hey all - so, I was building a list to play against a pal tonight and realized that Luke has become a complete "auto-include" for me to the point where I have yet to run a list without him. As I started to build the list, it became apparent why as I now can't seem to find something that doesn't feel under-powered - by which I mean, a list that I can see easily countering Vader and/or Veers and/or 2 x AT-ST's and/or a mirror-image of myself.

What have you guys built that doesn't include everyone's favorite farm-boy and still kicks (mostly Imperial) ass?

thanks in advance!

I personally find Leia a much better commander. Luke is fun to jump around with and deal some damage, but he is only one figure and a fairly expensive one. The last two games I have played I ran without Luke at all, and just Leia. The extra points allowed me to get more troopers and support units, which paid off. In both games we ended in a draw, and it came down to the number of figures killed. The first game I ended up killing quite a bit more than the Imperial player, and the second game I made a risky moves that didn't pay off and lost by a mere 5 points. Had I played it a little smarter, I likely could have won by over 100 points (Leia died...).

With her ability to remove two additional suppression tokens from troopers, and give them dodge tokens, it really boosts her ability to be more of a "true" commander. I see Luke as more of a leader, leading a charge and dealing damage, but that can easily be replaced by more units.

For me it comes down to the mission available and the map. Sometimes you need to horde units for those behind-enemy-lines missions, while the supply run mission you want something a bit stronger grabbing objectives so it doesn't die right away.

So far I plan to run Luke sparingly however.

I imagine the Airspeeder would have to do some work to make a non Luke list.

The Imps have to choose between Vader or an AT-ST to go along with Veers but from what it sounds like the Airspeeder isn't quite there.

I do love me some AT-RT's though and I wish I could fit a third into my Luke&Leia list. I was toying with the idea of dropping Luke for a third walker and Troopers of some kind.

It is a lot more painting though... ?

Luke is great, but not a requirement. I've had good success with Leia, 3 AT-RTs, and a mess of Z-6 troops.

Yes, Vader or an AT-ST can eat any of that, but they can't eat all of that.

13 hours ago, BenBot said:

The Imps have to choose between Vader or an AT-ST to go along with Veers but from what it sounds like the Airspeeder isn't quite there.

The T-47 is just never quite there... ?

Such a cool looking model and fun to play with but just so hard to justify.

I just won the Legion tournament at Salt Lake Gaming Con this last weekend without using Luke. I went 3-0 against an imperial player and 2 other rebel players. The extra points without taking Luke went to a 3rd At-Rt with flamer (my group as taken to calling these "fire chickens") and a 6th core unit with a Z-20 blaster. All games were conceded by my opponents by turn 5.

14 hours ago, Rustbucket3437 said:

I just won the Legion tournament at Salt Lake Gaming Con this last weekend without using Luke. I went 3-0 against an imperial player and 2 other rebel players. The extra points without taking Luke went to a 3rd At-Rt with flamer (my group as taken to calling these "fire chickens") and a 6th core unit with a Z-20 blaster. All games were conceded by my opponents by turn 5.

Nice! Congrats! ?

Do you mind posting the list please? Any upgrades on Leia?

I really like (3) AT-RT's. I'm still learning how to use them effectively on the table...

4 hours ago, BenBot said:

Nice! Congrats! ?

Do you mind posting the list please? Any upgrades on Leia?

I really like (3) AT-RT's. I'm still learning how to use them effectively on the table...

Yeah, it was Leia with Esteemed leader, 3 Fire chickens (just the flame thrower for upgrades), 2 Fleet troopers with Mpl launcher, enviro gear and extra trooper, 3 Rebel troopers with Z-20 blaster, and extra trooper, and 1 Rebel trooper with just a Z-20 blaster. The list came out to 795 which let me choose blue player in every game.

I ran the fire chickens as a wolf pack, always grouped together, and always on the flank where there were troopers directly across from them. The first round was always an assault command card so that I could place all 3 support order tokens on them and they would move, move as the last units to act for my turn. On turn 2 they would move, attack and usually just decimate a trooper unit.

