Before I say anything, I want to stress that I love Legion. Is fun, the game mechanics are good, its Star Wars and heck that's all i need....

But, would we really see the kinds of battles it represents? Legion assumes a conventional warfare approach, but the Rebels are not in a position to fight conventional warfare. The reality is that-as much as people are screaming for different units, weapons, etc- if the Rebels were to fight conventional, they would do it with mostly captured weapons and equipment. Let's face it, the Empire is BIG and they have a monopoly on weapons production.

So far, I like some of what I am seeing in units. AT RTs are obsolete weapon systems from the clone wars and the new landspeeder heavy is basically a pick up with a .50 cal on it , Star Wars style. I guess the real issue here is not one that is represented in the game at all. The Empire is vast, and the Imps are trying to garrison it all. The Rebels would be conducting unconventional warfare, hit and run raids all over the place.

We should be seeing rebel units with captured imperial weapons. Now before you go off all half cocked and angry, I agree this would be pretty boring and largely favor the Empire. Remember the Ewok with an e11 blaster in return of the jedi? Chewie captured an AT ST too. And, in ALL the Star Wars movies only the rebels are seen with a rocket launcher in Rogue One.

So, what am I getting at here?

I'd like to see options for rebels with imperial weapons, gear and vehicles. Rebel speeder bikes. Rebel Rocket Launchers. Rebel e web guns. We need more raid like, hit and run battle cards.

The spirit of Star Wars is definitely present in the game. Now we need the feel, the grit of taking on the massive empire with limited resources and weapons.

Honestly, I think of Star Wars like the revolutionary war. Most of the soldiers in the rebellion would be planetary defense forces and ex-imperials. the empire should have huge logistic support, however, it should have extremely vulnerable supply lines. The rebels should be jumping out of hyperspace in u wings conducting raids and bugging out as soon the first sign of reinforcements shows up. hitting imperial supply depots for equipment and weapons. Dropping in on indigenous planetary populations and arming them and encouraging them to strike the empire.

The big question is how do you make it feel like that? So far, they have done a good job in that the Empire has the advantage in heavy support and good corp troops. the best way that I can see, is to introduce new battle cards along those lines, or maybe secondary objective cards that are face down and unknow to your enemy.

Like I said in the title, though-this is just my ramblings. I am happy playing the game the way it is

Yeah I used to think about this too. FFG never comes out and says it but a few things I think simulate it.

I think the battles ARE hit and run, but he rebels refuse to engage at all unless they outnumber the imperials in the locality, hence they typically larger rebel armies. This is something that has been pointed out to me by others on this forum. It reminds me of something a guy I knew said about his particular view of his time in Vietnam: "Because of all our artillery and air support, the VC wouldn't attack us at all unless they figured they outnumbered us by at least 4:1".

On turn 6, overwhelming imperial reinforcements will show up! If the rebels can't win before then, they lose! If the imperials don't win before then, then rebels melt away into the woods having achieved their strategic goals!

If it helps, Ion Grrrl has a captured E-11 as her sidearm and the Fleet Troops use the same pistols as a lot of (movie) Imperials.

That's a good way to think about it TS.

One thing to keep in mind is that Star Wars is closer to science fantasy than actual science fiction. So something are done for appearance sake, like walkers being the pinnacle of armoured warfare.

You say the Empire has a monopoly on weapons production, yet the Rebellion uses vastly different starfighters rather than captured Imperial fighters. Somebody's s got to be producing them and selling them to the Rebellion on the sly (Oh no, theives stole a whole shipment of X-wings! Ignore the anonymous deposit of credits in our corporate accounts). Not to mention the criminals having yet another set of ships, not all of them just older models.

Even in the real world there are smaller weapons factories dotted around the planet, some as small as a single house churning out knock off rifles ( I'm specifically referencing the Khyber Pass cottage gunsmiths), so while the Empire certainly would have the largest weapons manufacturers, there would still be small factories that escape notice by either being too small or on a planet sympathetic to the Rebellion.

In a game at the sub-unit level it is difficult to show the asymmetrical nature of struggle. In centralized militaries like the Empire there is little training or initiative allowed below company, or even battalion. Including that in Legion would give the Rebels the advantage.

As @TauntaunScout suggests turn 6 would see a massive response to the Rebel presence. Like in season 4 of Rebels when Thrawn parks Star Destroyers over the city ready to open fire. Rebels is where you will see the Imperials with rocket launchers.

According to George Lucas he loosely based the Rebels on the Viet Cong/NVA (Phantom Menace commentary or making of doc). The Viet Cong rarely picked up US weapons as they were inferior to what China and Russia were supplying. Old doesn't mean equipment is obsolete and new doesn't mean better, I once read a declassified Pentagon report suggesting M-48 tanks should replace the original problem laiden M1 Abrams. E-11s are fine for Ewoks but what self respecting troopers is going to trade black dice for white? Maybe Stormtroopers should get an A-280 upgrade after capturing some Rebels.

