4 hours ago, Uninvited Guest said:

First Mecha-Hitler, now Mecha-Vader? Does that mean a Mecha-Epic Rap Battle of History is on the way?

EDIT: There's gotta be something better to call that...

Mecha Rap Battle of History? Eh.

Epic Rap Battle of Mecha History? Maybe.

Mepic rap ba-- No, that one sounds terrible..

Well technicaly it is a Drednaught if i know well.

I am not too familiar with Warhammer 40K

I guess I'll weigh in on Legion, now that I've had time to think about it;

I'm really confused by this one as a big "Star Wars Ground Battle Game". Let me explain.

Star Wars (the movie) turned 40 this year. Star Wars (the intellectual property) means a lot of things to a lot of people, spread across generations. We are now at a point where children will grow up excited to see "what happens next" in a series involving Rey and Kylo Ren and this will likely imprint on them "that" take on Star Wars, which will make the previous generations of Star Wars (Original and Prequel Trilogies) seem "different" or "off" because the look and tone will just not be there, based on their expectations.

This is also why people pipe up here and on the X-Wing boards demanding Prequel Trilogy ships and why they're chased away with torches and pitchforks.

Of course, there are fans that enjoy everything under the umbrella with a broad acceptance, and extreme cases of fanboy automaton types that cling passionately to one generation of Star Wars and **** the rest, or go the other way and love it all and make apologies for the gaping plot hole that was the conclusion of Rogue One.

But I digress.

If you were going to tell me that FFG was making a Warhammer 40K style miniatures wargame, I would naturally assume it would be some kind of Clone Wars era theme, as that's what comes to mind when I think of open warfare in Star Wars. I'd definitely give it a hard pass because I'm pretty embarrassed for that whole period of time in lore creation, not because I hate the Clones per se, but I just thought everything around it was kind of a missed opportunity to tell "that" story that was alluded to in Star Wars but wasn't really necessary to be told to get a point across. Kind of like the Death Star plans origin story.

But I digress again.

Despite thinking the Clone Wars as a concept was executed badly (I did enjoy a few episodes of the show), it's a good fit. Large armies of troops on both sides, sending waves of soldiers to their doom. Vehicles, explosions, it's all ripe for this kind of game.

But, we didn't get that did we? We got the same game in a classic Galactic Civil War era setting, promising to recreate the ground battles of Star Wars.

I don't recall Vader and Luke leading troops over the wall to smash into each other in the movies. In fact, there were only really two ground battles in those movies, and one of them was mostly about adapted speeder vehicles failing to hold off an invasion of large armoured transports. So to bring that "feel" to the tabletop, and at the scale of the models shown, you'd need a pretty big board to reenact the Battle of Hoth the way "Classic" Star Wars players would want.

At best this would be good for that part of Return of the Jedi where Han/Chewie/Leia get in a shootout with their commando pals and some teddy bears against Stormtroopers, Scouts on Speeder Bikes and AT-ST's. While this would be a cool game to play, you've pretty much run out of the model range at that point, without having to go into the expanded universe material to come up with more content.

A Queen's Gambit style game would be a batter way to really show off the Battle of Hoth, and quite frankly the Battle of Endor as well, if you want to take the whole operation into account.

I've heard Rogue One enthusiasts talking about doing something akin to the end of that movie, but given how many Rebel troops were involved in the pointless shooting on the landing platform, that just takes me back to an Imperial Assault scale game to play out the interesting parts of sneaking through the complex that were accidentally edited out of the movie.

So basically the game will outgrow the "classic" model range of things we'd want to see and all kinds of stuff that casual Star Wars fans don't recognize will make their way into the game, just in time for the power creep to kick in, devolving the game into whatever abomination X-Wing's top-tier competitive scene has become.

I can't even imagine Scum factions in this, as they don't strike me as the kind to organize under a military banner, so I guess there's that?

For me, the thought of painting even more Stormtroopers made me run away in terror anyways, so it's all moot from my own practical considerations.

I'm just thinking out loud about the topic broadly.

14 minutes ago, cleardave said:

A Queen's Gambit style game would be a batter way to really show off the Battle of Hoth, and quite frankly the Battle of Endor as well, if you want to take the whole operation into account.

I totally agree on almost all of your points (as much as I wouldn't have bought it either way, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw it was just GCW again).

You may know this already, but The Queen's Gambit already has an Endor version, sort of. It's Risk Star Wars edition, but it plays far more like The Queen's Gambit than it does Risk. It's a really stupid name for an actually pretty decent game.

There's a standard edition and a Black Series edition. AT 25 bucks (about 5 or 6 more expensive than the standard) the Black Series is a steal. I'd definitely suggest it, if you haven't heard of it before. It's definitely a lighter game than FFG affair, but we enjoy breaking it out pretty often.

I wonder if they'll even try to maintain any sort of canon continuity with this game. I mean, like you said @cleardave, even this core set has Luke w/ a bunch of troopers vs. Vader w/ a bunch of troopers. That's something that not only didn't happen in the movies, but really couldn't have happened in the movies. Not only was the rebellion too small to really fight this sort of big ground battle on a regular basis, but Luke facing off against Vader for the first (and second) time was a huge deal in the progression of both of those characters' stories. Adding a few random, off-screen skirmishes between them would kind of cheapen the whole arc of the original trilogy.

