https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/3/7/a-legion-of-your-best-troops/

So... Legion has unit requirements and limits, essentially imposing unit diversity on your army (very progressive of the star wars universe). Why do you think they did this? Do you think it's a way to limit the expense? It doesn't seem like a great business practice to prevent people from buying more of your product. Does anyone know if 40k or any other miniatures game does this?

I'm glad Runewars doesn't have this, because I love trying to break a game by going all in on one type of unit. I dream of the day I can field an entire army of siege units.

Anyway, sorry for another pseudo-complaint thread, but I was curious to see if anyone had thoughts on this. I honestly hope Legion does well. The money from the star wars fanatics can help support FFG's other (actually good) miniatures games.

WFB and 40k used to do this; I’m not sure about the AoS or the newest 40k Edition. Unit limitations is generally a good idea financially because it does make you buy more expensive models. If you had the choice to buy Stormtroopers or an AT-ST, you might go Stormies, but unit limitations mean you may not have the army list space for another Stormie unit. This means you’re forced into an AT-ST, which is more money for FFG.

I’m not saying it’s a purely financial choice for FFG, there are certainly game mechanic aspects and balance that FFG is also considering.

I think it will deversify the meta. If you could take anything you would see a heap of all armour lists that would be very hard to deal with even if you make an anti armour list.

Also they allow you to have 6 trooper units. With a single core you can get up to 500 ish points for each faction and that only has 2 trooper units in it. In other words the restrictions on cheap models aren't very restricting but the restrictions on expensive models are quite restricting (Max of 2 atst or snowspeeders). If anything it will make your army cheaper and stop people spamming the good but expensive stuff.

See it's secretly a mercy on your wallet because in Runewars you sit there and wonder "Should I buy 3 packs of Darnati or 30? How many will I use?" Well in Legion you know you should just stop at 6 because that's the most you could ever field

One reason is that, at least for now, trooper units can only interact with objectives...

Also, Im sure they want to promote the fact that its tactical combat... Imperials only running Vader and an army of speeder bikes would be ridiculous... Although you can do whatever you want in a casual game lol.

I kind of like it honestly. It stops lists like the full oathsworn list.

In Runewars Miniatures Game, I kind of see each formation as a different unit type. A 2x2 of Reanimates has a very different role from the 4x3. Although you may see lists composed of all one unit, they rarely have the same formation repeated, so they functionally have different unit types in the army. That's why I don't really see a need for a unit-limitation rule in Runewars.

Upgrade cards can further define roles of the units in your army, but those are directly comparable to upgrade cards in Legion.

The two games are nothing alike.

Legion is the FFG take on the 40k/bolt action style wargame, and force organization charts are part of that.

Part of my main critique of Legion is just that. What it does it does well, but it doesn't do anything new.

1 hour ago, Budgernaut said:

In Runewars Miniatures Game, I kind of see each formation as a different unit type. A 2x2 of Reanimates has a very different role from the 4x3. Although you may see lists composed of all one unit, they rarely have the same formation repeated, so they functionally have different unit types in the army. That's why I don't really see a need for a unit-limitation rule in Runewars.

Upgrade cards can further define roles of the units in your army, but those are directly comparable to upgrade cards in Legion.

Actually, I’ve always wanted to run four units of 2x2 Death Knights with MOI on each. But I agree with you that identical formations are not common, though.

2 hours ago, Tvayumat said:

The two games are nothing alike.

Legion is the FFG take on the 40k/bolt action style wargame, and force organization charts are part of that.

Part of my main critique of Legion is just that. What it does it does well, but it doesn't do anything new.

This is true, but "new" depends on your point of view. I'm betting there is a decent-sized population of eager Legion fans who have never played or watched a game of 40K. They are drawn in by the Star Wars theme. To them, Legion will be quite novel.

2 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

This is true, but "new" depends on your point of view. I'm betting there is a decent-sized population of eager Legion fans who have never played or watched a game of 40K. They are drawn in by the Star Wars theme. To them, Legion will be quite novel.

To be fair, I'd much rather those new players be introduced to these mechanisms via FFG than GW, so... solid point.

3 hours ago, Tvayumat said:

To be fair, I'd much rather those new players be introduced to these mechanisms via FFG than GW, so... solid point.

So much truth. Sure, there’s Shadespire now, but 40k and AoS remain thoroughly rooted in the late 1980s. I’ve yet to come across a GW player who when presented with the Rune Wars mechanics does not look stunned at the speed and ease of the game.

I love the idea of a core army and a maximum of one kind units. Without limits the meta uses to break into only one direction and the counter. Usually nothing else have place there. This is way I love this on Legion, I don't want to see in front of me a guy with 4 AT-ST's (if this is the stronger unit in the game).

Never played AoS/40K so I can’t speak to its necessity in those games, but I fail to see how requiring specific army composition is a “good idea”. Granted, in every situation it’s not necessarily a “bad idea” but unit balance, ESPECIALLY at core release should be able to stand on its own without required configuration. This is by definition counter productive to diversifying your meta. If someone wants to bring 4x AT-ST’s or all speeder bikes, let them. The cost of doing that should be enough of a barrier that you don’t see much of that to begin with, but more importantly, that should easily be preventable through objectives, movement/terrain, and unit balance so that there is not an obvious optimal unit to spam in your game.

