Hi Community, I was giving it some thought exercises on what actually is the Minimum, Maximum and Average activation's in an 800 point game of legion.

5 Minimum to 12 maximum with an average of 9 is my first guesstimate.

Personally If I have a low activation list then I tend to think immediately it will have a lot of problems in the game. 5 -7 is bad, 8-10 Im happy with, 11 - 12 feels more like competitive lists to me.

Does anyone have experience with games that have excessive differences in activation's, how did that play out?

Would anyone try and play casual games where lists where built on activation limits? Does this make the games more fun? Both sides must include Commander, 3 minimal core units and 7 activation's?
?

If I need to give an opponent an advantage, my list will be 6-7 activations at most with an opponent 10-11. Generally I settle on 9-10. These are non competition games BTW.

I don't think the activations is such a problem in legion compared to armada due to the shifting priority each round.

When you start with 3+ more activations though then you can use it to your advantage, by saving several activations to later in a round. However the weapon range play a big role here as a high range 4 list won't suffer that much going with fewer activations vs a list with more, but with a majority range 3 and shorter weapons.

The more I play the more I find the 8-10 range more than acceptable. I used to think that 10 was the minimum to have a competitive list but, like it was said before, range 4 weapons really makes up that difference. I think for rebels a 9-11 activation list is much more doable and encouraged because they need that advantage. For empire however that 8-9 activation range is much more acceptable. For the GAR I think that range might end up in the 7-8 range because of how expensive they are while droids end up in the 9-11 range as well (until things like cheap commander and special forces comes out for them).

10 minutes ago, jocke01 said:

I don't think the activations is such a problem in legion compared to armada due to the shifting priority each round.

When you start with 3+ more activations though then you can use it to your advantage, by saving several activations to later in a round. However the weapon range play a big role here as a high range 4 list won't suffer that much going with fewer activations vs a list with more, but with a majority range 3 and shorter weapons.

There's also the suppression deficit that comes with that activation shortfall though as well. It's not just about mobility

27 minutes ago, PikminToo said:

The more I play the more I find the 8-10 range more than acceptable. I used to think that 10 was the minimum to have a competitive list but, like it was said before, range 4 weapons really makes up that difference. I think for rebels a 9-11 activation list is much more doable and encouraged because they need that advantage. For empire however that 8-9 activation range is much more acceptable. For the GAR I think that range might end up in the 7-8 range because of how expensive they are while droids end up in the 9-11 range as well (until things like cheap commander and special forces comes out for them).

Negative on the droids! Until we see s/f or cheaper support/commanders both new factions are hard capped at 10 (mainly by list unit caps in combination with points)

The GAR might be able to swing something when rex drops, however it'll be a rather bare list as far as upgrades (meaning not worth it)

My normal sweet spot for Imperial lists was 10, though I was starting to push towards 13 before I switched over to the Republic. I believe the Legion Tournament Circuit RPQ data seems to suggest that 10 activations is the most common. Activation spam is certainly a thing, and it let me push through a couple of close games with my Imperial "Meta Spam" list.

For the GAR, 7-8 will likely be the sweet spot for a while, as they really don't have any filler units. As they currently don't have anything cheaper than a corps unit, they are desperately in need of some cheaper activations, no matter what they are. I'm personally hoping for a Clone E-Web, but we'll see.

3 hours ago, Teravoc said:

Would anyone try and play casual games where lists where built on activation limits? Does this make the games more fun? Both sides must include Commander, 3 minimal core units and 7 activation's?
?

Yes and no... I'd try it but it's unlikely I'll get a chance to.

I think the activation system is Legion's biggest problem. In a lot of games there are pros and cons to having a varying numbers of units. Not in Legion. The more the better, period. The randomly pulled rank tokens I'd guess were supposed to mitigate it but they don't really. Anyways why can 3x stormtroopers and 3x snowtroopers coordinate perfectly but not 3x stormtroopers and 3x scout troopers? The activation system is definitely wonky. I still like giving Blue to whoever has the least # of activation. It would reflect the logistical issues of a more sprawling force that happens before the battle. A few points to bid is nothing, but another activation matters.

