Rebels take on the rules reference

Posted on November 24, 2020November 24, 2020 by jocke01

So a lot of stuff has been happening with legion recently. Lead designer is gone, AMG is taking over and we got a new rules reference with tons of new points and changes. I was gonna make an article about tips and tricks, but with all the stuff going on I decided to share my thoughts on the new points and erratas. Enjoy 😊.

Neutral cards
Big things here is aggressive tactics going up from 10-15. Rebels have few units that need surges and we don’t have that same order control of CIS or the empire, nor the token sharing of Clones. So for rebels It’s nice to see this staple card getting an increase since it’s very powerful.

Force reflexes going down to 5 is a surprise as it’s IMO mandatory on Luke and Vader. Having that extra dodge for deflect is such a huge boost in defence. Battle meditation and force guidance is also cheaper. With the coming card force barrier, I see force users being able to take a more support role in armies, all though Luke is still gonna be point and click lightsaber missile in most cases

Environmental gear and grappling hooks got dropped to 2 and 1 respectively wich is natural since the new ascension cables are out for only 4 points doing both their effect but better even with the exhaust drawback. Easier to fit these things in on some special forces units or corps when u got extra points. Emergency stims went from 8 to 12 and now back to 10. A middle ground and probably a good place for a good card. Not really as impactful as it used to be due to the increase in firepower and other defence upgrades, but a nice thing to drop on some key units that often gets close to the enemy for a potential extra activation. Han, Jyn, Chewie, Sabine and more will enjoy the point decrease.

Lastly I can’t remember if grenades and generators got decreased last time or if it was this time. Grenades aren’t used that much by rebels in my experience, but barrage generator is pretty nice on a fd cannon with linked targeting array.

Rebel specific cards
Jedi mind trick got changed from range 1-2 to range 1. I pretty much only use it on jedi Luke for his 1 pip card all though it had the potential to put out 4 suppression on a unit to make em panic in a last first activation with Luke. Since it now can’t touch operatives and got limited to range 1 I think it’s only worth using with Luke if you pick his new 1 pip card.

Sabines darksaber and combat shield got reduced to my surprise. The darksaber is nice, but hard to use since Sabine lacks charge. However it gives her both immune pierce against melee and dauntless with is an amazing ability for an operative with 2 courage. If you have a commander with 3 courage (cough Jyn cough) and strict orders it will allow Sabine to get move-attack or move-arm despite starting her activation with 6 suppression (with faceup order ofc). Granted if you need the points elsewhere you can skip it, but for only 15 points dauntless is worth it alone. Shield isn’t amazing on a unit with such a solid defence, but not bad to help against sniper dmg, being reduced makes it more reasonable when compared to e-stims.

Landspeeder got all of its big weapons reduced. With the new transport open rules, I can see it coming back into rebel lists. Transporting Han, Leia or even Luke forward in style. Perhaps Lando will have synergy with vehicles and be a good choice to ride along. However I think I won’t deck out the landspeeder with more than the medium blaster If I’m gonna go with transporting a wip. The units can be shot and shoot out of the transport, but they gain heavy cover. Solo could use the speed boost forward and don’t worry about suppression slowing him down. Leia can combine with Chewie in order to use his brains and brawn card easier. Since her weapon is range 2 and Chewie is range 3, Leia could use a speed boost and her pistol with sharpshooter 2 is also very good so she can ride shotgun and do drivebyes.

If this becomes the new meta, Im happy 🙂

At-rt laser cannon got reduced to 10 and the airspeeder harpoon dropped to 0. The laser cannon have a hard time when not facing enemy vehicles so I like that it got dropped. Only 65p is a steal and even though rotary is gonna be the best due to it being effective to most targets, a cheap at-rt is nice. At least you aren’t paying as much for the laser in the gamble of facing enemy armor. At-rt snipers from the early days of legion might come back as 3 of them is only 195p. The harpoon being free is good since the ground buzzer is far superior, but if you don’t wanna pay the points you still get a rear arc weapon. While managing a harpoon pivot is a fun thing to do, it’s incredible hard to pull off since it’s only 1 die and can be saved against and of course it’s very weak vs vehicles in cover.

Bistan got dropped in points and both Bistan and Pao gained 2hp. A nice boost for pathfinders that alot of people argued for since the clan wren box came out. This also opens up for future mini characters to be added to squads.

Most rebel corp units heavy weapons and personel got dropped in points. Heavy weapon wise I don’t think much will change except that the ion gun is down to 18 and actually cheaper than the Z-6. Could be worth using one if more heavies are being used. The fleet trooper grenade launcher is down to the same cost as the scattergun, but without cycle I don’t know if it’s worth it. Rebel captain, officer, trooper is gonna be more attractive with the point drop since they were good options before the drop. Rebel veteran is down to 9 so it’s the same as coms specialist. Depends if you want hq uplink on them or not. Rebel specialist is still pretty meh, but you can take him + environmental gear and grappling hooks for a very mobile objective securing unit. The big surprise is the veteran heavy weapon that is down to 26p and got range 4!
This is great news for rebel veterans who can now throw 4 white dice with critical 2 on range 4. Sadly this makes fleet troopers even more obsolete despite their point decrease.

Wedge got dropped to 1 points wich is pretty funny. Auto include on a single airspeeder since a free pivot for 1p is an absolute steal.

Rebel units
Chewie got another 5 point drop and gained scale and lethal on meele. He was good and now he is even better. I doubt lethal will have that much use since he has no good way of getting aim tokens unless you play him with Han and the units that can tank his pool of red dice often have imperivous or immune pierce anyway, but It’s a nice little boost.

Fleets got dropped to 40. However they needed much more than that so they won’t do much wonder outside of skirmish I fear. I might try them out in some lists though.

Both Jyn and Han got dropped to 100p. Jyn is a big surprise since she was recentlt dropped to 110 from 130p. Granted her defence isn’t the greatest despite danger sense, but 100p is crazy for a courage 3 commander. A big reduction for Sabine Jyn combo this time. Han could have used a 30p decrease, but at least he is cheaper. His defence is meh since low profile isn’t doing much, uncanny luck is also pretty meh compared to danger sense 4 as you get to roll the dice even on 1 hit attacks, while re-rolls can’t be used on the same dice. He also has a hard time of doing much with his pistol since he can only kill 1 model in heavy cover per attack and his courage is a real handicap. His command cards are great, but with Jyn being the same cost there isn’t that much that speaks for Solo sadly. Still at least he is cheaper than before and he boosts Chewie.

Jedi Luke got 5p off wich is weird since he is a beast of a unit, boosted with situational awareness I expected a point increase. 5p from his cost and reflexes down 5 makes my Jedi Luke 10p cheaper wich is an unexpected surprise.

Both rebel commandos and rebel pathfinders got a 10p drop. I still think commandos needs something more since I still think snipers or pathfinders being the best in the special slot along with the new mando’s. However a normal commando squad is at least cheaper for use. I was hoping for a boost to low profile to help han and commandos, but no such “uncanny” luck.

Wookies got scale and a new keyword wich so far does nothing. They got duelist so they gain extra boost when using dodge and aim tokens in meele. However unless you use offensive push they have a hard time getting these tokens while moving into close combat. They got dropped in points, but not much. I was hoping for 5p per wookie, but we got 2p. The bowcaster got 4p drop. Sadly while they are better than before the same problem remains. Expensive in a competitive slot (special forces), they’ve lack a meele heavy weapon and lose models fast with a ⅙ save. Hopefully they do something with wookie trooper to help them further.

Airspeeder and landspeeder dropped in base cost. The airspeeder is now down a total 40p, gained surge-crit, -10p on weapons, wedge is almost free and it’s immune to range 1 weapons. I think it’s finally on the level it needs to be. The landspeeder is still very fragile, but at least it’s not as expensive anymore. The ion shark is now down to 137p.

X-34
Ion blaster
Rocket girl
Ryder
Hq uplink
Just slow roll with speed 1 comp, fire and then recover. High impact and ion does a big dent in armor units.

If we start to see more heavies with this recent change as well as droidekas being cheaper I think this is a valid choice. It’s only 7p more than 2 laser at-rt and you get the ion effect.

Tauntauns and R2 got a point increase. Secret mission is very powerful and this is a fair increase wich makes it a little higher investment especially if you add on 3P0. Tauntauns got a higher price on situational awareness wich I think is amazing on them. With these changes combined they are 101p with that upgrade and it reflects their power level better. Being 4 wounds a head with 2 dodges most activations and doing 5 actions they are very powerful for being a trooper unit. The new point cost fits that better. Also they no longer gain dodges from moves anymore instead from move actions. So no more triple dodges from Leia’s no time for sorrows. A fair change and it opens up tauntauns for use without Leia.

Lastly the generic rebel officer got 5p cheaper. It shaves off even more point for my double airspeeder list ^^.

Other changes
The mark 2 medium blaster emplacement trooper got an extra wound. This is something I have been talking since it released. Being stuck with a cumbersome range 3 weapon it was very much in the line of fire unlike it’s empire counterpart. I think it used to be the most fragile unit in the game with 3hp and ⅓ save. 4 hits and you got a ⅔ chance of it dying. Being 2p more than the mortar was just salt in the wound. This with the range increase for the veterans weapon really boosts their place on the battlefield as a mini special forces choice.

Sabotaged communications is still hard to get a good use from, but now it reduced the amount of orders from the card to 1 instead of by 1. A small, but welcome change. The empires card was in a much worse state and finally got useful. Son of Skywalker was just a clarification if I understand it correctly.

Conclusion
Rebels got a lot of changes this time around and IMO for good reason as several units were either too highly priced, poorly designed or just weaker than their competition in their slots. The fact that 5/6 unit cards that have been errata:ed was rebel speaks for their problems.

The winners are Jyn erso, Sabine, veterans pathfinders and the airspeeder. Jyn erso dropped in a whopping 30points giving her lists much more to play with. I think she is gonna be most popular or top 2 popular commander going forward for that nice courage bubble and flexible battlefield role. Sabines equipment got 15p cheaper if you take both and she was already strong with the addition of situational awerness. Veterans range increase and extra wound on their detachment is huge. Finally pathfinders a solid, but potential fragile unit got a decrease and extra wounds on their leaders. I think all these 4 (5 with emplacement) units will get alot more table time in the future. The airspeeder got even more cheaper than before and finally offensive surge to put it’s red and black dice on point. Being surge – crit is gonna be a huge dmg boost if you use targeting array. Also with speeder comp move now being either at start of end of the activation it’s gonna be much easier to double tap units or get targets in both arcs.

Jedi Luke, rebel troopers, generic officer and chewbacca were already good, but the decrease at least future proofs them a bit. Hopefully more people will see the potential and keep using these. I can’t complain on these.

However Han Solo, fleet troopers, wookies and to some extent the landspeeder needed a little more than point decreases. Fleets got cheaper but so did rebel troopers, and their other competition veterans got buffed. They still have a hard time outside skirmish games. Han solo got a big decrease, but he still suffers from low courage and meh offense with 2 dice and sharpshooter 1 even with gunslinger. With Jan ors and Cassian in the same point range he is still the weaker option. However at least Chewie and Han are stronger and cheaper together. Commandos are in similar place. They got good offense and are a bit cheaper however compared to the new pathfinders I don’t see the point. I rather have infiltrate than scout, rather danger sense over low profile and pathfinders have more flexible weapons. They aren’t bad as in unplayable, but compared to your other choices they are the weaker choice. A change in low profile or a possible Han Solo Commandos combo like sabines has with clan wren or entourage kind of ability could push them over the line. Lastly wookies are a little bit better, but so are it’s competition and I think we have to wait for something with the wookie trooper keyword to make them more attractive as a choice. Don’t take this as a complete sawing of these units as they still work, they just aren’t as flexible or powerful as other choices in their unit slot IMO. The landspeeder I think we have to wait and see if the new transport rule will be powerful or just jank. It’s an ok weapon platform vs armor, but otherwise I think double rotary at-rt is the better choice.

