So yesterday I was able to sneak in a fun 800 point game of Legion with a player I had never met in person from another LGS in my area. Which is always a good time to meet a new person and see how other people approach this game that we all know and love.

Still riding the high of finally playing The Dark Lord of the Sith himself for the first time a few weeks ago at an 8-Man Tournament, and all the cool thematic and fun options he brings to the table, I decided to stretch his legs once again and see if the list has any real long-term legs to make its way through the current game meta.

My List :

The Emperor

798/800 (10 Activation’s)

Emperor Palpatine (Anger, Aggressive Tactics)

Shoretroopers (T-21B Trooper, FX-9 Medical Droid)

Shoretroopers (T-21B Trooper)

Stormtroopers (FX-9 Medical Droid)

DF-90 Mortar Trooper

DF-90 Mortar Trooper

Imperial Royal Guards (Electrostaff Guard, Tenacity, Environmental Gear)

Scout Troopers (Strike Team) (DLT-19x Sniper)

Scout Troopers (Strike Team) (DLT-19x Sniper)

Scout Troopers (Strike Team) (DLT-19x Sniper)

Commands:

And Now You Will Die (1), Ambush (1), Push (2), Give in to Your Anger (2), An Entire Legion (3), Coordinated Fire (3), Standing Orders (4)

Deployments: Battle Lines, Advanced Positions, Major Offensive, The Long March

Objectives: Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators, Recover the Supplies, Key Positions, Intercept the Transmissions

Conditions: Rapid Reinforcements, Minefield, Hostile Environment, Clear Conditions

My Opponents List :

Leia-Sabine

796/800 (9 Activation’s)

Leia Organa (Electrobinoculars)

Sabine Wren (Tenacity, Personal Combat Shield, Targeting Scopes, The Darksaber)

Rebel Troopers (MPL-57 Ion Trooper, R5 Astromech Droid, Targeting Scopes)

Rebel Veterans (CM-O93 Trooper, Rebel Veteran, Overwatch, Targeting Scopes)

Mark II Medium Blaster Trooper (Linked Targeting Array)

Rebel Troopers (Z-6 Trooper, Rebel Trooper, Targeting Scopes)

Rebel Troopers (2-1B Medical Droid, Electrobinoculars)

AT-RT (Comms Jammer, AT-RT Rotary Blaster)

Tauntaun Riders (Comms Jammer)

Commands:

Coordinated Bombardment (1), Explosions! (1), No Time for Sorrows (2), Push (2), Somebody Has to Save Our Skins (3), Covering Fire (3), Standing Orders (4)

Pregame Thoughts :

Looking over what my opponent brought to the table, I saw that right off the bat I was going to have a major range advantage with my Snipers, Mortar’s, and the Shoretrooper Heavy Weapons. So taking a look at the table, I started to look for ways that I could potentially leverage this to my advantage.

Speaking of the table… here is the layout we were going to be facing off over.

Given that my opponent had less points than I did, she won the choice of player color and decided to go with Blue Player to use her Battle Deck and have choice of table sides.

As soon as the cards were flipped, I couldn’t help but groan a little bit on the inside as an Imperial Player, with a serious range superiority for the game, and facing off against a Rebel Player with both Tauntaun Rider’s and Sabine.

As low and behold, Limited Visibility was slotted into the third slot in the Condition row, meaning that my Opponent was going to be able to guarantee that we got that for the condition… and no surprise that is exactly what she choose to do with her 2 eliminations.

For my own eliminations, I decided to remove the Recover the Supplies objective, as my list didn’t really have anyone I wanted to send forth and try to get the middle box. And Sabine is tailor made for that job herself on her side… and almost good enough at the job to be an “auto-win” for Rebels in that objective.

I decided to pass on my second elimination, as I didn’t want to eliminate Battle Lines in exchange for Disarray. And then decided that I would prefer to play Key Positions in favor of Intercept the Transmission… given that it is round six scoring only vs rounds 2, 4, & 6. Which would allow me to play more cautious and bide my time given my gun-line was going to be pretty much neutered rounds 1 & 2 anyways with Lim-Vis in the mix.