Isn't there already a capture the supplies mission?

I have a feeling that we'll eventually see Rebel units with some captured equipment. It would even be cool to have a special forces unit or operative dressed up in Stormtrooper armor or an officer's uniform (as they often do in Rebels) that can reveal themselves midway through the battle.

Secondary objectives would be neat, but would increase the RNG of victory, especially if you cant see your opponent's and have no way to stop them.

I like how they added something along those lines with the Bounty ability for Boba Fett. I could see them doing that more for future units

After the age of musket, captured weapons can have another problem. Where does Private Jones get hundreds, nay thousands, of rounds of ammo for them?

27 minutes ago, Qualitypunk said:

E-11s are fine for Ewoks but what self respecting troopers is going to trade black dice for white? Maybe Stormtroopers should get an A-280 upgrade after capturing some Rebels.

I think the white die also represents stormtroopers being lousy shots and/or getting a the Legion equivalent of a negative DEX modifier from their armor. Veers is pretty good with his E-11.

48 minutes ago, Qualitypunk said:

@TauntaunScoutIn a game at the sub-unit level it is difficult to show the asymmetrical nature of struggle. In centralized militaries like the Empire there is little training or initiative allowed below company, or even battalion. Including that in Legion would give the Rebels the advantage.

I actually always liked the idea of giving the rebels utter poverty when it came to heavy weapons and the like. Probably give the rebel player like 2/3 of the points of the empire player too. But let the rebels have outsized influence on the mission cards, and let them deploy second and go first. Or whatever the equivalent of "points" and "mission cards" and so forth are in one's game. This would very much capture the spirit of the conflict as it's come to be know in 30 years of licensing.

2 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

I have a feeling that we'll eventually see Rebel units with some captured equipment.

Maybe that explains all the empire mirror matchups.

I heard somewhere that the stromtroopers were bad shots because the E-11s given to standard troops were not the best money can buy, just the cheapest possible gun that could be mass produced.

1 minute ago, poke450 said:

I heard somewhere that the stromtroopers were bad shots because the E-11s given to standard troops were not the best money can buy, just the cheapest possible gun that could be mass produced.

a theory i heard on this recently, is that the reason the stormtroopers are bad shots is because the living force wills it. Ill have to watch rogue one again but i believe chirrut mentions how the force decides this.

how he can walk right up to the transmitter button and press it safely while in blaster fire.

You also have to remember that during most of the original trilogy feigned incompetence was an imperial strategy. They let the rebels flee the first death star because of the tracking device on board. Also psychologically it's easier to shoot at a suit of armor compared to a human face.

Plot armor.

It's why hero characters have multiple wounds and Pierce.

57 minutes ago, Zeph01 said:

a theory i heard on this recently, is that the reason the stormtroopers are bad shots is because the living force wills it.  Ill have to watch rogue one again but i believe chirrut mentions how the force decides this.

 how he can walk right up to the transmitter button and press it safely while in blaster fire.Â

"The living Force wills it" is a hilarious way to say "plot armor."

7 hours ago, Zeph01 said:

a theory i heard on this recently, is that the reason the stormtroopers are bad shots is because the living force wills it. Ill have to watch rogue one again but i believe chirrut mentions how the force decides this.

how he can walk right up to the transmitter button and press it safely while in blaster fire.

He walked right out of the RPG book. He WAS the Quixotic Jedi character template. The only force power the crazy guy who thinks he's a Jedi got was "Sense". Check. He has a bunch of Force Points he can spend to roll double dice on important things. Check. He starts with nothing but a dueling sword: close enough.

7 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

He walked right out of the RPG book. He WAS the Quixotic Jedi character template. The only force power the crazy guy who thinks he's a Jedi got was "Sense". Check. He has a bunch of Force Points he can spend to roll double dice on important things. Check. He starts with nothing but a dueling sword: close enough.

haha he must have been rolling triumphs and no failures/threat non stop (i assume you are referring to the force and destiny rpg book )

13 minutes ago, Zeph01 said:

haha he must have been rolling triumphs and no failures/threat non stop (i assume you are referring to the force and destiny rpg book )

I am not. I am referring to Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. West End Games, 1987.

If he'd told the GM "I want to walk across the field and dodge all the blaster bolts. My dodge skill is 6D." The GM might have said "Really? Ok well the field is crisscrossed with fire. Roll a Very Difficult skill test: you'll need to total 30 or higher." Then the Quixotic Jedi spends a Force Point to double his skill roll. He rolls 12 six-sided dice and adds them up, getting a 42, easily passing. He describes his action to the GM thusly: "I calmly walk through the blaster fire letting the Force guide my every step."

