Hello!

This is my first post to these forums, but I have been lurking for quite some time. Today, I played a 3 round Legion tournament at my LGS. Here is an abreviated (read: I didn't take detailed notes or pictures each round) report of how the tournament went. I played an all trooper unit list to help capitalize on objectives. The store owner decided to randomly choose objectives/conditions/Deployments each round - no repeats.

My list:

Vader - Reflexes, Battle Med, Saber Throw
Veers - Esteemed Leader, Grappling Hooks
DLT Troopers, +1, Concussion
DLT Troopers, +1, Concussion
DLT Troopers, +1, Impact
DLT Troopers, +1, Impact
HH-12 Troopers, +1, Grappling Hooks, Concussion
Stormtroopers, NAKED

Total: 800 points

Round 1: The Long March / Breakthrough / Clear Conditions

I was WORRIED about this setup. Long March / Breakthrough isn't ideal for Vader / Veers. Vader just doesn't move fast enough and Veers likes to hang back and just do Veers stuff. I was playing against a double T47 list. In the first couple of rounds one of his T47s made a hard push to start attacking my trooper squads out the front/back. By the end of round two he ate enough impact from DLTs and impact grenades that the vehicle was brought down. The second T47 followed in to pressure my troopers some more. He was pretty conservative and was slow to advance his three sets of troopers and Luke - I think this is why I won. Essentially, we hit time and only got through 5 rounds. I was able to stall and suppress enough troopers and put enough impact grenade pressure on the T47s that he didn't have any units in my end-zone. Meanwhile, I ran my NAKED stormtroopers from one side of the battlefield to the other to win 0-1.

Record: 1-0
Victory Points: 1

Round 2: Major Offensive / Intercept the Transmissions / Rapid Reinforcements

Another double T47 speeder list. This time I decided to hold back my HH-12 and my naked troopers as the additional units. I was worried, given how close our armies were from the deployment, that I'd never get Veer's range 4 blast off - so I actually used it very early against a T47 and hit it for a few wounds. Unfortunately, this left Veer's out in the open and he alpha-struck him down by the end of the first round. Fortunately, it paid off in the end because both of the T47s were smack in the middle of my impact grenade units and by the end of the third round I had killed both of them. The rapid reinforcements were interesting. One of the objectives was by its lonesome other than just a lone unit of rebel troops. Fortunately, since I had a unit activation advantage, I placed my reinforcements after all (or at least all -1) of his activations. This let me place both of them at that lone objective and wipe his guys off of it. In the mean time, he used Son of Skywalker early to try to ensure initiative on a T47 before it bit the dust - so Vader moved in on Luke, who was trying to hold the middle Transmission. Vader and Luke fought it out, but Luke was already wounded a bit from some DLT fire before the engagement so he eventually fell. My troopers cleaned up the last of his rebels and I won with 10 victory points overall, wiping his army by the end of the 5th round.

Record: 2-0
Victory Points: 11

Round 3: Disarray / Recover the Supplies / Hostile Environment

This time I played against an imperial list with some bikes x2, super-buffed up stormtrooper units, and Vader. He had 7 units in total, so I had an activation advantage again. The disarray was interesting. He placed both of his chosen objectives near only one of his deployment zones. I placed one near EACH of mine. I think this was a tactical error on his part, as I was able to load up 60% of my forces, including both commanders, on the side with more objectives. The other 40% was enough to deter his forces to loop around "the long way" to the rest of the battle. In the mean time, I left my NAKED troopers to claim an uncontested objective while the rest of my forces were able to close in from two different fronts on the remaining 4. Eventually, by the end of the battle, he was able to kill my Veers and one other unit of troopers. I killed everything except Vader and I had control of 4 objectives to his 1. Grenades and the HH-12 made pretty quick work of one unit of bikes, and the other unit also fell to grenade fire. I had some HOT dice this round so that definitely helped, but I think I also had the tactical advantage.

Record: 3-0
Victory Points: 15

FIRST PLACE!

Pros about the list:
1) DLT stormtroopers are an excellent unit. They have decent attack, great defense dice, and their attack dice stays decent up until the very end since the two reds hang on until the unit is toast. They can lob red dice out to range four and have a little bit of impact such that it adds up. If you can get the rebels into a melee engagement, all the better because now you have a strict advantage on offense AND defense with the dice you roll thanks to offensive surges. My two naked stormtroopers engaged with 4 rebels and won.

2) The one HH-12 group was also pulling its weight. Part of this was because of the Veers card that lets you recharge them for free. Its like Wu-Tang says, "3 black dice + Aim token + impact 3 aint nothing to F*** with." They are a group that has a nice alpha for the rapid reinforcements.

