Star War Legion was being demoed at the Renegade Open which was the weekend before Thanksgiving.

It was pretty awesome that FFG would have the game on hand for people to see, walk up and give it a try. They were using a basically 2 page version of the rules so pretty obvious that this is early stuff rather then the full experience.

I did notice a few things in the initial game play that seem worth mentioning.

1) Terrain - While the demo game setup was pretty simple, a couple of buildings and then a few barriers, there really didn't seem to be anything meaningful in the rules about terrain. Concepts like cover didn't seem to have much of an effect. Snow, trees, hard cover, being prone, what have you seems to be pretty much missing. While crazy crazy early, in the final game this is one aspect of the game I'm hoping they flesh out.

It'd sure be a shame for everyone working on beautiful tables with great terrain that is tactically meaningless.

2) Ambush : While the activation and actions in the demo game were pretty simple. Concepts like ambush doesn't seem to be part of the game.

Take a game like Flames of War which has no overwatch but does at least have ambush. In that game, a unit in ambush is held off table and placed on the table following a set of rules when the ambush is sprung. This at least models the idea unseen unit that suddenly pops out of cover and opens up.

3) Overwatch. Holding actions aside to be spent later (like either move or fire) in reaction to enemy actions was missing.

I find this troubling. Having played a slew of infantry games over the years, especially those with vehicles involved, not having that ability to model unit X is hunkering down / holding their fire to then react based on what the enemy does is an important game concept.

4) Close combat seems to be entirely missing. As if in skirmish play, if you're not swinging a light sabre you'd just hang back and go pew pew pew. Getting in close and dropping grenades or pulling a Sabine, or wookie rawrs pulling arms out of sockets .. I mean hey come on!

It's early. It's a demo. We'll see how things go.

Interesting. I think you played a very slimmed down version for the demo, and here's why.

- We know there are cover rules, and they've been touched upon. Some have played demo games with them in already. Likewise there are rules for things like climbing terrain and the like.

- Fair, I dont think there's any off table deploy ent rules on aware 1 units. I believe at least one scenario card uses them though.

- Yeah, I don't think there's overwatch. I'm fine with this, I find it causes a slow down of games quite often.

- Normal units have a melee attack on sir cards, so it definitely exists! There are also grenades that we have seen, but on an upgrade card.

I think you got run through a super simple, quick play learner version of the game by the sound of it. Thanks for the report though and hope you still had fun!

Also there's some just game design choices.

So like there are already options that allow you to keep units in reserve and "airdrop" those units later. It's an upgrade card for certain units.

And that card thing is the deal. The core rules are confirmed as covering a lot of things like terrain that the demos just gloss over but a lot if minor details and nitty gritty are going to be upgrade cards. So like Overwatch may an option for all, or it might be a special move of a specific unit, or it might be an upgrade for certain units, or any unit.

1) already covered, there's rules in place you just weren't using them. Demo is a demo.

2)

https://swlegioncommand.wordpress.com/missiondeployment/#jp-carousel-257

nuff said. It wont be there every match, but it will be there.

3) From observations in other ffg games "overwatch" or a similar reaction mechanics will arrive as a keywords on elite units/future upgrade cards. Keep in mind gaming the command system can produce a similar effect anyway.

4) Check the unit cards. Fun facts-

The speederbikes/snowspeeder are the only units revealed so far without cc values

stormtroopers are more dangerous in cc than shooting.

grenades exist, although they are situational ( they add blast or impact keywords)

4 hours ago, tgall said:

3) Overwatch. Holding actions aside to be spent later (like either move or fire) in reaction to enemy actions was missing.

I find this troubling. Having played a slew of infantry games over the years, especially those with vehicles involved, not having that ability to model unit X is hunkering down / holding their fire to then react based on what the enemy does is an important game concept.

Every mechanic has its place (example: Infinity would not be Infinity without overwatching), but I don't think overwatching has a place in Legion.

An overwatch mechanic has a couple effects - it discourages movement and rewards sitting still. It slows the game down, as fewer turns are spent advancing towards the enemy. It weakens the strength of activation order (which, remember, is a big part of Legion with the command card system), because you can move into range and ready an overwatch, rather than moving into range and your activation being over.

It's more common in smaller scale games, for good reason - those games tend to be predominantly about positioning. Larger scale games are typically more about synergy and overall strategy.

I'll point out, though, that you have ways to achieve similar effects via the dodge and aim actions. Move into cover and dodge, to dig in. Sit still and aim / fire, to leverage a defensive position.

4 hours ago, tgall said:

4) Close combat seems to be entirely missing. As if in skirmish play, if you're not swinging a light sabre you'd just hang back and go pew pew pew. Getting in close and dropping grenades or pulling a Sabine, or wookie rawrs pulling arms out of sockets .. I mean hey come on!

