I feel that basic troops from core set will be relevant for a long time to come. Basis of this is the fact that there is Great balance with all the minis so far. I hope they do a better job than with xwing. But because of cover, movement, various terrain, command cards and objectives you don't need the best army mathematically on the table like in xwing or armada to win There are soon many more variables in place with this game. Thats why it rocks, just like Dust Warfare!! There were times when I was mathematically beat in Dust Warfare, maybe all my troops that could hit tanks were dead and I could not touch my opponents tanks. But because the objective was more important than straight killing I was able to move and use my speed or cover abilities to win the game. Bring on the 2 AT ST imperial lists to my fast moving rebel troopers and scrappy misfits!!!

Cant Wait!!!

The issues wont be with hard hitting imps (directly).

As much as i've looked for big hard hitting monsters the issues that concern me most(if any) will be with overcosted red defence dice and/or cost efficient rebel swarms.

I won’t say there won’t be any power creep at all. Because power creep is an intentional way to get people to buy more stuff. In the future, you’ll probably get new rebel troopers that are straight up just better than the original rebel troopers. It’s just the extent of power creep.

Yes there command cards, cover and objectives that would require skill that can win against a mathematically superior army. But the danger comes when you introduce units that mess with the fundamentals of the game. You already have sharpshooter that ignores cover. If there would be units that allows u to straight up choose your objective card, or a command card with “0” pips, then I’ll start getting worried. Also token stacking might be a dangerous thing. If you can stack 3 dodge tokens on Vader per turn, no amount of suppression or cover or concentrated fire would get Vader off an objective.

Not to be pessimistic, but just pointing out all the ways there might be game breaking effects.

Is this a miniature game?

There will be power creep.

2 hours ago, tieren said:

Also token stacking might be a dangerous thing. If you can stack 3 dodge tokens on Vader per turn, no amount of suppression or cover or concentrated fire would get Vader off an objective.

I know that keywords stack. But I’m sure I heard at some point that you can’t stack tokens. Maybe in one of the demos?

I think you can’t take more than one dodge action, but u can have more than one dodge token. For example the nimble keyword on rebel troopers says that “if you spend one or more dodge token, gain one dodge token”. So I think you can stack through command cards + leia + dodge action for example

There will be power creep, but it's not always cynical or intentional.

Imagine we had every unit. Since every unit is different some would be more powerful. If the units were released randomly there would be power creep as the more powerful units become available.

What I am happy about though, is that you can still win through superior war tactics ie, refused flank, hammer and anvil, defeat in detail etc.

in xwing poe will just straight up win a imperial boba fett for example

Just now, onebit73 said:

There will be power creep, but it's not always cynical or intentional.

Imagine we had every unit. Since every unit is different some would be more powerful. If the units were released randomly there would appear to be power creep as the more powerful units become available.

It’s not a question about more powerful units, but rather more efficient units. Just more value per point.

I think power creep is intentional. Many game developers do this to get people to buy new dlcs and character unlocks. New characters are usually undercosted and overpowered at release, then rebalanced after awhile.

Its just that in tabletop and board games, the barriers to update existing units are high, so the undercosted units just stay and the next release has to be even more undercosted

If you designed 30 units one will never be played and one will be a must take. It's perceived as power creep since units aren't released all at once. Nobody can make a perfectly balanced game.

I'm not saying intentional power creep doesn't exist, only giving an alternative explanation.

Yes there will be more efficient units, but it won't hurt this style of game as much as others because there are why to many variables for the math to work out every time, and dice rolls.

34 minutes ago, cookluke5150 said:

Yes there will be more efficient units, but it won't hurt this style of game as much as others because there are why to many variables for the math to work out every time, and dice rolls.

That's not what i meant.

Until we get veers imps lag by a full unit+ in list building. We've had people come up with a list that takes 3xatrt (naked) 2xt47 and still has room for it's 3 units and luke.

objective wise my fear imps may struggle to keep form getting either outplayed or kerb stomped by activation shenanigans or lack or firepower trying to build for activations no matter their list because rebs can do outnumber and setup builds they just cant even go close to.

2 hours ago, cookluke5150 said:

Yes there will be more efficient units, but it won't hurt this style of game as much as others because there are why to many variables for the math to work out every time, and dice rolls.

That does not always follow. I have been playing Bolt Action for a few years which is almost entirely Objective based gameplay focusing on infantry. There are a couple of units that are incredibly OP and bringing them in a list will earn you sighs and an explanation about how the rules massively undercosted the unit's abilities. These abilities allow the unit to easily wipe out other infantry, and without infantry you can't take objectives in Bolt Action.

