Star Wars Legion Unit Review: ARF Troopers

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at Commander Ahsoka, who most competitive players choose to leave at home in favor of her squad leader upgrade option (and I don't blame them, but I think she's pretty good). In today's article, we'll be looking at ARF Troopers, who are available in the Republic Starter Set and compete for your Special Forces slot with ARC Troopers - and while the two units do two very different things, there seems to be a default lean for most competitive players towards either taking ARC Troopers or skipping on the Special Forces slot entirely and just relying on your Corps units, Commander/Operative characters, and maybe Supports.

With some new opportunities for ARFs to shine in the 212th Legion battle force, let's look at what these guys are bringing to the table and what might make them worth taking on the table.

ARF Troopers: The Profile

Many of the stats for ARF Troopers are what you'd expect from a Republic unit - Speed-2, Courage 2, no innate surging on offense or defense (but access to token sharing), and 1 black die/mini on offense. The neat trick they add in their profile is a base range of 1-4 on their blasters, which is useful for alpha striking on the first turn. But in this, ARFs are not unique . . .

ARF Troopers are long-range units, but they're not the only Republic units with that claim to fame. When you look at long-range options for Republic Clone units, the pinnacle of the list is the Clone Commando - both in cost and in lethality. A range 3-4 shot that's got 1 red/mini with High Velocity and Lethal 1 is pretty slick, but at 90pts a squad (and possibly more), they're quite the investment. You have access to Clone Trooper Marksmen in the Corps slot now, which begin at 50pts and might rise to as much as 143pts if equipped with a Clone Mortar Trooper, a Clone Medic, and a "super squad" (to say nothing of the potential for an RPS-6 heavy weapon or a Clone Captain/Commander/named squad leader who might cost more). This squad begins with a range 1-3 gun, but can hit range 4 with Long Shot - which means these guys can definitely throw the most dice at range 4, but at the highest cost. ARC Troopers (either the full squad or the strike team) can field a DC-15X heavy weapon unit that can shoot at range 4, but this is only with 2 dice and with 2-6 wounds to help it out, so you generally don't see the DC-15X on ARCs, unless someone is trying to do an "alpha strike" play on the first turn that leads into a 6-model attack on Turns 2-3 (like my son has done to me many, many times).

ARF Troopers cost 3pts more at base cost than an ARC Trooper Strike Team and it gets 4 black dice in melee or at range 1-4 instead of 1 red/1 black at range 3-4 (or 1 red/3 black at range 1-2 and 4 black in melee . . . assuming they can GET to melee). With twice as many wounds, they're also more survivable than Strike Teams, but they don't generate tokens as easily (since Strike Teams have Tactical 1). ARFs are far more comparable to Marksmen, who will need to get an aim token in order to match the range of ARF Troopers, but otherwise will start with the same amount/type of attack dice but for 16 fewer points (which almost pays for a heavy weapon). When compared to Commandos, these guys fall very shy of the mark, despite costing a lot fewer points. 4 red dice at range 3-4 and 8 black OR 4 black/4 white dice at range 1-2 makes the Commandos a LOT punchier and far more board-controlling than the ARFS - and when you consider that Katarn Pattern Armor makes them harder to kill and they have tokens they can put on the board to give them both Critical 2 and surge: block, these guys are really outclassing ARFs.

That said, ARF Troopers have one advantage over any of these other units: their primary role can be to generate tokens for you while providing long-range fire support. It's unlikely that a 4-man ARF squad will kill very many things, but that's true of 4-man Clone Trooper Infantry and Clone Trooper Marksmen as well. What these kinds of units are usually hoping to do is to get 1-2 hits against their targets and apply a suppression token to them - and ARFs can do that from range 4 without spending tokens. Additionally, if you can get them in position on Turn 1, they can generate a token with their first action and then shoot with their second, which makes them a net-positive for token generation, since they don't really need what they generate. Whether that means getting more aim tokens to help your Marksmen promote their dice or generating dodge tokens so a Clone somewhere stays alive longer, I think these guys can be pretty good.

