What's better: 5 units of 4 Stormtroopers or 4 units of 5 Stormtroopers?

I don't really know. As a reflex coming from other games I'd say always max your units before buying more units. But is that correct for Legion?

Unlike Armada, this game actually provides a good tradeoff between the two. You could buy more units so you can stall activation on your key commander or AT-ST unit. Or you could make quality units that are more likely to lay down enough hits to overwhelm the opponents cover+dodge tokens.

I would lean towards a greater number of smaller units. In this scenario both options end up with the same number of minis (i.e., hitpoints), but one option has more unit leaders (VP grabbers), allows more flexibility in covering the battlefield, and requires the opponent to lay down more suppression to suppress your army. 5 units of 4, and 4 units of 5 also come out to the same points cost.

They both have their advantages and disadvantages. With 4 of 5 you have more concentrated firepower (as well as less units to activate) while 5 of 4 gives you a better spread of the same amount of firepower (to prevent overkill). Also troopers have the ability to claim more victory points than other unit types currently so having more units is a good thing as well.

Having multiple units gives you a lot of advantages. You have more deployments, more activations, more sources of suppression. The only real advantage to having 5 guys in one place as opposed to 4 is potential to overwhelm cover with shots, but this runs into the hurdle of white dice being such crap that even aiming, you barely break 2 hits on average. At that point, you're actually better off fishing for crits and 5 squads re-rolling 3 each is better than 4 re-rolling 3 each.

There aren't a huge number of reasons to really bother with the extra trooper upgrade as of right now. If you're already taking heavy weapons and grenades, you might as well because a trooper in that unit still costs the same as one in a naked unit and offers a number of advantages in terms of gaining access to grenades and providing a buffer for the heavy weapon, but if you're just running naked units, keep them cheap and get as many as you can.

I like 5 units of 6 Troopers.

When you have an additional weapon in your squad you also want to have one additional trooper in that squad. It is so to protect the heavy weapon trooper so he dies one hit later.

When you just have squads without additional equipment one more squad is better than additional troopers.

If you are not using the heavy, 5 units with 4 trooper would be better.

But if you are using the heavy trooper, you want more "hp" for the heavy. In this case you should take the extra trooper.

The problem comes with the opponent, is harder to hit something with less troopers in a unit, because enemy cover works for each attack (on heavy cover that's 2 hits removal).

3 minutes ago, Hijodecain said:

The problem comes with the opponent, is harder to hit something with less troopers in a unit, because enemy cover works for each attack (on heavy cover that's 2 hits removal).

Good point.

4 hours ago, Hijodecain said:

The problem comes with the opponent, is harder to hit something with less troopers in a unit, because enemy cover works for each attack (on heavy cover that's 2 hits removal).

Yeah, but the math says 5 troopers really don't power through that kind of cover without getting lucky, so you might as well have more units fishing for criticals.

24 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Yeah, but the math says 5 troopers really don't power through that kind of cover without getting lucky, so you might as well have more units fishing for criticals.

Additional units won't help with more criticals, it is 20 troopers either way, so the same number of dice.

I think a few cheap units certainly help hold down objectives and it isn't a big deal if they are mostly out of the fight camping.

2 hours ago, Gorthaur25 said:

Additional units won't help with more criticals, it is 20 troopers either way, so the same number of dice.

I think a few cheap units certainly help hold down objectives and it isn't a big deal if they are mostly out of the fight camping.

with aim tokens it's relevant I.e. 20 shots re-rolling 15 is superior to 20 shots re-rolling 12.

I think the defensive bonuses you get from 5 units are far greater than the offensive bonuses you get from 4 units. 5 units gives your opponent harder choices, which is always a plus, IMO.

From the game a I have played four Stormies shooting into infantry with cover will probably not do any damage, even with an aim token. Once a trooper or two is lost the unit will be very neutered and may not even cause suppression. I am not saying they have no place but you need units that can also output damage.

On 4/3/2018 at 10:34 PM, Dustin125 said:

I like 5 units of 6 Troopers.

I like 6 units of 5 troopers but those are my rebels.

4 units of 5 costs $25 less than 5 units of 4. So that would be my choice at the moment haha.

The 3 or 4 games I have played against the bad guys with 3 units of 6 has not gone well at all. The Rebels just outnumber squadwise every time. I feel like this is something they messed up with points. Stormies should be really cheap. We should outnumber the terrorist and be able to squash the Rebellion once and for all.

Smaller unit: more activations early game but less likely to survive to the end.

Fewer full units: fewer activations early game but more likely to survive to the end.

Completely dependent on your strategy and the victory conditions. Err on the side of your personal playstyle.

On 05/04/2018 at 8:29 PM, Gorthaur25 said:

From the game a I have played four Stormies shooting into infantry with cover will probably not do any damage, even with an aim token. Once a trooper or two is lost the unit will be very neutered and may not even cause suppression. I am not saying they have no place but you need units that can also output damage.

In my experience, this is your leader and vehicles in the empire dealing the damage.

I'm liking the 4 man trooper squads as they still score as well, they can be used to add suppression and you lose less in the first two turns of rapid deployment condition.

Fair enough they don't do damage, but you can get two speederbikes, Vader and at-st with 4 basic troopers with enough points left for a fair amount of upgrades. As dual core plus at-st owner, I've found this list to be far more effective than dropping things to beef up my trooper units.

I’d rather have more units because stormtroopers aren’t gonna do any damage anyway ?

Really, though, I think you are better off with one more objective claimer and one more activation.

DLTs. the answer is always DLT troopers. Mr Davies gave you the best heavy unit in the game, use it haha As a rebel player I am very jealous of this fact. I have also been running 4 squads for rebels while most people I play against run 3. The extra squad is a big deal, especially when it comes to having to hold objectives while the rest of your army moves on.

5 Units of 4 is better because you'll have more trooper unit leaders, which help take objectives. That's my general opinion when it comes to going for a straight up victory.

However, it's more fun to vary things up a bit - so while I feel maximizing your unit leaders, (especially trooper unit leaders) is a very good thing, at the same time this game is about more than just winning or min/maxing.

On 4/4/2018 at 7:29 AM, Hijodecain said:

The problem comes with the opponent, is harder to hit something with less troopers in a unit, because enemy cover works for each attack (on heavy cover that's 2 hits removal).

Worse, rebel dodge works against multiple attacks, making more units of worse dice pools less useful.