Hi everyone! I am super hyped for Star Wars Legion. I think that I am almost exactly the market they are looking to sell to. I am not invested in SWIA, XWing, or Armada already. I have always loved the painting, and terrain side of miniature games but have always been scared off by the tape measures, lookup tables and memorizing stats for units. Anyways, I have watched the demo videos and have been wondering if you folks think that vertical movement will be a significant part of this game? I have seen that the AT-RT has a climbing rule and IIRC Luke has some sort of jumping ability? I had been thinking about getting into deadzone due to the cube based movement and the importance of vertical movement. With the possibility of Boba Fett, Jumptroopers, Mandalorian Super Commandoes, and other aerial units as well as things like grappling guns in the future, you would think that some sort of vertical movement and combat would be built into the game. I really hope that terrain provides something more than just "chest high walls" in the game. Maybe some sort of range advantage or the ability to negate cover for elevated units? What do you all think?
Verticality
You won't get sacked by vader!! How about speeders flying through cover lower than 6 inches. do you think they will not get a cover bonus cause really they are flying over it?
Do we know how the speeder bikes interact with terrain? Can they collide with a coast redwood like in rotj?
Theres no concrete word yet. We know Luke can jump, At-rt's can climb and speeders can ignore some terrain. This keeps me hopeful that we'll see some solid vertical rules regarding climbing and falling and speeding/jumping over stuff. I even think measuring range will still work in a 3 dimensional space. We've mainly seen units attack from the same plane. But the range stick will still work if a unit is atop terrain. The board im building has so many vertical height changes, I really hope the game has some solid rules to deal with it.
Yeah I have seen references to things like "terrain of height 1". I am assuming that this is the same length as move 1? Do we know how many inches 1 movement length is? I want to start building terrain but I also want to wait a bit to find out what the rules are! It could affect how tall I make my terrain pieces.
3 hours ago, devin.pike.1989 said:Yeah I have seen references to things like "terrain of height 1". I am assuming that this is the same length as move 1? Do we know how many inches 1 movement length is? I want to start building terrain but I also want to wait a bit to find out what the rules are! It could affect how tall I make my terrain pieces.
Right now is very confusing due to the fact that in Luke's card states he has "Jump 1" and in a demo that was considered a range 1 ruler (instead of the movement 1) which is considerably high. Makes sense for Luke but if that is the smallest jump I think we lack some other kind of rule for trooper-like units without jedi-like agility. I'm guessing that up to a certain high that will be considered not tresspasable for standard units the rest of climbing/jumping will be integrated somehow into standard movement for the sake of simplicity making this way stand out units with jump 1.
But all we can do now is guess.
I'm actually thinking on doing a table based on Taris: a destroyed city planet overgrown by jungle. I am very much considering adding a second level on at least part of the table. (basically the top of the ruined buildings, connected to one another through catwalks etc.). I think Legion will be small scale enough to make this work without being awkward (no hundreds of miniatures on each side).
In Dust Warefare if a plane was flying at low altittude it would be destroyed if it hit a building while moving. Pretty clearcut. So a speeder or speed bike could follow the same rules.
I like the idea of vertical elements/varying elevations and I would hope that it's a factor that's addressed in the rules.
We have a number of "in universe" examples of terrain height being a factor: the cat-walks in ROTJ, the Wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk (RotS), Tatooine (Ep.1 where the Tuskens shoot at the pod racers), etc. and it's all over the place in SW Rebels & the Clone Wars as well.
If FFG doesn't do it, I'm sure there are those among us bright enough that could put some rules together that can be adopted by anyone interested in battling from tree to tree, canyon walls, or high rises and landing platforms.
For now unfortunately, we have to wait.
My best (unfounded) guess is that the rules would go something like this:
-Anyone can climb/jump over terrain that’s less than Range 1 (so <6”), probably just by spending an action.
-There’ll be some kind of rules for difficult terrain—I'd imagine it’ll just reduce your speed by 1—and speeders can ignore it.
-If they do include elevation rules, I would guess you’re not considered in cover against units 1 Range higher than you.
2 hours ago, Force Majeure said:We have a number of "in universe" examples of terrain height being a factor: the cat-walks in ROTJ, the Wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk (RotS), Tatooine (Ep.1 where the Tuskens shoot at the pod racers), etc. and it's all over the place in SW Rebels & the Clone Wars as well.
What we know:
- Jump and speeder allow units to ignore terrain of a height equal to the rating when moving.
