** I don't mean exactly what the title says **

Scale basically has 3 parts:
1. Unhindered - ignores difficult terrain
2. Expert Climber - does not roll dice for possible damage when clambering
3. Main effect - before or after a move, take a free clamber action

I propose letting every (Trooper?) unit in the game use the third effect. Since this game has come out, I have so rarely seen terrain get actually used, as opposed to just getting hidden behind. In a game where you have only 12 precious actions, using 1-2 of them just for climbing around is almost never worth it. Literally the only time I've seen it used is to get a sniper team in place at the very beginning of the game or for scampering around at the end of the game when there's nothing else to do. Units and upgrades with actual Scale would have to come down in price (It would just be a combined Unhindered and Expert Climber at that point), but that's a price I'm willing to pay. Thoughts?

I once brought up (can't remember which post) that most of the upgrade cards are useless or never used at least and I think part of it is because of its cost (do you see very many grenades being taken? but especially the gear. Personally, I've only used Electrobinoculars on Veers E.Stims when they were 8pts, Scopes on Shoretroopers when I thought I had points and Recon Intel on a couple units. The training is similar DuckCover on Jyn and Pathfinders, some training on characters but that's it. Most units/non-characters don't get upgraded, yet I have hundreds of upgrade cards )

I think part of it may be because of the terrain and action economy as you've pointed out, 2 actions is way too much, maybe 1st turn you can get away with it, but usually you're going to go around. Other systems do it better I feel like, but your system is probably the easiest. This would invite more terrain and definitely more vertical terrain. Since the change in range, I can't put my unit up in a tall tower, because they can't get out without wasting a turn or taking casualties, even though that's where a sniper or some pathfinders might find themselves.

You realize in doing this you eliminate or diminish the advantage/cost of jetpacks for several of these new units as well as the Speeder keyword as well.

57 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

** I don't mean exactly what the title says **

Scale basically has 3 parts:
1. Unhindered - ignores difficult terrain
2. Expert Climber - does not roll dice for possible damage when clambering
3. Main effect - before or after a move, take a free clamber action

I propose letting every (Trooper?) unit in the game use the third effect. Since this game has come out, I have so rarely seen terrain get actually used, as opposed to just getting hidden behind. In a game where you have only 12 precious actions, using 1-2 of them just for climbing around is almost never worth it. Literally the only time I've seen it used is to get a sniper team in place at the very beginning of the game or for scampering around at the end of the game when there's nothing else to do. Units and upgrades with actual Scale would have to come down in price (It would just be a combined Unhindered and Expert Climber at that point), but that's a price I'm willing to pay. Thoughts?

A good way to motivate a similar change without house ruling anything is to add ladders to your terrain. My original set had a tonne of buildings, blown up and other wise. It was pretty well used because the clamber action had no negative effects with the ladders in use. It wasn't free, like scale, but it did encourage players to use the terrain, instead of just hiding behind it.





I think scale is a very powerful keyword. More than many realize. Free movement actions can make units an absolute terror.

I'm not sure what it would do to balance if clambers under a certain height were free before or after a move, but you could play test to see if it works out better. I know on my new terrain, B1s getting free clambers could quickly become problematic lol

I definitely dont think clamber should be free. Free movement is a really bad idea.

Instead climb should cost 1 action (instead of 2 actions) to move upto a height of 1.

And clamber should cost 1 action (instead of 2 actions) to move upto a height of 2 and you would still have to roll 2 white dice to see if you get wounded.

It makes no sense for climbing to cost 2 actions since you already have to start in base contact with the terrain you want to climb before you can climb it.

Those changes would require some changes to gear like grappling hooks though.

Grappling hooks could be changed to let you climb upto height 1 as a free action in addition to not having to roll white dice when clambering.

I like the rule as it is.

I think the reason units don’t climb more often is there are now more dice pools that can one shot a unit. It’s dangerous not to have part of your unit behind a line-of-sight blocker.

Having the high ground is not the advantage it should be at the moment.

I think a good fix would be to give an attack advantage for having height advantage of 1 or greater. Simulates the sniper tower well and units still benefit from heavy cover most of the time. Roll an extra white attack die?

an extra white die isnt enough to encourage units without jetpacks to waste a potential attack on climbing.

and it might be too much of a buff to units with jetpacks that dont have to give up two actions to get on top of buildings. any benefit you give for elevation is a straight buff to jetpack units that can elevate themselves for free.

the problem is that climbing is not worth giving up an attack for, so you shouldnt have to give up an attack to climb, it should just cost 1 action. And grappling hooks/ascension cables should make climbing a free action.

I feel like with Ascension Cables now widely available, this may rapidly become a non issue. Anything with a gear slot can get scale when it needs it. My friend has been using it with DTs and Iden's 3 pip to really dish out hurt. It's a good upgrade, exhaust effect or not. Getting to ignore difficult terrain as well as getting free vertical movement before/after moves is pretty dope.

