Star Wars Legion Unit Review: ARC Troopers

Good morning gamers,

We're back in Legion land and we're looking at what was the second most popular non-Commander/Operative Republic unit (before Clone Commandos were released): the ARC Trooper. If you're playing the 501^st Legion, chances are good you have a LOT of these guys in your list and if you're running a generic GAR list, chances are good that you have at least a one of these guys running around (but if you choose three Clone Commandos instead of two, you might not have any). At the time of this writing, ARC Troopers are the only GAR Special Forces unit with the Clone Trooper unit type (and only compete with Wookiee Warriors for the Special Forces slot - more on them later in this series), so if you're not running excess Corps units, don't want to run three Clone Commandos, and you want another Clone Trooper squad . . . these are really your only option. Let's see what the ARC Trooper profiles (yes, two of them) give us - and what they have going for them that sets them apart from your excellent Corps options.

ARC Troopers: The Profiles

It's probably good to begin by comparing ARC Troopers to Phase I Clone Troopers. Both squads have 4 models to start with, both have 1 wound/model, Speed 2 with a red defense die, and can roll 1 black die at range 1-3. Without any offensive or defensive surges (or innate ways to get surge tokens - more on this, though, in the next section) and many of the same upgrade slots (Heavy Weapon, Gear, Grenades), I was certainly tempted to think that Phase Is were just better to get than these guys when I got started playing.

I usually just take the Heavy Weapon options on these guys - and Recon Intel/Smoke Grenades if I can fit it . . .
Photo Credit: Legion HQ

But this brings us into the differences between the two squad types - we'll start with the positives for Phase Is. The only upgrade slot that a Phase I Clone Trooper squad has that ARC Troopers lack is the Personnel slot, which means that a fully-manned Corps squad will have 6 models while a fully-manned ARC Troopers squad will have 5 models (or two models, as we'll see shortly). The extra wound is quite valuable, epsecially since that slot happens to be a personnel unit, which means it could have the option to heal friendly units with a Clone Medic/Engineer or pick up a Training/Comms/second gear slot from a Clone Captain/Comms Tech/Specialist respectively (all of which are on ARC Troopers).

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Rebel Officers

Hey Reader!

Following up on the Tauntaun Riders post, today we're looking at Rebel Officers, and I'm not gonna lie: I'm not writing this post based on how I've used them in the past (like I have the rest of the units I've reviewed so far), but instead as me externally processing why I've delayed buying this set. There are very few things recommending him to me, but there's a few things I've found appealing about him as I've been experimenting more with Echo Base Defenders, and that's what inspired this post. 

We will start with the profile analysis, then examine the units that synergize well with them, and then we'll discuss the tactical uses of the Rebel Officer, as I think he really only has two roles he fills, and making the most of those roles is very important. I've also named this post "Centaur Edition," because Tiberius may have wildly different thoughts from me, and I welcome that, because my thinking on him is purely theoretical and not based on actual usage.

I.  Stats: Budget Leia

From a stats perspective, the Rebel Officer is one of the weakest commanders out there, but he's also the cheapest one available to you. With only 4 Wounds and Courage 2 past a white defense dice, he's very easy to remove, and quite hard to keep alive, even with a card action for Take Cover 1.

Offensively he also struggles: a black and white die at Range 1-2 for his blaster attack is pretty much the weakest commander unit in the game, and while he has Sharpshooter 1 to help him get past cover, he's not likely to do more than 1 hit, so if you are firing at someone behind heavy cover (or soft cover with at least 1 suppression token) you are looking at a high likelihood of doing nothing despite having a Sharpshooter special rule. Which is not great: typically sharpshooter models are used to push enemies out of cover, and this one cannot do that with anything close to a reliable record.

Star Wars Legion Unit Review: Phase I Clone Troopers

Good morning gamers,

A while ago, I reviewed Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is the Commander you get in the Clone Wars Starter Set. Today, we're looking at the Corps units you receive in that set: the Phase I Clone Troopers. With lots of customization options and a HOST of competitive builds, I think these are some of the finest units in Legion right now. Let's see what's so great about these guys!

