10 minutes ago, Kalandros said:

I mean~ yes but then you're not deploying a unit, you're deploying a disposable tool.

In other games youll see such units be different from main big units which will define their role as sacrificial tarpits

"A disposable tool" is how some countries have defined ALL of their units, evidenced by mass charges into prepared positions. And is how most players view their units anyway, they don't care if they lose the unit so long as they win the game.

So? This isn't other games. In other games, unit composition is completely dictated to the extent that there is no army building, you MAY get to select one or two additional units, but the main army composition is dictated by the game. Still other games allow incredibly minimal unit customization, and every normal unit costs 1 point, with some "special characters" costing a whole 2 points.

A cheap, un-upgraded squad is defined as a sacrificial unit in Legion, since its loss will remove the least number of points from the army and the least capabilities when compared to a unit with a bunch of upgrades on it.

22 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

There's also the option to make movement somewhat more simultaneous. You each move a squad (or two or whatever) until everything has moved, then you take turns attacking. The shared movement and attack phase is a lot better in my mind than the Warhammer way.

Lord of the Rings used it (well, still uses it), and as flawed as other rules of that game were (when I played it, like 6 years ago), it certainly had appeal. The only game with WFB's I-go-you-go model that I enjoy is Warmachine (and Hordes by association).

40 minutes ago, Kalandros said:

Right now its just like in Xwing where minimalist on upgrades is king

Every 2-3 ship list would like to have a word with you

Tbh, I don't get what's the OPs endgame here. To use more upgrades? Well, the points to consider is:
a) economy - sure, some cards like, say, Comms Jammer, are definitely overcosted right now and require points change or errata
b) synergies - I would not put Frag Grenades on Stormtroopers, but I won't ever field Snows without them or Impacts, and I like Concussions on Fleets. My point? almost every upgrade have its uses. It may be niche, but it's there. There's a reason (whatever it may be) that some of us field ATRTs with lascannons
c) time - some upgrades mentioned here as useless might see some light in the future. HH-12 is not less popular because it's objectively worse than DLT, but because it's not as essential to have high-yield Impact weapon as it is to be able to put consistent damage to infantry at range; let me just say that if doriods in sep's army turn out to be suppression immune but vulnerable to Ion, you would see a ton more of Ion Girls Rebels and Snowy Boyz.

30 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

"A disposable tool" is how some countries have defined ALL of their units, evidenced by mass charges into prepared positions.

Well... that has more to do with poor plans (or an inability to communicate long distance) in ancient and medieval contexts. Or in the late 19th/early 20th century, with people not understanding how quickly the technology had changed in their own lifetimes. A lot of the disastrous charges of legend would have actually worked a couple decades earlier. Y'know. Back when the top brass was earning their spurs. A lot of times if you do try to wargame these things out again, with any kind of deep and wide rules set, the players will commit to the same plans they know didn't work back in the day. There were usually reasons people did those things. Without radios and a lot more men, I'm unclear what the Confederates COULD have done differently at Gettysburg for example. There were good reasons that they didn't push harder on Day 1, or go around Little Round Top on Day 2. Even avoiding the engagement altogether like Lee ordered on Day -1 was probably impossible if you look at a map of the local roads. Famously, the Union generals were under political pressure to attack even when it was a bad idea. But Lee in PA was under immense practical pressure to do the same thing, time was emphatically not on his side.

The actual instances of so-called "canon fodder" are pretty darn rare. You do find them in the Napoleonic wars sometimes.

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And is how most players view their units anyway, they don't care if they lose the unit so long as they win the game.

I'm pretty sure that's what happened in Rogue One!

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So? This isn't other games. In other games, unit composition is completely dictated to the extent that there is no army building, you MAY get to select one or two additional units,

Clearly someone else here plays DBA!

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A cheap, un-upgraded squad is defined as a sacrificial unit in Legion,

And is the kind we see in movies. It's all basic blasters, heavy weapons are rare in the films.

8 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Well... that has more to do with poor plans (or an inability to communicate long distance) in ancient and medieval contexts. Or in the late 19th/early 20th century, with people not understanding how quickly the technology had changed in their own lifetimes. A lot of the disastrous charges of legend would have actually worked a couple decades earlier. Y'know. Back when the top brass was earning their spurs.

The actual instances of so-called "canon fodder" are pretty darn rare.

The battles of The Somme, Ypres 1, Ypres 2, the Marne, Gallipoli, Tannenburg, Galicia, and Stalingrad as well as Operation Market Garden told me you should call them. There's a hundred others behind them you should also get too. All of them battles in which the top brass had most assuredly "earned their spurs."

