It'a taking some of the great rules from DUST.
very solid rules and miniatures game that suffered from a bad partnership.

8 hours ago, VanorDM said:

Which is little different than many other game out there. Sure in other games you're supposed to measure the distance for every model but no one really does that, and in those games the other models are little more than HP and firepower markers. Just like Legion.

If you're going to apply that line of logic to Legion you need to apply it to every other game out there that effectively functions the same way.

40k, Warmahords, Bolt Action, ect... All function in much the same way, individual models don't actually count for much of anything, other than adding dice and acting as a HP counter.

So if you consider those games to als have 10 or less models, than that's true of Legion, but that's also not how anyone I've ever encountered either IRL or online thinks about it.

Edit: Also you said it was on scale with Company of Iron, and yet that game is designed for 10-15 miniatures. Which is not true of Legion, also the OP never said "Fluff aside, rules only" he said

Anyone who believes that there's no difference between having 30-40 models per side is no different then having 10-15... Well I don't think I need to say anything more.

10

I don't know 40k, but in Warmahordes it does not function in the same way. Not even a bit. If You have 12 models of enemy unit spread around 15 inches of the table, every single one of them is a threat You have to consider. Every single one of them has different threat vector. And if the unit is good enough, 3 of them can kill Your Caster and end the game. Also, in the turn that matters, You do measure from every single one and also often precisely track their movement in case some free strikes.

In Legion, the threat comes from the unit leader only. So You have 1 threat vector to consider, instead of 12. Yes, their position matters in case of targeting, but You can place them anywhere, so You'll always place them in cover if there is any and always far from the enemy, because why not.

Soo OP said "Theme aside" and I said, "Fluff aside". I'm not a native speaker but is it that much different to make a fuss about it?

Theme = Fluff, so properly interpreted.

A bit that concerns me about Legion is that, at least from the demo, it appears that members of the squad are essentially just elaborate hit point markers, since everything is based on the leader's position. Delete the other minis and just put a die down marking hit points and it doesn't appear that the game changes measurably.

Ultimately maybe that isn't entirely true (like adding a figure with a special weapon to a squad), but I hope there's some balance. I want other figures to mean something besides being just counters, without the complexity of having to fight each one individually.

Fluff = story, theme, background

Crunch = rules, gameplay

Just going from the little I saw in the demo these are two ways that the members of your squad hold importance:

You'll want to make sure that the majority of the squad is behind cover for anything attacking that squad and you'll want to make sure your squad leader is the closest miniature to any opposing targets so you can shoot anyone who has a shot on you.

I'm guessing there will be other effects when you deal with melee attacks, and some of the special abilities

6 hours ago, Hawkstrike said:

A bit that concerns me about Legion is that, at least from the demo, it appears that members of the squad are essentially just elaborate hit point markers, since everything is based on the leader's position.

15 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

Hm, you always measure from the unit leader, but when you determine line of sight, you need to see any model of that group. So the other models do matter. Also when you want to be in cover, more than 50% of that group have to be in base contact with the cover. If not enough models fit there, you are not in cover. Additionally the models with heavy weapons (DLT, AntiTank) do matter. So I think it's a little more than one unit with hitpoint markers.

...

15 hours ago, Hawkstrike said:

Delete the other minis and just put a die down marking hit points and it doesn't appear that the game changes measurably.

That's no different then most other games, like say 40k or Bolt Action. But they are more than just HP markers, since the amount of damage is also a factor of how many members of the squad are there. Also the cover rules takes account of where each and every model is.

Edit: But to be honest the idea that you actually need any models on the table is somewhat untrue. Even with true LoS you could use just a base and a silhouette like they do in Infinity, and accomplish the same thing. Same for terrain, just use cardboard cutouts, no need for 3d objects.

I mean people have been playing games like this with cardboard chits for years. One of the major attraction for most people to tabletop mini games is visual. So having a bunch of guys on the table with 3d terrain is a draw for the game. So while you could get by with cardboard tokens and cardboard terrain, it just doesn't have the same impact.

