I have some major issues with the inclusion of repulsor units, especially with the T47 Airspeeder. Now, please bear with me, there will be some maths. The T47 can, according to Wookieepedia, go as fast as 650 km/h for the unmodified version. It has an attack speed - whatever that means - of 570 km/h. That’s pretty fast!

At a rough scale of 1/50 a 6x3 foot map (c. 180x90cm) would represent an area of 90x45m. At its attack speed it would take a T-47 about 0.5 seconds to travel the full length of the map. Let’s say, the speeder can actually go much slower without crashing and still be able to maintain full control and also to fight, maybe 100km/h? I suppose, it would have to go much faster, but let us stay with 100 km/h. At 100 km/h it would still only take it 3.24 seconds to cross the whole area.

Now, let’s say, T47s in game would only be able to do speed 3 movement actions. They would use a template that is 18cm long, or 900 scale cm - which is 9 scale meters. Add the length of the base which I do not have at hand, but I read it is 10cm. So we get 28 cm or 14 scale meters. This means our speeder travelling at only 100km/h would take about 0.5 seconds to fly 9m and finish its maneuver.

Now, I do not know what the scale of Legion is when it comes to time, i.e.: how long one game round is supposed to be. But somehow, I doubt that one round equals 0.5 seconds and thus a standard game would be just about 3 seconds long in real time. And bear in mind: I have deliberately used the very lowest conceivable speeds as the basis of my calculation - it should actually be much more ridiculous with more believable numbers.

Where am I going with this? Well, it does make no sense to have what is essentially a fighter jet in a tabletop game where it goes at the same speed as a clunking walker contraption. So do I want to get rid of such units? Well, not necessarily. But their movement would have to be handled in a drastically different way. I could imagine a speeder entering the battlefield in round 1 from the edge and being placed pretty much anywhere on the field. Then it could attack and possibly be attacked. In the next round, simulating its immense speed, it would have to be taken off board. Then you could have it stay out of the game for one round, simulating the time it would take the pilot to turn his craft around and start another strafing run, and enter the battlefield again as in round 1. And so on.

What do you think? Am I missing something? Am I just being horribly pedantic? I don’t know myself. Usually, I am not too concerned with such issues, but a freaking fighter jet, IMHO, should be pretty different from all other units.

Repulsorcraft are hover vehicles. They are more akin to helicopters than jets, it's just that they decided to add the compulsory move rule for what I'm assuming is some level of "balance."

OK, fair enough. Then, however, I would say that the rules might be OK for the speeder bikes, but a T47 hovering more or less stationary during combat action is not exactly thematic when I think of how the Hoth battle looked. Of course, the T47 and all the actual spaceships can hover in atmosphere, but they only do that during take off and landing, not during combat.

Ah, I don't know. I'll still happily use it in my lists and enjoy it, of course, but still: It bugs me a little.

5 minutes ago, Antiochenus said:

Ah, I don't know. I'll still happily use it in my lists and enjoy it, of course, but still: It bugs me a little.

Just make sure you don't think about a unit of Stormtroopers attacking your speeders with grenades, or attacking by swinging their blasters in melee! ?

I found this kind of weird myself, I never looked up the "specs" on the T-47 but we always see them flying really fast in the movies or video games so its hard to believe they'd be hanging around such a small space. Like what @AlKusanagi said, it's a repulsor vehicle so it could just hover in place if it wanted to so if you picture it more of a constantly moving "helicopter" then it's more believable.

They're obviously wanting to get as much as they can from the OT, and especially everything that'll work from the battle of Hoth (Im sure Hoth rebels are the next corps units) so with the airspeeder being the right size for this game it was probably an auto-include.

Although with it being harder to fly around and its ability for dying pretty quickly, its not the best for the amount of points it costs. Im sure once the rebels get another heavy unit, we won't see the T-47 played much so it was probably best they introduced it first in order to sell more of them.

They're fun to use and the model is great, but a 6x3 just feels too restricted for it.

I can totally see using them when using much larger play areas with higher point armies where they have more room to fly around and setup attacks.

Have you considered that the speeders can cover ground worth 3x speed 3 moves + 2x their base in one activation?(and T47 base is larger than the 74z) Then the compulsory move is their "minimum" speed when they go on a strafing run(I see players using the "drag" or slowing down the craft when coming in to shoot in Battlefront, often allowing enemies to easily fire on them too)

Just now, Muelmuel said:

Have you considered that the speeders can cover ground worth 3x speed 3 moves + 2x their base in one activation?(and T47 base is larger than the 74z) Then the complusory move is their "minimum" speed when they go on a strafing run(I see players using the "drag" or slowing down the craft when coming in to shoot, often allowing enemies to easily fire on them too)

I tested how far the T-47 could move in one activation if it performs a straight Speed 3 move for it's compulsory and both actions. It is almost 3 feet, or half of the long side of the board, in 1 activation.

