A little housekeeping before we go into the QA: Normally you’d be seeing a battle report on a Friday, but the store where the Sacramento League is being held has been remodeled, and a lot of their Star Wars terrain was unavailable for use. Week 3 was still played, but the terrain we had was not up to par with what’s been seen in the past. On top of that, there’s still some more Gen Con related things to write about. So, in lieu of an ugly Week 3 battle report, here’s my QA with Dustin. Next week there will be a battle report from a 2v2 Grand Army game at my local, Rebels versus Imperials, 1600 points per side. Commandos and Han Solo will make an appearance!

Dustin Foran is a top tier Runewars player, having finished in the Top 4 at last year’s worlds. At Friday’s Maximum Firepower, he commanded a ten activation Veers list that is well recognized, with a twist of his own, which he will explain. His army also claimed third in the painting category. I was excited to get a chance to pick his brain about strategy and list building.

Link to Dustin’s List: https://tabletopadmiral.com/legion/lists/9464/

Q: How does your list work?

A: The basic idea is, you have the maximum amount of troops to go get things. The minimum unit of Stormtroopers is a nice cheap unit that can just hang back and grab and objective or two, or it’s that initial deployment so you get it out of the way. The bikes usually set up near each other so they can all go after the same target. Two or three units of bikes are almost guaranteed to kill an AT-RT. I expected to face a lot of Lukes and Leias and it’s good at taking down those characters. And the 4 DLT’s just because it always works, you get a little bit of range bonus and the dice are so much better. And then, with Veers, he’s cheap enough that you can pad him out with extra guys. I decided the extra models on the table was better than putting grenades on units, and having an extra body to keep the DLT around that much longer is just awesome.

Q: I noticed the two finalists today both ran a minimum trooper squad.

If it never sees combat, if it holds back and claims an objective, it’s worth it. My last game was capture the supplies, and one of the supplies was back there. They just ran forward, picked up the box, and just hightailed it out of there, and no one did anything about them because they were out of range.

Q: What kind of matchups did you face overall today? I know the final game was Flamers and 10 activations.

I think every match I played was Luke and Leia. They were such a pain today. It was either three or four wonder twins. I was able to just kind of focus more on the objectives and kill them when I had the chance.

Q: You mentioned earlier that Luke has to be played close to perfectly.

If Luke’s opponent is playing well, then Luke has to be really careful. He has to pick just the right time to jump out, and if he can move from one combat to another without exposing himself to fire, there’s very little you can do about it. But if he gets in there, one of the worst things he can do is charge in and fully kill a unit.

Q: Ever see Luke using Force Push to pull another unit into melee to prevent that?

A: Not in this tournament, but one of my locals at home is really good at that, using Force Push and putting Luke exactly where he needs to be.

Q: What do you think of the terrain? It has sparked some controversy.

I didn’t see what the terrain looked like yesterday. It sounds like they took some feedback and did a little bit of rearranging. It seemed adequate – it’s a little bit different than I’m used to because it’s a lot more of “if you have cover, you have no line of sight,” as opposed to things that partially block it so you can hide and shoot around it. You pretty much had to be exposed because of the large pieces, or else you get like, one guy around to take a shot, and then nobody else can shoot.

Q: That’s another vote for maximum squads…

A: Right, and I think that favored my guys well, because you can go into these canyons and shoot at lots of things, and if you get shot back, you have slightly better armor.

Q: We have a ton of new releases announced, we’re up to 9 now after Gen Con. How do you think the game will change with the new releases?

A: Obviously, we’ll start seeing more variety in lists. Right now, I’m pretty much of the opinion that three speeder bikes is just the best thing to do. But then, the E-Web looks really tempting. Then it’ll be hard to decide, do I want three of one or one of the other, trying to find that balance, I suspect everyone will have different styles. So, we’ll start seeing a lot more variety in the same tournament. I’m very excited to try out Boba. I need to look again, when he was first announced there were a couple of things that weren’t defined, like Immobilize, so I’ll look again.

Q: Did this tournament teach you anything new today?

A: Not necessarily anything new, but it really re-emphasized the point that you have to play for the objectives. Two of my games today were capture the supplies where I was able to run to the midpoint, get that third crate, and then retreat and stay alive. At that point, I don’t need to kill anything, it doesn’t matter, I just need to slow them down so they can’t get my stuff.

Q: It’s a statement when the Empire is faster than the Rebellion.

A: Fleet troopers can be really strong, but none of the situations I ran into played to any of their strengths, mostly because I was fast enough to get in the middle. If they could get there first and Standby, they could be more effective. Plus, the bikes are an amazing distraction, because if you ignore them, they just run around. But at the same time, bikes are not getting objectives.

Q: What’s something you would share if someone asked you how to play better?

One thing new players might struggle with is the time limit – both the six turn time limit and the actual time limit. You have to make sure that you are aware of when the end is coming up and play accordingly. There’s Intercept the Transmissions, which is turn by turn, I didn’t run into any of those today, but everything else is “by the end of the game, have more stuff.” You have to ask yourself, “Is the end of the game still three turns away, or is it this turn so I have to get on the objective right now?.” Especially in the tournament here. I had one game go to four turns, most of the others only went to three turns, which is the unfortunate downside of everybody having 9 or 10 activations, it kind of takes awhile to do.

Q: It feels like the Multiple Small Unit style is just so prominent.

A: I think there’s a reason for that. The Snowspeeder, it’s fairly agreed upon, is not great. The AT-ST can do work, but again, it’s a lot of points that may or may not be doing stuff because it can’t get objectives. Then the other big hitter is, of course, Darth Vader, who is just a little too slow. If he gets in there, he’s absolutely amazing, but to being able to actually leverage him, when instead you could have Veers and a couple more units of Stormtroopers…

Q: So if you were going to take a centerpiece, you’d take a Weiss AT-ST?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you have fun today?

A: Yes! All four of my opponents were excellent games. This is the highest level Legion tournament there is, but everyone is still extremely friendly.

Thanks for the interview, Dustin! If you enjoyed this content, drop me a like or a follow!