Not exactly sure what you mean, but every unit has access to a melee attack except for the air speeder / speeder bikes.

And for Stormtroopers / Luke / Vader, it's actually better than their ranged attack.

For the AT-RT/AT-ST, the throw out a decent melee attack, but more importantly the enemy loses the use of whatever ranged Impact weapons they may have (without Impact, every die color is functionally the same against Armor) and / or the ability to shoot in with other units that may have Impact.

5 hours ago, tgall said:

I find this troubling. Having played a slew of infantry games over the years, especially those with vehicles involved, not having that ability to model unit X is hunkering down / holding their fire to then react based on what the enemy does is an important game concept.

The system used in giving units orders has an implied form of overwatch, you try your best to move a certain units before or after your opponent. In an ordered activation system like Legion an overwatch system would not bring a positive effect to the game. Breaking that mechanic should either not happen, or be at the very high cost of an upgrade card or commander. Demolisher broke the back of many an Armada player, repeat that with caution, and only if you pay 80+ points for that upgrade or command effect.

3 hours ago, svelok said:

Every mechanic has its place (example: Infinity would not be Infinity without overwatching), but I don't think overwatching has a place in Legion.

An overwatch mechanic has a couple effects - it discourages movement and rewards sitting still. It slows the game down, as fewer turns are spent advancing towards the enemy. It weakens the strength of activation order (which, remember, is a big part of Legion with the command card system), because you can move into range and ready an overwatch, rather than moving into range and your activation being over.

It's more common in smaller scale games, for good reason - those games tend to be predominantly about positioning. Larger scale games are typically more about synergy and overall strategy.

I'll point out, though, that you have ways to achieve similar effects via the dodge and aim actions. Move into cover and dodge, to dig in. Sit still and aim / fire, to leverage a defensive position.

Not exactly sure what you mean, but every unit has access to a melee attack except for the air speeder / speeder bikes.

And for Stormtroopers / Luke / Vader, it's actually better than their ranged attack.

For the AT-RT/AT-ST, the throw out a decent melee attack, but more importantly the enemy loses the use of whatever ranged Impact weapons they may have (without Impact, every die color is functionally the same against Armor) and / or the ability to shoot in with other units that may have Impact.

Overwatch: Given the set number of turns in a Legions game yes I understand your concern, however the player that practices sitzkrieg also doesn't generally gain victory tokens.

Close Combat: Legion seems to treat close combat as a range band instead of say a phase in the game to be resolved. Simply, you just move into melee or out of melee. We'll see how it plays ultimately when the real rules show up. Alas my impression is only formed by the demo and it seemed an odd omission given Luke and his light saber.

Let me define close combat tho, that's the desperate fist to cuffs action that tends to be quite bloody. A number of games treat close combat as a phase, thus movement into close combat is dangerous, between suppressing fire one way and defensive fire the other way. Presuming you get there, then it's generally fought until a conclusion and one side has either been run off due to a morale loss or being wiped.

I'm getting the feeling none of that is going to be there and perhaps the only reason to be in melee range is your unit just happens to throw better dice. IE Luke.

Anyway demos are demos and like I said, just a little surprised that what I perceive as essential basics would be left out.

It should be noted that none of the demo's we have seen yet have used suppression tokens/morale rules. I'm assuming (like most games) units in cc cant be targeted by or take big penalty for ranged attacks, which could make a lot of difference....

Also getting into cc generally means leaving cover which is pretty big given the dice odds we have so far in legion (and lends itself to more cowering pewpew).....

Did your games use morale?

1 hour ago, tgall said:

Overwatch: Given the set number of turns in a Legions game yes I understand your concern, however the player that practices sitzkrieg also doesn't generally gain victory tokens.

So we should have the rule because it is a bad tactical choice to use the rule?

I think the command system is the guts of the game, selecting to play a card and give set units orders, or go random and when to do one over the other is going to be something that good players will do well. Overwatch seems to be a rule that performs contrary to that rather fundamental rules problem, it also avoids the situation where by luck or design you have to make a bad choice as to what to activate.

10 hours ago, tgall said:

Overwatch: Given the set number of turns in a Legions game yes I understand your concern, however the player that practices sitzkrieg also doesn't generally gain victory tokens.

Close Combat: Legion seems to treat close combat as a range band instead of say a phase in the game to be resolved. Simply, you just move into melee or out of melee. We'll see how it plays ultimately when the real rules show up. Alas my impression is only formed by the demo and it seemed an odd omission given Luke and his light saber.