But that's not to say that this bothers me, however. The game is the game, it's separate from the movies and I can have fun with a big Star Wars battle and make 'pew pew' noises without worrying about it affecting a film series that was shot 40 years ago. What I'm trying to get at is that if they're already playing fast an loose with any story considerations, what's to stop them from just ignoring the timelines altogether?

Why not add in two new factions for the Republic and the Separatists? Why not go crazy and add a Hutt faction, or a Pirate/Scum faction, or something for the Resistance/First Order once that trilogy's done? Legion doesn't strike me as the type of game where even a devoted player is going to buy everything - more likely he/she will pick a faction and just get what is needed for the army they want to build. So why not let the 'OT' purists buy their stormtroopers and let the Millennials buy their battle droids?

Now maybe that sort of mixing and matching would turn some people off, so who knows. What I think definitely doesn't matter since I'm not really interested in this sort of game to begin with. But maybe it's something that they could do to make it more interesting - and at least with the other factions we might see a few models that we don't already have in Imperial Assault.

Other than the snowspeeders vs AT-ATs (which is not what Legion really offers), I personally have never envisioned massive ground battles. Outside of the occasional story (“canon” or not), I don’t recognize much outside of the original trilogy. Those that claim that the newer movies are comparable are probably like the townsfolk who were too afraid to tell the Emperor that he’s not wearing any clothes. How dare you talk badly about anything Star Wars!

At the end of the day FFG is not a charity. Their job is to make as much money as possible. I could barely play X-wing and IA, so I ditched X-wing. So I can’t imagine anyone else playing more than one of these games with much passion. So we’ll all mostly end up picking just one to focus on. I prefer the one that’s more thematic with named characters that I recognize from the movie. One that doesn’t just rely on rolling dice (<cough>…X-wing).

Play what you like to play and enjoy. I’m just glad that I have a hobby that costs less than drinking, doing drugs, or gambling! LOL

54 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

You may know this already, but The Queen's Gambit already has an Endor version, sort of. It's Risk Star Wars edition, but it plays far more like The Queen's Gambit than it does Risk. It's a really stupid name for an actually pretty decent game.

There's a standard edition and a Black Series edition. AT 25 bucks (about 5 or 6 more expensive than the standard) the Black Series is a steal. I'd definitely suggest it, if you haven't heard of it before. It's definitely a lighter game than FFG affair, but we enjoy breaking it out pretty often.

I was aware of the game but saw the "Risk" suffix and ran the other way. Other than Risk Legacy, I've never cared for the brand all that much. We could make all the smart plays in the world, but it really comes down to die rolls. Not my kind of game I want to spend hours playing.

If it's more like an actual game as you said, then you're right, it's a shame they had to tack that Risk name on to it and give people the wrong idea.

Still, if I was going to make that kind of a game, where we're simulating a multi-tiered conflict, which is really what the battles in the original series sequels were all about, and what is always evoked when someone wants to make "ground battle game" in that setting, then a Queen's Gambit level of over-produced chrome with the FFG touch would be the way to do it.

Of course, the problem is the game is just that, and not really open to expansions, which isn't a problem for me personally, but I know they've got a business model to stick to.

47 minutes ago, ManateeX said:

I wonder if they'll even try to maintain any sort of canon continuity with this game. I mean, like you said @cleardave, even this core set has Luke w/ a bunch of troopers vs. Vader w/ a bunch of troopers. That's something that not only didn't happen in the movies, but really couldn't have happened in the movies. Not only was the rebellion too small to really fight this sort of big ground battle on a regular basis, but Luke facing off against Vader for the first (and second) time was a huge deal in the progression of both of those characters' stories. Adding a few random, off-screen skirmishes between them would kind of cheapen the whole arc of the original trilogy.

You're right, of course. I can deal with Luke and Vader facing off in a game if it was something like Wave 1 X-Wing where their talents as skilled pilots and squadron leaders (as seen in Star Wars and Empire) are the focus.

However, a lot of people got their rocks off watching Vader hacking people to pieces with his lightsaber at the end of Rogue One, despite showing zero agility a couple of days later when he bumped in to Obi-Wan on the Death Star, or for that matter just single-handedly taking the plans back on the Tantive IV at the beginning of Star Wars.

Now of course in Imperial Assault skirmish this will happen all the time, but it's scaled down to a small pitched battle that's focused on a couple of objectives and the whole things can be played out in an hour. it's more about taking a "greatest hits" of things from the different factions and running them around the board.

The campaign plays with narrative a little more and even though people complain that you're using "made up" (as fictional characters that are made up to be placed in a pre-existing fictional setting, if you can follow the irony there) characters as heroes instead of Luke and Han, I much prefer running around with Jyn Odan and occasionally getting a famous face tossed in to make a for a nice boss battle type engagement.

But then again Imperial Assault is that type of dungeon crawl.

Quote

But that's not to say that this bothers me, however. The game is the game, it's separate from the movies and I can have fun with a big Star Wars battle and make 'pew pew' noises without worrying about it affecting a film series that was shot 40 years ago. What I'm trying to get at is that if they're already playing fast an loose with any story considerations, what's to stop them from just ignoring the timelines altogether?

