9 minutes ago, srMontresor said:

I think it is possible that we could part way there in this game, as the Pathfinder description at least suggests that some rebel units might be able to deploy (or reinforce in a later turn) in or from the enemy deployment zone. Hopefully, they do not give the Empire such tricks.

Exactly, I hope the same. We now know that we'll have Jyn/Pathfinders and Krennic/ Death Troopers.

So thematically speaking (and as the product description suggests) the Pathfinders should be able to start closer (or within) enemy lines since we seem them do so in R1. Im guessing they will be able to deploy within or near the enemy deployment zone while also deploying after all of the enemy's units have been deployed.

On the same token, we see the Death Troopers get shuttled to and dropped off right at the front line of battle so I wonder if they'll have some sort of built in Rapid Reinforcements ability.

That way, they could start bringing some asymmetry back in the game.

23 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

I don't like how it's shaping up, they are sorta similar and their differences feel "wrong". What with the superior numbers the rebels frequently field.

2 hours ago, srMontresor said:

This is definitely something I agree seems to currently be an issue. I felt the same way with Armada also, which had battles which did not seem to be reflected in the films. In my mind, the rebels should be more often outnumbered than not. This could have been done by giving rebels substantial leadership and command buffs, greater morale, and more tricks up their sleeve.

I agree both. They even managed to achieve it in X-Wing, at least at the beginning, since normally a couple of TIE-Fighter were equivalent to a single X-Wing. It is only a matter of adjusting points and material: don't give imperials special weapon or make them very expensive, while normal troops should be cheaper to increase numbers. To compensate, give them a lower shooting value. Rebels should be more accurate, imperials should fail easier its shots due to the helmet

Or give rebels a higher morale value, make them very brave compared to imperials, and so adjust points.

For example, in Lord Of the rings battle miniatures game (Games Wokshop) the bad guys (normal orcs) are really cheap, but they can break their morale really easy compared to the elves or the humans. They can kill almost equally easy, but they are really worst archers (their accuracy sucks) and they need "officers" (heroes) close or they will flee the battle as soon as the problems begin. It would have been a good approach, better than mirrored armies.

4 hours ago, Tubb said:

I agree both. They even managed to achieve it in X-Wing, at least at the beginning, since normally a couple of TIE-Fighter were equivalent to a single X-Wing. It is only a matter of adjusting points and material: don't give imperials special weapon or make them very expensive, while normal troops should be cheaper to increase numbers. To compensate, give them a lower shooting value. Rebels should be more accurate, imperials should fail easier its shots due to the helmet

Or give rebels a higher morale value, make them very brave compared to imperials, and so adjust points.

For example, in Lord Of the rings battle miniatures game (Games Wokshop) the bad guys (normal orcs) are really cheap, but they can break their morale really easy compared to the elves or the humans. They can kill almost equally easy, but they are really worst archers (their accuracy sucks) and they need "officers" (heroes) close or they will flee the battle as soon as the problems begin. It would have been a good approach, better than mirrored armies.

Personally, I love the fact that both sides aren't that much different. They are asymmetric, but not too much, which gives it a very grounded feel. If I was playing a WWII game, yes, Germany has different stuff than the US, but it isn't a whole lot different in the grand scheme. They are variations on a theme, if you will. In real life, combatants aren't usually that different from each other, but do have different factories and different tactics which lend themselves to variations on an idea (two different nations will produce slightly different fighter craft or medium tanks, for example). To me, this gives Legion a very 'lived in' feel, which is something I've always loved about the Star Wars universe.

I’m all for them taking a light touch to differentiate factions that are mostly humans. Just slightly more interesting then a historical game.

once we see droid armies I expect things to get wacky.

18 minutes ago, SirCormac said:

Personally, I love the fact that both sides aren't that much different. They are asymmetric, but not too much, which gives it a very grounded feel. If I was playing a WWII game, yes, Germany has different stuff than the US, but it isn't a whole lot different in the grand scheme. They are variations on a theme, if you will. In real life, combatants aren't usually that different from each other, but do have different factories and different tactics which lend themselves to variations on an idea (two different nations will produce slightly different fighter craft or medium tanks, for example). To me, this gives Legion a very 'lived in' feel, which is something I've always loved about the Star Wars universe.

