So I’m finally getting around to giving legion a go. Played a demo at GenCon and was impressed, but the demo didn’t use the rules for suppression. Have now finished reading the rules, and suppression and panic seem absolutely brutal. Like, able to shut down most of an army for the game brutal. I figure I must be wrong about that, so I’m asking, what am I missing?

It is brutal, but it’s helped somewhat by commanders and anti suiression measures like Leias inspire.

2 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

I figure I must be wrong about that, so I’m asking, what am I missing?

Nope, you’re right! Managing suppression (both yours and your opponent’s) is central to the game. You ideally are activating your most important guys before they get suppressed, and dishing out as much suppression as you can. Splitting your weapons during attacks can be very powerful for this reason.

Suppression is also one of the reasons Leia and dual commanders are so strong: Leia removes suppression from units, and having two commanders increases your panic-protection bubble.

Just to make sure you’re not actually missing anything: one suppression is automaticaly removed from each unit at the end of each round. And when you activate, you roll a die for each token you have to see if it’s removed. In my experience panicking is pretty rare unless you’ve royally screwed up (which you learn not to do again ?).

Suppression is one of the reasons why order of activations is so important in Legion. With only six turns, any infantry unit is limited to twelve actions a game (lots of exceptions to this, but it’s a ballpark) and suppression can theoretically cut that in half. So yeah, it is a big component of the game. It is also a critical function for units like stormtroopers that typically can’t dish out a ton of damage and have a hard time destroying units, but can usually generate a suppression token.

Suppression won't usually cause your dudes to run away, because even with a courage 2 commander it turns the panic number from 2 to 4, but it will often strip your actions. Even if a unit has 1 token when they activate, that is a 2/3 chance they only get 1 action(assuming a courage 1 unit). Each additional suppression cuts the chance of getting 2 actions by another 2/3s.