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, Unit Analysis

Battle summary and thoughts on new points

Posted on September 30, 2019 by jocke01

It’s been a while since I could play some Legion. Been busy with school and other things. I finally got a game in and decided to test some units that gotten point reduction.

Rebel list 797/800
Commander
-Leia Organa
Commanding presence
Environmental gear

Operative
-Chewbacca
Emergency stims
Hunter

Corps
-Mark 2 medium blaster
-Rebel troopers
mpl-s7 trooper
-Rebel troopers x2
Z-6 trooper
-Rebel veterans
Cm-0/93 trooper
Hq uplink
Rebel comms technician

Special forces
-Rebel pathfinders
A-300
Duck and cover
Recon intel
Pao

Heavy
-T-47 airspeeder
Ax-108 ground buzzer
Linked targeting array
Outer rim speeder jockey

Commanding presence is a nice upgrade, but 10 points was a bit much, now it’s a contender with esteemed leader and other stuff when down to 5p.

Chewbacca got a point reduction and with the stuff I put on him, he was about the base cost used to be. I think Chewbacca have been underated and didn’t need a reduction, but I don’t complain 😛

The ion troopers got a 8 cost reduction and are nice thing to have in your army. I doubt I will not have at least one of these in my army in future.

Pathfinders is the same point cost, but the very good duck an cover is not 4 and a staple on them thanks to danger sense, also the A-300 config is now free. So this unit I got 10 points cheaper than before. Infiltrate is a nice ability and I think these can compete with commandos for real now.

The huge thing was a fully kited airspeeder that comes in at 10 points less than the normal base cost. This is such a good thing for this amazing model. I really look forward playing alot with this one. The janky harpoon gun is only 3p so you might as well use it if you play with the speeder and skip the buzzer gun.

I faced an imperial list led by a generic officer and tested 2 shoretrooper squads with mortal teams. Also an AT-ST with 3 weapons and surge-hit pilot. It’s so fun to se both armies having these centerpiece units.

We played the scenario in downed at-st. It was fun to finally put this beautiful terrain piece to work. First turn the was an orbital bombardment as well as a airspeeder shot that dropped a few imperial troopers.

Infiltrare pathfinders are great for objective matches

In turn 3 the pathfinders took a pounding of at-st and mortar fire. The airspeeder took some dmg on the way towards the imperial line, but it strafed a squad of stormtroopers and killed of them.

With good use of Leia’s 2 pip command card and hq-uplink veterans 4 units could rush towards the at-st and the veterans picked up the objective.

The at-st kept pounding the rebel troopers behind the downed at-st. While the airpseeder flew past the at-st and opened fire with both the ground buzzer and forward guns.

The speeder dropped to 2 hp and got imobilized wich made it harder to turn around and shoot the at-st. I had to spend an entire activation to comp move and pivot. However the ion-troopers did a bananas roll on the at-st. That + pot shots from chewie put on a nice deal of dmg.

Think we will see alot more of these tokens.

The airspeeder had finally turned around and faced the at-st in the weakpoint. Sadly the at-st activated first and killed the veterans holding the objective. The airspeeder despite aim token only delivered 2 damaged though the defence. Bad time for dice fail. However awesome to get the airspeeder in the at-st’s weakspot.

Chewie did alot of guarding wich eventually led to his death

So when the final turn is about to begin, the at-st is destroyed and a single trooper leader is holding the objective. The empire had no way of claming the objective and winning, however it would take a miracle for the rebels to claim victory.

Despite my best effort to destroy the top positioned shoretroopers with a early speeder activation, the defence dice where strong with this one and only one trooper died. They then destroyed the rebel holding the objective leading to a draw.

However anyone can win the act 2 mission so will see who comes out on top.

Thought on the points erratta:

Chewie is still a crazy guardian beast and the reduction is just sugar on top.

Alot of expensive upgrade cards have become cheaper and the options for every unit has increased.

The airspeeder and at-st is back and better than ever. It’s great for the game that we now will see more of these centerpiece units. Targeting array was nice for the early attacks, but eventually it moved beyond even my range 4 command range. So maybe long range comlink is the way to go.

Pathfinders I haven’t played with enough, but with the reduction of their upgrade cards, I think they will be a viable pick just to win some objectives.

The new snipers are still powerful, but they must now use move actions and the scout move is now a very useful ability that must be used if you want to get early shots. It’s great that they cant just sit back at the table edge and aim-shoot non stop.

