In a game like bolt action it makes sense to have unnamed generic officers. It was a real way that we have a vast amount of information about. Star wars on the other hand is all about the characters. Bolt action also tends more towards simulation while legion definitely shows its board game and lcg lineage. Look at wings of glory and x wing for example. Wog does not have point values and one plane flies more or less like any other plane. This makes sense for a world war one game because really all the planes used were being built to do a certain job and so they were technologically convergent. In x wing however you can fly zippy a wings or big hard hitting b wings or cheap swarms of tie fighters.

This is why I also do not like the idea of imperial "regular infantry". The imperials are not the Wehrmacht! The regular infantry of the republic was fully armored clone troopers and they were naturally replaced by fully armored Storm Troopers... Sorry unrelated rant...

But even in the canon there are standard non-stormtrooper army infantry and naval infantry. The Stormtrooper legions were their own separate branch of the military. Death Troopers weren't even part of the Storm Trooper branch and were part of Intel. The regulars were the standard garrison troops and naval armsmen when it was cheaper to send them than it was the more expensive and smaller numbered storm troopers.

I never liked warmahordes no matter how hard I tried to like it and loved some of the miniatures, not just because of its tailored emphasis on WAAC gaming but mainly for forced special characters. I don't want to play someone else's story, I want to play mine. Those named characters for the most part are played out and boring. Many of us want this to be a war game/war simulation for star wars. For anything less there is IA. Makes far more sense for us to have platoon leaders and company commanders than the Dark Lord of the Empire and the one Jedi the Rebels have show up in every flipping game.

I unfortunately think you're going to be disappointed. Other Commanders that have officially been mentioned are Han, Leia, and General Veers. Might there eventually be nameless Commanders? Definitely. But specifically in regards to Veers, they were referencing him as the option that has a "more modest impact on the battle" as opposed to a hero character like Darth Vader.

They have access to an incredibly popular library of characters - I suspect they will use them.

43 minutes ago, Col. Dash said:

But even in the canon there are standard non-stormtrooper army infantry and naval infantry. The Stormtrooper legions were their own separate branch of the military. Death Troopers weren't even part of the Storm Trooper branch and were part of Intel. The regulars were the standard garrison troops and naval armsmen when it was cheaper to send them than it was the more expensive and smaller numbered storm troopers.

I never liked warmahordes no matter how hard I tried to like it and loved some of the miniatures, not just because of its tailored emphasis on WAAC gaming but mainly for forced special characters. I don't want to play someone else's story, I want to play mine. Those named characters for the most part are played out and boring. Many of us want this to be a war game/war simulation for star wars. For anything less there is IA. Makes far more sense for us to have platoon leaders and company commanders than the Dark Lord of the Empire and the one Jedi the Rebels have show up in every flipping game.

No one is going to force you to buy the game.

I’m thinking of this game as a “What If” comic, not like these actual battles took place. In the movies there’s normally battles taking place between the armies, while the heroes are dueling away in some back corner. I can see that happening lot. Troops going for objectives and heroes braking off to battle the opponent’s hero.

they have several characters from Imperial assault that would fit in as a Generic Commander. They already command a similar size force in that game, and they would let you build your own story around them.

General Veers was in command of the entire Hoth Invasion, and this games scale is much smaller than that. It would be pretty easy to get some commanders for smaller units.

4 hours ago, gamer1886 said:

Would you mind sharing this or a link to it? I hadn't seen this article yet.

Unfortuneatley you have to pay for it. Tabletop gamer mag, december ed

1 hour ago, Col. Dash said:

But even in the canon there are standard non-stormtrooper army infantry and naval infantry. The Stormtrooper legions were their own separate branch of the military. Death Troopers weren't even part of the Storm Trooper branch and were part of Intel. The regulars were the standard garrison troops and naval armsmen when it was cheaper to send them than it was the more expensive and smaller numbered storm troopers.

I never liked warmahordes no matter how hard I tried to like it and loved some of the miniatures, not just because of its tailored emphasis on WAAC gaming but mainly for forced special characters. I don't want to play someone else's story, I want to play mine. Those named characters for the most part are played out and boring. Many of us want this to be a war game/war simulation for star wars. For anything less there is IA. Makes far more sense for us to have platoon leaders and company commanders than the Dark Lord of the Empire and the one Jedi the Rebels have show up in every flipping game.

I guess I just have to disagree. Every major ground battle in the clone wars was fought by fully armored clone troopers. The stormtroopers were formed to fill the role of the clone trooper as an armored infantryman. The clone trooper WAS the imperial army infantryman. After order 66 the empire did not just trash all the clones and build up a force of lesser soldiers. They gradually phased out clones as they grew too old and replaced them with stormtroopers. Thus stormtroopers are THE infantry force of the empire.

