Summarized thoughts on this game: Seems to have all the necessary tools to be a great game. Only 2 factions to start, hopefully there are many more to come.

What are your thoughts on this game and if it can compete with warhammer 40k.

Given the other thread about this has fallen into the usual dakka pattern I'll stick my two penneth in here

Really not sure, apart from use of a measuring sticks, I'm curious as to what this offers over Imperial Assault

The scale change to invalidate IA mini's seems a cheap move but on par for FFG of late

I'm guessing it means the end or a large drop off in IA support in favour of the new hotness, another FFG standby

Also seems a bit pricey but I'm guessing part of that is Licensing

I can't really see it competing with 40k as only two, maybe three factions is kind of limiting

I'm sure it'll be mechanical sound but along with the IP is that enough ?

I honestly have my doubts about this game. Especially since 40k has had its new edition just come out.

 captain bloody fists wrote:
I honestly have my doubts about this game. Especially since 40k has had its new edition just come out.

Why is that?

Looks like it could be good fun, I'll definitely pick it up! But on the 40k front, I can't imagine it will even scratch the surface!

Completely agree with Turnip though, reckon this is the end for IA.

Well this is the one IP that could seriously clean 40k's clock, It has vastly more name recognition and like x-wing could make a boatload of sales to people who play rpgs and those who just want the models. as for model quality, I personally greatly dislike how "busy" gw has made their models, sometimes less is more and while they are very "detailed" that really puts me off. If the rules are better than 40k (which wont take alot of effort IMHO) then this could be that game.

Might be good - depends on the price, rules and models.

Just imagine being a person who is only vaguely aware of miniatures gaming, someone who has caught a glimpse of it in the past and thought it seemed pretty cool. That person doesn't care about how many factions there are, whether detail level of minis is 8/10 pr 9/10, about whether PVC is as good as HIPS, or whether there is a thriving scene at the LGS. That person is going to buy Legion over 40k 8e. The chances they have even heard of 40k are, while not slim, fairly low. Now, someone who is already into miniatures gaming, probably because of some past dabbling with 40k, probably does care at least to some degree about the issues above. That person will likely buy 40k 8e over Legion, although it's not a certainty.

Legion is not going to kill 40k. It will compete. People will be spending money on Legion that they might otherwise spend on 40k. But 40k will be around after FFG wraps up the Legion prodcut line in 3-5 years. And 40k will still be around after FFG no longer has the license to make SW miniatures games.

If anyone should be worried aboit Legion, it is RW players.

I think GW is still going to be making the best plastic models around...that isn't going to change. But legion certainly looks like the first actual good attempt at a more cinematic skirmish-larger scaled infantry game. Imperial Assault was one game I didn't like...the models aren't very good, it's not very cinematic etc.

The only thing that seems to be a real fuss is people used to FFGs X wing and Armada are irked about having to paint models. I think people will have to learn to get over that though, just buy a can of white spray and spray the stormtroopers white if you can't bear grey plastic .Stormtroopers are going to be so many levels easier to paint than a 40k model...

For me FFG tends to make better games than GW. That is just an opinion, but i've found I got the hang of X wing and Armada a lot more easily than I ever did WHF or 40k. GWs games have always been very old school and traditional. But GW appears to be coming around and refining their rules lately. Plus Blood Bowl despite being a bit dated is still one of the best board games made IMO.

I think it can compete, sure. It has a very recognizable IP, the models, while made of a crap substance and have okayish details, are good enough and the rules are actually quite interesting. I supsect it will be quite popular amongst those who are fans of FFG star wars games. I might pick up a copy if there is enough players locally. But I don't think it will actually destroy 40k since it's a very different kind of wargame. Plus, with Disney milking Star Wars people may get fatigued of the IP. Not totally disinterested but I don't think it will sell as well as X-wing did on launch.

It looks interesting enough. Going to wait for the rules to come out and then playtest them with IA stuff, but at $80 for the core chances are I will pick it up anyway. Not too bothered with the PVC nor the dice/tons of cards thing that turned the other thread so sour as I have four binders and two plano boxes full of stuff just for x-wing.

Don't reckon it will compete with 40k at all really at least until I use Stormtroopers to slaughter Eldar...

Is there any way that we can get the good info from the other thread ported into the op of this one please?

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Plus, with Disney milking Star Wars people may get fatigued of the IP. Not totally disinterested but I don't think it will sell as well as X-wing did on launch.

This is what i was trying to think of and say.

i can honestly see a lot of people getting tired of the IP. we now have, Xwing, Armada, IA and Destiny (and they're the big ones, little alone all of the RPG stuff that FFG has atm)

WotC's Star Wars minis didn't dethrone GW, so I don't expect FFG's offering will either. It doesn't have to, to be successful.

For the most part, I think the game will cater to a mostly different crowd. I think most of the people that pick up Legion wouldn't touch 40K with a 10-foot pole, and vice-versa.

For a variety of reasons, I don't expect I will be getting into this, despite my overall love of Star Wars. I think the biggest factor is I'm already spread too thin on options for wargaming as it is - Bolt Action, Flames of War, Heroes of Normandie, 40K, Runewars, AoS, 9th Age, Kings of War, X-Wing, Star Trek Attack Wing, Armada, Dust, AT-43, Battletech, WEG Star Wars, Wotc Star Wars, etc. I just don't have much room - physically or mentally - for any more games.

Eh, I think it can compete, it has the IP going for it, but I think that's about it for a lot of people. I'm sure a shop around here will have a demo for it when it's out, and I'll give it a try, but FF is going all out on the Star Wars IP, and I think it's doing more bad than good. There are three RPG lines, a CCG, Imperial Assault, Armada, X-Wing, now a re-release of the West End Star Wars game, it's getting to be too much, and I personally am feeling the fatigue. Might pick it up if the game is any good, but eh, time will tell.