The units that got nerfs/increases were both justified with tauntauns and R2 as the action economy, mobility, durability and firepower of tauntauns are so strong for their points and R2 for bringing so much with secret mission, repair and command cards for his low cost.

Rebels comes out swinging from his rules reference and we probably won’t see another big change for at least 6 months and quite possibly not for another year. Hopefully we see some expansion that does something with wookie troopers and maybe Lando gets a command card that can work with vehicles.

For our enemies the clones got turned down a peg with point increases and loss of standby sharing. Some units did need slight increases compared to rebel and empire counterparts, but the standby sharing never felt too strong for me. Granted I never played any online tournaments were it’s probably easier to create this big standby chain.

Empire got some love for their heavies especially the occupier since it’s now a more proper transport instead of a deathtrap. Shore troopers got a small increase with focus on the amazing t-21b heavy weapon, maybe we get to see more stormies and snows instead of endless shorelines. Very excited to see the huge drop on Boba, his command cards are still a little weak compared to the new stuff that sprinkles on tokens with every order, but at least we will see him again.

CIS can now use the tank as a commander, moving past their expenive commander tax. We might start seeing higher activation lists from them as well as more droidekas. Glad that all rebel ion weapons got reduced in points. I think they will benefit alot from the coming specialist box.

Get ready to hear this alot from CIS players ^^

With the recent news it’s impossible to tell the future of the game. However with the new units coming out and this major patch that fixed alot of stuff, but not all I think the game is in a very good spot. I just hope the new team will build from the solid foundation and not throw the bantha out with the bathwater. Also hopefully this covid nightmare can’t end soon enough so I can get more games in.

Let me know your thoughts down in the comments and speak up what you want to see coming up. Now I have to rework all my lists of you excuse me.

Uncategorized, Unit Analysis

Rebels, meta and moving forward

Posted on August 17, 2020August 19, 2020 by jocke01

Rebels, meta and moving forward

So it’s been a while since I posted something. Covid has shut down my local playing group, cancelled tournaments and stopped shipping to some extent. However with people dying it doesn’t feel right to complain about my plastic figures, but it has dampened my interest for legion a bit since I didn’t get to play for a long while. I don’t like playing on a tabletop simulator, but now I have been playing a few games in real life again and doing some painting and list building. I decided it was time to start posting again and here is a general rebels meta analysis article about my thoughts moving forward.

First I wanted to try out the unit tier list on this link https://tiermaker.com/create/star-wars-legion-unit-ranking-513478. Below is my explanation
of my choices:

First addendum is that both the rebel and imperial strike teams should be placed at S tier due to the incredible advantage of activation padding, long range pierce and suppression dmg as well as extra bodies for objective holders for less than 50p each.

S-tier
A lot of new operative/commanders here. So what makes them S tier and not A tier? Well Krennic and Rex are incredibly powerful at supporting and leading their armies with a low cost. Krennic’s cunning, command cards, entourage and compel makes him very good at any kind of imperial list and helps to control last/first activation as well as objective capturing with compel, making 3 suppressed corp troopers capable of double move or move – shoot. Rex is perfect for creating tokens to share for clones, capable in his own right and the command card that gives units increased range is brutal for alpha strikes. Dooku is another type. He feels like you took the best from Palpatine, Krennic and Luke. He is expensive in points, but combining cunning, extremely powerful command cards with a mobile lightsaber user that can ignore immune pierce and you got yourself a monster unit. You pay for it, but IMO he is the gold standard of sith units in this game now. Cad bane is maybe placed to high as he can’t be paired with a cheap commander yet, however if CIS get’s one I think he will be an amazing operative. His command card “I’m in control” is gonna be very powerful card to stop enemy units capping objectives and steady with speed 2 jump combined with bounty hunter is gonna be a game winner I believe, since he can either chase down a target with double move – shoot or move – shoot – jump behind los terrain. Moving on to Sabine and Luke, both units are what you want in an operative IMO. Very mobile, very durable, hard hitting and enemy disruption. The one weakness Luke has is that you need a commander with him, so at least 50p atop his own 200p for just 2 models. Sabine has courage 2, but with enough inspire and her 2 pip card that gives her a free recover action, she can often work around it. Both units are a threat that your opponent often can’t ignore, but at the same time will be the tankiest unit in your list especially with the new situational awareness card (more on that later). R2-D2 is maybe not incredible on his own at defeating stuff, but 35 points for secret mission is a game winner. Just deploy him alone somewhere and move towards the enemy deployment zone. Either you get 1 victory token or you gained a 35p distraction and activation that will force your opponent to dump a lot more points than 35 into stopping it. Lastly I put Shoretroopers and Tauntans at S tier. Shoretroopers have knocked Stormtroopers of the table with their free aim, black dice rifles and the best corp heavy weapon in the game the T21-B. These guys combined with their mortar and aggressive tactics gives you order control, powerful and accurate shots even at range 4 and very good durability for any return shots. They are so good that they exceed all other corp units so far IMO (I have only seen p2 once so they might compete). Tauntauns have been talked to death, but their power is still the same. Very mobile, good at both shooting and close combat. This combined with an unrivaled action economy of 5 possible actions in one turn makes them an excellent choice for rebels. Their weakness is critical weapons and standby, one is gonna be fixed soon however.

“Don’t mind me, look at that juicy tauntaun over there” Translated from beepboop.

A-tier
I won’t go into the same detail on all of these units. However they are all very Good units that Will perform well in most cases. What keeps them from S tier is either point cost or weaknesses. These units are really good though and some of the clone units might make it into s tier when I get the chance to play more against them. I think R2 with 3P0 is still good, but I think you use it more as a support activation than a secret mission unit. Each time you calculate some odds you aren’t moving into the enemy zone.

B-tier
Alot of vehicles here and this is because of how vehicles and single non-trooper activations are unfavoured in the objectives of this game. They aren’t bad units, but their value is either dealing dmg, tanking dmg or both. However you can often get special forces or operatives units that do the same, but better or cheaper and capable of taking objectives. The non vehicle units here are often good units, but they either suffer from bad defence, bad offense or their role is just filled by a better similar unit.

C-tier
Here I placed some stuff that are showing signs of early release sickness where some rules weren’t designed yet or done poorly. Some also suffer from a high point cost in relation to their effectiveness. Not saying the units are bad, but they are either using outdated tricks, competing for valuable slots or are begging for an update or point reduction. The rebel laser cannon and officer are perhaps misplaced, but I feel the cannon needed the range 5 rule to even work properly, but rebels just don’t favour standstill gunlines and the Sentinel keyword is pretty pointless now. Same with dewback that wants to be up close, while most empire units wanna stay at range, the units themselves aren’t that terrible, but they aren’t competitive enough to be taken over other support units. They could use some units to work with to really shine. Good in a vacuum, ok at the table. Rebel officer just to show that I feel the empire one is stronger with spotter to combine with electro binoculars and red defense.

D-tier
Now we are talking about bad units. Barc speeder is a weird one. It’s expensive, can do some damage and doesn’t work well with the clone token sharing ball. It is very misplaced in the clone army and I think it will see little use once the clone at-rt is here. Not a terrible unit, but weird design. Wookies, my poor wookies. They are 25p per model with white surgeless defence, but at least they got 3 hp. Their keywords are all about moving forward, but they should have gotten scale if they were released today and when they get in Close, their 2 black dice isn’t very scary. Their heavy weapon option is designed for shooting, but their shooting is worse than their melee so a close combat unit is often just the 3 base models and they will rarely get into close combat at full strength. They need help with defence, a close combat heavy weapon and a point reduction wouldn’t hurt.

F-tier
This should be for units that get’s outclassed in their unit type, struggle to be effective and have anti synergy. Fleet troopers were cool back when there wasn’t much released. Looking at them though shows what a raw deal they got. 1p more per model than rebel troopers and they lose nimble and range 3 guns. They gained surge-hit and 2 white instead of 1 black that seems fair in a vacuum. However with white defence and surge they will lose bodies fast and often stuck with move – move or move – shoot as actions that are very hard to keep up with courage 1. The grenade launcher is such an anti synergy weapon that even the point reduction didn’t help it. It needs recover to reload which you don’t have time for and range 3 doesn’t line up with their range 2 pistols. Blast is great, but poorly combined with impact. Standby keyword gives you an aim for using standby, but who will walk into range 2 of your fleets instead of just shooting them? They are designed for fighting Stormtroopers inside a ship or a terrain heavy 3*3 table, that’s not what standard legion is played on so rebel troopers or veterans will take their spot for me 99% of the time these days with so much powerful firepower ready to attack them at range 4. Their scattergun is amazing though. Scout troopers are in the same boat, with worse save than their other corp counterparts and range 2 guns, as well as the sniper strike team being so much point efficient.

I can’t speak for everyone everywhere, but in my experience the current meta is supporting commanders with powerful operatives. Special forces is the most important slot outside of corps where it’s powerful units like death troopers or sniper strike team spam. The new releases will make this spot even more crowded. Then you fill out with cheap corps. Rebels have tauntauns as a powerhouse unit and the clones have their new phase 2 troopers and arc troopers with supporting rex and padme. There are still a lot of units that aren’t bad, but there exist better options for them in their slot. I feel like vehicles and older units are in a weird spot where they aren’t bad on paper, but other units take their place. Newer operatives have so many options and their command cards don’t just bring small stuff anymore but shower the units in tokens, actions and abilities that the old timers like Boba Fett and Han Solo can’t keep up with. I wished for objectives to be released that give some favours to heavy units and or support units to make them more valuable in the game.

The Future of Warfare

With new expansions coming in and some soon to be revealed I’m sure, we can only speculate on future stuff. However I think I have some ideas for future rebels. With vital assets being out and currently most objectives and conditions favouring troopers, I don’t see rebel heavies having a big role in most lists. What will be popular is special forces. We are getting Clan Wren who looks to be a hard hitting, fast moving unit with potential of having the best defence outside operatives/commander units in the rebel army. These, as well as commandos and pathfinders will be getting help from the Cassian Andor expansion. Especially the card “volunteer mission” is gonna be great for pathfinders giving them a free recover action and more danger sense. I think a list with cassian, jyn and k2 supported by pathfinders/strike teams can do very well. Just add the necessary 3 corp units and whatever upgrades you can afford.

The next thing that will change the rebellion is situational awareness. Dodge tokens have been a paper shield vs all the critical weapons out there, however this card gives a cheap access to outmaneuver. I would have prefered making outmaneuver standard rule for dodges, but we work with what we got. It’s limited to units with training slot, but it will be awesome for:
Luke (operative)
Han Solo
Cassian
Sabine
Rebel troopers (with captain personnel)
Rebel veterans
Tauntauns

Okey option for:
Chewbacca
Commandos
Wookies

Not an option for:
Jyn
Pathfinders

So with this situational awareness we focus on any sources of dodge tokens. Luke and Leia are both great for dodges. Luke gains from a lot of his command cards and operative Luke is gonna be a juggernaut with this upgrade. Leia can with the new upgrade portable scanner give 3 dodges each turn and a rebel officer can be a mini Leia for 56p. Sabine with her nimble keyword is gonna love this upgrade as long as someone gives her a dodge the turns outside of “legacy of mandalore”. Han Solo and Chewie with their teamwork can get some mileage out of this as well, don’t know if it will be enough for him to make a comeback, but fun to try out.

“There isn’t enough life on this rock to fill a space cruiser”

Rebel veterans are perfect for this, with their keyword defend 1. They lack nimble, but as long as you can get some orders they become much more resilient. I have seen my veterans lose half their squad with 2 dodges up far too many times. Rebel troopers lack the training slot, but I’m gonna have a Z-6 + rebel captain squad with situational awareness in most of my future lists. 1 turn ignore suppression and nimble dodges that work on crits for just 6p more than a standard trooper is a nice deal.