Activation advantage is somewhat transient.

-

Initial deployment, it can be pretty big because you can hold key units to counter specific enemy units or put them into a position to get the most value.

-

Turn 1, it can be useful to make an aggressive play, but even then, terrain and the skilled use thereof can also make that play less risky obfuscating the need for more activations than your opponent as their response to your actions will be limited anyways. It's also rendered moot if you have no strong/aggressive turn 1 plays to begin with (for example, two Empire lists just trying to sandblast each other to death through heavy cover an activation difference is of only marginal value).

-

Turn 2 is usually another big one, you might have one unit you really want to go first, but you almost always have a unit that really wants to go last

-

Turns 3-5 activation advantage is irrelevant (not completely, but pretty close) as your activations will be more dictated by board state and command cards.

-

Turn 6 activation advantage can win games, but a force with more activations also generally has more frail units that are easier to remove, so guaranteeing that you maintain your advantage up to this point is, at best, very difficult

-

So, it's really only useful on the initial engage and at the very end and the entire time in between it doesn't really matter, so sacrificing quality of activations for quantity has a hard cap on how much value you'll ever get out of it.

I love the idea of Blue player being the player with the fewest activations over the points for sure. I also want to make it clear I am talking about none competitive fun play, but even in that arena, if I where to play a fun list of 7 activation's it seems clear that list would not be fun if it was up against a list with as many as 13 activation's! +5 "free activation's" would be devastating clearly in any round.

Maybe limit "fun games" to a range of activations. Do you want to play a 800 point x Activation Range game? +/- 3?

I think Armada and Legion would both benefit from the Imperial Assault Pass mechanic. Armada has created cards that you can tap and pass now, but I think it would be better as a built-in mechanic, cut down on the activation bonus.

I think there are two ways for low activation lists to stay relevant (asides from blue player being the player with the least activations, which is a wonderful idea). In games that I've played with 8 activations against 10 or 11 activations on the enemy team, Sonic Charge Sabs have been excellent. Disrupting enemy formations and keep enemies away from objectives using bombs (for me at least) had always been a strong counter to being out activated. The other would be adding more objectives that promote more defensive strategy.

7 hours ago, Teravoc said:

Would anyone try and play casual games where lists where built on activation limits? Does this make the games more fun? Both sides must include Commander, 3 minimal core units and 7 activation's?

?

We played a match with a 7 activation limit a few nights ago. It was so we could play hero lists with the bonus that the game would be a bit shorter (time constraints).

It was one of the most fun matches I've played and would highly recommend it

Activation advantage is huge. No mistake about that. The real problem is high activation lists make the game tediously long and over complicated. The 500pt format makes the game play much better. A hard cap on activations such as 8, 9 or 10 would be great. At 8 max activations units like Vader or the Emperor become more interesting. Spaming sniper unit cheese just isn't necessary but also something you would think twice about since activations themselves are important.

As the game stands right now, your best strategy is as many activations as possible. It is a chess game and if you can move around pawns while they have to decide to hold back their rooks and queen or put them out there, this gives the high activation list player a huge advantage.

Yes, something like a pass mechanic would be nice, but doesn't address the long clunking games high list activation make. Yes, there are people who know how to win games with high activations and would hate this idea but never the less, it is poor game design not to have an max number of total units. If you want a bigger game, do a grand army. If you want even a small game, do the 500 pt lists. At 800 pts the activation count can vary so much and activations are so important even a point drop on certain units doesn't solve the problem. A hard unit cap does. No need to change points on anything then.

"but a force with more activations also generally has more frail units that are easier to remove"

It's this. More activations over the same number of points means you've diminished the value of any given activation.

It's not disimilar to looking at the army ethos of CIS vis GAR.

GAR is fewer, much more powerful, activations. On the flip side, when they attrit, it's a bigger loss of output/points.
CIS has many, much weaker, activations, however, it means when they attrit, their damage output is generally reduced by less on a per wound basis.