Let me define close combat tho, that's the desperate fist to cuffs action that tends to be quite bloody. A number of games treat close combat as a phase, thus movement into close combat is dangerous, between suppressing fire one way and defensive fire the other way. Presuming you get there, then it's generally fought until a conclusion and one side has either been run off due to a morale loss or being wiped.

I'm getting the feeling none of that is going to be there and perhaps the only reason to be in melee range is your unit just happens to throw better dice. IE Luke.

Anyway demos are demos and like I said, just a little surprised that what I perceive as essential basics would be left out.

In the Gen Con demo they showed special rules for melee combat. Luke got into melee with a unit of Stormtroopers and while I don't remember exactly what happened off the top of my head, things were different. It was something like they couldn't move or the group couldn't be shot into or something.

10 hours ago, Ralgon said:

It should be noted that none of the demo's we have seen yet have used suppression tokens/morale rules. I'm assuming (like most games) units in cc cant be targeted by or take big penalty for ranged attacks, which could make a lot of difference....

Also getting into cc generally means leaving cover which is pretty big given the dice odds we have so far in legion (and lends itself to more cowering pewpew).....

Did your games use morale?

That does bring up another interesting aspect of the demo. You get to fight to the last rebel/jawa/wookie/ewok without any sort of worry about a unit breaking and running away. Vader just sliced through Frank, Harry and Roger but hey I'll keep shooting at him cause that's totally not going to happen to ..... ahhhhh.

2 minutes ago, tgall said:

That does bring up another interesting aspect of the demo. You get to fight to the last rebel/jawa/wookie/ewok without any sort of worry about a unit breaking and running away. Vader just sliced through Frank, Harry and Roger but hey I'll keep shooting at him cause that's totally not going to happen to ..... ahhhhh.

Yeah..... once again the rules are definitely in place, it seems they just weren't being used to simplify things. (luke and vader both have command cards that affect suppression tokens, and the break values are on the unit cards).

I wouldn't stress your concerns yet.... it seems like we're still getting the intro version with just enough basic rules to make the game work, after which they'll slap the full ruleset down and you figure out you've really had the training wheels on to learn. It's ffg's style.

The spoiled rule book doesn't give a lot of space to addressing terrain or customization. I am not see much "more" than what has already been spoiled in the demos. It is actually a bit disappointing.

One thing to keep in mind though, FFG loves to rewrite their rules. I am not sure how interesting the first go at the rule book truly is. There won't be a fleshed out set of rules until a year from now.

The Learn to Play may be in the box, while the main rules are download as to allow FAQ and Errata to be inserted into a living rule book.

I would also note that the Learn to Play typically has the box contents.

27 minutes ago, Mep said:

The spoiled rule book doesn't give a lot of space to addressing terrain or customization. I am not see much "more" than what has already been spoiled in the demos. It is actually a bit disappointing.

What do you mean by "customization"?

@svelok Customizing the game, terrain, buildings, blockades, etc.

You can see in the Spanish rulebook that advanced terrain rules will be available online. Translating the bottom left of page 16 reads, "Terrain can provide cover, block line of sight, and impede movement. The terrain rules that are described in this book mainly covers the plastic barricades included in the core set. To know more about the different types of terrain and scenery elements, consult the reference guide that is available online."

Plus there's a section about creating your own terrain near the end of the book, but most of the text there is too blurry for me to read.

Hopefully terrain will be kept to a minimum and keep the focus on the game play. Terrain is fun but I’ve seen tables that are just way to over done. A few pieces of terrain and very simple rules regarding terrain are going to be best to keep this game competitive. The rule book seems to be confirming that the focus is on game play, not how pretty your table looks! Very exciting news.

Well in casual games I imagine it's gonna all depend on whatever you and your opponent agree to play with. If both players agree, then there's really nothing stopping people from going crazy with tons of intricate terrain, except that the game might take longer. Just like there's nothing from stopping people from playing casual 1000 point games in Armada, except that it'll take forever.

The real question for competitive play is what tournament regulations they release. I've no doubt there will be something in there regarding additional terrain. You know, something like "In addition to the plastic barricades from the core set, each player can bring up to X pieces of terrain, within Y dimensions, which must be approved by a TO/judge."

20 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Hopefully terrain will be kept to a minimum and keep the focus on the game play. Terrain is fun but I’ve seen tables that are just way to over done. A few pieces of terrain and very simple rules regarding terrain are going to be best to keep this game competitive. The rule book seems to be confirming that the focus is on game play, not how pretty your table looks! Very exciting news.

Terrain makes you utilize tactics.

If you like mounting assaults across a barren field, that's probably more applicable to WWI than some futuristic landscape populated by say ewoks :-)

Bad terrain will always get in the way. Good terrain is made with the game in mind and enhances the game. Minimal terrain is just boring.