Another Legion tournament report, this time at my local FLGS – the Games Cube in Parramatta. This was the weekend prior to Leia and the Fleet Troopers being released (about 3 weeks ago) so my list wasn’t going to be too different from my last outing.

Red Hot Rotors

Luke Skywalker

Battle Meditation, Force Push, Environmental Gear

180pts

Squad Bjorn

Z-6 Trooper, Extra Trooper

72pts

Squad Moloney

Z-6 Trooper, Extra Trooper

72pts

Squad Hoy

Z-6 Trooper,

62pts

Squad Adams

Z-6 Trooper,

62pts

AT-RT

Flame Thrower

80pts

AT-RT

Flame Thrower

80pts

T-47 Airspeeder

Wedge Antilles

180pts

799

So again, very little change from my previous list. Luke has picked up Environmental Gear for the extra mobility. While really the main change is that the Rotors on the AT-RTs have been swapped for the flame throwers. This was largely motivated by the fact that I felt my list dealt with armour poorly, so I was doubling down on my anti-infantry capabilities instead. Really this change was on something of a whim but I was excited to see how it would pan out. With the points saved I decided to add the Harpoon Gun to the speeder to give it another option on offence; though I was somewhat unconvinced if it would prove to be worthwhile.

Once again my goal was for a .500 record!

Game 1 – Lindsay Heming

As mentioned in one of my earlier tournament reports, Lindsay is the part owner of the Games Cube! Lindsay was running a very different list to our first match up. This time he had Veers, 2 AT-STs (1 with the Grenade Launcher, 1 with the Blaster Cannon), and 4 stormtroopers with DLTs (if my memory serves correctly).

We were playing Breakthrough, with Rapid Reinforcements, on a Disarray deployment. Rapid. Reinforcements. This is crucial to remember because for what ever reason I assumed it was Limited Visibility when deploying.

Yeah. It’s going to be as bad as it sounds.

Both of us held two units in reserve (I kept Bjorn and Moloney, as my two bigger squads, in reserve). Lindsay deployed a single 5 man DLT Stormtrooper squad in one corner and the remainder of his army (Veers, the AT-STs, and a Stormtrooper squad) in the other. I deployed Luke, an AT-RT, and a trooper squad in one corner and Wedge, an AT-RT, and my remaining trooper squad in the other corner.

So right off the bat I messed up horribly here by thinking it was Limited Visibility. Namely, I left units exposed and out in the open. This was really stupid.

On the plus side, I was confident Wedge could scream down his flank and destroy the lone Stormtrooper squad and really control that board edge. The two AT-STs really had me on the back foot every where else, and I didn’t have much of a plan beyond “Let’s see how this unfolds”.

Turn 1

Lindsay – Maximum Firepower

Luke – Assault

So immediately, leaving that squad exposed really hurt me. Lindsay activated Veers first and dropped the bomb on them killing three of the squad. Nice. Elsewhere units moved up behind buildings to cower from the ATSTs, while the AT-RT nearest to Wedge moved up to threaten the Stormtroopers near Veers.

Wedge made a pass on the Stormtroopers in the oasis, killing two of them.

Turn 2

Lindsay – Assault

Luke – Ambush

Shocking no one, I battle meditated out to the AT-RT right in front of the Stormtrooper unit beside Veers, who promptly took aim and unloaded on the Stormtroopers in front of him. After the smoke cleared the entire squad had been obliterated.

Nice.

The AT-ST rounded the corner and unloaded on the AT-RT but didn’t manage to polish it off.

Meanwhile my wounded squad on the far edge moved into heavy cover, where they were promptly wiped out by the 3 remaining Stormtroopers. This was compounded by the arrival of a second squad via fast rope into my now vacant deployment zone.

Unperturbed, Wedge spun the speeder around and unloaded on the injured Stormtroopers out in the open. He could finish them off and then work over the newly arrived squad over the next two turns.

Wedge scored 3 hits, which were all saved. God damn it.

Elsewhere the AT-STs, and smart placement of units by Lindsay meant that my only spot to deploy my reserves was to put them cowering behind a building or two. Luke jumped out of cover, determined to force the issue with one of the AT-STs.

Turn 3

Lindsay – Evasive Maneuvers

Luke – My Ally Is The Force

Lindsay’s troopers were making beelines toward my deployment zones and things were looking pretty grim. One of my trooper squads, tucked behind a building inside my deployment, now had the sole purpose of hanging on long enough to wipe out the Stormtroopers making a push to score the breakthrough point.

