6 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:

Legion is another animal. It has all the problems of 1.0 xwing with the power and complexity creep,

I don't disagree with you overall, but this is just not true. Is there some amount of power creep in Legion? Yeah. A lot of it is just having badly balanced initial releases and they've gotten better about making things fit in. Vehicles are getting more powerful, but that really isn't power creep, IMO. It just allows them to creep into the meta.

The power creep in X-wing 1.0 is probably the worst power creep I've seen in a wargame. Since they only had 2 dice (attack and defense), the design space in which to manipulate those was limited. By the end, they were finding ways to just cut them out of the process almost entirely and instead lean on "add results" or "change blank to hit" type mechanics that completely undermined the purpose of a dice game.

When they start having us pick up dice and change bad results into good ones or only exhaust missile launchers if they successfully wound a vehicle, then it might start to approach how bad the power creep of x-wing 1.0 was.

Until then, no. It definitely does NOT have the power creep issues of X-wing.

I recieved my two boxes of Arc Troopers and clone AT-RT yesterday in the UK. Stock here seems fine.

56 minutes ago, Morddus said:

I recieved my two boxes of Arc Troopers and clone AT-RT yesterday in the UK. Stock here seems fine.

Really? Because the two main online retailers I use - Darksphere and Element - didn't seem to get any, or at least nowhere near enough to fulfill their preorders; it went straight from preorder to zero stock, even for a lot of folk who had preorders. Where did you order?

As for...

20 hours ago, smickletz said:

I don’t think a toy company owes anyone an explanation as to why everyone who wants that toy can’t get it immediately. Investors? Sure. They should know what the deal is. But a product was designed and manufactured that is highly desirable and more can be produced to meet demand and no inventory is left on shelves or, more importantly, in warehouses, so stores will continue to order stock.

...this nonsense. Phew lad. First of all, it's not about what a "toy" company(nice btw, very clever use of language, that description preemptively undermines anyone who cares to argue against your assertion by associating the subject with the prevailing sentiment that toys are for children and so are unimportant, seemingly making any issues people have with them or their makers also unimportant and thus easily dismissable)"owes" anybody, it's about basic effing customer service. If your customers want something and you cannot provide it because of an issue at your end, it's basic pleb-tier Business 101 that you should be communicating with said customers so they feel valued and not like a walking wallet that you expect to spread open and take a nice thorough humping on command. You, the company, have created an expectation in your customers, and so if you, the company fail to live up to that expectation it's incumbent on you to at least give them a basic mea culpa. If you want to ignore such basic things, well, have a look at how GW fared during the latter half of Kirby's reign - they had to slash the company almost to the bone with cuts and increase prices at far above inflation(along with a lot of other grimy strategies like changing the game rules to "encourage" larger unit sizes and bigger armies) to keep the dividend payments flowing despite their hemorrhaging customer base, and it killed the game that started the whole company back in the day.

Secondly, Legion is not "just toys". The figures are components of a wargame, and wargames live or die on network effect. That manifests in two ways - there are Ubiquitous Wargames and Passion Wargames. Legion is a Ubiquitous Wargame, meaning it lives or dies on "support" - new releases, organised play, ease of access. Like X-Wing and Games Workshop's main products, the chief reason for its continued popularity now that it has become established is that it has become established - you can buy it basically everywhere, play it basically everywhere, and so for people who's main attraction is some combination of the game rules and the social experience of playing games it has value over alternatives because they know it's a "safe investment" of their time and money - they'll pay because they know they'll be able to play.

Issues with the stream of new releases would be enough of a problem for the game's resilience in normal times, but during a pandemic where a huge chunk of your playerbase's only interaction with your product is going to be the hobby side of things? That isn't a small problem. It doesn't take all that much to tip a game over the edge and into a death spiral - look at Warhammer Fantasy. And WHFB was made by a company where even under Kirby at least some of the decisionmaking power was still in the hands of creative types: FFG is owned by Asmodee and Asmodee are owned by vulture capitalists, and on top of that uses a very expensive third party IP license, even a modest stumble could be enough to see its demise. Of course, it wouldn't "die", it would just become a Passion Wargame like countless others, played by small groups of friends, with occasional local flareups here & there, surviving on third-party miniatures and homebrew. Personally I love that kind of game, but I suspect quite a lot of the current FFG playerbase doesn't, at least not for their "main" wargame, and would prefer it remain Ubiquitous.

