I was fortunate enough to get out to a Legion tournament two weeks ago (and unfortunate in not finding the time to do this write up before now!) at the Rebel Outpost in Wyong. They’re looking to repeat the tournament on the last Sunday of every month so this won’t be the last time I head out there.

I was keen to get my Desert Rats back into the field, and hopefully this time I would steer them to greater success. My list had changed slightly since our last outing, though I still wanted to keep my T-47 in the list (whether this changes following the release of Leia and the Fleet Troopers remains to be seen):

Wedge Joins the Rotary Club

Luke Skywalker

Battle Meditation, Force Push

180pts

Squad Panico

Z-6 Trooper, Extra Trooper

72pts

Squad Volanen

Z-6 Trooper, Extra Trooper

72pts

Squad Fuller

Z-6 Trooper,

62pts

Squad Allen

Z-6 Trooper,

62pts

AT-RT

Rotary Blaster

85pts

AT-RT

Rotary Blaster

85pts

T-47 Airspeeder

Wedge Antilles

180pts

Compared to my last tournament there’s very little structural change to the list. It’s still Luke, 4 Trooper Squads, 2 AT-RTs, and the Air-speeder. Where the changes have come from are largely in the composition of the trooper squads; dropping the single MPL and making sure all of the squads have a Z-6, with an extra trooper in two squads to give them some extra longevity.

While I look forward to running an infantry heavy list once Leia and the fleet troopers arrive, I have found this list to be the most flexible that I can currently put on the table. Although I have run the 6 Z-6, 3 AT-RT, “pure” Rotary Club before (and it is undeniably strong) I find the mobility of the Air-speeder fits my play-style better despite being much maligned in a large part of the competitive community. Plus if I’m honest not having to borrow extra troopers is admittedly quite nice.

Last time out I ended the day, perhaps somewhat unluckily, 1-2 so this time around I was hoping to get above .500. Two victories, and not playing Nick (my fellow road warrior) if I could avoid it, was my goal for the day.

Game 1 – Andrew Hart

Andrew and I have been long time competitors in the Armada scene. There was a period where we kept finding ourselves finishing first and second, yet it wasn’t until our tenth or so tournament together that we actually ended up playing. It was a rather anti-climatic slug-out which Andrew managed to scrap a win out of.

It was therefore rather nice to find us playing so early into Legion, though I knew it would be a tough, tough game. Andrew was running a very interesting Rebel list consisting of Luke, 4 Trooper squads with Z-6 and 2 Air-Speeders with Harpoons.

I killed the deployment type until we hit Long March as I didn’t want to give his speeders room to flank my forces. In the end we were playing Recover the Supplies, in Clear Conditions(?), off a Long March deployment. I was the Blue Player, so I picked the side which had the easiest access to the LoS blocking building.

Andrew put two of his trooper units on each flank, Luke in the centre, and then stacked his right flank with both speeders. I heavily stacked my left flank, with only my single speeder holding down my right side.

My intention was that I could capture my two objectives and concentrate my entire force around the building and hill (which we agreed was heavy cover) and from there push up on the centre.

The speeders of either army raced up their respective flanks and my troopers moved into position on the hill. Andrew’s speeders were able to get some early shots in on Squad Panico, who I had left in LoS behind the building able to take out two of them. I set my AT-RTs in a position to hit them as they strafed past, though I was already worried about the pressure the speeders would exert on my forces.

Andrew’s speeders came screaming over the hill and blow away all but Squad Leader Volanen himself, caught out on the hill. The harpoon spins my forward AT-RT aroun on the fly past. Wedge for his part starts laying into Andrew’s backfield, though he’s already beginning to take damage.

I manage to push one of the speeders to 1 hull remaining, but things are not looking good for the Desert Rats.

Wedge heavily damages Andrew’s right flank, but there are enough troopers there to pick up his objective and pull out as Wedge crashes into the sand around them. On Andrew’s left flank his troopers happily sit on a safe objective.

I’m able to bring down Andrew’s speeders by pouring rotary fire into them, but in that time they wipe out Squad Volanen, reduce Squad Fuller to just the unit leader, and drop both Panico and Allen to half strength. Worse still the havoc they have wrought opens up a lane for Andrew’s Luke to move up on the central objective uncontested.

With three objectives in hand, Andrew’s troopers start disengaging to prevent the AT-RT on my left flank from negating an objective at the last moment. I simply don’t have the time and speed to catch them, and things are looking pretty grim.

But I can see one way in which I can come out of this mess a winner. If I can kill Andrew’s Luke and force him to drop the objective then I’ll win off MoV. I send my Luke forward at full speed, and use my Force Push to pull Andrew’s Luke into engagement and prevent him from escaping. I have to do it at the end of both my moves so I am unable to attack, but it prevents his Luke from heading for the hills. My Luke takes a wound in return when Andrew’s Luke activates.