Some units like commandos or wookies can use this situational awareness, but they lack nimble or any way of getting dodges outside their actions. One unit that is gonna love it however is tauntauns. They wisely added the +4 point cost for support units and I wouldn’t have been surprised if it would be restricted to non creature troopers only. Getting outmaneuver on a unit that often receive 2 dodge tokens per turn is a steal for 6p and they will be even better than before with this. High velocity will still cut them down though.

Lastly in this article I wanted to mention som example of list archetypes I’m gonna test for rebels moving forward. Some might work out well, some might just be thematic and fun.

Return of the Jedi
I have two variants here, but they are both the same concept with Luke main piece and 10 activations. The difference is one is going with 3 strike team cheese and one is going with at-rt support. The at-rt can be fitted with laser cannons if you expect a lot of armor or flamers for big swarms of battle droids. I go ⅚ Luke command cards with covering fire as the second 3 pip for more dodges and order control to the corps. Operative Luke is a beast and these lists will let him go nuts.

Leia Dodgeball
Leia trying to maximize the new dodge upgrades. She can move and give out 3 dodges a turn, tauntauns and veterans will get dodges on their own and it will be frustrating for your opponent to deal any high amount of dmg. Feels strong in theory, but might be impractical or jank. Tauntauns + awareness + no time for sorrows is gonna be powerful though.

Han&Chewie Saboteurs
Old fun list of mine updated. Han and Chewie will try to be a distraction with Han’s command cards and Chewie’s guardian. In the meantime the commandos will try and place as many charges as possible. Situational awareness will boost Han’s survivability a bit and you can get some dodge tokens with teamwork. These days there is so much firepower but “reckless diversion” will make Han a pretty solid tank with low profile, dodges from Chewie and the officer as well as uncanny luck.

Rouge One
Might actually be time to buy a second Pathfinder box. Jyn and Cassian have a ton of synergy with them already with their command cards and together Jyn, Cassian and K2 can probably be a pretty strong team.

Double Airspeeder
Been playing with the airspeeder a bit after the Wedge errata and I think it’s ok at least. It has done some decent damage, but one doesn’t quite cut it and combining it with a landspeeder didn’t work that well. This list is betting on the speeders. Double ground buzzer and targeting array, keeping orders on them as much as possible for extra aims. Comp move + move shoot or aim shoot, with Wedge and Ryder helping the maneuvers so you can get as many double shots as possible. Might not win tournaments, but will probably surprise a lot of opponents that expect few vehicles from rebels.

Jyn + Wren Clan.
I think Sabine and Jyn make a great team and with the new Clan Wren coming in, I think we can have a strong new rebel list coming.

So that was my article about the current legion thought in my mind. It was kinda tricky finding a good name for it and speaking of tricky. I think my next article will be tips and tricks. Stuff I picked up over the years or stuff I just learned last week. Stay tuned.

Battle report

Alphaspel Prime Tournament Statistics 29/2

Posted on March 14, 2020 by jocke01

The 29/2 I attended the Alphaspel Legion Prime tournament in Stockholm. I wanted to do some analysis and check the current meta and how different factions and units performed in the tournament, as well as checking any trends of fun obeservations. I will also post a tournament report from my point of view. We were a total of 20 players

First we have a look at factions:

Since Seperatists and Republic are so new, it’s no suprise that they are fewer. Almost half the players played Empire though.

Next we check win ratio of the factions. Empire did well, but about as many wins as losses. Rebels did handle themself the best and both seperatists and republic didn’t do as well. Not suprised that the new factions didn’t do overall well, however republic had a real struggle.

How many of each faction made it to the top 8. Pretty even overall, with rebels just a tiny bit more effective.

Next I checked how many of each commander was represented. Interesting note: No Emperor nor commander Luke. Luke is understandable with the new operative out, but not a single Emperor in a majority empire turnout.

Veers was the most popular commander, however he didn’t do to well.

Top 5 effective commanders. Rebel officer and Vader was very effective. Han Solo is an anomoly since only one person played him, but effective nonetheless.

How about operatives. Interesting note: 75% of top 8 played with and operative, but only 45% of all players did.

How good did they work?

Bossk went undefeated in the tournament which is interesting to note, don’t mess with the Bossk man. R2-D2 did not work out that well and the rest had a 2/1 win ratio.

Lastly I want to add some notes I found:
The average activations of the top 8 was 9.375 while the average overall was 9.2. So activations wasn’t that big a factor and it looks like 9 is the standard. Fun fact one of the undefeated lists was 8 activations.

There was no Rebel heavies but a total of 6 empire. 5 at-st and 1 occupier. 1 at-st represented in top 8.

The was no
Wookies
Fleet troopers
Luke commander
Palpatine
Boba
Operative Vader
Dewbacks.

The most represented unit was sniper strike teams with a total off 21 sniper teams, with average of 1.05 per player. Still the most important unit besides the mandatory corps.

Unit Analysis

Sabine wren unit analysis

Posted on March 10, 2020 by jocke01

Sabine wren unit analysis

Yeah, hehe. Blow stuff up! “Zeb Orrelios”

Sabine wren is the second operative released for the rebel alliance and is a main character in the TV show star wars rebels. She is an ex bounty hunter, who attented the imperial academy while being a mandalorian in an important clan as well as a practiced demolition expert and gunslinger. How did they got all that into on character, I don’t know. However this translates in game to an operative that can do a bunch of different things. So this analysis will go over her rules and options as well as some build options as well as lists and command card building.

Unit options and abilities

Sabine costs 125 points and have a training, armament and two gear options. She has 5 hp and 2 courage and the impressive red defence dice with surge-block as well as surge-crit for attack. She got rainbow guns with one of each die with pierce that she can shoot at two different targets with gunslinger. To help increase her great defence she has the nimble keyword along with impervious allowing her to gain extra use from dodge tokens as well as rolling extra defence dice when facing pierce weapons. As if that wasn’t enough her speed is 3 and she got jump 2 wich make her the most mobile non vehicle unit in the rebel alliance.

If only they couldfit more keywords there

Upgrade cards

Her first slot to cover is training and that is a powerful category with alot of options. So I will start with the ones I don’t recommend:

Duck and cover since she already has a strong defence and with courage 2, suppression will be a problem. Overwatch, Sabine is very mobile and will most likely move around every round, she won’t do alot of standby actions and her weapons won’t reach anyway.

The rest are all good choices:

Hunter is a good upgrade for any unit, free aims when attacking wounded units like commanders, creatures and emplacements. Hunter gives extra value on gunslinger since you can either get aim on both attacks or do a attack on a wounded target for the free aim and save the aim for the second attack. Offensive push is a free aim on a move action and only 4 points. The drawback is the exhaust to use it, so you will have to keep it for one crucial turn or spend actions recovering. Tenacity might seem stupid on a shooting operative, but this is more of an insurance thing. With only 2 black dice as a melee attack, Sabine can get engaged and then you have 2 options: Stay and fight with an attack that’s weaker than a rebel trooper squad or spend an entire activation to withdraw. Tenacity gives you an extra dice with ⅞ hits on it as long as sabine is wounded and will help you fight your way out. Endurance is the last current option and it allows you to remove a suppression at the end of your activation, since Sabine is only courage 2, this is a decent option to help you avoid having suppression tokens left into next round.

The darksaber

Sabine have the option to bring along the darksaber. It’s an important mandalorian artefact that is a lightsaber, but it’s black. Sadly it’s not as powerful as most other sabers currently in game, but it gives Sabine the option to go toe to toe with jedi, sith and crazy four armed cyborgs alike. It’s a 5 black dice melee weapon with impact and pierce 1 giving you an average of 2-3 dead stormtroopers per attack. While it’s not much compared to the real sabers, it does boost her melee combat almost threefold. However the saber is more than just a big stick, it gives Sabine immune pierce in melee as well as dauntless. While impervious helps vs pierce, being immune makes a big difference vs the large saber attack pools with pierce as high as 3. Dauntless is also worth gold on Sabine due to the fact that she lacks abilities like charge or relentless and much like Han Solo is very dependent on move – shoot or move – attack. Dauntless lets you do a move action as long as you are suppressed, but not panicked. I find that the darksaber is more important now than ever since each faction have 1-2 powerful lightsaber units at their disposal.

Gear

Again let’s start by removing the bad choices:

Grappling hooks and environmental gear is both wasted when you already got jump 2 and speed 3. Targeting scopes, while she will use aim tokens, it is rare for Sabine to miss with more than 2 dice. Electro binoculars, well you won’t wanna waste any of her actions

The better options:

Recon intel is honestly ok on any unit, it gets you a small speed boost in deployment. While it is nothing crazy, it’s still a decent option. Emergency stims is not as easy to put on each character anymore since it’s now a whopping 12 points. However it still gives you the possibility of another activation from your operative. I rarely use this card anymore due to the price, but it is not a bad choice if you got the points.

Unique gadgets

Electro grappling line. This is a fun card that steals the whip cord from boba fetts 1-pip command card for only 5 points with exhaust to use. It gives 2 suppression and 2 imobilise tokens on a trooper unit at range 1. Potentially wasting a melee characters entire activation or stopping a unit from escaping or grabbing an objective. Clearly more powerful in some matchups more than others, but well worth the 5 points. The second is the personal combat shield wich gives you shielded 1 and cost 10 points. A shield token is like a buffed dodge token instead of removing 1 hit, gives you a die set to block that can’t be pierced. A bit overkill with the darksaber, but as nice thing to have espechially vs pierce 1 attacks like snipers.

Command cards

Because he she is holding a…two thermal detonators!

Explosions is the-1 pip card and gives order to Sabine who gains the action to arm 2 thermal charges. This is the offensive card that makes Sabine special and has a huge potential since the charges are area weapons with blast and attacks every unit at range 1 from the charges. The attack itself is only 1 white and 1 red with surge-crit. However together it will deal some damage and while it only does average of 1.25 hits it is the combined power of causing each unit to roll 1 save each time and gain a suppression. If you can hit 4 or more units with both charges you will cause alot of saves and shower the enemy army in suppression tokens. So the plan is to setup a turn where you can play this card and hopefully go first, jump in and drop these charges in range and line of sight to as many units as possible. Then you gain a free speed 1 move action to move away from the detonators so you don’t get hit yourself and blow up the enemy line.

Boom! oh wait that is the spray can…thingy

This is plan and might not always succeed, but it is very powerful if you can reach the gunlines or deathballs of the republic or empire. However sometime the plan will fail and your opponent activates before you and they can move to engage Sabine wich hampers her ability to bomb. However you can still arm the charges while engaged and this will hit Sabine with her own charges, but with her defence she can often survive it. So my tip is to only play this card when you either can arm and hit targets without moving or if you opponent don’t have any unit that can engage you easily. The ultimate activation is where you can first shoot with gunslinger then arm – free move then blow the charges. However this is not easy to setup.

Symbol of Rebellion

This is the 2-pip card and again also give order to Sabine and gives her an option to drop a graffiti token on a piece of non-area terrain at any point of her activation. In addition she recovers at the start of her activation. The graffiti token is a morale beacon that gives your units an extra dice in their rally step and removes one from your opponents to a minimum of one. For this to trigger the units needs line of sight and be at range 1-2 of the token. This can be benefictial to both Sabine and your troopers, but I have rarely have it impact my opponents rally due to the minimum of 1 dice rule and strict orders being common. However the real treat of this card is the free recover action. If I pick this card I try to maximise the effect, by using exhaust upgrades. Offensive push, electro line and combat shield. These cards can all be readied for free by this card. Also this card can prevent Sabine from panic. If you have 2 or more suppression in the command phase and no access to inspire this card guarantee that Sabine get’s 2 actions thanks to the recover.