7 hours ago, Rustbucket3437 said:

I ran the fire chickens as a wolf pack, always grouped together, and always on the flank where there were troopers directly across from them. The first round was always an assault command card so that I could place all 3 support order tokens on them and they would move, move as the last units to act for my turn. On turn 2 they would move, attack and usually just decimate a trooper unit.

That’s a cool tactic. Thanks for sharing!

I’m curious if you’ve tried laser canon on one of them just give you greater reach and the possibility of additional target sets when your Storm-B-Q finishes up all your close in targets.

Also, when did you find coorindated bombardment best played? It’s become my go to first card, which has worked well for me, but obviously would have to be played later with this set up.

8 hours ago, Gengis Jon said:

I’m curious if you’ve tried laser canon on one of them just give you greater reach and the possibility of additional target sets when your Storm-B-Q finishes up all your close in targets.

Also, when did you find coorindated bombardment best played? It’s become my go to first card, which has worked well for me, but obviously would have to be played later with this set up.

I tried that in one of my practice games and didn't like it too much. The laser canon felt so out of sync with the other 2 because it wanted to sit back and shoot where as the others ran forward full speed. Plus forcing your opponent to deal with 18 armor wounds at the start of their second turn is just so hard for them to do. If they can't deal 16 unsaved wounds to at least cripple the last chicken, some of their troops are going to get crispy guaranteed.

I have found that I usually play co-ordinate bombardment the turn that I need to suppress enemy troops to try to stop them from taking the ever OP Aim, Shoot orders while my units get to do those exact orders to their units when I activate. Usually it's turn 2, it's frequently becoming turn 3. Depends on what is happening on the board and where each of us have positioned units. I have noticed though that if I'm facing off against Veers that I will never play it first turn. There are better things to do to guarantee that units operate in the order that I want them to, Veers' will always play his super 1 pip card first turn and now I'm up a 1 pip card for later in the game.

It is a different style, but I like the Laser Cannon RT. The extra range means that it often gets to Aim-Fire where the Rotary is Move-Fire. The aim and impact make up for fewer dice and the extra range tends to make it more survivable. Of course if you can get an aim on the Rotary, that's pretty brutal.

On 7/12/2018 at 5:50 AM, Rustbucket3437 said:

Yeah, it was Leia with Esteemed leader, 3 Fire chickens (just the flame thrower for upgrades), 2 Fleet troopers with Mpl launcher, enviro gear and extra trooper, 3 Rebel troopers with Z-20 blaster, and extra trooper, and 1 Rebel trooper with just a Z-20 blaster. The list came out to 795 which let me choose blue player in every game.

I ran the fire chickens as a wolf pack, always grouped together, and always on the flank where there were troopers directly across from them. The first round was always an assault command card so that I could place all 3 support order tokens on them and they would move, move as the last units to act for my turn. On turn 2 they would move, attack and usually just decimate a trooper unit.

I ran my The Princess and The Chickens list last night and crushed in two games. Having Rapid Reinforcements meant the Fleet Troopers were a nasty surprise.

The Princess and The Chickens (799/800)
Rebels

Leia Organa (90)
- Esteemed Leader (5)
- Commanding Presence (10)
= 105 total points

Fleet Troopers (44)
- Concussion Grenades (5)
- Scatter Gun Trooper (23)
- Fleet Trooper (11)
= 83 total points

Fleet Troopers (44)
- Scatter Gun Trooper (23)
- Fleet Trooper (11)
= 78 total points

Rebel Troopers (40)
- Concussion Grenades (5)
- Z-6 Trooper (22)
- Rebel Trooper (10)
= 77 total points

Rebel Troopers (40)
- Z-6 Trooper (22)
- Rebel Trooper (10)
= 72 total points

Rebel Troopers (40)
- Z-6 Trooper (22)
- Rebel Trooper (10)
= 72 total points

Rebel Troopers (40)
- Z-6 Trooper (22)
- Rebel Trooper (10)
= 72 total points

AT-RT (55)
- AT-RT Flamethrower (25)
= 80 total points

AT-RT (55)
- AT-RT Flamethrower (25)
= 80 total points

AT-RT (55)
- AT-RT Flamethrower (25)
= 80 total points

Princess and the Chickens — That’s exactly the name of a band I’d like to see on stage at Pax this year.

