Thought on the BARC Speeder

By BrotherCaptainRJ, in Star Wars: Legion

7 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

The Learn to play guide highlights a core design philosophy between Troopers and Vehicles in Legion:

Troopers are intended to be the main element used for securing objectives, while vehicles are supposed to be support pieces.

Even in a theoretical second edition, I don't see vehicles suddenly becoming a better point investment than infantry, that would be like Armada being changed to make fighters more of a focus than the capital ships.

And that core philosophy is bad.

Vehicles should be good. They shouldnt continue to be bad because of stubborn adherence to a bad core philosophy. If the core philosophy is bad it needs to be changed. Simple as that.

A second edition of legion could easily make vehicles better. It isnt a hard thing to do. I dont know why you think its some difficult feat its really not.

And corps units dont even have to be good. They could make corps units absolute crap and people would still have to take them because theyre compulsory. All corps units could be nerfed because regardless of how bad they are people still have to take three of them. Nerfing infantry is completely doable.

Armada is another game that was poorly implemented. Id prefer not to talk about that suffice to say squadron spam shouldve been anticipated as a problem by the developers well in advance.

7 hours ago, costi said:

I hate the argument that agility is the reason for the Armor. Speeders are way faster and more agile and all they get is cover 1.

There is no good argument for why the AT-RT has armor. Its not even particularly agile.

And yes speeders definitely need a better rule than Cover 1 to represent their agility.

Edited by Khobai

I disagree with your opinion about Corps units. They are the rank and file of each army, they should make up the bulk of the army. Otherwise special forces stop being so special.

Nerfing corps is absolutely not the way to go. They should be viable units that the army is built around, not a crappy points tax.

16 hours ago, Khobai said:

he really doesnt get it because GAR getting more releases wont fix the BARC speeder.

Its just more things to take over the BARC speeder.

Speeders are a lost cause in general.

Fast units that cannot take some objectives, and that aren't melee units, are simply not effective.

Speed and outmaneuvering are generally not well represented by the rules of the game. Being often overshadowed by offensive power and action efficiency.

4 hours ago, costi said:

I disagree with your opinion about Corps units. They are the rank and file of each army, they should make up the bulk of the army. Otherwise special forces stop being so special.

Nerfing corps is absolutely not the way to go. They should be viable units that the army is built around, not a crappy points tax.

I was talking specifically about nerfing GAR's corps units. The corps units for other factions are fine. The corps units for other factions are already weaker than other units in their respective factions which is exactly how it should be.

Corps units should absolutely be on the weaker side specifically so other units ARE special. And thats how most of the factions are currently designed. But GAR's corps units are way too strong which ends up making their non-corps units less special. Future releases for GAR will be overshadowed by how good their corps units are unless they make every future release as crazy as Arc Troopers which they cant do because it will just perpetuate GAR as the best faction.

GAR's corps units will more than likely be nerfed in some way. I also think theyre gonna have to nerf all strike teams including arc troopers. I just dont see how FFG can leave GAR how it is currently and claim their game is balanced.

2 hours ago, lologrelol said:

Speeders are a lost cause in general.

Fast units that cannot take some objectives, and that aren't melee units, are simply not effective.

Speed and outmaneuvering are generally not well represented by the rules of the game. Being often overshadowed by offensive power and action efficiency.

Theyre only a lost cause if FFG refuses to fix them.

And if FFG refuses to fix them its FFG thats the lost cause.

I absolutely believe speeders can be fixed. Im just not sure if FFG will fix them.

Edited by Khobai

@Khobai so now you are able to see the future? If "all future releases" for GAR will be bad compared to the Corps units, why are all of the competitive lists featuring multiple units of ARC troopers? No even just the strike team (which costs as much as a naked unit of Phase 1s), the full unit. As more clone trooper units are released for GAR we will absolutely see a change in the army lists, same as we did for Empire and Rebels. Prior to this point in the GCW releases (when Commandos and Scout Troopers first came out) the army lists looked very similar to GAR lists, lots of Corps units, and the Rebels sometimes included AT-RTs, but as they die fairly quickly to DLT-19 "spam," which was incredibly common in Empire lists at the time, were often left out.