My opponent decided to take the side of the board with the large bunker with the Comms Tower on top of it.

Leaving me on the side with the Hover Truck and the Tie Fighter just outside of my deployment.

Which then brought us to selecting the Key Positions for the game. The center position ended up being the round bunker with the Imperial logo on the roof. For her Position my opponent decided to select the barricade ran behind her bunker with the Comm Tower towards the two small Imperial Barracks buildings along her left board edge. And I chose to select the closest platform area of the raised walkway behind the Tie Fighter.

With that all decided, and no further actions required for the other Battle Cards, we moved into deployment.

The only really thing that I wanted to bring up about the deployment process was that I decided to try and bait my opponent to committing her Tauntaun Riders to her left flank by placing a nice juicy set of Shoretrooper’s into the rough terrain area behind the fallen log.

I was hoping that she would see that her Tauntaun’s would have a nice LOS blocked jaunt behind the two Imperial Barracks building and their barricades, and this would entice her to throw them out that way, and in return, away from either the middle or my key position in the process.

And my plan from the beginning was to simply “fall back” with the Shoretrooper “bait unit” and their Mortar during round one behind the Hover Truck if she took the bait. And they could then re-join the rest of the gun-line for support. Which I am happy to say that I think the bait was successfully laid, and the Tauntaun Rider unit did in fact deploy and engage them as I had hoped.

My Deployment :

Here is how my deployment ended up. As you can see I put the Shoretrooper’s with their Mortar in the area terrain with the fallen log, and backed them up with a Sniper just in case the Taun’s didn’t dive in fully. While the rest of my forces took up positions behind the Hover Truck, the woods just to the right of the truck, and a Sniper unit at the base of the platform that was my Key Position.

My Opponents Deployment :

Here is how the deployment shook out for my opponent. The Tauntaun Riders took up a spot in the difficult area terrain in their deployment zone, in what I hoped was a spot to make a serious dive towards my forces so I could engage them at range later and hopefully remove them before too long. And the rest of her forces took up positions behind the large bunker and the stacks of crates on her side of the board.

Round 1 :

Unfortunately, the picture took of the round one Command Cards chosen was blurred beyond use. But I chose to go with Standing Orders, seeing as Lim-Vis was going to make my first round by and large just positioning around anyways, I saw no need to try and fight for the initiative. And I issued my order to the Brown Shores w/Medic behind the Hover Truck, who chained that to the Brown Mortar behind them in the woods. And of course my free Entourage order to the IRG next to Palp was also set on them behind the Hover Truck.

My Opponent dropped her 2-Pip No Time for Sorrows (NTFS), winning the initiative and issuing orders to the Taun’s and the Rebel Vets, who passed on an order to the Mk 2 on the roof. Sliding the Vets out along the barricade wall and close to the KP Barricade with their free Speed-1 move, while the Taun’s took a move straight towards my DZ out of the difficult terrain area and got their free dodge.

Having the priority, my Opponent lead with the Taun’s, and double moved them around the left side of the board… and thanks to the extra speed-1 move with NTFS, was able to get the Taun’s just barely into Range 2 of the Black Shoretrooper’s behind their log.

Now I was hoping to tempt the Taun’s… but I did not expect the Round 1 NTFS move allowing them to actually get shots off on the Black Shores, and was a bit nervous as she was doing their second move which would trigger Relentless and their red dice guns.

Luckily for me, my opponent chose to keep the second Taun tucked back around and out of LOS behind the closest Barracks building. Which meant that I was only going to be taking 2 reds and not the full 4.

That being said, I think she made the right call, as if not I had a set of Shores, Mortar, and a Sniper that could have shot back and maybe got wounds past the 3 dodges without the cover 2 to aid them.