Quandary in action:

You have three Rebel Trooper units (40 points each) and 44 points left.

Do you
a) buy one more Rebel Trooper or Fleet Trooper unit (4 total units, +4 black dice / +8 white dice)
OR
b) buy two Z-6 upgrades for two of the three trooper units? (+12 total white dice)

Spending the points to improve the existing units provides a bigger damage output overall AND for those activations (which is critical when firing through defenses like cover), but it also means that those points can be lost in a single attack, whereas adding another unit means two targets (and likely more attacks required).

Sorry, it's an objective based game with cover. Killing units is all and well, but that doesn't win games. Victory points do and keeping cheap units under cover means they aren't anymore frail than any other unit. An activation is itself, very valuable. A unit leader near an objective doesn't count double because its points are double the other guy's unit leader. Nope. It all comes down to the how many unit leaders. Quality isn't considered. Heavy cover absorbs a couple hits no matter the cost of the unit. Yeah, there are a few heavy hitter units out there and that is a good thing, but they don't get to go twice, well Vader can with one command card.

1 hour ago, Mep said:

Sorry, it's an objective based game with cover. Killing units is all and well, but that doesn't win games. Victory points do and keeping cheap units under cover means they aren't anymore frail than any other unit. An activation is itself, very valuable. A unit leader near an objective doesn't count double because its points are double the other guy's unit leader. Nope. It all comes down to the how many unit leaders. Quality isn't considered. Heavy cover absorbs a couple hits no matter the cost of the unit. Yeah, there are a few heavy hitter units out there and that is a good thing, but they don't get to go twice, well Vader can with one command card.

A unit leader that's dead because you took a min unit doesn't score anything. Also, 2 min rebel units throw 4 black dice each and have very little chance of burning through heavy cover. A single Rebel Trooper unit with a Z-6 has an easier go even though it's 18 less points. Having units alive and being able to remove enemy units to contest or control are all big deals and the "ALL THE ACTIVATIONS!" approach could be considered myopic in this regards. Yes, killing models doesn't directly win you the game, but your opponent can't control an objective if they have nothing left to control it with.

I didn’t think much of activation advantage coming into this game. I figured lower activations meant heavier hitting activations anyway, plus you can target inactivated units to wound/suppress them before they activate, in theory. I am coming around heartily to the idea that this game would be well served to just deal with it head on though. A simple pass mechanic would be very useful.

Weve actually been testing a system that has been great at home. Granted, the player base for this test is small, literally, as it’s just myself and my scrawny middle school offspring, but it’s actually been good. Whatever the activation difference is between the armies before setup is, the player with less gets the difference minus one pass tokens. So if one army has 10 and the other 6, the player with 6 gets 3 tokens. They can be used during setup or any time during the game to pass on a deployment or activation.

Yeah, hopefully it's not the CIS trait to have really expensive comanders, when they have things like T-series tactical droids.

Even the Oom droid was leading the attack on the gungans. Like come on!

1 hour ago, MasterShake2 said:

A unit leader that's dead because you took a min unit doesn't score anything. Also, 2 min rebel units throw 4 black dice each and have very little chance of burning through heavy cover. A single Rebel Trooper unit with a Z-6 has an easier go even though it's 18 less points. Having units alive and being able to remove enemy units to contest or control are all big deals and the "ALL THE ACTIVATIONS!" approach could be considered myopic in this regards. Yes, killing models doesn't directly win you the game, but your opponent can't control an objective if they have nothing left to control it with.

Sure, if you can kill off the pawns. That isn't always easy and if my opponent is wasting all their activations killing a pawn, then I've already won the game.

Thing is, your opponent becomes very predictable once most of their activations are done. Spaming 20 cheap units isn't a thing. So yes, even high activation lists have their heavy hitters that can be reserved for the end of the round and then use a low pip card to hit again beginning of the next to wipe out a high priority unit. There is just too many advantages to high activation count to dismiss it cause your crapy ATST did not much this round, but hey, in theory it could have....

