Shouts and screams echo around you—the din of pitched battle. The air smells acrid from blaster fire as lasers hiss past your squad. A scout trooper roars past on a 74-Z speeder bike, weaving between trees and firing at someone you can’t quite see through the underbrush. You raise your blaster and fire in the same direction, hoping to avoid any shrapnel. Ahead, you see Darth Vader, towering over a group of fallen Rebels strewn across the forest floor. He flicks his lightsaber forward, and your platoon charges…
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Star Wars™: Legion, a new miniatures game of infantry battles that invites you to join iconic heroes and villains, lead your troopers into battle, and battle for the fate of the Star Wars galaxy. With Star Wars: Legion, you can build and paint a unique army of miniatures. You can command your troops in battle and devise masterful tactics. And you can conquer your opponent’s army to bring victory to the light side or the dark side!
With thirty-three unpainted and easily assembled miniatures, and all the cards, movement tools, tokens, and terrain that you need for battle, the Star Wars: Legion Core Set is the perfect way to bring Star Wars battles to your tabletop.
If you’re here with us at Gen Con 50 in Indianapolis, head to our booth to get your first taste of Star Wars: Legion, but in the meantime, read on!
Charge into Battle
Star Wars: Legion casts you as a commander in the heat of battle, pitting the Empire’s finest against the ragtag forces of the Rebellion. You’ve received your objectives from high command, and the tactics that you execute in battle will determine if you can restore freedom to the galaxy or crush the resistance of the Rebel Alliance forever.
The heroes, villains, vehicles, and squads of troopers that you command are the heart of your army, and each round, you’ll command your units to press your advantage. Whether your unit is a squad of Stormtroopers or a salvaged Rebel AT-RT, each unit can take two actions to march across the battlefield, launch a devastating attack, take careful aim, dodge away from enemy fire, take a moment to recover, or hold their action until the optimal moment.
Movement in Star Wars: Legion is fast and organic as you maneuver your troops around the battlefield using jointed movement tools. Unlike many miniatures games, you don’t need to measure movement for every miniature in a unit! Once you’ve measured movement for your unit leader, you simply pick up the other soldiers in the unit and place them in cohesion with the unit leader.
Not only does this make movement fast and intuitive, it lets you strategically position your troops to take cover from blaster fire or control strategic terrain. Sending your Stormtroopers charging into just the right place to line up a devastating crossfire or catching your opponent’s forces between Luke Skywalker and a powerful AT-RT walker are some of the game-changing moves that can turn the tide and decide the fate of the galaxy in any game of Star Wars: Legion!
Movement and positioning are important, but you’ll need to send your troops forward if you’re going to defeat the enemy army. Combat in Star Wars: Legion is driven by the weapons each soldier wields—whether you’re firing blasters, throwing grenades, igniting vehicle-mounted flamethrowers, or drawing a lightsaber. For every attack, you’ll choose the weapons you want your soldiers to use, adapting to the evolving battlefield by choosing between a blaster and a rocket launcher, for example.
Each of the four Rebel Troopers chooses to use an A-280 Rifle, contributing a total of four black dice to the attack. The 74-Z Speeder Bikes unit will roll a defense die for each hit.
Just as important as choosing which weapon you use is choosing when to attack. If your opponent is taking cover behind terrain or prepared to dodge your attack, then it may be better to reposition your unit and maneuver your forces to create a better opportunity for your onslaught. The choices you make will govern the fates of your soldiers—but if you lead them wisely, then victory is assured! For more information about movement and combat, visit the Star Wars: Legion minisite and keep an eye out for future in-depth previews.
Command Your Troops
To win the battle, your troops will need to move and attack, but first they need orders—and that can be challenging at times during the heat of battle. Luckily, you have your army’s commander to ensure you can activate your units at the critical times.
While every unit you control on the battlefield will activate each round, the command system for Star Wars: Legion presents you with the opportunity to outmaneuver and outthink your opponent. Adapting to the changing tides of battle is one of the things that separates truly great commanders from lesser officers.
You can find more details about the command system and ordering your troops on the Star Wars: Legion minisite and in future articles!
Build Your Army
Like other miniatures games, Star Wars: Legion also gives you the chance to build a unique army. Before the game begins, you’ll select the exact heroes, villains, troopers, and vehicles that you want to use. Within the Core Set alone, you already have choices to make with thirty-three miniatures, including Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Rebel Troopers, Stormtroopers, an AT-RT, and 74-Z Speeder Bikes.
While the Core Set gives you everything that you need for your first battles, you’ll find even more options as you expand from there. You may choose to build an army that uses swarm tactics with large numbers of troopers, or you may focus on the improved armor and firepower of vehicles, but whether you’re planning a small-scale skirmish or a pitched battle between dozens of units, the game allows you to build an army that fits the way you want to play.
The choices and customization don’t stop there, either. Every unit in Star Wars: Legion has the option for you to tweak it to fit your preferences and playstyle with upgrade cards. You may upgrade Darth Vader with the ability to throw his lightsaber, load a rotary blaster onto your AT-RT, bring heavy weapons specialists into your trooper unit, or equip your 74-Z Speeder Bikes with long-range comlinks. No matter how you upgrade your units, every upgrade card is another step to making your army different.
And of course, perhaps the most entertaining step of army building for many players is to paint and customize your miniatures! All Star Wars: Legion minis come unpainted, so after you assemble your army, you’ll be able to paint them to create a truly unique army and bring the Star Wars galaxy to your tabletop. Although you don’t need to paint your army, many players find it more enjoyable to play with a painted army—and we’ll have plenty of articles and video tutorials to support your painting in coming months, including help for beginners. Even if you’ve never played a miniatures game or painted an army before, the Star Wars: Legion Core Set is the perfect entrypoint to the hobby.
Build. Command. Conquer.
Your troopers’ boots are on the ground, and battle is about to be joined. If you’re with us at Gen Con 50 in Indianapolis, head over to the Fantasy Flight Games booth to be among the first to experience the infantry battles of Star Wars: Legion!
Oh, hey, it finally got announced (or leaked, whatever ). Nice, that means now I can say it exists xDD. It will probably get properly announced during Gen Con.
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Aeneades wrote: So Star Wars version of Rune Wars from the sound of it. I wonder what scale they will go with as they will want to include vehicles as well.
It didn't feel that similar to RuneWars, tbh, but I'm not too familiar with that one.
For the life of me I can't work out why they haven't gotten the Clone Wars license for this, given that was a full on galactic war with seasons of units and characters for them to churn out.
Whether this is amazing or garbo depends pretty much entirely on whether FFG can restrain their greed, which is approaching GW in Kirby's "Smaug" phase.
I used to have a battle of hoth playset, when I was a nipper, with 6 - 10mm troops and tiny AT-ATs and snowspeeders.
15mm would work as a scale, I think; AT-ATs are nice and big, and you can field enough infantry for it lo look believable, but not so much that you woner where the Rebel Alliance was hiding them.
Alternatively, 6mm would mean your X-Wing models could pull double duty, but it makes infantry units awfully wee.
Bleh, no bueno. The appeal would be to basically do "epic" style warfare. Another skirmish game when 40k is running hard strong holds no interest for me.
AndrewGPaul wrote: I used to have a battle of hoth playset, when I was a nipper, with 6 - 10mm troops and tiny AT-ATs and snowspeeders.
15mm would work as a scale, I think; AT-ATs are nice and big, and you can field enough infantry for it lo look believable, but not so much that you woner where the Rebel Alliance was hiding them.
Alternatively, 6mm would mean your X-Wing models could pull double duty, but it makes infantry units awfully wee.
Hopefully it will be at a reasonable scale to allow for infantry and tanks fighting on the ground with flyers zipping about it the field. But a proper scale like that would mean less focus on characters, and is FFG willing to try a SW wargame without the icons of SW? Unless the units will have cards with great big pretty pictures of Darth Vader & Company on them to make up for it.
So what's the betting Stormtroopers will suck, only to become mega around 18 months later if you shell out for an additional set to get the right upgrade cards?
Aeneades wrote: So Star Wars version of Rune Wars from the sound of it. I wonder what scale they will go with as they will want to include vehicles as well.
That is what I am guessing too. Curious to see the models.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So what's the betting Stormtroopers will suck, only to become mega around 18 months later if you shell out for an additional set to get the right upgrade cards?
Do FFG do hardplastic minis or soft plastic or restic or...what? I'm not a player of any of their miniatures lines, but they would have to have the whole hobby element present for me to be interested - ie, building collecting, painting. And the minis would have to be high, high quality.
Albertorius wrote: AFAIK, it's the same scale as Imperial Assault. The minis are not the same, but they should be compatible.
Yea, I can't wait to see the price of large vehicles then.
FFG needs to REALLY up their miniatures quality if they are sticking to Imperial Assault scale. IA has some decent minis, but they are borderline not worth the cost to quality.
I only ever bought IA stuff when I could get a good deal on it from MM or elsewhere.
If they come in at "Epic" scale or even at 15mm and beat GW to the punch on this, they will rip the market up. If they stick to IA scale, price, and quality.... this will end up just a bump in their market boosting IA a bit.
Also, changing scales from IA would be smarter since so many people have armies used for IA Skirmish now.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So what's the betting Stormtroopers will suck, only to become mega around 18 months later if you shell out for an additional set to get the right upgrade cards?
Oh god even the thought of a typical army being 15 units with 3 upgrades each on cards terrifies me.
Like that's a lot of cards that need space to be lain out just for one game.
Need a Heavy Bomber? Just whack more pods on a TIE Bomber, or additional Nascelles on a Y-Wing. Great success?
Given my general distaste for FFG's mixing CCG with TTG, this will be to be pretty special to tempt me in. Doubly so when you factor in their ongoing supply problems.
So if Star Wars Legion is same scale as Rune Wars than can possibly predict the price. Rune Wars expansions retail at $25 for 8 infantry models so if we add the licensing fee to that then we are looking at $30-$35 per unit which puts it in the same range as the Song of ice and fire unit price (you get 12 - 13 models there though rather than 8).
If they come in at "Epic" scale or even at 15mm and beat GW to the punch on this, they will rip the market up.
One of the designers for BattleLore 2E went on the record saying that one of the reasons the game was abandoned was because FFG found it difficult working at a smaller scale where they couldn't get the details they want. I doubt they'd do an epic scale miniature game. I mean, they did with Armada, but the big ships were the focus. This leaked press release specifically mentions troopers as a core part of the experience. I suspect the miniatures will be IA sized.
It'd be pretty cool if they reprinted West End Games' Star Wars Miniature Battles rulebooks too.
At Epic or 16mm scale I would throw endless money at the game, I am sure... but FFG's pricing model at 28-32mm scale scares the crap out of me, all while also not really filling any interesting niches/spaces in the market.
Sqorgar wrote: One of the designers for BattleLore 2E went on the record saying that one of the reasons the game was abandoned was because FFG found it difficult working at a smaller scale where they couldn't get the details they want.
Just for reference, the designer in question was Jonathan Ying. Here are his comments about this:
The other big thing is that in miniatures heavy games we really get excited about making the minis look as cool as possible, but that's actually really tricky since Battlelore is at a slightly smaller scale than our usual minis products. Meaning it's more of a chore and less of a joy to work on trying to make those tiny figures readable and cool. That may have biased us away from that game line, at least a little bit.
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: At Epic or 16mm scale I would throw endless money at the game, I am sure... but FFG's pricing model at 28-32mm scale scares the crap out of me, all while also not really filling any interesting niches/spaces in the market.
I have a feeling that this right here, will be the majority reaction. As I noted above as well.
If FFG also end up using their psychotic card upgrades system, they need to find a more efficient way of doing it. Similar to more recent boardgames and how they upgrade units with slides/markers/dials.
I'm fine with tricking out your unit or making it unique/different each fight, but having a deck of cards by each unit is not it.
[Edit] As far as needing to work at a bigger scale for better detail.... well they still aren't at that better detail at a bigger scale. Especially for the prices they charge.
I really wonder what the core set will entail. I think storm troopers are a given. But are we talking R1 tie-in or Hoth or Endor? Or will this be ANH-style trooper v trooper?
Very very excited by this!
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TalonZahn wrote: As far as needing to work at a bigger scale for better detail.... well they still aren't at that better detail at a bigger scale. Especially for the prices they charge.
It's hard to say. I recently painted up the Daqans in the RW core set. It was very unrewarding because of the cartoonish sculpt. The RW stuff leaves a lot to be desired in terms of crisp detail. But is that a technical limitation or a problem with the WoWish aesthetics of the RW brand? The Imperial Assault minis I have (or rather, had) seem alright - albeit the soft plastic makes them feel cheaper than their dear price would warrant.
I'm interested, but if it is in the same scale as IA they seriously need to up their game. I stopped buying the sets because scale and quality are all over the place.
Manchu wrote: I really wonder what the core set will entail. I think storm troopers are a given. But are we talking R1 tie-in or Hoth or Endor? Or will this be ANH-style trooper v trooper?
I would definitely expect it to be either Hoth or Endor, purely for the recognition factor. Which one would probably depend on the scale of the game. At 28mm, probably Endor, because an AT-ST would be the biggest they could likely fit in the starter. At a smaller scale, though, they could go wild with Hoth and add in AT-ATs and speeders and stuff.
I want a full-on epic Star Wars game, where it's all about the armies. I don't want Star Wars 40K, where every game is another battle between Vader and Luke & Friends.
I was being snarky. Referring to the need to buy the Imperial Raider if you don't want Vader's TIE (an iconic ship) not play like a sack of Weasels in X-Wing.
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: I can't even imagine them selling a 28mm scale AT-AT. That would be in excess of 40k super-heavies in size. What are we guessing... $200?
They did release an AT-AT for the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars collectible miniature game but it was too big to be of any real use in a game.
H.B.M.C. wrote: So the Empire will fight their ground war with various types of Storm Troopers and walkers of all shapes and sizes.
And the Rebels will fight their ground war with... uhh... with... umm... Hmm... what do the rebels have again? Snowspeeders?
And herein we see the problems that have faced all SW ground based RTS games: What the hell do you give the rebels? You have to make crap up.
Thats because rebels suck. As much as people love to hate the prequels, I much prefer the Clone Wars as a conflict for videogames and boardgames than the Rebels vs Empire war.
Clones are cool. Droids are cool. The Empire is cool. The rebels? Ehh... no thanks.