Two different audiences, here.

I think Legion's going to appeal more to boardgamers and casual gamers interested in the IP, rather than the miniatures wargaming hobby, which would include assembly and painting. GW would be more for the hobbyists, including those who want high quality miniature and plastic.

The question is IA vs. Legion. I don't think boardgamers and casual gamers care about the scale differences (or, as said, painting and miniature quality) that much. (Another possibility for scale creep is the same for any miniatures scale creep -- to add detail.) But Legion's going to need enough content and gameplay to persuade the IA owners who have bought all the IA expansions to buy another miniatures skirmish game. FFG's supposed to put out an app for IA, but, at the same time, Hasbro has the license for SW boardgames (which doesn't mean FFG and Hasbro can't make agreements and have payments suchthat FFG also creates boardgames), and Legion is a step away from this legal issue. I'm curious how well IA owners can use their miniatures in Legion, and if SW fans want the lesser variety of miniatures in the Legion starter set compared to the IA core box.

ingtaer wrote:
Is there any way that we can get the good info from the other thread ported into the op of this one please?

Nope, it's a ton of work for little return. If you want to start a new thread asking questions about Legion rules or how units and upgrades are costed, etc, I have been following it very closely and would be happy to answer as much as possible.

The FLGS was all abuzz about it last night. Well, ok, the X-Wing crowd was. Everyone was hoping I would buy it, paint it, and run demos for them.

Oh the humanity...

That's kind of what I plan, get two small armies, use it as a gateway game to get people used to miniature gaming, then branch them into other games.

Runewars soured me with its rigid movement system. But this game, they've already stated that you don't have to move the full length of the move tool.

The lack of factions is an issue, but less of an issue since we know that there's a big, big universe of fiction to draw on.

All this talk of not doing Clone Wars or Force Awakens stuff is silly. FFG likes money, it'll happen eventually.

I'm optimistic about the game. I think as long as FFG keeps in mind that you can only do skirmish with Star Wars, and doesn't try to ramp it up to major battles, it'll be great. Two factions is going to be limiting, but X-wing shows they're willing to dig deep into the EU stuff for ideas.

If you can't get excited about wookies fighting against Jabba's minions, I can't help you.

If this game went into Clone Wars stuff and gave a plastic AAT and/or AT-TE I would not have enough money to throw at it.

If it was pre-painted then 40K would be dead.

Factions could be:

Rebels-
-- Traditional, Hoth, Rogue One variants

Galactic Empire
-- Imperial Navy, Army, Stormies

Gangsters
-- Hutts, Black Sun, Bounty Hunters

Grand Army of the Republic
-- Clones

Seperatist Droids
-- Battle Droids

Seperatists Non-droid
-- Non-Droids

Wookies

Gungans

Ewoks

....plenty of options really.....

Yeah but FFG won't (or can't) do the Clone Wars. which is really sad

I love almost everything about this. Would prefer pre-painted as the mountain of hobby shame is extensive.

Will probably get frustrated with unrelated card creep again but hopefully I make it past Hoth as my Ice World table is perfect.

Note sure what people are talking about not doing Clone Wars when there's an X-Wing fighter that's from the clone wars.

I wouldn't call it competition, at all. A new alternative, maybe. But not competition.

A lot of people said that Star Wars Starship Battles was going to be the 40k-killer, and gloated about how fast it was selling.

I've not seen people playing that game since like, January. The FLGS I go to has a 'budget bin' full of used models and stuff for this game, and they're already marking down the models on the shelf.

A game full of the same-old Stormtroopers, Rebels, maybe eventually Clone Troopers and droids isn't going to sell well after a while. A whopping TWO factions? Yay, let me put my Darth Vader and Stormtroopers against your Darth Vader and Stormtroopers. After this, I'll play the other guy and his Darth Vader and Stormtroopers. I know one guy that plays Rebels, he might bring his Luke Skywalker over!

Yeah, I'm not seeing this take off.

I mean, even the old miniatures game did piss-poor. Eventually they worked in Expanded Universe stuff and it still wasn't very popular.

They'll have to do a lot to compete with 40k. Multi-Part kits, customizable characters you can kitbash, etc. I want to make MY Star Wars army, not just a handful of stuff that literally every single player has, right out of the box.

And I'll wager that if we do get Mandalorians, it'll be little more than a pile of redundant Boba Fetts with a couple of different guns.

 Easy E wrote:


Factions could be:

Rebels-
-- Traditional, Hoth, Rogue One variants

Galactic Empire
-- Imperial Navy, Army, Stormies

Gangsters
-- Hutts, Black Sun, Bounty Hunters

Grand Army of the Republic
-- Clones

Seperatist Droids
-- Battle Droids

Seperatists Non-droid
-- Non-Droids

Wookies

Gungans

Ewoks

....plenty of options really.....

Honestly, best it can probably hope for is to compete with 40k, which is still good, but franchise fatigue is this things greatest enemy I think.

Faction-wise, probably going to have 3 or so factions. Empire. Rebels. possibly Scum/criminals/freelancers. They could do something like make it something like Mercs in Warmachine, letting you take them in other armies and also being standalone factions, at most, 5 factions. Emp, Rebels, Scum, Republic, and CIS. I don't think there's enough for the Separatists to have two factions, or wookies, or gungans, or bloody Ewoks. Maybe they could get away with seven factions by using Old Republic and Sith Army. Maybe? I don't know. I think they're probably going to stick with Emp and Rebels. Again.

