Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Let's check out FFG's latest offering to the Star Wars Universe, the Ground Combat version of their family of games. Big thanks to Clarence for bringing in his set and to Battle Kiwi for the awesome terrain!

Check out Battle Kiwi HERE: https://www.battlekiwi.com/

Every video battle report I have watched makes the game look kind of non-dynamic? Perhaps it is the size of the table people are playing on, but it seems like many things are best served to just Aim and Shoot as opposed to maneuver.

Has anyone else experienced this or am I being crazy?

It depends on a lot of things.

Personally, I think large amounts of Heavy Cover is a mistake and the game coming with all those walls tends to create an entrenched WWI style encounter unless Luke/Vader is willing to Wonder Woman it across the table. I've had way better luck using light forests and things that give light cover that only becomes heavy when the unit has a suppression token.

Also worth noting, something wrong in the video (and this is really easy to get wrong), but you actually can't hide a whole unit behind a wall and just shoot with the leader. The leader is used for range and determining if the enemy has cover, but models only contribute to the attack if they have LOS to at least one model in the target unit. Likewise, the unit has to largely be in cover to benefit from it, which can get harder to do when they need to be somewhere where they can see.

Some battlefields, armies and scenarios can definitely turn the game into trench warfare. The table here is actually half the expected size (6x3 instead of the 3x3 shown here, which has a big affect on scenario and your commander's bubble) and they want a LOT of terrain in this game: 1/4 of the table or a full 4.5 sq feet of terrain; which is more than Malifaux, though spread over a much larger area. I've definitely found the dynamics of the game improved with a mix of large LOS blocking buildings and big area forests instead of short walls that let you dig in and have free reign of the battle.

That was a pretty good video, feel like I have an understanding of the game without having to slog through the rulebook (I hate reading rulebooks anymore - been reading them since the 80's).

I was surprised how easily Vader got waxed - but I'm always glad to see that heroes aren't unbeatable in these sort of games.

 LunarSol wrote:

Personally, I think large amounts of Heavy Cover is a mistake and the game coming with all those walls tends to create an entrenched WWI style encounter unless Luke/Vader is willing to Wonder Woman it across the table. I've had way better luck using light forests and things that give light cover that only becomes heavy when the unit has a suppression token.

The biggest problem is when people don't have enough stuff that totally blocks line of sight. Lots of heavy cover is fine. A mixture of light and heavy is also good. But what is necessary is line of sight blocking terrain.

Biggest reason a lot of Legion batreps don't have lots of good terrain is because a lot of Legion players simply don't have it. They're not 40k/Warmachine/Infinity players who have plenty of terrain to choose from. They're mostly Xwing players who haven't played a real miniature game yet. So they don't have an inbuilt idea of how terrain should be used in a tabletop wargame yet.