Phase I Clone Troopers: The Profile

Phase I Clone Troopers are my favorite profile in the Grand Army of the Republic, both aesthetically (I've always loved the look of an Episode II Clone army) and in-game. These guys are Corps units and like most Corps units, they begin with 4 minis and can add up to two additional minis (one Heavy Weapon, one Personnel). They have some pretty standard profile stats for Corps units - Speed 2, 1 wound/mini, Courage 1, and no innate surging (offense or defense).

Various Exemplar Phase I Configurations, ranging from 86-107pts each
Photo Credit: Legion HQ

Their offensive capabilities are fine - 1 black/mini in melee and 1 black/mini at range 1-3 (approx 2.0 hits/0.25 crits), which is nothing to write home about, but certainly not bad. On defense, these guys have a red die (again, with no surges), which is good for saving roughly half of the wounds you take if the dice are playing fair.

There are three things that make Phase I Clones really good: first, they cost 52 points and have seen no price modifications so far. This makes them more expensive than a lot of other Corps units, but not THAT much more expensive than other Corps units (only 1pt/mini more than Rebel Veterans, only 2pts/mini more than Pyke Syndicate Foot soldiers, 0.5pts/mini more expensive than Black Sun Enforcers, same cost as Shoretroopers, and almost 2pts/mini more than B2 Super Battle Droids or Geonosian Warriors). The only Corps units that cost more than Phase I Clone Troopers are Phase II Clone Troopers, who cost 2pts/mini more than them (we may get to these guys in a future post).

Top 10 Upgrades for Leia Organa

Hey Reader!

We took a look at Commander Luke a few weeks ago, and today we're looking at Leia Organa, my favorite Rebel Commander and a common sight in the tournament scene, both because her profile is very strong, and because she comes in the Echo Base Defenders battleforce.

We looked at her profile in a previous post, so you can see our discussion of her abilities, command cards, and tactical uses there. But today we will rank the command and tech upgrade options she has to see which are most effective combinations to make the most of our favorite princess.

We'll start with an honorable mention, mostly because it does technically work well with Leia, but it may prove to be a waste of points.

Honorable Mention: Lead by Example

Inspire is a great keyword, especially for armies that rely heavily on Core units with a suppression value of 1. Being able to keep suppression at a manageable level is very useful, especially if you can remove suppression tokens before a unit takes its turn (so there's less chance of them being suppressed when they activate).

And the other nice thing about this keyword is that it's free: it doesn't require an action to use (as you perform it at the end of your Rally step), doesn't require a Recover action to reactivate it, and doesn't require the affected unit(s) to perform a specific action on their turn to make the most of it: they can do whatever they want.

The issue with this upgrade is that it's 8pts to double the effect that Leia already has (as she already has Inspire 2), so the real question is how many units do you plan to have 1) within Range 1-2 of Leia when she activates, 2) that have suppression tokens on them, and 3) that need suppression tokens removed when she activates, without giving up potential cover bonuses before their activation.

So while this is a useful ability, I've found that in most cases Inspire 2 is perfectly serviceable. Inspire 4 is overkill, especially since it's one of the most expensive command upgrade options out there. And speaking of expensive command options...

Five Things I Like About Star Wars Legion

Good morning gamers,

Part of my drive to return to the cantina this year was to write some articles about Star Wars Legion. I spend most of my online writing talking about the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game by Games Workshop, but thanks to my son Gorgoroth and my good mate Centaur, I took the plunge early this year with Legion and I have to say that with about 20-30 friendly games under my belt, I feel like I have a few things I can safely say I like about the game. The more I've played, the more impressed I've become with the system - though no gaming system is perfect. Here's five of the things I've come to appreciate about Legion.

