23 minutes ago, VAYASAN said:

Its very very early days in the game bare in mind.

Thats true. But as I said earlier, eventually new Trooper units will need to be more than just "basic unit, but with slightly different attack dice and an ability which allows them to take a token".

Commandos/Scouts may be where this starts. I'm curious to see what comes next.

1 hour ago, Jake the Hutt said:

Thats true. But as I said earlier, eventually new Trooper units will need to be more than just "basic unit, but with slightly different attack dice and an ability which allows them to take a token".

Commandos/Scouts may be where this starts. I'm curious to see what comes next.

You may think it’s not different enough, but I find that rebel troopers play very differently from stormtroopers. That white die versus red die on defense is huge. A stormtrooper unit caught without cover still has a good chance against most attacks - not so much for a rebel one.

4 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:

You may think it’s not different enough, but I find that rebel troopers play very differently from stormtroopers. That white die versus red die on defense is huge. A stormtrooper unit caught without cover still has a good chance against most attacks - not so much for a rebel one.

I agree - I find stormtroopers to be tougher than the rebel troopers due to the defence dice. Plus the heavy weapons on the rebels side are very different to the imperials to make the armies feel quite different from each other.

7 hours ago, Jake the Hutt said:

Thats true. But as I said earlier, eventually new Trooper units will need to be more than just "basic unit, but with slightly different attack dice and an ability which allows them to take a token".

Commandos/Scouts may be where this starts. I'm curious to see what comes next.

Bear in mind, we are still limited on the upgrades available to take as well. Once more upgrades come out, it'll offer different ways of playing these basic units so the experience will evolve, even with the early stuff. Sure these still might add tokens or manipulate them, but it means that whatever new stuff comes out, doesnt totally replace the old. Plus we could see "rebel" or "imperial" only upgrades that will add some flavor too.

They did also choose to make these corps units have the "personnel" and "heavy" slots. Even when those particular upgrade cards say " 'X' troopers only." So why have them as slots if they're limited to the unit? Like others have said, I think this means we could see generic stuff that fills those slots that aren't included right now. Maybe personnel adds a medic? Maybe for a heavy we get a little sentry droid like the Viper droid from solo?

I feel like they're keeping things "basic" enough that once theres a solid base of units available, they can start making things that augment them where the same unit of troopers can act and play very differently from each other depending on upgrade load out.

Commandos and Scouts will definitely start shaking things up, especially with the ability to run them as a full unit or little strike teams. And they get their own unit specific upgrades it appears, so that will help too.

Yup, atm many like to cram a lot of trooper units into a list...which atm invariably means lots of Basic troopers and then Snowtroopers/Fleets. All reasonably similar (with differences).

With the Scouts/Commandos, maybe we will see less of the foot sloggers and more specialists...which will make things more varies.

Game is very very new and imho its in a great place.

Game is literally just two months old. Cant compare t the like of 40K that have built up factions and units over decades. New units are coming and i think in 6 months to a year you will see much more variety.

15 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:

You may think it’s not different enough, but I find that rebel troopers play very differently from stormtroopers. That white die versus red die on defense is huge. A stormtrooper unit caught without cover still has a good chance against most attacks - not so much for a rebel one.

I think that in this thread there may be some basic misunderstanding about what people are talking about when they say that the Corps units in Legion are (so far) all very similar. Let me explain what I mean.

Right now the 4 Corps units (Storm Troopers, Snow Troopers, Fleet troopers and Rebel Troopers) are all basically the same unit and basically do the same thing in a game. They move forward and they shoot. Some of them move faster or slower. Some of them shoot better or worse. Some of them dodge better, some of them aim better. But they all have the same basic built in capabilities. Stormtroopers can't do anything that Rebels Troopers can't also do. If you opponent chooses to take Fleet Troopers the aren't fundamentally altering how the game will be played.

This is all fine, by the way. It doesn't mean any of these units are bad or un-fun to play. However, the relative sameness of these troopers does mean that you can replace one with the other fairly easily and expect them to do more or less the same job. I can't speak for others, but when I say that I'm hoping for more variety and new units (Corps or otherwise) that do something different, here's what I mean:

I'm going to use the game Infinity as an example here. In Infinity you have very basic infantry units that are often used in ways very similar to Coprs units in legion. But you also have lots of different units that do fundamentally different things, have very different strengths and weaknesses, and if you decide to include them in your force will change the shape of the battle. For example:

- Hacking units make use of info warfare to buff and debuff other units, disable or kill mechanized units, interact with certain scenery and complete missions, assist unit deployment, and ward off or assassinate other hackers. Having a Hacker isn't essential, but it opens up a huge number of options and changes the way you'll build your army and play, and how your opponent will choose to respond to you.