Luckily the boys in woods were able to double block with their save and just took a Suppression for their troubles.

The next middle half of the Activation’s phase was just a bunch of re-positioning on both sides. My opponent had a unit of Rebel Troopers w/ Med Droid and Leia clamber up to the top of the large bunker along side the Mk 2 Emplacement, and took no wounds in the attempt.

While I dropped back with my Black Shores, their Mortar, and the Black Sniper team away from the Taun’s and back towards the Hover Truck. My green Sniper Team walked out around the crate they had taken cover behind in deployment and double moved up on the KP Platform so they were in scoring position as well as a nice elevated perch for shooting once the Lim-Vis condition expired.

Now here is where I think my opponent made her first real mistake of the game, and sadly it was one that I was in a perfect position to capitalize on. Sabine was pulled about mid-way through the turn, and she decided to jump down from the top of the shack she was deployed on top of, and double move to a position behind the center KP building where she thought Sabine would be relatively safe from fire.

But I don’t think that my opponent realized that with both Palp and the Brown Shores still being available for activation this round, that this was not the case.

I ended up drawing Palp from the bag, and he simply stood in place and Dodged with his first action, and then used his Pull the Strings card action on the Brown Shores, who had a face-up activation token (which gave them a free aim thanks to Target 1) and a Surge Token thanks to Palp’s Aggressive Tactics upgrade card. Palp had the Shores move out and around the front end of the Hover Truck, where they were able to get a good angle of LOS without cover on Sabine.

On their activation the roll out with both a Surge and an Aim token allowed the Shores to put out 8 hits on Sabine, who spent her Shield token to reduce that to only 7 saves required, but only managed 4 blocks and so took 3 wounds as well as a Suppression token.

After that, the Brown Shores decided to move with their second action up behind the other side of the center KP Building and make sure they were fully outside range 3 of all the rest of the Rebel army, as the second round was going to still be limited in range thanks to Lim-Vis, and I wanted to spread out my forces a bit as I was expecting an Explosions drop at any moment.

Round 2 :

So given how hard my opponent had decided to dive in with Sabine towards the center KP, I had a pretty good idea that she was trying to set up a nice juicy round 2 Explosions maneuver with Sabine. And given that fact, and how clumped up my forces were at the time behind the Imperial issued Hover Truck, I knew what my command card drop had to be.

As expected her command card drop was in fact Sabine’s 1-Pip Explosions!, but luckily for me, Palpatine has a little beauty of a 2-Pip Command Card himself called Give in to Your Anger (GITYA). Which is perfect for moments just like these… and in my opinion, its a definite contender for the best Command Card currently in the game.

Basically its a card that allows me to ignore the first activation that my Opponent wants to make for the round, and allows me to make the choice of which trooper unit they must activate instead. Regardless of if the unit I chooses have a face up activation token or not.

So even though Sabine was the only unit on the Rebels with a face up activation token, I chose to have my opponent activate their unit of Rebel Troopers w/Med Bot on top of the roof of the large bunker. Which would in effect remove their Treat ability for the round in the event that I actually got any shots off into their back lines. And I knew they were too far out to be of any use to Sabine, as they were up on the roof. Which also means they couldn’t attack that round, and so also got 4 suppression for their troubles thanks to GITYA.

The Troopers ended up doing a Dodge Standby, and then it was over to my first activation. Which I of course used to activate the IRG who had a face up token and a Surge token thanks to Entourage and Palp’s Aggressive Tactics.

The IRG were able to double move around the center KP building and engage Sabine, then triggered their Charge keyword and with a rather impressive roll of 7 hits was able to put Sabine out of the game before she could activate and drop her vicious bombs into the soft under belly of my gun-line.

Aside from that one really important activation for me, the rest of the round was more positioning and that’s about it as we were still limited to range 3 thanks to Lim-Vis. But my opponent did manage to get a wound through to my IRG with their Rebel Troopers since they were fully out of cover and no longer engaged with Sabine gone.

