Star Wars Legion Unit Guide: General Grievous Part I

Good morning gamers,

For reasons I cannot explain, General Grievous on foot has always been my favorite CIS Commander option. Yes, he lacks the Force abilities of Dooku or the speed/lethality of his new wheel bike version - and he's a much worse support commander than Kalani or the generic Super Tactical Droid, but he's my favorite. Perhaps it's because my son and I started his-then-my CIS collection with Grievous leading B1s. Maybe it's because a lot of people have dunked on Grievous until recently and that made me look for things to like about him. It could be that he has four lightsabers and that's really cool. Whatever the reason, I've been running foot-Grievous since I got into Seppies and I think there's a lot to like about the guy. While there's certainly a discussion to be had about whether to take him on foot or in his new vehicle form, that will be a discussion for another day.

General Grievous: The Profile

The "Sinister Cyborg" profile of General Grievous has some pretty weak stat options for a "big hitter character": Courage 2 isn't great (though with the release of Mando characters, it's becoming more common?), Speed 2 is fine, no surging on offense or defense can be punishing, and 8 wounds is fabulous but also highlights his inability to surge a lot (he's expected to take 16 hits before he dies - which is slightly better than being a 5 wound hero with surging red saves).

That said, his offense is fantastic and he has some very useful keywords. His "glamor weapon" is the trophy lightsabers that he wields, which gives him 2 red/4 black/2 white, or basically 8 black in melee with Critical 1, Impact 2, and Pierce 2. The pierce matters more in an era when Impervious knocks down one of your Pierce results, but this pool makes him very reliable into all kinds of targets (he should get 4 hits past armor with Pierce 2, he should get 2 crits past dodges, and roughly 4 hits with Pierce 1 against Mandos). He's so-so against force users who are Immune: Pierce because he also totes Immune: Pierce. His alternate attack option is the DT-57 "Annihilator", which is a melee-to-2 weapon with versatile, which allows him to shoot out of combat if that's better for you (or if you were engaged by something that just wants to quagmire you). With Critical 1/Pierce 1 on his gun and 2 black/2 white, it's definitely a subpar option to the lightsabers, but since he has Relentless, it's not uncommon to get a range-2 shot in after you double-move onto the board if your opponent has been a little aggressive (or if you have some movement help, more on that later).

His keywords help him out - besides the aforementioned Relentless on offense, he has Jedi Hunter (so you'll surge for crit against force users) and Scale - this makes sure that your limited speed isn't reduced further and gives you some options for climbing over terrain to make a quick get-away. On defense, he has Block instead of Deflect (so be on the lookout for ways to get dodge tokens to him so you can get surge for block in melee or at range) and the previously mentioned Immune: Pierce (which is WAY better than the Impervious that he had last edition). Finally, he has Entourage: Magnaguards, which might be an incentive to take Magnas in your list . . . but I think it'll mean one squad of Magnas is in your list (as the Entourage will make sure you're getting order tokens on them - and they won't compete with the 3 Snipers).

General Grievous: Recommended Upgrades

As a general rule in Legion, units should either be really lean on their upgrades (if they're cheap/disposable units) or lean heavily into their upgrades (if they're focus pieces). 

Command x2

This is one of those categories that I think you can skip on most of the time. Trusted Agent is always good to have on someone if you have an Operative that wants an order and you might consider taking Lead by Example if you're finding that your critical units are always getting suppressed and their AI is triggering (or their action economy is being reduced, for those non-Droid-Trooper units in your list). Beyond that, I don't think Grievous needs anything here.

Training x1

THIS is the upgrade slot that we'd rather have two of - there's a lot that's vying for your only slot here. For those interested in offensive damage, Tenacity or Offensive Push are strong options (on this guy and a lot of other people). For those looking to get more out of the defensive side of the house, you might consider taking Up Close and Personal (though you'll get a lot more out of this upgrade on the Wheel Bike version of Grievous) or Into the Fray (which can double as an offensive support tool). For those looking for more tactical options, Endurance is a great way to ensure Grievous doesn't get suppressed and Seize the Initiative is always good to have on hand if you have command cards that won't be issuing orders to Grievous.

Gear x1

For me, there's exactly one upgrade that goes in this slot: Recon Intel. While it's gotten a boost up to 8pts, getting a Speed-1 Scout move followed by two Speed-2 moves and a Relentless shot, your threat range is pretty high (able to hit anything that moved more than 8" from its board edge if you have a straight shot towards the unit (Scale will help you ignore difficult terrain speed reductions but not climbing speed reductions - so that's something). 

If you only take a Training upgrade (I go for Endurance) and a Gear upgrade (Recon Intel), you're only paying 144pts, which is pretty easy to recoup if you're not too reckless with Grievous.

When it comes to command cards, Grievous is filled to brimming now with six Command Cards. Trained in Your Jedi Arts is the glamorous 1-pip and boosts Grievous by giving him a dodge token (to trigger block) and Disengage (so he can leave someone that's pinning him down and still attack), plus a special attack option that's performed at the end of his activation that has range-1/versatile and rolls 1 red/2 black/1 white - which is basically half of his Trophy Lightsaber attack, but will target all enemy units at range 1 (so it's usually worth it if there's 3+ units near him). This command card is a lot better on a Wheel Bike, where your radius of 6" covers a lot more ground (because that's how circles work).

