points rebalance and both are expected to get ~2 hits into armor, but the 5 black dice on the Rotary Blaster is much better than the more limited dice pool on the Laser Cannon once your opponent gets within range 3 (and you don't have the problem of pests at range 1 but not in melee that you have with the Laser Cannon). This list is surprisingly resilient and I'm very much looking forward to giving it a whirl (after my friends and I are done with our next MESBG event and I can get back to playing some Legion).
The second list shows off the one-drop Reluctant Hero Rebel Agent, thrown into a list with lots of aim support and fast-moving, punchy troops in a 14-act Rebel list that sports a healing/aiming A-A5, a dakka-Landspeeder, lots of Fleets, and Lando (I will note that you COULD kit out the A-A5 differently if you wanted to):
- Lando Calrissian with Improvised Orders
- Rebel Agent with Reluctant Hero, Strike Team Leader, and Heavy Blaster Pistol
- 2x Fleet Troopers
- 1x Fleet Troopers with Scatter Gun Trooper and Fleet Trooper Squad
- 1x Fleet Troopers with Astromech Droid
- 1x Rebel Sleeper Cell with Targeting Scopes
- 2x Ewok Slingers with Forest Dwellers
- 3x Rebel AT-RTs with Rotary Blasters
- 1x A-A5 Speeder Truck with Shriv Suurgav, Unorthodox Tactician, and Backworld Medic
- 1x X-34 Landspeeder with M-45 Ion Blaster, RPS-6 Rocket Gunner, and Unstable Astromech
This list relies on having fast damage hitters - Fleets have Charge, Sleeper Cell has a large die pool and a lot of movement potential on the first turn, the Rebel Agent has Relentless, Lando has Steady, the Landspeeder has Speeder 1 - you get the idea. The list moves up quickly and everything throws a good amount of dice! I've taken the A-A5 without weapons so it can provide cover for our units while supplying a dodge token with Shriv, a wound/model back for our heroes/Sleeper Cell, and aims with the Tactician. We're actually a few points shy of where we could be, so if you wanted to change up some of the upgrades so this thing had a gun, you could certainly do that.
Finally, we have a 2-Officer/2-Agent Echo Base Defenders list where we've got all four of the doctrines represented and 5 pairs of Rebel Vets/Mark IIs and 3 Tauntauns. Together it's a 17-act EBD list that also sports all three weapon types available to the new modular characters - I think it looks pretty interesting!
- Rebel Officer with Proven Tactician ("Tac-Officer")
- Rebel Officer with Frontline Commander and Vibro Axe ("Front-Officer")
- Rebel Agent with Unseen Saboteur and Repeating Blaster ("Sab-Agent")
- Rebel Agent with Reluctant Hero and Heavy Blaster Pistol ("Pistol-Agent")
- 5x Rebel Veterans
- 5x Mark II Medium Blaster Troopers
- 3x Tauntaun Riders
This list doesn't have all four Tauntauns you can run in EBD, but it does have a a Front-Officer who can charge in with them (and maybe even give them some aim tokens!). It has the Prepared Positions Sab-Agent who has a big chunky gun and can make sure your Corps don't get panicked right away and makes one of those 'Tauns starts on the board with a dodge token (handy if he's out of sight and then has 3 dodge tokens when he's done moving and shooting). It has a Tac-Officer for token sharing amongst your Corps or the Sab-Agent, while giving you an options character in the Pistol-Agent to either support the Vets/Mark IIs or run with the 'Tauns. However you do it, you can put two boxes of these customizable heroes to good use with a list like this!
Conclusion
I'm super excited for the new characters - I think they're interesting and provide some very enjoyable scope for the imagination. We'll dig into the Imperial options next time, but for now, take care and happy hobbying!
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