Following up on last week’s interview with Matt Dunn, here is another interview from the NOVA Open, this time with John Brader who won the second Maximum Firepower event. For NOVA, John brought Veers and triple bikes, but with a variation that I’m totally in love with – Two HH-12 rocket launchers. Yes.

General Veers (Commanding Presence)

Stormtroopers (DLT-19, Stormtrooper, Concussion Grenades)

Stormtroopers (DLT-19, Stormtrooper, Concussion Grenades)

Stormtroopers (HH-12, Stormtrooper, Impact Grenades)

Stormtroopers (HH-12, Stormtrooper)

Snowtroopers (Flametrooper, Snowtrooper)

74-Z Speeder Bikes

74-Z Speeder Bikes

74-Z Speeder Bikes

Points: 791/800

Before we dive into the QA, I want to mention that John is a commission painter and runs a commission painting business called Tabletop History. His army won the ‘Best Painted’ award the same day he went 3-0 in the Maximum Firepower event. Check out his company, Tabletop History, on Facebook and at http://www.tabletophistory.com

Q: Why don’t people run the rocket launcher more?

A: Well, for my list, compared to the DLTs, I’m running 20 points higher and cards that exhaust, so I understand the downsides. But, what my list allows me is versatility. Let’s say I come up against triple AT-RTs – this gives me some standoff distance to put Impact on them. I still don’t hesitate to fire the rockets against infantry; I do it as often as possible. Veers gives them both a free recover with Imperial Discipline. I try to use those HH-12 units as more stationary, but not completely so. I put them where I think they’ll be effective and let them sit. Veers takes care of aim tokens and I just have to recover and shoot. I also play the range game to leverage Range 4 – I sometimes put them across from short ranged things like Fleet Troopers so I can make them combat ineffective before they get a chance to shoot.

Q: What kinds of match ups did you face?

A: 100% of what I played was Imperial. I did not meet a Rebel list. All three games were pretty tight. Game one I was up against Double AT-ST, and I was on one of those incredibly open Hoth boards. So, there was very little cover, and I’m looking at two AT-ST. I mean, I have two HH-12s, but killing them both isn’t happening. I chose to ignore both of them and used what cover I had to keep me out of line of sight. I really played that game more like a Rebel. I believe it was Intercept the Transmissions. I took the bikes and started chasing troops with them, with the goal of taking out one troop unit per turn.

Game two, I faced Imperial again, I was blue and was able to get Key Positions, and in this particular case the terrain was favorable for me. I was able to mark a couple of pieces very close to my deployment zone. This time I was up against a single AT-ST. I took my two objectives relatively early and hunkered down while the bikes went out and harassed. I expect to lose a couple of bikes every game, but their purpose is really to make the opponent’s troops combat ineffective. If they choose not to shoot my bikes, the bikes will tear them apart, and if they shoot my bikes, then they aren’t shooting my troops, so they can get where they need to go. I’m forcing my opponent to make a decision, and even if they turn on my bikes, they’ll usually make it to turn 2 and make a significant reduction on at least a couple of enemy squads. The key thing I’ve found with bikes: I put tokens on them as often as I can and wait to go until the end of the first turn, and then immediately go on turn two. (A last-first attack, as described here.)

Game three, I got Key Positions again, but this was an interesting one: in order to win, I had to go and get that third position. My opponent did something very aggressive and very smart, bringing Vader and a well protected Snowtrooper unit onto my flank and one of the objectives close to my deployment zone. His AT-ST mortar made one of my trooper units panic off the board. Then Vader started decimating troops. I decided right there that I had enough turns left to spend the next turn double moving toward my opponent’s objective, forcing Vader to chase me. My opponent, whose name was Matt, and I agreed that it was one of the best games of Legion we had ever played. That game came down to the very last dice roll. Vader missed his Saber Throw, which would have swung the third objective in his favor, and Veers hit a Stormtrooper unit leader that had lost all his troops, and of course Veers has Pierce 1. Those were the last two rolls of the game.

Q: So, he put pressure on you by rushing up to attack one of the positions you marked. Do you think that’s a decent response for Red, to run up on the nearest of the opponent’s objectives as hard as you can?

A: Yes, especially if you have heavy hitters, and especially things like Vader and Snowtroopers with a Flametrooper. In this case, I was already dealing with attacks on both of my positions, and with Vader crossing the board, it forced me to decide if I could actually beat him or leave. In this case, I decided to leave.

Q: We’ve seen situations where Key Positions can be gamed so there are really only two positions being played for, and this forces the armies to joust one another, and if you’ve got something that prevents your opponent from touching what you’ve got, the game is sewn up from Turn Zero. Do you agree that Key Positions could use some sort of revision?