@Kalandros Okay....every stomrtrooper squad gets a free heavy. What's the difference between them now? Are you saying that a DLT is functionally no different from an HH-12?

The bottom line is that every single wargame is going to be 'flawed' in its representation of combat. It's going to emphasize different things to create flavor or favor simplicity. If you want to mess with the rules to better suit your tastes, do it! House rules are a thing.

This is why you should print cards without cost and use some kind of digital pointlist or an app...oh wait.

21 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

The actual instances of so-called "canon fodder" are pretty darn rare. You do find them in the Napoleonic wars sometimes.

Clearly someone else here plays DBA!

I can also think of more than a few units that were used as "canon fodder" in WW2, either because they consisted of convicted criminals, for other reasons unrelated to the quality of their leadership such as the 442nd Infantry Regiment of the US Army, or because it was demanded at the pinnacle of the government (Stalin's Order No. 227, "Not one step back!" certainly led to canon fodder like treatment of Soviet units). It is certainly less common (I presume) in the majority of "modernized" militaries these days, mostly as it is very expensive to train even a basic infantryman in all the new widgets.

Actually I was referencing Chain of Command, which I gather has a similar "army building" method. Weird how historical games like to do that huh? 😛

Regardless, I digress.

Setting a price for a unit and then necessitating the selection of some amount of upgrades can actually lead to worse cookie cutter army builds and powergaming. If I have to pay points for upgrades whether or not I write them down for a unit, them I'm ALWAYS going to take upgrades, and I'm ALWAYS going to take the most efficient/powerful, to do otherwise is a waste of points.

5 minutes ago, jocke01 said:

This is why you should print cards without cost and use some kind of digital pointlist or an app...oh wait.

Yeah I wish Legion had followed the X-wing 2.0 format from the get-go

1 hour ago, Zrob314 said:

The battles of The Somme, Ypres 1, Ypres 2, the Marne, Gallipoli, Tannenburg, Galicia, and Stalingrad as well as Operation Market Garden told me you should call them. There's a hundred others behind them you should also get too. All of them battles in which the top brass had most assuredly "earned their spurs."

Rapid changes had happened in the decades since said spur-earnery had occurred.

WWI and II are a tiny sliver of wafare. Ceding that those engagements meet the definition of "cannon fodder", that still represents a distinct minority of centuries of war. Mistakes don't count in my book. Knowingly sending under equipped, under trained people into an engagement with the intent that they will fail to serve some greater purpose is what I mean by cannon fodder. The so-called "peasant levy" and whatnot is pretty rare.

17 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Yeah I wish Legion had followed the X-wing 2.0 format from the get-go

No way. Then we're at the mercy of a new IOS or whatever. Maybe use an electronic errata for that for tournament play or something but give me a hardcopy so I can play at home even if it's not perfect.

3 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

if one of the 2 cannot be seen by Leia, only one figure can die.

He did say this quite clearly.

Great, thanks.

All warfare is based on deception. That's why I just add extra stuff without including it in my official list. Grenades for everyone.

6 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

No way. Then we're at the mercy of a new IOS or whatever. Maybe use an electronic errata for that for tournament play or something but give me a hardcopy so I can play at home even if it's not perfect.

Screenshot, print?

"WWI and II are a tiny sliver of wafare"
So, add in to that Vicksburg, Chancellorsville, Atlanta, Gettysburgh, Antietam, Bull Run 1 and 2, Little Bighorn, Pretty much anything from the Vietnam War, pretty much anything from the Korean War, the Anglo Zulu War........how far back in history do you want to go?

"Mistakes don't count in my book...(k)nowingly sending under equipped, under trained people into an engagement with the intent that they will fail to serve some greater purpose is what I mean by cannon fodder."

I mean if you're going to so rigidly define the term then sure, but that also escapes the fact that war, in general is a meat grinder for the poor, that it always has been and it always well be.

Everyone is always fighting the last war. Everyone is always optimistic about how well they will do. Every war will be over "by Christmas." Every general believes that this is the big push we need to finish this now. And as Rumsfeld said "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want."

28 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

No way. Then we're at the mercy of a new IOS or whatever. Maybe use an electronic errata for that for tournament play or something but give me a hardcopy so I can play at home even if it's not perfect.

