Star Wars LEGION: An Elegant Expansion for A More Civilized Age
Legion is going to the Clone Wars.
Last week when writing about the one year anniversary of Star Wars Legion I said that the most important thing the game needed going forward was more faction. Since they had already hinted at Clone Wars factions back at GenCon last year, I predicted we’d get an announcement on Clone Wars stuff for Legion soon. Here we are, a week later, and we’ve got that announcement. Man, FFG really is responsive these days, if I had known it was this easy I’d have asked months ago! (While we are at it, can we get something for Armada? Oh, you also announced that? Well thanks then!) Anyway, lets take a look a what we know so far.
Before The Empire, Before The Dark Times
Kicking off the Clone Wars is a new starter set for Legion, feature Clone Troopers and CIS Droids. This is not a replacement for the normal core set, but an alternate one and comes with everything needed to play the game. The set is not a new edition or anything and it does not appear the core rules are changing at all. The new set does appear to have to have some alternate art for common cards, like the basic command cards, so collectors may like it for that alone.
The real star of the set is the models. On the Republic side the set come with two squads of Phase I Clone Troops (think the armor from Attack of the Clones) a Clone BARC Speeder with sidecar(!) and of course General Obi-Wan. Because who else would it be? For the Separatists you get two squads of B-1 Battle Droids, which come in 9 model sets, the largest we’ve seen. You also get a unit of two Droidekas (Destroyer Droids) which seem to have alternate models for when they are moving or shooting. Lastly the “fearsome” General Grievous leads the CIS forces, and in a mark of how far Legion has come you get three different options for how to build him. In addition to unit, upgrade and command cards the set comes with barricades as well, useful both for playing Legion and stop motion recreations of Les Mis.
Hello There!
From the actual starter set we know next to nothing about unit stats or abilities. We do know that Obi-Wan gets a command card titled “Hello There!” after his most famous line. Thought the starter set is keeping its secrets, for now, we did get an additional announcement. In a move that should not surprise anyone both the B-1s and Phase I troopers are being released as stand alone sets. This announcement did give us a letter better look at what the units are capable of.
B-1’s are cheap, 6 points a model, come in large units, up to 8, and have pretty much the worse stats you can have. That’s not very surprising, as your basic B-1 squad has trouble dealing with unarmed Gungans. The squad does have the ability to take some decent looking heavy weapons, so that may be the key to them. On top of that they can coordinate with other Droid Troopers, they do well in large pacts after all. They’ve also got a new rule “AI:attack” which can force the unit to attack if your not actively issuing them other orders. Overall I think they captured the B-1s well. Left unsupported and to their own devices they wont accomplish much, but support then and have some people giving them orders and they can become quite deadly.
In contrast to B-1’s Phase I Clone Troopers are the most elite corps unit in the game. They combine the armor of Imperial Stormtroopers with the firepower of Rebel troops. They pay a lot for this, but can be quit deadly. They’ve got the ability to take a heavy weapon as well as an extra trooper. Most importantly their special rule Fire Support can in effect allow two friendly units to combine their fire into one attack. This looks like it let you get dice pools of 20 or more (using the Z-6 Troopers) and is great for overwhelming enemy defences.
The War Has Just Begun
It’s an exciting time to be a Legion player. The announcements we just got are clearly just the tip of the iceberg. If they follow the initial release schedule well soon see announcements for stand alone boxes for both the Destroyer Droids and BARC speeder, followed up by some heavy units for each side (please be a LAAT, please be a LAAT). Either way I’m very excited to see whats coming. I’ve written before on what CIS and Republic, and even unaligned, units I’d like to see added, I can’t wait to see which ones make the cut. From what we’ve seen FFG has done a great job so far of capturing the character of the two armies, but in rules and models ,and it will only get better from here.
Let us know if you are excited for the Clone Wars, down in the comments!
