So considering getting in. Likely going to be Empire as a huge fan of Scout Troopers in general from the movies.

Seen a few battle reports ect. Kinda curious are the 74z’s still able to hold their own?

Also outside of 2 man strike teams not seeing anyone really using scouts overall. Even my friend helping me get in keeps trying to shove Shoretroopers in my face.

I plan to play and have fun not run super competitive. Mostly curious about trends I see and why more than anything.

46 minutes ago, Ronu said:

So considering getting in. Likely going to be Empire as a huge fan of Scout Troopers in general from the movies.

Seen a few battle reports ect. Kinda curious are the 74z’s still able to hold their own?

Also outside of 2 man strike teams not seeing anyone really using scouts overall. Even my friend helping me get in keeps trying to shove Shoretroopers in my face.

I plan to play and have fun not run super competitive. Mostly curious about trends I see and why more than anything.

The speeder bikes are still good. You need to be real careful with them becuase of how fragile they are but man they hit like a truck and are fast.

Full scout trooper squads dont see a ton of play but if you do want to run one or two take the saboteur heavy weapon. They make decent objective grabbers and can really dissuade your opponent from moving into an area using their detonation charges.

Bikes are not bad. They had a points reduction not too long ago (reduced to 75 points), and I believe a list was in the top 4 in Europe in the last major tournament (just before everything was shutdown) where the list was sporting 3 bikes, if memory serves. The problem is that the combination of Shores/Mortars/Comms Relay was a bit over powered and it gave token control that rivalled the droid faction and many aims each round, so people wanted to play that to take advantage of the extra power. Only a few weeks ago, Shores/Mortars/Comms Relay was nerfed not allowing Comms Relay to be added to Mortars any more. Shores and Mortars are still quite good so, it’s hard to say how popular bikes would be now especially since the competitive scene is nonexistent because of Covid-19. But if someone can play in a major tournament and come in the top 4 with them, they have to be pretty good by comparison and I think that tournament was before the nerf too.

As for Scout troopers, well that’s a different story. I think a lot of people don’t play the full squad because they are one of the few imperial units that have white defense dice. They do have a good attack and some good abilities, but the white defense dice require a different play style akin to how rebels play and so they won’t see much table time from a lot of imperial players. By contrast the two man strike teams are cheap, effective and versatile, so they will be in most competitive lists.

But see if you can borrow some minis and play a game with them to see if you like the way they play. They may surprise you and if you’re playing for fun, don’t let competitive players opinions steer you away from something you’ll enjoy. 😁

13 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

Bikes are not bad. They had a points reduction not too long ago (reduced to 75 points), and I believe a list was in the top 4 in Europe in the last major tournament (just before everything was shutdown) where the list was sporting 3 bikes, if memory serves. The problem is that the combination of Shores/Mortars/Comms Relay was a bit over powered and it gave token control that rivalled the droid faction and many aims each round, so people wanted to play that to take advantage of the extra power. Only a few weeks ago, Shores/Mortars/Comms Relay was nerfed not allowing Comms Relay to be added to Mortars any more. Shores and Mortars are still quite good so, it’s hard to say how popular bikes would be now especially since the competitive scene is nonexistent because of Covid-19. But if someone can play in a major tournament and come in the top 4 with them, they have to be pretty good by comparison and I think that tournament was before the nerf too.

As for Scout troopers, well that’s a different story. I think a lot of people don’t play the full squad because they are one of the few imperial units that have white defense dice. They do have a good attack and some good abilities, but the white defense dice require a different play style akin to how rebels play and so they won’t see much table time from a lot of imperial players. By contrast the two man strike teams are cheap, effective and versatile, so they will be in most competitive lists.

But see if you can borrow some minis and play a game with them to see if you like the way they play. They may surprise you and if you’re playing for fun, don’t let competitive players opinions steer you away from something you’ll enjoy. 😁

Thanks for the replies. Sill curious about others opinions. My biggest concern was getting what I consider fun/cool units and always having to fight uphill both ways in nothing but a losing effort.

5 hours ago, Ronu said:

So considering getting in. Likely going to be Empire as a huge fan of Scout Troopers in general from the movies.

Seen a few battle reports ect. Kinda curious are the 74z’s still able to hold their own?

Also outside of 2 man strike teams not seeing anyone really using scouts overall. Even my friend helping me get in keeps trying to shove Shoretroopers in my face.

I plan to play and have fun not run super competitive. Mostly curious about trends I see and why more than anything.

Welcome, from another “filthy casual” 🙂

So, lets get down to business re: Empire (my original faction and the one I still have the most content from, sorta straddling the line between the two armies of white now).