I remember early on in this game there was fear of CI Archer spam being a thing. It’s not. I’d argue the same against Cav spam. Design interesting and diverse units that have different functions and abilities so your player base WANTS to take diverse armies, and if someone wants to spam, then game balance keeps that from being OP.

To be clear this is different than having unit caps or CDR requirements, ie: Armada’s admiral requirement and no more than 1/3 of your list is squadrons, or Runewars 1 hero/100 army points cap. They don’t say you MUST bring squadrons or you MUST bring a hero respectively.

What happen then if 4 ATST are broken and unbeatable? you can deal with 1 or 2 but maybe 4 is too much. Maybe 4 massive units of cavalry here were also unbeatable as soon as the game was released.

Here in Runewars now the meta looks to be related with Uthuk and fast units. Has any body a good way to stop them? I've don't seen any. If maximum quantity of cavalry unit is 3 maybe this would not ha`ppen.

I'm pro-limiter of quantity of specific units in an army. Some people loves the opposite. It's no so much important to discuss since FFG is doing two different things to two different games. I'm going to play both.

I more in line with being okay that there are army composition limits.

For runewars, had they said no more than two cavalry, 2 siege, and whatever’s Infantry you want, I wouldn’t of had a problem. Given how much flexibility that still allows me, it isn’t bad at all.

Being able to spam one of a single unit besides the basic mook also breaks immersion. Imperials didn’t run Vader+4 AT-STs in at Rebel forces. They sent Vader, stormtroopers, an AT-ST or two.

It's not just the limits themselves that to me make it inhibiting, its the limits COMBINED with requirements. because you have to take a minimum of 3 infantry squads, and a commander, and then on top of that have unit caps of number of quantity for everything, that is much more invasive on list building diversity.

@Church14 I think the better comparison for Runewars is that there's a minimum of at least two infantry units, or maybe trays would be better, say 9 trays worth of infantry MINIMUM, plus a hero MINIMUM, but no more than 12/15 trays of infantry, and then 0-6 trays of Cav/Archers, and 0-3 trays of Siege. I can get away with that logic immersion because virtually every classic/medieval army is heavily infantry based (I understand Runewars is fantasy, fantasy loosely follows classical/medieval combat so that we can relate as human beings the same way that star wars or any scifi loosely follows modern combat so we can understand what's going on). Yes it eliminates spam, but it also eliminates more moderately diverse units that are heavy in a particular area.

Similarly if Armada was 1 ADM, 1-2 Large Based, 1-3 Medium Based, 1-3 Small Based, 60-134pts of Squadrons. Balanced, yes. Diverse, possibly, but definitely not as much.

Not saying this limitation wouldn't make for a balanced game, or that it's even the wrong answer, but I can guarantee that game is less diverse than a game that doesn't have those restrictions with more unit balance. Again game and unit design should ENCOURAGE diversity. I would argue that if you make a game where a platoon of 4x AT-STs and a CDR significantly wins more on average than a list with a diverse platoon (not doing the math, but for example a CDR, 5x Squads, 2x Bikes, and 1x AT-ST) then you have a game balance issue. I believe the better way to fix that is through objectives and unit balance, not saying you must take 1 A, 2 B's, 3-5 C's, and 1-2 D's.

Also I can't agree that Luke Skywalker w/ a platoon of ANYTHING running into combat against Darth Vader w/ a platoon of ANYTHING is immersive. Can still be fun, but they obviously have to take some liberties with iconic characters for you to play a game with them. To which point yes most Rebel/Imperial units would be some mixture of combined arms, but they would also have infantry heavy units and armor heavy units as well.

The other reason why unit limits doesn’t work in RW is the unit formation limitation. If for example, you bought a core and got one Rune Golem, then bought the Rune Golem expansion, thus getting two more, there would have to be an allowance for you to reasonably use all three in some fashion. Technically, unit formation limits means you can’t run all three in one unit, so you’re looking at a 1x2 and a solo. If the army limitations only afforded you one “slot” of siege unit, then that solo is a essentially wasted purchase.

Legion seems more about “buy this box and run it”, so no purchase would ever feel wasted.

But the limitation don't have to be just one slot for siege units. It could be a maximum of 2 or 3. And with that you have endless possibilities of configuration. My point is not being able to field 8 siege units for example in an army.

4 hours ago, Hijodecain said:

But the limitation don't have to be just one slot for siege units. It could be a maximum of 2 or 3. And with that you have endless possibilities of configuration. My point is not being able to field 8 siege units for example in an army.

The question is: Do you think an 8 siege units army would be viable?

Maybe 8 threshers, everything else would trundle and die.

I honestly don't see the need to compare any elements of the two games. The similarities stop after the fact that they are both FFG games. I like runewars and armada list building restrictions, and I like the look of legions restrictions. I'm looking forward to playing it soon.

It's typically a way to force bad units on you for the sake of trying to maintain flavor without working very hard to balance them better.

Especially in games with weak objectives (like many editions of 40k) that allow a tabling army to win despite ignoring the objectives, the carrot to take those units that artificially qualify to meet the objectives isn't always enough. There are few 40k armies that would take ANY troops options if they were allowed to ignore them, because the troops are just padding or objective-grabbers and all the other units have the powerful features and weapons that can just annihilate the enemy.

Rune Wars Minis has managed to dodge this because there are few outright weak units. Those units that aren't just big damage beatsticks have the utility of meaningful mobility (because this game rewards maneuver very well) or good support abilities to make them enticing and balanced against a list that is going to just try to kill your face.