I did manage to use Palp to Pull the Strings move the IRG back from where they dispatched Sabine and into cover before they took any more shots. And hopefully where they would be out of range of the rest of the Rebels, as the next round would see all the guns going full range.

Round 3 :

Finally, with the fog of war laid down by Lim-Vis blissfully gone, I was feeling as if the rest of my list was finally going to get into the fight for the first time this game. And so decided to drop Palp’s 3-Pip command card An Entire Legion, as it lets me place face up tokens on every eligible unit in his command range…which was ALL of my units.

And my opponent decided to lead with Leia’s 1-Pip command card Coordinated Bombardment as it would be her first chance to uses its special attack given she was also suffering from the Lim-Vis effects and her Bombardment attack is range 4+.

Gotta say, there is something to be said for looking down at your list and having FULL activation control.

….is this how Separatist Players feel all the time?! ; )

When Leia activated first she was able to Inspire off 2 of the 3 remaining GITYA Suppression on the Troopers w/Med Bot, but sadly was only able to get Bombardment shots off onto two of my units in the end due to being up on the roof and the orange kyber crates were actually blocking LOS to a few juicy targets.

She managed to push through 1 wound on the Stormtrooper unit w/Med Bot in the woods thanks to her Sharpshooter 2 meaning there was no cover granted by the woods, and the armor save failed dropping the unit down to 3 Storms and the Bot.

And then I really started to panic when my opponent rolled a hit and a crit on the Green Sniper unit also in the woods next to the Storms, especially given she had LOS to both members of the team.

But the white T-Shirt saves were with me that roll, and I managed to roll Block-Surge…and was truly surprised to find that Imperial Scouts actually surge to Block, and so the team remained fully intact with just a suppression.

In retaliation my Black Mortar was able to Aim-Shoot the unit of Taun’s in heavy cover before they could get their Dodge tokens rolling. And managed to not only add 2 suppression thanks to the Supressive keyword on their gun, but also rolled a Surge-to-Crit result and landed a wound through their armor save just for good measure.

After that the AT-RT decided to roll up a bit and lash out with its Rotary Cannon at the Brown Shores w/Med Bot without cover thanks to good positioning by my opponent.

And when the dust settled the Shores had taken a single casualty for the efforts of the vehicle. And in their return fire they were not able to get a single Crit or Surge on the dice to get through the RT’s armor, and so it went into round 4 with not a scratch on it. But the Shores did manage to use their first free Treat action on the Med Bot to bring their unit back up to full strength.

The only other real action of note was that the Taun’s were able to double move out and around from their position to get a range 2 shot on the IRG’s, and landed the full boat of 4 hits. Luckily the IRG had heavy cover thanks to the positioning of the building, and the armor roll saved another.

Now there was already 1 wound on an IRG from earlier in the round, but luckily the Taun’s did not have LOS to that wounded model, and so I was able to drop the wound on another IRG instead, and leave the unit at full model count but with just 2 wounds spread out among 2 models.

Round 4 :

We tied for initiative here in this round, both dropping 3-Pip cards, and given that it was the 4th round, I was the one to roll and got the initiative with a block symbol rolled. Sadly I was unable to get the IRG a free Entourage order as they had moved a bit out of range 2 of Palp to try and get some LOS blocking and cover the previous round. And so I had to actually issue them an order from the Command Card.

The IRG lead off the round with an Aim-Move into the Taun’s, and thanks to the Surge from Palp and the re-rolls from the Aim they were able to fully remove one Taun model and put a wound on the other, and then re-cohere the other 2 IRG’s into base contact with the lone Taun Rider.

And then before the Taun’s could act, the Black Stormtrooper’s w/Med Bot were able to creep over just enough to get range 1 on the IRG and heal off a wound from them with their first Treat action of the game.

And then the Taun Rider promptly ran through the IRG, giving them a Suppression, and moving towards the fallen tree and shooting them in the back landing 2 hits. Which they failed to save with their red dice armor, and removed a model as well as replacing the wound on another IRG that was just healed by the Storms.

