Okay, so our collective nerd rage aside.
Let's try to be constructive about trying to improve upon the diversity of tournament lists.

As points changes and artificial restrictions on tournament formats, are relatively undesirable. I will posit ideas for future releases to help the meta.

The main things needed:

1. Vehicle Support - something to make those big expensive vehicles really give bang for their buck.
2. Sniper Resistance - something to help even the odds against those pesky snipers.
3. Alternatives to Troops - something to help our more obscure special forces and support units be seen on the table more often.
4. Improvements for Characters - some characters are rarely seen on tournament tabletops (Vader), lets help them out.

The goal of this isn't to just 'change the meta'. The real goal is to make taking other things more reliable in tournaments and friendly games.

Rebels

1. Add a fleet based hero (admiral akbar?) who gives buffs for hovering vehicles in the army.

2. He could also have a bombardment that is very effective against small model sized units. Perhaps a bombardment with 2 red, wounds carry on to other models in the unit, regardless of whether they have LOS to them or not. NOTE I am not making this a no LOS attack, you still must be able to draw LOS to at least one model in the unit.
2.01 I would also recommend a unit that puts out a smoke token of some kind, or some kind of infiltrating assassin. These seem very much in the rebel style of play.

3. Add a support based hero.
3.01 A wookie commander/op who helps wookies and chewy would be great.

4. Han and chewy are pretty solid, but we don't see them being played much. I think a training card that offers them some form of damage buff would very helpful, and easy to make. Something like +1 black die to ranged attacks.
4.01 Jynn could also benefit from that upgrade. But I really feel she needs a one off free move that allows her to reposition somewhere. This would sync well with her activation jankiness.

Imperials

1. Add a commander/op who gives a defense or attack buff to vehicles/armored units in the army. Veers has some vehicle based bonuses, but he is much more the generic buff commander.
1.01 I'd also recommend something that gives speeder bikes a little more oomph. So a commander who can deliver a native buff to vehicles, that would be used in tandem with comms, would be pretty cool.

2. I think more mortars seems to be offering some strong alternatives to snipers.

3. I think royal guard need a modest buff of some kind, but this could tie in with giving the emperor a buff, due to his entourage ability.
3.01 I've already mentioned something that I think could help bikes and other vehicles.

4. The emp and vader need some small boosts. Probably a defensive bonus card, that helps them get to the enemy lines more safely. I'd go with a synergising force card, that helps force reflexes, or allows them to negate 1 damage each attack. Like a force field.

Anyway, I hope I've added some constructive, relatively simple fixes for the meta.

What kind of future releases do you think will help the game?
Do you think that it's just a matter of waiting for the last of the expansions coming out this year to get released?
Do you think we just need a few more years for people to get used to the harder to use units in the game?

Cheers

I was thinking of some potential rule changes last night.

Exhaust weapons can still be used when exhausted, but they don't add any keywords. This would make the exhaust weapons be a worthile choice next to non exhaust weapons.

Vehicles dodge 2 hits per spent Dodge token. This will help vehicles just a tiny bit vs impact and it would give weers 2 pip a nice boost.

Strike teams require at least 1 main unit in list. So max 2 strike teams + 1 commando/scout trooper.

Otherwhise I think the game is fine and most things work. The airspeeder needs a major "fix" card of some sort. Vader might just need a small point reduction.

How about something like 2 levels of pierce.

Light pierce would not work against armor, only troopers. Heavy pierce would work against everything. It makes vehicules more resistant, and makes you think about including real anti-tank guns.

And a keyword like control X, where the unit counts as X unit leader for the purpose of objective control. Like the At-st could have control 3, but the airspeeder being always on the move should not have it.

My 2 cents

P.s. I know those would require reprints or something, maybe a list on the rules reference...

People seem to take snipers for activations not sniping. Tackle the core activation mechanics in Legion.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

People seem to take snipers for activations not sniping. Tackle the core activation mechanics in Legion.

Are activations that powerful in Legion?

It can help you stall a bit in deployment and first round, but unlike armada you can't bring several activations + point vid to do a last/first activation.