What could use a bit of a nerf for GAR are the Clone Trooper rules, something that most of their corps, special forces, and trooper emplacement support units are likely to share. Rumour has it that the "colour" of standby tokens might change. That's honestly a change I am fine with as it still leaves the theme of the GAR intact, while bringing it a bit more in line with other factions, standby that cannot be disrupted is quite good.

So you are basing your assumption that "GAR Corps will be better than anything else the army has" off what exactly? Comparing them the the vehicles? We already see ARC troopers being taken over additional Corps units. As I said before infantry are heavily taken over vehicles in all competitive lists, regardless of faction.

The difficulty isn't in making vehicles "good" (underprice them and suddenly they are the best thing in the game, at the cost of balance between infantry and vehicles), the difficulty is in improving them while keeping heroes as the main focus of the game. Star Wars is about the heroes, not some vehicle that is seen in a single film or a few episodes of a cartoon. The stories are driven by the heroes, and that's the draw of Legion: getting to build, paint, and play with the heroes (and villians) from the stories. In the movies we don't have vehicles rigging a shield bunker to explode (although the captured AT-ST certainly supports the infantry), we don't have vehicles stealing and uploading the Death Star plans, we don't have vehicles entering Echo base to capture the Rebellion's leaders, and we don't have vehicles rescuing the princess. Infantry accomplish those objectives, often with vehicle support.

That core design statement you think is bad (infantry take objectives, vehicles help) is fairly common in wargames, for similar to reasons to what I outlined above. Vehicles simply can't accomplish many objectives that are used in wargames. They can't enter a building looking for intel, they can't push a button on a console, they can't pull a pilot from a downed aircraft, and they can't arm or disarm a bomb. All of which are fairly common wargame objectives.

@Caimheul1313 I wouldn't waste your energy arguing with him, it's clear he's only interested in complaining about the terrible balance issues that make the game unplayable and not actually interested in accepting that the game might actually not be completely broken. His comment on squadrons made me realise that if he thinks Armada has serious balance issues, then he will never be happy with the state of balance, I mean Armada is one of the best balanced TTGs I've ever played.

This honestly reminds me of a certain Mr Nelson from way back on the Armada forums, always doomsaying... talking about how Armada was dead in the water as of ~2016, due to some small balance issue.

@Khobai Dude, you have to understand that the overwhelming majority does not think the game is in a terrible state like you claim. Sure clone standby sharing could do with a little nerf and sure speeders are a bit niche in their current applications but the game is far from horribly unbalanced and we already have enough **** going on in the world as is, let's just stop trying to find the negative in everything, and try and keep discussions from devolving into a flame war.

Same pattern every time with his posts.

Extreme loudmouth opinions about things being insanely overpowered and should be nerfed into the ground or unusable garbage that need to be completely overhauled .

It's basically GAR game breaking OP airspeeders worse than crap all the way down with this guy.

That the game is being ruined by stuff that is just really not that good, making you question if he's even playing the game correctly (or at all?)

Just repeat those opinions, over and over again, in every thread.

@OneLastMidnight Well, some there is some evidence of not playing the game in an experienced group at least (like a complete misunderstanding of how line of sight is checked).

It is good to remember that these forums do offer the ability to ignore specific users.

19 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Star Wars is about the heroes, not some vehicle that is seen in a single film or a few episodes of a cartoon. The stories are driven by the heroes, and that's the draw of Legion: getting to build, paint, and play with the heroes (and villians) from the stories.

While I generally agreed with what you said, I will argue vehemently against this idea. Heroes, meaning most of the named characters from the films, are the least interesting part of Legion. Personally, the Star Wars universe is more interesting than the actual films or shows, meaning the setting and concepts introduced by them are more interesting than the characters and plots of those films. I would love to see more generic armies played, with no named characters or upgrades. I like "stories" and games centered around Joe Six Pack Stormtrooper, or Imperial Officer #1138 leading his troops to victory. The units I'm excited for most in the game are the Generic Clone Commander, and the unit I'm most hopeful that we'll eventually get is a Generic Jedi Commander as well, so we can proxy in all the super obscure characters that FFG will never bring into the game. Now, I get your point that vehicles should be secondary to trooper units, and agree with it (Star Wars armies, like armies IRL are built around the Infantry, afterall), but I very much would rather Legion not become Imperial Assault 2.0.