Why not add in two new factions for the Republic and the Separatists? Why not go crazy and add a Hutt faction, or a Pirate/Scum faction, or something for the Resistance/First Order once that trilogy's done? Legion doesn't strike me as the type of game where even a devoted player is going to buy everything - more likely he/she will pick a faction and just get what is needed for the army they want to build. So why not let the 'OT' purists buy their stormtroopers and let the Millennials buy their battle droids?

Now maybe that sort of mixing and matching would turn some people off, so who knows. What I think definitely doesn't matter since I'm not really interested in this sort of game to begin with. But maybe it's something that they could do to make it more interesting - and at least with the other factions we might see a few models that we don't already have in Imperial Assault.

By the time X-Wing dropped in content from The Force Awakens, I was already mentally on the way out of the game, so I guess it didn't bother me that much. I mean at least I was able to see some ships on the board from a movie.

The problem with your point about devoted players not buying everything is a little flawed though. I'm not sure what your exposure to the other miniatures games in FFG's Star Wars line is, so feel free to clarify, but the upgrade system they tout so much is designed precisely to get devoted players to buy off-faction packs to get all the upgrade cards.

This wouldn't be a problem if say you and I were meeting up to play casually at someone's house or at a store, but a tournament, which is what they want to push this towards, will require your upgrades to be physically present on the board, and I can promise you, unless someone with access to all the RuneWars miniatures material will show me up here, that some upgrades that would be "usable" for Rebels will be only found in Imperial boxes and vice versa.

A quick example is the Autothruster upgrade from X-Wing that came in the Starviper pack for Scum but was largely intended for TIE Interceptors to make them competitive against turrets in that current meta. If you were a dedicated Imperial player, you'd be waiting for the Raider box ($100 by the way) to show up to get Palpatine to have a shot at competitive Interceptor play again.

Also the Starviper was largely a DOA ship when it was released so you were only buying it for that Autothruster upgrade. Now, 2 years later, a new box set is available that makes the Starviper playable.

So for Legion, this leads to me to conclude a similar cash-grabby system will be in place, though with the price of box sets being likely more than a $15 ship pack, this will become a bit irritating to those faction purists that want to compete at a high level.

Strangely this bothers me the least with Imperial Assault as generally speaking, the Command Cards are playable by all the factions, and the bulk of the game is sold in box sets that contain materials for all 3 factions, with figure pack waves rounding it out. Generally speaking as well, the Command Cards are almost always 1-per-deck type deals and in instances where 2 copies are allowed, 2 copies are found in the appropriate SKU so you're not buying a lot of extras for single cards.

Of course you are essentially doubling down on box sets to get doubles of cards, so to speak, for the Elite Jet Troopers and Weequay Pirates for use in Skirmish, but since Imperial Assault is also a perfectly great dungeon crawl campaign game, I give it a dubious pass for scummy distribution, especially since they tightened it up with the Bespin box onwards.

It's actually evolved into a game that wants to keep its competitive options open and has frequently changed to make the pretty shaky launch wave a comical memory for us.

Of course, since I'm out on the game anyways, it doesn't really matter to me, but I can see, based on my experiences with X-Wing and their "upgrade system" that they really liked to remind us will be at play in Legion, that the writing is on the wall for some scumbag placement of useful meta upgrades found in only one faction's packs. At least until another wave or two release, then they'll be "nice guys" and put it in your faction's box too, not that it will matter because you already bought that Imperial pack to get the card, and since you have this now slightly larger Imperial force that's "almost" big enough to make a decent legal list, maybe you'll spend a few dollars more to fill that in...you know, to spice it up, because even though you were adamant about only playing Rebels and not spending money on the other side, you can't shake that sunk cost fallacy and completionist buzzing in the back of your head and oh my God you've spent $200 on Imperials and now you're "one of them"...

22 minutes ago, cleardave said:

I was aware of the game but saw the "Risk" suffix and ran the other way. Other than Risk Legacy, I've never cared for the brand all that much. We could make all the smart plays in the world, but it really comes down to die rolls. Not my kind of game I want to spend hours playing.

If it's more like an actual game as you said, then you're right, it's a shame they had to tack that Risk name on to it and give people the wrong idea.

Still, if I was going to make that kind of a game, where we're simulating a multi-tiered conflict, which is really what the battles in the original series sequels were all about, and what is always evoked when someone wants to make "ground battle game" in that setting, then a Queen's Gambit level of over-produced chrome with the FFG touch would be the way to do it.

Of course, the problem is the game is just that, and not really open to expansions, which isn't a problem for me personally, but I know they've got a business model to stick to.

Definitely, I'd be all about that.

In fact, there has been significant discussion on these forums on how to incorporate IA with X-Wing and Armada for multi-tiered games.

Maybe eventually we'll have a variant with Legion representing a large scale groups battle, X-Wing or Armada for the space battle, and IA for a showdown strictly between force users or heroes in a building on the battlefield. For instance, maybe a battle on Mon Calamari, where Rebels are fighting Stormtroopers on outdoor platforms while Luke and Vader fight inside, and whoever wins the duel can replace their IA mini with the legion mini to join the outdoor battle. Meanwhile, an X-Wing battle could be centered around the planet's shield gate, with both groups trying to bring in reinforcements to the Legion fight.

And while Risk is a great game- seriously, I have no idea why they named it that, nothing about it is Risk-like (Risque?), other than plastic minis- its chrome is significantly less impressive than even the Queen's Gambit. But it is fun.