Luke charged one AT-ST, which promptly ignored him and practically blew away one of my trooper squads in the center. Having dealt the mechanical leviathan only two wounds, Luke turned his gaze towards General Veers.

My AT-RTs took heavy fire, but again held on. They were now looking to rush towards Lindsay’s deployment zones.

The Stormtroopers that had fast roped in put some wounds on Wedge before ducking behind the building. Wedge rounded the corner, managing to only kill two of the buggers despite catching them out in the open.

Turn 4



Lindsay – Ambush

Luke – Push

My squad of troopers managed to take out half of the Stormtroopers opposite them, but alas were then murdered by the vengeful AT-ST. My remaining trooper squad booked it past the second AT-ST, heading for the other side of the board, trying to sneak into the deployment. Luke jumped onto Veers and wiped him out. While the nearby AT-RT got into scoring position and then hid behind the building.

The second AT-RT turned towards the river, and was gearing up for a last ditch effort to make it into scoring position.

Wedge danced in the corner of my second deployment, and again unloaded on the fast-roping squad. Again he only pinged them for 3 hits which they promptly saved all of.

Oh boy.

Turn 5

Lindsay – Push

Luke – Return of the Jedi

Things were pretty much out of reach of the Desert Rats now (especially because we were not going to Turn 6 because time had been called). Which was confirmed when the first activation of the turn saw the Stormtroopers in my deployment push Wedge over his damage threshold. I rolled a disabled result which did two things, it prevented me from making a beeline for Lindsay’s deployment to score a final point or from pivoting to blast away the Stormtroopers sitting in mine. He polished off a single trooper with the harpoon out of spite.

The AT-ST strolled into my deployment zone with the game ending 4-2 to Lindsay (my last trooper squad fell short of reaching the deployment zone).

I had felt that going to Turn 6 might have been interesting, but as soon as Wedge was disabled the game was over even if we had continued.

Game 2 – Chris Haak

My second game saw me facing Chris once again (lot of familiar faces at these tournaments I tell you!). Chris was running a same-same but different list to mine. He had Luke with Force Reflexes, Battle Meditation, and Targeting Scopes; a Speeder with a Ground Buzzer and Wedge; 2 AT-RTs with Rotors; and 3 Rebel Trooper squads (2 with MPL Ions, 1 with Z-6, and all of them with extra trooper plus a smattering of other upgrades).

I had the bid so I elected to be the blue player and then we killed the objectives so that it was Key Positions, in Limited Visibility, with a Long March deployment. Again, bear in mind that it’s Key Positions.

That’s right I stuffed this up more than once.

I was pretty happy with my deployment in this match up as I feel it really put me in a good position. I had 2 of the 3 objectives in easy reach of my squads, with 1 AT-RT ready to push aggressively alongside the T-47 and the second waiting in the wings. My plan was to hit Chris hard and keep him bottled up on his side of the board so I could secure the positions with relative ease.

A key thing to note at all times is that I had somehow gotten it into my head that I only had to be within Range 1 of the objectives (a la Intercept the Transmissions) and not Base-2-Base like the god damn objective actually says.

Solid.

Turn 1

Chris – Assault

Luke – Standing Orders

Knowing that I’d be able to out-activate Chris, and that really only one of my units mattered this turn (the T-47) I was content to drop the Standing Orders on it, and roll up last. Both sides cautiously advanced, before at the end of the round my T-47 screamed down my left flank and knocked 4 wounds off of the lead AT-RT, disabling it.

Turn 2

Chris – Ambush

Luke – Ambush

Shockingly, we both looked to hit out with our Speeders first, though I run the roll off. My plan was to use the harpoon to spin the healthy AT-RT towards the board edge and to aim and fire into Luke. The harpoon missed, and in the end I was only able to push through 1 damage onto Luke, standard really. Everything on Chris’ side of the board shot at Wedge, who held on with 3 health remaining. Meanwhile one of my AT-RT’s with its flamer lurked up into position (though really I should have double moved to get within striking distance of the troopers behind the barricades).

Turn 3

Chris – Push

Luke – Push

Again I won the roll off, and activated Wedge first, he rounded the corner and poured fire into the trooper squad caught out in the open but killed only 2 of them. Standard.

In retaliation Wedge and Hobbie once again had to bail out as they were forced to ground. Meanwhile both of my lurking flamer AT-RTs got into position for a strike on the next round.