I realize that I'm probably very much alone in this idea,but hey, it's better than "Clones OP, need nerf; speeders bad, should be OP!" for the 98th time.

2 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

While I generally agreed with what you said, I will argue vehemently against this idea. Heroes, meaning most of the named characters from the films, are the least interesting part of Legion. Personally, the Star Wars universe is more interesting than the actual films or shows, meaning the setting and concepts introduced by them are more interesting than the characters and plots of those films. I would love to see more generic armies played, with no named characters or upgrades. I like "stories" and games centered around Joe Six Pack Stormtrooper, or Imperial Officer #1138 leading his troops to victory. The units I'm excited for most in the game are the Generic Clone Commander, and the unit I'm most hopeful that we'll eventually get is a Generic Jedi Commander as well, so we can proxy in all the super obscure characters that FFG will never bring into the game. Now, I get your point that vehicles should be secondary to trooper units, and agree with it (Star Wars armies, like armies IRL are built around the Infantry, afterall), but I very much would rather Legion not become Imperial Assault 2.0.

I realize that I'm probably very much alone in this idea,but hey, it's better than "Clones OP, need nerf; speeders bad, should be OP!" for the 98th time.

I wouldn't say you're alone in that idea, as I too would like a generic Super Tactical Droid to use with my magnificent droid army. The only problem is that I'm not sure Star Wars was set up for that as an IP (with notable exceptions in the various older computer games). This isn't a story about teenage conscripts going to war in Europe; Star Wars has always been about its heroes and villains. The Light and Dark sides of the Force. Heck, the main six movies are all about one or two characters when you boil it all down. The fictional galaxy wouldn't be nearly as popular or successful without Luke or Vader or Yoda. They are the selling point for all of it as far as I can tell, and Disney knows this. I don't find those characters nearly as interesting as the setting either, but they are without a doubt what makes Star Wars iconic.

So while it'll be nice to have the option of running a generic army, I have no illusions that this will be the exception to the rule. Star Wars has an incredible setting full of many things to explore, but in my opinion Legion was designed from the start as a means of putting its characters on the field.

@Alpha17 Even in the stories you have crafted for your own games, with "Joe Six Pack Stormtrooper, or Imperial Officer #1138" the story is still centered around a character, just not a widely known character. The interest in the Star Wars universe is (for many) fueled by the characters "what is the significance of Boba Fett's armour?" "Why is Luke too short to be a stormtrooper?"

But I think I understand what you mean, you don't just want Luke and Leia, you also want supporting cast, or even for the nominally supporting cast to step into the spotlight. I agree, which is part of the reason I enjoy the Thrawn books, for more details about the unknown reaches, and why I frequently paint models as alternate nearhuman races, headswap, or use an alternate model.

Quote

why are all of the competitive lists featuring multiple units of ARC troopers?

the same reason all factions use strike teams. cheap non-corps activations. GAR still needs cheap non-corps activations to get upto 10-11 activations.

strike teams are a blight on the game and never shouldve existed.

Hopefully FFG has the sense to completely remove strike teams from the game and instead allow all the scout unit boxes to form 6 man units (5 + 1 heavy weapon) so you can still use most of the models in a box.

Edited by Khobai
8 minutes ago, Khobai said:

the same reason all factions use strike teams. cheap activations

strike teams are a blight on the game and never shouldve existed.

FFG should completely remove strike teams from the game and instead allow all the scout unit boxes to form 6 man units so you can still use most of the models in a box.

Good job taking a quote out of context. The full quote continues " No[t] even just the strike team (which costs as much as a naked unit of Phase 1s), the full unit." How is the ARC strike team a cheap activation when it has literally no points savings over the Phase 1s?

Edited by Caimheul1313
5 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Good job taking a quote out of context. The full quote continues " No[t] even just the strike team (which costs as much as a naked unit of Phase 1s), the full unit."

you cant take more than 6 corps units smart guy.

at some point you have to start taking something other than corp units.

so when you have your 6 corps units and you want more cheap activations what do you do? You go with R2 and arc troopers strike teams.

thats why arc troopers get used. because they CANT take more naked corps units.

I didnt take anything out of context, I just figured I didnt have to explain that...