And herein we see the problems that have faced all SW ground based RTS games: What the hell do you give the rebels? You have to make crap up.
Not really. The equipment "exists", and has within the setting for some time. West End Games did an excellent job of filling out the various details of the setting when they had the RPG license.
The question is whether the developers pay attention to what WEG did oh so long ago.
I wonder to what degree FFG's license even cover prequel stuff. I see some references to the PT. And I guess there is an Arc 170 for X-Wing these days - but maybe that can be explained with reference to Rebels? The best (only good thing?) about the PT is the military aspect.
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: I can't even imagine them selling a 28mm scale AT-AT. That would be in excess of 40k super-heavies in size. What are we guessing... $200?
They did release an AT-AT for the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars collectible miniature game but it was too big to be of any real use in a game.
Heh... I have 5 of them in the cabinet, for that Hoth game that is totally going to happen any year now...
Manchu wrote: I wonder to what degree FFG's license even cover prequel stuff. I see some references to the PT. And I guess there is an Arc 170 for X-Wing these days - but maybe that can be explained with reference to Rebels? The best (only good thing?) about the PT is the military aspect.
While I think there is a lot to like about the prequels, the conflicts of the Clone Wars are easily the best part and clearly offer more canonical opportunities for balanced conflict on the table top than the essentially asymmetrical warfare that takes place during the GCW. However my gut feeling is that Disney has no interest in licensing anything to do with the prequels, and FFG wanting to do it or not wanting to do it is irrelevant. :(
Assuming that is correct, I can see Disney's point. Rehabilitating the reputation of the PT is going to cost a lot of money and be a delicate, sophisticated project. Allowing anyone else to work with that IP at this stage would be tricky and potentially undermine their efforts. Well, let's see what the Young Han movie does on that score. It is pretty clearly a bridge building exercise between PT and OT (like Rebels). If that bears fruit, maybe we will eventually see some PT-era gaming. As much as I hate the PT, I love clone troopers and the droids are reasonably cool.
Would there even be much of a market for Separatists? Even if the popularity of the Empire dwarfs the Rebels, at least there's still something of a base for 'em. I don't think I've ever really seen somebody come out and say "Wow the Droids were so cool!" Doesn't help Revenge of the Sith/CGI Clone Wars portrayed 'em as whacky and useless.
I agree that Clone Wars era would be the best in terms of setting for this kind of thing, but imagine the market for officially licensed Stormtrooper miniatures alone. No way were they going to pass that up.
It seems like FFG games is really focused on Ep. 4+. So I imagine we will see Rebels and Empire, then Resistance and First Order. Somewhere in the middle of those they will throw in Scum.
Overall I am excited but also kind of cringing at the thought of this.
Arbitrator wrote: Would there even be much of a market for Separatists? Even if the popularity of the Empire dwarfs the Rebels, at least there's still something of a base for 'em. I don't think I've ever really seen somebody come out and say "Wow the Droids were so cool!" Doesn't help Revenge of the Sith/CGI Clone Wars portrayed 'em as whacky and useless.
I agree that Clone Wars era would be the best in terms of setting for this kind of thing, but imagine the market for officially licensed Stormtrooper miniatures alone. No way were they going to pass that up.
Yes and no. There were a huge number of forces fighting under the banner of the CIS but most of the organics lacked a recognisable and memorable style, barring the Geonosians and the Nimbus Commandos. Luckily, the droids that all of those forces had access to were quite decent (barring the B1s) and I think making the Super Battle Droids the 'basic' troopers in a game where a side might have 30 models or so would work pretty well.
I'm with most of you guys: love the idea, but who wants to play the Rebels in the classic trilogy? All they do is run away...for good reason. Clone Wars would be a great setting for a miniature skirmish game, but FFG doesn't seem to give the Prequels any love. Knights of the Old Republic...~sigh~
Arbitrator wrote: Would there even be much of a market for Separatists? Even if the popularity of the Empire dwarfs the Rebels, at least there's still something of a base for 'em. I don't think I've ever really seen somebody come out and say "Wow the Droids were so cool!" Doesn't help Revenge of the Sith/CGI Clone Wars portrayed 'em as whacky and useless.
I like droids.I collected a fairly large lot of the WotC minis, and am always happy for more variants to add to the mix.
Arbitrator wrote: Would there even be much of a market for Separatists? Even if the popularity of the Empire dwarfs the Rebels, at least there's still something of a base for 'em. I don't think I've ever really seen somebody come out and say "Wow the Droids were so cool!" Doesn't help Revenge of the Sith/CGI Clone Wars portrayed 'em as whacky and useless.
I like droids.I collected a fairly large lot of the WotC minis, and am always happy for more variants to add to the mix.
Me too! Needed buckets of them for my RPG campaign. Even had a Tri-Droid action figure serving as the larger Octuptarra droid since it was about the right size (unlike the WotC Octuptarra droid model which was way too small and actually the right size for a regular Tri Droid). But sadly I think we will need to keep hold of those WotC minis for a few more years yet.
I too would like some droid miniatures. The B!s are fine but some plastic B2s/Droidekas/Hailfire Droids would be awesome! To be honest when I read the title I was hoping it was referring to clone trooper legions. I was sadly disappointed.
Droids would be the easiest army to reincorporate from the Clone Wars Saga.
With the galaxy being so vast it is possible that some battalions of droids have survived without being found. Or was there a killswitch that was activated that shut them all down? Hell, someone could just reactivate them.
Edited to include: Reading into the Great Droid Uprising and could see a lot of potential in that. There is a movement within the galaxy that advocates for droid rights. This could be easily lumped into that third, miscellaneous, faction.
I loved my WotC Droid Army, used to play Droids versus my buddy's Empire all the time.
Honestly the Prequels are where it is at for Mass Battles. The Original Trilogy was more basic Skirmish, fighting in bunkers and inside of ships.
The big question, is will this cannibalize their Imperial Assault player base since they have been pushing that as a Skirmish Wargame rather than a Dungeon Crawwler that it is.
But is they do Prequel stuff for this game, I would Buy a ton of Droids, and Maybe Cones also, just for the Beetle Walkers they have.
Eumerin wrote: Not really. The equipment "exists", and has within the setting for some time. West End Games did an excellent job of filling out the various details of the setting when they had the RPG license.
So, like I said, they made crap up because the Rebels don't have any ground forces in the movies outside of infantry and Snowspeeders. Just like Force Commander had to (look how many 'first appearance' notes are next to the vehicle types; often they are the only appearance as well), and Galactic Battlegrounds and Empire at War.
Even one of my fav SW games of all time, Rebellion (had a different name in the UK), had to invent most of the Rebel ship types because they had nothing to match the existing Empire units.
The Clone Wars at least give us two fleshed out armies.
On the other hand, you can make that a design feature... Imperials get big war machines, Rebels get all sorts of nasty guerrila-warfare tricks - mines, demo charges, hackers, infiltrators, defectors who can take over Imperial gear. Ewoks.
For the rebels they can take a page out of Rogue One and include units of aliens as Rebels. Boffins, Moncal, Wookies. Give them a patched together desperate look rather than a cohesive force. Since The RA isn't actually 1 army but a coalition of resistance forces.
Digclaw wrote: For the rebels they can take a page out of Rogue One and include units of aliens as Rebels. Boffins, Moncal, Wookies. Give them a patched together desperate look rather than a cohesive force. Since The RA isn't actually 1 army but a coalition of resistance forces.
Like Mantic's Deadzone Rebels.
Spoiler:
The problem is that Star Wars suffers from his age and like Star Trek 80% of the most well known aliens are just humans of different colours with and small add-ons like Twi'leks, Mon'Calamari and Nautolans.
Digclaw wrote: For the rebels they can take a page out of Rogue One and include units of aliens as Rebels. Boffins, Moncal, Wookies. Give them a patched together desperate look rather than a cohesive force. Since The RA isn't actually 1 army but a coalition of resistance forces.
Like Mantic's Deadzone Rebels.
Spoiler:
The problem is that Star Wars suffers from his age and like Star Trek 80% of the most well known aliens are just humans of different colours with and small add-ons like Twi'leks, Mon'Calamari and Nautolans.
There are also people in Fur Suits and Muppets (Some of which have been updated over the years with newer technologies)
Snipafist on the FFG forums has the email about this miniatures game:
I'm an FLGS employee (hobby job as I await the kiddo) and I'm looking at the email right now. Check your email inbox. You should be looking for an email titled "Alliance Midwest Daily Receiving 8/16/17." Most of the time, the solicitation emails from distributors are ignored by everyone because they're glorified spam, so I'm not surprised it snuck past most people.
Good luck, Runewars. (And Song of Ice and Fire, for that matter.)
Boardgamers have more money than miniature enthusiasts, and BGG'ers aren't complaining about the miniatures, so I don't expect much improvement in the mini's. Still, FFG *has* released better sculpts of characters (eg. Descent 2nd edition), so I also wouldn't be surprised if we had new versions of existing characters as better sculpts (how long ago was IA released, anyway?). (And, if the SWL game needs the usual tons of FFG non-miniature components and more miniatures to play a game (eg. "rank and file"), it'll make sense for it to be a new purchase, rather than a game you could use your IA miniatures for.)
There's some speculation on the FFG forums that FFG's adding this game line because it's a miniatures Star Wars product, while Hasbro has the rights for Star Wars boardgames.
Well, whatever. If the SWL starter set is a loss leader like the RW starter is, sure, I'll pick it up!
Clone Wars would be the better choice for a Star Wars Planetary Tabletop.
TheCustomLime wrote: I too would like some droid miniatures. The B!s are fine but some plastic B2s/Droidekas/Hailfire Droids would be awesome! To be honest when I read the title I was hoping it was referring to clone trooper legions. I was sadly disappointed.
Empire still used Killer Droids / Droidekas after the Clone Wars.
Sining wrote: That makes no sense as FFG has several SW boardgames.
Well, they need to leverage it.
I have a box of Descent skellies, orcs, etc.. Some print-and-play pdf or even a complete faction army book without miniatures, I might have given Runewars a try. Having to buy a bunch of FFG skeletons for the card board tax for an unnecessarily bloated system of tokens, upgrade cards, fancy special dice ... no thanks.
I probably have a reasonable size Stormtrooper army of Imperial Assault stuff too. AT-ST, heavy weapons, characters, all there. Let me play those (officially) with an armybook "Imperium" and some generic dice (D6, D8 whatever), no silly tokens, gear cards, dials, etc.. and I'm in (as, I am sure, many gamers in my area). Ask me to buy a bunch of overpriced restic stormtroopers again for gamerules chopped up and spread across a million cards .. I am out.
I think that the secret to making a Clone Wars battle game work best would be to secure the rights to draw heavily from the animated series and slap that logo on the box instead of the prequel trilogy logos.
That series went a long way towards rehabilitating the PT setting, and managed to retroactively make Episode 3 better. (Not good, but better.)
Vong aren't (necessarily) a thing anymore, thank goodness, and in any case were not GCW-era, either. The third faction is simple enough, as it has been in both X-Wing and Imp Assault.
And utterly rubbish. MAI SPEHSSHIP R MAD UV CORALS LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And it's that lack of factions which concerns me.
Whether they plunder the old EU or not, it's gonna be difficult to get me enthused.
Let's consider X-Wing. Business practices aside, I quite like that game. Plays well, and it's Star Wars. Win/Win. But then....for me, they rapidly ran out of iconic ships. I don't hate all the EU stuff, but I'm not at all keen on stuff like the K-Wing, which just doesn't look Star Wars. Or the unending TIE (s)L/ghtlydifferentfromthelast. Once they'd done the Phantom and Defender, I kind of lost interest.
For a full on wargame, they need creative juices and options up their sleeves. For me, their options there are very limited.
Who or what is the third faction. Or fourth faction?
Hutt cartels/pirates/criminal organizations and Mandalorians/mercs come to mind. Those are just off the top of my head from the original trilogy without delving into the EU (and I haven't watched the Rebels show so don't know what canon was added there potentially). Then there are the potential 40k style subarmies like imperial commandos, dark times jedi enclave, and all wookie freedom force. I don't personally feel that games need a dozen factions to be interesting as long as the existing ones are supported over time (see X-wing for instance but without the pokemon style gotcha collect them all upgrade card schtick).
If it were set between episodes 6 and 7, then I suppose you could have the Republilc, the remnant Empire, the First order, Resistance and potentially other factions who broke away from the collapsing Empire but didn't sign up to the Republic. That's all a stretch, though, is unlikely to get past Lucasfilm's licensing and still has the problem that you're just making up a load of stuff.
It's the difference between a setting for films/books/comics/TV - which are there to tell a story - and those for fantasy/SF wargames - wich are there to give an excuse for six different factions to fight all the others (and occasionally themselves).
If you set it before Episode 4, using material from Rebels would at least allow you to have two different sub-factions of the Rebel Alliance, like Infinity's Sectoral army lists (for example, the Lothal rebels seem to use A- and B-Wings rather than the Yavin Rebels' X- and Y-Wings).
Eh? Not seen any B-Wings except for the single episode featuring the ridiculous prototype and its Mon Cal designer. They use A-Wings pinched from Kuat and salvaged Y-Wings in the Rebels show.
Let's consider X-Wing. Business practices aside, I quite like that game. Plays well, and it's Star Wars. Win/Win. But then....for me, they rapidly ran out of iconic ships. I don't hate all the EU stuff, but I'm not at all keen on stuff like the K-Wing, which just doesn't look Star Wars. Or the unending TIE (s)L/ghtlydifferentfromthelast. Once they'd done the Phantom and Defender, I kind of lost interest.
For a full on wargame, they need creative juices and options up their sleeves. For me, their options there are very limited.
But I think, like X-Wing, a lot of people will just be happy to play Star Wars, and not need new things coming out all the time?
You can continue to have fun with X-Wing vs. Tie Fighters, and with Armada etc. in the same way that Historicals gets by just fine with the contents of what happened, without having to create Greek Phalanxes that rode to battle on dinosaurs (although thinking about it...)
I think it's more of a problem for the companies that need to keep trying to make people buy stuff (which is perhaps why some of the X-Wing range seem rather strained), rather than the fans who just want to be in Star Wars, and enjoy watching tie-fighters crash into asteroids.
Manchu wrote:Some "face the facts" points here:
- 28-32mm, so vehicles will be rare/powerful
- GCW era, so factions will be Empire, Rebellion, and Scum
- published by FFG, so there will be upgrade cards
Brilliant, thanks for the update!