Chris’ disabled AT-RT (which had moved up into position last round) poured fire into my exposed Luke and I ended up failing 3 of my saves which really put the kibosh on any aggressive plans I might have had with him. My troopers destroyed the pesky AT-RT in response to prevent any further, needless, damage.

Still, all things considered, my troopers thus far had been un-engaged and were sitting within Range 1 (ha) of the objectives, so my plan to force Chris to hunker down in his deployment was working.

Turn 4

Chris- Son of Skywalker

Luke – Return of the Jedi

With both AT-RTs in position, Chris oddly elected not to activate his Luke first and use SoS to swing down and kill the southern AT-RT. Not one to complain, said AT-RT in front of his red trooper squad took aim and wiped away all but the squad leader in a maelstrom of fire (god damn that’s so much fun to do). Though Luke did admittedly stroll down afterwards and tear the AT-RT to shreds, the damage had already been done.

The northern AT-RT meanwhile, moved up in front of the blue trooper squad, but was just barely brought down by the weight of fire from Chris’ remaining forces.

Again though, with only 2 turns remaining, I felt as though Chris would be very hard pressed to push down onto my objectives in time.

Turn 5

Chris – My Ally Is The Force

Luke – My Ally Is The Force

All of Chris’ forces rushed forward to try and contest the objectives. With his Wedge heavily damaging one of my troopers beside the objective. The two Luke’s charged into each other for a climatic showdown, and in a single round of shooting my boys took Chris’ speeder to 2 wounds remaining.

Still, I felt I had it pretty sowed up.

Turn 6

Chris – Return of the Jedi

Luke – Son of Skywalker

Rolling with SoS, I took down Chris’ Luke. I also pinged off the squad leader from his Red troopers.

I was unable to bring down Wedge, so my troopers shuffled around a bit.

Then in the final play of the game, Chris’ AT-RT double moved into base contact with the nearer of the two objectives on my side of the board to end the game.

Me: “Alright man, GG”

Chris: “Yeah, so that’s a win for me”

Me: “Ah, what?”

Chris: “Yeah? My AT-RT is in base contact, and you have nothing touching it”

Me, realising my mistake:

So this was entirely my fault for getting mixed up about the objective, but man was it painful. While it’s impossible to play perfectly, there are definitely degrees of mistakes. Usually, you make a mistake that’s like “Oh, damn I missed the timing of this” or “Oh, I should have done this” which falls into the acceptable margin of human error. Sometimes that kind of an error can cost you a game, more so at the highest level of play, but most of the time it’s more of an “oh that would have been better”.

This kind of error made me question my literacy.

What was worse too, is I had my units all within strike distance of the objective, and could have easily moved into base contact, but instead (because they were in Range 1 and therefore I was already winning it in my mind) I took some pot shots at Wedge.

Absolute classic. Huge props to Chris as well. He saw a slim path to victory, and capitalised on my error to clutch out the win.

Game 3 – Shaun Vance

Rolling into the third game of the day I was 0-2, and was kicking myself over the last game. Unfortunately for Shaun, he had the bye previous round, so sat watching Chris and I’s game. Perhaps more accurately, it was unfortunate for Shaun that he spent a good five minutes absolutely dying with laughter at how I’d lost and then immediately got paired against me.

Revenge between friends is delicious, and my aim now wasn’t just to win, but to crush my buddy into the dust!

Shaun was running a variant of the Rotary Club, with Luke, 2 AT-RTs with Rotary Blasters, and 5 trooper squads (2 with MPLs and the rest with Z-6s).

We were playing Breakthrough, in Limited Visibility (if I recall correctly), and with a Long March deployment.

Shaun out-activated me here, and with his Ions I was slightly wary of how this would play out. Still I was fairly confident that with all of his troopers, my flamers would play absolute havoc if they could get into range. Shaun had been clever and taken the side of the board with the lion’s share of good terrain, so I knew I had to be aggressive and not allow him to set-up in the heavy cover along his side of the river.

Turn 1-

Shaun – Standing Orders

Luke – Standing Orders

Neither of us wanted to be the first to activate on this turn, as we both were waiting to see what the other intended to do.

Shaun happily lost the roll-off, so between that and his innate activation advantage I knew he’d be able to respond to my moves. Still, Limited Visibility and sheer range meant that it was very unlikely that any shots would be taken this round.