Legacy of mandalore

This is the 3-pip card that makes Sabine act as a commander for a turn. She gains inspire for the round and gives orders to herself and 2 troopers. In addition she gains either an aim or dodge token when she issues an order to either an operative, commander or special forces. My usual tactic is to give order to herself and your commander wich gives you one of each token which is usually enough since she got nimble. The last order can either be given to whatever needs it or another special forces for either another aim or dodge. I usually try to use this card on turn 2-3 depending on deployment and/or terrain. This can both give you control of some units and Sabine can try to do a move and shoot on any frontline units your enemy has. The aim can help you shoot through cover since she lacks sharpshooter, but has surge-crit and the dodge with nimble can let her tank alot of hits while the rest of your army moves up. As a rebel player I want my opponent to shoot at Sabine as she have twice the defence of most other rebel troopers and with nimble, impervious and combat shield she is very hard to actually wound. Red dice can ofcourse fail, but having her act like a fire magnet with her strong defence, you can give the rest of your units some saftey while moving up the table. If she gets showered with suppression, you got your 2 pip card to clear it and refresh your shield. If you opponent tries to ignore Sabine when she is at range 2, you can play her 1 pip and blow up the enemy. Regardless of your opponents choice, Sabine delivers.

General tactics

In addition to her upgrades and cards, she works alot like Han Solo. Courage 2 is limiting as being suppressed is easy if you don’t have inspire or the 2 pip card and that only works one turn. If you get attacked by many small attacks and/or by suppressive weapons like Bossk, mortars, barrage generator cannons or droidekas. You will end up with having to stay put with only one action where you might not always get to use gunslinger or just move and miss your attack.

Use her Speed and jump to try to keep out of sight when she is dodgeless and use her great mobility to use gunslinger and sidestep terrain to avoid having to shoot at heavy cover without aim due to the lack of sharpshooter. If you use the saber, remember that she don’t have charge and will have to rely on a single speed 3 to move – attack the same turn.

Example builds

I will present 2 options of Sabine which I prefer. One with saber and one without.

Sabine wren jedi hunter

Sabine wren 125p

Darksaber 25p

Electro grappling line 5p

Tenacity 4p

Combat shield or emergency stims 10-12p (optional)

Total 159p (optional not included)

This is Sabine for the modern age of all the lightsaber wielding units out there. Darksaber will help you both survive vs lightsaber users and strike back. The grappling line can be used to stop a melee characters right in their tracks, essentially losing their activation. She is very expensive though.

Sabine wren classic

Sabine wren 125p

Offensive push or hunter 4/6p

Personal combat shield 10p

Electro grappling line 5p (optional)

Total 139/141p

This is how I used to play Sabine. A mobile gunslinger that tries to get extra value from the 2 pip card. The electro line is useful, but you might just want to stay away from any melee users with this build so it’s ok to skip. Offensive push and hunter are both good choices and it’s up to personal preference.

Commander

So as with any operative, you will need to pick a commander. I will start with the commanders I don’t recommend:

Han solo, while it’s not a terrible pairing the problem is that Chewie is a better choice due to the teamwork rule and command card overlap.

Luke Skywalker due to the fact that with operative Luke being released you will have so much command card choices that you won’t get enough value and both units will have to compete for order tokens. Lukes courage 3 is helpful, but with his high cost with force powers + Sabines you are putting alot of points into 2 units.

Recommended:

Rebel officer is enough with an unit like Sabine. He also have both inspire 1 and take cover 1 which is just enough for Sabine.

Leia Organa is much the same as the officer, but with all the extra candy of her abilities. Her command cards also works pretty well with no time for sorrows giving Sabine extra movement and with her 3 pip you can go inspire + take cover and then fly away with Sabine fresh and dodged up for action.

Jyn Erso is my new favourite partner for Sabine. Her courage 3 is really good for Sabine since it makes her much less likely to panic and with the darksaber you can have 5 suppression tokens after rally and still move – attack thanks to dauntless almost removing her courage weakness. Inspire 2 is of course great for Sabine without the saber. In addition her 2-3 pip cards also works great with Sabine. With trust goes both ways you get both the needed inspire and teamwork so Jyn can token up both herself and Sabine with quick thinking. Complete the mission is great for a saberless Sabine since that turn she won’t be able to be suppressed and as long as she is in the courage bubble, she still needs 6 tokens to panic.

Final thoughts

Sabine is a powerful operative that work well with most lists, but due to her price and order token need, she prefers to work with support commanders that can keep suppression tokens off and dodge on. She is a very mobile character that can dish out pain on multiple units and tank damage. In addition she has the tools to handle the recent addition of force users. She can do alot, but don’t be afraid to let her tank damage. Any attacks that you get to roll Sabines red dice against is the life of a rebel trooper saved.

Saving life’s, one blast to the face at a time

How do you play Sabine? Do you have any suggestion for unit analysis or tactics articles? Let me know in the comments.

Unit Analysis

Rebel trooper upgrade expansion

Posted on January 10, 2020January 11, 2020 by jocke01

Rebel trooper upgrade expansion analysis
I have long speculated about upgrade expansions with new personell and or heavy weapons for released units, One friend even said “hey they stole your idea” when they were announced. However I think that with FFG’s history it was pretty easy to guess.

The expansion gives us 4 new models that are new sculpts. New aliens and poses is great for customisation which I love. I have bought a bunch of alien heads to modify my models already and these are great. Can’t wait to modify that ithorian to have a Z-6. You also get a unit card and token so you can use it as an extra unit. You of course can’t get a full squad without extra models, but since we already have a bunch of new personel from the rebel specialist expansion, it’s a nice thing for rebel players that don’t already have 6 units. In the box the rebel troopers get access to 2 new heavy weapons and 2 new personel upgrades as well as some new upgrade cards.

Heavy weapons
The first new weapon is the DLT-20A rifle. It gives the rebel troopers a range 4 gun and comes with critical 1. The cost is slightly more than a Z-6 and does an average of 1.375 wounds per attack thanks to the critical 1. So compared to a Z-6 it feels like a weaker option, while the critical can give you a potential crit to snipe through dodges and cover or hurt a vehicle. The higher price also speaks against it, so the potential strength is range 1-4.

However like many other heavy weapons the range dosen’t work well with the rebel troopers standard gun, which have range 1-3. So if you fire only att range 4, you waste the normal troopers dice and if you shoot within range 3 you don’t get any value from the extra range. So either you can use it as a split fire weapon or have a way of shooting at range 4, but doing less dmg than a Z-6 squad. Having the versitility of attacking something on range 4 at the cost of more points and the slightly less dmg of a Z-6 is a mediocre trade IMO. However I do see a potential for this gun. My plan is to use a single rebel trooper unit with this gun and grappling hooks as a backline objective holder. Get into position and snipe with he range 4 at anything that is in range, if you get a range 3 shot then great. You can just take a standard squad to sit at an objective or a sniper strike team. This unit is a little more expensive, but it can’t be killed in 2 hits like the strike teams and can deal dmg than a naked squad. I doubt I will use more than one rifle in my lists though.

The second heavy weapon is a scattergun much like the fleet troopers one, with this one being focused on anti-tank. The SX-21 comes with 2 red and 2 white and it has an average of 2 hits per attack which makes it the most effective gun availiable to the rebel troopers. The drawback is the range 1-2, which has a similar with range as the dlt rifle only reversed. You can’t use the gun togheter with the standard ones at range 3. The SX-trooper can use the normal rifle of course, but you are losing 1.5 average hits from your attack. I would love to swap this gun with the fleet troopers grenade launcher, that would be a dream come true for each unit.

The special keyword is impact 1 which only affects vehicles atm. If I want close range anti-tank, then I rather go with a unit that can get there easier than troopers. There are of course new infantry units with armor like the dewback riders and super battledroids, however impact 1 will only be effective vs these units if you only have a single normal hit on your attack after cover. A full squad of fleet troopers with scattergun does 5.5 average hits with pierce 1 killing 3.75 stormtroopers outside cover. A full squad of rebel troopers with SX-21 does 4.5 on average killing 2.25 stormtroopers outside cover. Looking at these numbers I see no point in using the rebel trooper SX-21, at least not for attacking troopers at range 2, despite rebel troopers being slightly cheaper at 70p vs 78p of fleet troopers (including heavy weapons). Giving the rebel troopers fragmentation grenades you can dish out an average of 5.625 hits, killing 2.8125 stormtroopers outside cover. This is still worse output than the fleet troopers due to the lack of the powerful keyword pierce, however surge-crit and impact 1 will hurt vehicles if you ever get a range 1 shot. So with the fleet troopers as an option I don’t see the value of this new gun unless you really need short range anti-tank in the corps slot. Having pierce or something would have helped, or doing the swap for the fleet troopers launcher. A cool gun, even cooler model, but on paper I don’t see why they designed the card like this.

Moving on we have 2 new personel upgrades: the captain and specialist. The rebel specialist is an exhaust personell for 14 points and gives your troopers one extra gear slot as well as a free exhaust action that gives the unit a dodge token or a surge token. In the article they suggest recon Intel + emergency stims, these however is a pricy build with 28 points for the gear and specialist. Exhaust abilities should be powerful since they cost of using them multiple times. This is essentielly a free action that can be used multiple times if you recover, it is however locked to either a dodge or the new surge token. I think double gear is a bit overkill for a corp unit, I would love this personel on my pathfinders though. However going both enviormental gear + recon intel or grappling hooks is a build I might consider.

This way you can combine actions and mods with powerul anti-tank weapons, then recover all the cards with one recover.

Lastly we got the rebel captain who gives the squad access to the training slot. This is a nice thing since training gives you access to powerful cards like hunter, endurance and offensive push. Like the specialist, the squad also gains an exhaust ability. This one makes you immune to being supressed for an activation with the cost of not being able to remove supression during the activation (rally step and recover actions). This downside prevents you from doing a recover to remove supression and recover the card in the same action. For only 4 points I think this ability can be quite worthwhile and training is one of the better upgrade types.

Rebel troopers 40
Mpl ion launcher 24
Rebel specialist captain 14
Offensive push 4
Total 82p.

The ability is however pretty specific in use, but can turn games. With courage 1 you can only gain effect from the ability when you start the activation with 1 supression, but you get a 100% chance instead of a 33.3…% chance with rally. So during round 5 or maybe 6 it’s amazing to be able to guarantee to get 2 actions instead of 1 when you need to claim an objective in the end. It’s a bit specific in use though since it dosen’t work with 2 supression or more. You could combine this with a ion launcher to recover and fire each round despite being supressed.

Adendum
I did not think about commaders courage bubble that help you against panic. That means you can use this to avoid being supressed despite having more supression than your courage. So this make the captain a great contender vs officer upgrade and is a really nice upgrade to take vs enemy supression lists, extra good with Jyn or Luke for the 3 courage.

Closing thoughts:
The things that sticks out in these expansions are the offensive push. A 4p card that gives you free mods on attacks after a move action. This have the potential of becoming the upgrade card predator of old 1.0 x-wing. It’s a card that makes training a even better slot than before. The heavy weapons are a bit dissapointing. I think I will at most use the one dlt-a rifle and no scatterguns. The designers had a problem of not making these new weapons just replace the old in effectivness, but it hit the other end and the shotgun is probably not gonna see any action since fleet troopers fill that role better. The new personel upgrades are nieche, but I think they can help the ion gun. Otherwise I still prefer the officer for supression control. For the rebels this expansions feels a bit weak on paper compared to the other factions, don’t know if it’s the designers being in a rush to make 4 expansions of the same type or they didn’t wanna make stuff to powerful. I could be proven wrong then these hit the table, but I think a single copy would be enough if they hadn’t put offensive push and some real nice sculpts in there.

What are your thought?

Battle report

Linköping Grand Championship tournament report

Posted on November 18, 2019November 18, 2019 by jocke01

Tournament report

I played a list with Leia supporters by a bunch of heavy infantry and double coms jämmer tauntauns.

I played 3 very fun and tense games, sadly I lost the last round and didn’t take a spot in the top 2 finals ending at third. A third place is nothing to feeling bad about, but it is the worst tournament score for me in Legion so far. I tried to take pictures and write some notes, but with 2 hour rounds, I didn’t wanna take to much game time. Here I present a tournament report from my perspective and some thoughts on the current standout units as well a tease for my next unit analysis.

My list came in at 796 point and gave me blue player every game.