1 hour ago, ManateeX said:

I wonder if they'll even try to maintain any sort of canon continuity with this game. I mean, like you said @cleardave, even this core set has Luke w/ a bunch of troopers vs. Vader w/ a bunch of troopers. That's something that not only didn't happen in the movies, but really couldn't have happened in the movies. Not only was the rebellion too small to really fight this sort of big ground battle on a regular basis, but Luke facing off against Vader for the first (and second) time was a huge deal in the progression of both of those characters' stories.

Spoiler for the comics

1 minute ago, subtrendy2 said:

Spoiler for the comics

Actually, that exact situation

is canon now. Sort of.

They manage to pretty skillfully avoid drawing levity from the ESB fight by having Luke be an absolute failure in the fight to the point that it can barely even be called a fight. In fact, I'd say that raises the stakes for ESB, because while Luke hasn't held his own against Vader, he's seen firsthand how badly he'd fare.

But it just seems like pandering to a fanboy type that just would love nothing more than seeing more of these two characters swinging laser swords at each other.

Canon or not, terrible story telling is terrible story telling. There's a whole prequel series, and an accompanying discourse by Red Letter Media on that subject.

Doesn't it make Vader seem like even more of a dumby if the plot of Empire is him using a ridiculous amount of Imperial resources to hunt down one guy, when he had him right in front of him?

Sure in Star Wars he was able to sense something was up in the trench, but before he could think on it too much, he's knocked out of the picture by Han.

When you catch up with these characters again in Empire, it's easy to imagine Vader going after Luke for personal reasons, having heard his surname no doubt in Rebel propaganda from the Death Star fiasco. The characters don't really require more hack fraud lightsaber fights worked into the "canon" to flesh this out. He's even wearing his clothes from the end of Star Wars. Hey, remember Star Wars?! That's what all that feels like to me. Terrible callbacks instead of making new, interesting stories and situations.

To bring it sort of back on topic, Legion is definitely a "hey, remember Stormtroopers?!" game. Realistically Luke would need some kind of battle kit if he's leading troops in that context, not his costume from the third act of The Empire Strikes Back. When they do run out of the "hey, remember this?!" material, the hope is that the sunk cost fallacy has taken root and you'll happily buy some terrible looking tank they came up with to fill a battlefield role.

The beauty of IA is that you can play the game of "hey, remember those aliens?!" and it works because you can make a deployment group out of them, as well as the next thing we remember and so on, and it actually fits, and there's a lot more to play with.

I can't imagine an army of Weequay pirates storming the battlefield, though I'm sure someone will drool for it. I can however, imagine a motley crew of weird aliens fighting off Stormtroopers in some seedy cantina setting.

I can buy Luke, and Leia, and Han, and a handful of rando's who are there to die, wading through mooks to complete an objective in a couple of high pressure turns.

1 hour ago, cleardave said:

...having heard his surname no doubt in Rebel propaganda from the Death Star fiasco.

But, uh, yeah, sorry you don't like them, I guess? Different strokes for different folks, it's all good.

Quote

To bring it sort of back on topic, Legion is definitely a "hey, remember Stormtroopers?!" game. Realistically Luke would need some kind of battle kit if he's leading troops in that context, not his costume from the third act of The Empire Strikes Back. When they do run out of the "hey, remember this?!" material, the hope is that the sunk cost fallacy has taken root and you'll happily buy some terrible looking tank they came up with to fill a battlefield role.

The beauty of IA is that you can play the game of "hey, remember those aliens?!" and it works because you can make a deployment group out of them, as well as the next thing we remember and so on, and it actually fits, and there's a lot more to play with.

I can't imagine an army of Weequay pirates storming the battlefield, though I'm sure someone will drool for it. I can however, imagine a motley crew of weird aliens fighting off Stormtroopers in some seedy cantina setting.

I can buy Luke, and Leia, and Han, and a handful of rando's who are there to die, wading through mooks to complete an objective in a couple of high pressure turns.

I'm 100% with you that IA manages to make a far more interesting game, even with less minis on the board. But much like skirmish, I think Legion is simply trying to bring in iconic characters, and started with two of arguably the most iconic. I mean, I guess that's still a "hey, remember..." kind of situation, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing.

Ugh, I said something remotely good about Legion. Now I have to go light some Destiny cards on fire to earn my soul back.

11 hours ago, cleardave said:

There's a whole prequel series, and an accompanying discourse by Red Letter Media on that subject.

These reviews are great, funny and hilariously illuminating. That being said, they are also (and RLM admitted to that) extremely hyperbolic, which makes those RLM-fans who like to recite these reviews like a holy text appear a bit pathetic.

But back to the discussion: I don't get what all the fuss is about. If someone wants to play a massive miniatures tabletop wargame set in the Star Wars universe, a game which propably doesn't strictly adhere to the heights of storytelling - so what? I prefer a character-focused game like IA when it comes to Star Wars miniatures games, but I'd feel uncomfortably too self-important if I'd go around telling everyone how wrong Legion is and why they shouldn't play or like it.

4 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

These reviews are great, funny and hilariously illuminating. That being said, they are also (and RLM admitted to that) extremely hyperbolic, which makes those RLM-fans who like to recite these reviews like a holy text appear a bit pathetic.

