Category / Blog

by Lumberjack Nick

The Fifth Trooper: (Re) Balance in the Force – Star Wars: Legion Points Update

POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 BY KYLE DORNBOS

This article takes a look at the surprise (but not unwelcome) points re-balance and errata that was announced this past week and will be hitting in mid-September.

Boy, we are really hurting for relevant things to talk about lately, huh?

Unless you have been living in a Bantha cave for the last two weeks, you know that Legion is undergoing a points re-balance and errata.  There were several changes to competitively relevant units (ahem, strike teams) and some nice points drops on other units and upgrades that were not seeing much competitive play.

A few notes from FFG about how this is going to work for Legion: the re-balance was in two components, errata and points updates.  The former will be for all play modes and will be reflected and printed on future cards; the latter is specifically for tournament play and is published in the back of the RRG (of course players are welcome to use them for their own local games if they wish).

Since points re-balance is primarily for tournament play, this article will focus on the (new) competitiveness of the affected units, as well as how some of the changes effect units that weren’t directly changed.

Continue reading after the jump: https://thefifthtrooper.com/re-balance-in-the-force/

by Lumberjack Nick

Yavin Base: The General’s Strict Orders

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?

Continue reading after the jump: https://yavinbase.blog/the-generals-strict-orders/?fbclid=IwAR20xtTxpmq9ZKpcn813xIpQi01OPt1_AfpjMa8YuIFNyLaVEZ4V6qTw7Zw

by Lumberjack Nick

The Fifth Trooper: Armor for your Armoire – Let’s talk about the Occupier Tank in Star Wars Legion

Remember back in the beginning of Star Wars Legion play when every game had armor in it? Whether you were running the AT-ST, a couple of AT-RTs or the T47, it seemed like we all had armor at one point in our lists and we were having a blast. It was fun because it was thematic, it was also nostalgic and throwing up to 14 dice at another unit is amazing (thanks to Weiss’ giving you arsenal 4). Then the meta shifted and all of us “meta philosophers” told you the age of armor was over and so we (for the most part) moved on.

Star Wars Legion Tank

Out of the gate this once again was a win for the Empire. Why did it make us all so happy when announced? First, unlike the Landspeeder it made sense. This was a replica from an amazing scene from one of our most beloved recent movies, not a round peg – square hole like the Landspeeder. Like the Star Wars Legion core set and the AT-ST and T-47 before it, the Occupier knocked on the door where we hide our inner child and said “come out and play”.

continue reading after the jump: https://thefifthtrooper.com/star-wars-legion-tank/

by Lumberjack Nick

Legion Academy: Medical Droids

Medics are units that possess the Treat ability. Below you will find the rules associated with this keyword.

Treat X : Capacity Y

Treat X: Capacity Y is a free card ability and can be used as a free action during a unit’s activation. When a unit uses the Treat X: Capacity Y ability, place one wound token on the card that has the Treat X: Capacity Y keyword, then choose a friendly trooper unit at range 1 and in line of sight and remove a total of up to X wound and/or poison tokens from that unit or restore up to X miniatures to that unit. This ability cannot be used if the card that has the Treat X: Capacity Y keyword has a number of wound tokens on it equal to or exceeding Y.

• Wound tokens on cards are not considered to be on units and do not count toward a unit’s wound threshold, nor can they be removed by abilities that remove wound tokens from units.

• Treat X: Capacity Y can be used on units that have the trooper, emplacement trooper, or creature trooper unit type.

Continue reading after the jump: https://www.legionacademy.net/2019/05/30/medical-droids/

by Lumberjack Nick

Legion Academy: Sabine Wren – Explosive Artist

Sabine soars into the Rebel roster this week.  Her incredible speed, coupled with tremendous defense, offers a unique option to rebel commanders who are looking for a mobile control piece.  

Unit Summary

Offense (Surge to Crit)

Average Ranged Output (Pierce 1) = 1.88 Net Hits (but you do this twice with Gunslinger)

Average Melee Output without Darksaber = 1.25 Hits

Average Melee Output w/ Darksaber (Pierce 1, Impact 1) = 3.14 Hits

Let’s take a look at the expected average wounds to a group of Rebel Troopers and Stormtroopers. We will always use this as our standard of comparison and this may change with the release of the Clone Wars units.