Already imagining Scum as the 'orks' of this game, in terms of conversion and alternative miniature possibilities!
@Pacific - me saying there will be a third faction and that third faction will be scum is not a confirmed fact about the game, it is just a logical conclusion based on X-Wing and Imperial Assault
Eumerin wrote: Not really. The equipment "exists", and has within the setting for some time. West End Games did an excellent job of filling out the various details of the setting when they had the RPG license.
So, like I said, they made crap up because the Rebels don't have any ground forces in the movies outside of infantry and Snowspeeders. Just like Force Commander had to (look how many 'first appearance' notes are next to the vehicle types; often they are the only appearance as well), and Galactic Battlegrounds and Empire at War.
Even one of my fav SW games of all time, Rebellion (had a different name in the UK), had to invent most of the Rebel ship types because they had nothing to match the existing Empire units.
The Clone Wars at least give us two fleshed out armies.
This is entily the issue, the rebels never had a ground army that we saw. The preview of the starter already includes something for them that's not film canon. The clone wars would make so much more sense for this.
Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
This takes me back to how I felt when X-Wing was released. The prequels had really sapped me of SW enthusiasm but X-Wing brought me back to that excitement of being a kid playing with SW toys. Legion takes me right back again, now to the days of looking at the WEG miniatures game advertisments, knowing I would never be able to play those games. Ah but I will be playing this one!
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
The issue is that FFG essentially already make this game, and have done for several years. Unless somehow moving from tiles and squares to inches and tabletops radically changes people's attitudes, irrespective of any changes in mechanics, you've been able to play a one on one Star Wars battle game of this scale and similar scope for some time and, IME at least, nobody is. So unless something emerges that really changes the playing field, I just can't see much to get excited about.
Yeah... that preview article is grinding my enthusiasm to a screaming halt... proprietary dice crap, unit upgrades cards will be all over the place, weird movement tools instead of the simple and proven tape-measure....
... but as others have said, my FB feed is exploding with people who hate miniatures, begging for a chance to pre-order this. Good or not, its going to be HUGE.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Well, DAKKA being a wargamer forum, has a more picky audience (which is into wargames, not just boardgames), so people, while already being engaged with other wargames, expect higher standards to pull them over to a yet another wargame.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Models are meh at best.
Upgrade cards, forcing you to keep buying, even units you don't want, just to keep on top of the game.
Proprietary dice.
Already something not from the films.
Vehicles likely to be pricey, when FFG aren't exactly cheap.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Well, DAKKA being a wargamer forum, has a more picky audience (which is into wargames, not just boardgames), so people, while already being engaged with other wargames, expect higher standards to pull them over to a yet another wargame.
I mean to be honest, Games Workshop could put anthrax in every newly made box of models and about 50% of this board would defend it.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Models are meh at best.
Upgrade cards, forcing you to keep buying, even units you don't want, just to keep on top of the game.
Proprietary dice.
Already something not from the films.
Vehicles likely to be pricey, when FFG aren't exactly cheap.
It's a pass from me.
Yeah. This. Upgrade cards already in the preview. Here comes FFG's "do you have 3 identical heavy blaster upgrade cards from three different expansions to field them?" and "Luke's much better Lightsaber 2.0 is really what you want .. available only in the bounty hunter expansion".
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Models are meh at best.
Upgrade cards, forcing you to keep buying, even units you don't want, just to keep on top of the game.
Proprietary dice.
Already something not from the films.
Vehicles likely to be pricey, when FFG aren't exactly cheap.
It's a pass from me.
It was always going to be a pass from you, be honest.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Models are meh at best.
Upgrade cards, forcing you to keep buying, even units you don't want, just to keep on top of the game.
Proprietary dice.
Already something not from the films.
Vehicles likely to be pricey, when FFG aren't exactly cheap.
It's a pass from me.
It was always going to be a pass from you, be honest.
Not at all.
I throughly enjoyed the early days of X-Wing. The game is solid, just a shame about the constant need to buy more and more ship Keep OP With the Cardashians (do you see what I Did There? Awfully witty of me).
This seems to be going down the same route already, so I shan't be fooled twice.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Well, DAKKA being a wargamer forum, has a more picky audience (which is into wargames, not just boardgames), so people, while already being engaged with other wargames, expect higher standards to pull them over to a yet another wargame.
I mean to be honest, Games Workshop could put anthrax in every newly made box of models and about 50% of this board would defend it.
Yay, a mandatory GW is BAD and it`s fanboys are BAD comment.. Why here? Why now?
But if it comes to this... GW does make better minis, than FFG and they are cheaper per mini on average. There, I said it. AND SO IT BEGINS.
AND THERE IT STOPS.
I would love some SW minis myself, but after seeing Knights Models stuff,FFG will never win me over with quality like on the pics. It will sell very well though(much better, than great quality metals), no doubt. This stuff will be eaiser to assemble, no requirement to paint, less rules, wide spread = easy to get to. Basicly all the reasons boardgames are more popular, than wargames.
I have no interest on this, but as Manchu said, this is gonna be HUGE. My whatssap groups are al like crazy. Dakkadakka is full of grognards like myself that are so cynic about everything (A property that is good in many cases, but suck the fun of life in many others) that cant look past their own tastes..
SnotlingPimpWagon wrote: I wonder how will they deal with AT-ATs, snowspeeders, ect...
Battle at Hoth being (probs) the most loved one.
We can definatly expect AT-STs..
I would expect this to be the focus of an entire wave's worth of expansions. Maybe two waves, TBH.
On behalf of players, which will be into this game, I`m afraid, that there will be scale jumps between stuff, like in X-Wing. Hopefuly this won`t be the case A new wawe comes once a year?
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Models are meh at best.
Upgrade cards, forcing you to keep buying, even units you don't want, just to keep on top of the game.
Proprietary dice.
Already something not from the films.
Vehicles likely to be pricey, when FFG aren't exactly cheap.
It's a pass from me.
It was always going to be a pass from you, be honest.
Not at all.
I throughly enjoyed the early days of X-Wing. The game is solid, just a shame about the constant need to buy more and more ship Keep OP With the Cardashians (do you see what I Did There? Awfully witty of me).
This seems to be going down the same route already, so I shan't be fooled twice.
Manchu wrote: Scale is less important than fun, especially when it comes to stuff that is purely fictional anyhow.
The real question that should be on everyone's mind is, will FFG finally get around to making terrain???
I`d guess, we can probably expect something akin to stuff in "Song of Ice and Fire" KS. THey have a bunch of trees there at least, PVC, easily put together.
This game being a wargame with shooting needs LOS blocks, doesn`t it?
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
So you'll instead season the thread with spite before they get salty? Not sure I agree with that reasoning...
With regard to the "this is going to be huge with non-wargamers" idea. Can't say I think people are wrong, but given we already have IA, why do people think that a product that's placed further away from the core trad board game market is going to succeed where IA hasn't already?
I like what they have done with Imperial Assault but as with Necromunda this is a wait and see..
My concerns the scale, right now I only use my IA figures for SWRPG so if this is off scale I don't need it.
Just want someone to hold up a IA storm trooper to one in this set; this would calm a lot of people
Also, with old WotC figures I already have a ton of rebel figures and storm troopers..
If they announce figures of correct scale from rogue one or other different figures that I don't have in my collection already
they might get my money.
Azreal13 wrote: With regard to the "this is going to be huge with non-wargamers" idea. Can't say I think people are wrong, but given we already have IA, why do people think that a product that's placed further away from the core trad board game market is going to succeed where IA hasn't already?
It`s STAR WARS (tm) with STORM TROOPERS (tm). New minis for LUke, Leia, Obi and Darth Vader = a sale boom.
Mothers will get their kids this stuff, because that`s something they recognise, anyone remotly interested in star wars with at least 1 SW merch Item will scratch his head: Maybe he should try this out?
And the starter set will be cheaper, than the one of IA. X-WIng level probably. They sell X-Wings in book stores, so they will probably this game.
Azreal13 wrote: why do people think that a product that's placed further away from the core trad board game market is going to succeed where IA hasn't already?
I bought a ton of IA but ultimately sold it because I found the gameplay boring and the "skirmish" mode did not seem promising, being played on tiles. That said, I think it's been pretty successful with the wider market. I think Legion will be very popular because IME there are lots of people who would like to get into miniatures gaming but for whom it is an extremely daunting prospect. For us miniatures gamers, it can be hard to objectively look at the obstacles to getting into our hobby.
The Stormtroopers look MUCH better without the low quality photo.
I'm glad Star Wars minis coming back in print but I can't help but wonder if xwing quality build prepainted would have been better. Part of the success of that game was the instant gratification and playability of the minis on top of their desktop display quality that broadened the appeal beyond just tabletop gamers.
Azreal13 wrote: With regard to the "this is going to be huge with non-wargamers" idea. Can't say I think people are wrong, but given we already have IA, why do people think that a product that's placed further away from the core trad board game market is going to succeed where IA hasn't already?
It`s STAR WARS (tm) with STORM TROOPERS (tm). New minis for LUke, Leia, Obi and Darth Vader = a sale boom.
Mothers will get their kids this stuff, because that`s something they recognise, anyone remotly interested in star wars with at least 1 SW merch Item will scratch his head: Maybe he should try this out?
And the starter set will be cheaper, than the one of IA. X-WIng level probably. They sell X-Wings in book stores, so they will probably this game.
The starter's up for pre order, its $90, so it's the same as IA was (or close.)
Azreal13 wrote: why do people think that a product that's placed further away from the core trad board game market is going to succeed where IA hasn't already?
I bought a ton of IA but ultimately sold it because I found the gameplay boring and the "skirmish" mode did not seem promising, being played on tiles. That said, I think it's been pretty successful with the wider market. I think Legion will be very popular because IME there are lots of people who would like to get into miniatures gaming but for whom it is an extremely daunting prospect. For us miniatures gamers, it can be hard to objectively look at the obstacles to getting into our hobby.
Yeah, similar experience here. Played through the campaign on a bi weekly basis at our club, thoroughly enjoyed it, not one of us who played seems to really feel compelled to do anything further with it.
Azreal13 wrote: The starter's up for pre order, its $90, so it's the same as IA was (or close.)
OK so now the question will be ... how many core sets do you buy?
Azreal13 wrote: Played through the campaign on a bi weekly basis at our club, thoroughly enjoyed it, not one of us who played seems to really feel compelled to do anything further with it.
My group played through the main campaign as well, I dropped out after like two sessions and sold my stuff (other group member had the whole set, up to that point). Although the other group members enjoyed it a lot, it's been a while now with little to no talk about continuing with the expansions. I think this is probably down to our group having so, so much dividing our attention.
For me, IA was too far along the line of everyone telling me what to do on my turn to the point that I checked out and just let the others run my character. I honestly had a miserable time playing it. I did like the components, including the miniatures.
Azreal13 wrote: why do people think that a product that's placed further away from the core trad board game market is going to succeed where IA hasn't already?
I bought a ton of IA but ultimately sold it because I found the gameplay boring and the "skirmish" mode did not seem promising, being played on tiles. That said, I think it's been pretty successful with the wider market. I think Legion will be very popular because IME there are lots of people who would like to get into miniatures gaming but for whom it is an extremely daunting prospect. For us miniatures gamers, it can be hard to objectively look at the obstacles to getting into our hobby.
Yeah, similar experience here. Played through the campaign on a bi weekly basis at our club, thoroughly enjoyed it, not one of us who played seems to really feel compelled to do anything further with it.
I'm waiting for the "Mansions of Madness"-like app to allow us to all play as rebels instead of it being a game of everyone against the one guy.
Azreal13 wrote: why do people think that a product that's placed further away from the core trad board game market is going to succeed where IA hasn't already?
I bought a ton of IA but ultimately sold it because I found the gameplay boring and the "skirmish" mode did not seem promising, being played on tiles. That said, I think it's been pretty successful with the wider market. I think Legion will be very popular because IME there are lots of people who would like to get into miniatures gaming but for whom it is an extremely daunting prospect. For us miniatures gamers, it can be hard to objectively look at the obstacles to getting into our hobby.
Yeah, similar experience here. Played through the campaign on a bi weekly basis at our club, thoroughly enjoyed it, not one of us who played seems to really feel compelled to do anything further with it.
I'm waiting for the "Mansions of Madness"-like app to allow us to all play as rebels instead of it being a game of everyone against the one guy.
They have confirmed today that it's currently being tested so hopefully soon.
At the beginning of each round of Star Wars: Legion, you and your opponent select a command card from your individual hands of command cards. The card that you select determines which player acts first throughout the round, and it also lets you deliver orders to a few of your units.
Ordering a unit in the command phase simply places an order token next to that unit. Then, during the activation phase, you have a choice—activate a unit that you ordered during the command phase, or draw a random order token from your order pool, which forces you to activate a unit of the same rank. Whether you want to guarantee you strike first or hold one unit’s attack until the last possible second, your command card gives you the means to deliver orders to your most important units.
Looks like initiative might be in the upper left hand?
TalonZahn wrote: This is looking like a literal Imperial Assault Skirmish 2.0 (Now with twice as many dudes!) game.
Actually, it has one less dude!
Legion Core set has 33 miniatures, while IA has 34. For the non-boardgamers, FFG has a history of releasing new versions of its products (eg. Descent 2nd edition, Runebound 3rd edition).
My guess is that FFG thinks IA has had its run, with four big box expansions, and multiple small ones. For boardgames, this is a lot of big expansions, though miniatures boardgames and wargames tend to have more than non-miniature boardgames.
$90 MSRP so probably just under $80 for the game from a bulk site?
The price point is really similar to Imperial Assault, including figure count (both ~30ish figures). A lot of the old pre-paints can be had for $1 or so apiece if one is desperate. If someone is bothered by scale, there are some great 1:48 (or is it 1:43) kits for AT-STs and Snow Speeders... plus a lot of the old prepaint vehicles are decently scaled and priced.
Part of me kinda hoped it would have a Rune Wars-esque dial system but if it's more skirmish like it appears, I suppose it's better off without.
I'm partially hesitant about the orders and cards and stuff.. as those are the elements that put me off of Imperial Assault. I'd be willing to give it a shot though. Worst case scenario I end up with some Star Wars 40k
I'm extremely pleased that they aren't relying on crowd funding for this type of thing.