But back to the discussion: I don't get what all the fuss is about. If someone wants to play a massive miniatures tabletop wargame set in the Star Wars universe, a game which propably doesn't strictly adhere to the heights of storytelling - so what? I prefer a character-focused game like IA when it comes to Star Wars miniatures games, but I'd feel uncomfortably too self-important if I'd go around telling everyone how wrong Legion is and why they shouldn't play or like it.

My main grip with the game is that it feels like something I SHOULD love. I love SW, I love Warhammer, and combining the two should be a blast. This, however, just doesn't seem to work. Set it in the prequels and I would definitely buy the core set, then probably spend way too much time trying to adapt my IA miniatures into it. As is, I simply won't.

22 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

In fact, there has been significant discussion on these forums on how to incorporate IA with X-Wing and Armada for multi-tiered games.

Maybe eventually we'll have a variant with Legion representing a large scale groups battle, X-Wing or Armada for the space battle, and IA for a showdown strictly between force users or heroes in a building on the battlefield. For instance, maybe a battle on Mon Calamari, where Rebels are fighting Stormtroopers on outdoor platforms while Luke and Vader fight inside, and whoever wins the duel can replace their IA mini with the legion mini to join the outdoor battle. Meanwhile, an X-Wing battle could be centered around the planet's shield gate, with both groups trying to bring in reinforcements to the Legion fight.

And while Risk is a great game- seriously, I have no idea why they named it that, nothing about it is Risk-like (Risque?), other than plastic minis- its chrome is significantly less impressive than even the Queen's Gambit. But it is fun.

I've never been able to imagine having the free time necessary to pedantically try and resolve that level of minutiae in a multi-tiered game.

At some point you need to give up the simulation and abstract things down to the core ideas and keep the game moving.

The thought of playing a game like Twilight Imperium would be at best a once a year thing for me. This isn't a dig, by the way, I'm just more inclined to get things to the table with people if we can close it out sooner. Unless it's Battlestar Galactica, a game that should only take a couple of hours to play out but easily turns to 4 or 5 with a good group as all the finger-pointing and debating happens, but usually everyone's involved with that and not waiting for their turn so it doesn't seem like a potential drag.

I think they called it "Risk" because "hey, remember Risk?!". Not to be glib but it just seems like a cheap branding thing to get it more attention and buy-in from people instead of calling it some other random name. A company like FFG could sell us a Battle of Endor multi-tiered battle game like that and give it some kind of cool name, but for stocking toy shelves in Target, you gotta stick with what people recognize.

Like I said before, this had the opposite effect on me, because I do indeed remember Risk, and it's not fondly, I can say that much. Except for Risk Legacy of course, which actually made it into a real game. We'll never know what evil lurks in the hearts of marketing executives, but I guess they sold what they needed to so lessons were (not?) learned?

21 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

The comics actually explain that, too.

But, uh, yeah, sorry you don't like them, I guess? Different strokes for different folks, it's all good.

I'm 100% with you that IA manages to make a far more interesting game, even with less minis on the board. But much like skirmish, I think Legion is simply trying to bring in iconic characters, and started with two of arguably the most iconic. I mean, I guess that's still a "hey, remember..." kind of situation, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing.

Ugh, I said something remotely good about Legion. Now I have to go light some Destiny cards on fire to earn my soul back.

I just hate seeing characters having more and more "side stories" tacked on where the producers need to keep coming up with tense and exciting things to happen to them, but also without affecting them in ways that contradict pre-established character states.

The worst things about those early '90's Star Wars novels were that they kept trying to come up with biggerer and betterer ways to up the ante against our heroes. I'd give the Heir to the Empire trilogy a soft pass because it reads like an Episode 7-9 type arc and concludes itself in ways that certainly mirror events in the movies (and gets waaaaay to self-referential at times), but if you read it as what it is; direct sequels, it's not terrible, and the new characters introduced are compelling in their own right.

But then you get into a lot of the other books. Look, ANOTHER superweapon. Look, ANOTHER fallen Force user.

The best stories leave you wanting more...but then leave it at that. When we don't know what's good for us, we demand extra helpings and the content IP copyright holders are more than willing to keep shovelling it into our gaping maws, but then you wind up bloated on crap like that dude at the beginning of Se7en.

For Legion, of course they'll lead with Luke and Vader. I just don't buy Luke as a battlefield general like I would as a starfighter wing commander. Vader is debatable in that Field Marshall role as he's sort of like the SS Commander to the Empire's Nazi war machine that way, even though he's really "the best pilot in the galaxy" and belongs in his TIE Advanced, wrecking fools like that one episode of Rebels.

In reality you should be seeing General Veers out there or something, but he's not going to sell boxes to the casual crowd who would see the logo and wonder where Vader and Luke are. It also doesn't help that the rest of the product line is under wraps, so we're left with this box in a vacuum with nothing concrete to get excited about beyond that.

There's lots of positives about Legion in theory, so don't feel like we can only poo poo on it all day in here, feeling like our beloved IA is under some kind of civil war engagement with a competing SKU. Until they really tip their hand with where they're going with it, all we can do is endlessly speculate on the Internet, the way Cthulhu intended...

12 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

These reviews are great, funny and hilariously illuminating. That being said, they are also (and RLM admitted to that) extremely hyperbolic, which makes those RLM-fans who like to recite these reviews like a holy text appear a bit pathetic.