3) Having access to both sets of specialty command cards meant that my cards were "doing stuff" more often than my opponents. I left the 2-pip Veers card out because I have no vehicles, but I used the other 5. Additionally, because of the redundancy of trooper type in my list, AND battle meditation, I usually had full control over my activations - or at least NEAR full control. Veers 1-pip card was being used early usually because I had to use it while we still had rage 4+. Inevitably, Veers would be under pressure and Vader can take a beating for a while - so in 2 out of 3 games, when I used implacable, I actually gave the activation to Veers with battle meditation. This let me do whatever Veers stuff I needed to do early in the round, while still getting two uses out of Vader during that round. Any 2 or 3 pip card you just end up activating both commanders so that you have 6 corps in the bag and full control over the order of activation....unless you REALLY need to remove some suppression from certain units with Veers 3-pip card.

4) 8 Troopers: In games 2 and 3, the commanders were able to secure and hold objectives. Veers died in both games, but not before he did some other stuff so it worked out. Just the threat of having so many units that are capable of claiming objectives makes a bit difference.

5) The NAKED stormtroopers: Much in the same vein, having 44 points to just throw at objectives proved to be great. In all three games, they ran for objectives and claimed objectives. They never even made a ranged attack all day. They did run up and punch some rebels in the face, but that was the extent of their offense. Play to those objectives!

Cons about the list:
1) Only 8 units. I think activation advantage is key. I might try Veers / 6 troopers / 2-3 bikes. This would push the activation advantage much more in many matchups. The only issue is that I would be stuck with some repulsor vehicles (more on this later).

2) Vader is slow AF. He made people run from him. He put some light saber damage on some people. But he always felt like an old man running around the battlefield. In each game, I had to move him pretty aggressively, which made him take between 5-7 wounds per match. The good thing is that my opponents expended LOTS of energy doing that much damage to Vader....energy which may have just been better used ignoring him and focusing elsewhere.

3) Veers was great, when he lived. He kinda got alpha'd down in match 2. In match 3, he claimed an objective and ran around the backfield for 5 rounds before dying. I got some other troopers close enough that they could mop up and reclaim the objective. In match 1 he really played like a "true" Veers - buffing and sniping and all that good stuff. He's definitely a great commander but he's a bit squishy if they really concentrate fire on him.

Other thoughts:
1) Be careful with repulsor vehicles. I'm not sure exactly what to think about ground vehicles as I didn't face any with this list, but the repulsor vehicles all died the same way. If you can keep your guys in decent cover, they HAVE to either bring the fight to you, or turn around and run. They can't just camp like an ATST and pound you with dice. If you know they have to move, you can usually set up some impact grenades to at least damage them (or in the case of bikes, neuter them down to 1 biker) very quickly.

2) Luke being able to be suppressed is a much bigger deal than I realized at first. This makes me really enjoy having Vader - or at least a commander that only costs half as much. Putting just enough suppression on Luke so that you can ignore him isn't that hard with lots of range 4 DLT squads.

That's all I can really muster for now. I was thinking about trying Veers / ATST / 6 stormstroopers but I'm glad I audibled to Vader. It worked out pretty well and I think we had enough terrain on the board such that if I fought an ATST I would have been able to creep in on it somehow and grenade it. Speaking of which, I can't wait for my snowtroopers so I have more than 2 measly copies of impact grenades!

Some mistakes I saw: Implacable and son of skywalker were both used to give orders to units they couldn't in your quick batreps: They both only apply to vader and luke respectively. As written on the card.

Glad to see the HH-12 getting some love thanks to veers.

Great batrep thanks! So you thought Impact grenades were useful even though they are only Range 1? I haven't been able to get enough games in to try them out yet.

7 hours ago, Deuzerre said:

Some mistakes I saw: Implacable and son of skywalker were both used to give orders to units they couldn't in your quick batreps: They both only apply to vader and luke respectively. As written on the card.

Glad to see the HH-12 getting some love thanks to veers.

With battle meditation, they can hand out the order to another unit instead of themselves but still get the benefit of the card.

interesting read of that card... And I believe it to be right. Good job

/

On ‎4‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 6:18 PM, MDTowelie said:

With battle meditation, they can hand out the order to another unit instead of themselves but still get the benefit of the card.

Im not sure thats right tho. Yes battle meditation allows you to hand a order to another unit. However the command cards also tell you what units can be effected. For immplacable specificly says vader. Now unless you have another vader somehere on the table then there is no other vader unit on the table hence only he could recieve that order. Thats how I interpret order cards as working and battle meditation just allows you to break the rules for range it doesnt allow you to give a order to someone that a order card could not effect. ill have to see a FAQ on this one.

"When you issue orders, one of these orders can be issued to any friendly unit on the battlefield"
I interpret this as "You can do whatever you want with one of your orders" and since there is only one order to give, then that order may be given to any unit.

4 hours ago, Deuzerre said:

"When you issue orders, one of these orders can be issued to any friendly unit on the battlefield"
I interpret this as "You can do whatever you want with one of your orders" and since there is only one order to give, then that order may be given to any unit.

This interpretation is correct, and has been confirmed by Alex Davy via an email!

Still waiting on that FAQ