9 hours ago, DangerShine Designs said:

I ran my The Princess and The Chickens list last night and crushed in two games. Having Rapid Reinforcements meant the Fleet Troopers were a nasty surprise.

That is amazing and I'm totally stealing it for the name of my list.

Nice job on the wins too.

11 minutes ago, Gengis Jon said:

Princess and the Chickens — That’s exactly the name of a band I’d like to see on stage at Pax this year.

Was thinking of changing it to The Royal Rebel and The Roaster Roosters , give it more of a punk feel

On 7/12/2018 at 8:36 PM, Rustbucket3437 said:

I tried that in one of my practice games and didn't like it too much. The laser canon felt so out of sync with the other 2 because it wanted to sit back and shoot where as the others ran forward full speed. Plus forcing your opponent to deal with 18 armor wounds at the start of their second turn is just so hard for them to do. If they can't deal 16 unsaved wounds to at least cripple the last chicken, some of their troops are going to get crispy guaranteed.

I have found that I usually play co-ordinate bombardment the turn that I need to suppress enemy troops to try to stop them from taking the ever OP Aim, Shoot orders while my units get to do those exact orders to their units when I activate. Usually it's turn 2, it's frequently becoming turn 3. Depends on what is happening on the board and where each of us have positioned units. I have noticed though that if I'm facing off against Veers that I will never play it first turn. There are better things to do to guarantee that units operate in the order that I want them to, Veers' will always play his super 1 pip card first turn and now I'm up a 1 pip card for later in the game.

On 7/12/2018 at 4:50 AM, Rustbucket3437 said:

Yeah, it was Leia with Esteemed leader, 3 Fire chickens (just the flame thrower for upgrades), 2 Fleet troopers with Mpl launcher, enviro gear and extra trooper, 3 Rebel troopers with Z-20 blaster, and extra trooper, and 1 Rebel trooper with just a Z-20 blaster. The list came out to 795 which let me choose blue player in every game.

I ran the fire chickens as a wolf pack, always grouped together, and always on the flank where there were troopers directly across from them. The first round was always an assault command card so that I could place all 3 support order tokens on them and they would move, move as the last units to act for my turn. On turn 2 they would move, attack and usually just decimate a trooper unit.

These are some great insights, and I am going to be trying out this archetype in my next league game with something like this:

Leia (Esteemed Leader, Environmental Gear)
2x Fleet Troopers (Scatter Gun, Extra Trooper, Gear, Impact Grenades)
4x Rebel Troopers (Z-6, Extra Man)
3x AT-RT (Flamethrower)

Maxed Corps units and flamethrowers, what could go wrong? Hopefully I can apply the lessons you've learned!

How do these lists fare against armor? I don't see a lot of impact, so I assume you just ignore AT-STs and such as much as possible. However, if I saw this list and had an AT-ST, I would probably play it/them super aggressively, while keeping my troopers back, plinking with dlts. Have you faced a defensive imperial with armor? I mostly want to know how to beat this type of list. ?

A large amount of the success seems to depend on whether the flamers can flank efficiently. When I ran double flamer lists with Luke my biggest problem was DLTs putting early damage in on the flamers. Snows with Impact Grenades also create a huge no-go zone for them.

