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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).