Continue reading after the jump: https://www.legionacademy.net/2019/05/20/sabine-wren-explosive-artist/

by Lumberjack Nick

The Trade Federation has arrived: Why I think Star Wars Legion’s price will increase

Trade Federation

by Jay Shelanskey

It seems that the old saying “Life imitates art” may just be true. As the Clone Wars reach our shores so may the Trade Federation. What in the blue milk am I talking about?

In a capital not so far away there has been a trade dispute occurring with another land. The dispute has led to increased tariffs on goods from this land by 25%. Now for the most part this has not included goods such as board games and has been more focused on electronics, batteries, auto parts etc. But there has been a list prepared by the US Trade Reps that includes board games as a potential product to incur the 25% tariff.

Continue reading →

by Lumberjack Nick

Impact X Blog: Corner Case – Fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the tactic of attacking with a low probability dice pool and hoping for a big result, or throwing back a small result in hopes of a bigger one. Fishing is a key tactic with certain units or under certain circumstances. Knowing when to fish and what your probabilities are can often get you a favorable outcome out of a seemingly impossible situation.

The premise and execution is pretty easy, the trick is identifying when to fish and what the probabilities are. The core of fishing is knowing the probabilities and picking the right tools to put towards certain situations to produce an unlikely outcome.

Relevant Rules:

version agnostic

Constants:

  • Red: 1x blank, 5x success, 1x surge, 1x critical  or 75% chance of success without surge and 87.5% with surge. 

  • Black: 3x blank, 3x success, 1x surge, 1x critical  or 50% chance of success without surge and 62.5% with surge.

  • White: 5x blank, 1x success, 1x surge, 1x critical  or  25% chance of success without surge and 37.5% with surge. 

  • All Dice Critical: 6x blank, 1x surge, 1x critical  or 12.5% chance of critical without surge and 25% chance with surge. 

  • Red with Reroll: 93.75% no surge, 97.5% with surge

  • Black with Reroll: 75% no surge,  86% with surge

  • White with Reroll: 43.75% no surge, 61% with surge

  • All Dice Critical with Reroll: 22.5% no surge, 43.75% with surge.

Understanding:

Given the above constants we can see that there are situations where certain dice or certain rerolls can give us results in scenarios that are otherwise unlikely to produce results. The core of this tactic falls within the percentage on dice constants and the defensive constants such as cover and armor.

Continue reading after the jump: https://www.legionimpact.com/blog/corner-case-fishing

by Lumberjack Nick

Impact X Blog: AdeptiCon 2019 Reflection (LJ Pena)

Adepticon 2019 was the first High Command Invitational, which was the only way to get invited to the first Star Wars: Legion World Championship. Worlds will be held in June, and myself and Nick Freeman will both be in attendance. 3 Imperial players and 5 Rebels players moved on to Worlds, so we’ll see if they all play the same factions in Minnesota!

AdeptiCon was a huge success, and an enjoyable follow-up to the Last Vegas Open. This was the first major this year I have been able to play in, so I knew I had to make every die roll count. My goal for the weekend was to make it into High Command, and I barely did, taking the last spot based on Strength of Schedule. My only LCQ loss was to Chris Cook, and because he went 4-0 I was able to overcome the other 3-1’s and sneak into High Command. To just barely squeak into High Command didn’t really make me confident going into the second day of play, but my overall results proved that did not really matter!

Before I start talking about how things went, big thanks to Brendon Franz for running the event, and Hank Edley for letting us run the show!

Continue reading after the jump: https://www.legionimpact.com/battle-reports

by Lumberjack Nick

Imperial Discipline Blog: Meta 101 – Looking Back (and Ahead) After One Year

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Last summer, I wrote articles that went over the early Legion meta (Rebel 101 and Imperial 101) in detail. But it’s been many jam-packed months since, we are just a few days past the one-year anniversary of Legion! In that time, we’ve gotten a ton of new units and keywords to play with.

So if you’re just joining the game, looking to get back in after a hiatus, or hoping to try out something new, what armies are out there and doing well? What has changed, and what has stayed the same?

I’ve used a mixture of personal experience, community feedback, and competitive data (thanks Orkimedes!) to flesh out a few different sections in this article: first, an update for those returning from a hiatus, second, a collection of meta (or just off-meta) lists for each faction, and third, a look into the future of Legion armies.

Let’s get started.

Read after the jump: https://imperialdiscipline.blog/2019/03/26/imperial-101-established-meta-armies-spring-2019/?fbclid=IwAR0gQJ3ywUhc-ht4c-mC_KUiSBO74gENoRwDRPDiX0NIvme0Y9HhuI66Nnw