- Expert climber allows a unit to not roll defense dice or suffer wounds when "clambering."
- Climber allows a unit to move vertically like a trooper.
- There is a rule that reduces movement speed when moving through certain terrain types.
So, vertical movement is certainly a thing (not surprising, most games have this to allow movement up and down multilevel structures and ruins) but the real question is how much that will matter in actual play. Expert climber suggests at least some vertical movement will be dangerous and possibly inflict wounds. So moving up and down in this case might be a risk. Getting to a good fighting position might not be worth it if only half the Squad makes it. On the other hand an objective in difficult terrain is a nice clench option.
In my experience with things like 40k though, vertical movement isn't a massive game changing thing. Some battlefields are 3D...just not many tables make a lot of use of that...
Really I'm just hoping someone makes a coruscant board with giant skyscrapers
1 hour ago, joeshmoe554 said:
That is just such bad ending to an epic encounter....cant believe anyone thought this was a good idea.....after they have just jumped all over and round each other for ten minutes.
3 hours ago, devin.pike.1989 said:Really I'm just hoping someone makes a coruscant board with giant skyscrapers
That could be awesome but also very difficult to pull off considering the size of the Coruscant buildings. So either you need to scale down the buildings a lot which may look odd, or make the table something like a central plaza with kiosks etc.
17 hours ago, VAYASAN said:That is just such bad ending to an epic encounter....cant believe anyone thought this was a good idea.....after they have just jumped all over and round each other for ten minutes.
Sometimes there's more to the fight than just the physical high ground.
So another hint has been dropped:
Having played many other minis games over the years (WHFantasy, 40k, Chainmail, Warmahcine, Hordes, Malifaux, etc...) I can say that the use of "terrain-based abilities" are primarily up to the players. Playing a faction that has inherent bonuses in forests means nothing if you don't bring some forest terrain to the table. Height bonuses are wasted if you don't have much vertical terrain. I have experienced firsthand the frustration of having "wasted" points on a unit whose ability never gets used due to terrain limitations. Moral of the story is this: if you want to make verticality a more integral part of your gaming experience, be sure to make some terrain that allows you to utilize it. Don't rely on your friends/flgs/tournament coordinators to supply everything you need. On the flip side, don't try to "game" your opponents by presenting only terrain that negates their abilities.
I know that many of you have already stated your intentions to make terrain, and that is awesome. That's the way to go with this kind of game. You can highlight any aspect you want to and change-up the play style with every game you play. This also makes the initial scenario draft more interesting, as a commander with no climbing ability can try to draft the high ground positions first!
tldr; It's no fun being a wood-elf in a desert... bring your own forests next time
On 10/24/2017 at 2:52 PM, VAYASAN said:That is just such bad ending to an epic encounter....cant believe anyone thought this was a good idea.....after they have just jumped all over and round each other for ten minutes.
especially since this was the same way that Obi-wan defeated Darth Maul. Maul logically would have had plenty of time to see Obi jumping off the wall and could have either pushed him back down the hole or lashed out with his lightsaber and sliced him apart. Obi didn't even have a lightsaber to block Maul unlike Anakin who should have been able to deflect Obi's slice with the blade instead of his legs.
2 hours ago, HaranHaste said:especially since this was the same way that Obi-wan defeated Darth Maul. Maul logically would have had plenty of time to see Obi jumping off the wall and could have either pushed him back down the hole or lashed out with his lightsaber and sliced him apart. Obi didn't even have a lightsaber to block Maul unlike Anakin who should have been able to deflect Obi's slice with the blade instead of his legs.
When they climbed that big crane like thing that was sinking into the lava...why didnt he say the same to Anakin then?
Actually really like ROTS bit that bit is horrific.
3 hours ago, HaranHaste said:especially since this was the same way that Obi-wan defeated Darth Maul. Maul logically would have had plenty of time to see Obi jumping off the wall and could have either pushed him back down the hole or lashed out with his lightsaber and sliced him apart. Obi didn't even have a lightsaber to block Maul unlike Anakin who should have been able to deflect Obi's slice with the blade instead of his legs.
Might I add that the fight with Maul was simply a matter of perspective since Obi Wan is known to be the master of the high ground.
I for one do think you'll be missing out on a lot without a lot of verticality on your table.
The rules we've seen don't just make some units good climbers, but they tell us that you can climb with any unit, with some risk of casualties.
We also have seen very long ranges on a lot of guns, so having intervening, climbable terrain will also break up gunlines.