But back to the discussion: I don't get what all the fuss is about. If someone wants to play a massive miniatures tabletop wargame set in the Star Wars universe, a game which propably doesn't strictly adhere to the heights of storytelling - so what? I prefer a character-focused game like IA when it comes to Star Wars miniatures games, but I'd feel uncomfortably too self-important if I'd go around telling everyone how wrong Legion is and why they shouldn't play or like it.

I guess it's a good thing I wasn't reciting them as Holy Canon then? Their salient points juxtaposed with hyperbole and a subplot about a serial killer old man are what make it entertaining, but make no mistake, their talking points are backed up with examples and not just thrown out there for the sake of throwing them out there to hate on a movie.

If I was going to actually narrow Legion down to one large caveat for the uninitiated it would be this; look how that upgrade system turned X-Wing into a jumbled mess, and how that same upgrade system can be used to incentivize you to shop out of your chosen faction to stay tournament compliant, assuming your goal with the game is to show up to Organized Play events.

Now, if you're strictly in it for casual play with friends, and don't have a problem going to a tournament and being potentially curb-stomped by the players that role with the top tier meta lists, then the world is your oyster and you'll have fun painting your models that aren't Stormtroopers, develop a quiet loathing for painting white armour, and have a blast chucking some dice and letting the chaos unfold.

There's a whole world of games out there that can be enjoyed quite easily when you're not super concerned about algorithmically building decks and lists around a super efficient strategy to victory that the design team left in the game. The difference happens when people start playing in a competitive setting and want to play to win. For some people, playing is fun and rewarding in itself, but I will promise you all that once OP hits for Legion and the meta shapes up, people will be on those boards complaining about "that guy" that shows up to the regular game night to curb stomp everyone, even though for "that guy", he is simply getting the practice in with his well tuned net list that is needed to win the Store Championship coming up in a few weeks.

You need that thick skin and understanding that unfortunately, the two player bases; competitive and casual; will need to coexist and sometimes as a casual you might just get curb stomped, but if the culture of your meet up is a serious "casual lists only" environment, that you're also excluding another player from having people to play with, so there's that ethical consideration too. Of course, if the tier-***** is actually being a total jerk, then please, ostracize away. Competitive player or casual player, nobody wants to play with a jerk. It's like someone getting AP over a friendly game of Catan that turns into a 3 hour session of watching someone "think".

16 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

These reviews are great, funny and hilariously illuminating. That being said, they are also (and RLM admitted to that) extremely hyperbolic, which makes those RLM-fans who like to recite these reviews like a holy text appear a bit pathetic.

The review of Phantom Menace wasn't that hyperbolic. It was a bit fascicle in the use of the caricature of Plinkett, but its points were darn near scholarly. TPM is a very, very bad movie and deserved the derision it got. It was forgiven simply because it was Star Wars film and too many people were so eager for it that they couldn't allow it to be recognized as the B-Movie it was. Had Star Wars not been a cultural phenomenon TPM would have been quickly forgotten.

3 hours ago, cleardave said:

There's a whole world of games out there that can be enjoyed quite easily when you're not super concerned about algorithmically building decks and lists around a super efficient strategy to victory that the design team left in the game. The difference happens when people start playing in a competitive setting and want to play to win. For some people, playing is fun and rewarding in itself, but I will promise you all that once OP hits for Legion and the meta shapes up, people will be on those boards complaining about "that guy" that shows up to the regular game night to curb stomp everyone, even though for "that guy", he is simply getting the practice in with his well tuned net list that is needed to win the Store Championship coming up in a few weeks.

This is why I hate skirmish in IA. I left behind the Star Wars Miniatures scene for just that reason, and I started seeing the same thing in IA skirmish. Why does every game have to have a pvp component. It breeds the kind of people who don't care about what's on the board, just the stats associated with the piece of plastic that represents them.

10 hours ago, cleardave said:

I guess it's a good thing I wasn't reciting them as Holy Canon then?

I wasn't talking about you. Also, my comment about RLM (which I myself enjoy a lot) was meant a bit tongue-in-cheek - hence the grin at the end. Unfortunately, many nuances get lost in writing.

10 hours ago, cleardave said:

...but make no mistake, their talking points are backed up with examples and not just thrown out there for the sake of throwing them out there to hate on a movie.

No need to break through open doors here. But I get the impression that maybe I WAS talking about you without knowing.

Sheesh, even if one does not disagree with the RLM-reviews, but just points out that they are not as hateful as they are made to appear, RLM-apolegtics immediately come crawling out of everywhere. Why that need to reflexively jump to their defense, even at something that wasn't even a critique or disagreement with their points? This is quite puzzling.

10 hours ago, cleardave said:

You need that thick skin and understanding that unfortunately, the two player bases; competitive and casual; will need to coexist and sometimes as a casual you might just get curb stomped, but if the culture of your meet up is a serious "casual lists only" environment, that you're also excluding another player from having people to play with, so there's that ethical consideration too.

Speaking of a thick skin, hehe...

This sounds a bit bizarre to me, because I am not obliged in any way to play against someone who's playing style is completely at odds with mine, or did I misunderstand you? There's nothing unethical about me declining to play against a strongly competitive player who doesn't care about the game, but only about winning - quite the contrary, because in my eyes I save both of us from a terrible gaming experience. If you don't have fun as a casual player against competitive players and vice versa, find yourself some like-minded players, or at least try to find a middle ground. That's the great thing about games which need the players to be present at the same location in order to play, as opposed to online games: There's a social interaction and the social contract still applies.