In the background I move all of my squads into position to pour fire onto Andrew’s Luke, I just need my Luke to hold on.

On the final turn we both reveal Son of Skywalker and for the fourth time in the game I lose the initiative tie break (Andrew and I were using the same command nearly every turn). Still, with 5 wounds, I should be able to hang tough. Andrew’s Luke takes a dodge. His first attack puts me to 3 wounds remaining. His second attack does three damage, I need to make 1 save on 3 red. Blank, Blank, Blank.

Oh. No.

With my Luke down, and Andrew’s Luke on full health, things are looking very, very grim. My plan was to Recover, Attack (twice with Son of Skywalker) and then Force Push Andrew’s Luke out into the open so everything could lay into him. I was quite sure this would be more than enough to bring Luke down. Now I have 2 AT-RTs, and 2 trooper squads (Squad Fuller’s Unit Leader has to spend the turn picking up the objective dropped by Squad Volanen last turn).

Still I’m not going to die wondering! In the end it comes down to the AT-RT in front of Luke. He has 2 wounds remaining and still has his Dodge. I aim and spin up four hits. Andrew Dodge’s one and now I need him to fail 2 of his 3 66% success red dice (which is to say the odds are not in my favour). Blank, Blank, Block. YES.

My battered and bloody Desert Rats pull off the win on the final roll of the game! This was probably my favourite game of Legion that I’ve played thus far. There was absolutely nothing between us, and we both had our peaks and valleys of luck.

I thought my last ditch plan to snipe his Luke was going to do it, but once my Luke went down I really thought it would be a tough ask. In the end it was, but apparently neither of our Luke’s could make a save when it mattered!

Game 2 – Nathan Lindbeck

Nathan is, by all accounts, relatively new to the miniatures gaming scene – coming in from the cold with RuneWars, and now picking up Star Wars: Legion. With the release of Veers (at that time) only a few days earlier in the week, Nathan was bringing the new commander to the table alongside two squads of bikes, an AT-ST loaded to bear, and four Stormtrooper squads (at least two of which had the HH-12).

Once again I was the Blue player, and we determined that we would be playing Intercept the Transmissions from a Battle Lines deployment with Rapid Reinforcements. Both of us elected to put two trooper units into reserve (Squad Volanen and Panico for myself). Again I picked the side that gave me the best access to LoS blocking terrain.

My thinking on deployment was that I didn’t really have a great answer for the AT-ST unless I devoted my entire force to bringing it down. I felt if I did that the bikes and the stormtroopers would overwhelm the Desert Rats; so instead the plan was to do what Desert Rats do best. Hide in the dirt and bite at your ankles (i.e. grab as much cover as possible and kill everything that wasn’t the AT-ST).

I put both AT-RT’s and Wedge on my left flank opposite a single HH-12 squad, confident that they could secure that flank. Squad Fuller deployed in the centre behind some heavy cover, peering over it nervously at the AT-ST, while Luke and Squad Allen deployed on my right ready to grab the large LoS blocking rock feature. Squad Panico and Volanen were awaiting drop off via U-Wing.

Nathan moved Veers up onto the heavy cover of the hill, sure that his leader would be safe between that and his red defence dice. One of the AT-RT’s and Squad Fuller spun up their rotors and quickly disabused him of that notion, putting 4 wounds onto him. Meanwhile Wedge moved in for his attack run.

And scored a whopping four crits off of his carefully aimed strafing run! Veers was pulled out of the fray by a medic before the fight could even begin.

Meanwhile on the right flank, Luke and Squad Allen moved into position while the bikes zoomed forward. Allen rounded the corner and found a stormtrooper squad out of position and caught in their enfilade. They unloaded everything they had and not a single stormtrooper fell to the barrage. Oh boy.

Knowing that I would be taking fire, I dropped My Ally Is The Force on both Luke and Squad Allen. Allen rounded the corner of the rock face again, though the second verse proved far more spectacular than the first, as they wiped out the stormtrooper squad before them.

Laser fire opened up across the field as a bike went down from each squad, while Squad Fuller was mauled in return. One of the AT-RTs moved up to suppress the left-most Stormtroopers, but took heavy damage from the HH-12 before he could engage.

Meanwhile troopers fast-roped in all across the battlefield. Squad Panico deployed behind the left side barricades to support the AT-RT and begin intercepting the transmissions. While both stormtrooper squads reinforced the collapsing Imperial right flank.

Luke after moving was just in range of one of the fast roping storm trooper squads and pulled them into range with his Force powers where he butchered half of them. At the end of the round Squad Panico scored the left side transmission, no one was able to claim the centre objective with Squad Fuller falling to a hail of biker fire, and on the right side the Imperials were able to claim the objective outnumbering Luke with their two units.