Lastly, there is a slight problem with just vacantly repeating the "just in time" mantra. On a basic level, because of what I just talked about - it's not actually a bad thing if a wargame has some product "left on shelves and in warehouses", because(at least for those who aim to be Ubiquitous) you want customers to be able to find your product anywhere, anytime(or as near as makes no odds), you want new customers to be continually discovering your product in stores and clubs and afterschool groups and gaming rooms all over the world, and you don't want to give them the time and space to reconsider whether they really need to drop several hundred quid on a new wargame. But even if that weren't the case, even if we accepted the assertion that a "just in time" approach designed to minimise held stock at all levels was the right approach for Asmodee to be taking - they're rubbish at it. Because the key part of your characterisation of the approach there is "...and more can be produced to meet demand...", and they don't. For months on end, they simply don't.

If you want to do the small run/quick restock model for your product, you need to actually do both of those things , and even before the pandemic created a handy excuse they demonstrated repeatedly that they were either unwilling to or incapable of getting those restocks made and out to stores in anything even approaching a timely fashion. Even before the pandemic, big chunks of both Legion and X-Wing were out of stock all over the world and had been for months, and don't even talk about Armada's issues you might prompt its fans to start leaping out of windows in despair.

If your "just in time" strategy takes so long to satiate consumer demand that it allows for scalpers to become firmly established for basic core products in your range, then your strategy has failed.

9 hours ago, Sekac said:

When they start having us pick up dice and change bad results into good ones or only exhaust missile launchers if they successfully wound a vehicle, then it might start to approach how bad the power creep of x-wing 1.0 was.

You mean if they introduced mechanics where a unit "may change x attack die results to critical results if it performed at least 1 full standard move at its maximum speed during the same activation as this attack," or "spend aim tokens to improve attack die results"? Because it would be silly if those mechanics were introduced in the game!

*awkwardly stares at Ram X and Marksman in the RRG*

Oh, no...

@Yodhrin I disagree that the main draw of Legion is that it is "ubiquitous," it's that it is STAR WARS. Same for X-Wing. X-Wing V1 and Armada have suffered the same sort of supply issues as Legion, yet those games have continued. X-Wing V1 in some ways had it worse since you needed to pick up specific ship which may not even be for your faction to get a single copy of a specific upgrade card unless you wanted to pay almost the full value of the ship for just that single card on the secondary market. Wings of Glory is a very similar wargames to X-Wing in many ways, yet it isn't nearly as "ubiquitous." Why? Because it isn't Star Wars.

I don't think Legion will become a true "Passion" wargame unless FFG/Asmodee loses the license for Star Wars. So long as they have that license they are going to continue pumping out product to milk that cow and people will continue to pick it up because of the recognition of the units.

11 hours ago, Sekac said:

I don't disagree with you overall, but this is just not true. Is there some amount of power creep in Legion? Yeah. A lot of it is just having badly balanced initial releases and they've gotten better about making things fit in. Vehicles are getting more powerful, but that really isn't power creep, IMO. It just allows them to creep into the meta.

The power creep in X-wing 1.0 is probably the worst power creep I've seen in a wargame. Since they only had 2 dice (attack and defense), the design space in which to manipulate those was limited. By the end, they were finding ways to just cut them out of the process almost entirely and instead lean on "add results" or "change blank to hit" type mechanics that completely undermined the purpose of a dice game.

When they start having us pick up dice and change bad results into good ones or only exhaust missile launchers if they successfully wound a vehicle, then it might start to approach how bad the power creep of x-wing 1.0 was.

Until then, no. It definitely does NOT have the power creep issues of X-wing.

Yeah

My friend just kicked my *** with a Veers AT-ST/speeder bikes list and I was playing BX droids and the AAT. It was a good reminder that power creep in this game is NOT bad at all. A bunch of wave 1 units can still go toe to toe with the latest CIS stuff.