Every time they update the points in the X-wing app they release a new hard copy of the points.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

No way. Then we're at the mercy of a new IOS or whatever. Maybe use an electronic errata for that for tournament play or something but give me a hardcopy so I can play at home even if it's not perfect.

X-wing has a hardcopy spreadsheet for point costs you can print out too.

Edit: ninja'd!

8 hours ago, Kalandros said:

Anyway, that was my rant, I know its pointless as it would require an overhaul of all the cards and whatnot~ but I think its a fundamental flaw of the game to be the way it is right now in list building.

Interesting choices are interesting. Forcing choice is interesting. Giving things free is not interesting.

The fundamental flaw in the game is really the lack of dewbacks.

1 hour ago, Zrob314 said:

Screenshot, print?

"WWI and II are a tiny sliver of wafare"
So, add in to that Vicksburg, Chancellorsville, Atlanta, Gettysburgh, Antietam, Bull Run 1 and 2, Little Bighorn, Pretty much anything from the Vietnam War, pretty much anything from the Korean War, the Anglo Zulu War........how far back in history do you want to go?

"Mistakes don't count in my book...(k)nowingly sending under equipped, under trained people into an engagement with the intent that they will fail to serve some greater purpose is what I mean by cannon fodder."

I mean if you're going to so rigidly define the term then sure, but that also escapes the fact that war, in general is a meat grinder for the poor, that it always has been and it always well be.

Everyone is always fighting the last war. Everyone is always optimistic about how well they will do. Every war will be over "by Christmas." Every general believes that this is the big push we need to finish this now. And as Rumsfeld said "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want."

Seems like you define cannon fodder as anything with high casualties.

My point is more that, you cannot or at least should not define a Legion squad as cannon fodder because they don’t come with a heavy weapon etc.

9 hours ago, Kalandros said:

I've played a lot of different miniatures games over the last 10+ years, and many board games.

Every time its the same story for competitive lists - optimize everything to the maximum, find every loophole, abuse everything thats overpowered.

Now my biggest problem with Legion is how pointless and borderline useless most upgrades are - why spend points on upgrading 1 unit with 20 to 30 points of extra things when an extra unit - especially the "cheese" of triple snipers - costs almost as much? Why put a more expensive weapon like the rocket launcher on storm troopers when the DLT is just hands down better?

Why come up with all these extra interesting upgrades only to have no one use them?

Why, instead, don't we have a set price for a unit, and within that set price you may select up to 'x' upgrades or 'y' value of upgrades ?

Why aren't all weapon options exhaustible so that both have the same limit but different uses? Different roles.

Something like Storm Troopers cost 80 points for 4.

In that 80 points, the 4 troopers cost 40 - you may select 40 points of upgrades - the officer or med droid being 20 each would leave you 20 more points - either 20 pts for a DLT or the rocket launcher, or points for extra things like recon intel, grenades, etc. But if you don't go for the more expensive officer / med droid, then you can still take the 5th guy for 10 pts, the weapon for 20 pts and still have 10 pts free for the extra upgrades.

What this comes down to is that regardless of how anyone equips their troopers, they will always have the same price - 80 points, and all start equal at 4 troopers - but the cost doesn't increase depending on what you equip on them but rather the cost of upgrades is already included in the initial price, they are just not selected yet.

Storm Troopers 80 Points

- Extra Trooper 10 points

- DLT Trooper 20 points

- Grenades 5 points

- Grappling hooks 5 points

thats just an example of how it could work and should work - you pay 80 points regardless of what upgrades you take.

I really dislike the current restriction where everyone goes for max activations and seldom takes a bunch of different upgrades because it ends up costing more than a new unit entirely.

Anyway, that was my rant, I know its pointless as it would require an overhaul of all the cards and whatnot~ but I think its a fundamental flaw of the game to be the way it is right now in list building.

I think what it mostly comes down to is cost to benefit. Even though upgrades are fairly cheap, the perceived cost to benefit ratio just isn't there. More bodies is better for the points. This is a balancing issue. Upgrades should be a little bit cheaper than they are now.

What you're proposing sounds a lot like power points from 40k. I like the idea, because a lot of troops in modern combat take a lot of different equipment into battle. I don't think we'd ever see it for this game, but it would make things a lot easier, to not have to nitpick over tiny points differences. I'd rather focus on the actual games being the crux of win/loss - not list building.

Unfortunately this game has shown a clear trend in what does and does not work. Lets hope 2nd edition addresses these issues.