5 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

This sounds a bit bizarre to me, because I am not obliged in any way to play against someone who's playing style is completely at odds with mine, or did I misunderstand you? There's nothing unethical about me declining to play against a strongly competitive player who doesn't care about the game, but only about winning - quite the contrary, because in my eyes I save both of us from a terrible gaming experience. If you don't have fun as a casual player against competitive players and vice versa, find yourself some like-minded players, or at least try to find a middle ground. That's the great thing about games which need the players to be present at the same location in order to play, as opposed to online games: There's a social interaction and the social contract still applies.

Let's close that door on the RLM tangent, because its sounds like we're misunderstanding each others tone even though we're probably on the same page.

What I'm getting at with casuals and competitive players coexisting at game nights is that you might need to put a little more care into those interactions to make sure nobody is coming off as a pompous jerk by looking down at the other for their chosen play style.

A casual and a competitive player both want to play the game, just through a different lens. As I said, this all assumes that both players are just people out to play a respectful game and nobody's being a jerk. Competitive Person isn't breaking balls over "subpar" list building, that kind of thing.

If you're lucky enough for your chosen game to have a large enough group show up to a regular game night at a store, it should be as simple as everyone just stating their intentions up front and pairing accordingly. Or if you're going to play a few games, maybe throw Competitive Person a bone and humour them if they're otherwise a respectful player. A courteous player can still show you a good time, even if they're steamrolling you.

With Imperial Assault in particular, I don't think it's as easy as going to "Casuals Night" or vice versa, at least not in Toronto. You're going to be interacting with the same small but dedicated group of people and it is what it is. We've sorted that out ourselves here, so everyone seems to get a long (as far as I can tell), with one notable exception;

Prior to the scoring change after Worlds last November, we had a player in our midst that would drag out the match so long that by the time an hour has rolled by, you might just by starting round 3 if you're lucky. I'm not sure if his AP was real or a put on, but at the end of the day, at a tournament, you have to keep it going, and you don't want to turn this NPE into a bigger thing by having a TO sit on them with a shot clock, forcing them to complete an activation in a minute or less. It was pretty bad when you couple that with the points denial shenanigans that were rampant in Trooper and Wookiee lists back then and you can imagine how annoying that would be to play against.

But you're absolutely right about the social contract. I think that keeping that in the front of your mind always when you're meeting up with people to play these games is how your community grows. There's no reason why Casuals and Competitive players can't mingle better, it just requires both parties to be adults and make sure that they try and have fun.

I'll close it off with this as well;

If you are a casual player, looking for games, I'd still recommend trying to come out to any major events for IA you can, even if realistically it doesn't seem like you'll win with your thematic list that might not compete at a high level. You're still going to get out to play a bunch of games, and with this game in particular, I've found the framework of it really gets in the way of a lot of shady/cheaty behaviours I've seen in other games like X-Wing. Movement is on a grid, there's no debate to be had over line of sight. At best you could try and rig your command deck or do some sleight of hand with the dice, but a savvy player would notice the deck not adding up and the dice really need to stay on the table while we spend surges, make decisions with Zillo Technique, etc, so you can always request immediately that the player take it easy with getting handsy with the dice.

Worlds 2016 was a bit of a mixed bag for me, because we still had the old scoring/points denial game going on and a lot of the day felt like work.

Worlds 2017 was a blast by comparison; I took some Rancor jank into Day 2 which meant a couple of more good games for me, and everyone I played along the way was entertaining, even though a few them were also there with their competitive lists that took them to Day 2 and the top cut.

Winning Worlds is more about skillful execution of the game at a high level. Anybody can be a good player by way of respecting their opponent.

14 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

This is why I hate skirmish in IA. I left behind the Star Wars Miniatures scene for just that reason, and I started seeing the same thing in IA skirmish. Why does every game have to have a pvp component. It breeds the kind of people who don't care about what's on the board, just the stats associated with the piece of plastic that represents them.

You're right. It's a strange subculture that I'm trying to get myself out of (perhaps there is an addiction factor?). It really reduces the game to something that is not even "Star Wars". Like these games could be played with Star Trek and it wouldn't make a difference. The people who show up want a competitive game. So, they decide to ruin the one you love. Sad really. Not surprisingly, I have more fun playing IA skirmish with my friends and with no time limit.

Musings on Legion ... probably long.

So I've been following the news with interest, watched the GenCon videos, got to see the demos and models and dioramas at NOVA Open. I'm very conflicted. Legion seems to occupy a very odd place for me. (As a point of reference, X-wing is my #1 game, IA skirmish is #2, and Armada is my third minis game.)

On the one hand, it looks pretty, seems to have pretty fast-but-still-interesting mechanics, goes slightly larger scale for battles but isn't as overwhelming with models on the table as something like 40k (yet, anyway -- appears what we've seen is only about half-scale to eventual battle size). It's an option to get in on the ground floor of a game, grow with it, with (potentially; we'll see) less cost than something like 40k (but probably more than the current SW minis games, unless I can stick to buying only one faction ... which let's face it, I probably wouldn't). I expect there will be a gaming community for it, because it will convert some 40k and Bolt Action players ('cause Star Wars).