See you next time. Feel free to support my patreon if you like my stuff: https://www.patreon.com/Rebelsguide

Heavy, Unit Analysis

Landspeeder unit analysis

Posted on September 13, 2019September 13, 2019 by jocke01

“If you shoot that thing right next to my ear again I’m gonna…”

The Tx-34 landspeeder unit is easily recognisable as Luke’s landspeeder from episode 4 A new hope . This is the same type of speeder, converted into a technical by the rebel alliance. Sadly this unit is what stopped me from playing the airspeeder. Unlike the airspeeder the landspeeder is a very cheap fragile platform that you can stick a bunch of guns and/or crew on. It’s definitely a glass cannon and fits the rebel aesthetic of taking what you can get in the fight against the empire.

“*Ever since the XP-38 came out, they just aren’t in demand.*”

Unit options and abilities

The landspeeder comes in very cheap at 75 points, but much like the at-rt the price is often around 110-120 since you will usually want a weapon hardpoint. 6hp and 4 wound resilience value just like the at-rt, but with surge-block and built in cover 1, however only armor value 2. Armor 2 helps vs corp troopers, but anything with larger and/or effective dice pool will get hits through. Arsenal 3 let’s you fire with up to 3 weapons at a time, which gives the speeder both a powerful combined attack and great splitfire opportunities. Transport open 1 is in my opinion a rarely useable ability. The imperial tank is transport open and I have seen that turn into a death trap for any unit being transported inside it. The speeder can hold a maximum of one non emplacement model so it’s use is a turn 1 speed boost for commanders and not much else IMO. Speeder 1 allows you to drive over terrain pieces with height of 1, giving you great mobility despite the speed value of 2. It also comes with the forced compulsory move and this is more of a boon than a drawback, as it allows the speeder to either move-move-attack or move-attack-move or any other nice combination. It essentially just gives the speeder 3 actions and for a heavy that is extremely valuable.

Upgrade choices are plenty with weapon hardpoints, pilot, comms and crew. In addition to the drivers dh-17 blaster you can take either the m-40 ion blaster or the mark 2 medium blaster. The medium blaster is just straight 4 black dice at range 1-3 in your front arc and can be compared to the rotary blaster of the at-rt. For 34 points 4 black with surge-hit gives you 2.5 average hits and will work fine vs infantry. You don’t get the massive firepower as the rotary blaster + surge-crit, but combined with the drivers blaster and a gunner crew it can become quite a effective attack, especially if you can flank troopers for a out of cover shot.

The M-45 ion blaster is a different beast entirely. It’s an exhaust weapon which usually is a big drawback, but on a speeder vehicle it’s not that big of a deal. It makes up for ut with range 1-4 and 4 white and 1 black combined with impact and ion 1 for only 4 more points. This is the only vehicle carried ion weapon and it is a nice anti-vehicle option especially against big targets like he occupier or the at-st.

In addition to the weapon hardpoints the speeder can have up to 2 gunner crews. The first and cheapest is the A-300 gunner for 9 points and it just adds 2 white dice, however it’s not fixed so you can fire 360° and at range 1-3. It’s not that great increase in firepower but, it combines fine with the medium blaster since they both got range 1-3.

The second option is the RP-6 rocket launcher gunner for 36 points. A pretty heavy point investment that gives you 1 white, 1 black and 1 red dice with impact 2 with range 2-4. Giving you an increase of 1.875 hits thanks to the speeders surge-hit and it can be fired 360° from the vehicle. You also get the added bonus of a kickass looking twi’lek sitting att the back of your speeder with a friggin rocket launcher.

Upgrades

At the moment we got access to 3 different pilots one being generic and the other uniques. Wedge gives you 360° pivot instead of the normal 90°. This isn’t needed since you will rarely drive past your targets like the T-47 does. Ryder Azadi has like Wedge a 5 point cost and exhausts after use, he changes the speed of one of your moves during your activation, which includes a compulsory move. For the landspeeder this means that you can boost your comp move to 3 or break down to 1. The generic and more expensive pilot is the outer rim space jockey who gives the vehicle cover 1. This keyword stacks and it gives the landspeeder a constant heavy cover which combined with armor 2 can completely ignore the empires standard anti-vehicle rifle the dlt-19 (unless they roll natural crits). This let’s the speeder ignore small attacks, but be vary of large dice pools as it will overwhelm your defences. If they have for example 4 hits and 2 impact then you will still face 2 potential wounds due to the fact that the steps go goes cover-impact-armor.