There is a reason why low cost sniper spam is a thing and it isn't for their 1 point of damage a turn. High activations are very effective in this game. No reason to debate it any more than there is reason to debate the sky is blue.

27 minutes ago, Mep said:

Sure, if you can kill off the pawns. That isn't always easy and if my opponent is wasting all their activations killing a pawn, then I've already won the game.

Thing is, your opponent becomes very predictable once most of their activations are done. Spaming 20 cheap units isn't a thing. So yes, even high activation lists have their heavy hitters that can be reserved for the end of the round and then use a low pip card to hit again beginning of the next to wipe out a high priority unit. There is just too many advantages to high activation count to dismiss it cause your crapy ATST did not much this round, but hey, in theory it could have....

There is a reason why low cost sniper spam is a thing and it isn't for their 1 point of damage a turn. High activations are very effective in this game. No reason to debate it any more than there is reason to debate the sky is blue.

The sky isn't actually blue, it has to do with how light scatters in the atmosphere that gives the appearance of blue most of the time, but not at sunrise, sunset or night and is also why unusual colors like purple can show up in certain situations...which I why I love the reference of the sky being blue as something obvious because it's a basic observation that fails to fully account for all the subtleties involved in what's actually happening.

Activations are not your end i.e. your win condition, they are your means by you which you, ideally, complete the end. For example, if you're playing key positions, and you have 2 trooper unit leaders left at turn 6 and your opponent has 3, does it matter how many either of you started with? In that respect, just blindly going for activations is akin to missing the point on why you have activations in the first place. You have them to aid in achieving your win condition by having more dudes alive and to facilitate your kill units removing enemy activations and degrading their win condition. If you can achieve these goals by other means, does it matter how many activations you have?

To use an analogy from Warmachine, players will frequently say their win condition is "attrition". No, it isn't, you don't win the game when you've killed x more points than your opponent, you win the game by assassination or control points. Their actual win condition is control points and they need to realize this or they'll end up fighting away from the points just to remove more models and concede control points and, ultimately, lose.

If the end can be achieved effectively and consistently without resorting to activation spam, is activation spam still important? You don't win at a point where you have X activations more than your opponent, you win when the game checks VPs. Your goal should be to have more trooper unit leaders when that happens and if you feel the best way to do that is activation spam, that's fine, but if that end can be achieved by others means, there's no reason why those means aren't just as viable. The strategy of removing activations is rapidly becoming just as viable as bringing them and players need to be willing to entertain this option.

I have only ever played with 8 activations.... seem to OK. Not intentional just happens that way.

Pretty much all the lists I’m happy with have 7-9 activations... I know many prefer more, but I dislike “trooper spam” lists as I prefer some variety in unit capabilities - so each to their own.

When designing Legion lists I tend to think “offence and defence” - typically certain units have to secure the “home” objective - I tend to keep these as cheap as possible.

The main part of the list is offence - their job isn’t to get the centre / enemy held objectives.

I find my 8 activations OK to do that.

Minimum activation is clearly 4 ... the must have 1 commander & 3 corps.

Maximum for the Galactic Empire is 15/19 currently with barely any upgrades, and Rebel Alliance is 16/18 doing the same.

Average is typically around 8-12, where 9-11 are more common competitively at the moment.

16 hours ago, Tokous said:

Minimum activation is clearly 4 ... the must have 1 commander & 3 corps.

Maximum for the Galactic Empire is 15/19 currently with barely any upgrades, and Rebel Alliance is 16/18 doing the same.

Average is typically around 8-12, where 9-11 are more common competitively at the moment.

615 Points with a 4 activation list is the best i could do. So I am not sure if 4 is realistically the minimum. That was fun to try though. 5 activation list easy to do for sure.

16 minutes ago, Teravoc said:

615 Points with a 4 activation list is the best i could do. So I am not sure if 4 is realistically the minimum. That was fun to try though. 5 activation list easy to do for sure.

I mean, if you want to feed, 3 min Rebel Trooper units, a Generic officer and 630pts of bid is legal as far as I can tell. Plus side, all of your games will be resolved on time...