If this thing was really going to give it a fair shake at topping 40k, you'd need multi part kits, the ability to make your own characters, make them your dudes. But, that won't happen,because FF has to do it the same way as every other miniatures game.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Note sure what people are talking about not doing Clone Wars when there's an X-Wing fighter that's from the clone wars.

It's a bit of reach but there are a few junked ARC-170's in the Rebels cartoon, I suspect that's why they pop up in X-Wing, everything else from Clone Wars would largely tweaked Z95's or base TIE's, and for Legion at least infantry wise most troops would be either elite stormtroopers (Clones) or Hordey/Conscript Stormtroopers (the cheap droids) not saying it couldn't happen but I suspect filling out the Empire/Rebel era range would be the priority

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
I wouldn't call it competition, at all. A new alternative, maybe. But not competition.

The lady doth protest too much.

I think this game might be where they actually test the waters for the Clone Wars material. There wasn't that much in terms of starfighters (I'm only on season one of the cartoon) and the different pilots you have to populate the card deck with. But with the ground troops, I can see it happening.

 Vertrucio wrote:
The lady doth protest too much.

Oh, I wouldn't call it a 'protest'. I'd love to see a company come out and give GW a run for their money. It might have them take a look at themselves and go, "You know, maybe $40.00 for a single infantry model is a bit steep, guys."

But let's face it, it's gonna do Star Wars the way everyone does Star Wars.

Here's the big names, Luke and Vader. Stormtroopers and Rebels. OK thanks for your money, bye.

Oh hey guys look we made a new game for Star Wars that uses a different kind of dice and you can use Luke or Vader...

Well, in the old West End Miniatures game, you were able to squeeze a lot of content out of Empire, Rebels, and Freelancers. Just by adding race-based squads alone you can add a lot of rebel variety. Then there are all sorts of Stormie models.... enough to rival the Space Marines of GW.

Plus, if you look in the RPG sourcebooks there are all sorts of factions even within the Empire way back then. Is it any worse then Ad-mech, Space Marines Blue, Space Marines Grey, Space Marines Black, Space Marines Super Special, Astra Militum, Sneaky Imperials, Imperial Women, etc in 40K? Not really.

However, I see this game as having more Lord of the Rings potential than Warhammer 40K type reach. I think you will see this in Barnes and Noble and non-game stores.

Pros. Let's you refight awesome engagements like the Tantive boarding action or Hoth. Cons. Gungans versus battledroids. Or clone troopers versus battledroids or any of the other godawful "let's line up across an open plain and hammer our faces into each other"...

Recently rewatched the prequel trilogy. Reminded myself how godawful they are...

Considering that the terrain rules were better than 40k 8th edition's already, open fields aren't going to be an issue with this game.

In early demos they were doing a simplified cover system where the barricades were the only cover, at -1 hit. However, I noticed in wargaming youtube videos covering the game in depth they had those barricades negate two hits, and light woods/vegetation negate 1.

 Flinty wrote:
Pros. Let's you refight awesome engagements like the Tantive boarding action or Hoth. Cons. Gungans versus battledroids. Or clone troopers versus battledroids or any of the other godawful "let's line up across an open plain and hammer our faces into each other"...

Recently rewatched the prequel trilogy. Reminded myself how godawful they are...

Do yourself a favor and wash the taste out of your mouth with the Clone Wars animated series. Its amazing, and makes a better Prequel Saga than those three turd movies.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Pros. Let's you refight awesome engagements like the Tantive boarding action or Hoth. Cons. Gungans versus battledroids. Or clone troopers versus battledroids or any of the other godawful "let's line up across an open plain and hammer our faces into each other"...

Recently rewatched the prequel trilogy. Reminded myself how godawful they are...

Do yourself a favor and wash the taste out of your mouth with the Clone Wars animated series. Its amazing, and makes a better Prequel Saga than those three turd movies.

Or do what I did, cope with years of denial and scotch!

Clone Wars really was much better than it had any right to be, even early on, before it hits its stride.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Do yourself a favor and wash the taste out of your mouth with the Clone Wars animated series. Its amazing, and makes a better Prequel Saga than those three turd movies.

If they made a Durge model, I'd probably buy it just to paint it.

What I'd like to see to combat the idea of limited factions is a series of sub-factions, much as Infinity does sectorials really. You could have limited availability of certain troop types of vehicles depending one which part of the army you were building into. They're long out of date, but I always liked the way the West End Games sourcebooks described the organisation of both the Alliance and the Empire. I think I'd probably go for something like this:

Rebel Alliance

Alliance Sector Command - this would be a 'normal' army, with a spread of unit qualities and decent access to older vehicles etc. What we've seen in the demos, basically
Alliance SpecForce - troops retained directly by Alliance High Command, these guys would be an elite army, with every unit highly statted for its role but not particularly multi-talented. The WEG sourcebook lists unit types as Infiltrators, Marines, Pathfinders, Urban Guerillas, Wilderness Fighters & Heavy Weapon specialists. They would probably have limited vehicle support
Alliance Intelligence Cell - mostly irregular forces with perhaps a small number of commando units as backup. I like the idea of 'civilian protestors' who can lay traps etc

Galactic Empire

Stormtrooper Corps - featuring the whole gamut of the boys in white, scouts, zero-G troops, the whole lot. No vehicles larger than a speeder bike to reinforce their fast assault role
Imperial Army/Navy - The basic troopers, this would be the subfaction to go for if you want an armoured assault, with little in the way of elite infantry but above average access to AT-STs
Imperial Intelligence - I wasn't really sure where to go with the third Imperial option, but I think this one would be interesting. You've essentially got 3 areas to look at - the ISB (& COMPNOR), the Ubiqtorate and the Inquisitorius. I think this could work with COMPNOR assault squads as poorly trained yet fanatical infantry backing up teams of intelligence agents and squads of force-using minor Inquisitors as seen in the Rebels cartoon

I mean, it won't happen, but that's how I'd do it.