There are others you can see them im Return of the Jedi, one captures Han and when the rebels are escorted out there is a group of them by the bunker. They have black uniforms and helmets with no facemask. Those were probably the standard garrison for the shield projector. The stormtroopers were sent there by the Emperor as the trap.

I see those guys as being more of a military police/security force. Definitely not line troopers.

That's not according to the lore. There are far too many places to garrison, ships to man(25,000 star destroyers alone) and so forth in addition to active campaign armies to fill every combat slot with storm troopers. They are elite troops and shock troops and just like on TV and Hollywood you rarely see shows that aren't about special forces and so on. They are the literal face of the military everyone thinks of just like the distinctive storm trooper helm is the face of the Empire. They are there however and numbers-wise outnumber storm troopers by quite a bit and get all the crap jobs. Even small garrisons in out of the way places like Tatooine may only have 50 or so Storm Troopers for the whole planet but several hundred regulars doing all the work. A war machine doesn't run on its elite troops alone. While most heavy combat goes to Storm troopers, you still see line troopers as well driving the AT-STs, tanks, and other vehicles, they are present in the Endor battle even, backing up the Storm Troopers.

I haven't checked lately, but is that old /EU/Legends lore, or are they still shown/described in the new canon?

they are shown in Return of the Jedi. They are even the ones to capture Han in the bunker if I'm not mistaken. There is definitely a squad outside the bunker though wearing all black.

Ah, those chaps, i know who you mean. I'd like to see something other than Stormtroopers/variants at some point myself, but i suspect the closest we'll see is stuff like Intel/ISB troops and the like.

1 hour ago, Extropia said:

I haven't checked lately, but is that old /EU/Legends lore, or are they still shown/described in the new canon?

The Imperial Army Troopers are still canon

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Army_trooper/Canon

And so are the Navy Troopers

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy_Trooper

Quote

You are probably right but I would like the option to be there. As someone already has posted on another thread, a major handicap for this game catching on with other wargamers is the lack of variety of factions. This is the first wave for sure but they should have had at least 3 or 4 different armies available with multiple options for army building available for each from the get go. Right now its vanilla storm troopers vs commandoes and will probably be that way for quite awhile. And yes I understand that that is the way FFG releases things, but I see it as flawed for trying to break into a miniature wargame market where veteran players are used to having options even at the start. I am fortunate/unfortunate that I will be going away to a sandy place for 9 months right about when the game theoretically comes out so wont be buying in until after I get back and hopefully there will be some options there for a thematic army selection that doesn't include a named character at that point and options for something besides vanilla storm troopers vs commandos.

Tbh, I'd like basically everything to come out eventually. I'm trying to temper my hopes/expectations with what we know about FFGs choices in other games and the likelihood of seeing varying things.

I don't want my (or other people's) hopes getting too high and ending in disappointment. We are definitely building it up in our heads more than it is likely to be (at least at first....who knows eventually).

6 hours ago, Col. Dash said:

That's not according to the lore. There are far too many places to garrison, ships to man(25,000 star destroyers alone) and so forth in addition to active campaign armies to fill every combat slot with storm troopers. They are elite troops and shock troops and just like on TV and Hollywood you rarely see shows that aren't about special forces and so on. They are the literal face of the military everyone thinks of just like the distinctive storm trooper helm is the face of the Empire. They are there however and numbers-wise outnumber storm troopers by quite a bit and get all the crap jobs. Even small garrisons in out of the way places like Tatooine may only have 50 or so Storm Troopers for the whole planet but several hundred regulars doing all the work. A war machine doesn't run on its elite troops alone. While most heavy combat goes to Storm troopers, you still see line troopers as well driving the AT-STs, tanks, and other vehicles, they are present in the Endor battle even, backing up the Storm Troopers.

And yet the republic had a infantry force entirely equipped as Stormtroopers. I am not denying the existence of the gray helmets. I am just saying that they are truck drivers, base guards, military police and engineers. They are not equipped in what has been standard infantry equipment for 20 years

Storm troopers would be the equivalent to Marines in the US Military. They are more offensively oriental which is why you see them in the movies all of the time. Scarif can be explained as it being a secret facility and so warrants a Stormtrooper detatchment. The Grey Helmets are standard Army troopers. They work with the Stormtroopers when they are together such as seen in Return of the Jedi. All of the other battles the Empire is attacking.

I don't think that modern military comparisons really work with the empire. Star wars is an interesting mix of WW1/WW2 aerial combat and almost Medieval ground combat with moments that seem like WW2 commando raids. Stormtroopers are like the Roman legions. They are elite in comparison to every other fighting force in the galaxy but they are still the standard infantry unit of the empire. I think we may agree on the job of the army "trooper" but disagree on the scale to which they would be used. We see stormtroopers stationed on The Ring of Kafrene doing street patrols, on Wobani serving as prison transport guards and on Tatooine doing house searches and on Jedha hauling cargo. These all seem like jobs that would be better suited to some sort of auxiliary soldier. This leads me to believe that even in situations where blaster fire is not entirely likely, stormtroopers are deployed. Now another theory that I would accept would be that imperial army troopers don the standard battle dress of the imperial ground forces (stormtrooper armor) when there might be danger. I realise that I may not line up with canon (I have not read any of the star wars novels) but based on what I have seen onscreen this is what makes sense to me.