Edited by Khobai
Just now, Khobai said:

you cant take more than 6 corps units smart guy.

at some point you have to start taking something other than corp units.

Hmm... looks like some of these lists don't have a full 6 corps units...
And still does nothing to explain taking full ARC squads.

I attribute some of that to the fact not everyone can get clone mk2s or three units of arc troopers right now.

and the online lists ive seen that run 11 activations do run 6 corps units, r2d2, rex, and 3 arc troopers. thats how you get to 11 activations with GAR.

those were the lists causing problems in invader league which is the big online tabletop simulator league. people complained that an elite army like GAR shouldnt be able to easily reach 11 activations. Even the designers said GAR was supposed to be an elite low activation army capping out at around 9 activations. GAR definitely isnt working as intended.

But I mean arc troopers are also very good besides. If every new GAR trooper unit release is as good as arc troopers then I predict GAR is going to continue dominating the meta. I dont think they can continue to power creep all the new releases and still keep the faction balanced against imperials or rebels. Something is going to have to give somewhere down the line. I still believe GAR's corps units as well as strike teams in general will get some kindve nerf before year's end. Even if all they do is remove standby token sharing and do something minimal to strike teams like make them detachment units thats still better than nothing.

Edited by Khobai
1 minute ago, Khobai said:

I attribute that more to the fact not everyone can get clone mk2s right now

Yes, that has a lot of bearing on lists used in a digital tournament which allows players to build whatever lists they want without concern of what product is and is not available.

I've seen a thread like this before. It didn't scare me before, but it does now.

(Move along, not worth it)

Edited by OneLastMidnight
21 hours ago, Kirjath08 said:

I wouldn't say you're alone in that idea, as I too would like a generic Super Tactical Droid to use with my magnificent droid army. The only problem is that I'm not sure Star Wars was set up for that as an IP (with notable exceptions in the various older computer games). This isn't a story about teenage conscripts going to war in Europe; Star Wars has always been about its heroes and villains. The Light and Dark sides of the Force. Heck, the main six movies are all about one or two characters when you boil it all down. The fictional galaxy wouldn't be nearly as popular or successful without Luke or Vader or Yoda. They are the selling point for all of it as far as I can tell, and Disney knows this. I don't find those characters nearly as interesting as the setting either, but they are without a doubt what makes Star Wars iconic.

So while it'll be nice to have the option of running a generic army, I have no illusions that this will be the exception to the rule. Star Wars has an incredible setting full of many things to explore, but in my opinion Legion was designed from the start as a means of putting its characters on the field.

It wasn't just the games that did that, as we have had several book series that focused on other characters besides the film ones, from the X-Wing series to the Republic Commando series and even (to a lesser extent) the new Battlefront books. The characters help with that "iconic look" but so do the fighters, vessels, and general look and feel of the universe.

20 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@Alpha17 Even in the stories you have crafted for your own games, with "Joe Six Pack Stormtrooper, or Imperial Officer #1138" the story is still centered around a character, just not a widely known character. The interest in the Star Wars universe is (for many) fueled by the characters "what is the significance of Boba Fett's armour?" "Why is Luke too short to be a stormtrooper?"

But I think I understand what you mean, you don't just want Luke and Leia, you also want supporting cast, or even for the nominally supporting cast to step into the spotlight. I agree, which is part of the reason I enjoy the Thrawn books, for more details about the unknown reaches, and why I frequently paint models as alternate nearhuman races, headswap, or use an alternate model.

Yes and no. My all time favorite Star Wars book isn't a novel, and features exactly zero main characters. It's The Essential Guide to Warfare , and it reads like a military history book of the Star Wars galaxy. The concepts created/discussed there are far more interesting than anything seen in the sequel trilogy, if you ask me, and I'd trade any number of character-focused stories for event-focused stories like what EGtW was. Even Rogue One 's original argument, being the story of the Battle of Scarif was muddled, in my opinion, by the needless focus on the Rogue One crew. Go a bit light on those characters, put more emphasis on the events, and the film would be very much improved.

But yes, if there is a need to do a character driven story, that can be done without the characters of the films, and allow further exploration of the Star Wars galaxy rather than yet another time where (insert movie character) does (insert thing movie character does).