That being said, remember that Legion is a representation of the "real" world not a simulation. Trying to reconcile the "real" specs for a speeder on the tabletop isn't what this game is trying to do. The word "real" is in quotes because this is Star Wars we are talking about.

While it's by no means a canon resource for how vehicles should act, I always found myself ramming the airbrakes on when strafing in the Battlefront games. There's no stall speed so going slowly gives me more time to pick out and engage enemy troopers. As soon as an enemy has a lock on my I hit the thrusters and get out of dodge, which could have been represented in game I suppose- fly off board, miss a turn, then return to the battlefield from the board edge you left.

Miniatures games are always a little bit of an abstraction when it comes to air vehicles. They are a neat addition, but because of how they interact (very briefly) with a real battlefield it’s hard to represent them in a way that feels perfectly realistic.

They could have always just done them as “air strikes” like in Flames of War, I suppose, but I think how Legion does it is tactically more interesting.

If you want air support done realistically, play Dropzone Commander. If you want to play with iconic licensed models from your favorite nostalgia-laden sci-fi property, play Star Wars Legion and ignore the AT-RT. Pretty simple.

Interesting thread about them moving so fast, but as mentioned they would have been scaled for the game. I assume FFG knows this and we will not see any star fighters in this game.

The game is always going to have abstraction for the sake of enjoyable gameplay. I do sympathize with you and it's exactly why I hope nothing bigger than a T47 is ever included as air units in Legion. But it works thematically as close air support.

If you start looking too deeply at things at scale like airspeed, you're gonna have a bad time when you get to blaster range being roughly 40m.

I played Flames of War for a decade, I am used to the scale being whatever it needs to be to tell a fun story.

52 minutes ago, Amanal said:

I played Flames of War for a decade, I am used to the scale being whatever it needs to be to tell a fun story.

I wish this game was more in line with Flames of War, frankly. I played through second and into third edition. That was a well balanced, well scaled game.

From almost every position on the board, three speed 3 moves will fly you off one or another edge... there’s your 600+mph if you must have it...

but speeders also go way slower than that without falling out of the sky. Witness the takeoff sequences in the Hoth hangar.

2 hours ago, Big Easy said:

The game is always going to have abstraction for the sake of enjoyable gameplay. I do sympathize with you and it's exactly why I hope nothing bigger than a T47 is ever included as air units in Legion. But it works thematically as close air support.

If you start looking too deeply at things at scale like airspeed, you're gonna have a bad time when you get to blaster range being roughly 40m.

I dont think the T47 is necessarily too "big" for an air unit, I think it's just too fast and star-fighter like. So with that in mind, I dont want to see anything else similar. With Leia's coordinated bombardment command card, I think they've already designed star-fighters to not be in the game since her 4+ range attack with that card is meant to represent an orbiting ship shooting down, or maybe a strafing run by an X-wing or something.

I'd love to see larger air units that move slow and act as gunships or troop transports though, those would be more fitting in this kind of game.

The Empire says hello...

The Imperial Patrol Transport would be a great addition to Legion. It's a repulsor vehicle that acts more like a helicopter. I could see it having a new keyword called Hover that acts like Speeder but does not require a compulsory move. Also it could have the ability to deploy a single trooper unit as an action.

On ‎5‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 9:15 AM, Gadgetron said:

Just make sure you don't think about a unit of Stormtroopers attacking your speeders with grenades, or attacking by swinging their blasters in melee! ?

Mercifully, the speeders are immune to melee.

It doesn't bug you that a manned harpoon gun can hit a ground target whilst flying that high and that fast, after passing the target?

19 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

The Empire says hello...

The Imperial Patrol Transport would be a great addition to Legion. It's a repulsor vehicle that acts more like a helicopter. I could see it having a new keyword called Hover that acts like Speeder but does not require a compulsory move. Also it could have the ability to deploy a single trooper unit as an action.

Ahh, I like what you're thinking I just hate that beast. I love Rebels, I loved The Clone Wars even more. I'm a huge fan of everything new except certain parts of The Last Jedi. But man, that thing is clunking and ugly. I just can't get behind it.

I fully support your position, but that ship just doesn't do it for me.

3 hours ago, Irokenics said:

It doesn't bug you that a manned harpoon gun can hit a ground target whilst flying that high and that fast, after passing the target?

Not as much as Poe Dameron and Co mowing down stormtroopers with precise chest shots from starfighters.

There's a level of abstraction concerning altitude and attitude and speed I imagine.