I would agree for the Clone Wars, but for the original trilogy it is less like two nations fighting in WWII and more like the Soviets vs the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

18 hours ago, Dark Don said:

Im hoping for generic upgrade cards to make normal units "unique", maybe that will help the insatiable.

We seem to be up against a sales strategy. Sales strategies are rarely defeated these days. The FFG playbook seems to be, use upgrade cards as advertising to sell minis? Hence, I doubt we'll see what the game most needs. A $15 (or so) deck of small cards for each faction containing duplicates of non-unique upgrades, and 1 each of lots of unique upgrades such as pilots. Also a similar product of large cards, that adds several scenarios, command cards, etc. This would mean maximum mathematical expansion of the game for minimum resource expenditure from both consumers and producers. It would also kill off the photocopies-of-cards-in-sleeves for homeplay: Personally if I COULD buy tons of real add on cards to support the game I WOULD, but I can't so I don't bother if cards aren't official.

10 hours ago, SirCormac said:

Personally, I love the fact that both sides aren't that much different. They are asymmetric, but not too much, which gives it a very grounded feel. If I was playing a WWII game, yes, Germany has different stuff than the US, but it isn't a whole lot different in the grand scheme. They are variations on a theme, if you will. In real life, combatants aren't usually that different from each other, but do have different factories and different tactics which lend themselves to variations on an idea (two different nations will produce slightly different fighter craft or medium tanks, for example). To me, this gives Legion a very 'lived in' feel, which is something I've always loved about the Star Wars universe.

Yeah but... it flies in the face of decades of backstory. The rebels are outnumbered. The rebels lack equipment. They make up for it with individual skill and hit and run tactics and the like. The rebels seem to operate with superior intelligence to the imperials, somehow. Their network of spies seems to be able to compensate for a lot.

Throughout history some pretty asymmetrical matchups are the norm, both "on the ground" and at the "big picture" levels. You're right that a German infantry squad wasn't different from a British infantry squad for practical purposes if it came right down to it. Nor were Flemish pikemen much different from Swiss pikemen if you were observing them with frustrated hostile intent from the back of a horse. But the different armies that they are part of can be wildly different. And there was a vast gulf of a practical difference between other belligerents in history. That's the kind of difference we've been clearly told, time and again, that exists between the rebellion and the empire.

10 hours ago, TylerTT said:

I’m all for them taking a light touch to differentiate factions that are mostly humans. Just slightly more interesting then a historical game.

Historical games, less interesting, ha ha ha ha! DBA is tactically fascinating which I why I give it a fair shake despite not really being small toy people, but rather, groupings of extra-small toy people glued to a single base. For those driven from a story and setting perspective, history has far more detail to offer than any fictional universe. As far as painting goes, historical minis have no licensing fees and tons of competition so the best of them are still cheaper figures to buy and paint than 40k, Warmachine, Legion, etc. Perry Miniatures are just as good as (in many cases better) anything GW ever released, at least as far as humans are concerned: it's kinda apples to oranges to compare historical minis to toy demons or something.

Although I do have one big rules gripe with DBA. I won't say what it is, on this forum. But I will say it, is something that's based on a popular conceit instead of reality.

4 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Yeah but... it flies in the face of decades of backstory. The rebels are outnumbered. The rebels lack equipment. They make up for it with individual skill and hit and run tactics and the like. The rebels seem to operate with superior intelligence to the imperials, somehow. Their network of spies seems to be able to compensate for a lot.

Throughout history some pretty asymmetrical matchups are the norm, both "on the ground" and at the "big picture" levels. You're right that a German infantry squad wasn't different from a British infantry squad for practical purposes if it came right down to it. Nor were Flemish pikemen much different from Swiss pikemen if you were observing them with frustrated hostile intent from the back of a horse. But the different armies that they are part of can be wildly different. And there was a vast gulf of a practical difference between other belligerents in history. That's the kind of difference we've been clearly told, time and again, that exists between the rebellion and the empire.