An brigade of Alderaan expats who joined up with the Rebellion after their planet was blown up could be an interesting force to play as...

I definitely hope they release a '77 white helmet/blue vest Rebel squad.

"Alderaan Defense Force Veteran" could be an upgrade title.

Aaaand I just realized that yeah, all those guys would be from Alderaan since they're Leia's Organa's guards.

Mind blown.

I'm surprised at how much clamor there is for more than two factions given that we already have two Star Wars miniature games from FFG and know exactly how many factions they are planning to do and from what timeframe.

Hopefully they do well selling the personality of the setting, I feel like you can't lose the adventure and the sense of big personalities, because that's how Star Wars fulfills the Rule of Cool.

Yeah, two factions but you can do a lot with them. Just look at the Star Wars Universe with just two factions.

So, how long until we get the Star Trek ground combat game? LOL.

The two factions of Star Wars have a lot more variety than all the factions of 40k if they want to.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Yeah, I'm not seeing this take off.

Care to take a wager, sir?

I wonder if this will take off at my local store. X-Wing didn't. We're pretty focused on 40k, so it'll be interesting if it stands a chance. It's not like we're hurting for people who like Star Wars.

I can definitely see how the better model quality and diversity of 40k speaks to the established wargamers, though. I like those Stormtroopers. Nothing in Star Wars beats classic Stormtroopers. I might buy a box just to have a squad of them, but obviously I hope I'd get in a game or two with them as well.

So for me, I honestly hope Legion is competition for 40k, because otherwise I'll never have much incentive to buy the game.

I...

I just hope they give me a box of Alderaanian Navy Troopers. I just want to paint those poor buggers.

 Manchu wrote:
I definitely hope they release a '77 white helmet/blue vest Rebel squad.

"Alderaan Defense Force Veteran" could be an upgrade title.

I thought Alderaan was a peaceful planet, with no weapons

On second thought, that's probably why the rebels on the Tantive IV were the only ones to lose to Stormtroopers - they were all Alderaanians, and that was the first time they'd picked up a gun.

--------------------

On a serious note, there's tons of stuff to draw from for both sides from the old RPGs and video games. Wouldn't mind buying an imperial hovertank like from the Star Wars Battlefront game (or Rogue One). Or putting together a bounty hunter force to hunt some rebels.

 Pacific wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Yeah, I'm not seeing this take off.

Care to take a wager, sir?

What odds can I get for not as good as Armada, but a lot better than Runewars? And what's the vig? Don't try to overvig me!

frankelee wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Yeah, I'm not seeing this take off.

Care to take a wager, sir?

What odds can I get for not as good as Armada, but a lot better than Runewars? And what's the vig? Don't try to overvig me!

I'd actually say fair odds... I am finding that Armada is just that touch too much a "thinking man's game" than the usual FFG fair. There are always meaningful choices to make, and it very much doesn't play itself at any stage, which I suspect is part of why it is less successful than X-wing. Among more casual gamers at least around here, Armada died, but those who stuck with it found it incredibly rewarding.

I suspect Legion will ere on the side of "easier" to attract that widest possible audience, ala X-wing. It doesn't mean it will be bad, mind you, but I suspect it will be lighter.

I agree with that appraisal of Armada but I think it goes even deeper. Against a "thinking man" type player, you can very easily lose in deployment, which becomes increasingly apparent over a slow, laborious session. This can be a really negative experience.

 Manchu wrote:
I agree with that appraisal of Armada but I think it goes even deeper. Against a "thinking man" type player, you can very easily lose in deployment, which becomes increasingly apparent over a slow, laborious session. This can be a really negative experience.

I can see that, but I feel like a whole class of miniatures games fall into that category. Many ranked battle games also feel like they're won/lost in deployment and early movement phases. Its part of what I love about this hobby... I love how different games really emphasize different aspects of strategy and tactics.

The problem with most things people try to hold up as possible 40k-killers is that they can't actually compete on the ground where 40k is really strong (quality and breadth of models). The Imperial Assault and the Legions models are fine for what they are, but they're never going to compete with 40k on a meaningful level simply because the miniatures aren't there.

Legion is a different sort of game to 40k. There's always going to be some overlap, sure, but I don't think it's really going to climb the mountain to challenge 40k's market space.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Many ranked battle games also feel like they're won/lost in deployment and early movement phases.

No doubt that's true. The issue with Armada is, you may have already lost but that doesn't make the turns any less complex and thoughtful. I wish Armada was my cup of tea, because in theory it is so neat and thematic. I just had very little fun playing it.

 Manchu wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Many ranked battle games also feel like they're won/lost in deployment and early movement phases.

No doubt that's true. The issue with Armada is, you may have already lost but that doesn't make the turns any less complex and thoughtful. I wish Armada was my cup of tea, because in theory it is so neat and thematic. I just had very little fun playing it.

I've never played Armada, but I've played enough similar games to diagnose what might be wrong: It combines the restricted movement of ranks and flanks or other starship games, with the limited model count of a skirmish game. Skirmish games usually get around the critical import of small model counts by allowing each model to do quite a bit, while limited movement games usually run closer to dozen elements, compared to a handful for Armada.

I'd say you strike close to the heart of the problem. And I love Armada. it just has a steep learning curve, and you have to grind through many games to find something that suits you, or just give up on bad ideas. Like combining 2 Peltas to make an ISD analog for the Rebels. Doesn't work, except in edge cases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I miss the fleet feeling of BFG, and I don't quite get it from Armada.