17 hours ago, Qwrety77 said:

How do these lists fare against armor? I don't see a lot of impact, so I assume you just ignore AT-STs and such as much as possible. However, if I saw this list and had an AT-ST, I would probably play it/them super aggressively, while keeping my troopers back, plinking with dlts. Have you faced a defensive imperial with armor? I mostly want to know how to beat this type of list. ?

This list is only really afraid of other fire chickens with what is currently available. In the case of a mirror match, you just have to accept that there will be MAYBE 4 models left on the table in total. The entire focus of this list isn't crushing your opponent or claiming every objective on the table, the focus is taking away your opponents ability to claim objectives. It doesn't matter what has died or what is left as long as you have 1 more objective than your opponent.

If you know your opponent has armor and will spend their first 2 turns focusing your chickens down, make sure your troopers are entrenched where they need to be that you can just delete the move command from them for the rest of the game.

This list very heavily relies on being able to get your opponent to think that the wrong unit is a high priority to kill. This is why I will nine times out of ten have all three chickens activate last on my first turn. Let your opponent think that he HAS to kill your fleet troopers first or avoid all of your Z-6's. There have been some games though where I just let my opponent kill the chickens because he watched a game I was playing earlier and I kept talking up the chickens to him before our game started. After the chickens were fried, the untouched fleet troopers wiped the table.

It is worth mentioning now that I have a very reactive play style in nearly every strategy game that I play and that that kind of play style isn't for everyone.

The patient hunter gets his prey shas'la.

This list is based on killing enemy troops and preventing the opponent from scoring objective points. It pretty much ignores armor.

No rebel list can hurt an AT-ST (ex. maybe triple Laser Cannon) fast enough to make the effort worth it, so just try to stay out of it's way.

Rebel T-47s are pretty rare, and can be taken down by ground fire from this list if really needed.

6 minutes ago, Brightguy said:

This list is based on killing enemy troops and preventing the opponent from scoring objective points. It pretty much ignores armor.

No rebel list can hurt an AT-ST (ex. maybe triple Laser Cannon) fast enough to make the effort worth it, so just try to stay out of it's way.

Rebel T-47s are pretty rare, and can be taken down by ground fire from this list if really needed.

^ This.

I also envy this person's ability to convey key points with a minimal word count.

Thank you sir.

2 hours ago, Brightguy said:

This list is based on killing enemy troops and preventing the opponent from scoring objective points. It pretty much ignores armor.

No rebel list can hurt an AT-ST (ex. maybe triple Laser Cannon) fast enough to make the effort worth it, so just try to stay out of it's way.

Rebel T-47s are pretty rare, and can be taken down by ground fire from this list if really needed.

That's kind of what I figured. I'm trying to learn how to play the AT-ST well, despite the"meta" saying it's not great. I'm actually working on a double AT-ST, but have to figure out how to make them impossible to ignore.

3 hours ago, Rustbucket3437 said:

This   list very heavily relies on being able to get your opponent to think that the wrong unit is a high priority to kill. This is why I will nine times out of ten have all three chickens activate last on my first turn. Let your opponent think that he HAS  to kill your fleet troopers first or avoid all of your Z-6's.

It sounds like none of them are really safe to prioritize, which is why the list is dangerous. If I were to face it with my double AT-STs (and 4 dlts), I would probably (depending of deployment, obviously), try to rush my AT-STs forward and hopefully immobilize the fire chickens, while passing out suppression. My troops would stay back and plink with the dlts, but be cautious. An objective like intercept the transmissions would be bad, but it's bad for my defensive playstyle with any list.

What do you think the weaknesses of the fiery pheasant list are?

To me sounds like the “chickens” need a lot of space to move around and terrain would definitely slow them down if they can get through it that is . How much terrain was on the table ?

15 hours ago, Steelgolem said:

To me sounds like the “chickens” need a lot of space to move around and terrain would definitely slow them down if they can get through it that is . How much terrain was on the table ?

Can confirm, you need a pathway to your opponent. I recently had mine get "stuck" in a conga line format because they were hiding from lasers.