“And now, Your Highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden Rebel base…”

–Darth Vader, Star Wars: A New Hope

Through the tabletop miniatures battles of Star Wars™: Legion, you have the chance to live out the greatest unsung battles of the Galactic Civil War. You can lead AT-STs stomping forward, firing massive barrages of lasers. You can send Rebel Troopers rushing forward out of trenches, led by Luke Skywalker. But before you ever fire a shot, you’ll need to assemble your soldiers into an army.

Across our series of previews for Star Wars: Legion, we’ve already taken a look at every aspect of gameplay, starting with the game’s challenging command system, and exploring movement, combat and morale, and establishing the battlefield. We gave in-depth previews of the game’s two factions—Galactic Empire and Rebel Alliance—as well as the unique command cards that come with every commander in the game. Today, we turn our attention to how you’ll take the units and command cards in your faction and use them to create an army!

You can expand your army building possibilities from the very first day with the eight Star Wars: Legion expansions releasing simultaneously with the Core Set on March 22nd! On release day, you’ll find the following Star Wars: Legion products in stores:

You can pre-order your copies of the expansions above at your local retailer or online through our webstore today!

Constructing an Army

Any commander eager to prove their mettle on the field of battle must start by choosing the soldiers that they will lead into battle and how they will equip them. You can’t just grab every unit that you like and put them all into an army! In Star Wars: Legion, armies are constructed by using a points system—every unit and upgrade card has a point value, as shown in the image below.

For a standard game of Star Wars: Legion, you have 800 points to spend on the units and upgrades in your army. For example, a unit like Darth Vader costs 200 points to include in your army. If you select Darth Vader as your commander, you have only 600 points remaining to spend on the rest of your units and upgrades.

As you might expect, there are a few other restrictions regarding what kinds of units can be added to your army. Every unit in the game has a faction—either Galactic Empire or Rebel Alliance. Your army can only include units from your chosen faction. In addition, every unit in Star Wars: Legion has a rank, as we’ve already explored in our preview of the game’s command system. A unit’s rank also plays a crucial role in army building.

Every army must have at least one commander unit, such as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, but no more than two commanders. Similarly, your army must have between three and six corps units, like Rebel Troopers or Stormtroopers, to fill out the rank-and-file of your forces. The three remaining ranks of units are not required to include in your army at all, but they do have limits. You can have no more than three special forces units, no more than three support units (such as 74-Z Speeder Bikes or AT-RTs), and no more than two heavy units (like AT-STs or T-47 Airspeeders).

The final step in building your army is to pick your hand of command cards, choosing from the neutral command cards and any command cards associated with your commander. The Standing Orders command card must always be included among your command cards. Otherwise, your command card choices are dictated by the number of pips in the upper-left corner. You must have two one-pip cards, two two-pip cards, and two three-pip cards. Finally, you cannot include more than a single copy of each command card.

Out of the initial wave, your command card choices will be relatively simple. You’ll add Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker’s three command cards to the four neutral command cards, and that will compose your command hand. Still, as more commanders enter the game and you have the opportunity to bring new command cards into your collection, choosing your command cards will become a crucial part of building your army and selecting which commanders are best suited to lead your forces.

For a look at army building in action, just read on for a sample Imperial army and Rebel army!

Imperial Onslaught

For our first Imperial army, we want to create an army that tries to harness the power of the powerful AT-ST walkers as much as possible. Of course, this army can become more robust with the release of General Veers in the General Veers Commander Expansion, but even starting on the first day of Star Wars: Legion, we can still make a version of the army that’s commanded by Darth Vader:

Every army in Star Wars: Legion is required to have at least three corps units, so our army has three units of Stormtroopers. These troopers will serve to provide covering fire for our heavy-hitters, preventing the Rebels from outflanking our army and getting behind our AT-STs to hit their weaker rear hull. The Stormtroopers are far from the focus of this army, however.

More than 75% of our points in this army are tied up in just three miniatures, Darth Vader and the two AT-STs. Fortunately, these units are more than powerful enough to carry your army! Darth Vader fills the slot of commander, and he’s certain to pose a problem for any enemy. We’ve already taken a look at the power of the Dark Lord of the Sith in our preview of the Imperial faction in Star Wars: Legion, and he brings all of that combat potential to this army. Here, Darth Vader is our close-range combatant, using Force Choke and Saber Throw to devastating effect alongside his lightsaber. Meanwhile, Battle Meditation lets Vader keep issuing orders across the battlefield, even when he’s deep in the midst of an enemy formation.

If Darth Vader is your perfect close-range combatant, the AT-STs can soften up the enemy army long before they get close enough to fire. Equipped with AT-ST Mortar Launchers, your AT-STs can start bombarding the enemy from the very first turn of the game. As the two sides come closer together, you’ll be able to employ your AT-STs’ heavier armaments, using their DW-3 Concussion Grenade Launchers and MS-4 Twin Blaster Cannons to rain down heavy fire on your opponent’s forces. If Darth Vader is the tip of your spear, your AT-STs give you the power to back up the assault.

Fight for the Rebellion

For our Rebel army, we want to make an agile army—something with a lot of different units that can respond to an evolving battle situation very quickly. Here, our focus isn’t so much on developing a few powerful units with massive hitting power. Instead, we want to have an answer to any kind of army, keeping our own forces flexible enough to adapt quickly.

With this army, we focused on having answers to whatever our opponent might bring to the table. Some units, like Luke Skywalker and the T-47 Airspeeder, are perfectly situated to counter either vehicles or troopers. Other miniatures in the army are more specialized. If your opponent is focused on larger vehicles, the MPL-57 Ion Trooper, Impact Grenades, and the AT-RT Laser Cannon all offer strong ways to target those vehicles and take them down quickly. On the other hand, if your opponent is leaning on infantry, the Z-6 Trooper, Concussion Grenades, and the AT-RT Flamethrower make potent counters.

Of course, with eight different units in the army, and our focus on quick responsiveness, we want to ensure our army can function well in the command phase and our orders get where they need to go. With the release of the Leia Organa Commander Expansion, adding Leia as a second commander would give us much more granular control over our army. Until then, however, Battle Meditation on Luke can give us one order wherever we need it, and the Long-Range Comlink on the T-47 Airspeeder ensures that we can always issue orders to our most powerful unit.

What Will You Command?

We’ve taken a look at an Imperial army and a Rebel army that you could build from the very first day of Star Wars: Legion, with the Core Set and the eight expansions releasing alongside it. And yet, we’ve only scratched the surface of the tactics and possibilities that you can explore while creating your own army. You can take your own look at the intricacies of Star Wars: Legion—download the Learn to Play (pdf, 13.3 MB) and the Rules Reference (pdf, 8.0 MB) today!