Love It #1: The Command Card System

I've played three Fantasy Flight Games (now acquired by Atomic Mass Games) Star Wars systems to date: Imperial Assault (which I love - see my previous work here on this blog), Armada (which I kinda know how to play - Rythbyrt and Centaur are the real Armada players), and Legion (which I also like, possibly more than Imperial Assault). In Imperial Assault, one player gets to go first on the first turn, then the "Initiative" token gets passed to the left, so if you're playing a four-player game, if you get to go first on the first round, you're probably not going first again during the rest of the game. This . . . usually isn't great. In Armada, two players alternate who gets to go first each round, which means you're guaranteed to go first over half the rounds. That's fine, but also gives you no opportunity to change that. 

Legion has an advantage over both of these systems in that players have a "deck" of Command Cards that they use to determine who gets to go first each round. Each deck is (usually) composed of two 1-pip cards, two 2-pip cards, two 3-pip cards, and one 4-pip card. Certain characters have command cards that can manipulate how many pips are on different cards (like having a 1-pip card that counts as a 3-pip card when building your deck, or having a 4-pip card that counts as a 3-pip card), but in the main, both players have the same basic tools as each other (though the specifics of each command card might be different).

Each round, players will pick a card to play - the higher the pips, the more powerful the card. However, the player who played fewer pips than the other player gets the first activation. This means timing your "1-pip" cards vs. your "3-pip" cards is a matter of skill and patience. While there are shenanigans that you can use to deal with ties (by having the Cunning or Interrogate keywords), the main thing that's going to determine who goes first is player skill (and if you tie, a random roll). I like this a lot better than what you get in the other two systems (which are more deterministic) and it also gives a bit more control than what you get in other gaming systems (like MESBG, which is my favorite tabletop game).

Top 10 Upgrades for Commander Luke

Hey Reader!

We're taking a break from unit reviews today to look at the top ten upgrade choices for Luke Skywalker (Commander version - we'll take a look at Operative Luke in a future post), as he 1) comes in the starter set, so he's pretty ubiquitous, but also 2) because as a force user there's a lot of interesting choices available to you due to force powers, but some of these are traps either because you're Rebels, and don't need the benefits of that ability, or because Commander Luke is the only major force user who doesn't have Master of the Force, so he has to take a Recover action to get those abilities back.

Since Commander Luke has 2 Force slots and 1 Tech slot, the top three are my recommended picks for his loadout. If you disagree, or think another option should be higher, let me know in the comments below!

And with no further ado, let's jump into the list! We'll start with an honorable mention that is situational, but when that situation comes up it's very useful, so I couldn't in good faith place it in the top ten.

Skirmish Upgrades: Extra Armor

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we talked about the Spectre Cell skirmish upgrade, and today, we're turning to one of my favorite upgrades (and one that was released with the Zeb and Sabine pack): Extra Armor. There's nothing fancy about this upgrade, but if it's added to the right team, it can be a GAME CHANGER. Let's see what it does and what kinds of models we want to use it with.

Extra Armor

For 1 point, you can distribute 4 Block Power Tokens (BPTs) at the start of the game. That's it. Yep, a start-of-game, one-time dump of defensive buffs. This may not seem like much, but there are a lot of ways that it can be helpful - the first of which is that it can make fragile-but-powerful units (glass cannons, as it were) just a bit more resilient. I talked about how BPTs are good on Ezra and Sabine last time (two characters who take most of the damage they receive, unless they can get a dodge on their white defense die), but any white die character who has a good combat profile is a good candidate. Even single black die models that have limited health and good combat stats can benefit from this.

Second, units that aren't able to generate power tokens love this upgrade. Since you can only have two power tokens at a time, models that generate their own power tokens aren't going to benefit from this upgrade as much, but any models that were released before Heart of the Empire are certainly good candidates (and even some who came afterwards benefit). The least useful units to benefit from this are certainly Riot Troopers, since they generate a BPT at the end of their turn if they don't have one already . . . and if they start with them, they're skipping out on a free BPT.

Third, units that have absolutely no defense dice LOVE having something they can throw in their defense. There aren't many units with no defense dice, but they do exist and they can even be pricey. Most of them also have good damage, so they're more of a glass cannon anyway than your usual glass cannon models.

This is simple enough, right? Okay, let's look at my top picks for this upgrade . . .