Legions Imperialis: First Look At The Rules
Games Workshop has pulled back the covers on some of the rules for Legions Imperialis. Get ready for an EPIC battle!
Today we’re getting some high level core concepts at the Legions Imperialis ruleset as well as some direct rules, too. This is good news for all of us who’ve been waiting for some more concrete details on how the game will play with those tiny miniatures. It’s not quite 40k and not quite old school EPIC either. But it certainly is interesting sounding!
Legions Imperialis is a game of monumental battles in the Age of Darkness, played out at an epic scale. Where many Warhammer games might be seen as a snapshot of a larger battle, this game shows the whole struggle in all its glory, as tank companies take on infantry battalions, and Titans walk in droves.
Legions Imperialis Rules Overview
Loyalist or Traitor?
The very first thing you need to do is decide: Loyalist or Traitor. This will determine your Allegiance and will impact your list building options. From there it’s on to building your army list with your Primary Army List. When you build your army you’ll have to spend 70% of your points on this “Primary Army List” option. GW also had this tidbit:
At present, this means either the Legiones Astartes or the Solar Auxilia, but other factions may join the fray in future…
I’m not saying I called it…but I did think there was room for expansions. Anyhow… after you’ve got your army picked you’re now going to build a 3000 point army for a standard game. The battlefield will be a 5′ x 4′ table, too. I do find it a funny they opted for a slightly smaller tabletop that the old school 6′ x 4′ but not as small as 10th edition board.
Formations and Detachments
There are two core concepts for list building your army here. Detachments are the main “building blocks” for your army. Think of them like units in 40k…but instead of a unit made of individual models, it’s a whole platoon of infantry or squadron of tanks.
Formations are strategic groupings of Detachments and are based on the Formation Organisation Chart.
“You must select at least one Formation from your Primary Army List for every 1,500 points of the agreed limit – so that’s (at least) two Formations at 3,000 points.”
In the above example we have a Legion Demi-Company. You can see we have Compulsory Detachments which you must include for this Formation and then we have sub-set of optional Detachments that you can also include. If you’ve been playing GW games for a long time this should feel very familiar…
Once you’ve got that sorted don’t forget you also have that 30% of your points you can spend on Allied Contingents. So don’t be shy about adding in some Knights or Titans if you’ve got spare points!
The Turn
Legions Imperialis games are split up into rounds. Within those rounds there are five phase as you can see above.
” The most important thing to know here is that both players act within each of these phases, taking it in turns to activate their Detachments in Initiative order, according to hidden Orders that have been pre-assigned.”
This is kind of a big deal! Using an initiative system means you can kind of plan out how fast your units will activate and also help predict what your opponent will do. Just keep in mind they are going to be doing the same thing…Get ready for some mind games!
Order Phase
“Using tokens placed face down next to their Detachments, players assign Orders simultaneously and in secret. Both players reveal their Orders once they’ve all been placed. There are four main Orders: First Fire, Advance, March, and Charge, plus Fall Back, which a unit can be assigned when they take heavy losses. “
So there you go! In Legions Imperialis you’re going to assigning orders which will be resolved based on Initiative and then you’ll get to watch the battle unfold. It’s not quite a “set and forget” game as you’ll still be interacting and rolling dice. But the order phase is a pivotal part of the game overall. There’s also the Initiative roll off which is going to determine who’s going get to activate their detachments first each round. Talk about a tense roll off!
Movement and Combat
“These two phases work in the same way: players take it in turns to resolve the relevant Order tokens by activating Detachments one by one. “
Because these phases are based on the Orders, let’s revisit what those do really quick
- Advance – allows both regular movement and shooting.
- March – double movement, but no shooting.
- Charge – either a single movement or a double movement if that second move gets the unit into base contact with the enemy.
- First Fire – cannot move but will shoot first.
- Fall Back – cannot move but will get a retreat move during the End Phase.
Now, as far as Combat and how that actually happens there’s three subphases: First Fire, Engagement, and Advancing Fire. First Fire units will get to shoot first, then Close Combat happens, then everyone else shoots. This will create some very interesting combat tempo in games and will probably take some getting used to but it sounds interesting for sure!
As far as shooting it’s going to feel very familiar to other games of Warhammer.
“Weapons have a range, an amount of dice to roll, a target number for the Hit roll, an Armour Penetration value, and Traits. Select a target in range, roll the right number of dice, and apply any modifiers to the roll. For each one that hits, the model gets a Save that can be modified. Traits are where extra variety happens – guns with the Light trait cannot hurt heavy tanks, for instance, while Assault weapons are more powerful up close – ensuring everything has a niche.”
You read that correctly, there’s no Strength vs Toughness roll in this game. It’s just rolling to hit then rolling saves. Failed saves mean you take wounds. As far as close combat things get even deadlier:
“The system harks back to the epic scale games of yore, in which individual models are paired off against each other. Then they make Fight rolls, rolling off with 2D6 and adding their Close Assault Factor (CAF) to the roll. Models get a bonus if they charged, and the loser takes a Wound, no Saves allowed…”
Additionally, outnumbered models will still have to fight those extra foes but the enemy will get to roll an extra D6 for every time they fought! That means eventually even the most elite units will be take out in close combat.
Well that’s all the info we have so far. What are you thinking of the Legions Imperialis rule previews?