My group plays with these rules. They are very wordy, but we don't care.

Attacking or defending trooper units gain High Ground X when attacking or defending against enemy units, where X is equal how much higher the lowest mini’s base in the higher unit is over the highest mini’s base in the lower opposing unit. X starts at 0, and increases in increments of 1. If the higher unit’s top of the base is higher than the lower unit’s top of base by a factor of twice the lower unit’s leader mini’s height (including base), X (in High Ground X) is 1. If the higher unit’s base is higher than the lower unit’s base by a factor of 4 times the lower unit’s leader mini’s height, X (in High Ground X) is 2. This pattern continues indefinitely (6x, 8x etc.). When attacking or defending, a unit with High Ground X, during the
Modify Defense Dice step, may reroll a number of defense dice of the defending unit equal to X. (If High Ground is 2 or higher, and
the defender rolls fewer blocks than the High Ground X value, the same die/dice may be rerolled multiple
times until the remaining X value has been used). High Ground X triggers after all other effects and modifiers trigger during the Reroll Dice portion of the Modify Defense Dice step.

To be fair, our group plays with a LOT of house rules to make the game "more realistic" and "balanced" at the cost of increased rules complexity.

3/6 of the buildings I made are at height 1 and have ladders, so free clambers at certain spots. The rest dont. Terrain does play a big part in our games. Sometimes for key positions we only count the rooftop as the terrain to be claimed. Stick a supply crate up there too make things interesting.

Out and out climbs are rare, we often just risk the clamber if it's an emergency situation. But the ladders help a lot, especially as theyre not on every surface. Makes it nice and tactical

1 hour ago, Alan Noir said:

3/6 of the buildings I made are at height 1 and have ladders, so free clambers at certain spots. The rest dont. Terrain does play a big part in our games. Sometimes for key positions we only count the rooftop as the terrain to be claimed. Stick a supply crate up there too make things interesting.

Out and out climbs are rare, we often just risk the clamber if it's an emergency situation. But the ladders help a lot, especially as theyre not on every surface. Makes it nice and tactical

I agree. I use a lot of Imperial Terrain buildings, and they design a lot of ladders into their stuff. It makes clambering more worth it but not an all the time thing.

2 hours ago, flipperoverlord said:

My group plays with these rules. They are very wordy, but we don't care.

Attacking or defending trooper units gain High Ground X when attacking or defending against enemy units, where X is equal how much higher the lowest mini’s base in the higher unit is over the highest mini’s base in the lower opposing unit. X starts at 0, and increases in increments of 1. If the higher unit’s top of the base is higher than the lower unit’s top of base by a factor of twice the lower unit’s leader mini’s height (including base), X (in High Ground X) is 1. If the higher unit’s base is higher than the lower unit’s base by a factor of 4 times the lower unit’s leader mini’s height, X (in High Ground X) is 2. This pattern continues indefinitely (6x, 8x etc.). When attacking or defending, a unit with High Ground X, during the
Modify Defense Dice step, may reroll a number of defense dice of the defending unit equal to X. (If High Ground is 2 or higher, and
the defender rolls fewer blocks than the High Ground X value, the same die/dice may be rerolled multiple
times until the remaining X value has been used). High Ground X triggers after all other effects and modifiers trigger during the Reroll Dice portion of the Modify Defense Dice step.

The problem with that rule is it makes units like mandalorians especially broken. Because they already get a 2/3 save which they now they get to reroll for having high ground X on top of the heavy cover 2 theyre probably already getting for being on top of a building. And if that wasnt good enough they also get pseudopierce against anything on the ground. That is ridiculous.

There is no way I would ever play with that house rule. It would just be mandospam.

The most I think id ever give for elevation is the attacker getting sharpshooter 1. I dont think jetpack units getting sharpshooter 1 for being elevated would be too good. Climb/clamber should also only cost 1 action.

The rules are perfectly fine and grant a lot of design space for upgrades, IMO. We have, Climb, Clamber, Expert Climber, and Scale. All distinctly different, and a lot of keyworded design space.

The board I play on typically has about 3 feet of modular walls. I really don’t want to play Humpty Dumpty games where everyone casually strolls up a vertical surface to have the best firing position.

I'd prefer to play a game that is reminiscent of Star Wars, not the 1960s Batman show where they "scale walls" by turning the camera 90 degrees.

Nope.

Let's try a game in which each player can get every upgrade for free. The only limit is you must have the corresponding icon on the unit card.

of course every hero will get emergency stim. But I am pretty sure we will see tons of different grenades, hooks, binoculars, environment clothes, radio stuffs to make the game more tactical

If the game had built in mechanics for having a height advantage or if units carried advantages for it, I could see a lot of changes. Scale as it stands just adds maneuverability, which is fine.