++ Standard (Rebel Alliance) [796 Points] ++

+ Commander +

•Leia Organa [103 Points]: Commanding Presence, Environmental Gear, Esteemed Leader

+ Corps +

Mark II Medium Blaster Trooper [43 Points]: Comms Relay

Rebel Troopers [62 Points]: Z-6 Trooper

Rebel Troopers [58 Points]: 2-1B Medical Droid

Rebel Veterans [92 Points]: CM-O/93 Trooper, Hunter, Rebel Veteran

Rebel Veterans [93 Points]: CM-O/93 Trooper, Rebel Officer

+ Special Forces +

Rebel Commandos [104 Points]: DH-447 Sniper, HQ Uplink, Hunter

+ Support +

Tauntaun Riders [99 Points]: Comms Jammer, Tenacity

+ Command Hand +

Command Hand: •Ambush, •Coordinated Bombardment, ••No Time for Sorrows, ••Turning the Tide, •••Covering Fire, •••Somebody Has to Save Our Skins, ••••Standing Orders

+ Battle Cards +

Condition Cards: Clear Conditions, Hostile Environment, Limited Visibility, Rapid Reinforcements

Deployment Cards: Battle Lines, Disarray, Major Offensive, The Long March

Objective Cards: Breakthrough, Intercept the Transmissions, Key Positions, Recover the Supplies

++ Total: [796 Points] ++

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

I didn’t wanna play with minefield or sabotage the vaporators cause they aren’t great for My tauntauns, don’t wanna walk into mines and they can’t repair vaporators. I also didn’t pick advanced positions, cause I have a hard time with that deployment recently.

Game 1
My first game was against another rebel player. He had a Luke with a bunch of upgrades, 2 Rotary at-rt’s, 1 tauntauns and a mixed bag of Corps. Fleet troopers, veterans and a medium 2 emplacement as well as 2 Z-6 trooper squads with 1 medical and 1 astromech.

We played clear conditions, secure the supplies and long march.

My initial plan was that I should focus his infantry as I have 0 impact weapons in my list. Since I had 2 units with hunter I felt I had a nice possibility of taking down Luke if he got within range.

I deployed very symmetrical with a nice focus in the middle and 1 tauntaun att each flank. My first turn I did a nasty bombardment putting two wounds on his emplacement, 1 wound on his at-rt and dropped 2 veterans.

First two turns were pretty much just getting into position, claiming the 2 boxes on our sides and doing some potshots. I managed to drop his emplacement and 2 fleet troopers while taking some hits on my tauntauns. A Lot of the match was focused in the middle around the center supply box which was placed on top of a rock pillar. I didn’t have a lot of options to claim it, but My opponent decided to use his Luke who jumped up with force reflexes turn 3. I decided not to test His defect abilities and just positioned my units and fired at his troopers. My tauntauns caught some heavy fire and my right flanks were killed while my left one took 4 wounds and lost one, but my last activation was my medical team which restored it to 1 hp.

Tauntauns taking the blunt of the dmg on both sides.

Turn 4 was the turning point and I felt pretty confident in the overall match since I had killed way more models than my opponent, however there was a possibility of Luke running away with the box and claim victory. We both used our unique 3 pip cards and I got priority. His Luke was standing on the center pillar with a dodge token and heavy cover. Leia activated first and moved in range and shot, he didn’t wanna use his dodge on that attack and Luke took 2 wounds. Next I used somebody has to save our skins to activate my ramaning tauntaun and fired with a fire support emplacement on luke causing 7 hits that went down to 5 after dodge and cover. Luke took 2 wounds again and deflected back 2 hits.

Aim – move – agile dodge – relentless attack. Action economy at it’s finest

He then activated Luke and claimed the box and jumped back down. Thanks to my veterans with hunter and commandos I could push Luke to use his emergency stims and he died turn 5 after moving the box back. My opponent had one trooper squad and 1 badly hurt veteran squad left to hold the boxed and his two at-rt’s left to attack me. Thanks to the remaining tauntaun and a rebel trooper squad I managed to kill his veterans and at most he could tie with victory tokens and lose on points or not stop me from getting a third box and lose. In the end he had 1 at-rt and 1 supply box while I had half my army and held 3 boxes.

Game 2
I faced yet another rebel player who had a pretty similar list to my own. 2 tauntauns, 1 veteran squad and a mark 2 emplacement and Leia. He also had Jyn Erso as a second commander and several rebel trooper squads with Z-6’s + 2 sniper teams. I got blue player once again and we ended up with major offensive, clear conditions and breakthrough.

My initial thoughts was that this is going to be a bloody fight in the middle due to the deployment and it would be up to the tauntauns to try and do a breakthrough. I planned on splitting my force on each side with a focus around Leia in the middle. My opponent did a nice bait by deploying Jyn very close to my deployment with her infiltrate ability, I decided to deploy one of my veteran squad close the middle and used the emplacement deployment to put it in range of Jyn. I placed my commandos up top, where I hoped they could sneak around and maybe do a late game sneaky double move for breakthrough. My opponent used his bait to put both his tauntauns on one side ready to run on my flank.

My army to the left after leia bombardment and right my opponents after bombardment activation. Nice value of no time for sorrows on the tauntauns.

Turn 1 I had a hard choice to make. Either do an ambush to give order to my left veteran squad and emplacement to alpha strike Jyn or go with Leia’s 1 pip to bombard my opponents strike teams who was deployed out in the open. I decided to go with the Leia option and did another nasty bombardment killing one strike team and dropped one model in the second one as well as 2 rebel troopers in another squad. My opponent answered with his tauntauns which had gotten a free speed 1 move thanks to his Leia. They ran down my flank and shot down my emplacement. I responded with my veterans dealing minor dmg and his second unit came running and dealing some dmg to my veterans. His Z-6 troopers killed my second emplacement and my commandos used the sniper rifle to drop his last strike team. So we both downed 2 activation from each other very quickly.

Turn 2 continued to be bloody and it looked grim for my army as I rolled blanks after blanks in defence rolls. The tide turned however and in the third and fourth round my opponents dice turned into crap. We kept dealing high damage to each other which often happens in rebel v rebel matchups as both are rolling white defence dice, but pretty good attack dice. Start of turn five we both ran low on units and all tauntauns except my left flank one were dead and on their way to his deployment zone. So my opponent had to at least bring one unit into mine while still killing more units than me, he played Jyn’s 1 pip and ran towards my deployment line and charged one of my units as soon as they activated triggering the charge ability. This is what I think sealed the game as I could focus on just blocking and shooting while my opponent had to move into my zone.

Sneaky tauntauns and leia vs leia in the end game.

My commandos died under heavy Z-6 fire so I had no hope of putting another unit in his deployment. I only had Leia and a healthy veteran squad left vs his Leia, Jyn and some Z-6 troopers. We both had lone squad leaders that were eventually killed. In the end on turn 6 he could put Jyn into my zone, but Leia was caught in melee with my veterans and since he had fewer point left on the board I managed to take the win. It was an close and bloody match. I’m impressed by my opponents use of Jyn erso and her command cards as well as the bait and switch in turn 1. I’m gonna have to start playing more with Jyn in the future.

Game 3
Sadly I got paired with one of my local players Axel from Starfighters, if we didn’t we could have both placed us in top 2. Axel and I have played against each other several times and we are pretty even in matches won. I got to be blue player once again and I saw limited visibility in the third spot so I used both my bans to get that one, leaving the rest for Axel to decide. We ended up with limited visibility, long march and intercept the transmissions. I have played intercept and lost due to the fact that my rebels crumble at turn 5-6 leaving my opponent to pick 4 victory tokens at the end leaving the game in a draw that I lose on points (2 on turn 2, 2 on turn 4 and 2 on turn 6, while my opponent gets 1 turn 2, 1 turn 4 and 4 on turn 6).

I didn’t have much of a choice than to try this again as he had way more range 4 firepower and I had more mobile units. His list is led by Krennic with death troopers entourage, a shoretrooper + mortar squad. several stormtrooper squads with dlt and/or medical droids as well as Bossk. With limited visibility in the game and a big forest area terrain I decided to once again split my tauntauns on either side and focus heavy around Leia in the middle. First 2 turns went by fast as we didn’t do any attacks on each other and just walked into position, I put myself just behind the middle of the table and took the center objective.

Palm trees in a fozen wasteland, hey it’s star wars

Turn 3 the range was back to normal and he played lying in wait, this I have faced before and it’s pretty much a guaranteed 5 crits on any unit at range 5 from Bossk’s position at the end of the round. My left tauntauns and some of my veterans went into rang 3 of some of his units and started to nibble at his stormtroopers. My tauntauns took alot of fire, but tanked several shots. Due to him placing standby on his death troopers and other units I had no real way to get into close range with my other tauntauns without dying so I waited at range 4 and took some dlt dmg. Despite several shot on his mortar, it refused to die so I decided it was time for my tauntauns to attack and I ran them into his line and killed the mortar hoping they would survive to the next turn for some comms jammer action (spoiler, they did not).

Bossk put’s 5 crits on the table and laughts

The round ended with Bossk walking forward with 8+ aim tokens and just deleted my rebel commandos that sat in heavy cover. This was a huge setback. Turn 4 I played covering fire and it was time to hold the center objective and start to fall back. He used Bossk’s double tap command card and started to advance on the centre, his death troopers and shore’s dealing nice dmg on long range killing my emplacements despite dodge tokens. So now I was at a similar situation as before. I had only Leia, both veterans and my 2 rebel troopers left. I had to kill enough of his units and contest the centre in order to win. Luckily I had Leia’s bombardment left and I knew my opponent really wanted to go first so I expected him to play voracious ambition leaving him with Bossk’s 1 pip vs my ambush. This would give me a 50/50 chance of going first round 6. If I had played ambush vs his Krennic 1 pip, he would have gotten priority thanks to Krennic’s special ability. He did an attack on one of my veterans squad killing only 1 veteran. I responded with leia who shoot normal then walked back to use her bombardment. Sadly I didn’t really get a great payoff since some of his units were still to close and his death troopers made their save. My medical droid helped with keeping my veterans alive and my gamorrean Z-6 trooper delivered another 3 unmodified crits on an attack. In the end of turn 5 we both had our commanders in the centre, I had my Z-6 squad and both veterans left. He had his shores who were down on half strength and with 4 suppression tokens. He had 3 lone squad leaders, one at the back objective and 2 in the centre. His death troopers was still a bit behind, but in range to fire. Due to compel from krennic I either had to kill his troopers or make them panic in order to stop them from contesting the middle objective. It didn’t look great for me, but if I got to act first, maybe I could manage to kill enough with my veterans since they were pretty much at full health. Sadly Bossk reptile brain were faster this time and he wasn’t gonna leave the empire wishing they hired another bounty hunter.

Guess I must blame myself for trying to ambush a cold blooded lizard

He ran into range of the objective and gas grenaded my entire remaining army. While my blocks were over average the suppression and poison was still a massive blow to my chances of winning, as well as I could only activate one of my veterans before his death troopers deletes the second one. My only option was to split fire with one of my veteran squads hoping to drop one of his trooper leaders and put another suppression on his shores hoping they would panic. I did manage to panic his shores, but his lone trooper leader survived and his deathroopers deleted my second one veteran squad without any problem. In the end I had the option on putting Leia in the centre and losing on points or keeping her back and losing on victory tokens.

It would be easy to blame this on luck as it was a 50/50 roll in the end. However I needed to go first in order to have a shot at winning, my opponent didn’t he just had a bigger chance of winning by going first. So ignoring round 6 we have to look at the entire match and see that I advanced with my tauntauns to early and that I should have kept my commandos further back and use their sniper on the first 3-4 turns and have them as a courage 2 reserve unit to claim objectives in the late game. So I won’t deny my opponent’s skill and blame only luck, however it was an important roll and I might have taken the win if it had gone my way (story of every loss though).