Their positioning will also matter with regards to melee combat, since if an enemy unit gets into base-to-base contact with any member of a unit, then they all are forced to come into base-to-base contact with that enemy unit as well. So how close to enemy units like Luke you place your "extra hit point markers" does make a difference also besides just for determining cover.

37 minutes ago, Palomarus said:

Their positioning will also matter with regards to melee combat, since if an enemy unit gets into base-to-base contact with any member of a unit, then they all are forced to come into base-to-base contact with that enemy unit as well. So how close to enemy units like Luke you place your "extra hit point markers" does make a difference also besides just for determining cover.

There is no advantage to put them in front of the leader, so You'll ALWAYS put them behind. Problem solved.

You can invent 100 situations that maybe will happen sometimes. But usually, they will not.

This is the design choice. In this game, a unit is one body and operates as one body with a leader as the reference point. This lets the game flow faster and lets us players focus on maneuvers and dice economy instead of single miniatures and threat ranges. There might be a minimal influence of squad members positioning. I would call it room for mistake in positioning. But the majority of the game will be elsewhere.

6 minutes ago, Bohun242 said:

There is no advantage to put them in front of the leader, so You'll ALWAYS put them behind. Problem solved.

That's not correct. Combat range is measured from the leader to the closest mini of another unit. So if the distance from my squad leader to your closest unit is 3, but the distance from your squad leader to my closest unit (the squad leader himself) is 4, then I get to shoot you and you can't shoot me.

2 minutes ago, joeshmoe554 said:

That's not correct. Combat range is measured from the leader to the closest mini of another unit. So if the distance from my squad leader to your closest unit is 3, but the distance from your squad leader to my closest unit (the squad leader himself) is 4, then I get to shoot you and you can't shoot me.

This is precisely what I said: " There is no advantage to put them in front of the leader, so You'll ALWAYS put them behind. Problem solved."

Puting any trooper in front of the leader is just basic mistake like turning Your back to the enemy in a game when facing matters. You just do not do it. Ever.

And like I said, if your troops are in front of your leader then there is a chance someone can shoot you while you can't shoot back. If we line up all the soldiers in two squad like below so the left side has his leader in front and the right side has his leader behind his soldiers.

S S S L - - S S S L

The squad on the left has 2 text-characters between the Leader and the closest soldier allowing him to attack. The unit on the right has 5 text-characters between the leader and the closest soldier putting him out of range and preventing that squad from attacking. In this case, there is a disadvantage to having the leader behind his soldiers since it puts you in range to be shot and out of range to shoot back.

54 minutes ago, joeshmoe554 said:

And like I said, if your troops are in front of your leader then there is a chance someone can shoot you while you can't shoot back. If we line up all the soldiers in two squad like below so the left side has his leader in front and the right side has his leader behind his soldiers.

S S S L - - S S S L

The squad on the left has 2 text-characters between the Leader and the closest soldier allowing him to attack. The unit on the right has 5 text-characters between the leader and the closest soldier putting him out of range and preventing that squad from attacking. In this case, there is a disadvantage to having the leader behind his soldiers since it puts you in range to be shot and out of range to shoot back.

OK. Let me rephrase this. Why would You ever position Your troops like Your right squad and give Your opponent clear advantage??

*facepalm*

My bad, I was reading that backwards. You're right. As of now, I don't know of any reason you'd place your soldiers in front of the leader.

4 hours ago, Bohun242 said:

OK. Let me rephrase this. Why would You ever position Your troops like Your right squad and give Your opponent clear advantage??

You might get outmanouvered by your opponent, though. If you're expecting an attack from one direction, and you end up with an attack from an unexpected quarter, that's going to (appropriately enough) put you at a disadvantage. This is definitely more likely if your opponent has more units than you, and can flank your force as a result, to get enfilading fire. The more I think about the leader-centric way targeting and range is calculated, the more I think there'll be some genuine tactical depth to positioning your extra troops. Definitely more than just 'wound markers'!