That's kind of the reason why most games don't mess with the phasing.

SWL is a pretty standard heroic scale wargame. Two actions, lots of upgrades, etc.

At the In-Flight at Gencon, FFG basically said they were only doing Original Trilogy for Legions. They didn't use those exact words, but the way they phrased the answer to the question that was posed didn't leave much room for interpretation. That more or less goes for the other Star Wars games as well. They were somewhat hesitant in their answer to the question about a possible third faction, which leads me to believe that they will do some 'subfactions' (i.e. look you can build an entire army of just wookies!) rather than a proper third faction.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I think this game might be where they actually test the waters for the Clone Wars material. There wasn't that much in terms of starfighters (I'm only on season one of the cartoon) and the different pilots you have to populate the card deck with. But with the ground troops, I can see it happening.

What??

ARC-170
Fang Fighters (Protectorate Starfighters)
N-1
Clone Z-95
BTL-B Y-Wing
V-Wing
Eta-2 Actis
Delta-7 Aetherspite
Delta-7B Aetherspite
T-6 Class Shuttle
Eta Class Shuttle
The Crucible
Space Gunships (LAAT's for space ops)
Nu-class Transport
Theta class T-2C shuttle
V-19 Torrent

and thats just the Republic side (I'm probably missing a few). Add in the Separatists and others and you get:

Vulture droids
Hyena bombers
droid tri-fighters
Rogue-class starfighters
Belbullab-22
Gnivex-class fanblade fighter
Nantex-class territorial defense fighters
Umbaran starfighters
HH-87 Starhoppers
Kom'rk-class fighters
etc. etc. etc.

There was *plenty* of material for X-Wing.

According to Alex Davey, Legion will be GCW-era "for now" (as opposed to OT-only; keep in mind AT-RT is not from OT).

I'm looking forward to this game.

From a miniatures perspective, the sculpts are good and cleanly sculpted. And they look like they were made specifically with PVC in mind. Also, given that we have only seen resin masters so far, they may scale just fine with Imperial Assault (which has scale inconsistencies within it's own line). We just don't know for sure yet.

The game looks fun. Somewhat light but with some depth, I think.

I'm interested but going to wait to see what expansions come out and how "competitive" different archtypes within each faction shake out to being...

The basics (from watching YouTube demos) seem pretty good, but there will need to be decent variety among the imperial choices (Grand inquisitor, royal guard, etc) before I take the plunge.

Armada has (it seems to me) just now or only relatively recently reached that level that I'm taking another good long look at it... and IA was getting close, but not enough to overcome my dislike of painting.

I'd say there's a decent chance I'll get into it in a year or two (love the universe so much more than 40k) but the initial stages of these games are always too limited for me to really go all in.

And the level of interest at my flgs will also play a role too.

See it as a way to get in on the ground floor!

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
See it as a way to get in on the ground floor!

I find that REALLY helpful with FFG miniatures games. If you buy things as they release, they actually end up being very "cheap" miniatures games (even if you're buying multiples of a give item), whereas five+ Waves into one of their games, the options and costs suddenly feel staggering for a completist like me. :-p

True story.

I went into Armada with the same gusto as I did X-Wing... and rapidly ran out of stuff to purchase. So in the long run, being into FFG games is a great way to curb my spending.

Yeah. You're right on about that. I enjoyed collecting all of Conquest but when thinking about catching up on Invasion and IA the sheer backlog has killed my enthusiasm.

Maybe Team Covenant will eventually allow you to subscribe to Legion expansions the way they do for Destiny and FFG LCGs.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I went into Armada with the same gusto as I did X-Wing... and rapidly ran out of stuff to purchase. So in the long run, being into FFG games is a great way to curb my spending.

and THAT is why i've gone slowly into armada. slowly built my fleet up over 14 months and now i have a reasonably sized ship yard.

I jumped in on armada when miniature market had a bunch of ships like 50% off. I think it was worth it but I just haven't played enough games of it to justify much more.

I'm excited for Legion but I think more from the standpoint of terrain. I've tinkered with laser cut mdf terrain and designing and making some death star style catwalks would be fun i think!

For the game myself I'm not sure how I feel, obviously it has the brand behind it but I'm unsure where it will go between skirmish vs wargame, where will it land between 40k and something like Infinity? Overall I'm going to join the wait and see crowd and in the end it kind of comes down to strength at my local FLGS.

It's nothing at all like Infinity FYI.

From what they've been very open with... its fits the size/model-count of Warmahordes to a tee.

A "tournament list" will be a little more than double the starter-box, so I expect 4-5 "units" of 5-ish models, some vehicles, and maybe one center-piece unit.

I think that amount of models can have great table presence, but still be more accessible to a lot of newer gamers than 40k.

 Manchu wrote:
It's nothing at all like Infinity FYI.

oh good. I can play it, then.

This game isn't going to fail, exactly, but it's not going to kill 40K, or Warmachine/Hordes, or Infinity, or Guildball, or Age of Sigmar. Where it might fit in is around Battletech, Dystopian Wars, Halo: Ground Command, Wraith of Kings, and Drop Fleet Commander.

The bad stuff first:

It's an Intellectual Property licensed to Asmodee/Fantasy Flight Games on a recurring basis from Disney, who probably reserve the right to yank that license at any time for any reason. We have no idea how much Asmodee is actually paying for that license, but I can't see it being cheap. That means the price point for the game will probably be very high. The initial box set is MSRP $89.95, and curiously enough, FFG does not list the contents of the box set.