- Airbourne Deployment units arrive on the board by parachute, jump pack or after being dropped off from a flying vehicle. They can deploy during any turn by moving onto the board from any board edge. They can also take a risky chance and roll to see if they can be deployed on any spot on the board. AD units are high risk, high reward. Because they only appear later in the game you're denied their order generating resources from the beginning, but their surprise factor can really turn the tide. The're also risky to use, and a bad deployment can easily get them killed. Taking an AD unit changes the way you build lists and the strategies you employ, and forces your opponent to watch out for a threat that may or may not be actually coming.

- Camo units start the game as hidden tokens, and only reveal themselves once discovered or once they decide to take action. Camo units rely on their mystery. your opponent often won't be sure if that Camo marker is a mine or a soldier waiting in ambush, and even if they're pretty sure it is a soldier they won't know what kind. Camo can be a supremely useful ability for laying traps, slowing the enemy advance and sneaking a unit into the perfect position, but its also often an expensive ability, and one that can be countered in a variety of ways. Including Camo troops opens up a huge amount of flexibility, but also limits some of your list building options. If you decide to take Camo units it will totally change the nature of the battle and you opponent will have to decide how to respond to or work around those units. Just the possibility of facing Camo units will change both how you and your opponent build your lists.

- Fireteams are full squads of individual troopers. This is the default for Legion, but in Infinity troopers usually act independently. When troopers join a Fire team they work together and cover each other's backs. They move together and gain offensive and defensive bonuses that can be hard to crack without careful planning. Confronting and breaking a Fireteam, or just defending against one, can be a daunting task, and if you decide to form a Fireteam in your army it will allow your basic troops to be much more effective. Fireteams come at a cost; they're often very expensive and include multiple redundant models that you don't really need. And while they can be very tough to crack, once they start losing models they become much less effective. The inclusion of a Fireteam on either side fundamentally changes the shape of the battle and forces both players to employ different tactics.

Thats just a few examples, but each one shows how a unit can be more than just a slight adjustment of dice of movement and the addition of a special ability that grants a token. I'm not saying that Legion should follow these exact examples, or even that these would be a good fit, but I think that future Legion units need to be more than just "A little faster, and gets an Aim token" or " Only one white attack die, but Surges turn to crits" We need units with actual new capabilities. Right now theres nothing a Storm trooper can do that a Rebel, Snow or Fleet Trooper can't also do. They may roll different dice, or have different surges, or move slightly faster or slower, or use Impact instead of Ion, but they all basically do the same thing with somewhat similar results. We need units that do completely different things. We need units that actually open up new ways to play. We need units that expand the shape of the game.

Its still early days, so what we have now is just fine. We're just getting started. An dit may be likely that the kind of units I'm talking about will show up as Operatives, Special Ops and vehicles, but not as Corps. And thats fine really.

I also expect that what I'm describing is not what everyone wants from the game, which is fine. But I hope that you now better understand what I (and maybe others) mean when we say that the existing Corps units are very similar.

All the infantry units act more or less the same. Because they're all infantry. They ARE more or less the same. It's a feature, not a bug.

13 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

All the infantry units act more or less the same. Because they're all infantry. They ARE more or less the same. It's a feature, not a bug.

They don't have to be all the same. Thats narrow thinking. Future infantry units could offer substantially different ways to play the game. They don't have to all be slight variations on the same theme. We don't really need multiple flavors of vanilla.

4 hours ago, Jake the Hutt said:

We don't really need multiple flavors of vanilla.

You appreciate it, though, when - like me - you are allergic to chocolate, and artificial colours and flavours...

?

2 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

You appreciate it, though, when - like me - you are allergic to chocolate, and artificial colours and flavours...

?

I don't think I follow what you're saying. Maybe I shouldn't have used the vanilla analogy. Are you saying that you want units to continue to be very similar? If so, no criticism. Different people want different things. Thats just not what I want from the game at all. I feel like the units we have right now are a perfectly fine base for the game, but new units really need to be more than just simple variations. Otherwise I'm probably going to get pretty bored with the game before the end of the year.

