Rebels, how do we deal with armour?

By landoro, in Star Wars: Legion

So, for the other factions thw way to deal with armour is with your own armour.

Rebels however do not have any competitive armour that can go up against the tanks of the other factions.

Rt:s are good but melts against the heavies.

So what are our options? Ion, tauntauns, lucky crits, Luke?

Do we just ignore it?

If armor is a concern, double up on RT laser cannons. They can stack on damage against it quickly and do so at the relatively safe range 4. I've had to deal with armor since day one as one player in the group will always run a heavy, and that has been a reliable way of dealing with it.

10 minutes ago, landoro said:

So, for the other factions thw way to deal with armour is with your own armour.

Rebels however do not have any competitive armour that can go up against the tanks of the other factions.

Rt:s are good but melts against the heavies.

So what are our options? Ion, tauntauns, lucky crits, Luke?

Do we just ignore it?

Luke plus Son of Skywalker command card.

I find that if my lists don't have enough firepower to down a heavy before turn 5, it's usually better to ignore it.

For anti tank we got:

Luke and chewie

At-rt with lasor

Fd lason cannon

Airspeeder or landspeeder

Also we got ion control to help the ignore strat.

Rebel troopers

Landspeeder

Pathfinders.

Then again with the new veterans critical weapons and most rebel Heroes and operatives surge-crit. Just aim and fire if you really want to kill a heavy.

As an imperial play I may be wrong but I think they should probably die like the dirty rebel scum they are?

In all seriousness they can't go toe to toe heavy vs heay like the other factions and nor do they have a good threat option for troopers like the hh-12, rps-6, E-60r or the new B2-HA. Nor do they have operatives like Bossk or Boba that can threaten armour if needed be from range 4.

So what is a dirty rebel to do?

FD option. FDs are great with their range 5 and ability to gain cover from suppression. Run them with an overcharge generator (77 pts in total) and they roll better dice at a longer range with the same impact then what I take as my anti armour as imperial which is a stormtrooper squad with a hh-12, specialist and targeting scopes (89 pts). The only very obvious hindrance is they can't move so they're very much area denial and placement is extremely important. Also it doesn't have the armor key word so anything can hurt it.

AT-RT is the next option at 75 pts with either the laser cannon or Rotary blaster. Laser cannon gives you impact and better survivability staying at range 4 but rotary can crit fish and is a lot more useful against non-armour targets making the opponent have to focus on it. So it really depends on your play style. Regardless of what you choose the downside is that these things can just die. Anything with impact hurts them and they have a chance to be one shoted by most other factions heavy options.

With the trooper option you could run a squad with a trooper captain, offensive push or a rebel specialist for surge tokens and then a MLP-57 or SX-21. The MLP has the better range plus ion but the SX doesn't exhaust and rolls more dice. Another option is dlts with targeting scopes to use the critical 1 and then crit fish with the re-rolls. I personally think trooper captain, offensive push, SX-21 with impact grenades (coming in at 83 pts) is very dangerous to any vehicle in a terrain heavy environment. Ion is also great because a unit only gets 12 actions in a game and this makes your opponents most likely expensive unit take less of them.

How do you use these? I don't think rebels want to go toe to toe with heavys but more have threats and make the opponent not use the heavy as efficiently as they could. If they're not fully engaging and using a unit which costs a good chunk of their points then they're going to lose out on the rest of the battle. Work out what of these options works best for you but make sure you give them all a go.

Honourable mention. Bistan is great but your spending 100 points just for him and the rest of the pathfinders and I just feel that with him being unique he's more a nice addon then a main strategy.

Rebel commandos with proton charges are pretty great at 46 pts but you'd need them right next to the heavy or the heavy to come to you plus the worry of keeping a 2 man team alive.

I'm currently sick at home hence the write up. Hope it helps.

I've heard ATRT mentioned with laser cannons however for quite a few units that can leverage cover they can seriously hamper the ability to land hits due to the lack of number of dice. Still it depends what you are shooting.

Tauntauns can do a number on Armor with the keyword Ram.

Impact Grenades?

Luke (especially Jedi Luke with Saber throw), Chewie, crit fishing with DLT-20s. The FD cannon is pretty good now. I actually think some Rebel lists (centered around Jedi Luke)good of answers to some of the new armor like the Saber, for which you need burst damage and Pierce.

My only concern with jedi Luke is he has to get range 2 or closer to hit the heavy. That puts him in range of everything else if your opponentis playing well.

My answer is an unpopular one but I have 3 options for you. I generally bring 2 of them.

Rebel trooper mpl ion with a medic Droid. The mpl's drop in points made it playable again and if there is no armor or Droids or shields the unit can serve as a medic.

Fleet trooper mpl barrage with impact grenades - I realize many think I'm nuts for liking this unit, but I LOVE this weapon. There are few blast weapons in the game and fewer still at range 3. This weapon is great against armor and infantry. They are generally close anyways so throw the grenades on there.

Pathfinders bistan - again unpopular opinion but I love Pathfinders. Paired with the mpl ion you can shut down a vehicle.

Let the tomatoes fly.

Shoot it with big and little pew-pews!

Tune in to my channel for more tactics and tips!

Edited by Deadshane
8 hours ago, landoro said:

So, for the other factions thw way to deal with armour is with your own armour.

Rebels however do not have any competitive armour that can go up against the tanks of the other factions.

Rt:s are good but melts against the heavies.