Historical games, less interesting, ha ha ha ha! DBA is tactically fascinating which I why I give it a fair shake despite not really being small toy people, but rather, groupings of extra-small toy people glued to a single base. For those driven from a story and setting perspective, history has far more detail to offer than any fictional universe. As far as painting goes, historical minis have no licensing fees and tons of competition so the best of them are still cheaper figures to buy and paint than 40k, Warmachine, Legion, etc. Perry Miniatures are just as good as (in many cases better) anything GW ever released, at least as far as humans are concerned: it's kinda apples to oranges to compare historical minis to toy demons or something.

Although I do have one big rules gripe with DBA. I won't say what it is, on this forum. But I will say it, is something that's based on a popular conceit instead of reality.

I think you are over-exaggerating the difference between the two. While the Rebels were weaker in some ways, they went toe-to-toe with the main fleet in ROTJ...and won! And that's with the Death Star shooting at them. Clearly, they had large worlds supporting them (such as Mon Cal) and had factories of their own to produce weapons and vehicles. While outmatched by the empire on the whole, they clearly were a legitimate fighting force that could meet the Empire in battle tactically, but could easily be outgunned if the Empire brought a larger force, which was hard for it to do as its forces were spread through the galaxy.

They are two armies that exist in the same time period, using roughly the same tactics. They should be different, but not the standard tropes of big, cheap bug race vs. Expensive, high quality tech race. I think the game catches it perfectly.

9 minutes ago, SirCormac said:

While outmatched by the empire on the whole, they clearly were a legitimate fighting force that could meet the Empire in battle tactically, but could easily be outgunned if the Empire brought a larger force, which was hard for it to do as its forces were spread through the galaxy.

I was thinking the same. If The Alliance get their strategy right, they should outnumber and outgun the Imperials. A key point of guerrilla warfare is to only fight when you have the advantage- otherwise you should retreat in good order to conserve your forces. As The Alliance is the more mobile force, a scenario where the Imperials have a heavy numerical advantage would simply be a count-down until the enemy go to hyperspace or into hiding, which might make an interesting game if you like fighting withdrawals but they're not for everyone. Obviously The Empire can catch The Alliance off guard and the numbers could be flipped the other way but in the time required to bring a large force to bear the Rebels would most likely escape along well planned routes. (Unless they've seen Rogue 1 or Force Awakens in which case they just hit the big red hyperspace button from inside an atmosphere or gravity well. Continuity is for other franchises.)

To a point FFG have given players the tools to create a number of scenarios. If as a rebel player I take airspeeders, my ground force will be outnumbered. If I take minimal corps with specialists and maximum Spec Ops I have an elite strike team. Taking 6 rebel troopers squads gives me the sort of force that is overthrowing the Empire through a popular uprising as seen in the montage at the end of RoTJ.

These won't be tournament winning armies necessarily but that's because tournaments are more about 'the game' as opposed to an RPG light 'wargame'. Lets face it, as soon as Sheev Palpatine burns his health away to protect a moisture vaporator, the suspension of disbelief is pretty much broken. If you want to play more historically accurate 'what if' encounters you're probably going to have to refine the mission building process.

25 minutes ago, SirCormac said:

I think you are over-exaggerating the difference between the two. While the Rebels were weaker in some ways, they went toe-to-toe with the main fleet in ROTJ...and won! And that's with the Death Star shooting at them. Clearly, they had large worlds supporting them (such as Mon Cal) and had factories of their own to produce weapons and vehicles. While outmatched by the empire on the whole, they clearly were a legitimate fighting force that could meet the Empire in battle tactically, but could easily be outgunned if the Empire brought a larger force, which was hard for it to do as its forces were spread through the galaxy.

They are two armies that exist in the same time period, using roughly the same tactics. They should be different, but not the standard tropes of big, cheap bug race vs. Expensive, high quality tech race. I think the game catches it perfectly.