Also after a little searching, it appears that the black helmet troops on endor are imperial navy troopers. It would seem that they are somewhat analogous to the rebel fleet troopers, providing shipboard security and some ground security for navy installations. I think my biggest problem is that I am tired of space nazis.

I see pictures like this:

and it kinda just makes me feel icky. I realize that the empire is influenced heavily by nazi designs but I am just so tired of it. I like the stormtroopers. They remind me of heavily armored roman soldiers or armored medieval professional infantrymen.

14 hours ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I don't think that modern military comparisons really work with the empire. Star wars is an interesting mix of WW1/WW2 aerial combat and almost Medieval ground combat with moments that seem like WW2 commando raids. Stormtroopers are like the Roman legions. They are elite in comparison to every other fighting force in the galaxy but they are still the standard infantry unit of the empire. I think we may agree on the job of the army "trooper" but disagree on the scale to which they would be used. We see stormtroopers stationed on The Ring of Kafrene doing street patrols, on Wobani serving as prison transport guards and on Tatooine doing house searches and on Jedha hauling cargo. These all seem like jobs that would be better suited to some sort of auxiliary soldier. This leads me to believe that even in situations where blaster fire is not entirely likely, stormtroopers are deployed. Now another theory that I would accept would be that imperial army troopers don the standard battle dress of the imperial ground forces (stormtrooper armor) when there might be danger. I realise that I may not line up with canon (I have not read any of the star wars novels) but based on what I have seen onscreen this is what makes sense to me.

It may not make sense to you but the Imperial Army Trooper is the regular infantry unit of the Empire. Stormtroopers were the assault troops of the Empire. In real world terms Stormtroopers were more akin to the Waffen-SS while Army Troopers are more like the Wehrmacht. Stormtroopers operate as an independent branch of the Imperial Army and take their orders from Stormtrooper Corps Command not from Imperial High Command. They are elite not in comparison to the rest of the galactic militaries but in comparison with other Imperial forces. Stormtroopers do carry out policing and prison duties just like the Waffen-SS not the Wehrmacht did in WW2 Germany.

I agree on all but the untrained thing. Storm Troopers are elite and this has been said many times in SW literature, but there aren't a whole lot of them comparatively speaking. They go in, do the work and then in most situations the Imperial army finishes the job and garrisons leaving a large force of army and a small force of storm troopers for priority rough stuff. The rest of the comparison works fine.

A standard rebel trooper should be the equivalent in skill to a standard Imperial army or naval trooper, while the stormy should stand above them. I think a tiered skill(not mission) comparison like the US army might work as well. Standard Joes in the infantry, Storm Troopers would be the rangers, while the various special ops troopers(death and shadow) would be the Delta and US Special forces. Rebel standard commandoes would be roughly the same skill level as storm troopers which on appearances of the game so far looks like it is the case. When the other stormtrooper types make an appearance in the game with the exception of shadow troopers and death troopers, they should be all equivalent to storm troopers but with slightly different skill/stats reflecting their specialities. Shadow and death troopers should obviously be a good bit better on stats and equipment. The rebels outside the highly individual Eclipse teams don't really have a higher level than Commandoes from what I remember.

18 minutes ago, Col. Dash said:

I agree on all but the untrained thing. Storm Troopers are elite and this has been said many times in SW literature, but there aren't a whole lot of them comparatively speaking. They go in, do the work and then in most situations the Imperial army finishes the job and garrisons leaving a large force of army and a small force of storm troopers for priority rough stuff. The rest of the comparison works fine.

A standard rebel trooper should be the equivalent in skill to a standard Imperial army or naval trooper, while the stormy should stand above them. I think a tiered skill(not mission) comparison like the US army might work as well. Standard Joes in the infantry, Storm Troopers would be the rangers, while the various special ops troopers(death and shadow) would be the Delta and US Special forces. Rebel standard commandoes would be roughly the same skill level as storm troopers which on appearances of the game so far looks like it is the case. When the other stormtrooper types make an appearance in the game with the exception of shadow troopers and death troopers, they should be all equivalent to storm troopers but with slightly different skill/stats reflecting their specialities. Shadow and death troopers should obviously be a good bit better on stats and equipment. The rebels outside the highly individual Eclipse teams don't really have a higher level than Commandoes from what I remember.

Not sure this was directed at me but now I'm a little confused. Who's untrained?