Hi everybody, I recently did a post on Luke in my blog. I have to admit, I've started to feel some sympathy for the Rebellion while writing this one. I'd love to hear your thoughts about Luke, especially if you think there's something I missed.

Thanks for the excellent write up.

Nice post! I'll share the blog with the people in the Legion discord.

These are great write ups, and fun reads as we wait for more details. Keep up the good work!

I’ll post as well got 200 people who could give you some views.

Thanks, both for the encouragement and for sharing. I appreciate it!

Enjoyed it.

I'd love to hear your answer to the question you end the article with.

I think Luke will be better than vader tbh, simply due to his crazy good mobility. Sure Vader is a monster, but Luke is nearly as dangerous and impossible to avoid.

Luke's more of a beat-stick. A raw statline you can toss around the table.

Vader is more of a specialist - despite having the higher raw stats, he's too slow to just bounce around hitting things. He'd just get kited if he tried.

What Vader does have, though, is 3 force upgrade slots to Luke's 2, and the ability to refresh 1 per turn for free. With his higher HP and no courage value, he can camp objectives and is hard to remove.

And I think Implacable allows Vader to activate twice, and then take a wound to return Implacable to your hand? In which case Vader can make 4 speed 1 moves and then slap you, from a distance you thought was safe.

True. They are going to play quite differently in practice i think.

Also, Vader is going to be amazing for taking/holding an objective. He's pretty much a tank and linebreaker....smash him into an objective point and even IF the enemy can deal with him, they aren't dealing with anything else while they do.

Luke is going to be a little more surgical i think.

3 hours ago, Copes said:

Enjoyed it.

I'd love to hear your answer to the question you end the article with.

The short answer is this: I lean somewhat towards Luke, simply because he starts at 40 points less (a whole Rebel Troopers worth) and isn't slow as molasses.

My opinion might change depending on suppression and panic mechanics. Also, I haven't done a whole lot of thinking yet on upgrades they can take and command cards. These are pretty important, as @svelok points out. I plan on posting in greater detail in the future, but in general Vader's commands seem better since they offer greater flexibility (at the expense of health though...)

I expect their effectiveness to vary at different skill levels:

I think for completely new players (which is pretty much everybody at this point) Luke will be easier to use because Jump 1 and speed 2 make him more forgiving if you put him in a bad spot.

In the hands of a player with a bit more experience, Vader will be pretty fearsome. He'll slowly walk up and murder your troops, and/or create a significant no-go zone that'll be hard to crack.

In the hands of a highly skilled player, well it's hard to say at this point. I'd probably be more afraid of Luke because he seems less predictable (and more surgical, as @Extropia said), but then again they could use Vader's command cards to really wreak havoc.

i don't think vader is as immobile as people think.

Yes he's slower on paper, but unless i'm mistaken he can double move and melee attack every round (thanks to relentless). He'll miss his dodge token, but with 6 reds and pierce 3 at the same time using him that way puts him on the same to maybe slightly better footing than troopers (2 range 1 moves + his base) but wont take too much of a hit on his damage output.

Given luke has the same ability in charge he' ll still be crazy more mobile, but that in itself can be an issue making sure the rest of your forces keep up to get commands.

32 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

Yes he's slower on paper, but unless i'm mistaken he can double move and melee attack every round (thanks to relentless). He'll miss his dodge token, but with 6 reds and pierce 3 at the same time using him that way puts him on the same to maybe slightly better footing than troopers (2 range 1 moves + his base) but wont take too much of a hit on his damage output.

The issue is that any other unit can easily just move away from him, and tough as he is he can't overextend indefinitely.

2 hours ago, svelok said:

The issue is that any other unit can easily just move away from him, and tough as he is he can't overextend indefinitely.

Now that depend on command placement and initiative though, doesn't it? And theres the command that gives him a double activation.......

Imo he's definitely going to be a lot harder to get the most out of compared to luke, but i think he still has some very nasty surprises in store for anyone that underestimates him

Edit: you also missed my point about the templates. I have to check, but i,m pretty sure any unit without a 3 move running from vader has to double move itself at some point, because the double 1 is longer, which prevents it from attacking.

14 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

Edit: you also missed my point about the templates. I have to check, but i,m pretty sure any unit without a 3 move running from vader has to double move itself at some point, because the double 1 is longer, which prevents it from attacking.

Yeah, that's true, but if a 50-70 point trooper unit has to double move to play keep-away with a 200 point Vader, it'll take the trade.

Anyway we digress.....

Till the spanish unboxing i was almost convinced a luke + 3× rotary cannon atrt deathstar was going to be meta defining.

As is it's still going to be a very strong glass cannon combo that's going to require consideration when list building.

For the most part it ignores terrain. Even just using lukes blaster it's enough damage to scaare an atst every turn, and theres still the armor keyword......

Like + 3x AT-RT might actually just suck, because the last we heard only troopers can hold/complete some objectives.

So you better be really sure you can kill everything, or it's auto-lose time if you end up playing the wrong mission.

What do you guys think of this jacket... https://imgur.com/87nWu4M

Any idea where to look for it...??

1 hour ago, Extropia said:

Like + 3x AT-RT might actually just suck, because the last we heard only troopers can hold/complete some objectives.

So you better be really sure you can kill everything, or it's auto-lose time if you end up playing the wrong mission.

It still allows for 3-6 trooper squads depending on what you think of the heavy weapons.......... i'm not that silly.

Edit:

200 points luke +40 points to tailor to taste

85 points atrt +rotary blaster x3

That leaves 345 left over

For that you can take 6 squads all with +1 trooper AND....

either 2 rotary cannon or 1 ion trooper between them all, OR....

upgrade the atrt's with either comm links or comm jammers AND

have between a 1-15 point color choice bid for the starting phase, or possibly spend some more of that on grenades (maybe some impact so they have i touch more anti armor)....

For those who may be interested, I've added a post on stormtroopers. (One important thing that it doesn't include is an analysis of the specialists; my thoughts on them will be included in a future post on stormtrooper upgrades and builds.)