RE: IA has had it's run.. It has an expansion that's about to release.. so I dunno about that. If they are smart and set it up so that IA is the "Necromunda" to Legion's "40k" then I think they could open up some cross play gateway type situations to get people to either jump in or dust off their old stuff. Who knows if that's how they're planning it but the idea of having a large scale Star Wars game with a huge assortment of characters and specialist units to pick from is exciting enough.. anything that boosts that is just gravy.
Honestly that scale difference isn't bad. You'd barely notice it without putting the same dude next to each other. Put the IA Luke on a rock or something and it wouldn't be noticible at all. Plus he's ''a little short for a stormtrooper''.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
NJO and the prequels pretty much killed my SW interest long term, so I haven't really commented. However, this is the kind of game I would have loved as a child and thus plan to get it if and when my son gets into boardgames. His cousin already has IA, but they are just too young to play it. If worse comes to worst, the minis can mix in with the Star Wars Comand minis I already have a bunch of.
Still, it's a bit disingenuous to say people are being overly nit picky to be turned off by a FFG game's unstoppable tide of cardboard bs and cutesy dice.
Scale difference or not, I doubt you'll be able to play IA miniatures easily.
They put zero effort into letting people bring existing Descent miniatures to Runewars, and the cardboard tax of manouver dials, unit cards, etc.. makes it neigh impossible (without a lot of effort) to play even perfectly matched miniatures such as Descent skeleton warriors in Runewars.
I wouldn't expect this to promote cross-miniature-collection play-ability more than Runewars did. Unless you're endlessly searching ebay for no-miniature upgrade and unit cards, IA miniatures will likely stay in the IA box.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: it's a bit disingenuous to say people are being overly nit picky to be turned off by a FFG game's unstoppable tide of cardboard bs and cutesy dice
Of course, that's not what he said, either.
As to the cards and proprietary dice, well, it's a FFG game. Seeing those three letters should have put on notice anyone whose purchase was contingent on Legion not having cards and proprietary dice. I get that some people don't like it and I (think I) understand why. I would have preferred a 1/72 war game that focused on troops rather than comic book type heroes and villains. But that's just unrealistic, especially given it's a FFG product.
Makes more sense to talk about what FFG is making than what FFG "should have made" (according to each one).
BobtheInquisitor wrote: it's a bit disingenuous to say people are being overly nit picky to be turned off by a FFG game's unstoppable tide of cardboard bs and cutesy dice
Of course, that's not what he said, either.
As to the cards and proprietary dice, well, it's a FFG game. Seeing those three letters should have put on notice anyone whose purchase was contingent on Legion not having cards and proprietary dice. I get that some people don't like it and I (think I) understand why. I would have preferred a 1/72 war game that focused on troops rather than comic book type heroes and villains. But that's just unrealistic, especially given it's a FFG product.
Makes more sense to talk about what FFG is making than what FFG "should have made" (according to each one).
My apologies for reading that into his statement.
However, the FFG set up issue has pretty much ruined the company for me and is the number one reason I haven't bought any of their games to play in years. So, yeah, I'm on notice.
Wonderwolf wrote: Scale difference or not, I doubt you'll be able to play IA miniatures easily.
They put zero effort into letting people bring existing Descent miniatures to Runewars, and the cardboard tax of manouver dials, unit cards, etc.. makes it neigh impossible (without a lot of effort) to play even perfectly matched miniatures such as Descent skeleton warriors in Runewars.
I wouldn't expect this to promote cross-miniature-collection play-ability more than Runewars did. Unless you're endlessly searching ebay for no-miniature upgrade and unit cards, IA miniatures will likely stay in the IA box.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: it's a bit disingenuous to say people are being overly nit picky to be turned off by a FFG game's unstoppable tide of cardboard bs and cutesy dice
Of course, that's not what he said, either.
As to the cards and proprietary dice, well, it's a FFG game. Seeing those three letters should have put on notice anyone whose purchase was contingent on Legion not having cards and proprietary dice. I get that some people don't like it and I (think I) understand why. I would have preferred a 1/72 war game that focused on troops rather than comic book type heroes and villains. But that's just unrealistic, especially given it's a FFG product.
Makes more sense to talk about what FFG is making than what FFG "should have made" (according to each one).
If it is more skirmish as things are looking then Empire vs Rebels works great. The original Trilogy was more fighting from cover and running battles than Mass Battles. It also makes sense they release it as a skirmish because a Star Wars Mass battle would have cannibalized their market for Rune Wars.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
The issue is that FFG essentially already make this game, and have done for several years. Unless somehow moving from tiles and squares to inches and tabletops radically changes people's attitudes, irrespective of any changes in mechanics, you've been able to play a one on one Star Wars battle game of this scale and similar scope for some time and, IME at least, nobody is. So unless something emerges that really changes the playing field, I just can't see much to get excited about.
Digclaw wrote: a Star Wars Mass battle would have cannibalized their market for Rune Wars
This is going to happen regardless. Obviously, RW is a very different game from SW Legion but the commonality is target demographic: would-be mini gamers. I think more of them are going to be drawn to the SW brand. Fortunately, RW's release schedule is already in full swing for four factions, unlike poor Battlelore Second.
Bought tons of Imperial Assault, had no fun, sold it.
Bought the RW core set, played once, it's okay, not sure if I want to buy anymore.
So the track record isn't exactly phenomenal here. But I can't and won't pretend I'm not excited about this. I have been waiting for something like this for so long.
For me, a lot of it is just that I've soured on cards in general. Errata has become very important as the crowd of competitively viable games as swelled and cards just aren't able to keep pace. As I've gotten to playing electronic options like Warmachine and Infinity I just don't want to have to sort through the stack to build my list. X-Wing is the biggest offender of a game I don't play as much as I'd like because of the hassle, but Malifaux has also something I've tired of managing for similar reasons.
FFG has some of the best resources to go digital, but they're so tied to monetizing cards that I doubt they ever will. X-Wing's a great game, but its so tied to stuff that its becoming very very cumbersome and hard to change.
Albertorius wrote: Also, if anyone has questions about the rules, I can try and answer those.
Can you tell us about the command system?
Hm, let's see:
There's actually two separate systems that you could call "command".
- First, each player has a hand of seven Command Cards and can use one each turn. When starting a turn, each player plays one Command Card facedown, and they reveal both simultaneously.
- The chosen Command Card will determine which player has priority and who resolves the first actions of the turn.
- Starting with the player who has priority, each player nominates a friendly commander an issues orders with it. The number of orders that can be issued will be determined by the Command Card used, and can only be given to eligible units.
- A unit is eligible if it is inside the command range of the commander, and when you give an order to a unit you put an order token of the type of the unit face up besides it.
- Each player will have a command token of the appropiate type for each unit in their srmy. The ones not assigned form the Command Pool.
After that starts the Activation Phase. Starting with the player who has priority, each players takes s turn activating one of their units. When activating a unit, the player can choose to either select a unit with a faceup command token or to take a random order token from their order pool and activate a unit of the token's type (which can not be one of the ones with a command token.
That's basically it, although commanders and unit leaders have other rules.
At the beginning of each round of Star Wars: Legion, you and your opponent select a command card from your individual hands of command cards. The card that you select determines which player acts first throughout the round, and it also lets you deliver orders to a few of your units.
Ordering a unit in the command phase simply places an order token next to that unit. Then, during the activation phase, you have a choice—activate a unit that you ordered during the command phase, or draw a random order token from your order pool, which forces you to activate a unit of the same rank. Whether you want to guarantee you strike first or hold one unit’s attack until the last possible second, your command card gives you the means to deliver orders to your most important units.
Looks like initiative might be in the upper left hand?
Hero-specific command decks, as well.
Yes, lower goes first. The card also tells you how many orders you can give and to which units, and some also have special rules.
So there are two phases on which units activate? And a unit can activate more than once during a turn because it can activate in both of those phases?
If you activate a unit in the Activation Phase that you had not previously activated, then you have to assign them a random order token? So you actually can't control what that unit does that turn?
And if you select a unit in the Activation Phase that had already been activated, it can only do the same thing in the Activation Phase that it had already done?
I guess it would really help to know more about the order tokens.
Honestly, I'm more interested in the minis than the rules. And aside from the huge head on Luke (which actually looks better in most of the later pics posted), they look decent enough.
Sounds like Orders are bonuses of some kind that apply when the unit activates later that turn. Like you have Darth Vader tell his Storm Troopers to Aim. Then when they activate, they have an Aim token to spend that round.
So there are two phases on which units activate? And a unit can activate more than once during a turn because it can activate in both of those phases?
If you activate a unit in the Activation Phase that you had not previously activated, then you have to assign them a random order token? So you actually can't control what that unit does that turn?
And if you select a unit in the Activation Phase that had already been activated, it can only do the same thing in the Activation Phase that it had already done?
I guess it would really help to know more about the order tokens.
No, there's only one Activation Phase, but on it each players takes turns to activate one unit. Each time it's the player's turn, he can choose to either activate a unit with a command token assigned and faceup (from an order), which allows him to select the exact unit he wants to activate, or he can pick a random token from his command pool (which will be made up of the tokens of all the rest of his army, by type of unit) and give thst one to a unit of the appropriate type that doesn't already has a token (ergo, a unit that hasn't received an order during the initiative phase and that has not yet been activated. This is somewhat similar to Bolt Action's activation, but instead of the side of the unit being random each pickup, the players take turns.
A while ago I read how FFG has lost a lawsuit in regards to Imperial Assault, and how it's too much like a boardgame license that some other big company had exclusive rights to. So now FFG has to pay through the nose to sub-license the boardgame rights.
I suspect the only reason why this exists now is that they get to reuse all the IA miniatures in wargame form.
Otherwise, Wargaming of this style isn't exactly the most popular thing.
Albertorius wrote: take a random order token from their order pool and activate a unit of the token's type (which can not be one of the ones with a command token)
OK I misread this part. So order tokens correspond to unit types. You use cards to give orders to certain units. Other kinds of units might activate during that turn depending on whether you draw their token during the Activation Phase. Is that correct?
Vertrucio wrote: A while ago I read how FFG has lost a lawsuit in regards to Imperial Assault, and how it's too much like a boardgame license that some other big company had exclusive rights to. So now FFG has to pay through the nose to sub-license the boardgame rights.
I suspect the only reason why this exists now is that they get to reuse all the IA miniatures in wargame form.
Otherwise, Wargaming of this style isn't exactly the most popular thing.
Hasbro owns the rights to "Star Wars Board Games" aka slap a SW skin on Monopoly or Clue and call it a day.
TalonZahn wrote: I think this is more what several people had in mind would be coming.
You're kidding right???
Yea, it's completely unreasonable to think that a company pushing more and more into miniatures games would release an actual miniatures game that didn't require piles of cards for upgrades and commands, and dice only for that game.
OK so with your clarification above, the cards are played to (a) determine priority and (b) issue non-random order tokens.
During the Activation Phase, you can choose to activate units with face-up order tokens or draw random order tokens to activate units of the corresponding type?
Wow.. really surprised at the poor initial reception here, and can't believe I actually read a 'Meh' !
It's .. a star wars tabletop game! Star Wars!
Other than Aliens (.. although probably best not to go down the route that that one turned out!), nor really sure there is anything that I have looked forward to as much in terms of a miniature wargame release.
The rebels look lovely, the Stormtroopers are .. well Stormtroopers, they are basic by definition, but these look close enough to me.
Am definitely willing to wait to see how the rules turn out, although FFG have had more hits than misses of the games I have played so I am hopeful that it won;t be rubbish at least. Love X-Wing, haven't played Armada (although have watched some games, and guys at my local club swear it's the best thing since sliced bread), Descent was good for what it was, although I found it a bit bloated and for some reason it seemed to bring out the beardyness of people I played it with (perhaps put me off IA for the same reason..)
But I've already started thinking about going through my Ralph McQuarrie art collection and wondering about what kind of special terrain set-up might be possible.
As a wargamer, and some that enjoys terrain and imagination in games, I'm so looking forward to this! And it's not a damned KS as well so don't have to wait 18 months for it.
Grey Templar wrote: Sounds like Orders are bonuses of some kind that apply when the unit activates later that turn. Like you have Darth Vader tell his Storm Troopers to Aim. Then when they activate, they have an Aim token to spend that round.
Hm, not really. By way of example, there's a command card only eligible if you have Vader in your army, called "Master of Evil". It's Priority 3 pips, but it allows you to give orders to Vader and 2 other units, and it has þe following additional rule:
When Darth Vader is issued an order, he gains 1 dodge token. When Darth Vader activates, each enemy trooper unit at range 1–2 of him gains 3 suppression tokens.
TalonZahn wrote: Yea, it's completely unreasonable to think that a company pushing more and more into miniatures games would release an actual miniatures game that didn't require piles of cards for upgrades and commands, and dice only for that game.
That is the worst example of sarcasm I have ever come across in my life, considering the company in question is Fantasy Flight Games.
Manchu wrote: OK so with your clarification above, the cards are played to (a) determine priority and (b) issue non-random order tokens.
During the Activation Phase, you can choose to activate units with face-up order tokens or draw random order tokens to activate units of the corresponding type?
Digclaw wrote: a Star Wars Mass battle would have cannibalized their market for Rune Wars
This is going to happen regardless. Obviously, RW is a very different game from SW Legion but the commonality is target demographic: would-be mini gamers. I think more of them are going to be drawn to the SW brand. Fortunately, RW's release schedule is already in full swing for four factions, unlike poor Battlelore Second.
Bought tons of Imperial Assault, had no fun, sold it.
Bought the RW core set, played once, it's okay, not sure if I want to buy anymore.
So the track record isn't exactly phenomenal here. But I can't and won't pretend I'm not excited about this. I have been waiting for something like this for so long.
That's the danger with anything based on a major property though.. (anyone who played CCGs in the 90s saw all of this play out already). I was really excited about all the Halo stuff that came out from Spartan.. hell I've been excited about a lot of things in the gaming world over the last couple of years. I will likely pick this up but between this and all the neat looking Kickstarters and rehashes of nostalgia gaming.. I think I might have hit the point where I have to step back and start becoming more discerning..
Completely agree with your assessments (for the ones I've tried). Proprietary dice and fiddly cards are why at least 3 of my recent games are just gathering dust. For some reason these games tend to also have at least one or two mechanics that are needlessly complicated and I think it just adds up into some kind of mental block pushing me back towards a game that has at least one less of those things for me to process.