However the strike teams gives you both activations, solid dmg and an extra trooper squad for objectives for very little points. I don't think the activation system needs changing

20 minutes ago, jocke01 said:

Are activations that powerful in Legion?

It can help you stall a bit in deployment and first round, but unlike armada you can't bring several activations + point vid to do a last/first activation.

However the strike teams gives you both activations, solid dmg and an extra trooper squad for objectives for very little points. I don't think the activation system needs changing

I want to try giving Blue Player to whoever has less activations instead of points.

A true indirect fire unit (not the silly, half-hearted attempt that is the shore trooper's mortar) could potentially help both combat snipers, and buff vehicles. With the danger of turning the game into rock paper scissors, light indirect fire units could have suppressive and blast, and thus be great at targeting snipers. The lack of impact would weaken them against vehicles, and giving them a doughnut hole of range 1-2 could would help non-sniper troopers fight them as well. Rather than detachments, these units would be support or heavy units.

I'm honestly not sure I agree with point three, as the only units that seem to fit into it right now are Wookiees (which see a lot of non-competitive play), Royal guards (same), and Pathfinders (which I think are good, but difficult to use). Not sure who else you're wanting to buff.

As for characters, Vader is the only one that seems a little "meh" and we know that he is getting help soon due to the live stream yesterday. I'd rather wait for what FFG plans on doing rather than waste effort developing our own fix.

4 hours ago, lologrelol said:

Okay, so our collective nerd rage aside.
Let's try to be constructive about trying to improve upon the diversity of tournament lists.

As points changes and artificial restrictions on tournament formats, are relatively undesirable. I will posit ideas for future releases to help the meta.

The main things needed:

1. Vehicle Support - something to make those big expensive vehicles really give bang for their buck.
2. Sniper Resistance - something to help even the odds against those pesky snipers.
3. Alternatives to Troops - something to help our more obscure special forces and support units be seen on the table more often.
4. Improvements for Characters - some characters are rarely seen on tournament tabletops (Vader), lets help them out.

The goal of this isn't to just 'change the meta'. The real goal is to make taking other things more reliable in tournaments and friendly games.

Rebels

1. Add a fleet based hero (admiral akbar?) who gives buffs for hovering vehicles in the army.

2. He could also have a bombardment that is very effective against small model sized units. Perhaps a bombardment with 2 red, wounds carry on to other models in the unit, regardless of whether they have LOS to them or not. NOTE I am not making this a no LOS attack, you still must be able to draw LOS to at least one model in the unit.
2.01 I would also recommend a unit that puts out a smoke token of some kind, or some kind of infiltrating assassin. These seem very much in the rebel style of play.

3. Add a support based hero.
3.01 A wookie commander/op who helps wookies and chewy would be great.

4. Han and chewy are pretty solid, but we don't see them being played much. I think a training card that offers them some form of damage buff would very helpful, and easy to make. Something like +1 black die to ranged attacks.
4.01 Jynn could also benefit from that upgrade. But I really feel she needs a one off free move that allows her to reposition somewhere. This would sync well with her activation jankiness.

Imperials

1. Add a commander/op who gives a defense or attack buff to vehicles/armored units in the army. Veers has some vehicle based bonuses, but he is much more the generic buff commander.
1.01 I'd also recommend something that gives speeder bikes a little more oomph. So a commander who can deliver a native buff to vehicles, that would be used in tandem with comms, would be pretty cool.

2. I think more mortars seems to be offering some strong alternatives to snipers.

3. I think royal guard need a modest buff of some kind, but this could tie in with giving the emperor a buff, due to his entourage ability.
3.01 I've already mentioned something that I think could help bikes and other vehicles.

4. The emp and vader need some small boosts. Probably a defensive bonus card, that helps them get to the enemy lines more safely. I'd go with a synergising force card, that helps force reflexes, or allows them to negate 1 damage each attack. Like a force field.

Anyway, I hope I've added some constructive, relatively simple fixes for the meta.

What kind of future releases do you think will help the game?
Do you think that it's just a matter of waiting for the last of the expansions coming out this year to get released?
Do you think we just need a few more years for people to get used to the harder to use units in the game?

Cheers

I would favor additonal options for:

Objectives

Deployment

Conditions

New Units that have synergy with existing units is superior to attempting errata, always.