The AT-RT managed to kill off another Brown Shoretrooper on its activation, which was promptly brought right back up on their own activation thanks to the final Treat action of the Brown Squads own Med Bot.

This time the Brown Shores realized that they weren’t really kitted out to take on an Armored unit, and instead shot through the AT-RT into the Rebel Trooper Squad w/Z-6 who were hiding behind the vehicle and bring them down to just the leader and the Z-6.

Shortly after my Brown Mortar and the Brown Snipers up on the KP Platform were able to kill off the rest of the Z-6 squad and land a few wounds on the Rebel Trooper Squad w/Astromech who had crept up around the back shed to try and get into position to score the center KP in the next round or two.

Leia and the Blue Troopers w/Med bot had dropped down from the top of the roof, trying to get into a position where she too could threaten the center KP in upcoming rounds. And also get out of LOS of my Black and Green Snipers and the Black Shores.

Round 5 :

Deciding that the AT-RT just could not live another round if I could help it, I decided to drop the infamous “Palp-Bomb” powered via his 1-Pip command card And Now You Will Die (ANYWD). Which was countered by the Rebel 3-Pip command card Covering Fire by my opponent.

With ANYWD Palp is basically able to double move up first in the round and catch the RT in the open around the center KP just barely in range 2 of him. Palp then gives himself a wound and a suppression as per the Command Card text, which also nets him an free Aim thanks to his Anger Force Upgrade. And then is able to lash out at the RT with a double rainbow Force Lightning with an Aim and Surge-Crit from his card.

The dice were extremely good on this roll, with 2 natural crits rolled, and another 3 surges that convert to crits after the Aim was used. And the RT goes up to 4 wounds thanks to Pierce 2 on Palp’s Force Lightning attack. Another wound and suppression later and the Dark Lord manages to melt the RT and its Rider down to slag.

Leia and the Blue Troopers make a mad dash towards the center KP with Move-Move actions, but sadly Leia is gunned down by my Snipers and the Black Shores steeping out from behind the Hover Truck. And my opponent decides to call it at that point seeing no way for her to out number my units on either the center KP or my back KP.

After Game Thoughts :

We both discussed the game quite a bit after it was finished, and went over a few things that we felt really tipped the game in my favor.

My opponent admitted that she was way too aggressive with Sabine in round 1 which lead to her untimely demise at the top of round 2 thanks to GITYA, and I had to agree.

While she may in some games fell almost invincible with her Surge to Block Red Armor Saves, not to mention the extra Shield my opponent brought with her this game. She can still go down fairly consistently to large dice pools and concentrated firepower by an opponent.

Aside from that we discussed how she deployed her Vets, arguably her most offensive Corps unit on her back KP… which in effect kept them out of the game aside from taking Aim-Standby action activation’s all game, and just sitting on her back KP. Along with their Mk 2 which was stuck atop the large bunker all game and only got off a single attack I believe in all 5 rounds of play.

Aside from that, I told her that coming up against Palp for the first time can be very jarring and shocking. And his command card suite I feel might be the most powerful of any Commander currently in the game. And with this being her first time to face him, i think she did about as well as can be expected.

Even if you read Palp’s cards, and understand the tools he has, I still feel like there is a lot that gets lost in translation until you actually see it happen on the table. There are just so many nuances as different ways he can utilize his toolkit that I think you kind of have to run face first into that wall before you really start to get an idea of what he is capable of.

And his Command Cards are really something to have to try and deal with and play around.

Let alone all the cool tactical applications of Pull the Strings allowing for both attacks and moves from units that may have already activated in the round, or have yet to activate, but now can attack from angles they normally would not be able to on their own.

All in all it was a fun game, and I hope to face of against my opponent again sometime soon…. perhaps with a grudge match for Leia and Company to have the chance for a little payback on the Dark Lord!