Vertrucio wrote: A while ago I read how FFG has lost a lawsuit in regards to Imperial Assault, and how it's too much like a boardgame license that some other big company had exclusive rights to. So now FFG has to pay through the nose to sub-license the boardgame rights.
I suspect the only reason why this exists now is that they get to reuse all the IA miniatures in wargame form.
Otherwise, Wargaming of this style isn't exactly the most popular thing.
Hasbro owns the rights to "Star Wars Board Games" aka slap a SW skin on Monopoly or Clue and call it a day.
FFG does plenty of Star Wars games. some of which are lot board-gamier than Imperial Assault, e.g. Star Wars Rebellion (published quite a bit after IA).
I guess collectible dice and card games don't even count here.
But board games in particular got hit hard by this. I think anything from IA and Rebellion is just stuff they're finishing up.
As for this game, rushed though it may be, has some interesting elements. I've posted before in these forums I've wanted to use boardgame style components and mechanics to spice up games. Although, probably not to the level that FFG plans to.
Unfortunately the model quality kind of isn't there. So much is up in the air I'd want to see more. Let's hope some videos and detailed previews start popping up.
Overall though, this is a missed opportunity to have a mass battle game at like 15mm, so you can have Clone Wars level fights.
TalonZahn wrote: Yea, it's completely unreasonable to think that a company pushing more and more into miniatures games would release an actual miniatures game that didn't require piles of cards for upgrades and commands, and dice only for that game.
That is the worst example of sarcasm I have ever come across in my life, considering the company in question is Fantasy Flight Games.
Well, then you better Exhalt and Siggy that gak.
You're just being disingenuous about what FFG appears to be doing with their lines recently
TalonZahn wrote: Yea, it's completely unreasonable to think that a company pushing more and more into miniatures games would release an actual miniatures game that didn't require piles of cards for upgrades and commands, and dice only for that game.
That is the worst example of sarcasm I have ever come across in my life, considering the company in question is Fantasy Flight Games.
Well, then you better Exhalt and Siggy that gak.
You're just being disingenuous about what FFG appears to be doing with their lines recently
Don't lose hope. If GW was able to kick its atrocious social media and community engagement policy (something FFG has done very well in the past with store events, etc.), there is hope FFG might one day kick its atrocious "we write "rules" to make money, not to actually play fun games"-policy.
Sadly, it seems like it didn't (yet!) happen with Star Wars Legion.
TalonZahn wrote: You're just being disingenuous about what FFG appears to be doing with their lines recently
In what way?
Please see:
Spoiler:
Manchu wrote: As to the cards and proprietary dice, well, it's a FFG game. Seeing those three letters should have put on notice anyone whose purchase was contingent on Legion not having cards and proprietary dice.
Bought tons of Imperial Assault, had no fun, sold it.
Bought the RW core set, played once, it's okay, not sure if I want to buy anymore.
So the track record isn't exactly phenomenal here. But I can't and won't pretend I'm not excited about this. I have been waiting for something like this for so long.
TalonZahn wrote: Yea, it's completely unreasonable to think that a company pushing more and more into miniatures games would release an actual miniatures game that didn't require piles of cards for upgrades and commands, and dice only for that game.
That is the worst example of sarcasm I have ever come across in my life, considering the company in question is Fantasy Flight Games.
C'mon Manchu, it's unreasonable that ANY miniatures wargame would use TOKENS and CARDS
By claiming ignorance that they aren't moving deeper into miniatures games, away from board games. Then using that feigned ignorance to say that no one should have expected them to make a miniatures game not requiring piles of cards and special dice. (Which are more suited to a boardgame than a tabletop miniatures game)
Now, for 2 reasons you and I are going to stop; its' becoming off-topic, and two, it's not getting anywhere since it appears you just want me to chance my tail by being.....disingenuous.
You can PM me if you *really* want to talk about it more.
[Edit] Oh, thank God Judge is here to pile in. For the record, Judge, those are Skirmish level games, LIKE IMPERIAL ASSAULT, so, thanks for that.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
The issue is that FFG essentially already make this game, and have done for several years. Unless somehow moving from tiles and squares to inches and tabletops radically changes people's attitudes, irrespective of any changes in mechanics, you've been able to play a one on one Star Wars battle game of this scale and similar scope for some time and, IME at least, nobody is. So unless something emerges that really changes the playing field, I just can't see much to get excited about.
LOL Necromunda / 40k
Mordhiem / WHFB
Bolt Action / Flames of War
ridiculous.
Your counter to "they already make a game which appears to offer a similar experience" is to list a bunch of games which very obviously offer something different from each other?
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
The issue is that FFG essentially already make this game, and have done for several years. Unless somehow moving from tiles and squares to inches and tabletops radically changes people's attitudes, irrespective of any changes in mechanics, you've been able to play a one on one Star Wars battle game of this scale and similar scope for some time and, IME at least, nobody is. So unless something emerges that really changes the playing field, I just can't see much to get excited about.
LOL Necromunda / 40k
Mordhiem / WHFB
Bolt Action / Flames of War
ridiculous.
Your counter to "they already make a game which appears to offer a similar experience" is to list a bunch of games which very obviously offer something different from each other?
Hmmmm...
You're right, Necromunda is way too similar to 40k, versus a Star Wars grid board game :: a freeform miniatures game. A more apt comparison would be Gorechosen and Age of Sigmar.
One is played on a board with tokens and cards and miniatures, and the other is played on a tabletop with tokens and cards and miniatures.
TalonZahn wrote: claiming ignorance that they aren't moving deeper into miniatures games, away from board games
They literally aren't. RW and Legions are both crossover products. Like X-Wing and Armada. All of these games use tons of components, cards, and proprietary dice. Nothing FFG has published, whether in terms of board games or miniatures games, could lead anyone to reasonably believe they intend to back away from card upgrades and proprietary dice.
You're right, Necromunda is way too similar to 40k, versus a Star Wars grid board game :: a freeform miniatures game. A more apt comparison would be Gorechosen and Age of Sigmar.
Not really. You can use Gorechosen in AoS and a range of AoS miniatures not in the Gorechosen box for Gorechosen.
GW has made it a point to cross-promote miniatures between games: Space Hulk/Overkill/stupid-flyer-game to 40K, Gorechosen/Silver Tower to AoS. Etc..
Blood Bowl and Necromunda are perhaps the better comparison, as they, mostly due to legacy, have the same barrier to taking your miniatures over to the other game. A barrier FFG creates needlessly.
If they'd follow a GW example and publish an "Index: Rebels", an "Index: Imperium" and an "Index: Scum" with all the rules for all existing Imperial Assault (and even better West End) miniatures, they'd immediately be kickstarting the gaming scene for Star Wars Legion they failed to do with the Runewars Miniatures game.
Creating "the gaming scene" is so crucial to wargames, and while it happend with X-Wing, FFG has IMO struggled to repeat it since.
There is no need to have an active gaming scene for things like Imperial Assault or Star Wars Rebels. Only one person needs a copy. When you have a group that wants to play, you break out the box.
Doesn't work that way with wargames, and that is (IMO) one of the reasons FFG wargames (pre and post X-Wing) have struggled.
Don't care what it's like, SOLD! If it's like X-wing and Armada with few and far releases with new cards even better gives me chance to save some extra cash.
Wonderwolf wrote: You can use Gorechosen in AoS and a range of AoS miniatures not in the Gorechosen box for Gorechosen.
What would stop you from using IA figs in Legion?
Presumably (if it's like Descent > Runewars) no rules available for most of them and rules only available in the boxes with the miniatures I'd have to buy again.
If I want to field 20 Descent skeleton warriors, there is no way to get the needed rules (cards, tokens, etc..) than to buy 20 runewars skeletons.
If I want to field 20 Descent goblins .. no rules at all.
Of course, things could be different for Star Wars. Maybe there will be rules pdf downloads and/or "8th-Edition-Index"-style books. But I doubt that at the moment.
Taarnak wrote: They remind me of Mantic's Walking Dead figures.
Interesting comparison. One thing that really helps these Legion minis is having 6-7 different sculpts rather than buying a box of three dudes all in the same pose.
Taarnak wrote: They remind me of Mantic's Walking Dead figures.
Interesting comparison. One thing that really helps these Legion minis is having 6-7 different sculpts rather than buying a box of three dudes all in the same pose.
True. Not having to do as much converting is also appealing.
If there are no rules for a certain fig in Legion then there is no issue about that fig's portability into Legion. Sure, I doubt FFG will give away rules for free; no more so than a gas station will give away gas for free. GW sometimes publishes support in WD to add value to WD (which is otherwise an antiquated advertisement) and encourage people to buy more figs. FFG's business is oriented differently. Unlike GW, they have always been about selling games. They are not using rules to push miniatures sales. The miniatures and the rules go together for them.
So to the extent that you want to play Legion and you have some IA figs for which you have the Legion rules (like storm troopers and rebel commandos), the only thing holding you back from using them is ... you.
Going one step further and expecting Legion to be free because you bought a separate game is silly.
Wonderwolf wrote: You can use Gorechosen in AoS and a range of AoS miniatures not in the Gorechosen box for Gorechosen.
What would stop you from using IA figs in Legion?
Presumably (if it's like Descent > Runewars) no rules available for most of them and rules only available in the boxes with the miniatures I'd have to buy again.
If I want to field 20 Descent skeleton warriors, there is no way to get the needed rules (cards, tokens, etc..) than to buy 20 runewars skeletons.
If I want to field 20 Descent goblins .. no rules at all.
Of course, things could be different for Star Wars. Maybe there will be rules pdf downloads and/or "8th-Edition-Index"-style books. But I doubt that at the moment.
As far as I know, a unit of Stormtroopers is a unit of Stormtroopers. You don't need multiple unit cards to field multiple stormtrooper units. If anything, you'd just need one token of the troop type for each fielded unit.
I'll keep an eye on this, but I was really hoping for more Epic Star Wars and less Star Wars 40K for the game's scale. Special dice, tokens, and cards don't bother me at all.
As much as I like X-Wing, and am desiring to play the Armada I own, I think I'm going to have to pass on this game.
I still have my WEG metal minis (and the Star Wars miniatures rules) and my WOtC minis (and its random booster and HORRIFIC rules). I passed on Imperial Assault (as I haven't even gotten to play my Descent 1.0 series past the 2nd main box mission), and I just dumped a bunch of money into both Runewars and 40K 8E. If I wasn't so overbooked already - or maybe further down the road - I might pick up the base game.
The one thing I've been having to learn is not to attempt to be a completionist; that's just too hard on the budget. I think a lot of folks will casually get into this game, buying just the base set - maybe a certain expansion or two. For every completionist on here, I'm betting there will be ten or more folks who just pick the base game and run with that.
Stormonu wrote: The one thing I've been having to learn is not to attempt to be a completionist
Holy gak this. And FFG really, really pokes that "you need everything" button for me. This is one of the major reasons I am reluctant to buy anything beyond the RW core box.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
The issue is that FFG essentially already make this game, and have done for several years. Unless somehow moving from tiles and squares to inches and tabletops radically changes people's attitudes, irrespective of any changes in mechanics, you've been able to play a one on one Star Wars battle game of this scale and similar scope for some time and, IME at least, nobody is. So unless something emerges that really changes the playing field, I just can't see much to get excited about.
LOL Necromunda / 40k
Mordhiem / WHFB
Bolt Action / Flames of War
ridiculous.
Your counter to "they already make a game which appears to offer a similar experience" is to list a bunch of games which very obviously offer something different from each other?
Hmmmm...]
You're right, Necromunda is way too similar to 40k, versus a Star Wars grid board game :: a freeform miniatures game. A more apt comparison would be Gorechosen and Age of Sigmar.
One is played on a board with tokens and cards and miniatures, and the other is played on a tabletop with tokens and cards and miniatures.
Blimey, a post attacking the whole forum, to a weak argument to snarky BS in just three posts. I think I'll go and find more engaging discussion elsewhere, this isn't going anywhere.
As far as I know, a unit of Stormtroopers is a unit of Stormtroopers. You don't need multiple unit cards to field multiple stormtrooper units.
I hope so. But as Manchu said, that would be expecting FFG to not be FFG-up things again.
@manchu
Not expecting it to be free. I'll happily pay good money for, to use the GW comparison again, an "Index-Style-Book". Hardcover, full colour. GIve it to me. Same for X-Wing, etc.. . Give me a nice bound tome with all the rules ever published for all "Rebels", doing away with the need for those fiddly cards, and I might come back.
And as I said above, I understand how FFG does business and how their model served them well with their board games. I also made the argument how it (in my humble armchair-CEO opinion) fails them at getting into wargames, as they can't get that critical mass of an active gaming scene started (despite having a good number of people with potentially easy ready to go miniatures in a box, ready to go).
You are right. The only thing stopping ME from using IA miniatures is me. I believe I have thehobby and ebay skills to make them work, should I choose to.
But, (armchair CEO speaking again), the thing stopping FFG from making truly major inroads into wargaming is to make it as easy as humanly possible for all those people with IA miniature collections to do the same, which would in turn kickstart that critical mass for "active wargaming community". Maybe the Star Wars license is good enough to prevent this from not turning into other Runewars Miniatures game. Maybe it is not.
For me, I am not sure I want to go into the effort of ebaying unit cards for my IA miniatures for a test game or two (before being 40K-style hooked and starting to oogle pricey Forge World things for my 4th army) for a game I cannot, at this point, see having a reasonably sized active player base.
Well, I think it will prove a serious competitor to GW, regardless of how good it is, because - Star Wars. That will get and keep people playing even if the game and minis are not all that great, and attract others more readily that might not have considered such a game at all, because its Star Wars.
But time will tell. I have my doubts on FFG writing good rules, as the core of X-Wing/Armada is not theirs. And Rune Wars has been a total flop locally.
I'm probably out on this, but mainly because I am not looking for any more new systems. It is going to be interesting times, though. To quote Supreme Leader Snoke "We shall see...We shall see...'
I have seen a lot of declaration that RW has failed. I saw a lot of the same about Age of Sigmar. The truth is, just like it was about Age of Sigmar, that these declarations tend to be premature and self-serving. Let's come back to RW once all four factions are up and running. Setting up a miniatures game product line from scratch merits giving it some time before a unilateral declaration of success or failure.
