Star Wars Legion: Building Your First Army

By Crabbok | February 27th, 2018 | Categories: How To Tutorial, Star Wars Legion

Check out an informative article that outlines the next steps to take after you buy a copy of Star Wars Legions and start playing full 800 point games.

So you just picked up Legion and you are trying to figure out what to do next? This guide should help you get started putting your first squad together to wage war against the Rebel scum or the evil Galactic Empire!

A standard game is 800 points, so you are going to need more than just a core set. For most people interested in full 800 point games, that’s going to mean buying multiple core sets, and possibly a few expansions as well. For now, I’m going to assume that you’ve either bought two core sets or split two with a friend, and have at least one other expansion to round out your army.

Commander & Command Cards

Selecting a commander is going to be an important part of your overall strategy. For now, however, since each faction only has one readily available, you are going to be stuck with either Darth Vader, or Luke Skywalker. However, General Veers and Leia Organa are on the horizon, and will soon offer new, cheaper options. You can have up to two commanders, so we may see dual commander lists fairly soon.

Command cards go hand in hand with choosing a commander. You must have seven and they must include a Standing Orders card. You must also have two of each “pip” cards, so two 1-pips, two 2-pips, and two 3-pips. Additionally, you cannot duplicate any command cards, so you can’t include two Ambush cards for example. This means at launch, you won’t even have any choices here, since Luke and Vader offer you exactly enough to get you up to that minimum requirement. Once the next wave of commanders comes out, however, you’ll have some choices to make. It is worth noting that you won’t be able to use Leia’s command cards, if she isn’t in your army. The same holds true for any character specific command card.

The Corps

You need a minimum of three Corps units, and a maximum of six…so at least three rebel troopers or three Stormtroopers. If you have more than six you will not be able to use them all in a standard game. Once we have Fleet Troopers and Snowtroopers, players will have more diversity in their corps options. For now, there are multiple ways to outfit your existing corps troopers and make them cheap, diverse, strong, or tough.

The Corps Troopers are crucial to winning the game. If your commander is the head of your army, the corps is the backbone. This game is not just about killing the enemy. It is about accomplishing the mission and completing objectives. Most of the mission cards favor builds that have the most unit leaders – and the Troopers you’ll get at launch are the cheapest way to get unit leaders. You may want to maximize their numbers by running very few upgrades.

You may also want to help ensure their survival by adding extra miniatures to their ranks. Try to outfit your initial corps units in various different ways for the first few games to get a feel for what works best for you. You may want to swarm Troopers with no upgrades. You may want to give them all extra weapons to split up their fire. You may want to run every one of them completely different! It is important to get a good feeling for the corps units because they more than likely will be the difference makers in the games that you win.

The Rest of Your Squad

We haven’t seen any Special Forces units announced yet, so for now, that just leaves Support and Heavy. These are the larger units that are going to give your army a battlefield presence to really help it stand out! These units tend to be more focused on one particular play-style, and may even require you to build your list around them.

Vehicles in this game are going to be extremely fun because they represent one thing that wasn’t really well done in FFG’s last ground game, Imperial Assault. Vehicles here are absolutely gorgeous and having a few of them on your battlefield can really help make your game come alive.

Vehicles tend to be more expensive than troopers, so it’s generally a good idea to have fewer of them, in order to facilitate a more balanced list. Running two fully loaded AT-STs might look cool, but would leave you with very few points for the rest of your list. Generally, newer players may want to limit their first builds to only one heavy, and at most two supports. You’ll want enough points to allow you some hardpoints and other upgrades, especially on those vehicles with the ARSENAL keyword, which allows your attacks to use additional weapons.