Each and every model, rule, artwork, fluff... all of it has to be "approved" by Disney, and they sometimes have some different ideas of how things should be. Also, any game designed by a committee is not going to be a very good game. What this is going to lead to is long, long time between "expansions". FFG might have the next few expansions planned out, but getting the approval for them could be a lot harder.

It's competing against another, similar game in FFG: Star Wars Imperial Assault. A table top wargammer can totally tell the difference between the two games, but what about some executive at Disney that cares more about his stockmarket share margins? Make no mistake, Disney probably has full control over this IP and game, and what they say goes. When they start seeing Imperial Assault go down, they might demand FFG pull the plug on that game. And a year later after Legion and no one is buying the game anymore because there is no new content, they just might pull the plug on that too.

Besides the Clone Wars and Empire Strikes Back, we haven't seen a large scale battle in the Star Wars universe. Every big battle concentrated on a few key hero's who eventually won the battle by themselves. That's the story of Star Wars. Small band of hero's standing up to the overwhelming armies of the bad guys and winning. And we see that in Legion. I got to play a couple demo's at Gencon and PAX West this year, and it could have been the set up for demo purposes, but it very much felt like it didn't matter what I did with my Rebels or Storm Troopers. It was all about Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Both of those models carried the entire battle. The rest of my army might as well not even been on the table. Now considering that there was about 30 models on each side, and you have to have a hero... well, the game very much feels like "Hero Hammer" where the troops take a very distant back seat to what the Hero is doing.

The game isn't going to have much depth of play. Rebel Trooper #3 is never going to kill Darth Vader. It's impossible. As in, the rules won't let your trooper models kill the Hero's. That doesn't mean the hero's can't "die", but again, the game seems to be based around your Hero's, and the premise that only Hero's can defeat Hero's. Notice how I said defeat? Disney property here- no one is "killed" in this game. Again, this was a demo, but it very much was Rebels shoot at Stormtroopers and remove some models from the table, while Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader run at each other to fight. The actual demo rules, even supposing they were dumb downed for demos, made this feel very, very much like a board game, less then even Imperial Assault. I hope there are more rules that we just didn't play with and that it wasn't the full game, because if so... then I'll call it now: Star Wars Legion is a board game, not a war game.

Content: Unless they start delving deeply into the Expanded Universe, there isn't that many options for units in the game. The scale of the game will exclude things like AT-At's or X-Wings. The first wave has already been previewed, and it looks like more Stormtroopers and Rebels from the box set, and an AT-ST and Snowspeeder. Anything else would be too big for the table size you are expected to play on. So that leaves you with what, 4-5 different types of Stormtroopers, and 2-3 types of Rebels? Forget about armies. It's more like skirmishes with Hero's.

It might be a long, long time before we see any more factions added to this game. At best, we'll see new "waves" of models- like Han Solo, or Emperor Palpatine. New units? Hmm. Probably not.

Customization: Get ready for the kick in the teeth. You can't build/customize your army the way you can in just about every other war game out there. There are no points values, no power levels. The scenario tells you what you get to bring. Now, there might be some rules we haven't seen yet for army creation, but everyone I spoke to was pretty tight lipped about that. Some cards did have a points value on them, so I'm thinking it's predefined armies with effect cards that you can bring along, and those will be the customization part.

What else can I say about the game? While every unit activates and gets to do something, a random card pulled at the beginning of each turn from your "command deck" allows you to issue "orders" to x amount of units. Orders are what allow you to activate the unit of your choice. Otherwise, the activation order is TOTALLY RANDOM. Let that sink in for a moment. Unless you pull a really good command card, the order of activation for your units is totally random, dictated by a randomly drawn card at the beginning of the turn.

The table will be littered with widgets and tokens. Widgets for movement, shooting, and command. Tokens for activation, orders, and status. No tape measures here. It's all plastic widgets. Forget about standard d6's or regular dice. The game uses proprietary dice- six sided and eight sided dice with a printed icon on the faces that represent something. The color of the dice have meaning too. Much like the current FFG Star Wars RPG uses all the colorful, proprietary dice for its game system.

The Good Stuff:

It's Star Wars. Even if it's the crappiest game ever made, it's going to sell.

The game will play fast, but for a long time wargamer, it will lack the strategic complexity of most games as the scenario defines your army and you merely customize your command deck. The tactical game play will be a mess as you'll never be able to make a plan and stick to it, as the randomly drawn command card defines how many units you can activate by choice. Otherwise, unit activation is random. You'll always get to activate everything, but you won't always be able to pick the order. The only upside here is that your opponent will be under the same constraints as you. Ah, concentrate on the good stuff!

Models are plastic, and not the good kind of plastic that allows you to use plastic glue on. Restic plastic I believe is the term? Most are all one piece, but some require a little assembly, meaning super glue will be the norm here. Gah! Good stuff! Concentrate on the good stuff!

Artwork looks great! Card layout is intuitive and while there are basic rules, more specific rules are on the cards themselves.

TLDR: This game is for the Star Wars Fan Person that also likes war games. Unfortunately, it will not have the depth of play or customization of other war games on the market. Consider it "War Game Lite".

Note: All of these statements are my opinion based on playing a couple demo games, talking to some FFG staff, watching Youtube videos, and reading the FFG Forums. I hope I'm missing something here, because I really want the game to do well. My biggest gripe here is the idea that your Hero is forced to take center stage front with the rest of your army playing a supporting cast role. If I want to play with hero's, I can play Imperial Assault.

Randomly drawn command card? What? No, that is incorrect.

No army building? Absolutely wrong, again.

Heroes can only be defeated by Heroes? "Hero" is not even a unit type.

I'm not sure if your info is reliable. EDIT: I'm sure that your info is not reliable.