Or did you mean actual ice cream? Because different flavors of vanilla are great there.

32 minutes ago, Jake the Hutt said:

I don't think I follow what you're saying. Maybe I shouldn't have used the vanilla analogy. Are you saying that you want units to continue to be very similar? If so, no criticism. Different people want different things. Thats just not what I want from the game at all. I feel like the units we have right now are a perfectly fine base for the game, but new units really need to be more than just simple variations. Otherwise I'm probably going to get pretty bored with the game before the end of the year.

Or did you mean actual ice cream? Because different flavors of vanilla are great there.

are the Scouts/Commandos different enough?

The second, as well as pointing out that, on occasion, using “vanilla” as a synonym for “plain” or “boring” can feel... a bit disappointing and depressive to some people. ?

because im odd.

5 minutes ago, VAYASAN said:

are the Scouts/Commandos different enough?

They're Spec-Ops, so they have an entirely different play style to the regular Corps units.

6 minutes ago, Indy_com said:

They're Spec-Ops, so they have an entirely different play style to the regular Corps units.

but they would be considered as infantry in general terms of the discssion? I consider them as such, I know by the rules they arnt technically.

Just now, VAYASAN said:

are the Scouts/Commandos different enough?

For my personal preferences? I'm not sure. The interesting parts (to me) are that you can split the squads up and that they have a scout move that makes them more mobile. Both of those are somewhat novel. But they also follow the same basic template as Rebel and Fleet Troopers/ Storm and Snow Troopers. They move, they shoot, they can spend an action to get tokens. They're better at some of these things, but probably not game changingly better. They don't look bad at all, and I'm eager to try them out before I really come to any conclusion. And I'm eager to see what their weapons do (because those may be game changing. The scouts mines might bring real area denial tactics into the game). So we'll see.

I think its a very good step that they are different from the available Corps units, but if I had to give an opinion at this point I think I would have liked to see their Scout ability be more than just a free move. Thats certainly useful, but I think it would have been more interesting to allow them to deploy hidden or in a token state (since this game loves tokens), or to appear further in on the board after the first turn, or to have some other dynamic deployment option that forces the opponent to change their tactics a little more (the Scout move does that little, but maybe not enough)

1 minute ago, VAYASAN said:

but they would be considered as infantry in general terms of the discssion? I consider them as such, I know by the rules they arnt technically.

All currently revealed Spec-Ops are Trooper units, meaning they can claim objectives and do other things that Troopers can.

However, as they are Spec-Ops, they have more keywords than standard infantry.

9 minutes ago, Indy_com said:

They're Spec-Ops, so they have an entirely different play style to the regular Corps units.

They certainly should. But do they? It seems like you'll mostly want to move them into cover and shoot at the enemy, taking Aim or Dodge tokens when you can, which is pretty much what you do with every unit. So tahts not actually a different play style at all. But their special weapons may actually dictate a significantly different play style. We'll have to wait and see.

1 minute ago, Jake the Hutt said:

They certainly should. But do they? It seems like you'll mostly want to move them into cover and shoot at the enemy, taking Aim or Dodge tokens when you can, which is pretty much what you do with every unit. So tahts not actually a different play style at all. But their special weapons may actually dictate a significantly different play style. We'll have to wait and see.

They have a different play style as they have more keywords.

Other than that, they're just more Troops more the meat grinder.

1 minute ago, Indy_com said:

They have a different play style as they have more keywords.

I don't see how their keywords give them a different play style than any of the game's Corps units. Can you explain what you mean? Like any unit, they want to get to andbe in cover and they want to shoot at other units, and their keywords help them with both. Thats not a different play style. Thats the exact same play style as every Corps unit. They're just a little better at it in some ways.

2 minutes ago, Jake the Hutt said:

I don't see how their keywords give them a different play style than any of the game's Corps units. Can you explain what you mean? Like any unit, they want to get to andbe in cover and they want to shoot at other units, and their keywords help them with both. Thats not a different play style. Thats the exact same play style as every Corps unit. They're just a little better at it in some ways.

You have less of them, they have better (heavy) weapons and you're paying for keywords that either negate cover or give it to you wherever you're placed.

They're just different infantry, with "different" playstyles, in the same way that the regular rebels play differently to the Fleet troopers.