X-wing 1.0 had intentional powercreep becuase they were actively trying to fix and balance ships using new upgrade cards. We basically had to buy the errata one piece at a time. The only thing Ive seen like this in Legion is the vehicle pilots for the rebel landspeeder and the imperial Occupier. And at least they didnt force us to buy a different faction for cards.

2 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

You mean if they introduced mechanics where a unit "may change x attack die results to critical results if it performed at least 1 full standard move at its maximum speed during the same activation as this attack," or "spend aim tokens to improve attack die results"? Because it would be silly if those mechanics were introduced in the game!

*awkwardly stares at Ram X and Marksman in the RRG*

Oh, no...

No, I don't mean that.

I have no problem with Marksman, because you are still spending things to make it happen. X-wing had tons of passive dice mods. Predator, Fearlessness, Autothrusters, etc. No decisions to make, no resource management, just buy an upgrade and your dice are more reliable automatically.

This is especially problematic since the only victory condition in X-wing is killing more points than you lose. Power creep directly influences game outcomes and the only possible response is to join the arms race.

Marksman is a good ability, no doubt, but do we see lists that win for no reason other than they have marksman? Nope, they still have to play the scenario. In x-wing you'd absolutely see victories from lists that were just 4 TLTs and no tactics.

This isn't that. Pretending it's just as bad is silly.

2 hours ago, Sekac said:

No, I don't mean that.

I have no problem with Marksman, because you are still spending things to make it happen. X-wing had tons of passive dice mods. Predator, Fearlessness, Autothrusters, etc. No decisions to make, no resource management, just buy an upgrade and your dice are more reliable automatically.

Outside of clone armies, there is no resource management in marksman. You aren’t going to hold on to that aim for future use in legion, so it’s just flat better than a reroll because it’s a guaranteed result.

I played 1.0 xwing. I’m keenly aware of the creep examples. I maintain marksman is no different.

Some of the other creep is just making plain better units. Shores are flat better than stormies, period, end of discussion. The only time competitive players would take stormies is because it’s their last unit space and they don’t have points for shores.

2 hours ago, Sekac said:

No, I don't mean that.

I have no problem with Marksman, because you are still spending things to make it happen. X-wing had tons of passive dice mods. Predator, Fearlessness, Autothrusters, etc. No decisions to make, no resource management, just buy an upgrade and your dice are more reliable automatically.

This is especially problematic since the only victory condition in X-wing is killing more points than you lose. Power creep directly influences game outcomes and the only possible response is to join the arms race.

Marksman is a good ability, no doubt, but do we see lists that win for no reason other than they have marksman? Nope, they still have to play the scenario. In x-wing you'd absolutely see victories from lists that were just 4 TLTs and no tactics.

This isn't that. Pretending it's just as bad is silly.

I was there Gandalf... I was there all those years ago...

*stares into distance while imagining Quad K-Wing TLTs and triple torpedo Jumpmasters*

1 hour ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

I was there Gandalf... I was there all those years ago...

*stares into distance while imagining Quad K-Wing TLTs and triple torpedo Jumpmasters*

Couldn't Quad TLT on K-Wings, had to Y-Wings

10 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Couldn't Quad TLT on K-Wings, had to Y-Wings

Oh yeah. I didnt remember becuase I never ran that cheesy garbage. *shudders*

44 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Couldn't Quad TLT on K-Wings, had to Y-Wings

That's why they had to imagine it 😛

3 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:

You aren’t going to hold on to that aim for future use in legion, so it’s just flat better than a reroll because it’s a guaranteed result.

That's only true if you only have 1 blank, or any number of blank white dice. Rerolling 2 reds is almost always better than setting 1 to a hit. Even rerolling 2 non-surge blacks is usually better because it averages the same as setting 1 but has the possibility of rerolling into 2. Of course it also has the ability to upgrade a hit to a crit, which is probably the most powerful part of the ability.

Marksman is definitely good, but it's not overpowered. Particularly because only a few units have it and you can't add it to anything else (yet) [outside of a Supply Drop card].

4 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:

I played 1.0 xwing. I’m keenly aware of the creep examples. I maintain marksman is no different.