Over the next few turns both bike squads were taken down. Luke sliced and diced the stormtroopers on the objective before clearing off the troopers on top of the Falcon with a well timed crit from his Pierce pistol. Squad Allen bit the dust. While Squad Panico and the AT-RT kept the remaining storm trooper squad bottled up in the left corner.

The mortar and weight of fire from the AT-ST poured suppression into Squad Panico, who, somewhat fittingly, panicked and began retreating for the board edge (as they were well and truly out of Luke’s command range).

Something stirred deep inside the Troopers however and they made a miraculous recovery to secure the transmissions for the Rebels. Bless those Panico boys.

With only a stormtrooper squad and the AT-ST left on Nathan’s side, we finished out the game with a commanding 7-1 victory to the Desert Rats, though Wedge went down to the wrath of the AT-ST in a final parting blow.

Nathan’s aggressive opening with Veers and positioning of the stormtroopers on the right flank allowed me to pick them off early and it was always going to be very difficult for him to recover from there. A great game though and I could see Nathan learning each step of the way, I think a few tournaments in and he’ll be a force to be reckoned with as he strikes me as the kind of player who tends to not make the same mistake twice.

With the strong victory I found myself at the top table heading into the final round and, win or lose, I had already achieved my goals having secured an above .500 record and avoiding a match up with Nick! Success!

Game 3 – Steve Gibb

Steve is another long time opponent from Armada and a damn good one too. We were both sitting on two wins, so the winner of this game would be the one walking out the winner. No pressure!

Steve was running Vader with Saber Throw, Force Reflexes, and Force Push, 3 Bikes, 3 Stormtroopers with DLTs, and 2 generic Stormtroopers. I definitely felt with the bikes, and out-activating my list that this would be one of the tougher asks of the day. Again I forced Long March to narrow the attack angles available to Steve’s bikes. The Desert Rats were again tasked with Recover the Supplies, but this time in clear conditions.

My edge of the deployment again had the better deal of the terrain I thought. With the bombed out building in front of Squad Panico ideal cover from which they could lay down fire across the battlefield. My plan was to run Panico and Fuller into the building (picking up one of the objectives along the way) while Allen and Volanen secured the left hand objective in front of the woods before falling back to a more defensible position. Luke’s job was to take on Vader when he reared his ugly head, and grab that centre objective if able.

In hindsight, I didn’t really have a plan for my Speeder, and I should have deployed it with more thought. Emulating Steve’s deployment of his bikes and using it as a strategic reserve would probably have been the best idea.

The first turn saw Panico and Fuller move up behind the building on my right flank, led by Luke and an AT-RT. The second AT-RT moved up behind the building on the left, Volanen fell back to the centre behind some rock wall, while unit leader Allen slipped out of the woods and into contact with a supply crate.

Storm troopers surged up behind stone barriers, while the bikes revved their repulsor engines and began pushing up the battlefield. With somewhat foolhardy abandon, Wedge skirted the left-hand edge and wiped out half a Stormtrooper squad as he rounded the corner and found himself face to face with a Dark Lord of the Sith and the might of his army.

“Leader, this is Three. Are you crazy? Acknowledge.”

“Three, Leader. That’s affirmative”.

Wedge steeled himself for another run, and turned his guns towards Darth Vader. Turbo-laser fire hammered into the dark lord pushing him to one knee. “Make it count Rebels.”

“WES, GRAB THE BLASTER PISTOLS AND THE MEDKITS, WE’RE GOING IN HARD AGAIN”.

In real terms, that was the bulk of the second turn, I opened with Ambush on to the air-speeder. Knowing I had really cocked up my use of Wedge, my best target was Vader, who was the main threat at this stage of the game. Aiming and firing I ended up with 6 hits, which pushed through 4 wounds onto the Vader. Wow, that got him!

In response though nearly the entire Imperial army turned it guns onto Wedge and, just, managed to bring him down. Sorry Wedge, that was my poor flying not yours.

In the background the Rebels moved up into position, while Vader moved into the left building and mauled the AT-RT in front of him with his Saber Throw. Steve made some interesting moves with his bikes, forgetting that we had gone through the terrain at the start of the game and both the left building and the trees were taller than height 1.

What do you mean I’m going to lose two bikes next turn. Oh.

This is fine.

With two bikes down, Vader decided he needed to reassert that he was in fact the Master of Evil, throwing his saber through the window at his son. Between this and some timely fire from the Stormtroopers last round left Luke incredible suppressed.