The keywords that ARFs have help them some - Scout 1 with range-4 blasters means they can threaten anything that has already walked onto the board if they Scout-1 -> Move -> Shoot (and more likely, they can use Scout-1 -> Aim -> Shoot to make sure their dice land OR so they can generate an aim token for one of their friends to use, like a Clone Trooper Marksman). While not a great keyword, Unhindered makes that Scout 1 move (and any other move you make) more reliable if you have to get through difficult terrain (or if you want to get into difficult terrain that also provides cover). They add to this a sweet keyword in Low Profile, which allows them to promote a failed cover save into a success, which gives them a little bit more resilience than they'd otherwise have. You definitely want to plan your Scout move based on terrain so you can benefit from this after you arrive (and ideally, throughout the game).

Finally, they have Observe 2 as an action. Now that Observe allows you to hand out observation tokens to foes at range 3, this is a better action option than it was before. However, you're probably not using it on the first turn (unless you can start your deployment within 22" of where your opponent moved - which is more than two Speed-2 moves away) and your ability to use it on later turns will likely trade the value of having range-4 blasters unless you're shooting at someone other than the unit you target with Observe 2. If taken with Cody, you can actually do some interesting things with Observation tokens (more on that in the lists at the end of the post), but other than that, observation tokens become a poor man's aim token against a specific unit - which is not nothing, but is also not as great as generating your own tokens. There may be situations where you use this, but I don't usually plan on using it.

ARF Troopers : Recommended Upgrades

I'm going to start by saying that I think all of these upgrades are optional and some might be good to take (but certainly not all of them). Running ARFs as a 66pt filler activation that holds a back objective is perfectly good, but if you have some extra points, you could look into these to make the unit a bit more dangerous.

Squad Leader x1

There are six squad leaders that you can take on this unit - Fives and Ahsoka both provide this unit with Charge, which you could certainly do to get more use out of Observe 2, but you're punting on the Low Profile/long range of this profile (and it won't be doing anything better than a Clone Trooper Infantry squad will for 10pts less). The Clone Commander remains a bit too expensive for Inspire 1/Reliable 1 and the Jedi Guardian can't help the unit's damage output at range, so he's probably better placed in an ARC Trooper squad instead of an ARF Trooper squad (assuming that he's a good choice at all?).

That leaves us with two Squad Leader options - both of which can be good, depending on how you want to build the unit: a Clone Medic or a Clone Captain. The Medic is great if you're supporting things like Commandos, who really want to be at full strength for as long as they can. If you're running the Bad Batch, they can also resurrect Wrecker or someone else from the gang before they activate on Turn 2 if they've taken fire. Once Bad Batch starts doing what they do, however, you're likely to lose them. The Captain is great if you plan to give orders to these guys (through, perhaps, a Jedi Knight General or a Clone Commander - or maybe Fives), since Defend 1 allows you to generate a dodge token that can be borrowed by nearby Clones. For 20-22pts, you're only adding 1 attack die to the unit, so this isn't great for offensive efficiency in either case.

Heavy Weapon x1

There are two heavy weapon options that this unit can take - you can take Echo in it (which nearly doubles the price of the squad, along with a bunch of keywords that want aim tokens that these guys don't generate), but the more economical choice is the 24-point RPS-6 ARF Trooper. This guy adds the traditional "rainbow roll" of 1 red/1 black/1 white dice at range 2-4 with Impact 2 and Cumbersome, which means that on the first turn of the game, he can add 1 black/2 white (roughly 1 hit) to the attack pool, but if you shoot first every turn after that, you can add a reliable 1.5 hits to whatever attack you make (which is not far behind what Echo is giving you - plus if you want the Bad Batch in your list, you can't run Echo here). This won't break the bank, but it will make you more reliable into armor - and if you didn't want to take Clone Trooper Infantry to do the same job (relying on range 4 shots instead of range 3 shots), this isn't a horrible option . . . but I'd rather take . . .

Personnel x1

This slot would be a lot more interesting if they were able to bring options other than the ARF Trooper Duo (like the Clone Specialist to generate tokens if you "turret" with them), but the Duo is an interesting upgrade. This adds 2 more minis to the unit for 26pts (a slight savings of the expected 33pts) and also gives them 1 cached surge token - I don't know if this can be borrowed, but it's neat that it sticks around until you use it (either on this unit itself or on someone nearby, if that's allowed). Compared to the RPS-6, I'm inclined to think that the marginally less or equal damage (depending on whether the RPS-6 moved or not) you're getting from these two guys is better than the slightly cheaper heavy weapon choice because you get both the extra wound AND a cached surge token to keep your guys alive longer (or hit just a little bit harder). If I've got the points for a Duo, a Medic/Captain, or an RPS-6, I would always take the Duo.

