AMG has announced more changes for Star Wars: Legion with new movement rules in the last of the rules previews- check it out!
Earlier last week, they announced some pretty big changes to Line of Sight and a comprehensive core rulebook coming in January 2023. However, this seems to be the last of the changes we’ll see before the new rulebook drops.
New Movement Rules Announced for Star Wars: Legion
Movement is obviously a critical factor in the game, so we’ll have to see how this shakes things up. Let’s take a closer look. This rules change preview is from the December 21st Transmission.
While the basic mechanics of movement in Legion will be quite familiar to veteran players, there was one item that throughout our observation and playtesting we found to be quite unintuitive in how it affected gameplay. By the letter of the current rules, when a miniature moves, it is required to move down the movement tool with its base centered on the tool. Through strict interpretation and application, this system meant that more often than not units would be “trapped” when hugging tight to terrain like building corners or barricades, because the placement of the tool and the requirement of moving the base down the center resulted in the miniature not being able to round the corner of the building. Instead, the movement rules would require the miniature to take a wide turn to ensure its base did not contact the side of the building. In our observations both internally and externally, no one applied this rule correctly, and instead moved their miniatures based on a common sense approach, assuming the intent was to allow a miniature to move tightly around corners and other areas.
It looks like they want to push the game to newer players by simplifying a lot of the rules. We’ll have to wait for all the changes to make a final judgment, but it doesn’t seem like it should make the game too different.
Therefore, we have altered the rules on how small-based miniatures interact with the movement tool so that the moving miniature is simply picked up and placed centered over the movement tool instead. This not only allows for intuitive movement, but it also maintains the importance of the movement tool placement as in the original rules with the tool itself being a strict guide to the miniature’s final position. The movement of miniatures on notched bases remains unchanged.
As we said, this should make it much easier for newer players to move their units around effectively, so it’s probably a good change.
High Ground & Climbing Changes
There was another part of the movement rules we knew we wanted to address to make the battlefield more dynamic and exciting, while eliminating cumbersome and unintuitive rules language. Navigating vertical terrain has changed to allow players more freedom to explore and bring elevation to their games of Legion, even for units that don’t have the Jump keyword. Clambering has been eliminated from the game, and abilities or cards that involve climbing or clambering like Expert Climber or Scale have been revisited. Units may now move over obstacle terrain shorter than the height of their silhouette with no penalty. If the terrain is taller than their silhouette, the unit must use a climb movement to move up, onto, or over it. A climb is a speed 1 move that allows the unit to also move a vertical distance up to height 1.
This seems like a decent change and, again, easier for newer players. We’ll have to see what and if profiles change to work with this.
In our playtests, opening the “High Ground” to all armies allowed for some very exciting tactics and emergent strategies, as well as really unleashing players’ imaginations to create and utilize exciting new terrain setups that added to the game experience rather than hindering it.
It should make more units viable by giving more units access to the high ground. We’ll also have to see how jetpacks interact with this because it could make them seriously valuable. If they could make a normal move straight up instead of the speed-1 tool, they could be useful regarding things like Line of Sight, scoring, etc.
What do you think about the Star Wars: Legion rules changes?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