4 minutes ago, lologrelol said:

Unfortunately this game has shown a clear trend in what does and does not work. Lets hope 2nd edition addresses these issues

This game is a year old. Expecting a 2nd edition at this point is unrealistic at best considering X-Wing was over 6 years old when they got a 2nd edition. I never played, but I've heard some not stellar things about game balance of X-Wing 1st edition.

Is this an accurate summary of the op’s issue

Why have cool toys we don’t play with?

I kind of agree with that take although everything else is, ah, a pretty unique.

I’m pretty sure the future of the competitive game is 3x3 table size and the tighter org chart and lower points. A tighter org chart would push the game closer to OP’s tastes

you don’t have to play the competitive game however.

This is kind of the balance of “few of many” or “many of few” that is typical in minitures games. It’s a pretty cool thing IMO rune Wars army building was explicitly about it.

the strength of activations could be addressed by a core rules change. Or maybe new point costs where base units are more expensive and upgrades get a little discount.

I think Legion is generally very well balanced. The objectives etc play a big part in this. The game is not just about killing people (although of course that helps).

I personally disagree that the “best” lists are min-max... etc. Sure those lists have some strengths, but also some weaknesses.

If there is an issue like you describe it is usually down to the players. Even if there is an “optimal” list there is no need to play it - but some people do, because they feel eeking out an extra 5% chance of winning or some such is more important than taking what they want / think is cool / ... etc

59 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Seems like you define cannon fodder as anything with high casualties.

My point is more that, you cannot or at least should not define a Legion squad as cannon fodder because they don’t come with a heavy weapon etc.

I agree with your point in legion, for sure. Cannon Fodder however....minimal training and minimal equipment has been the standard for most of human history.

or at least 4-500 years anyway......

Henry IV Act 4 Scene 2 ( at least 217 years before the term cannon fodder was initially coined in french)

Prince Henry: I did never see such pitiful rascals

Falstaff: Tut, Tut, good enough to toss, food for powder, food for powder. They'll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

there's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack

46 minutes ago, thepopemobile100 said:

This game is a year old. Expecting a 2nd edition at this point is unrealistic at best considering X-Wing was over 6 years old when they got a 2nd edition. I never played, but I've heard some not stellar things about game balance of X-Wing 1st edition.

I'm pretty sure that 1st ed Legion is just an open Beta for 2nd edition. That's where we'll see units get re-balanced, and upgrade cards re-balanced.

Legion is a great game, but it does have some unfortunate issues that can't be solved, because cards/rules/points are already in production.

1 hour ago, lologrelol said:

What you're proposing sounds a lot like power points from 40k. I like the idea, because a lot of troops in modern combat take a lot of different equipment into battle. I don't think we'd ever see it for this game, but it would make things a lot easier, to not have to nitpick over tiny points differences. I'd rather focus on the actual games being the crux of win/loss - not list building.

To be honest, I have never once seen people play a power point game in 40k, even casual games tend to be played using actual point values. Point values actually ensure balance, since the weapon upgrades have different point values, which is why Power Point are only intended for purely casual play.

10 minutes ago, lologrelol said:

I'm pretty sure that 1st ed Legion is just an open Beta for 2nd edition. That's where we'll see units get re-balanced, and upgrade cards re-balanced.

Legion is a great game, but it does have some unfortunate issues that can't be solved, because cards/rules/points are already in production.

You don't see open betas for mini games unless you consider a prior edition a beta for the next. Furthermore releasing a game as a finished(ish) product like legion has without letting the player base know ahead of time that the current run is just a test for a different build of the game is a bad strategy when all units and upgrades are card based and would require to be bought again just to play. Warhammer skirts around this issue with their codex, but needing to go mid game into a book for a rule breaks focus on the game and can lead to bad play that isn't entirely the player's fault.

Every game has issues, but Legion isn't a place where it should be hard reset to try and fix the issues as that's going to cause something else to break. Right now vehicles are in a bad spot as a whole, but they aren't unusable and can still shine in certain situations. Some weapons aren't seeing use right now but as was said earlier in the thread that weapons like the HH-12 and ion weapons require vehicles on the field to truly shine. However with vehicles in the state they are currently in, you can't bank on any given game to always have armor to shoot at with them.

Upgrade cards themselves are overall good. Going back through the list, the only cards I don't see used in my games are comms jammer and concussion grenades. We don't normally see a lot of upgrades on corp units but I believe that's because they generally aren't worth it beyond the heavy and personnel. Non strike team spec ops are almost always have their training, gear, and comm slots filled with only the grenade empty. Same goes for most commanders, operatives, heavies, and most support troops.