Final thoughts
I has a great time in Linköping, but it was a long day. 18 hours awake and A LOT of coffee. The organisers did a fine job and I walked away with a ton of loot. The terrain had a lot more pieces to climb on than I was used to and less area terrain or difficult terrain which I am used to. I really missed grappling hooks on my commandos every game. This is something that is hard to plan ahead for of course. After seeing a lot of tauntauns in the field I understand why they are popular as they got mobility, nice dmg in both shooting&melee as well as a crazy action economy, however I feel like they pretty balanced given the price compared to the other supports. We had 2 lists with at-st’s and there was a few at-rt’s and bikes, however with the new critical weapons you don’t need impact to handle them I feel. The empire got Veers as a good commander for vehicle lists, I would like to se a commander or operative that could give rebel vehicle lists a bit of a boost. While I like the full commando squads offensive power, I think that going with dual strike teams or pathfinders might be a better way forward. Dual snipers can stay back and deal dmg and hold objectives. Pathfinders can survive a little better with danger sense against all the mortars and use infiltrate ability to threaten enemy objectives.

Standout unit was my gammorean Z-6 trooper squad. I think he averaged rolled 2.5 crits per attack.

It was a desperate battle in the end, but do you know what I like to do in desperate situations?

Battle report

Battle report Double officers vs Vader&Bossk

Posted on August 26, 2019 by jocke01

Welcome to another battle report. This time I faced 2 opponets who used one of my opponents lists, they played togheter with one command hand and it was more like a player with a coach. I think it both worked to their advantage with different ideas, however sometimes I think it might have worked against them with the classic too many cooks.

We played at our local gaming place at Studiefrämjandet.

It was great to finally test some of my newest terrain pieces. This match we had alot of light cover area terrain and some line of sight blocking trees + the building. As well as some difficult terrain water terrain and barricades. I used my modified list from the last time, learning from my misstakes and took some hints from my last opponent.

Rebel Alliance 798
Commander
Rebel officer – esteemed leader 55p
Rebel officer – esteemed leader 55p
Corp
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, astromech 70p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, astromech 70p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper 62p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper 62p
Rebel veterans – cm-0/93 trooper, rebel veteran, hunter 97p
Mark II medium blaster trooper 38p
Special forces
Rebel commandos strike team – dh-447 sniper 44p.
Support
At-rt – flamethrower 80p
At-rt – flamethrower 80p
At-rt – rotary blaster 85p

I faced an imperial list led by Darth Vader with a Bossk operative. Supported by e-web teams and stormtroopers.

Empire 798
Commander
Darth Vader – force reflexes, saber throw
Operative
Bossk – Hunter, targeting scopes
Corps
Stormtroopers squad – dlt19 trooper
Stormtroopers squad – dlt19 trooper
Stormtroopers squad – dlt19 trooper
Stormtroopers squad – dlt19 trooper
Special forces
Scout troopers strike team – dlt sniper
Support
E-web team – barrage generator
E-web team – barrage generator

After a die roll my opponets chose to be blue player and we ended up with clear conditions, advanced positions and breaktrough. I had some luck with breakthrough coming up at the third spot so I could guarantee it, which favoured me with 12 activations against 9.

I deployed most of my units in the centre left, using the scout move from advanced position to get some squads further ahead. I put my rotary at-rt alone in the other end of my deployment with a trooper squad and officer in the centre. I thought a reserve of 3 units with inspire support was a good idea for the breaktrough objective. The rotary at-rt was gonna walk straight into the imperial deployment zone from the flank, firing as it goes.

The empire focused most of their units around the crashed at-st and barricade line where they had a great line of fire to a large area and put 2 trooper squads on the left flank.

Round 1
Command cards
Assault vs Lying in wait

These command cards is pretty fitting for how the game went

I wanted to save my flamer at-rt’s to last so they don’t take too much damage, I also gave order to my veterans to get the free dodge as well order token to my emplacement trooper. The empire had no choice, but to give order to Bossk who sat and got all the aim tokens.

The empire started with a nice 2 wound sniper shot at my backline officer. I followed with a great z-6 squad opening, dealing 3 wounds on the closest e-web.

This squad kept over performing and managed to duck so much fire that came their way, surviving with a dodge token gifted by my rebel officer. We traded a few long range shots, not doing much damage and the at-rt’s started to advance.

It was my first time playing against Bossk and oh man, can he store aim tokens. He waited for good shot at my at-rt which the stormtroopers tried to soften up with a dlt. Luckely I managed to repair it with one of my astromechs.

Bossk finally had to activate and he crawl forward and decided to take his shot at my closest flamer at-rt. It was amazing to whatch, it was just re-roll after re-roll until he had his 5 crits. Putting 5 wounds on the at-rt it got damaged, but I repaired it putting it at 4 wounds at the end of the round. Bossk with targeting scopes was scary, if he re-rolls that much he would completly bypass any dodge and guardian.

End of round
If felt happy with the first round. The empire didn’t make much progress across the board while my forces moved quite a bit for a single turn. While the sniper shot that took out half my officer in the back was disheartning, my z-6 squad was mvp this round. Dealing 3 damage and despite being shot by 3 attacks lost nothing. My opponent focused alot one of my flamer at-rt which worked in my favor thanks to the astromech healing. The plan was for Bossk to burst it down which would have changed alot.

resourceful, reliable, reparing astromechs ❤

Round 2
Command cards
Covering fire vs Reptilian rampage

This round I wanted to keep reparing my walkers as well as use the covering fire to advance in the open area between my position and the forest. I gave order to my 2 astromech squads as well veteran + emplacement again. Empire of course gave order to the rampaging Lizard. The empire first activated a random and got a corp order which they used to put their far left stormtrooper squad outside of at-rt walk-fire range and put 2 wounds on it with their dlt supported attack. I activated one of my astromech squads to repair my at-rt up to 3hp and attacked the e-web dealing no damage, but giving out a dodge token to another squad due to covering fire.

It is akward when just one base is lacking grass 😛

Here is when my opponets were really unlucky with Bossk. They had a plan to double tap my at-rt with 3 hp left, providing they got a crit on the first attack they could pierce it trough my save and then use their aim token on the second attack to hopefully get 2 crit on the second attack and drop the at-rt. However they roll 5 blanks on their first attack so they decided to attack my trooper squad with the second to push on the supression. 3 hits after aim sadly got denied by cover and my dodge token.

acrylic tokens helps your troopers survive

In this game I really got value from my astromechs, I activated my second astromech squad and repaired the last hp I could giving my at-rt effectivly 10hp instead of 6. Then they rolled amazing and killed the 1hp e-web.

4 natural hits with a z-6 is average right?

Then it was time for Vader to show his troopers how it’s done, he walked into position behind the barricades and drop 2 soldiers with his saber throw.

If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny!
My acrylic tokens went out, coincidence?

My at-rt went into position for a next turn stormtrooper barbecue. My other one lost his first action and just walked up against vader. next I finally got to use fire support with my veterans. Despite throwing 9 black dice with aim I only managed to put 1 wound on vader and got one wound deflected due to his forces reflexes.

End of round
My flanking trooper squad and rotary at-rt kept advancing and dropped a strormtrooper or 2. Thing were locking okey for me, but I was scared of having vader so close to my lines. I had the advantage, but if I can’t stop Vader then this will be a short breakthrough.

Oh right, my strike team also walked up behind the walker

Round 3
Command cards
Ambush vs Master of evil

“Okey guys, one 3 we jump out and fire at the 2 meter tall cyborg death man who can block blaster bolts with his hands. Uh sir that seem…3!”

I expected master of evil, but I thought that they might play implacable as well so I played it safe with ambush. I issued order to my veterans and emplacement trooper while Vader got his order and a dodge tokens as well as an e-web and Bossk. My first Fire support activation again only pushed trough 1 dmg on Vader, fire with hunter veterans feels powerful, but the force was with the dark lord of the sith this day.

“If that dosen’t kill him what will?, Not us…run!”

Vader activated and gave me a total of 12 supression tokens! He then crushed my flamer at-rt with saber throw. I followed that with a randow draw support, Flame on. After aim-shoot I got a very average 7 hits on the 5 troopers and their armor was useless.

I prefer my stormtroopers red in the middle

The rest of the fight on the left flank wasn’t very dramatic. Most of my troopers had 3+ supression and I needed to start moving if I wanted to reach the enemy deployment zone so I ignored the dodgeless Vader. My backline officer had walked into range enough to use his inspire which combined with my other officer and at least 1 succesfull rally each time prevented my units from panicking despite e-web and Bossk supressive attacks. My flamer at-rt got another 2 wounds and was also damaged.

End of round
My flank units continued towards the enemy line and finished of the rightmost stormtrooper squad. After removing supression tokens during the end of the round I felt pretty safe. I understand how this imperial list could be panic central when combinding supressive weapons with master of evil. I had some luck with activation order to use inspire as well as at least rally 1 token each rally step,

Round 4
Command Cards
Push vs Implacable

I gave order to my veterans + emplacement once again as well as my officer. Imperial gave it to Vader.

Vader started by walking to my right flank and cut down 2 troopers with his saber throw and took one damage to put back his order token via implacable. My trooper squad responded by fire back, as standard for my gammorean z-6 trooper he rolled 3 crits + 1 hit :). However vader was really implacable and blocked every bolt with his saber.

Meanwhile on the left flank the shooting gallery continued. The rebel forces ran trough the woods towards the edge of the battlefield, while the veterans setup in a covering position in the forest. Thanks to the heavy cover and diminishing imperial troopers casualties was minimized. However my 2nd flamer finally went down.

End of round
On the right flank my rotary at-rt blasted the imperial strike team and Vader finished of the foolish troopers that shot at him and walked towards the rebel officer. My sniper team managed to put 1 wound on Vader. I felt like I had a pretty good chance of placing 2 units in the enemy deployment zone. The empires chance is to stop me from putting more than 1 unit and pick up the bounty on my Twi’lek officer forcing the game to points which the empire would probably win thanks to the huge amount of points stuck in Vader&Bossk.

Round 5
Command cards
Turning the tide vs Merciless Munitions

The empire could only give order to Bossk and I had only my rotary at-rt left. I was a bit disconserned when I saw the Bossk grenade card, I had totally forgot he had grenades. Luckily for me Bossk was just a bit to far away to hit several units with the grenade, If he was about half a speed 1 move closer he could have gassed 3 units.

You gonna have to work on your throwing arm mr Bossk!

My emplacement trooper stayed behind to cover my advancing troops and dropped 2 troopers, sadly the e-web survived my rotary at-rt and could keep the barrage generator on while pounding my troopers, that combined with bossk grenade attack I had only 3 trooper leaders + 1 astromech left of my troopers.

Quick hide behind R4

End of round
Vader did a sweet curved saber throw cutting the at-rt in half down to 3 wounds and my right flank was starting to look battered. Going in to the last round I felt that my offices was already dead due to vader being so close and the at-rt could be taken down by the last stormtroopers + e-web. However I felt that my strike team was garantueed to make it into the deplyoment zone and live through the round. On the left flank I had to put at least 1 unit in the enemy line, if Bossk managed to drop my officer it would be clutch due to the fact that my troopers could not stay supressed since they all needed 2 moves to make it across.

Round 6
Command cards
Sabotaged communications vs New ways to motivate them

I gave my order token to the only available special forces while my opponent gave it to Vader an Bossk. My first activation was a random drawn commander, I activated my twi’lek inspired a trooper squad and ran into the goal zone.

Here I have to tip my hat to my opponent, he did a very cool manouver with Bossk thanks to the extra action from Vaders card, he was very close to turn the game. Bossk used his unhindered to jump over the x-wing wreck and fired with an aim token from hunter on my rebel officer who now lacked any unit in range to use guardian. My officer just managed to duck enough wounds to surive and deny Bossk his bounty. Bossk then ran into melee with my veterans stopping them from walking as well and regenerated the wound lost for the extra action. Wow it was a great activation, if it had worked he would have denied me 2 victory tokens while gaining 1.

His lone stormtrooper put a supression on my closest leader preventing him from double move, the e-web survived my rotary blast with 1 wound and then killed my second closest leader. My veterans used their hunter to club Bossk down to 2 hp.

Tense game, but here rebel victory semed imminent.