9 minutes ago, Indy_com said:

You have less of them, they have better (heavy) weapons and you're paying for keywords that either negate cover or give it to you wherever you're placed.

They're just different infantry, with "different" playstyles, in the same way that the regular rebels play differently to the Fleet troopers.

Again, thats not an actual different play style. Thats just the different units being a little better or worse at the same things. I mean, maybe its an issue of terminology or semantics, but to me a different play style would be if the unit actually did something that other units couldn't do. For example, the speed and compulsory movement of Speederbikes give them a different play style than Storm Troopers.

12 minutes ago, Jake the Hutt said:

Again, thats not an actual different play style. Thats just the different units being a little better or worse at the same things. I mean, maybe its an issue of terminology or semantics, but to me a different play style would be if the unit actually did something that other units couldn't do. For example, the speed and compulsory movement of Speederbikes give them a different play style than Storm Troopers.

You will never agree with any of us that think that the differences that are supposedly minor actually change a lot of things, it's a question of poin of view, not a question of facts.

I consider that a commando that can exploit light cover will have a much different approach to the battlefield as opposed to regular troopers that would still suffer greatly in that type of terrain, yet without Nimble, these commandos will not be interested in getting shot at and won't be able to soak fire like a unit of rebel troopers that are in heavy cover + dodge (I've had a unit stack 7 suppression in that setup, just because they had been shot at and removed 3 hits every time they got shot at and had some lucky saves). They are there to harass from range 3 but still not supposed to go into a massive crossfire. Even if courage 2 allows them to get shot at and do 2 actions.

They may not be mechanically be very different (yet) but they are not meant to be used the same.

I agree that all the corps units are basically the same. FFG made some cookies, but decorated them differently. The only one that stands out as being different is the fleet troopers because of the range 2 restriction. Rebel, storm, and snow troopers are essentially the same, with different abilities and heavy weapons. Otherwise, enjoy throwing dice and sitting in heavy cover.

That said, this is not an issue of game design, but rather the age of the game. There's not enough content right now. T47 is not on par with the AT-ST, so rebel armies tend to be the horde - 5-6 troopers with 3 AT-RTs. You find out pretty quick how similar all the units are when you play like that, because that's exactly what I've been doing since release, and Leia puts more focus on running troopers.

What we need is more vehicles. All troopers are going to function the same. Run to cover, shoot, run to objective, run away. This is their game design, because troopers can score points for all objectives. But vehicles allow for a strategic element. They allow you to flank and flush out enemies, or they are the center to your army. They provide cover for you to advance, and require dedicated firepower to bring down. Right now, we only have 2 vehicles per side. Not a whole lot you can do when people start to min/max armies because they explored all the options.

Bottom line, the game needs more content. Once we get a trooper commander for Imps, and a vehicle commander for rebels, the game will start to feel more diverse.

18 minutes ago, Deuzerre said:

You will never agree with any of us that think that the differences that are supposedly minor actually change a lot of things, it's a question of poin of view, not a question of facts.

I consider that a commando that can exploit light cover will have a much different approach to the battlefield as opposed to regular troopers that would still suffer greatly in that type of terrain, yet without Nimble, these commandos will not be interested in getting shot at and won't be able to soak fire like a unit of rebel troopers that are in heavy cover + dodge (I've had a unit stack 7 suppression in that setup, just because they had been shot at and removed 3 hits every time they got shot at and had some lucky saves). They are there to harass from range 3 but still not supposed to go into a massive crossfire. Even if courage 2 allows them to get shot at and do 2 actions.

They may not be mechanically be very different (yet) but they are not meant to be used the same.

You're correct. I do disagree. What you're describing is (too me) not a different play style, but just the different capabilities of units with the same play style. Again, maybe thats just semantics, but the idea of " different play style" means something different to me. That the unit can actually perform different functions and do different things. Right now Commandos do somethings better than Rebel and Fleet Troopers and some things worse, but they all do the same things. Theres nothing one can do that the others can't (each will just be more or less effective).

It may also be that this kind of granular distinction between unit capabilities that yo're describing is what you want out of a game but not what I want. Thats fine too.

I feel like I've said everything I really have to say about this, and I think that we've all made our points pretty clearly and we can see that theres different opinions and points of view (which is just fine, of course), so I'm going to go ahead and step away from this thread.