When it comes to comms there are several useful options. Long range comlink for 5p let’s you speed away outside of command range which suits a fast flanking unit like this, the same goes with hq uplink and it also gives some better command control with the added cost of exhaust. Comms relay is not recommended since you want to have a faceup order for your heavies as much as possible. Comms jammer is a good choice an very cheap now at 5 points. This unit is fast and can get close to enemies real fast. With the jammer, you can even park next to dangerous anti-vehicle units and feel safe. Sure they can still get the order from their stack, but with good placement and timing you can really destroy your opponents plans.

Build and tactics

The grabber jammer

Tx-34 landspeeder 75
Mark 2 medium blaster 34
A-300 gunner 9p
Outer rim space jockey 10p
Comms jammer/Long range comlink 5p

Total 134

This unit is the go to speeder if you want a heavy activation that works great as a flanker and can go efter critical targets. You could diet this down to 129 if you don’t feel like using the comms jammer or comlink. Combined att range 1-2 in your front arc you can throw out 4 white and 4 black for an average of 4 hits before aim. You could also do a nice split fire to several targets for maximum suppression distribution. On a critical turn you could activate late, drive straight into the enemy lines and hopefully displace a unit with your comp move. After that move straight into the heart of their forces and fire in all directions including the displaced target for a potential 4 suppression tokens distributed, then sit there jamming multiple units and hopefully ruining your opponents planned command card. If you go without the jamme, I suggest sending this to a flank and try to get behind trooper targets and deliver your 8 dice attack in their backs. Comlink helps with getting order to your speeder regardless of how far it drives from your commander. This could also be fixed with a trooper units carrying a comms relay.

The ion shark

x-34 landspeeder 75p
M-40 ion blaster 38p
RP-6 rocket gunner 36p
Ryder Azadi 5p
Hq uplink 10p

Total 164p

This is IMO the best build for the landspeeder and it’s the unit that will help carry the rebels in the post clone wars meta. Vehicles have always been a debated point in legion and the consensus is usually that going with more trooper units is better. However with the clone wars we will see more vehicles, clones have 2 announced already and the droids 1. That on top of the fact that droids will be affected by ion is great news for the rebel alliance who has the most and best ion options in the game. The tactic is to give this unit an order most turns thanks to hq uplink and the recover action, it swims steady as a shark until it pounces. Ryad lets you slow roll with a speed 1 comp move, followed by a recover action to get back hq uplink and Ryder for the next round. Your main targets is of course the enemy vehicles, with the at-st and occupier being the primary ones. If your opponent activates their vehicle you can follow with the speeder going a speed 3 comp move then unleash your combined range 4 attack of 1 red, 2 black and 5 white with impact 3 and ion 1. This is a nasty anti-tank shot. You can then follow up with a recover action so you get back all 3 of your exhaust cards. Next round go with a 1 pip command card and try to first activate the speeder thanks to hq uplink and give the enemy vehicle another attack, aiming if needed otherwise go recover again. This is a huge suckerpunch that Will leave your target with several wounds and 2 ion tokens completely shutting down their next activation. Your opponent can counter this with repair units like astromechs, but if they are removing ion then they don’t repair dmg. If you are facing no vehicle lists then it’s still an okey dmg dealer that can move across the table and attacking at long range with an average of 4 hits providing you can recover the ion blaster for each shot. With the latest point errata, vehicles will be cheaper and probably show up a bit more often. Combine this with the reduced rebel trooper ion squad to shut down enemy vehicles.

X-34 as a transport

I think that open transport is just not a good Rule for transporting. You get a small speed increase for your commanders/operatives, but you risk giving your opponent bonus wounds and you can’t attack out of it. If i had to use a transport, I can see the use for getting Solo or Leia in a good position since they have short range weapons, but I would disembark quick. I have thought about using a crazy taxi Luke when his new operative form comes out.

Crazy taxi

X-34 landspeeder 75p
A-300 rifle gunner 9p
Comms jammer 5p

Total 89p

My plans is that you save your speeder with Luke onboard for your last activation round 1. You burn 3 moves straight into the heart of the enemy and Luke jumps out. Next turn use “son of Skywalker” or “I am a jedi” and let Luke go bananas. The speeder can run around trying to displace units and harass with the white dice it has and thanks to comms jammer try to block any big command card threat to Luke. I don’t know if it will work, but hey it might be fun.

Yeah, I bought this baby from som farmboy punk, didn’t even have to give much for it

This is my analysis of the rebel X-34 landspeeder. A unit that I think works fine and has a lot of potential in the future. Give that ion shark a go and tell me how it went. If you like my analysis then pls consider supporting me on patreon https://www.patreon.com/Rebelsguide and comment on this blog with suggestion for future articles.

Rebels guide to the galaxy