Both AT-RTs pushed up as far as they could towards the river, with the rest of the army not lagging far behind. Shaun’s troopers were surging to match it, but I knew I could probably get to where I wanted before he could stop me. My two trooper squads in the north of the photo, were going to be my sweepers in case any of Shaun’s units made a bee-line for my deployment.

Turn 2-

Shaun – Push

Luke – Push



With units in dangerous positions, both of us (unlike last time) really wanted to win this roll. Fortunately, I was able to win it once again (but this time that was definitely to my benefit). I set tokens on the T-47 (who was out of range of the MPL squad in front of him) and my northern AT-RT who could just get in range of one of Shaun’s trooper squads (hidden on the other side of the building).

I activated the AT-RT first and he reduced the hidden squad down to just the unit leader and the Z-6. Shaun spun his own AT-RT onto the flamer and knocked off half of its health. Wedge then rolled down his flank, took aim, and absolutely murdered the MPL squad leaving only the squad leader standing.

Shaun’s Luke ran up and destroyed the damaged Flamer AT-RT but took substantial wounds as he was hit by return fire from across the river.

Turn 3

Shaun – Ambush

Luke – Son of Skywalker

Shaun’s Luke went down fairly early into the round. Meanwhile my Luke, using SoS, tore one of his AT-RTs in half. My remaining AT-RT blew away all but the squad leader of Shaun’s troopers behind the barricades, and Wedge came and knocked off three troopers hiding behind some rocks.

Shaun threw basically everything he had at my Luke, which with a lot of Z-6s still in play was not insubstantial. I flubbed one roll, and just like that my hero of the Rebellion bit the dust.

Turn 4-5

Shaun – Assault, Standing Orders

Luke – Ambush, Assault

Despite taking out my leader, things were pretty grim for Shaun, my troopers and Wedge were undamaged and my remaining flamer had plenty left in the tank. Meanwhile Shaun had 1 AT-RT, 2 squad leaders on their own, and 3 squads with little more than their Z-6 remaining (two 2 man units and one 3 man unit).

Worse, because I had two generic cards left in hand I was able to really dictate the terms of the engagement (as Shaun was forced to use Standing Orders on Turn 5).

Really, by the start of Turn 4 it was clear that I was going to table Shaun, but I wasn’t going to let the cheeky bugger concede and deny me my revenge!!!!!

Also, we were having a damn good laugh as his poor squad leaders did their best while coping harpoons or being flamed to death.

Mid-way through the 5th, Wedge turned and blasted the AT-RT off the board, ensuring that at least one game was salvaged for the Desert Rats.

You’ve failed me for the last time!

So at the end of the day I went 1-2, failing to meet my self-imposed goal of +.500.

A huge part of this was user error, I made a lot of really boneheaded mistakes that you just cannot afford to make if you want to win games. This being said, the tournament definitely left me burnt on the T-47. Honestly, writing this up I can see it did decently in Game 2, and was stellar in Game 3; but I’m only human, and my human emotion walking away from Game 1 was “I never want to talk to you ever again”.

Or you know, at least for a little while.

The problem I was finding with the speeder is that it performs best when it can hit last, and hang around till the end of the game. The best way to achieve this is to have it hang back or skirt wide, but that means that 1/4 of your points are doing nothing.

Worse, it just suffers to nickle and dime fire that just plinks a damage here and a damage there. Cover 1 is cute and all, but if you’re fishing for crits you don’t really care anyway.

I won’t lay into Wedge too harshly, and honestly he’ll be back in my lists some day, but we definitely need a break.

Conversely, while I took the flamer AT-RTs on a lark, they were the superstars of the day. Here’s the thing, laser cannon and rotary blaster AT-RTs almost certainly get more actual work done across a game – and there’s plenty of games where they get wiped out before contacting the enemy lines, but the flamer AT-RTs provide something that very few other Rebel units can give; threat.

You can push a flamer AT-RT aggressively, and your opponent has to deal with it. If he or she chooses not to, great, I’m happy to roll up onto a 6 man squad and roll 12 black dice ignoring cover. This is fantastic because every shot that goes into a flamer is a shot that isn’t mauling your vulnerable Rebel Troopers, or pinging Luke for cheap damage.

Definitely something that will be a regular part of my lists for sometime.

P.S.

I’d been meaning to write this for weeks, chipping away at it slowly, so I’ve since had a tournament with Leia and the Fleet Troopers, which should be on its way in a far more reasonable time frame.

Until next time!

– Intel Officer Luke