While Luke, Han and soon Sabine headline the popular Rebel lists, there is one woman behind them all: Leia Organa, the bedrock of the Rebel Alliance. She is the best support character available in the game, hands down. The reasons for this are myriad. Among them is Leia’s ability to equip two Command upgrades, so you’ll have plenty of room to add Strict Orders, a relatively new and powerful Command upgrade, to your army. In this article, we’ll explore just how Strict Orders functions in a rebel army, and how it’s especially good on Leia Organa.

Strict Orders is a card avilable in the Jyn Erso expansion. It is a 5 point Command upgrade that says the following:



“When a friendly trooper unit with a faceup order token activates, during its Rally step, it may remove 1 suppression token instead of rolling dice.”

Yet more confirmation that Krennic is just Imperial Leia…

It seems innocuous at first – one suppression token doesn’t seem like much these days in a world of Suppressive weaponry, Dauntless, Compel, Saboteurs and Annihilation Looms. But on the flip side, how many times have games come down to whether or not you can get rid of a single suppression at an opportune time?

To reiterate, a trooper with a face-up order token can boost their chance of removing 1 suppression during their Rally step to 100%. The immediate downside is that you forgo the chance to remove multiple suppression during your rally step to guarantee removing 1 suppression. The upside is that you avoid the chance to remove none.

Why is removing suppression important? Being suppressed results in the loss of an action. There are only six turns in a game of Star Wars: Legion (less if you take too long). This means each unit is only going to get a maximum of twelve actions per game, and the closer each unit can get to this mark, the better. On top of this, some units on the Rebel Alliance roster don’t really function without two actions per turn. It may be useful to view Strict Orders as an insurance policy for these units, where one suppression makes all the difference for them.

Strictly Fun at Courage 1

Strict Orders truly shines with Courage 1 units. Most of the time, the enemy will look to suppress these units by shooting them from beyond their threat range (move + shoot.) By denying them an action, these units can’t move and shoot back. Strict Orders creates a path around this problem, so long as the unit in question was issued an order. Strict can be good for any unit, but the interaction with Leia, Strict Orders and Fleets is the most exciting part of Strict Orders that I’ve found so far.

Fleet Troopers usually start their turn out of sight, requiring some kind of move to secure a Range 2 shot. If they activate with -any- suppression at all, their effectiveness drops to almost zero. Strict Orders is there to ease the pain, as single suppressions cannot stop you as long as you have a face-up token. This is a great way to re-enable your Fleets to get in there and do the damage they are famous for.

The same idea above that applied to Fleets applies to Courage 2+ units too. It is especially brutal for named Commanders and Operatives to lose actions to suppression or panic, and these are both situations where, like I mentioned earlier, one suppression makes all the difference. (Looking at you, Han.)

For example, if Luke would start his activation at three suppression, you can use Strict Orders to guarantee he doesn’t fail his Rally and gets both of his actions. That’s quite a lot of value for a 5 point upgrade! You’ll also have the guaranteed benefit of improving cover by keeping some suppression tokens on him. I put the word “guarantee” in italics because in a game that can be heavily dictated by random results, effects that are a “sure thing” are naturally quite potent.

Similarly, if a unit like Luke would start their turn at twice their courage value, you can use Strict Orders to guarantee that unit will not panic. Of course, the cost is that you’ll be suppressed, but it’s far better than risking panic off all blanks on white dice.

Here is more data on Suppression to help you decide when to use Strict Orders in other situations, courtesy of Orkimedes at Never Tell Me the Odds.

Enter the General

Now we’ll turn to why Strict Orders and Leia Organa have strong synergy.

First, she is incredibly well positioned in the Rebel repertoire to get use out of this card, being the most commonly played Commander on the Rebel side and costing 90 points base. There are simply no bad combinations. Strict Orders can find use in just about every list you can build, simply because the emphasis of competitive Rebel list design at the moment is spamming Courage 1 troopers. Interestingly, Strict Orders has the most “anti-synergy” with Wookiees and their red rally dice. Even then, because the suppression removal from Strict Orders is guaranteed, you’d rather not roll dice, even if those dice are very good ones.

Next, it improves two of Leia’s Command cards significantly. Strict Orders synergizes well with Leia’s No Time for Sorrows, as well as giving a strong boost to Leia’s weakest command card: Save Our Skins.



Save Our Skins has been considered weak for quite awhile for one reason – activating twice in a row can sometimes punish you. By stuffing two activations into the same time window, you’re giving an activation “back” to your opponent at the end of the round. If you were going to do this, you would need a very good reason. If you were going to pass on the effect anyway, Assault might have more value since it can target more units.



In addition, Inspire 2 is one of Leia’s very strong abilities, but usually your opponent has a chance to shoot back before that inspired unit gets its chance to activate. Strict is still useful here as long as the weapons used aren’t Suppressive and the unit being attacked has a face-up token already. This is great for turns where you play a card like Covering Fire, for example, giving face up order tokens to three trooper units that are likely Courage 1.

Now, let’s say a unit is really buried in Suppression (a Fleet Trooper with 3 suppression, for example.) Under normal circumstances, a Fleet Trooper unit with three suppression tokens is pretty useless and will probably be dead soon.

Yet, there is hope with Strict Orders in the picture. Since Save Our Skins lets you activate twice in a row, you can tack the suppression removal from Strict Orders onto the end of Leia’s Inspire 2. Leia activates, removes two suppression on these Fleets. Then Save Our Skins triggers. The Fleet Troopers activate, remove their last suppression with Strict Orders, and are back to full actions. Talk about a nasty surprise for your opponent from a unit they may have considered neutralized!

Finally, No Time for Sorrows gets better, too. In addition to the static benefits mentioned earlier, Strict Orders enhances one of NTFS’ most common uses: pushing assault units into range or into a location where they can attack the enemy in the open. This means they have a face-up order token anyway, so Strict Orders fits right in. Strict ensures that units like Fleet Troopers and Han can fire and then retreat to safety.

Further Thoughts

Strict Orders’ most direct competition is the Rebel Officer personnel upgrade. The Rebel Officer is 19 points, boosts the unit equipping it by 1 courage and provides a point of Inspire. A very worthwhile investment, but a costly one. Units with Officers are far more independent and self-contained, and don’t need to be issued an order to achieve all the benefits of the upgrade.

Strict Orders, on the other hand, is a kind of pseudo-inspire under very specific conditions. The unit must have a face-up token. For five points, you can replicate this effect across multiple units, so long as they get that face-up token, all for just 5 points. This means you can view Strict Orders as a “budget Officer” for units that are going to frequently possess a face up order token. It’s worthwhile to remember that Inspire works together with the rally step instead of replacing it like Strict Orders does.

I invite you to give Strict Orders on Leia a shot in your next game of Star Wars: Legion. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how good it is. If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!