A: Well, if Key Positions is going to be kept as a tournament legal card, it needs to be modified. I wouldn’t be surprised if FFG just said “Alright, it’s not legal anymore,” and then produced a different version of it later on. I don’t think it’s a good tournament objective. It’s great for pickup games, but in a tournament setting you’re right, because you may gain advantage just by the terrain setup. It’s one of the few things in the game that isn’t quite balancing. Now, that said, my third game proved that there are things that will mitigate a Blue player from taking their two positions and being done with it. I don’t claim to know what the fix is, but at least in the near term, the solution might be to say “Key Positions is out.”

Q: …and now we’ve got this bidding war, you brought a nine point bid, Matt Dunn brought a fifteen point bid, because there is a clear advantage to drawing Key Positions in that last slot, in addition to being able to pick the board edge.

A: You know what’s funny, is we were so pressed for time that no one bothered with board edge picking. Every game I played people picked the convenient side at their assigned table, set their stuff down and went “alright I’ll play from here,” and my opponents were the same way. Again, this comes down to being at a tournament. The NOVA Open had two or three rows of tables, but each row had five or six tables in it side by side, so if you’re playing in the middle table, you’re walking down the aisle and there’s no cut through – so if you want to switch board edge you have to pack up all your stuff and move, and that eats into your time.

Q: Disarray must have been miserable…

A: I took Disarray out of my four cards specifically because I didn’t want the time sink associated with going back and forth. I need at least four rounds to win the game. Three rounds killing units with bikes, and then by round four, hopefully the enemy is rendered combat ineffective enough for me to hold the objective. So, if I start reducing the amount of rounds I can play because of silly things like “it takes me a long time to get to the other side of the table,” it impacts the game. It’s a serious consideration at a tournament – it’s no big deal for me to play Disarray or Long March at home where I have access to all sides of the table.

Q: How often did your games go to time?

A: Every time. I think the furthest that we got was round 5. Aside from the lunch break, there was only ten to fifteen minutes between the rounds and even the lunch break was only 30 minutes. It was tight; you get your table assignment, and the setup was part of that two hours. Legion setup is a longer duration than some of the other FFG game setups. Setting up Destiny or X-wing doesn’t take the same amount of time to establish what the battle is going to be, mark out your deployment zone and deploy 20ish units between two players. As far as actual play time, we were down in the 1 hour and 45 minute range, so it doesn’t surprise me that we didn’t get to six rounds. Time would be called somewhere in the fifth and we’d finish that up. I can’t stress enough that none of my opponents slow played, I didn’t slow play, it was activation after activation with very little time to contemplate something.

Q: Do you think two and a half hour rounds would be more appropriate?

A: I do think it needs to be two hours and fifteen minutes. You can complete a six round game in two hours, but when you’re in a tournament atmosphere and you’re switching tables, you know, there’s a lot of overhead. You have find your table and move your stuff, and put it in such a way that it doesn’t mess up the guy next to you, and it all counts against your time. So, yes, in a larger tournament setting I would like to see two hours and fifteen minutes.

Q: This makes those magnetized army trays look better and better.

A: I go with magnetized for transport and storage. I actually broke down ten minutes before round 1 and bought one of those tournament trays that has cutouts (pictured above) to place the units in specifically so when I pulled figures off, they’d already be in place to move on to the next game. I was packing up while playing.

Q: Thoughts on Boba Fett?

A: Boba’s biggest contribution is going to be the bounty token, more so than his mobility and damage dealing. That’s going to be a game changer. And on Key Positions for example, objectives are decided by a single point. He can take what is normally a 2-1 victory, turn it into a tie and be eligible to win.

Q: What kind of advice would you give to players looking to improve?

A: Of all the miniatures game that I’ve played. Legion, at least for now, is one of the most balanced, and what makes it balanced is Turn Zero. You can’t build a list that is only designed to do one thing, because you won’t win a tournament. Don’t worry about cramming everything into a list – stick with a bunch of basic troops. Every list has some viability if you know how to play the game well, so play what you like and learn the game. If you’re a newer player, don’t pay attention to people saying “don’t run an ion cannon,” just go and do it! It’s fun to run “weird” stuff against your friends.

That wraps up this QA, I hope you enjoyed reading it. Please do take a moment to check out John’s great painting at Tabletop History.

“I’ve been painting for people, I love building terrain… my father used to own a model railroad company. I started building and painting terrain for model railroads at 5 years old. It stuck with me, and now I do it for war gaming.” – John Brader