To me, Rogue One looks like it would take about 3 or 4 individual gaming sessions. One or two on Jeddha, a short game at the research facility, and another game for the final mission. Even a starting character could theoretically have a dodge of 6D after one successful game.

4 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

I am not. I am referring to Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. West End Games, 1987.

ohhhhh gotcha, havent actually played that one

5 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

I am not. I am referring to Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. West End Games, 1987.

Ah the good old days... I appreciate this a lot!

1 minute ago, Obvious_Ninja said:

Ah the good old days... I appreciate this a lot!

I edited it to elaborate on how a Force Point could let him do that.

15 minutes ago, Zeph01 said:

ohhhhh gotcha, havent actually played that one

FFG has you covered... they just reissued it!

I'm convinced that Obi-Wan knew what he was saying when claiming that Imperial Stormtroopers are precise. In ANH and ESB, they are being ordered not to hit, just to herd. In RotJ, they actually do hit a lot. In RO, they're acting as a police force and told everyone to freeze before they got their butts kicked by a not-Jedi.

Yeah, I'm not buying that Stormtroopers are inherently bad at shooting.

4 hours ago, Albertese said:

I'm convinced that Obi-Wan knew what he was saying when claiming that Imperial Stormtroopers are precise. In ANH and ESB, they are being ordered not to hit, just to herd. In RotJ, they actually do hit a lot. In RO, they're acting as a police force and told everyone to freeze before they got their button kicked by a not-Jedi.

Yeah, I'm not buying that Stormtroopers are inherently bad at shooting.

I can buy it for ANH on the death star, but that theory falls apart when you think about the Millenium Falcon escape from Mos Eisley, or the ESB escape from cloud city. Neither situation is one where it would benefit the Empire to allow their targets to escape. The real answer is and always will be plot armor. They miss when they shoot at main characters and hit when they shoot at randos.

at the OP...

This is why we are 'skirmish battle' here...not open warfare.

I just played a game against my brother today and he was all "generic commander with lotsa stuff" whole I played a beefed up Han and Chewie with a couple other pricey units...even a Wedge Piloted Speeder.

The game was cool and I noted how at the beginning I was "outnumbered". Sort of like how the Rebels always seem to be in the movies.

My "Herohammer" got me thru the fight though with Han/Chewie/Wedge anchoring the middle objective and delivering the win. It was my 8 activations vs 10 and my quality of activations handily beat my opponent.

Very flavorful and very fluff/canon.

The game is doing well. Its a skirmish fight, not a pitched battle. This is the game we have bought into. Its not 40k.

8 hours ago, Deadshane said:

Its a skirmish fight, not a pitched battle. This is the game we have bought into. Its not 40k.

Skirmish games usually use about 12 total models per side, no squad coherency rules, and no vehicles. Legion is not a skirmish game. According to FFG it is an "infantry battles" game, not an "infantry skirmishes" game. When I started playing 40k it had about the same physical army sizes as Legion and wasn't called a skirmish game by anyone. Legion's on the smaller side of the scale but its mechanics and collection sizes are consistent with a mass battle game. A small elephant is still a large animal.

Just because 40k's sales goals have forced the designers to bloat the army sizes beyond belief, doesn't make Legion a skirmish game.

8 hours ago, Deadshane said:

My "Herohammer" got me thru the fight...

Very flavorful and very fluff/canon.

There's nothing fluff/canon about Vader killing Leia or Boba Fett killing Luke or Chewie killing Chewie or stormtroopers killing the emperor. Contrary to Alex Davey's statements about the way HE likes to play HIS games, for a large segment of the gaming population, adding main movie heroes immediately destroys immersion.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

There's nothing fluff/canon about Vader killing Leia or Boba Fett killing Luke or Chewie killing Chewie or stormtroopers killing the emperor. Contrary to Alex Davey's statements about the way HE likes to play HIS games, for a large segment of the gaming population, adding main movie heroes immediately destroys immersion.

Agreed that it destroys immersion and moves it more towards “what if...” game scenarios. Which aren’t bad per se, just not the same thing.

Legion could have been canon or just fun with all generic. With characters added, it’s now “this never happened but if it did what could happen...”

Me? I came over from xwing 1.0 which was solidly well past any degree of immersion with consistent mirror matches, characters from the future flying with characters who died before they were even born, etc. So it didn’t really bother me because full immersion has never been a part of my gaming experience. But I could see how it would impact someone else.

I kind of hope there’s some good generic commanders in the Clone Wars armies coming.... I think the empire leading a fight against a Seppie enclave is within the scope of canon. The “clones rejecting order 66” with a generic Jedi is plausible but a harder sell.