Oh well you have me there. I never played it so I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

🙄

Final update...

The most recent eBay store also cancelled the purchase saying that the person who posts to eBay just reposted all their templates - even though they were out of stock on the ARCs. I have been refunded.

So that means the final tally is:
5 Stores in 4 States resulting in exactly 0 ARCs.
I'm keeping my pre-order at my local game store in the hopes that maybe someday, February if Miniature Market is correct, I'll actually get some ARCs.

I can only hope that Clan Wren and Inferno Squad are not as messed up. Less people should be hyper order Clan Wren (It is a perfect box, you really only need 1 to use the box perfectly).
But I'm a bit worried about STAPs. Those are likely to be bulk ordered, so I now have to hope that my order went in early enough at MM that if they get limited stock, I'll actually get the 1 box I ordered.

Final result. I remain ARC-less.
I may have to give up trying.

I've been to almost every online store I can find, eBay, and more... the most recent funny thing I saw on eBay was a Canadian auction that started the ARCs at $1.00... but had a Shipping cost of $25.00. Yeah, someone is trying to catch unwary bidders.

18 hours ago, Yodhrin said:

Really? Because the two main online retailers I use - Darksphere and Element - didn't seem to get any, or at least nowhere near enough to fulfill their preorders; it went straight from preorder to zero stock, even for a lot of folk who had preorders. Where did you order?

As for...

...this nonsense. Phew lad. First of all, it's not about what a "toy" company(nice btw, very clever use of language, that description preemptively undermines anyone who cares to argue against your assertion by associating the subject with the prevailing sentiment that toys are for children and so are unimportant, seemingly making any issues people have with them or their makers also unimportant and thus easily dismissable)"owes" anybody, it's about basic effing customer service. If your customers want something and you cannot provide it because of an issue at your end, it's basic pleb-tier Business 101 that you should be communicating with said customers so they feel valued and not like a walking wallet that you expect to spread open and take a nice thorough humping on command. You, the company, have created an expectation in your customers, and so if you, the company fail to live up to that expectation it's incumbent on you to at least give them a basic mea culpa. If you want to ignore such basic things, well, have a look at how GW fared during the latter half of Kirby's reign - they had to slash the company almost to the bone with cuts and increase prices at far above inflation(along with a lot of other grimy strategies like changing the game rules to "encourage" larger unit sizes and bigger armies) to keep the dividend payments flowing despite their hemorrhaging customer base, and it killed the game that started the whole company back in the day.

Secondly, Legion is not "just toys". The figures are components of a wargame, and wargames live or die on network effect. That manifests in two ways - there are Ubiquitous Wargames and Passion Wargames. Legion is a Ubiquitous Wargame, meaning it lives or dies on "support" - new releases, organised play, ease of access. Like X-Wing and Games Workshop's main products, the chief reason for its continued popularity now that it has become established is that it has become established - you can buy it basically everywhere, play it basically everywhere, and so for people who's main attraction is some combination of the game rules and the social experience of playing games it has value over alternatives because they know it's a "safe investment" of their time and money - they'll pay because they know they'll be able to play.

Issues with the stream of new releases would be enough of a problem for the game's resilience in normal times, but during a pandemic where a huge chunk of your playerbase's only interaction with your product is going to be the hobby side of things? That isn't a small problem. It doesn't take all that much to tip a game over the edge and into a death spiral - look at Warhammer Fantasy. And WHFB was made by a company where even under Kirby at least some of the decisionmaking power was still in the hands of creative types: FFG is owned by Asmodee and Asmodee are owned by vulture capitalists, and on top of that uses a very expensive third party IP license, even a modest stumble could be enough to see its demise. Of course, it wouldn't "die", it would just become a Passion Wargame like countless others, played by small groups of friends, with occasional local flareups here & there, surviving on third-party miniatures and homebrew. Personally I love that kind of game, but I suspect quite a lot of the current FFG playerbase doesn't, at least not for their "main" wargame, and would prefer it remain Ubiquitous.