74z is a fabulous init. They made them cheaper, and I was playing them at their original cost! They’re a bit fragile, it’s true, and they won’t take focus Fire well. They hate ATRT (surge to crit) and anything sharpshooter that steals their cover away, but if you can use terrain and range control to your advantage, they hit hard and scram. These will be shoot n scoot type units, not stuff you want to charge a gun line head on with or stay in the scrum after they get a good volley off.

I’m also literally the only one in the local area I know who has taken the full scout trooper unit. I agree with earlier posts: they’re not typically taken because they can die far easier than most imperial units. However, they’ve got incredible R1-2 offense, so if you have the right terrain to let the get up and in on an objective where no one can pound them from beyond range 2 they’ll do great. Sniper used to be the right answer for unlimited range but with that change I have been itching to bust out the sab. Also, slap recon intel on them to stack the scout up to 2 and they’re doing well.

3 hours ago, Ronu said:

Thanks for the replies. Sill curious about others opinions. My biggest concern was getting what I consider fun/cool units and always having to fight uphill both ways in nothing but a losing effort.

Well, depends on your gaming audience. Going to a competitive event with competitive players, that’s going to be a thing to deal with. No matter the game system: legion, xwing, 40k whatever.

There are casual players out there, and finding them you’ll have better luck I suspect.

I wouldn’t be too discouraged if I were you. Go ahead and take the plunge: my recommendation having been there; done that (if I could do it all over with what I know now) is to buy 2x of the core set. Especially if you can get in before the price bump coming in April. Double core set gives you a solid starting basis for the empire, and you’re well on your way to having an op force for your army too (may not seem important now but trust me you’ll end up doing something like that eventually). And it’s a super bargain all told for what you pay.

Then, for empire go buy your favorite commander, favorite operative (if you like bounty hunters), and a unit or two of choice (for you, probably scouts). For that op force, you don’t need to worry just yet but I’d Add Leia to the cart eventually and maybe another unit of something.

4 hours ago, Ronu said:

Thanks for the replies. Sill curious about others opinions. My biggest concern was getting what I consider fun/cool units and always having to fight uphill both ways in nothing but a losing effort.

It all depends on who you're going to play with and how. In the Legion forums I see a lot of people talking about which units you must and mustn't use, but that is all to be competitive, which I think it's fine if you're planning on playing tournaments, but if not it could get a little boring, at least in my opinion, because it extremelly limits which and how many units you take. I usually play with the same guy and neither of us care about what is competitive or not, so we build lists of whatever we want to play that day and have tons of fun always using different units. So playing this way I love the game, but if I had to play someone that wants to use every unit that makes his army more effectvive points-wise every time, then I think that I would get bored of the game as it conditions a lot which units you can and cannot play and to me that's not fun. But it's just my opinion based on how I like to play games and it's not more valid than the one from someone that likes to be competitive. What I mean by all this is that it all depends on how you like to play it.

5 hours ago, Ronu said:

Thanks for the replies. Sill curious about others opinions. My biggest concern was getting what I consider fun/cool units and always having to fight uphill both ways in nothing but a losing effort.

Imperial players seem fairly gun shy about white surge saves when their norm is red no surge; even though it’s just 2/6 vs 3/6. That being said, the Scouts get a vastly improved offensive output to compensate (as compared to Stormtroopers, for example).

Like I tell people about archery and guns. If you want to improve your grouping, you need to spend more time at the range, not buy a bunch of fancy accessories.

I play imps with 6 squads of snowtroopers, and then I rotate my e-webs, AT-ST's, medical droid, and Vader and Veers in and out of my Hoth-only lists.

Those guys who place top in the tournaments, get a TON of practice. If I traded my aesthetic list for their tournament lists with them, they'd still table me easily using my 6 snowtroopers, and me using their latest gimmick.

Buy two core sets ($72 on Amazon right now) and a box of your beloved scouts. You will have 800 points of imperials to paint and almost 800 points of rebels for 'down the road'.

The first Legion minis I brought was scouts. I was building on a budget, so two units in one box seemed like a good way to begin. I’ve actually got more use out of the full scout unit, as I tend to place my snipers in really stupid places. I tend to slap recon intel and duck & cover on them, and I stick to just the four bodies. They will melt if you let your opponent get a bead on them. But they made a sneaky turn 1 grab on an objective in one game, thanks to the boosted scout move from recon intel. In a short range firefight I think their black dice could be handy as backpack to another unit.

Just to clarify Europe was the first major tournament post Shores/tauntaun nerf, but consider how soon after this was , so people did not have much time to practice anything new. If you are going competitive though, the nerf is miniscule in comparison to the change caused by vital assets which will be legal at the next major. For World's this wasn't going to be the case.