I agree. Legion's climbing rules are awful. I made a post about this way back when the game first came out. Scale mostly solves the problem, but the climbing rules themselves need to be completely revised.

There's no incentive for being higher and since it costs precious actions to go up there's no reason to waste actions using climb/clamber. There really needs to be some advantage to being higher. The vertical portion of terrain and height in this game is for the most part unused, which is a shame as it adds depth (literally and figuratively) to the game. Very big missed opportunity in this game and probably my biggest Legion pet peeve.

2 hours ago, player5006253 said:

If the game had built in mechanics for having a height advantage or if units carried advantages for it, I could see a lot of changes. Scale as it stands just adds maneuverability, which is fine.

24 minutes ago, Thraug said:

There's no incentive for being higher and since it costs precious actions to go up there's no reason to waste actions using climb/clamber. There really needs to be some advantage to being higher. The vertical portion of terrain and height in this game is for the most part unused, which is a shame as it adds depth (literally and figuratively) to the game. Very big missed opportunity in this game and probably my biggest Legion pet peeve.

The advantages to being at a higher elevation are just like they are in real life: You have much better line of light and you almost always get cover from the terrain you're on.

1 hour ago, arnoldrew said:

The advantages to being at a higher elevation are just like they are in real life: You have much better line of light and you almost always get cover from the terrain you're on.

Actually I'd say they're better. The way Legion works with being in base contact with the terrain you're shooting through, it's often much easier to get cover without suffering from that cover yourself.

1 hour ago, arnoldrew said:

The advantages to being at a higher elevation are just like they are in real life: You have much better line of light and you almost always get cover from the terrain you're on.

thats theoretical though.

in practice you often dont get better line of sight at all and you can usually still get heavy cover on the ground if you placed your barricades right.

the difference is you have to waste 2 actions climbing whereas if you stayed on the ground you get 2 more actions.

having to sacrifice an attack (or potentially an aim+attack) to climb makes it entirely not worth it. thats the entire problem with climbing: that it forces you to give up an attack. if you could climb and still attack it would be a non-issue.

which is why climbing/clambering should only cost 1 action. and if you have the appropriate gear you should be able to climb as a free action.

1 minute ago, Khobai said:

thats theoretical though

in practice you often dont get better line of sight and you get the same cover you would get on the ground

the only difference is you have to waste 2 actions climbing whereas if you stay on the ground you get 2 more actions.

The cover is not theoretical. Once you are on the terrain piece, all models that are shorter than the terrain piece have obscured LoS to the base at least, and will always be tracing the centerpoint to centerpoint 2D line through the terrain piece you are on. You are also better able to mitigate the blind spots without having to sacrifice cover.

19 hours ago, Khobai said:

The problem with that rule is it makes units like mandalorians especially broken. Because they already get a 2/3 save which they now they get to reroll for having high ground X on top of the heavy cover 2 theyre probably already getting for being on top of a building. And if that wasnt good enough they also get pseudopierce against anything on the ground. That is ridiculous.

There is no way I would ever play with that house rule. It would just be mandospam.

The most I think id ever give for elevation is the attacker getting sharpshooter 1. I dont think jetpack units getting sharpshooter 1 for being elevated would be too good. Climb/clamber should also only cost 1 action.

That rule on its own, yeah I'd agree with you, but like I said, we play with a LOT of house rules, and this rule is just one piece of the whole. It is only too good when viewed in a vacuum.

7 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

The cover is not theoretical. Once you are on the terrain piece, all models that are shorter than the terrain piece have obscured LoS to the base at least, and will always be tracing the centerpoint to centerpoint 2D line through the terrain piece you are on. You are also better able to mitigate the blind spots without having to sacrifice cover.

but you can also get cover on the ground without having to climb. climbing is not necessary to get cover. so the advantage is theoretical because the only time it would ever be an advantage over cover on the ground is if there is no cover on the ground.

and yes I will concede that in the theoretical scenario where climbing is the only way to get cover 2 and there is no cover 2 anywhere else on the board then climbing might be worth it then. but if you can get cover 2 without having to climb that will be the better choice the vast majority of the time since you dont have to give up the 2 actions to climb.

6 minutes ago, Khobai said:

but you can also get cover on the ground without having to climb. climbing is not necessary to get cover. so the advantage is theoretical because the only time it would ever be an advantage over cover on the ground is if there is no cover on the ground.

and yes I will concede that in the theoretical scenario where climbing is the only way to get cover 2 and there is no cover 2 anywhere else on the board then climbing might be worth it then. but if you can get cover 2 without having to climb that will be the better choice the vast majority of the time since you dont have to give up the 2 actions to climb.

Can you get Cover 2 from all possible angles without climbing? Unlikely, your opponent will still be able to flank you. If you climb, you will have Cover 2 regardless of the direction of the attack (at least without your opponent also changing elevation).