Lastly, there is a slight problem with just vacantly repeating the "just in time" mantra. On a basic level, because of what I just talked about - it's not actually a bad thing if a wargame has some product "left on shelves and in warehouses", because(at least for those who aim to be Ubiquitous) you want customers to be able to find your product anywhere, anytime(or as near as makes no odds), you want new customers to be continually discovering your product in stores and clubs and afterschool groups and gaming rooms all over the world, and you don't want to give them the time and space to reconsider whether they really need to drop several hundred quid on a new wargame. But even if that weren't the case, even if we accepted the assertion that a "just in time" approach designed to minimise held stock at all levels was the right approach for Asmodee to be taking - they're rubbish at it. Because the key part of your characterisation of the approach there is "...and more can be produced to meet demand...", and they don't. For months on end, they simply don't.

If you want to do the small run/quick restock model for your product, you need to actually do both of those things , and even before the pandemic created a handy excuse they demonstrated repeatedly that they were either unwilling to or incapable of getting those restocks made and out to stores in anything even approaching a timely fashion. Even before the pandemic, big chunks of both Legion and X-Wing were out of stock all over the world and had been for months, and don't even talk about Armada's issues you might prompt its fans to start leaping out of windows in despair.

If your "just in time" strategy takes so long to satiate consumer demand that it allows for scalpers to become firmly established for basic core products in your range, then your strategy has failed.

It was actually Element games i got them from! I preorder xwing and Legion stuff with then as soon as they go up for preorder and ive never had any issues with them for a good few years.

2 hours ago, KryatDragon said:

I've been to almost every online store I can find, eBay, and more... the most recent funny thing I saw on eBay was a Canadian auction that started the ARCs at $1.00... but had a Shipping cost of $25.00. Yeah, someone is trying to catch unwary bidders.

Yeah, always check the shipping and handling. I've seen stuff with absolutely ridiculous shipping and handling fees on eBay, to ensure some minimum profit while starting bidding lower... Just set the minimum bid, I'd respect them more for being more obvious about it.

20 hours ago, Sekac said:

No, I don't mean that.

I have no problem with Marksman, because you are still spending things to make it happen. X-wing had tons of passive dice mods. Predator, Fearlessness, Autothrusters, etc. No decisions to make, no resource management, just buy an upgrade and your dice are more reliable automatically.

This is especially problematic since the only victory condition in X-wing is killing more points than you lose. Power creep directly influences game outcomes and the only possible response is to join the arms race.

Marksman is a good ability, no doubt, but do we see lists that win for no reason other than they have marksman? Nope, they still have to play the scenario. In x-wing you'd absolutely see victories from lists that were just 4 TLTs and no tactics.

This isn't that. Pretending it's just as bad is silly.

And I very much disagree when you look at the units with Marksman. Cassian is the best example, because of Tactical he gets an aim for free, but Iden also has the more important part: Pierce. Being able to get a pretty much guaranteed Crit that slices right through cover backed up by Pierce is an extreme case of power creep/dice manipulation. That removes about 3 layers of variability, and is extremely easy to pull off. It might not be to the point of late stage X-Wing 1.0, but it's definitely not that far from it either.

And I noticed that you completely ignored Ram, the other example of just automatically changing dice to good results.

14 hours ago, Lochlan said:

That's only true if you only have 1 blank, or any number of blank white dice. Rerolling 2 reds is almost always better than setting 1 to a hit. Even rerolling 2 non-surge blacks is usually better because it averages the same as setting 1 but has the possibility of rerolling into 2. Of course it also has the ability to upgrade a hit to a crit, which is probably the most powerful part of the ability.

Marksman is definitely good, but it's not overpowered. Particularly because only a few units have it and you can't add it to anything else (yet) [outside of a Supply Drop card].

The ability to upgrade to a crit is by far the most powerful part of the card, and well worth it most of the time. If your opponent is in cover, one guaranteed crit (backed by Pierce) will be better than the two potential hits you could have otherwise gotten from the aim. We'll see how it plays out on the Inferno squad's larger dice pool, but for Cassian and Iden, puching one through cover guaranteed is ridiculously more powerful than crit fishing.

2 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

And I noticed that you completely ignored Ram, the other example of just automatically changing dice to good results.