On the other hand, it's unassembled and unpainted, requires terrain, and while I do paint stuff, I'm really about the game first and the hobby second, and prefer something playable out of the box. What I see for terrain is absolutely intimidating, to the point where that alone could scare me away (heck, I'm glad FFG makes mats for IA skirmish, 'cause I hate putting a puzzle together every round). It's got a lot of conceptual overlap with IA -- yes larger, but still essentially a skirmish. At the "unit" level, visuals aside, the additional models in a squad function essentially as hit point counters for the leader. With IA skirmish already a fairly small community, I see a number of folks potentially jumping to Legion ... does that leave IA skirmish large enough in my area to be viable? I get in to game, so if there isn't a community, I'll move on.

Then there's the whole scale thing.

I've been wanting a air-ground game since I started in X-wing about 3 years ago. I want Battle of Hoth, Battle of Scarif -- something that answers the X-wing : Armada :: Imperial Assault : __??___ question. Legion ... doesn't, or at least doesn't appear to. OK, AT-STs and snowspeeders (yay, snowspeeders!!!). AT-ATs though will be wildly impractical and expensive at that scale; I don't see them ... at least not playably. And we've already got AT-STs in IA ... if only the Legion minis were on the same scale, so I could re-use my already-painted AT-STs and stormtroopers, I'd hop over in an instant as the two games would be mutually reinforcing.

'Cause on the one hand I have a commando-strike squad-level skirmish game in IA. Go all heroes, or heroes and some mooks, or all mooks. That's thematically appropriate for Star Wars, and theme matters for me. Or a big ground battle with AT-ATs, air strikes, air units tangling with each other and then with things on the ground ... that's separate and distinct from the squad-level commando missions. (Aside: some commando missions might even be better served by RPGs, but I'm sticking to minis here.)

Legion is ... awkwardly in between. It's not big enough to get to the big battle, and it overlaps the IA space quite a bit (I mean, if you think of the extra troopers in a "unit" as hit point markers ... the number of units at the 800 point battle size will be about the same as the number of IA units).

Theme matters, what's the match so far?

Prequel trilogy (though nothing fills this gap for actual minis yet): NabooPalace battle (Commando/squad skirmish); Battle of Naboo (large scale ground action); Battle of Naboo blockade (fleet action); Geonisis rings (starfighter skirmish); Geonosis recon (commando); Geonosis arena (medium scale ground action); Battle of Geonisis (large scale ground action); Battle of Coruscant (fleet action); Outer Rim sieges (large scale ground actions); Order 66 / Jedi Palace /Obi-wan Escape (commando squad skirmish).

Clone Wars I'll skip -- lots of options there.

Rogue One: Jedha (commando skirmish), Eadu (commando skirmish with air support), Scarif ground (large scale air/ground action), Scarif orbit (fleet action).

Original Trilogy: Battle over Tatooine (fleet skirmish); escape from Tatooine (commando skirmish); Death Star escape (commando mission, then starfighter skirmish); Battle of Yavin (starfighter skirmish); Battle of Hoth (large scale ground action); Hoth asteroid field (small fleet skirmish); Bespin (commando skirmish); Jabba's Palace or Sarlaac Pit (commando skirmish), Battle of Endor Shield Generator (large commando skirmish); Battle of Endor (Fleet action).

Sequel Trilogy (so far): Jakku (commando/starfighter skirmish); Battle of Takodana (medium air/ground action); Starkiller infiltration (commando skirmish); Battle of Starkiller Base (large scale air/ground action), Battle of Crait (large scale air/ground action), unknown space battle (fleet action).

So thematically Legion seems to best match Endor's ground action, the Geonosis arena, and maybe Takodana ... while leaving big gaps elsewhere.

I just don't know.

// break //

Oh, yeah -- Star Wars: Risk. Fun game, bad name. It's not Risk. It needs a few tweaks to better balance the game play (see BGG) but it's worth the cost of entry for some casual games.

1 hour ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

You're right. It's a strange subculture that I'm trying to get myself out of (perhaps there is an addiction factor?). It really reduces the game to something that is not even "Star Wars". Like these games could be played with Star Trek and it wouldn't make a difference. The people who show up want a competitive game. So, they decide to ruin the one you love. Sad really. Not surprisingly, I have more fun playing IA skirmish with my friends and with no time limit.

I used to joke I was going to write a game with Sorry pieces and using the most generic terms possible to make the perfect skirmish game for those type of people.

On 9/2/2017 at 10:05 AM, Rikalonius said:

I used to joke I was going to write a game with Sorry pieces and using the most generic terms possible to make the perfect skirmish game for those type of people.

When guys in X-wing would castle in the corner, I'd say "do you want to just have a roll off and I can go get some lunch?". Most of them would stop castling. LOL. but yeah, at this type of "competitive" level, you might as well just be rolling dice.

On 2. 9. 2017 at 2:43 PM, NeverBetTheFett said:

You're right. It's a strange subculture that I'm trying to get myself out of (perhaps there is an addiction factor?). It really reduces the game to something that is not even "Star Wars". Like these games could be played with Star Trek and it wouldn't make a difference. The people who show up want a competitive game. So, they decide to ruin the one you love. Sad really. Not surprisingly, I have more fun playing IA skirmish with my friends and with no time limit.

What if the people who want a competitive game were the original target audience and people who want to have a thematic game experience ruined it for them?