Just as a development ethos, don’t mess with the released stuff, make new things instead.

That being said, any hero that specifies repulsor vehicles is verging on absurdly niche, no? (Veers 2-pip is probably the least used imperial command card, outside the generics)

2 hours ago, jocke01 said:

Are activations that powerful in Legion?

It can help you stall a bit in deployment and first round, but unlike armada you can't bring several activations + point vid to do a last/first activation.

Sure you can that's one of the main benefits of having more activations. It's what Boba strives for and is almost impossible to avoid.

5 hours ago, jocke01 said:

Exhaust weapons can still be used when exhausted, but they don't add any keywords. This would make the exhaust weapons be a worthwhile choice next to non exhaust weapons.

My idea for the exhaust weapons is that when suppressed, units don't drop to only one action, instead they MUST use their first action to recover.

And swap the points costs on the weapons so the exhaust ones are cheaper, not more expensive :)

7 hours ago, lologrelol said:

The main things needed:

1. Vehicle Support - something to make those big expensive vehicles really give bang for their buck.
2. Sniper Resistance - something to help even the odds against those pesky snipers.
3. Alternatives to Troops - something to help our more obscure special forces and support units be seen on the table more often.
4. Improvements for Characters - some characters are rarely seen on tournament tabletops (Vader), lets help them out.

#1. & #2. I don't think Snipers are the problem. I think activations per point of army is the problem!

I've grown increasingly fond of the the idea of the player with fewer activations gets to "pass" if they want.

The more I play, the more I see how the game is largely about managing the economy of your two actions and limiting exposure to enemy fire. You all probably think this is obvious, but coming from a wargame background where there is little IGOUGO or simultaneous damage (or the lovely random activations of the Command and Colors series), I was stuck am thinking more in terms of just position.

So basically, in the kind of game Legion is, the power to wait until an opponent stretches out their neck, and then pounce (hopefully going last/first) beats everything else. To that end, max activations and max token control is best, hence Snipers and Sabs, on top of max cheap Corps.

It's not really an MSU problem, at least not as traditionally framed. The units that allow you activation superiority could be pretty weak (like the useless horse carts in Conflict of Heroes that nontheless could be used to exhaust your opponent's MG nest once it was activated by making them walk and forth behind a hill).

To be honest I think Snipers are pretty weak. Sure they do chip damage and suppression, yet very often the best way to play against them is to avoid them. Sabs are way more potent, just harder to use.

In short for #2, just add a Pass mechanic. I think the thing that would really help with #1. though is to give Heavy Units 3 actions per activation.

#3 and #4 I think are actually pretty fine as they are. If the activation game didn't push builds this way, we would see more use of the high bang for buck characters because they value of a cheap activation is reduced.

2 hours ago, Thraug said:

Sure you can that's one of the main benefits of having more activations. It's what Boba strives for and is almost impossible to avoid.

With the command cards, you only have a 50/50 shot of going first if both players play 1 pip, when facing Han or Krennic it gets even harder.

4 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

A true indirect fire unit (not the silly, half-hearted attempt that is the shore trooper's mortar) could potentially help both combat snipers, and buff vehicles. With the danger of turning the game into rock paper scissors, light indirect fire units could have suppressive and blast, and thus be great at targeting snipers. The lack of impact would weaken them against vehicles, and giving them a doughnut hole of range 1-2 could would help non-sniper troopers fight them as well. Rather than detachments, these units would be support or heavy units.

I'm honestly not sure I agree with point three, as the only units that seem to fit into it right now are Wookiees (which see a lot of non-competitive play), Royal guards (same), and Pathfinders (which I think are good, but difficult to use). Not sure who else you're wanting to buff.

As for characters, Vader is the only one that seems a little "meh" and we know that he is getting help soon due to the live stream yesterday. I'd rather wait for what FFG plans on doing rather than waste effort developing our own fix.

What exactly they said about helping vader? Cause if the help will be "force guidance" i think this is not enough...

3 hours ago, Derrault said:

I would favor additonal options for:

Objectives

Deployment

Conditions

New Units that have synergy with existing units is superior to attempting errata, always.