1 hour ago, General Zodd said:

You might get outmanouvered by your opponent, though. If you're expecting an attack from one direction, and you end up with an attack from an unexpected quarter, that's going to (appropriately enough) put you at a disadvantage. This is definitely more likely if your opponent has more units than you, and can flank your force as a result, to get enfilading fire. The more I think about the leader-centric way targeting and range is calculated, the more I think there'll be some genuine tactical depth to positioning your extra troops. Definitely more than just 'wound markers'!

If You will get outmaneuvered, You got outmaneuvered and this is Your fail or his success. Your squad will be wiped because it was outmaneuvered, not because of bad positioning of troopers.

This is what I mentioned a few post before. A maneuver is a key and blob/leader-centric gameplay supports that kind of gameplay ;). Of course, they are not tokens. But if placed right, they will not play the game and to place them right will be easy most of the times. Of course, mistakes can be made, like in every game.

Point is, troopers cannot do anything good to You. They can only be exploited by the enemy. So You will do Your best to keep them out of play. And in a vast majority of cases, it will be easy.

14 hours ago, joeshmoe554 said:

I don't know of any reason you'd place your soldiers in front of the leader.

When you move your leader, but can't get in base contact with any cover, but with the additional move 1 range for the other units you can get them into base contact with the cover, resulting in cover for the whole squad.

3 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

When you move your leader, but can't get in base contact with any cover, but with the additional move 1 range for the other units you can get them into base contact with the cover, resulting in cover for the whole squad.

This, A thousand times this. It's not even going to be an unlikely scenario, it will happen in probably every game. and will probably get a mention in Legion Tactics 101

I think it will be a good balance between streamlined and your figures will actually mean something.

And if people are obsessing about lining up troopers up in front of enemy ranks I can't wait till they fall into all of my traps.

Legion will be a lot like 40k or Bolt Action. The troops will matter but not nearly as much they do in a game like Infinity where every model is it's own unit.

They will matter for things like cover and melee combat. They will also matter for simple enjoyment of the game.

Because I feel fairly comfortable in saying that 9 out of 10 people who sit down for a game, and then have the other guy pull out 6-10 models and wanting to dice as a counter rather than actual models... That they will simply stand up and go find someone else to play against.

But again getting back to the OP's actual question... Legion will be 40k/BA with a Star Wars theme, and various tweaks on the rules. I don't say that to make it sound like there's no real difference, because the activation in Legion alone will make it massively better than 40k, and will IMO make it slightly better than BA which is pretty random for activation. So it's not just 40k Star Wars or anything.

If my leader is out in the open with LOS to an enemy.....and the rest of the troops are hiding behind a building with no LOS to an enemy... do they all get to still shoot??

5 minutes ago, chriscook said:

If my leader is out in the open with LOS to an enemy.....and the rest of the troops are hiding behind a building with no LOS to an enemy... do they all get to still shoot??

I don't know and I don't think that ever came up in any of the demos... At least none that I saw. My guess is it would follow the same 50% rule that cover does, but that's just a guess.

I would think they must have LOS but range is from leader.

LOS is from the leader to any enemy unit. So if you have an enemy leader in sight, with the rest of his squad hiding behind a building, you can shoot them. At least according to the demo games. Whether there will be extra rules for that, we can't know for now.

I like my games simple to play and hard to master. Legion looks like it will fit that desire perfectly.

It means my opponent and I can spend our efforts on crushing each other through clever tactics and cunning strategies rather than knowing or not knowing some vague rule on page 234, column B, paragraph 13 that says when I do this you can do that and I win! Hah!

5 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

LOS is from the leader to any enemy unit. So if you have an enemy leader in sight, with the rest of his squad hiding behind a building, you can shoot them. At least according to the demo games. Whether there will be extra rules for that, we can't know for now.

You know, that's seems kind of cheesy.

So I put my squad behind cover, and my squad leader out in front of them in front of the cover so he can have the best line of sight and longest range. So the enemy can shoot at him, but he still gets the effect of cover, and when he takes a damage I remove one of the other figures that's behind the cover.

Is this maybe better than immersion-breaking rules in other game systems?