I notice you completely ignored the part where this game is about winning scenarios not just killing things. I don't have to excuse every single dice interaction because they don't have the game deciding effect that similar mechanics in X-wing did.

If you had the best dice fixing in X-wing, you were more going to win (player skill being equal) hands down, period, end of discussion. There was no playing to the scenario, it was 100% about having the best dice.

It will be like x-wing when you win simply because you included Iden Versio or Cassian. But since that doesn't happen, the fact they modify dice in ways you find alarmingly similar to x-wing doesn't mean it's just as bad.

You're comparing apples to oranges, but it just seems like sour grapes.

It has been weird locally.

The first local store that carries it got zip. Then again they got no Cad Bane/Amidalla(sic) either and we suspect they have simply stopped carrying the product. They are sitting on a hefty amount of AAT and Sabre tanks they can't move.

The second store (chain of four) in town managed to get 8 ARCs but only 2 DX droids. I'm told my DX may show up Thursday, but I am skeptical. However, I did finally get a box of Deathtroopers thanks to an unexpected restock. :D

The last store that carries it I don't bother with 'cuz they are @**hats.

On 9/6/2020 at 7:57 AM, Yodhrin said:

"toy"

21 hours ago, Sekac said:

I notice you completely ignored the part where this game is about winning scenarios not just killing things. I don't have to excuse every single dice interaction because they don't have the game deciding effect that similar mechanics in X-wing did.

If you had the best dice fixing in X-wing, you were more going to win (player skill being equal) hands down, period, end of discussion. There was no playing to the scenario, it was 100% about having the best dice.

It will be like x-wing when you win simply because you included Iden Versio or Cassian. But since that doesn't happen, the fact they modify dice in ways you find alarmingly similar to x-wing doesn't mean it's just as bad.

You're comparing apples to oranges, but it just seems like sour grapes.

Ah, so you acknowledge the power creep, but because it suits you or there are other ways of winning you are going to ignore it? That's fine, but not at all what was stated in your original post.

And it is kinda hard for one to win if all their minis are dead. Units that can cover the board (either through movement or range) and get free (or close to it) dice results tend to impact the course of a game quite significantly. Now, I agree that just taking those units isn't an auto-win, but it is a step in that direction. At the very least it is power creep, which is what you very much denied earlier.

1 hour ago, Alpha17 said:

Ah, so you acknowledge the power creep, but because it suits you or there are other ways of winning you are going to ignore it? That's fine, but not at all what was stated in your original post.

And it is kinda hard for one to win if all their minis are dead. Units that can cover the board (either through movement or range) and get free (or close to it) dice results tend to impact the course of a game quite significantly. Now, I agree that just taking those units isn't an auto-win, but it is a step in that direction. At the very least it is power creep, which is what you very much denied earlier.

Ummmm....

On 9/5/2020 at 9:17 PM, Sekac said:

Is there some amount of power creep in Legion? Yeah.

That looks like denying that power creep exists to you?

Power creep exists, as I very clearly acknowledged at the top. My point is and always was that it isn’t like X-wing because it's neither as extreme, nor does it have the same game deciding effect.

If you want a game without power creep, then you need to play a dead game. Every game that has continued releases will have some amount of power creep. It is inevitable.

2 minutes ago, Sekac said:

My point is and always was that it isn’t like X-wing because it's neither as extreme, nor does it have the same game deciding effect.

I can back this. Especially with a lot of the game functionality being variable based on terrain.

You know, I try not to just endlessly complain about stuff, but the ARC situation kinda has me riled.

I pre-ordered mine and got the confirmation that it was listed and everything. Payment got taken out, a label got created, and then two days ago my order was cancelled without notification or action on my side. I got no email saying it was cancelled, no message on my account. I wouldn't have even known if I hadn't actively decided to check. So far, I haven't seen the money come back onto my card, either, so as it stands I'm out $35 with no ARCs and no promise of getting them.

As I have said before, I have learned to be super patient with FFG/Asmodee, but seriously? I sent an email to figure out what's up but I don't have high hopes honestly. Maybe I can at least get the refund and then wait for the stocking crisis to blow over.