Just as a development ethos, don’t mess with the released stuff, make new things instead.

That being said, any hero that specifies repulsor vehicles is verging on absurdly niche, no? (Veers 2-pip is probably the least used imperial command card, outside the generics)

I think errata is the best way actually 😋. FFG fixes and new synergy units usually fail to do enough in my experience from their other games, or it just leads to the old x-wing problem of having to buy other expansions to make certain units work.

15 minutes ago, naitsirk said:

What exactly they said about helping vader? Cause if the help will be "force guidance" i think this is not enough...

Alex Davy was not specific on what the help was, just that there will be something coming soon.

4 minutes ago, jocke01 said:

I think errata is the best way actually 😋. FFG fixes and new synergy units usually fail to do enough in my experience from their other games, or it just leads to the old x-wing problem of having to buy other expansions to make certain units work.

1) when the printed cards can’t be trusted, that’s a universally bad thing.

2) They’re making more units no matter what, making the new units threats to say, small scale infantry like snipers (seriously though, can anyone name a unit the snipers threaten besides...well other strike teams???) is an open space for development.

A very simple change would be to make objective to be claimed by the player who has more points in base contact.

Now objective goes to who has more unit leaders (in mist cases troopers). So of course 1 ATSt does not worth like 4 trooper units (with the same point cost).

With my simple change it would do.

5 minutes ago, toffolone said:

A very simple change would be to make objective to be claimed by the player who has more points in base contact.

Now objective goes to who has more unit leaders (in mist cases troopers). So of course 1 ATSt does not worth like 4 trooper units (with the same point cost).

With my simple change it would do.

But there is the next issue: 3 z6 troopers can shoot down vader in one round of concentrate fire and vader need 3 rounds to perhaps finish them. So 3 troopers against 1 powerful unit means:

-more control units

-more space control in the table

-better chances killing things in less time

-more activation control

Is just too hard to justify vader, palp, atst etc. Over simple troopers even with your changes (that totally help)

26 minutes ago, Derrault said:

1) when the printed cards can’t be trusted, that’s a universally bad thing.

2) They’re making more units no matter what, making the new units threats to say, small scale infantry like snipers (seriously though, can anyone name a unit the snipers threaten besides...well other strike teams???) is an open space for development.

1) true, thats why they use the app in x-wing wich should have been the same for legion. Besides I rather see cards with wrong information than just det them rot in a binder 😛.

2) Yes they are making more units, no arguement here.

13 minutes ago, naitsirk said:

But there is the next issue: 3 z6 troopers can shoot down vader in one round of concentrate fire and vader need 3 rounds to perhaps finish them. So 3 troopers against 1 powerful unit means:

-more control units

-more space control in the table

-better chances killing things in less time

-more activation control

Is just too hard to justify vader, palp, atst etc. Over simple troopers even with your changes (that totally help)

Note, they can’t ranged attack him at all in melee, and he can Force Choke/Force Push them. Meaning he’s more then capable of eliminating 2 Z-6s in a single turn, and preventing the return fire. Food for thought.

And, as compared to, say Veers, who isn’t going to tango with anyone. If you really don’t plan on bringing a commander into combat, just take the Imperial Officer and call it a day.

50 minutes ago, Sentry71 said:

Alex Davy was not specific on what the help was, just that there will be something coming soon.

I want something like that:

FORCE DEFENSE (Exhaust)

While this card is active you gain "defensive 1"

>> while using "deflect" convert up to 1 block into surge

6 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

I want to try giving Blue Player to whoever has less activations instead of points.

This is actually an amazing idea, BestCreatureInSWUniverseScout.

I may try this too

And stoping the whole part of "Generations decks are coming from a single player" and more "each player put 2 cards of each type to create the decks, and then the rest is working as it should". This would allow to stop some "no match" because we have an extra point bid.

A few thoughts from my point if view..

I am in the camp that many issues can be solved by new Objective, Deployment, and Condition cards.

There is also the fact that everyone is looking at the issues only from the viewpoint of the Empire and the Rebellion factions. While I have no doubt that the CIS will be the best for activation spam (216 points for 6 naked squads of hot garbage B1 battle droids) we may see different play styles emerge when the new factions come out.