You might say, that doesn't matter because without [critical mass] of players, the game cannot go anywhere regardless of product that eventually might get released. Well again, the same was said about AoS - apparently "no one" was playing it, according to many anecdotal reports. Some people still insist that no one plays AoS. Again, it fits their agenda.
RW does indeed face an uphill battle, not only because it is a miniatures game product line starting completely from nothing, but also because it is a relatively unknown and extremely generic IP. SW Legion won't have these problems. The miniatures that come out will be in large part instantly recognizable and desirable to a wide range of people, some of whom may not even currently think of themselves as table top gamers.
If cards and proprietary dice were the limiting factors, X-Wing should be a failure. But it's not. There's also no real basis for calling either Armada or Imperial Assault failures.
I think, when it comes to the existing miniatures wargaming market, companies are up against a lot of inherent conservatism.
Kind of unsure about this game, the models look okay (but I do want to see them unpainted on a sprue first). The rules maybe the deciding thing for me. With Necromunda and Shadespire coming out I can't afford to do everything. Not enough time or money. And I know Shadespire is likely to be a much better deal than the price FFG is setting for this Legion game. Whereas Necromunda just oozes style and more character than a generic Star Wars kit like this can.
Gonna have to see how committed to this game FFG is. The starter is cool but i'm not sure how much replayability you'll get out of the box. I may wait to see the first wave of expansions so I could see what FFGs real plans for the game are.
I had never really thought about it but doing terrain/boards for a SW type game might be kind of difficult. Mostly because Star Wars involves a certain element of realism that 40k and AoS don't really require. If anything this game might be better played on one of those nice mats, with a few handmade terrain things here and there.
If this had been epic scale or 10mm I'd have dived in regardless of their silly card and cardboard obsession. It probably would have languished like my Armada but I'd have bought. at 28mm it's just another game I have zero desire to play. Especially now that 8th ed 40k is out.
I have seen a lot of declaration that RW has failed. I saw a lot of the same about Age of Sigmar. The truth is, just like it was about Age of Sigmar, that these declarations tend to be premature and self-serving. Let's come back to RW once all four factions are up and running. Setting up a miniatures game product line from scratch merits giving it some time before a unilateral declaration of success or failure.
You might say, that doesn't matter because without [critical mass] of players, the game cannot go anywhere regardless of product that eventually might get released. Well again, the same was said about AoS - apparently "no one" was playing it, according to many anecdotal reports. Some people still insist that no one plays AoS. Again, it fits their agenda.
RW does indeed face an uphill battle, not only because it is a miniatures game product line starting completely from nothing, but also because it is a relatively unknown and extremely generic IP. SW Legion won't have these problems. The miniatures that come out will be in large part instantly recognizable and desirable to a wide range of people, some of whom may not even currently think of themselves as table top gamers.
If cards and proprietary dice were the limiting factors, X-Wing should be a failure. But it's not. There's also no real basis for calling either Armada or Imperial Assault failures.
I think, when it comes to the existing miniatures wargaming market, companies are up against a lot of inherent conservatism.
I think the over promotion of Rune Wars made its initial receptions seem lackluster in comparison. I mean the amount of copies FFG gave away at adepticon, giving away a free copy to anybody with a youtube channel. FFG pushed Rune Wars hard out of nowhere. It will take time to see where Rune Wars actually goes.
Oh and Wonderwolf, Imperial Assault is a Dungeon Crawler Board game that had a Skirmish mode shoehorned into it to try to hide the fact that FFG didn't have the rights to make a Star Wars Boardgame.
Legion looks interesting (mostly because WotC Star Wars Minis is what got me into miniatures gaming so a ground based Star Wars game is right up my alley. I have no interest in dog fights, so X-Wing does nothing for me)
Imperial assault is actually an awesome skirmish game. Granted, it took them a lot of time, errata, and upgrade cards to get to that point, but it's an excellent game now. Skirmish is better than the campaign actually.
It's problem is that it's probably the most expensive offering from FFG to play competitively, and everyone needs to have the three maps in rotation to play a tournament.
Can I cheat and dig out my old West End Games lead miniatures?
I might even get around to finally painting them!
You cheapskate luddite! On to a more important and totally different question... can I cheat and bolster my forces by digging out my old Star Wars Minis prepainted miniatures by sharing cards?
Oh and Wonderwolf, Imperial Assault is a Dungeon Crawler Board game that had a Skirmish mode shoehorned into it to try to hide the fact that FFG didn't have the rights to make a Star Wars Boardgame.
I keep hearing this "FFG isn't allowed to make Star Wars board games" but simply cannot square it with games like Star Wars Rebellion.
Imperial Assault, even without the Skirmish option (which is fun at times, though balance is horrible), is a lot less of a board game than something like this...
Spoiler:
Is there a source for "FFG isn't allowed to do board games'?
It is interesting however that Imperial Assault is listed as a miniatures game while Descent is listed as a board game.
But then, Rebellion is listed as a board game, too. Just speculating but perhaps IA was an attempt to tiptoe around this but Hasbro objected anyway, which caused FFG to negotiate a deal with Hasbro allowing for Rebellion. Again, to be clear, pure speculation.
I just fear that FFG is becoming the Ubisoft of the table-top world, making the same game over and over again with a different skin with the old slight variations or tweak.
I mean this is just another game using their made-up dice, cards and, no doubt, a billion fething counters.
And not making the miniatures compatible with IA is just a dick move. They could include rules for all released IA models in the main rulebook (or with cards... whatever) and sell even more IA stuff.
A HUGE part of the viability of a miniatures game is install-base/community. I'd argue its almost even more important than fundamental design, as I have seen amazing games die/languish without reaching a critical-mass of players, while some very mediocre games flourish.
To that ends, its a given that Legion will be a massive "success" at least in that initial metric.
I also accept the fact that I LOVED 40k during 7th Edition, even while acknowledging as a designer and fan, that it was a pretty TERRIBLE game. The rules were just shameful, and clumsy, unclear rules, may have been as much an issue as Fantasy Flight's wall 'o cards, and proprietary dice.
And yet... I loved, and still love 40k (much more-so now as I am loving 8th competitively and casually alike... but I digress).
To that end, as I am a huge fan of this hobby, and increasingly make my living in this industry as well, I feel like I will be giving Legion at least its fair shot to win me over first hand. Its sales almost guarantee it will be a factor in this industry next year, so they have my cautious, cautious, attention.
And honestly, while it is a good chunk of change, I pre-ordered a couple of these sets, and was still set back the equivalent of a few 40k unit boxes... so it isn't as if I am going to go hungry trying to test run the game.
Though the model scale is larger than I hoped, and the fact that it uses upgrade cards (yes, I was foolish to hope either wouldn't be the case with FFG, but a man can dream), I'm still interested in this. I just hope the average game is no larger than 8-10 units per side, otherwise upgrade cards will get a bit unwieldy on the side table.
I also hope this means we're getting plastic terrain from FFG, would be disappointing if we didn't.
At the moment, I might pick up a starter set, ditch the rules and play Blasters and Bulkheads with the minis. Any "expansion sets" will likely be too expensive to bother with, though.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I just fear that FFG is becoming the Ubisoft of the table-top world, making the same game over and over again with a different skin with the old slight variations or tweak.
I mean this is just another game using their made-up dice, cards and, no doubt, a billion fething counters.
This is a meme that should die out already. FFG comes from a board game background and ALL board games are like this right now. Looking on my shelf, literally everything has unique dice, cards, and counters. Heck, even miniature games are going that way. Warmachine (cards, counters), Walking Dead: All Out War (cards, counters, dice), Deadzone (cards, counters), Infinity (counters), and even Shadow War: Armageddon (counters, dice) all have their fair share.
Second, FFG personally accounts for a significant part of the miniature gaming field right now with X-Wing, Armada, Imperial Assault, Runewars, and now Star Wars Legion. X-Wing is stupidly popular and brought as lot of people into miniature gaming. FFG is no longer a pretender dabbling in the field and is now one of the two leaders in the field. I, personally, think that miniature gamers aren't giving them the recognition they deserve, and they are by no means making the same game over and over again. These games share similar mechanics, but they are used in different ways and play very different in practice - more different than Age of Sigmar and 40k 8th Edition or Warmachine and Hordes, which really are making the same game over and over again.
EDIT - Ha, even AoS's new General's Handbook special edition comes with a bunch of cards and counters, not to mention FFG-like dials. You can't escape it.
black dice (rebel blasters) are better than white dice (storm trooper blasters)
cover reduces uncancelled hits against targets by one
cover cannot cancel critical hits
there are offensive and defensive surge abilities
storm troopers only have offensive surge abilities (can change surges to hits)
rebel troopers only have defensive surge abilities (can change surges to defends)
the red and white defense dice are d6s red defense dice is better than white
storm troopers use red and rebel troopers use white defense dice
range measurment tool is four-part disassemblable stick
movement tools at short and medium distance each have two straight sections connected by one pivot
units have cover if at least half of the figs in the unit have cover
command tokens/unit categories are core, support, and command
vehicles have firing arcs
move is the only action that a unit can take twice during an activation
vehicles moving together in a squad must end movement with their firing arcs oriented in the same way
like movement, unit firing range is measured from leader
There are levels of terrain. Luke has "Jump 1."
an aim token allows you to reroll 2 blank firing results
storm troopers have special rule "precise" which allows them to roll one further blank when use aim token
It's not the quality of the blaster so much as the guy whose firing it!
In Legion, a unit can take two actions per activation but the only action a unit can take more than once is move. So units that don't move can aim and fire. The aim action allows you to reroll two blank results. Storm troopers can reroll one further blank, So while they have a higher chance of rolling blanks than rebel troopers at first, they also can reroll more dice at the expense of having to take an aim action instead of, for example, move action.
This comes out to rebel troopers being more maneuvaerable, as opposed to just being better shots.
Sining wrote: Why wouldn't storm troopers have better blasters than rebels?
Both guns were produced by BlasTech, but the E-11 is cheaper and more mass produced, the A280 was heavier and more expensive, but the rebels needed fewer rifles. Also the A280 was fairly common planetary security force rifle during the Republic which would put a good number in the hands of rebels from those worlds.
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Though the model scale is larger than I hoped, and the fact that it uses upgrade cards (yes, I was foolish to hope either wouldn't be the case with FFG, but a man can dream), I'm still interested in this. I just hope the average game is no larger than 8-10 units per side, otherwise upgrade cards will get a bit unwieldy on the side table.
I also hope this means we're getting plastic terrain from FFG, would be disappointing if we didn't.
Manchu wrote: Holy gak that may be the biggest news of all! FFG making plastic terrain ...
Hehe, it's only barricades, it remains to be seen if they will be doing anything else .
BTW, unit leaders are used to determine if the objective the unit is targeting is in cover or not.
"To determine if a unit has cover, the attacker traces an imaginary line between the center of their unit leader’s base and the center of each miniature’s base in the defender. If the line crosses any terrain, the mini is obscured. If at least half the minis in the defender are obscured, the entire unit is treated as obscured and that unit gains cover from the terrain that the imaginary line was traced through. When determining cover, if the attacker’s unit leader is in contact with a piece of terrain, that piece of terrain is ignored when determining if a minis are obscured."
Huh. This seems interesting. I'll be certainly watching this as it develops. What will really cinch it for me is how much the extra troops will be. $15 for 3 guys is way too much...
Manchu wrote: I am guessing 25 USD for seven or eight figures.
Obviously, that will also include cards and tokens.
Yeah, $25–30 is what I'm guessing.
As to upgrade cards, well, it's about what you've already seen in other FFG games, mostly.
For example, a Stormtrooper unit can get up to 4 upgrade cards, of the Personnel, Heavy Weapons, Gear and Grenades types. These work much the same way as army list options would in a 40k datasheet, really: PERSONNEL allows you to buy additional regular troopers (for the Stormtroopers you'd be able to add an additional stormtrooper for the listed price). HEAVY WEAPONS allow you to add a trooper with a heavy weapon (a DTL-19 or a HH-12 armed trooper). GEAR allows you to get special issue gear (the core has targeting scopes), and finally GRENADES gets you grenades (duh. The core has concussion grenades).
There are other types of upgrades, though, like comms gear or Force cards.
judgedoug wrote: Star Wars miniatures game - will make a stupid amount of money. X-Wing and Armada combined, and then some. Everyone wants to play Darth Vader on the table.
but queue Dakka standard response to ANY announcement: "well if it was only some very specific XYZ I would have spent my life savings on it, but now I'll have to give it a pass"
Models are meh at best.
Upgrade cards, forcing you to keep buying, even units you don't want, just to keep on top of the game.
Proprietary dice.
Already something not from the films.
Vehicles likely to be pricey, when FFG aren't exactly cheap.
It's a pass from me.
All of that sounds reasonable to me except, honestly, I don't get this "stuff not in the films" thing. AT-RTs are canon, Rebels using whatever they can lay their hands on is canon, so a Rebel riding a half-junked old AT-RT seems perfectly in keeping with the IP to me. You can't limit them to only a literal depiction of the things seen in the Original Trilogy films, because the circumstances depicted in those films don't show the full breadth of either the Alliance or the Empire - most of it is space actions and covert special missions, and the only genuine battle is on Hoth where the conditions prevent them from using most of their gear.
Hell the Rebel Commando riding an AT-RT is one of the best things in the set IMO.
None of the above are reasons for anyone else not to dive on in
Oh I don't expect I will be, I find FFG's CCG-esque business model repugnant and I wasted far too much money on Magic as a teenager to be suckered by the same kind of thing again(at most I'll grab whichever models I like the look of and play them using a sane set of rules), I just found that particular objection a bit odd man.
I don't mind the cards and dice or mechanics etc - but the models are average. I'm still kicking myself I didn't get the storm troopers when Knight Models stuff was sitting down :(
Wow, what a friggin' salty thread about something people have wanted for a long time. Holy crap, guys.
I personally really like what I've seen here at GenCon. The minis are awesome to hold in-hand (even if they are resin demo models), and I plan on playing a demo today. I'm just bummed as I don't/can't get another board game right now.
Cards are not that big a deal for clutter, as one Stormtrooper card covers an entire squad.
As to upgrade cards, well, it's about what you've already seen in other FFG games, mostly.
Yes. That's the point, isn't it? A lot of "wargamers" had a taste of FFG rules with X-Wing, hence they stay away from FFG.
Fool me once and all that.
Why isn't that a legitimate reason (even if it may not be a reason for you personally)?