Back to Legion, I'll be the guy to say that I think ARCs are a bit underwhelming. For all the talk on here or discord, you'd think they were the nastiest unit the game had ever seen. Instead, they're slightly better Phase IIs with Tactical. That's it. One bad roll of the dice, a full unit is gone. No organic surges, relatively weak heavy weapon, but high cost. Deathtroopers, with similar builds, hit harder, have better defense 90% of the time, and have more flexible range bubbles at the cost of a few points, not having the option to take jetpacks, not getting "free" aims, and Impervious (whoo, hoo). In terms of strike teams, they tend to be mediocre. At best, they replace naked corps units, but their attacks are wimpy in comparison to anything else. As token generators, they are OK, but not outstanding. Going that route means you are likely giving up activation control for (at best) an extra aim per turn. I won't go as far as to say that either unit is bad, but they're certainly not game breaking, and could (and likely, should have) been much better to fit the lore of ARCs.

Edited by Alpha17
2 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

I won't go as far as to say that either unit is bad, but they're certainly not game breaking, and could (and likely, should have) been much better to fit the lore of ARCs.

Looking over the cards and the past release schedules, I think they suffered a bit from having to do 2 different things:

First, they had to serve as a generalist Special Unit for the GAR because they don't have one, so they had to fill the same role as the Scout Troopers and Rebel Commandos: not so good as to break the game but still worth the points. I can't think of a single time I've seen a full squad of either get taken. The strike teams seem to be mostly point-fill units to get the extra activation and a chance to lay down some suppression.

Second, they wanted to do the same thing that they had/have planned for Clan Wren and Inferno Squad with having new "super corps" to add as personnel to standard Corps units. I feel like Fives and Echo could be incredibly good as secondary commanders/leaders to put with corps units and push, but the strike team doesn't feel very strong if you don't take one of them.

Ultimately, it feels like FFG tried to cover one too many areas with the ARCs and so they're a bit thin in that regard. I may be wrong, I haven't gotten to play them, but that's my two cents. I'm excited to see what Fives and Echo can do, but the only real "power move" I can think of for the Arcs would be to use them in tandem with Rex's Scouting Party to get some tougher units into the fight faster so Corps units have an extra turn or two to get set and grab objectives.

If nothing else, they can harry opposing units on the fringes and grab objectives with jetpacks, so they could work well that way.

@evo454 By use in tandem with Rex's Scouting Party, do you mean move up to support the units targeted by Scouting Party? As a reminder, you cannot use Scouting Party on a unit that has used the Scout Keyword.

If that's what you meant, then I could see that working well.

1 hour ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@evo454 By use in tandem with Rex's Scouting Party, do you mean move up to support the units targeted by Scouting Party? As a reminder, you cannot use Scouting Party on a unit that has used the Scout Keyword.

If that's what you meant, then I could see that working well.

Pretty much. Should have specified. Getting a good forward push can be helpful, and I think they could be used well for that. I wouldn't want to use them as a main attack force, though, looking through their stuff

2 minutes ago, evo454 said:

Pretty much. Should have specified. Getting a good forward push can be helpful, and I think they could be used well for that. I wouldn't want to use them as a main attack force, though, looking through their stuff

No worries. I've seen a few people have a misunderstanding of the interaction between Scout and Scouting Party, so wanted to clarify.
Most units in Legion operate best in my opinion either when well supported or while supporting other units. Which is one of the challenges with Infiltrate, providing adequate support. Scout has a much easier time of being supported (partially as the unit isn't as far away from the rest of the army, and partially because with Recon Intel additionally units can be given Scout.

Just now, Caimheul1313 said:

No worries. I've seen a few people have a misunderstanding of the interaction between Scout and Scouting Party, so wanted to clarify.
Most units in Legion operate best in my opinion either when well supported or while supporting other units. Which is one of the challenges with Infiltrate, providing adequate support. Scout has a much easier time of being supported (partially as the unit isn't as far away from the rest of the army, and partially because with Recon Intel additionally units can be given Scout.

I've seen Infiltrate used to gum troops early and keep an opponent from advancing much on the first turn. Or, used a lures to drag away a unit or two so they can't participate in any central push (which I'm ashamed to say I've fallen for before).