So what are our options? Ion, tauntauns, lucky crits, Luke?

Do we just ignore it?

Well, I must be the only person who actually plays with the T-47 successfully.


The Rebel heavies are faster and more maneuverable than the other factions, which makes them significantly more likely to be able to exploit the Weak Points that the other heavies have.

The Rebel faction design ethos is pretty much: Fast with good offense, and lots of access to Ion weapons. Ion is huge for being able to cost the opponent limited actions. If you run two X-34s with M-45 Ion Blasters you can cut the knees off any other single heavy from range 4. Granted, going in on this costs 113 per speeder, but it’s still usable against non-vehicle targets. If you’re willing to shell out another 36 points for the RPS-6 (149 point platforms) you can make that an Impact 3 attack too, and add some dice to make the Ion attack that much more likely to succeed. I guess the question is, how much do you think you’d need to commit to deal with enemy armor?

Do you think that the AAT will be in every CIS list once it releases? If yes, the high level of Rebel Ion access makes for a very useful counter.

Ignore it.

Focus on the objectives.

Use Luke and Sabine to shift the central objective if you have no choice.

Remember to use enough terrain. Rebels like a decent amount.

I would treat big powerful enemies, be they tanks or heroes, the same way I treat Tiger tanks in Flames of War: Ignore them. If the opponent has spent a lot of points on heavies then I will outnumber him in lighter units. Concentrate on wiping them out and then deal with the heavy.

8 hours ago, Tirion said:

Rebel trooper mpl ion with a medic Droid. The mpl's drop in points made it playable again and if there is no armor or Droids or shields the unit can serve as a medic.

Two red dice at range one - three aren't horrible to throw in the occasional attack pool even if the other keywords aren't useful in my experience.

5 hours ago, lologrelol said:

Ignore it.

Focus on the objectives.

Use Luke and Sabine to shift the central objective if you have no choice.

Remember to use enough terrain. Rebels like a decent amount.

I wholeheartedly agree. My rebels have danced away from every chicken walker and pickup truck tank they’ve ever faced, and won far more than they’ve lost.

The exception for me was a double Dewback list I faced in a recent skirmish game. I had double Wookies so decided to duke it out. I couldn’t help myself!

7 hours ago, lologrelol said:

Ignore it.

Focus on the objectives.

Use Luke and Sabine to shift the central objective if you have no choice.

Remember to use enough terrain. Rebels like a decent amount.

This right here. Ignoring them is the best option. Try to select an objective where vehicles can't score. I've found that focusing on my opponent's trooper units to much more effective. I have one opponent who always uses an AT-ST. I've never killed the AT-ST but have always beaten him because of my focus on objectives. He'll kill more points and have more points left every game, but lose on objectives.

That said, it will be interesting to see if heavy units become more useful with the addition of objectives and improved heavy's. I think Ion may become more useful as Separatists become more common as well.

12 hours ago, Deadshane said:

Shoot it with big and little pew-pews!

Tune in to my channel for more tactics and tips!

But what if i only have medium size pew-pews? 🥺

Just now, Chili-52 said:

But what if i only have medium size pew-pews? 🥺

Surge them into big pew-pews.

18 hours ago, Tris87TJ said:

As an imperial play I may be wrong but I think they should probably die like the dirty rebel scum they are?

Hear hear! Blessed saint Sheev, he did nothing wrong.

🤫

1 hour ago, Darth 2Face said:

This right here. Ignoring them is the best option. Try to select an objective where vehicles can't score. I've found that focusing on my opponent's trooper units to much more effective. I have one opponent who always uses an AT-ST. I've never killed the AT-ST but have always beaten him because of my focus on objectives. He'll kill more points and have more points left every game, but lose on objectives.

That said, it will be interesting to see if heavy units become more useful with the addition of objectives and improved heavy's. I think Ion may become more useful as Separatists become more common as well.

The heavies will only be more useful if the player is also winning the bid to force the use of their objective deck, which should focus on objectives vehicles can score.

I like using pathfinders against armor of any kind even if I get Pao as the heavy. The ability to throw out 10 dice per attack generates a lot more crits than a normal attack. Then if you do happen to get Bistan, you get 13 dice and all those other keywords to take stuff down. Pathfinders have almost single handedly taken down an AT-ST in a matter of 2 turns for me before on multiple occasions with Pao as the heavy

Edited by bllaw

So, if you can get one into range, fire support from a MKII medium blaster really helps those impact 1 Ion weapons out. It also helps the cannon ATRT by making it throw enough dice to slap things for full impact even through cover. Leia can help it get in range. Move the gun just outside R3 on a turn and play No Time For Sorrows the next turn. Give an order to the vets and they and the gun both get to creep up.

Edited by grandmoffjoe

Unfortunately FGG has "nerfed" harpoons and tow cables to the point that it's laughable and there are as of yet no log-traps to deploy. So we're really off the edge of the map here.

I like the answers of tauntauns, Atgars, and MkII's. Those are always the right units to take if you're a rebel anyways.

If armor becomes the meta the Rebels have 3 ion weapons with which to combat armor. Taking away actions or activations is really strong. It isn't too hard to get MPLs in a list and adding Bistan is also a solid choice if you face a Meta shift. The issue isn't how to counter armor, the issue in my opinion is playing a balanced list that can counter armor.

Part 2, picking good objectives, deployments and conditions is a part of this game, unless you are really lucky you can usually get one of your choice.