 Manchu wrote:
Randomly drawn command card? What? No, that is incorrect.

No army building? Absolutely wrong, again.

Heroes can only be defeated by Heroes? "Hero" is not even a unit type.

I'm not sure if your info is reliable. EDIT: I'm sure that your info is not reliable.

OK... so at the beginning of the turn when you draw from your shuffled command deck a card that specifies how many orders you can hand out is wrong? And all the units that you don't assign orders to get shuffled into a pile of tokens that are once again randomly pulled during activation is wrong? Please, tell me how it actually works then because that's the way all six of my demo games worked.

How do you build an army then? How many points is a Stormtrooper? The unit cards have no points on them. There are extra cards that you can add to units with points values on them, but how do you make an army? Is it by the model, or unit? Do you purchase a base size of rebels for X points, then add to them? What kind of restrictions are there? What's the intended army size? What do I have to take vs. what is optional?

Hero is not a unit type and a term I was using to describe Dark Vader or Luke Skywalker, both of which I've heard refereed to as the General, the Warlord, the Leader... in other words, because we haven't seen the rule book yet, I have no term for what Darth and Luke are called in the game. And as far as defeating Darth Vader- I poured just about every model's shots at him during one turn- and he shrugged it all off like it was nothing. When I got Luke into base to base with him, then it was a fight. Unless I somehow could got incredibly lucky with my dice, there is no way to kill Darth Vader with the rebel troops... in the demo. Maybe when the whole game comes out and we see all the rules that will be different.

Please, instead of just telling me I'm wrong, tell me how the actual game plays! Because I want this to be a good game, but right now, it feels shallow as .

You have a hand of command cards and you pick one per turn. The card you choose determines you iniative and how many units (of those within range of your command unit(s)) you can activate. Units you do not choose to activate are activated later in the turn by drawing tokens that correspond to unit type.

A unit of 4 stormtroopers is 44 pts. it is written right on the card. You can upgrade a stormtrooper unit with one extra normal stormtrooper for 11 pts and one extra s[ecial weapons trooper. The DLT-19 trooper upgrade is 24 pts. The HH-12 stormtrooper is 34 pts, IIRC.

Unit choices are command, corps, special forces, support, and heavy. I believe comp is 1-2, 3-6, 0-3, 0-3, and 0-2 respectively.

Standard army size is 1000 pts. The core box comes with about 500pts each of Rebs and Imps, taking upgrades into account.

Luke and Vader are both command choices. There is no rule that they cannot be taken out by other unit types.

I'd really advise you to edit your post above because it is a lot of disinformation.

I used to play "I ain't been shot mum" by Two Fat Lardies, and the unit activation was completely random in that game. Worse, there were a couple of "Tea Interval" cards shuffled in the deck to cut it short. You could spend the whole game with a great unit placement and never capitalize on it because the deck was merciless. It happens. We still had great fun. Now if you add a certain control over this with command cards, huzzah! Honestly, I've come to see the IgoUgo system as a bit of a pain.

For all we know, the game will be heavily objective-based, like Armada, and your corps squads are there to take and accomplish those objectives. Command models might not be able to fulfill some objectives at all, if some are based on unit strength.

Sharpe Practice works the same way. I think Dux Britanniarum uses a variant. Other games use checks to see if a unit can activate when chosen (Lion Rampant, suppressed units in Bolt Action). Randomness as part of activation is hardly rare in the world of miniatures wargaming, although it might seem so if you only ever played 40k. Legion gives players the chance to control more but have lower iniative or control less and go first.This system is meant to be gamed, too. If a player chooses a command card that allows him to activate two units and he only has 2 non-corps units then by choosing to activate them, he's eliminated all activation randomness from his turn.

We do know that Legion is objective based.

So making it a different scale than imperial assault annoys me. I wonder if I'll just fudge it and have some primaris storm troopers and use my IA figures alongside. Hope they make terrain too. I can see imperial bunkers and rebel entrenchment complete with ray guns that bounce off AT-ATs. The cute ewok army will bring in the female demographics, might even get my daughter to play

I'll wait and see how this goes. But honestly there will be something too cool for my inner Jedi to resist.

And by still had great fun I meant my British forces were usually slaughtered by much weaker Italian forces. Great fun.

Yea, I view Tamwulfs comments with some suspicion, it reads more like an internet cynic whos watched youtube reviews rather than someone with actual hands-on time. I mean, 6 demo games? Cant apeak for PAX West but at Gencon it was hard enough to get just 1.

Also as others have stated, random activations are fairly common in games, when implemented correctly it actually makes for a very intense tactical experience.

I will reiterate that my response is based on my play experience of the demo, not the full game. It was obvious that some of my demo's did not have the actual game cards, and after the first couple of demo's, I didn't pay much attention to unit cards, so I absolutely missed the points costs of units.

If you only play in the exhibit hall at Gencon, then yeah, it was all but impossible to get a demo. There are far more games available to the right people with the right badges outside of the exhibit hall, and the same is true of PAX.

Random activation is a double edged sword. If it applied equally to both players, then it's a great mechanic. When the game play depends on that random mechanic, than its not so good.

I want this game to do well, but my demo games and gut tell me this game is going to fall flat. I'll reserve final critique until after the game comes out and I've read the actual rules of the game. As far as I know, no one outside of FFG/Asmodee games has read the rule book or has a copy of the game. Do you have a copy of the game Manchu, or are you just basing everything off the FFG forums and Youtube videos?

As said already, it's not random activation. No more than Bolt Action is.

All troops of the same type have the same activation icon, so draw one of those and you get to choose one, or so comments say.