Vader walked up and cut of my officers head with his saber throw, while my sniper team walked into the victory zone and popped another wound on Vader.

I feel bad for my sniper team in the fictional turn 7 :p

End of round
Now if Bossk had taking his bounty the score would have been 2-1 and his last stormtrooper squad could aim-shoot my at-rt and hope to drop it, in that case my last supressed trooper leader had a 1/3 of winning the game for me. However Bossk just missed it and the stormtrooper couldn’t get 3 crits. My supressed leader didn’t rally so in the end the rebels won 3-0, the final score dosen’t really paint a fair picture of the full match and it could have turned the other way easily.

After battle report
It was fun to play with all my new terrain pieces and I think that this list worked a little better than the last version. While I didn’t get to be blue player I got a very lucky mission to play with 3 more allbeit weaker activations. I felt that the veterans with hunter + emplacement fire support worked well in theory, but they did a total of 2 wounds despite rolling a total of 18 black dice with aim in their 2 attacks. I think fire support have great potential and I think my choice to hold them back worked in their favor to not get focused early and the hunter gave me a total of 3 aims during the game and it could have been 4 if I didn’t have to run towards the deployment zone.

RNG
I felt that the dice was in my favour in the start of the match. My z-6 squads delivered 4+ hits almost every attack while the average is 3.5. The early 3 wounds on the e-web did alot since the double barrage generator combined with master of evil is an great combo against rebels. My opponent focused my at-t’s which I think was smart looking at the huge damage just one of them did, however due to below average rolls I was given plenty of time to repair. I think that the biggest rng swing was with Bossk. My opponent gave him targeting scopes and he gained a ton of aims during the game either from hunter or actions, despite that he rolled pretty poorly espechially in important attacks like the 2 wound at-rt and the bounty officer.

List building
I was suprised when I saw targeting scopes on Bossk as this card have recieved it fair share of negativity, but dang he used it alot during this match. For my own list I felt that swapping 2 rotary to flamers made them more of a threat and they tanked alot of damage this game, while I could use my astromechs to their fullest and reparing 4 wounds. The double officer still works with giving me a great command range as well as precise inspire and extra activations. However despite guardian, they are very squishy and the risk is giving away bounty. I think double officer works, but maybe Leia is so pass powerful that her with commanding presence and esteemed leader might work better or just as well. 2 officers is essentially splitting Leia in 2 while loosing her command cards. This was also my first game with veterans and I like them, they feel more like a special forces unit than corps unit and the fire support with the medium blaster was scary even when it failed against the Vader tank this game. The drawback is that you often feel forced to give them an order due to the coordination order to enable fire supprort and get the free dodge token.

Battleplan and tactics
The plan was pretty simple, place a massive blob to run behind the fire chickens that tanked enemy fire. Hopefully get enough units to the enemy line. The backline deployed force worked very well even though they spend 2 turns just walking, having fresh troops arriving at the enemy flank was great and it forced my opponent to decide where to focus his troops. The fire chicken tanks work great with my astromech squads. However I must pay more attention where my command range ends, I had a opportunity to play turning the tide vs master of evil, but one of my at-rt was just out of range.

Happy to write another battle report and I find that going through the match a day after, looking at pictures you get to reflect on the match. Somethings looked more even than it felt and you see what misstakes you avoided or did during the match as well as to get a clear picture of how different units delivered. If you like my stuff pls consider supporting me on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Rebelsguide

Next time I think I will try some tauntauns or perhaps Sabine, see you then.

Battle report

Battle report Rebels double officer vs Empire Veers

Posted on August 20, 2019August 21, 2019 by jocke01

This is my first battle report on this blog and sadly I can’t present you with a heroic rebel victory, but an imperial victory with rebels fleeing home to lick their wounds and learn from their mistake.

I haven’t played legion since earlier this summer due to work and the 2 places I do most of my playing is closed during the summer. It was fun to finally get a game in and it was against one of my old oppoents who I have the bad habit losing against.

I decided to give my double officer vehicle list a try.
797 points Rebel Alliance

Commander
Rebel officer – esteemed leader 55p
Rebel officer – esteemed leader 55p
Corp
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, astromech 70p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, astromech 70p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, comms specialist, comms relay 76p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper 62p
Support
At-rt – rotary blaster 85p
At-rt – rotary blaster 85p
At-rt – rotary blaster 85p
Heavy
X-34 Landspeeder – Ryad azadi, m-40 ion blaster, rps-6 rocket gunner 154p

I faced a Veers led imperial force

800p Empire

Commander
General Veers
Corps
Stormtrooper squad – dlt19 trooper
Stormtrooper squad – dlt19 trooper
Stormtrooper squad – dlt19 trooper
Special forces
Death troopers – dlt-19d trooper, weapon config
Death troopers – dlt-19d trooper, weapon config
Royal gurad – electrostaff guard, recon intel
Heavy
Occupier tank – dlt19 rifle pint, first sergeant arbmad

We played at my friends house so we used his terrain, including some plant pots. I at least contributed with my newly painted barricades. I choose to be blue player and we ended up with Clear conditions, intercept the transmition and battle lines. I deployed my 3 at-rts in a line spread out and focused 2 groups of corps and officers on either flank while my speeder ended upp far right facing his occupier. He focused heavy on the right flank leaving only 2 stormtroopers on the left.

My initial plan was to save my speeder for my last activation and try to focus on the left and centre transmitions while still threaten the right on forcing him to focus his attention there.

Round 1
Command cards
Assault vs Maximum firepower

I gave out order to my 2 at-rt’s to the right and to my landspeeder, while my opponent gave it to Veers. His first activation was a random drawn special forces and he choosed a death trooper squad who walk forward and took a long shot at my astromech squad deployed right and did a full barrage of 7 hits and after cover I rolled 5 blanks, losing everyone except my duros leader pictured in the left bottom courner. So right of the bat, I had an uphill battle. The occupier and some dlt’s just managed to drop my right at-rt, really wished I hadn’t lost my astromech :(. My landspeeder did a nice 3 dmg at long range on the occupier and ionised it so I was still hopeful.

Ion shark delivers 3 dmg and an ion token to the tank, nice vengence for the first attack.

On the left flank things looked better, his troopers advanced on the objective, but I managed to drop 2 of them and taking no wounds in return.

End of round I had lost 5 troopers in my right astromech squad and 1 at-rt. His maximum firepower did only managed to put 1 wound on my speeder. Sadly my counterfire only managed to drop a single death trooper, but at least his tank took a beating of 3 dmg and had 1 ion token. My brave second officer bravely fled the right flank and went towards the centre.

Oh brave sir Twi’lek so bravely ran away…

Round 2
Command cards
Covering fire vs Imperial dicipline

My plan was at first to ambush my speeder since I didn’t think my opponent was going to burn his second 1 pip card on turn 2. After the dmg I took last turn I felt that I needed some defence in order to save my remaining troops and try to contest some objectives. Thanks to comms jammer I could give order to my speeder and I got first activation after the die roll.

Expecting to go second I saw and took an opportunity to spread some dodge tokens and activated my lone squad leader before he got taken out, going dodge then attack to give out a dodge token. My opponent didn’t have range to order his tank and gave orders to his death troopers to rearm/swap his weapon configs. Since he had 5 orders in his stack I felt it unlikely for him to activate his tank before my speeder.

You get a dodge token and you get a dodge token!

Sadly he took a gamble and drew the top token in his stack and of course it’s heavy. This stopped my double tap ion to shut down his entire activation, but at least I stopped his move+ aim action and again my speeder only took 1 dmg from the tanks attack.

Meanwhile in the centre I moved up my officer towards the middle objective followed by my mobile cover at-rt and astromech squad. Sadly his grenade config bypassed my cover and delivered 3 wounds on my officer despite guardian. My astromech squad moved into objective range and avenged my officer by dropping 2 death troopers and give my officer a dodge token thanks to my command card.

His second stormtrooper squad went into the forest to contest the cenre objective and a long range death trooper squad managed just to get trough 1 wound on my offices after cover, dodge and guardian. Very close, but not enough :(. On the left my at-rt and officer attacked his stormtrooper squad who sat behind cover with a dodge token. My leftmost trooper squad tried to finish the squad off and then moved into the middle. Here is one of my big mistakes, I should have taken the safe route and stayed with my trooper squad left to secure that transmition instead of going centre. My eye mesurement was off and I just missed reaching the centre objective with my leader and I got greedy instead of taking safe objective points. Meanwhile his last 2 royal guards who had gotten some stray fire and a rotary blast managed to rally and double moved to charge my astromech squad behind the at-rt.

Hey, guys where are you going? The terminal is this way!

End of turn my right troopers had survived some shooting thanks to their dodge tokens. The speeder slow moved speed 1 with ryad and gave the tank another salvo while split firing the drivers 2 white dice towards the stormtrooper squad near the objective. Here my hope vanished, my ion blaster/rocket attack rolled 1 red, 2 black and 5 white delivering only 2 hits which he blocked :O. No damage and no ion and just to add salt to the wound, my driver rolled 2 blanks with his pistol. Well nothing more to do than recover the blaster and ryad and try again next turn.

Sir, that rocket just bounced of the tank…

Due to my greed and my opponents good movement the empire took the lead with 1-0 starting round 3.

At least I get to use my nice metal tokens.

Round 3
Command cards
Sabotaged communications vs Assault

I suspected my opponent to put down a 2 or 3 pip cards and I wanted to go first while negating his card which I did. Bonus points if you remember that I have neither an operative nor special forces in my army, it’s the price of going full genereic. Still I was after the first activation more than anything and I couldn’t reach my speeder with my remaning officer so sabotaged communications it is.

I started to feel the force was against me. My first activation was corps and I went aim-shoot with my comms squad trying to finish off the death troopers out in the open. However despite an aim token I only managed to get 3 hits which they all saved. (Did I mention I dislike death troopers?).

Veers gave out some aim tokens and did a potshot that didn’t do anything. I got my speeder and decided it was time to turn the tide so I went a comp move of 3 with ryad and moved into flank position. I fired my rocket into the occupiers weak side delivering 3 crits that only resulted in one dmg and the ion blaster + driver pistol managed 4 hits on the stormtroopers, yet only 1 trooper died. I think the speeder worked fine and did everything acoording to plan, but after round 1 his red dice where way to hot for me to do any real dmg. I felt that at least my build and plan worked fine, despite the poor result.

He did some long range shooting on my at-rt since I had my troopers locked into melee with his royal guard, a fight which they managed to win and the astromech could treat the at-rt.

It’s weird how often my rebel troopers beat roal guards in close combat.

The lack of ion gave the tank a full turn of action so move – free aim into attack on my speeder. 2 natural crits and 2 via impact followed by 4 blanks = Kaboom!

End of round, his left stormtrooper squad leader had panicked and my at-rt fired 5 hits into his death troopers who swatted it like flies after they had mowed down 4 troopers leaving me with 2 squad leaders and 1 astromech.

A last ditch effort to stop him from holding the right objective. Aim – shoot and only 2 hits that is negated by cover.

Round 4
Command cards
Ambush vs Push

I stared defeat in the eye, but I felt that maybe I can get a victory point at least. Ambush beat his push and I decided to give order to my officer and then only have support and corps in the stack.

Okey guys here is the plan, I run and you die.

I draw a random order and got corp and tried to take down Veers who stood in the open with 1 wound. Sadly I rolled only 2 hits and caused 1 wound. His deathtroopers started to put down my lone squad leaders and my last effeort to get a point kind of sums up the match for me. My officer rolls blank into blanks after aim.

So at the end of round 4 I conceded, I had no chance to win unless I could hold 2 points during round 6 while my opponent held 0.

End of battle thoughts
I had a good time finally playing legion again as well as playing with my friends 14 month old puppy. It’s easy to blame the dice after this match, but it was just one of the factors. I find that my plan to use my speeder against the tank was fine, yet I didn’t get the result I wanted. The dice did not work for me in that regard. I think there was 3 factors that contributed to the loss.