Without units, from what we've seen you can't take objectives in Legion. So if an new unit has a way to either quickly destroy or otherwise prevent other units from taking objectives, then it will become an autotake. Good strategy won't help when whole units are being destroyed every turn, or you are massively outnumbered so can't score enough points from objectives to catch up.

I dont really understand the "3 naked AT-RT" thing i've seen. They are moderately hard to kill if the opponent didnt take much Impact stuff (though so far Impact is being scattered around like candy), but they do like...no damage.

Seriously, thats barely an exaggeration. In melee, by far their most effective attack, an AT-RT will kill on average 1.3 Stormtroopers in a turn, for 55 points. I genuinely don't find that very scary.

****, a 68 point unit of Stormies with a DLT will match that back at an AT-RT at range 3, and the AT-ST or couple of missiles will just trash them.

AT-RTs are AMAZING with weaponry, but maths and my test games just don't show the results from the cheap naked ones so far.

4 minutes ago, Extropia said:

I dont really understand the "3 naked AT-RT" thing i've seen. They are moderately hard to kill if the opponent didnt take much Impact stuff (though so far Impact is being scattered around like candy), but they do like...no damage.

Seriously, thats barely an exaggeration. In melee, by far their most effective attack, an AT-RT will kill on average 1.3 Stormtroopers in a turn, for 55 points. I genuinely don't find that very scary.

****, a 68 point unit of Stormies with a DLT will match that back at an AT-RT at range 3, and the AT-ST or couple of missiles will just trash them.

AT-RTs are AMAZING with weaponry, but maths and my test games just don't show the results from the cheap naked ones so far.

The naked at-rt was some cheese i suggested but never meant to be a real viable strategy. And to he honest, its not. What is viable is triple at-rts with rotary cannons. And that is scary.

Just now, Jabby said:

The naked at-rt was some cheese i suggested but never meant to be a real viable strategy. And to he honest, its not. What is viable is triple at-rts with rotary cannons. And that is scary.

Yes, now THAT is some terrifying, extra mature smelly cheddar. Those 15 black dice with critical surges are no freaking joke.

Just now, Extropia said:

Yes, now THAT is some terrifying, extra mature smelly cheddar. Those 15 black dice with critical surges are no freaking joke.

Guess you’ll need vader plus an anti armour at-st along with a couple ion snowtroopers.

Well...I won't since i'm playing Rebels. But my opponents sure will (if i field that, which i definitely won't be unless we agreed a full on, no holds barred tournament style game).

2 minutes ago, Extropia said:

Well...I won't since i'm playing Rebels. But my opponents sure will (if i field that, which i definitely won't be unless we agreed a full on, no holds barred tournament style game).

Well in that case use triple at-rts with the anti vehicle gun and ion troopers

Just now, Jabby said:

Well in that case use triple at-rts with the anti vehicle gun and ion troopers

15 black dice should be getting at least a couple surge results through, so the counter to that AT-RT rotary spam can be AT-RT rotary Spam :-P

Just now, Caimheul1313 said:

15 black dice should be getting at least a couple surge results through, so the counter to that AT-RT rotary spam can be AT-RT rotary Spam :-P

Yeah, I'm not worried about naked AT-RTs running around. In my view, the AT-RT is a cheap weapons platform. Right now I think the only reason to take them without weapons is if you have 55 to 79 points left in your army, and nothing else to spend those points on.

Of course you can always read my AT-RT ramblings here if you really want to.

One of the interesting things with Legion is that it will be incredibly easy for FFG to address major imbalances thanks to the way Commanders work, although that does mean in time only a couple of commanders remain viable.

They could also tweak balance by introducing new wargear. If Stormtroopers underperform they could add a new type of improved targetting scopes only useable by Stormtroopers.

All in all I’m not too worried for balance. Armada shows they are quite good at introducing new cards to make underperforming units more viable.

3 hours ago, Ralgon said:

Until we get veers imps lag by a full unit+ in list building. We've had people come up with a list that takes 3xatrt (naked) 2xt47 and still has room for it's 3 units and luke.

In this list everything is naked and it comes out to 795pts. The point of the list was not to show a good list, but a list where the HH-12 would be useful.

8 minutes ago, Lord Tareq said:

They could also tweak balance by introducing new wargear. If Stormtroopers underperform they could add a new type of improved targetting scopes only useable by Stormtroopers.

All in all I’m not too worried for balance. Armada shows they are quite good at introducing new cards to make underperforming units more viable.

The armada players may breathe a sigh of relief but the x-wing players will breathe a sigh of frustration.

I hate the “cards to rebalance” system entirely, but I am resigned to the inevitability of it.