It is my hope that the new factions start making the game play different. My sincerest hope is that the Republic and CIS make some if the old tactics less effective by virtue of different units - currently the game factions are VERY analogous to each other. Perhaps droidekas will be a threat that doesn't care about trooper spam. Perhaps the Jedi units will take over. Take the minimum three clones then two expensive Jedi commanders and their padawan operatives will be effective. Just imagine if you could take TWO of Luke Skywalker in Legion.

I think it could be interesting if we get a commander that had a heavy as an entourage, or even commander upgrades for the heavies. Having a commander in an AT-ST.

There are a LOT of potential ‘fixes’ to the game, and I feel none of them are based on drastic rules changes.

I do admit that @TauntaunScout‘s suggestion of blue player going to the fewer activations is interesting.

Regardless, I have a feeling that many of the issues will be resolved by Legion being a currently ‘incomplete’ experience. What with the two current factions being so similar in play and unit releases. I hope the new factions lead to new tactics being tried as building those armies a certain way counters the trooper spam.

Or perhaps we need to look at upgrades that are not often used. I'm curious about trying coms troopers with comms jammers is trooper spam an advantage if you cant activate the unit you want when you want it?

Perhaps an condition card that causes troopers to take damage at the end of a round - that would make vehicles shine. Or one that slows down all troopers?

Perhaps a change to open vehicles or an upgrade that lets you add a carried unit’s weapons to your attack pool?

In final, I think he BEST way to solve legions current issues is by introducing new Deployment, objective and conditions cards. Ones that mess with the status quo would be brilliant.

7 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

A few thoughts from my point if view..

I am in the camp that many issues can be solved by new Objective, Deployment, and Condition cards.

There is also the fact that everyone is looking at the issues only from the viewpoint of the Empire and the Rebellion factions. While I have no doubt that the CIS will be the best for activation spam (216 points for 6 naked squads of hot garbage B1 battle droids) we may see different play styles emerge when the new factions come out.

It is my hope that the new factions start making the game play different. My sincerest hope is that the Republic and CIS make some if the old tactics less effective by virtue of different units - currently the game factions are VERY analogous to each other. Perhaps droidekas will be a threat that doesn't care about trooper spam. Perhaps the Jedi units will take over. Take the minimum three clones then two expensive Jedi commanders and their padawan operatives will be effective. Just imagine if you could take TWO of Luke Skywalker in Legion.

I think it could be interesting if we get a commander that had a heavy as an entourage, or even commander upgrades for the heavies. Having a commander in an AT-ST.

There are a LOT of potential ‘fixes’ to the game, and I feel none of them are based on drastic rules changes.

I do admit that @TauntaunScout‘s suggestion of blue player going to the fewer activations is interesting.

Regardless, I have a feeling that many of the issues will be resolved by Legion being a currently ‘incomplete’ experience. What with the two current factions being so similar in play and unit releases. I hope the new factions lead to new tactics being tried as building those armies a certain way counters the trooper spam.

Or perhaps we need to look at upgrades that are not often used. I'm curious about trying coms troopers with comms jammers is trooper spam an advantage if you cant activate the unit you want when you want it?

Perhaps an condition card that causes troopers to take damage at the end of a round - that would make vehicles shine. Or one that slows down all troopers?

Perhaps a change to open vehicles or an upgrade that lets you add a carried unit’s weapons to your attack pool?

In final, I think he BEST way to solve legions current issues is by introducing new Deployment, objective and conditions cards. Ones that mess with the status quo would be brilliant.

I can’t imagine that CIS droids will give two hoots about some itty bitty Sniper damage.

6 minutes ago, Derrault said:

I can’t imagine that CIS droids will give two hoots about some itty bitty Sniper damage.

The issue is not the Snipers or their damage. It's the cheap activations and token predictability that Strike Teams give you.

This benefit will persist regardless of new factions or objectives and will continue to penalize high cost units or low activation armies.

The easiest mitigation is simply to add a Pass rule. The player with fewer remaining activations gets the option to skip activations, until they no longer have fewer remaining activations.

That would deal with the activation advantage. However the token mix advantage remains.