Rng
My attack dice failed me several times despite aim tokens and my opponets defence dice blocked much higher than average. The first attack that butchered my astromech squad was a hard blow and the 1/5 chance to pull the heavy order token my opponent did was also lucky.

List buildning
I think I had to many vehicles and while the speeder worked, I think it couldn’t get the support it needed. I find that I had to few troopers to support my vehicles and contest objectives. Having no operative nor special forces when using only generic command cards feels like a missed opportunity. The rotary blasters didn’t work that well, even with aim I got pretty average rolls. I think with 3 walkers I could use flamers as more of a threat.

Battleplan and tactics
I did a greedy move during round 2 that cost me a victory point and I think I spread out my forces to much and I should probably avoid battle lines in my list since I didn’t have much long range firepower. Also my opponent played really well and focused his units in the right positions .

So I had fun time, but faced a hard loss. I made a few misstakes and will use this to learn and adapt. My modified list uses dissaray instead of battle lines in my deployment cards and removing the landspeeder for more troopers. This list gives up the anti-tank landspeeder and goes more offensive with 2 flame walkers. 1 rotary and mark 2 medium blaster trooper can work as fire support. The rebel veterans can hunt enemy characters and royal guards while the sniper team gives me a special forces unit as well as some flexible long range dmg.

Rebel Alliance 798
Commander
Rebel officer – esteemed leader 55p
Rebel officer – esteemed leader 55p
Corp
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, astromech 70p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper, astromech 70p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper 62p
Rebel troopers – z-6 trooper 62p
Rebel veterans – cm-0/93 trooper, rebel veteran, hunter 97p
Mark II medium blaster trooper 38p
Special forces
Rebel commandos strike team – dh-447 sniper 44p.
Support
At-rt – flamethrower 80p
At-rt – flamethrower 80p
At-rt – rotary blaster 85p

That was my first battle report and sadly it was not a victory, but a very informative defeat. I apologize for the picture quality, I wasn’t planning on recording the match for a report. in the future I plan to use a better camera and take some more detailed pictures. If you enjoyed this battle report pls tell me in the comments and if you like my stuff pls consider supporting me on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Rebelsguide

Special forces, Unit Analysis

Rebel Commandos unit analysis

Posted on July 30, 2019August 24, 2019 by jocke01

Rebel commandos analysis

General Solo?, is your strike team assembled?

Rebel commandos is probably the expansion for the rebels with the most value since you can field 2 units out of the box and you get 7 very nice minis. This was the first rebel special forces and they are essentially rebel troopers on steroids, the strike teams are on the other hand just like the name entails, a small unit that strikes critical targets.

Rebel commandos (unit)

Like I said commandos are rebel troopers on steroids. They come in at 60 points for the base unit of four models so 15 points per model compared to the 10 point trooper. They keep the same defence die and weapon, but they have a lot of nice keywords to make Them stand out. Like fleet troopers and rebel veterans they got surge-hit and sharpshooter 1 on top of that. In defence they got low profile which is great thanks to their courage value of 2, that allows them to get heavy cover from suppression while requiring 2 to lose their action after rally.

Unit options and abilities

Commandos have access to 2 different heavy weapons, but no personel upgrade. In top of that they got access to gear, comms and training. They have several abilities:

Low profile which gives them heavy cover if they got light, this is a nice ability to have since some terrain should be light and they can get heavy from hiding behind at-rt’s or emplacement troopers or just out in the open of they have suppression.

Scout 2 that allows them to make a speed 2 move when deploying, nothing gamebreaking, but depending on terrain, deployment and objective cards this is an ability that shouldn’t be overlooked since they can get a great position outside deployment or move into claim position for objectives.

Sharpshooter 1 this is great since most shots vs other infantry will be at least light cover, it’s almost like adding an extra hit to their attack rolls.

put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of Emperor Palpatine with a clear line of sight, sir… pack your bags, fellas, war’s over

They got 2 heavy weapons to choose from, one being the DH-447 sniper rifle. This weapon is special since it got range 1 – infinite, making it a great weapon for splitfire since it can always reach a target. It adds 1 white dice over the standard rifle which isn’t too exciting, but it has pierce 1 and high velocity which don’t allow dodge tokens to be used…providing it’s the only weapon in the attack. So just to compare with a Z-6 trooper squad which is in my opinion the gold standard.

Average hits

Z-6 troopers: 3.5
Commandos sniper: 3.5

So at first light it’s the same, but adding the pierce and sharpshooter on a standard stormtrooper squad in heavy cover we get:

Average wounds

Z-6 troopers: 0.75
Commandos sniper: 1.875

More than twice amount of dead bucketheads!

This is in a control environment of course, but my point is don’t let the amount of dice fool you. Against lighter armor the commandos advantage decreases and increases vs heavy armored targets like death troopers. A commando squad with a sniper gives you a quality attack that excels vs imperial targets. The downside is that your commandos die just as easy as normal troopers when fired upon, while low profile helps a bit of course.

The second weapon option is the proton charge saboteur which is a different kind of weapon option than other units have. It does not add any dice or keywords to the attack pool, instead it’s an area weapon that needs to be charged then detonated. So unlike exhaust weapons you don’t have to recover it, but you have to spend an action to arm a charge within 1 of the unit leader. After a charged is placed any friendly unit with “detonate proton charge” can detonate it after any unit have performed an action. When detonated the charge performs an attack vs every unit att range 1 of the token and line of sight including friendly units. The proton charge model uses the commandos ranged weapon of 1 black die, but the real advantage comes when using the charges since you get to attack every unit in range and los. I will speak more about proton charges, their effect and how to use them in a future analysis. You can have a maximum of 3 proton charge saboteurs in your list and that’s a potential 18 charges armed (3 saboteurs x 6 rounds), more likely it’s 8-12 and you need at least one unit left with detonate proton charge to use any placed charges. So a commando unit with a proton charge saboteur can be a base unit combined with 2 strike teams with saboteurs.

Upgrades

Commandos can have a plethora of different upgrades. Grenades, gear, comms and training.

I don’t usually take grenades on commandos. Frag grenades is a decent dmg increase, but restricted att range 1 for a unit that prefer attacks at range. Frag grenades seems overkill when you already have sharpshooter 1 and if you want anti tank then the proton charge is a better use than impact grenades.

There is a lot of gear that’s useful. Recon Intel to get a scout move of 3 is perhaps not necessary, but fun and can give you a nice alpha strike with scout move-move-shoot or scout move-shoot-move back depending on deployment. Environmental gear is a solid choice as your commandos can turn difficult light cover terrain into free heavy cover terrain and it helps your scout move. Emergency stims is just as good here as on other expensive units. Grappling hooks is also a great thing with scout, as you can scout move into a climbable terrain piece then during your activation you can climber-shoot. Targeting scopes is usually a never take for rebels, but combined with the hunter training card it’s actually a valid choice.

Comms is not as pick and choose friendly. Comms jammer doesn’t suit commandos as they prefer long to mid range. Comms relay can be used with sabotage communications to great an upgrades ambush card. Hq uplink is the one I use the mosh, just to get the extra uses from Luke and Leia’s 2 pip cards and to ensure control of when I can activate my commandos and I prefer this over long range comlink.

Comms Combo!

Training is a powerful category, but pretty specific in it’s cards. Tenacity is just a no take since single wound units can’t be wounded. Duck and cover is a good one as it combines with low profile, however it is expensive and in the wake of death troopers, Palpatine and Bossk the empire have a fair number of suppressive weapons. This can make duck and cover as risk as you can easy help your opponent to suppress or even panic your commandos. Endurance is good, but not really necessary unless you run into a lot of the aforementioned suppressive weapons on a regular basis. My favourite is the hunter card. It’s not to expensive at 6 points and it suite the commandos offensive capabilities perfect.

Builds and tactics

The classic commandos

Rebel commandos 60p
Sniper 26p
Environmental gear or grappling hooks 3p
Hunter 6p
Hq uplink 10p

total 105p

These guys are the standard commando squad I play. You can cut some fat by skipping the hq uplink, but I like the command flexibility. These are the rebel hunters and what do they hunt you ask? These guys are character killers. Any commander, even Palp or Darth with the immune pierce are prime targets. Commanders usually hang around with royal guards which is a free aim token piñata. They prefer to stay at mid range where they can bring all their guns to bare and their focus is to take down enemy commanders, operatives and royal guards. A trick is to splitfire the weapons between a commander and his guard to get 2 aim tokens if both are wounded. The sniper can be shot at a commander to ignore dodge and pierce can be used on a guardian hit if the target have immune pierce. The other guys throw their dice at the guards something different, with sharpshooter negating some of the cover tax of attacking multiple units.

This unit like a lot of rebel units prefers Leia as a commander. Her command cards works well, 1 pip can drop wounds on units for hunter to trigger, the 2 pip is just good and the 3 pip let’s Leia inspire and order take cover on them before they activate. Using Leia with strict orders you get very good control of suppression, you can make sure to keep one token for low profile if necessary. Commandos love at-rt supports as they can walk behind them and gain heavy cover while either shooting in base contact or through them with sharpshooter.

List example:

++ Standard (Rebel Alliance) [796 Points] ++

+ Commander +

•Leia Organa [100 Points]: Strict Orders, Esteemed Leader

+ Operative +

•Chewbacca [122 Points]: Emergency Stims, Tenacity

+ Corps +

Fleet Troopers [78 Points]: Fleet Trooper, Scatter Gun Trooper

Rebel Troopers [62 Points]: Z-6 Trooper

Rebel Troopers [58 Points]: 2-1B Medical Droid

+ Special Forces +

Rebel Commandos [107 Points]: DH-447 Sniper, Environmental Gear, HQ Uplink, Hunter

+ Support +

Rebel At-Rt [85 Points]: Rotary Blaster

+ Command Hand +

Command Hand: •Coordinated Bombardment, •Sabotaged Communications, ••Brains and Brawn, ••No Time for Sorrows, •••Covering Fire, •••Somebody Has to Save Our Skins, ••••Standing Orders

++ Total: [798 Points] ++

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

The proton base

Rebel commandos 60p
Proton charge saboteur 24p
Duck and cover 8p
Comms relay 5p

Total 98p

This is another commando unit I’ve used when playing a triple proton charge saboteur lists. It’s Main purpose is to survive and detonate charges and place some on a backline objective. They can take descent potshots and the comms relay is for the sabotaged communications command card or just to boost command range to runaway strike teams. I like to play a Han&Chewie saboteur list. Han Solo’s reckless diversion help to stop fire on your strike teams and “sorry about the mess” combined with improvised orders help to guarantee a last first activation. Chewie works well with Han and His guardian helps keeping your strike teams alive.

What I see when I play reckless diversion

List example:

++ Standard (Rebel Alliance) [799 Points] ++

+ Commander +

•Han Solo [130 Points]: Improvised Orders

+ Operative +

•Chewbacca [122 Points]: Emergency Stims, Tenacity

+ Corps +

Rebel Troopers [62 Points]: Z-6 Trooper

Rebel Troopers [58 Points]: 2-1B Medical Droid

+ Special Forces +

Rebel Commandos [91 Points]: Comms Relay, Proton Charge Saboteur

Rebel Commandos – Strike Team [44 Points]: Proton Charge Saboteur, Recon Intel

+ Command Hand +

Command Hand: •Sorry about the mess, •Sabotaged Communications, ••Push, ••Reckless Diversion, •••Change of Plans, •••Notorious Scoundrels, ••••Standing Orders

++ Total: [799 Points] ++

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

Final thoughts

In conclusion I think the Rebel Commandos are a valueable unit in the rebel alliance and much needed to counter the royal guard based death balls, either with hard shooting or the area damage of the proton charge.

This was my thoughts on the Rebel Commandos who are in my opinion an unit that get’s overshadowed by their strike team brothers and sisters. Speaking of wich, I might talk about them next time or perhaps I will give my thoughts on the At-Rt, make your voice heard in the comments!

Heavy

Posted on July 12, 2019 by jocke01

T-47 Airspeeder