Training x1

I don't think you need any Training upgrades on your ARFs, but if you wanted to take Strike Team Leader on a Commander/Operative who was going to sit in the back so these guys could generate a free aim/dodge token each turn, that wouldn't be bad. You might see that helping ARCs more, but if you're supporting Commandos, these guys could be a nice token battery.

Comms x1

I also don't think you need any Comms upgrades - you don't want to be close enough to the enemy to trigger things like Hacked Comms or Comms Jammer, you don't need HQ Uplinks on these guys, and you really don't need Spotter Uplink. Pass on these and save your points.

Grenades x1

The best grenade option to take is the one-time-use Smoke Grenades upgrade. For 3pts, you can guarantee that Low Profile triggers against any shots that don't have Sharpshooter OR use it to improve light cover (if that's the best you can find) to heavy cover (which also makes Sharpshooter potentially ineffective). Every other upgrade is a trap - they want you to get close and you really don't want to do that.

ARF Troopers: Sample Lists and Strategies

I've been messing around with ARFs in a 10-act Kenobi/Commandos list - ARFs might not be the best use of points, but with a sit-back-and-shoot strategy, they mesh better with the list than a single ARC Trooper squad. Also, they're cheaper, so you can flesh out your other units more:

• Obi-Wan Kenobi with Force Barrier and Force Guidance
• Padme Amidala
• 2x Clone Trooper Marksmen with Mortar Clone Trooper
• 2x Clone Trooper Marksmen with Clone Medic and Clone Trooper Marksman Squad
• 1x ARF Troopers with Clone Medic
• 1x Clone Commandos/Delta Squad with Offensive Push, Katarn Pattern Armor, and DC-17M ICWS Config
• 2x Clone Commandos with HQ Uplink, Katarn Pattern Armor, and DC-17M ICWS Config

With the new 212th Legion, I think there's a lot of ground that's unexplored. I think I agree with competitive players that Obi-Wan can't be taken in that list if you want any sort of Heavy vehicle presence, so this 12-act list features Cody, a mix of ARFs and Clone Trooper Marksmen, a pair of AT-RTs, and three (count them, THREE) ISPs:

• Clone Commander Cody
• 2x Clone Trooper Marksmen with Mortar Clone Trooper
• 1x Clone Trooper Marksman with Boil and Mortar Clone Trooper
• 2x ARF Troopers with ARF Trooper Duo
• 1x ARF Troopers with Clone Medic and Smoke Grenades
• 2x AT-RTs
• 3x Infantry Support Platforms with Clone Shock Trooper Pilot and Twin Missile Pods

ARF Troopers: Final Review

I am a bit whelmed by these guys (neither over, nor under), but that also means I'm not excited to run these guys a lot (though that 212th list does look interesting). They shoot from far away, they can generate tokens for their friends, but they don't actually change the game much. Yes, you need a few activations that can sit back and support instead of killing things (and I think having Marksmen with them makes them feel better, as Marksmen and ARCs aren't playing the same game - except for maybe Strike Teams as a pricey way to generate aim tokens?), but these are things you can do for a bit cheaper in your required Corps slot, so I'm struggling a bit to find the right place for these guys. I like them, but not enough to glow about them for a long time.

Overall Unit Review: 2/5 stars. I think these guys would benefit a lot from doing less and costing less. Observe 2 is nice with Cody (sometimes), but in general, it's not worth paying for. Unhindered is nice, but sometimes I'd rather save those 2pts (what most other units can pay for Environmental Gear to get Unhindered) and not have to buy it. Low Profile/Scout 1 are excellent keywords and I'm glad these guys have them, but if their cost could drop to 58-60pts, I think they'd be a lot more playable. I own exactly one squad (from the new starter set) and I like putting them on the table sometimes, but they don't strike me as being as good as a lot of other options.

Next time, we're headed back into Rebel territory to look at some units I ran a lot last year but haven't reviewed yet. We begin with the dreaded Rebel Sleeper Cell. These guys were . . . super over-tuned when they were first released and they've since fallen into a much better place (albeit a worse one). Find out what's so great about these guys next time (and ways you can build them out) - and until then, happy hobbying!