I’m a new player of Star Wars: Legion, and when reading through the instructions I came across this. I am rather confused about what it is asking. Do I manually alter the dice results? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of dice? I really need help as this is preventing me from playing the game. Thanks!

Convert Attack Surges: The attacker changes its attack surge results to the results indicated on its unit card by turning the die to reflect the converted result. If no result is indicated, the attacker changes the result to a blank.

Yes, you physically roll the dice to the side indicated by the Surge Chart on the unit card. Some upgrades can add Surge results as well. If the Surge Chart is blank then any Surge results should be changed to a blank face on the corresponding die.

Read the SURGES entry in the Rules Reference Guide on pg. 67

Only one side of each die has a surge symbol. The surges allowed FFG more percentages on fewer dice. Attack dice can be from 2+ to 7+ (with 8 being crits), and defence dice can represent 3+ to 6+ all by changing color of the die and including the surge symbols.

Also most people dont physically change the dice every time. If the unit has no way to convert surges you can just "count it" as blank.

It provides a large amount of variation from two types of dice (d6 and d8)

Defense blocks can be anything from 1 in 6 (white no surge) 2 in 6 (white w/surge) 3 in 6 (red no surge) to 4 in 6 (red w/ surge)

Offense attacks range from 2 in 8 (white no surge) 3 in 8 (white w/ surge) 4 in 8 (black no surge) 5 in 8 (black w/surge) 6 in 8 (red no surge) and 7 in 8 (red with surge)

All offense dice have a natural 1 in 8 chance of rolling a crit but also having units that can surge to critical instead of surge to hit provides a further variation by allowing the possibility of hitting 2 critical in 8 (which damages armor, bypasses cover and dodge and bypasses the guardian keyword) which gives another variation in accuracy. This coupled with the offensive and defensive keywords allows for a lot of variation in units while keeping g the rules relatively streamlined for a wargame with few charts to look up.

Then spice with reroll effects and powers like Danger Sense and Impervious which allow extra rolls

1 hour ago, UnitOmega said:

Then spice with reroll effects and powers like Danger Sense and Impervious which allow extra rolls

or actual rerolls with aim, or Han's lucky dice. Or have offensive dice with a combination of colours making units diverse. Example the rebel veterans with their heavy rolling 4 dice with surge to hit, compare with the rebel Z6 , have the same average damage but one uses 4 dice , one uses 6 (both white) giving the veterans consistency and the z6 getting more variability with a higher damage potential. The possibilities are very large

On 2/16/2020 at 8:06 PM, ShrivTheDuros said:

I’m a new player of Star Wars: Legion, and when reading through the instructions I came across this. I am rather confused about what it is asking. Do I manually alter the dice results? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of dice? I really need help as this is preventing me from playing the game. Thanks!

Convert Attack Surges: The attacker changes its attack surge results to the results indicated on its unit card by turning the die to reflect the converted result. If no result is indicated, the attacker changes the result to a blank.

FFG games all involve dice manipulation. This is why units cost different points or it's worth taking certain upgrades.