I... don't know? Not seeing where I've said that.
OTOH, how are upgrade cards are different from options in a list, except for the fact that cards can be added more easily to already existing lists? I don't think they're that different, tbh. Maybe in a competitive environment, but even then with other games you also need to have all the books on hand when you're picking options from multiple ones, so... (for example: let's say you want to play using the new Codex: Space Marines, but you also want to field a dreadnought with linked ACs [or whatever option it's not in the codex but it is in the index, dunno, a chaplain on bike, whatever] to a tournament. You would need to carry both the codex and the index, wouldn't you?).
If anything, carrying just cards might be easier, but I don't think it's really that much of a different business model.
As to upgrade cards, well, it's about what you've already seen in other FFG games, mostly.
Yes. That's the point, isn't it? A lot of "wargamers" had a taste of FFG rules with X-Wing, hence they stay away from FFG.
Fool me once and all that.
Why isn't that a legitimate reason (even if it may not be a reason for you personally)?
I... don't know? Not seeing where I've said that.
OTOH, how are upgrade cards are different from options in a list, except for the fact that cards can be added more easily to already existing lists? I don't think they're that different, tbh. Maybe in a competitive environment, but even then with other games you also need to have all the books on hand when you're picking options from multiple ones, so... (for example: let's say you want to play using the new Codex: Space Marines, but you also want to field a dreadnought with linked ACs [or whatever option it's not in the codex but it is in the index, dunno, a chaplain on bike, whatever] to a tournament. You would need to carry both the codex and the index, wouldn't you?).
Yeah, but the rules for the Dread's linked ACs aren't available only in the Ork Stompa kit as FFG would do it. And I need only one set of rules, even if I field 2 or 3 or 10 Dread's with linked ACs.
But that's a minor quibble.
The point is that the system is set up for FFG to write rules to fill cards to add to new product to incentivise purchase. There're plenty of X-Wing expansions (Heroes of XY, Sabine's Tie, separate X-Wing, TIE-Fighter etc.. blisters replicated from the starter box, etc.. ) which dont actually have a different miniature (paint aside). They mainly sell on the virtue of the cards, and FFG writes (always, always better than the last) new rules just to fill cards that are better than the last set to get you to buy more cards. It's a CCG business model with miniatures as added bonus (and obfuscation for you getting into a CCG).
Also, it's cluttered and bloated. Somebody on the FFG forums did a wordcount of all X-Wing cards available for a single factions (Rebels I believe?) and it comes out at something like a 200 page factionrules book, plain text, no pics, etc.., for a total of 12 to 15 or so different no-options miniatures? Probably less miniature-variety on the actual table than is included in a standard box of GWTac Marines.
I don't know of many people who tried X-wing and didn't enjoy it, so if anything the opposite should be true.
Well, maybe my local experience is just different, though it also appears to be a very frequent point raised on German blogs and forums posting the announcement of Star Wars Legion (so maybe it's a cultural thing of sort, who knows).
All of that sounds reasonable to me except, honestly, I don't get this "stuff not in the films" thing. AT-RTs are canon, Rebels using whatever they can lay their hands on is canon, so a Rebel riding a half-junked old AT-RT seems perfectly in keeping with the IP to me. You can't limit them to only a literal depiction of the things seen in the Original Trilogy films, because the circumstances depicted in those films don't show the full breadth of either the Alliance or the Empire - most of it is space actions and covert special missions, and the only genuine battle is on Hoth where the conditions prevent them from using most of their gear.
Hell the Rebel Commando riding an AT-RT is one of the best things in the set IMO.
I was super happy to see the AT-RT. Here's hoping it shows up in Star Wars: Battlefront II as a Rebel piece as well, since otherwise we're left with only starfighters and snowspeeders for the Rebels.
It's worth mentioning though that "Rogue One" brought some of the stuff from the prequels in. That hover tank the Stormtroopers were using when the heroes are looking for Forest Whittaker's character(whose name I can't spell without butchering) was originally introduced in the original Battlefronts and the prequel trilogy as something the clones used for ground combat.
As to upgrade cards, well, it's about what you've already seen in other FFG games, mostly.
Yes. That's the point, isn't it? A lot of "wargamers" had a taste of FFG rules with X-Wing, hence they stay away from FFG.
Fool me once and all that.
I don't know of many people who tried X-wing and didn't enjoy it, so if anything the opposite should be true.
I think Wonderwolf might be talking about the fact that X-Wing's rules are all over the place and require constant purchases to keep up with the Jones.
As to upgrade cards, well, it's about what you've already seen in other FFG games, mostly.
Yes. That's the point, isn't it? A lot of "wargamers" had a taste of FFG rules with X-Wing, hence they stay away from FFG.
Fool me once and all that.
Why isn't that a legitimate reason (even if it may not be a reason for you personally)?
I... don't know? Not seeing where I've said that.
OTOH, how are upgrade cards are different from options in a list, except for the fact that cards can be added more easily to already existing lists? I don't think they're that different, tbh. Maybe in a competitive environment, but even then with other games you also need to have all the books on hand when you're picking options from multiple ones, so... (for example: let's say you want to play using the new Codex: Space Marines, but you also want to field a dreadnought with linked ACs [or whatever option it's not in the codex but it is in the index, dunno, a chaplain on bike, whatever] to a tournament. You would need to carry both the codex and the index, wouldn't you?).
If anything, carrying just cards might be easier, but I don't think it's really that much of a different business model.
You don't see how including upgrade cards in unit boxes that become pretty much required for other units to function to their full potential, meaning players have to buy expensive boxes of models they may not even want just to get the appropriate cards for their army build, is a different business model to "buy a book, that's it, just buy the book"?
Carting the cards around and building decks is a mild inconvenience, it's how they propose you acquire the cards that's the problem.
Yodhrin wrote: You don't see how including upgrade cards in unit boxes that become pretty much required for other units to function to their full potential, meaning players have to buy expensive boxes of models they may not even want just to get the appropriate cards for their army build, is a different business model to "buy a book, that's it, just buy the book"?
Carting the cards around and building decks is a mild inconvenience, it's how they propose you acquire the cards that's the problem.
How many books did you need to build a CSM army in 40k's 7th edition? Not a "buy a book, that's it, just buy the book" model by any means. And 8th edition has started with a rulebook, Index and Codex trifecta, but expects you to buy the Chapter Approved books at the very least, and in AoS is any indication, codexes might well be getting supplements too, so... no, not seeing how is functionally different. Warmahordes also works pretty much the same, for that matter.
That said, I understand the problem of forcing you to buy units you're not interested in to get upgrade cards you want, and yes, that would be a problem in competitive play if they do it that way. I only play X-Wing with army builder lists and don't play competitively so I have not suffered that problem, has FFG done the same with other lines, say Armada or Runewars?
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Kanluwen wrote: I think Wonderwolf might be talking about the fact that X-Wing's rules are all over the place and require constant purchases to keep up with the Jones.
I see how that would be a problem if that's the case, not so much the "constant purchases" part (as I said, that's what every company strives to achieve) but rather the "buying a unit you don't want, or a unit from a different army, to get the upgrade I want". Hopefully that will be not the case, although in my case I won't notice because I wouldn't play tournaments so I wouldn't need the physical upgrade cards.
Maybe I missed it, but are the minis pre painted like xwing? I never got into Runewars, are those minis good? Will these be the same material or just board game PVC like Descent?
Yodhrin wrote: You don't see how including upgrade cards in unit boxes that become pretty much required for other units to function to their full potential, meaning players have to buy expensive boxes of models they may not even want just to get the appropriate cards for their army build, is a different business model to "buy a book, that's it, just buy the book"?
Carting the cards around and building decks is a mild inconvenience, it's how they propose you acquire the cards that's the problem.
How many books did you need to build a CSM army in 40k's 7th edition? Not a "buy a book, that's it, just buy the book" model by any means.
You needed the CSM codex. It was an older book and only really got supplements towards the build-up for 8th edition.
If you, say, wanted to play in tournaments later on then yes you did require things like Traitor Legions, Crimson Slaughter, Daemons of Chaos, etc etc to be 'official' for them.
But if you want to argue that someone needed to own CSM, Traitor Legions, the other supplements, and Khorne Daemonkin(which was a full Codex, not a supplement) to field a Thousand Sons list--no. Traitor Legions contained the whole Thousand Sons list when they got redone.
And 8th edition has started with a rulebook, Index and Codex trifecta, but expects you to buy the Chapter Approved books at the very least, and in AoS is any indication, codexes might well be getting supplements too, so... no, not seeing how is functionally different. Warmahordes also works pretty much the same, for that matter.
Since we don't know what the Chapter Approved books even have in them--it's too early to say whether they are or are not required.
It's also a bit of a misrepresentation to say that 8th has started "with a rulebook, Index, and Codex trifecta".
We've gotten three Codices so far. We were told up front that Codices were coming and that the Indexes were stopgaps until then, with some stuff (like the event Space Marine models) remaining in the Index rather than getting put into a Codex.
That said, I understand the problem of forcing you to buy units you're not interested in to get upgrade cards you want, and yes, that would be a problem in competitive play if they do it that way. I only play X-Wing with army builder lists and don't play competitively so I have not suffered that problem, has FFG done the same with other lines, say Armada or Runewars?
Kanluwen wrote: I think Wonderwolf might be talking about the fact that X-Wing's rules are all over the place and require constant purchases to keep up with the Jones.
I see how that would be a problem if that's the case, not so much the "constant purchases" part (as I said, that's what every company strives to achieve) but rather the "buying a unit you don't want, or a unit from a different army, to get the upgrade I want". Hopefully that will be not the case, although in my case I won't notice because I wouldn't play tournaments so I wouldn't need the physical upgrade cards.
Good for you.
Not everyone likes to play with army builders, some people like owning the actual content without having to buy models to get it.
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Necros wrote: Maybe I missed it, but are the minis pre painted like xwing? I never got into Runewars, are those minis good? Will these be the same material or just board game PVC like Descent?
From what's been said, they appear to be unpainted. There's a painting video for Luke that got posted in this thread.
Kanluwen wrote: Since we don't know what the Chapter Approved books even have in them--it's too early to say whether they are or are not required.
It's also a bit of a misrepresentation to say that 8th has started "with a rulebook, Index, and Codex trifecta".
We've gotten three Codices so far. We were told up front that Codices were coming and that the Indexes were stopgaps until then, with some stuff (like the event Space Marine models) remaining in the Index rather than getting put into a Codex.
I don't really think it is a misrepresentation at all. If anything, it is worse in the case of the indexes and the codexes. Currently, there are units that people have bought that can only be fielded as such using the indexes while the rest of the current rules are in the codex, whereas in the case of X-Wing you might not have a particular upgrade, but you will most certainly be able to field any ship of your faction that you might have bought.
Not everyone likes to play with army builders, some people like owning the actual content without having to buy models to get it.
I realize that, but don't see the need for the hostile tone, thank you. I have just stated my use case and said that it was indeed my personal use case. So it was implied that it was, indeed, "good for me". No further. I even have said that I saw how that could be a problem.
Kanluwen wrote: Since we don't know what the Chapter Approved books even have in them--it's too early to say whether they are or are not required.
It's also a bit of a misrepresentation to say that 8th has started "with a rulebook, Index, and Codex trifecta".
We've gotten three Codices so far. We were told up front that Codices were coming and that the Indexes were stopgaps until then, with some stuff (like the event Space Marine models) remaining in the Index rather than getting put into a Codex.
I don't really think it is a misrepresentation at all. If anything, it is worse in the case of the indexes and the codexes. Currently, there are units that people have bought that can only be fielded as such using the indexes while the rest of the current rules are in the codex, whereas in the case of X-Wing you might not have a particular upgrade, but you will most certainly be able to field any ship of your faction that you might have bought.
What units are these?
Genuinely curious, because the only things I know of are the event tie-in Marine Captains.
Unless you're implying that people playing Primaris Marines as part of the Index lists(BA, SW, DA, DW) need to buy the Codex...because they don't. The points costs for the models to be fielded in Matched Play are free downloads listed on each Primaris unit's page, with a helpful notation that the rules are available for the models within their boxes--complete with weapon statlines and everything in there.
Not everyone likes to play with army builders, some people like owning the actual content without having to buy models to get it.
I realize that, but don't see the need for the hostile tone, thank you. I have just stated my use case and said that it was indeed my personal use case. So it was implied that it was, indeed, "good for me". No further. I even have said that I saw how that could be a problem.
There's no "hostile tone". You made a silly comment--it doesn't have to be for a "competitive event" or a "tournament" for someone to want to have the physical item instead of a digital thing that may or may not actually even be right.
The point is that the system is set up for FFG to write rules to fill cards to add to new product to incentivise purchase. There're plenty of X-Wing expansions (Heroes of XY, Sabine's Tie, separate X-Wing, TIE-Fighter etc.. blisters replicated from the starter box, etc.. ) which dont actually have a different miniature (paint aside). They mainly sell on the virtue of the cards, and FFG writes (always, always better than the last) new rules just to fill cards that are better than the last set to get you to buy more cards. It's a CCG business model with miniatures as added bonus (and obfuscation for you getting into a CCG).
It is possible to play the game without using upgrade cards at all, printing off proxies (they are all available online), just writing the rules down on a sheet of paper, or for casual players, like me, to just buy the models they want to and build armies using only the cards they have gotten from that. The only time you NEED to buy models you don't want to get the cards is for playing in tournaments where proxies are not allowed.
With Runewars, faction specific cards are included in faction specific boxes while neutral cards are duplicated in boxes for other factions. Since the minis are unpainted, they can't release repaints, and the units are made up of multiple, identical trays of units which means that you'll end up buying multiples for most of them. The only real problem is when you end up with a unit that works best in the smallest tray size. The Reanimate Archers include a particularly good upgrade card that you'd want to use with a bunch of 2x1 units, but the valuable upgrade card didn't come in the starter box so it's possible you have a unit or two which can't have that upgrade - which is okay unless you are absolutely obsessed with minmaxing your army. Real gamers make the most out of their limitations, not whine that the limitations are preventing them from winning and having fun.
Also, it's cluttered and bloated. Somebody on the FFG forums did a wordcount of all X-Wing cards available for a single factions (Rebels I believe?) and it comes out at something like a 200 page factionrules book, plain text, no pics, etc.., for a total of 12 to 15 or so different no-options miniatures? Probably less miniature-variety on the actual table than is included in a standard box of GWTac Marines.