I wouldn't say the went toe-to-toe with the main Imperial Fleet in RotJ. If you remember the Imperial Fleet was given orders not to engage the Rebel fleet. This surprised officers on both sides. The Rebels weren't there to fight the Imperial fleet at all, they were there to give the fighters time to destroy the Death Star. Even the Rebels knew they were severely outmatched by the Imperial Fleet to the point where Ackbar questions Lando when he tells them to attack the Star Destroyers.

1 hour ago, jcmonson said:

I wouldn't say the went toe-to-toe with the main Imperial Fleet in RotJ. If you remember the Imperial Fleet was given orders not to engage the Rebel fleet. This surprised officers on both sides. The Rebels weren't there to fight the Imperial fleet at all, they were there to give the fighters time to destroy the Death Star. Even the Rebels knew they were severely outmatched by the Imperial Fleet to the point where Ackbar questions Lando when he tells them to attack the Star Destroyers.

But then they engaged the main fleet and destroyed the Executor, and the fleet is still intact after the Death Star is destroyed, so I'd say they went toe-to-toe.

19 minutes ago, SirCormac said:

But then they engaged the main fleet and destroyed the Executor, and the fleet is still intact after the Death Star is destroyed, so I'd say they went toe-to-toe.

Man, I agree with your overall point (these people all live in the same universe where war is fought a specific way so yeah, they would have similar units that do similar stuff) but from a fleet perspective, you can't really argue they went toe-to-toe since we don't have enough context for overall movements.

(Deleted big section about on screen evidence cuz it doesn't really tie into the overall discussion - happy to PM you it, if you'd like to be bored of course).

Again, can't get on board with the fleet thing but I'm with you 100% on the similarities of troopers making more sense in canon and in gameplay, as I feel the slight tweaks to attack/defense really affect how they show up on the field, which is a nice balance of fluff/crunch

On ‎11‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 5:07 PM, TauntaunScout said:

That's an excellent point! I could use 3 in that case!

Well, unfortunately they have a variety of different helmets and only one guy (looks like Cpl Melchi) with the Hoth style hat.

Still some hope they might someday put out a corps unit of Hoth Troopers!

4 hours ago, SirCormac said:

I think you are over-exaggerating the difference between the two. While the Rebels were weaker in some ways, they went toe-to-toe with the main fleet in ROTJ...and won! And that's with the Death Star shooting at them. Clearly, they had large worlds supporting them (such as Mon Cal) and had factories of their own to produce weapons and vehicles. While outmatched by the empire on the whole, they clearly were a legitimate fighting force that could meet the Empire in battle tactically, but could easily be outgunned if the Empire brought a larger force, which was hard for it to do as its forces were spread through the galaxy.

They are two armies that exist in the same time period, using roughly the same tactics. They should be different, but not the standard tropes of big, cheap bug race vs. Expensive, high quality tech race. I think the game catches it perfectly.

Well it may be argued to reflect the rebels waiting until they can fall on a small part of an imperial army and meet it with overwhelming force. There's lots more imperials but they are stuck on the other side of a river or something.

4 hours ago, SirCormac said:

They are two armies that exist in the same time period, using roughly the same tactics. They should be different, but not the standard tropes of big, cheap bug race vs. Expensive, high quality tech race. I think the game catches it perfectly.

The difference to me should be that the empire is more numerous and has better equipment. Like it was in "Star Wars" for the last 30 years.

4 hours ago, Katarn said:

Lets face it, as soon as Sheev Palpatine burns his health away to protect a moisture vaporator, the suspension of disbelief is pretty much broken.

You're preaching to the choir!

4 hours ago, Katarn said:

If you want to play more historically accurate 'what if' encounters you're probably going to have to refine the mission building process.

Or just agree not to use most of the expensive imperial commanders, maybe place some min/max rules on upgrade cards, and use repaints of high-points cost rebel characters. I'm toying with the idea of repainting Han as Colonel Edi-wan Drake.

