Help a new player out

By Lyraeus, in Star Wars: Legion

So, this is less of a rules question and more of a strategy thing but what are some rules, basic play mistakes, etc that beginners make.

I know for Armada, beginners like to split up ships, attack multiple targets, over use Concentrate Fire commands, etc when they start. What about Legion?

I am still pretty new, but the things that Ive been really struggling with is being ok with just trying to set up later turns during your early turns. As an Armada player, it should be an easy transition for you; but for players who are accustomed to some other Miniatures games where you can often win, or come close to winning, during your first turn; its really hard to simply move/dodge pass with most of your early activations.

the rules are free in PDF format. Read through the rules to get a better feel for the game. Strategy is based on army list and scenario cards. Strategy begins really begins before setup. Take a look at the battle reports or the army building forums.

58 minutes ago, Bohemian73 said:

the rules are free in PDF format. Read through the rules to get a better feel for the game. Strategy is based on army list and scenario cards. Strategy begins really begins before setup. Take a look at the battle reports or the army building forums.

I am speaking more of the common mistakes new players make.

Don't take enough Corps units

Take a T-47

Play 40k LOS rather than carefully read the rules - guilty of that myself

Edited by Amanal

The obvious armada analogy is that activation superiority is very strong. Stronger than armadas.

One big difference i find is that - darth and luke aside- single units dont do a lot to each other. If two infantry units in cover are firing at each other they generally wont do more than dish out a suppression and force one or two saves.

Jet Bikes have a bit of a learning curve in that some new players with their compulsory move cant help flying them forward un supported and getting them killed but once you get past this they are pretty much the best unit going at present.

1 hour ago, Ophion said:

The obvious armada analogy is that activation superiority is very strong. Stronger than armadas.

One big difference i find is that - darth and luke aside- single units dont do a lot to each other. If two infantry units in cover are firing at each other they generally wont do more than dish out a suppression and force one or two saves.

Jet Bikes have a bit of a learning curve in that some new players with their compulsory move cant help flying them forward un supported and getting them killed but once you get past this they are pretty much the best unit going at present.

Been listening to the Legion Outriders. I am liking their C. Move, Shoot, Move concept

1 hour ago, Amanal said:

Don't take enough Corps units

Take a T-47

Play 40k LOS rather than carefully read the rules - guilty of that myself

Yea, coming from a 40k 5th edition background and some 8th this is very helpful

List Building

Corps Troopers: Take a lot of them, 5-6 if possible. It's better to have more small squads (just the base 4 plus a heavy weapon) than fewer beefy squads. Grenades are only really worth it on Stormtroopers and especially Snowtroopers. Skip grappling ropes or precision scopes in favor of environmental gear or nothing at all.

Heavy Supports: It's generally accepted that the T-47 is under powered for its cost. The AT-ST is good, but watch out for maps with dense terrain and always try to eliminate Limited Visibility when determining the battlefield.

Supports: The AT-RT is a solid platform and all of its hard point weapons are fairly good for different roles. Speeder bikes take skill to master but can be devastating and fast in the right hands.

Common Rules Mistakes

Make sure you carefully read the sequence for rolling attack and defense dice, it works differently than other FFG Star Wars games. For instance, the defender applies cover and dodge tokens before rolling defense dice.

Only ranged attacks impose a suppression token

Read the latest rules document carefully for cover and LoS rules, they take some getting used to.

Keywords always stack, so if an attack has multiple weapons with the Impact keyword in it add them together. This means that 5 troopers throwing Impact grenades perform an attack with Impact 5 (because they are each contributing an Impact 1 weapon).

If you are attacking with a unit that has multiple weapons (either from Arsenal or from multiple contributing minis) you can split fire and attack different enemies, but all weapons of the same name must target the same target.

10 hours ago, Lyraeus said:

I am speaking more of the common mistakes new players make.

Taking the optimization of their army list too seriously. It is a great impediment to getting armies into the field and learning the game. Paint 800 points, any 800 points, and get 'em out there, list tweak after you've played several games, not in preparation to try out the game. Painting a whole perfect army is daunting. Painting a sucky but small list of heavily upgraded stuff is not. Neither is it daunting to paint one more unit at a time to replace those upgrade cards with useful troops, to bring the army up to performance. If you figure out your 800 point optimal list and then sit down to paint it all you'll never paint it because by the time you're halfway done, new units will have been released and your ideal list will change out from under you. Paint 800 points, any 800 points, then bring it up to spec with additional painted units one at a time.

That being said, armies for Legion are small. About 40 models. If you are an old hand they won't be daunting at all.

Remember. The minimum squad size is 4 "ordinary" models, one marked and nominated as a commander, and the boxes come with an extra ordinary trooper and 2 heavies per squad, but you're only allowed to use one heavy per squad. So... if you have 4 or more squads you can start drafting minimum sized squads out of the extra riflemen in your squads, and equip them with one of the extra (perhaps less than optimal) heavies from your squads. This is a good way to get extra activations if you can't afford lots of new boxes of guys.

This can also let you speed up your initial painting. I paint my guys in assembly-line fashion and for my first core set, I only painted one of each heavy, to shave a few minutes off here and there, to make sure I'd get painted demo forces, fast. Later I went back and painted the extra heavies as a side project.

Edited by TauntaunScout

Biggest mistakes I see people making is in regards to Corp units. Make sure you take more than the required 3. As of right now, you want 5-6 Corps, 4 as an absolute minimum but there are very few lists where 4 is a good time.

Did the LOS rules ever get hashed out? This has been keeping from playing honestly. The last tourney was a disaster and every game ive seen since has had some confusion about what is LOS.

Edited by buckero0
29 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Did the LOS rullllea ever get hashes out? This has been keeping from playing honestly. The last tournwy waa a disaster and every game ive seen since has had some confusion about what is LOS.

It's suppose to be from top center of head.

Most common mistake - play to kill rather than play the objectives!

Yes, you have to play the objectives. You can wreck the other guys army and still lose the game. Objectives is every thing and right now, you need "troopers" to do objectives.