Two things. First, the upgrade cards ARE the variety. Mass produced vehicles tend to be very similar looking, even when the pilots and mechanics change. Second, you don't use all 200 pages of rules every game. You only need the ones pertaining to what you are playing. They make these card binder pages that have slots for large and small cards, so that you can literally turn your rule cards into a rule book, and it will be two or three pages (with pictures).
Mitochondria wrote: I keep seeing people saying that FFG does not have a license to make Star Wars boardgames.
This seems to be untrue because they make Rebellion and that is definitely a boardgame.
Fantasy Flight do not have the Star Wars Boardgame licence and they originally tried to get around this by claiming that Imperial Assault was a miniatures game rather than a board game. This argument didn't work and they ended up coming to an agreement with Harsbo where they are not able to sell it directly to through there own webstore though and all sales / distribution have to go through Hasbro, this makes the profit margins on it much slimmer. They then used this new agreement to make Rebellion.
Mitochondria wrote: I keep seeing people saying that FFG does not have a license to make Star Wars boardgames.
This seems to be untrue because they make Rebellion and that is definitely a boardgame.
Apparently, they admitted this at some point, which is why they considered Imperial Assault to be a miniatures game on their website (but Descent was a board game). Just before IA was released, it hit a snag where it was taken off all the websites (including FFG's) for a brief moment and the rumor was that Hasbro was blocking it because it was a board game. An agreement was apparently released and the game was released (I think the price may have been affected in some way - I think the discount given at CoolStuffInc and MiniatureMarket shrunk after the game reappeared). This is based of my own memory of events and could be way off.
However, this was before Disney bought LucasFilm, so it is entirely possible that deals were renegotiated before the release of Rebellion - or it could be that whatever deal they made to release IA was extended to Rebellion. The real question is, if FFG has to share profits with Hasbro for IA, will they drop it in favor of Legion, which they don't?
Sqorgar wrote: It is possible to play the game without using upgrade cards at all, printing off proxies (they are all available online), just writing the rules down on a sheet of paper, or for casual players, like me, to just buy the models they want to and build armies using only the cards they have gotten from that. The only time you NEED to buy models you don't want to get the cards is for playing in tournaments where proxies are not allowed.
That's true for any and all games and every criticism of any game or company ever voiced on Dakka. Of course there are always ways to pirate around stuff or ignore it entirely.
I don't need 40K codexes and can happily wing it on BattleScribe and pdfs from dodgy corners of the internet. I don't need to make a fuss about AoS and can happily continue to play WFB for eternity. I don't need to worry about Mantic/CMONs/whatever minis being oddly different from their Kickstarter-presentation or Kickstarter exclusives being unavailable as one can simply proxy some other products. I don't need to pay ForgeWorld prices when I can get some Russian recasts, etc.., etc..
Not sure that should be the benchmark for discussing merits and flaws of what these companies choose to present to their customers.
Or any other character on bike (except a captain AFAIK) that you were allowed to field (and that given how the SM range works is as easy to create as using the proper plastic pieces, even if it's not currently sold as a separate kit on a GW store), like an apothecary, or an ancient for example.
Or dreadnought armed with twin ACs, for example.
There's no "hostile tone". You made a silly comment--it doesn't have to be for a "competitive event" or a "tournament" for someone to want to have the physical item instead of a digital thing that may or may not actually even be right.
Right. Good for you then. There is no point continuing this discussion anyway.
That's true for any and all games and every criticism of any game or company ever voiced on Dakka. Of course there are always ways to pirate around stuff or ignore it entirely.
Ignoring completely optional things that require additional purchases is too difficult for you and proxying an upgrade card is the same as downloading codexes off torrent sites? Seems a bit disingenuous too me.
Mitochondria wrote: This seems to be untrue because they make Rebellion and that is definitely a board game.
I asked around about this over on the FFG forum. The story appears to be that Hasbro and FFG had a dispute about the SW license regarding board games and as part of the resolution, FFG can no longer make direct sales of Imperial Assault and Rbellion and Hasbro has some kind of distribution rights as to those games, Who knows how true this is, but those games are indeed listed as "not available" on FFG's site.
Mitochondria wrote: Also, at 30-35mm in size, the miniatures are far too large to field a "Legion".
Also, there is only one war portrayed in the original movie trilogy - hardly "Star Wars."
That's true for any and all games and every criticism of any game or company ever voiced on Dakka. Of course there are always ways to pirate around stuff or ignore it entirely.
Ignoring completely optional things that require additional purchases is too difficult for you and proxying an upgrade card is the same as downloading codexes off torrent sites? Seems a bit disingenuous too me.
How do you proxy an upgrade card you didn't purchase other than finding it "on the internet" (or, admittedly, having a friend who bought it, which again works for all things GW, PP, Mantic, etc.. too)?
Of course its optional. Anything in any game is optional. The question is, how much of a "hit" do I take in a random pick-up or "local tournament" (i.e. not super competitive, but a place people can play outside of a regular gaming group or if they don't have a reqular club or group) by limiting yourself to a few starter products.
If I take a random starter-box-squadron, or even starter-box-plus-wave-1 squadron to a random pick-up game of X-Wing, you don't get to play much. Your opponent doesn't need a cutting edge competitive list, but a random mix of more recent ships and cards is just many times better by a more significant margin. Doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist in other games too, with "competitive" types punking 12-year old Timmy with his Space Marines. But it's much more intentionally build into FFG's rules-as-driver-of-the-business-philosophy.
Wonderwolf wrote: How do you proxy an upgrade card you didn't purchase other than finding it "on the internet" (or, admittedly, having a friend who bought it, which again works for all things GW, PP, Mantic, etc.. too)?
Of course its optional. Anything in any game is optional. The question is, how much of a "hit" do I take in a random pick-up or "local tournament" (i.e. not super competitive, but a place people can play outside of a regular gaming group or if they don't have a reqular club or group) by limiting yourself to a few starter products.
If I take a random starter-box-squadron, or even starter-box-plus-wave-1 squadron to a random pick-up game of X-Wing, you don't get to play much. Your opponent doesn't need a cutting edge competitive list, but a random mix of more recent ships and cards is just many times better by a more significant margin. Doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist in other games too, with "competitive" types punking 12-year old Timmy with his Space Marines. But it's much more intentionally build into FFG's rules-as-driver-of-the-business-philosophy.
Is that the case with all of FFG's games? Or only X-Wing? How are things being done with Runewars?
Wonderwolf wrote: You can use Gorechosen in AoS and a range of AoS miniatures not in the Gorechosen box for Gorechosen.
What would stop you from using IA figs in Legion?
Presumably (if it's like Descent > Runewars) no rules available for most of them and rules only available in the boxes with the miniatures I'd have to buy again.
True, however I assume that like Xwing, each pack will come with multiple cards for different types of squads. Or it will be like Armada where if you're running multiple identical squadrons you only bring one card. Indeed the Armada fighter packs only give you one card for the generic squadrons, but you get 2 squadrons of each ship type.
I imagine your generic Stormtrooper and Rebel squad would be similar. You'd only need one card, but could run 3 identical squads.
Thus allowing you to use your IA minis as is. Maybe you couldn't use all the characters yet. But nothing would necessarily prevent you from using them as filler. Have one of your rebel squads be made up of all the IA rebel characters. Space them out in your other squads to add variety and make the rebels look more rag tag.
Here's what you need to run a Legion stormtrooper squad:
- mini that is recognizably the NCO
- three or four minis armed with E-11
- mini armed with DLT-19
- mini armed with rocket launcher
Based on the available upgrade slots on the stormtrooper unit you have to pick between the DLT-19 and the rocket as your SAW. There are IA scultps for all of these figs, minus the rocket launcher guy.
No real reason not to use them in friendly games, No real reason to expect to be able to use them in competitive play.
Manchu wrote: Here's what you need to run a Legion stormtrooper squad:
- mini that is recognizably the NCO
- three or four minis armed with E-11
- mini armed with DLT-19
- mini armed with rocket launcher
Based on the available upgrade slots on the stormtrooper unit you have to pick between the DLT-19 and the rocket as your SAW. There are IA scultps for all of these figs, minus the rocket launcher guy.
No real reason not to use them in friendly games, No real reason to expect to be able to use them in competitive play.
Actually, the DLT-19 and rocket launcher armed minis are optional. You can field a unit without them. But yes, a stormtrooper unit can only have one heavy weapon upgrade.
Can you explain the wounds threshold number? I heard it called that in the demo vid. I mean the yellow number below the green health number on the unit card.
Just happy there's a new source for in-scale speeder bikes. The existing ones are either "rare" and stupidly expensive (WotC) or not quite the right size (Micro Machines and Titanium).
Can you explain the wounds threshold number? I heard it called that in the demo vid. I mean the yellow number below the green health number on the unit card.
That's not the Wound Threshold (the WT is the green number, and which is just that, the amount of wounds a mini has). That's the Courage Value. A unit with a number of suppression tokens equal to or exceeding its courage value is SUPPRESED, while a unit with a number of suppression tokens equal to or exceeding twice its courage value is PANICKED.
A SUPPRESSED unit can perform one less action per activation. A PANICKED unit is still SUPPRESSED, can only perform a single move action (no free actions) and must move as fast as it can towards the nearest edge.
Units usually get suppression tokens from being shot at.
Momotaro wrote:Just happy there's a new source for in-scale speeder bikes. The existing ones are either "rare" and stupidly expensive (WotC) or not quite the right size (Micro Machines and Titanium).
Interesting. I have two WotC speeder bikes, never knew they were valuable ^^.
Manchu wrote: Ah so Vader cannot be supressed? Darth Irrepressible.
I suppose that once you murder the love of your life along with (to your knowledge) your unborn children, suffer multiple amputations while being burned alive, and then spend a decade or two in constant pain that it really is unlikely that your average firefight would turn you into more of a Debbie Downer than you already are.
Momotaro wrote:Just happy there's a new source for in-scale speeder bikes. The existing ones are either "rare" and stupidly expensive (WotC) or not quite the right size (Micro Machines and Titanium).
Interesting. I have two WotC speeder bikes, never knew they were valuable ^^.
Oh, very much so. I have 7 of the rebel speederbikes and 9 of the scout speederbikes, most of which were bought as singles when I could snatch em off ebay for a not-crazy price. Don't know the current value, but when I bought them some years back they were usually going for about $25 online since they were only available as rares in the very first set. Not sure if Legion will make them more valuable or less (mine are worthless as collector pieces, I rebased them all and touched up the paintjobs)
For unit upgrade cards, I'm sure people will post them online as they did with X-Wing. It may be an issue at events (or not, depending on TO), but there's no way in hell I'm buying 2 Lambda shuttles just so I can use the darn sensor cards on my B-wings. Same for the unit upgrade cards in Legion, I suspect you'll see scans online if they're as difficult to get as the X-Wing upgrades.
It's a little disheartening to see the scale change from IA, the WotC figs worked great in that game and meant I only had to paint a few figures instead of all the figures and didn't need ot use the same pose for all stormtroopers. Still, the detail looks excellent for PVC plastic, judging by the painting luke video. Might still be worth buying even with how many WotC figs I own.
Manchu wrote: Ah so Vader cannot be supressed? Darth Irrepressible.
Very useful info!
Exactly. Vader's Courage Value is "-", which means he doesn't get suppressed or panicked ^_^.
On the AT-RT and Speeder Bikes cards, there is a different symbol, a kind of gear? what's that about?
Resiliance Value. When a vehicle is assigned as many wounds as the Resilience Value the player must roll a red defense die and depending on the die roll it might get one of the following results: damaged, disabled or weapon destroyed.
Same as with courage, a unit with a value of "-" doesn't suffer those effects.
How do you proxy an upgrade card you didn't purchase other than finding it "on the internet" (or, admittedly, having a friend who bought it, which again works for all things GW, PP, Mantic, etc.. too)?
FFG really doesn't care about proxying cards. They even provide scans of every card in every one of their Living Card Games over at cardgamedb.com and those games are just cards, no miniatures - and there are deck building sites with even better scans available easily. With X-Wing, Runewars, Imperial Assault, and Armada, the wikis for these games have all the upgrade cards scanned in and available. There's no way that FFG doesn't know about these sites, but they've never acted to have them removed. If anything, actually purchasing cardgamedb.com and improving it makes me thing they are all for the practice.
Similarly, Mantic just posted the cards for several of the wave 3 boosters for Walking Dead on their blog and PP makes all the cards free now. Pretty much the only company that requires you to search dark corners of the internet for game rules is GW (and even then, only for 40k).
Of course its optional. Anything in any game is optional. The question is, how much of a "hit" do I take in a random pick-up or "local tournament" (i.e. not super competitive, but a place people can play outside of a regular gaming group or if they don't have a reqular club or group) by limiting yourself to a few starter products.
You must be using some strange definition of miniature games here because pretty much all miniature games require you to expand beyond the starter set even just to reach average game size. If I showed up with just the contents of Dark Imperium, how much of a hit would I take? Like... all the hits, I assume. A core component of miniature games is expanding your army through optional buys. Seems like you are getting upset that something optional doesn't feel optional enough.
The only real legitimate complaint here is when X-Wing forces you to buy a model you don't want or in a faction you don't play in order to get an upgrade card for one you do - and they don't really do that in Runewars. Neutral upgrades are duplicated across faction releases. For instance, the Wind Rune upgrade card is a neutral upgrade found in both the Reanimate Archers box and the Rune Golem box. There may be some lag, such as new neutral cards in the Elves box that haven't yet shown up for the other two factions. Generic factional upgrades unique to one box may potentially show up in multiple faction boxes as well, but there's only like 5 different units available to each faction right now.
True, however I assume that like Xwing, each pack will come with multiple cards for different types of squads.
I suspect that Legion won't have different types of units/pilots and instead follow an approach like Runewars where you use upgrade cards to swap in new figures, add abilities, and the like so one card will be all you need. Unlike Runewars, you won't have a lack of dials holding you back. However, they did show some Legion models that had a wedge in them to fit their range ruler thing.
Personally, I'm curious to see if I can use my IA models in the West End Games Star Wars Miniatures Battles series. Rather than using static datasheets, you actually build each model's abilities in the game out manually, allowing you to use any and every Star Wars model you have as whatever they are supposed to be.
). Nice, that means now I can say it exists xDD. It will probably get properly announced during 
For the non-boardgamers, 