The two objectives on Steve’s side were well and truly safe in his hands now with both Stormtrooper squads pulling back to safety. With bikes screaming around the flank, Squad Allen had already taken some casualties and was trying to pull back to safety as fast as possible. Cover fire from Volanen and the AT-RT managed to finish off one of the bike squads but the second unit was able to gun down Fuller and leave the supplies out in the open.

With one of the stormtrooper squads (hidden behind the building) trailing in support of the bikes, it looked as though things were going to come down to the wire.

Pulling Luke from the bag, Luke automatically lost a suppression from Return of the Jedi- and then this happened during the rally step:

Yeah. I’m sorry Steve.

This allowed Luke to move forward, Force Push (Pull) Vader out of the building and then charge him.

Turn 5 I obviously led with Son of Skywalker and butchered Darth Vader. The AT-RT moved up to put pressure on the objective, and Volanen, Panico, and Fuller pushed forward to try and get into range of an objective.

Steve’s bikes hooked wide around the trees so that another biker didn’t fall to an inanimate object, and to set up a great angle for the final pass. His trailing stormtroopers threw themselves into strike range of the objective Allen dropped, and it was clear that neither Fuller or Volanen would be close enough to pick it up in any event.

Steve activated the Stormtroopers first to run in and grab the objective which left him 3-1. I countered by running in Panico to grab the central objective before they were suppressed. 3-2. With both of Steve’s rear objective holders well and truly out of danger I had to kill that squad holed up in the woods.

Equally though, Panico as the only squad holding both of my objectives were in a bad spot, with at least 3-4 squads that could bear down on them. If they went down, everything would be sunk. I was therefore in two minds about what to do, particularly with Luke. On the one hand Luke would be best placed to deal with the survivors of the stormtrooper squad holding the objective. Move, move, charge, slice and dice. On the other hand Luke could charge in against the squad in front of Panico and take off some of the heat bearing down on them.

In the end I resolved I would have to use Luke to take out the objective holders… and then made a huge misplay but not immediately charging him in once I made that resolution. Instead I charged the AT-RT into the fray who ripped apart stormtroopers with its grappling claws until only two survivors remained.

To my horror Steve said that depending on one roll he had the game won. He activated the stormtroopers in front of Panico. Rolled his rally step, which he cleared, and then promptly charged Luke with them.

Oh boy.

Still, all was not lost. There was one way, and exactly one way, in which I could still pull out the win. It would just require a fair amount of luck.

Luke breathed deep as the stormtroopers enveloped him. Raising his hand he sent the troopers flying backwards. Taking his lightsaber into his left hand he quickly pulled his pistol from his hip with his right. Spinning around he could see two stormtroopers hauling away a supply crate through the woods. Luke squeezed off two quick shots.

And the supply crate dropped.

Like I said, there was one play I had that could steal the win back from Steve despite my error with Luke. With my first action I had to Recover so that Force Push would refresh. As a free action I then used Force Push to move the Stormtroopers out of engagement with Luke. I was out of range to charge the troopers holding the objective, but I was in range of Luke’s pistol. Because of their heavy cover (light from the woods, heavy from suppression) I had to crit or surge on both dice (with Pierce negating their defence dice).

I rolled them up and got a Crit and a Surge (which converted to a crit).

YES!

Never tell me the odds!

This left us at 2-2 on objectives and again I was in front on MoV, allowing me to claim the victory on the final roll for the second time in the same tournament.

Truthfully though while I think Steve and I were neck and neck the whole game, after that misplay with Luke it was very much some undeserving luck that pulled my Desert Rats out of the fire.

Sorry Steve. I look forward to your glee filled wroth the next time we meet.

Great, kid! Don’t Get Cocky

So in the end I managed to go 3-0 and claim the tournament. I had a fantastic day and I really enjoyed my time with Wedge Joins the Rotary Club. The core part of the list, Luke and 4 Z-6 troopers is both very strong and something I’m now quite comfortable with.

Really though Wedge is my favourite part of the list, even though he is invariably the part I mess up with the most. What I have found is that you need to have set out with a clear plan for the speeder and if you just throw it into the teeth of the enemy army its going to get chewed up incredibly quickly.

The second game, where it performed its best, I had a clear goal which it stuck to. I rolled up a flank and used the width of the board to limit the amount of fire it could take. It polished off Veers, a squad of bikes (and half of another unit of them) as well as a squad of Stormtroopers, and then kept the heat off of my troopers while it scored the objective.

My main mistake when I haven’t had a clear plan is just throwing it out there, which gets it killed. What I would have been better served doing is holding it back and using it as a reserve. In both my first and third games I would have really loved having a fast troop killer able to swoop in and take out one of the rear objective holders late in the game. That’s what the T-47 is fantastic at and something I should bear in mind.

Definitely food for thought, though with the arrival of Leia and the fleet troopers on the horizon points in my force might get very tight.

Until next time!

Intel Officer Luke