His new 1-pip is also pretty good - I'll Do It Myself allows you to deal 1 Wound to a friendly unit in order to give Tactical 1 to Grievous (which can stack with the Tactical 1 you can get from Offensive Push). When Grievous attacks, he removes all Aim, Dodge, Surge, and Standby tokens from the defending unit when he forms his attack pool, which is a really great way to make sure an important enemy unit that was focused on loading up on green tokens loses them all. Beware Bad Batches, Yodas, Obi-Wan sometimes, and Mandos everywhere of this command card.

Supreme Commander is one of the better support command cards that Grievous has - he gains Ruthless (able to damage a friendly corps unit to give it a free action) and anyone issued an order from the command card OR within range 1 of a unit issued an order from the command card gains a surge token. Most Separatist units don't surge in both directions, so it gives some added reliability to their offensive or defensive pools. Pincer Attack is a less-useful support command card - its orders can only go to Vehicles (which does not include Droidekas or Aqua Droids anymore) and if a unit that you're attacking cannot gain Cover if there's a friendly vehicle within range 1 and line of sight of the targeted unit. This is, in fact, a lot harder to pull off now that there are fewer vehicles in Separatist lists (and most of those want to stay out of range 1) - unless you have a lot of Wheel Bikes in your list (which this verison of Grievous is not likely to have).

Crush Them is an interesting 3-pip command card - it works like Supreme Commander in that you're giving out surge tokens to units, but it instead only gives surge tokens to Grievous and two other units (any type), and it gives 1 surge token per squad that you've destroyed. This makes it a potentially dangerous late-game card (or mid-game card if you have a lot of alpha-strike plans OR if you're only looking for a few surge tokens), but it's worthless as a lead-off command card. Full Throttle is a lot better, but again, incentivizes the use of vehicles. Units that are issued orders with the card (Grievous and 2 vehicles) gain a dodge token (good) and when a vehicle makes a move, it gains a surge token. This is . . . also good, especially on speeders, but only if you've really leaned into the vehicles. If you're leaning into troopers . . . you can probably skip on both of these unless you have a pressing need for something else.

The Separatist leader pack that's coming out has a 1-pip command card For the Cause that might be a good surge-token-light card for Grievious - you issue orders to 1 commander and 2 operatives and each gets a surge token. This is decent if you've got Grievous and 2 Super Tacs (or Sun Fac) in your list, as these were probably order tokens that were going to sit in your bag on a 1-pip turn anyway. The one potential downside to taking it with Grievous is that you'll have to leave one of your two 1-pips at home . . . that's a difficult ask, but you might take it over I'll Do It Myself if you like the splash damage of Trained in Your Jedi Arts (or you might leave the Jedi Arts at home if you find the threat of the splash damage results in a spread-out enemy most of the time).

General Grievous: Sample Lists and Strategies

Our first list is a standard Separatist list with 15-activations and leans into a fast-rush aggressive team to support a fast-rush aggressive Grievous (makes him less vulnerable that way). We have triple-snipers with triple-Sab-Vibro BX Commandos, 3 Droidekas/2 B1s to hold the backfield with Kalani, and Sun Fac/a Geonosian squad to work alongside the Commandos and Grievous to take the fight the enemy:

• General Grievous with Endurance and Recon Intel
• Kalani with Trusted Agent
• Sun Fac
• 1x Geonosian Warriors with Geonosian Warrior
• 2x B1 Battle Droids
• 3x BX-Series Droid Commandos with Dioxis Mine Saboteur and BX Vibroswords
• 3x Droidekas
• 3x BX-Series Droid Commando Strike Teams with BX-Series Droid Sniper

Our alternate list is probably the least competitive way to play General Grievous and that's in the Separatist Invasion battle force. This list sports 14 activations (8 of which are B1s) but pairs General Grievous and his vehicle-oriented command cards with two AATs with the new Infantry Support upgrade (so if your B1 chains activate within range 1 of the tanks, they get an order). Grievous's new 3-pip can be a great way to get your AATs some extra protection on Turn 1 and the HQ Uplink on one of the B1s will ensure that you'll still have perfect order control with just Droidekas in your bag:

• General Grievous with Endurance and Recon Intel
• 5x B1 Battle Droids with B1 Battle Droid
• 1x B1 Battle Droid with HQ Uplink
• 2x B1 Battle Droids
• 3x Droidekas
• 2x AAT Battle Tanks with Infantry Support

General Grievous: Final Review

Grievous hits hard for being a sub-150pt hero and with the ability to be locked into combat and not shot, I think there's still an argument for taking him on foot when the Wheel Bike version exists. The more you try to pump him up with upgrades, however, the less good he becomes - in the lists we looked at today, you could swap out the Recon Intel that he takes to upgrade a Droideka to a Crab Droid, but I don't know how good those things actually are for units that can take Recon Intel (for units like Dooku, they look far more appealing, as we discussed last month).

Overall Unit Review: 4/5 stars. The Courage 2 on Grievous really hurts, as does having Block instead of Deflect. That said, Grievous is a marvelously fun piece to use, he hits hard hard (though not as hard as his Wheel Bike form), and he doesn't cost that much. That's worth at least 4 stars to me.

If you enjoyed this article, let us know in the comments below! Our next article continues the discussion of Separatists and tackles the newest Separatist Corps unit: Geonosian Warriors. With a new Battle Force specific variant, these guys die just as quickly as B1s but have far worse order control and far better damage once they're up close. Are they worth taking? And how do you get the most out of them? Find out next time, and until then, happy hobbying!