I'm so excited - I don't even play rebels and I'll be picking up these units just to paint!

My initial thoughts can be found here! Star Wars Legion Jyn Erso and Rebel Pathfinders Revealed!

Stats wise and abilities wise, if you already have Rebel Commandos, I see no reason to buy the Pathfinders. And Jyn is a meh commander.

1 hour ago, Thevshi said:

Well, unfortunately they have a variety of different helmets and only one guy (looks like Cpl Melchi) with the Hoth style hat.

Still some hope they might someday put out a corps unit of Hoth Troopers!

Then I just saved a ton of money!

Just now, pflrocha said:

Stats wise and abilities wise, if you already have Rebel Commandos, I see no reason to buy the Pathfinders. And Jyn is a meh commander.

Stats wise and abilities wise, I see no reason to play Legion at all. But Star Wars figureswise is something else...

1 minute ago, TauntaunScout said:

Stats wise and abilities wise, I see no reason to play Legion at all. But Star Wars figureswise is something else...

Some people collect figurines, other play the game

6 minutes ago, pflrocha said:

Stats wise and abilities wise, if you already have Rebel Commandos, I see no reason to buy the Pathfinders. And Jyn is a meh commander.

Well, we do not yet know all of what the Pathfinders can do (it is not clear we know what all weapon configurations they can have with their weapon upgrade card), but even with what we do know, they are some key differences from Commandos. Pathfinders can start much further into the main battlefield than even Commandos can get with Scout 2. This means they can get into a position to either grab objectives (such as priority supplies) or be in position to harass opposing units in the first round (even in an Long March deployment). With Jyn as a commander, she can be right up there with some Pathfinders.

Their abilities are also different from those of the Commandos. I was wondering how FFG would differentiate them from Commandos, this shows they found ways to do so.

35 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

The difference to me should be that the empire is more numerous and has better equipment. Like it was in "Star Wars" for the last 30 years.

Personally I feel that the game's default mode / 'out of the box' is focused on creating balanced match ups - that is, the times when the Rebels stuck around to fight toe to toe because, the larger number of Imperial troops is delayed, or distracted or tied up elsewhere.

These battles are not the most common ones in the SW universe, but they are the easiest to construct dynamically using systems like point based armies, scenario cards, and for new people to learn to play.

This is pretty much the same situation modern warfare wargamers have with settings like Afghanistan or Iraq! We play the battles where the numerical superiority of the USSR or the USA is not a factor because otherwise it's a dull curbstomp.

The other more common scenario SW battles - the fighting retreats, the hit and run ambushes, the crazy epic desperate battles of Hoth and Endor - these can be played with the system, but really require custom scenarios and rules that are just too hard to make flexible enough, and more importantly accesible to new players.

I wonder what the logic is behind their release order for Legion. I know in IA it followed the OT timeline for the most part.. but with legion they seem to just be picking things and putting them out. I guess just whatever helps to keep the game balanced?

9 minutes ago, CaptainRocket said:

Personally I feel that the game's default mode / 'out of the box' is focused on creating balanced match ups - that is, the times when the Rebels stuck around to fight toe to toe because, the larger number of Imperial troops is delayed, or distracted or tied up elsewhere.

These battles are not the most common ones in the SW universe, but they are the easiest to construct dynamically using systems like point based armies, scenario cards, and for new people to learn to play.

This is pretty much the same situation modern warfare wargamers have with settings like Afghanistan or Iraq! We play the battles where the numerical superiority of the USSR or the USA is not a factor because otherwise it's a dull curbstomp.

The other more common scenario SW battles - the fighting retreats, the hit and run ambushes, the crazy epic desperate battles of Hoth and Endor - these can be played with the system, but really require custom scenarios and rules that are just too hard to make flexible enough, and more importantly accesible to new players.

I agree and can see why they made the standard game that way, I guess I was hoping they were going to be making some of the operations have a more cinematic feel and be more asymmetrical. Given those are more tightly controlled they could make a balanced asymmetrical scenario with different objectives for both sides.