Second, it's always alternating activations, so unlike Bolt Action, you get to activate 1 for 1 every time. The key is getting to activate the forces you want at the right time while also getting to go first.

This info is already out there.

I look forward to learning more. Traditionally I hate FFG game design due to custom dice, widgets, and Special/exception rules heavy.

However, I am still willing to give this a go because there are ideas in it I like as well. I like the command card idea alot as it forces choice. I also like the squad commander being the marker for movement (It is something I have used in my own games) Plus, who doesn't want to play a stormtrooper vs. rebels battle on the table top?

Plus, once I have the minis I will use them however I want and I want Star Wars minis in numbers Imperial Assault can not deliver on.

Yeah, you have to commit to printing your own cards or using online army builders that print out the rules on them.

The card and component chase drags down FFG miniature games.

And it's not like 32mm Star Wars minis can't be used in a plethora of rules sets designed to emulate that Space Opera style.

 Vertrucio wrote:
The card and component chase drags down FFG miniature games.

This is the primary reason I'm cautious about the game. I've just kind of had it with organizing cards to the point where I don't play nearly enough X-Wing entirely due to being overwhelmed by them.

If you look at how they do LCGs, it's a lot cleaner - especially with the news that core will no longer be evergreen in Android. So basically, once a set and its core are rotated out, you can put the box on the shelf and move on. That box can be used to play "historical" games but it's no longer relevant for organized play. FFG seems very reluctant to print cards separately from miniatures, however. The only exception is the Essentials Pack for RW, but that is obviously not a course correction product.

I wish that some of these threads would stop putting Legion up against 40k. It's like going back to the SNES v Megadrive/Genisis days

I know it will be difficult, but not all of us here play or care about 40k, and this game needs to be judged on its individual strengths and weaknesses.

^ What he said.

 Pacific wrote:
I wish that some of these threads would stop putting Legion up against 40k. It's like going back to the SNES v Megadrive/Genisis days

I know it will be difficult, but not all of us here play or care about 40k, and this game needs to be judged on its individual strengths and weaknesses.

Exalted. That' why I will give it a go.

I have done the same with X-wing and ultimately found the card upgrade aspects not to my liking. I wanted a squadron/aircraft game, not an individual pilot game. That is not what X-wing is.

Therefore, I judged it on its own merits to my taste and decided not to buy more stuff. I will do the same with Legion.

Dakka is mostly a 40k-centric site and at this scale the comparison to Legion is only natural. I believe Legion is indeed meant to compete with 40k; which is not to say that it was designed to "kill" 40k (that's laughable).

You're right of course, although you wouldn't think that from some of the histrionic (almost fearful) criticism levelled at the game that's been based only on how to play vids!

Personally it has to compete against both 40k and Bolt Action (though not the second one so much since that fills the niche of historical WWII games but still has the same feeling of a platoon-level game). Personally I am not completely sold on it yet as I already have Bolt Action to fill that niche.

That said, I can imagine it does well as it is Star Wars and FFG does pretty well to make a good ruleset despite hiccups and balance issue in their games.

I want to be excited for this game, but I get the feeling that it is going to be like every FFG game in my area. Once the initial excitement for a game wears off, all of the players disappear and go back to playing Magic and 40k.

X-Wing has been pretty strong over the years. Armada - not so much. I think, as far as comparing apples and oranges and pineapples goes, Legion is more like X-Wing than Armada.

Locally, i'm getting a vibe more unto X-wing than Armada. I LOVE Armada much moreso than X-wing as a pure game (just personal preference as both are good), but I feel like many less hardcore gamers just find Armada a little too abstract to get invested fully in. They fondly remember X-wings and Han Solo... less so for Correlian Corvettes, etc...

Legion pre-orders are doing gangbusters here, and there's already quite a few folks eager to dive in. I'm very optimistic that it will find a community and that i'll have plenty of opponents.

But i'm also that fluke gamer apparently who can be a tournament going, competitive 40k gamer.... and love my casual Frostgrave group. :-p

Totally late to the party here, but I have some IA stuff and was looking at Legions and I'm disappointed.

The scale issue is really annoying.

A bit of scale creep doesn't bother me much, but that looks like a deliberate upscale-for-money-grab to me.

FFG apparently doesn't trust the fan base it's built up with IA to both use their existing units and buy more Legions stuff. That's got to be a misjudgement of their fans who have already proven themselves rather loyal and willing to buy expensive product. Further, practically every unit in Legions is going to be more figs-per-units than in IA and require buying more, so why not throw your fans a bone and make the scale the same?

I admit to a bit of jealousy that Legions will probably also steal much of the playerbase of Runewars (a game I play) but I knew from the beginning that Runewars might not last and I collected it with the intent of using the figs in other games too, so that's not a big deal. I think I've just got to content myself with IA and my other (and far less expensive) minis games like Konflikt '47, Mech Attack, Frostrgrave, Song of Blades etc...

People keep using those non-production minis for scale tests... but we know there's a 10-15% shrinkage expected by the time those are retail product.

Maybe we should... you know... wait until we have something we can actually compare?

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
People keep using those non-production minis for scale tests... but we know there's a 10-15% shrinkage expected by the time those are retail product.

Maybe we should... you know... wait until we have something we can actually compare?

I'm willing to have my mind changed if that's the case, but I've not seen anything to suggest that there will be a massive shrikage. Sounds like speculation vs actual available evidence.

Also note that FFG has pointedly NOT announced that the figures will be of compatible scale.

Bummer. I was hoping the scale thing would not be so noticable.

Just pretend the smaller ones are just a little bit further away.

Seriosly though I wonder how noticeable the difference would actually be with a slightly different Base and some paint.

Guy on the right seems a little short for a stormtrooper...