Fantasy Flight Games has another preview for Star Wars: Legion that focuses on how our Rebels and Troopers will fight on the battlefield!
The latest preview for Star Wars: Legion from Fantasy Flight Games focuses on the combat mechanics you will be using to defeat your enemies. The combat system in Star Wars: Legion keeps the action flowing quickly with the tempo of the battle, while still providing room for you to make clever tactical choices. To initiate an attack, you’ll simply use one of your unit’s two actions during its activation to attack—though it’s important to note that only one action per activation can be used to attack.
Every unit in Star Wars: Legion is equipped with unique weapons and, in many cases, units will have one ranged weapon and one melee weapon—though some units may have multiple ranged weapons, a single melee weapon, or other options.
For example, a group of five Stormtroopers are firing on a Rebel Trooper squad. You first collect the dice that you’ll roll by choosing a weapon for each miniature and claiming that weapon’s attack dice. You choose that each of your five Stormtroopers will be using their E-11 blaster rifle, and each E-11 blaster rifle contributes a single white attack die. There are three types of attack dice in Star Wars: Legion—white, black, and red. White dice feature the fewest hit results, black dice carry more hits, and the potent red dice are the most dangerous of all.
Five white die have been rolled and the results are one hit, one attack surge, and three blanks. On the right-hand side of every unit card, you can see if your unit is able to use its attack surges or defense surges. Each unit is different in how it handles surges. Nimble fighters will dodge and convert defense surges into blocks. Stormtroopers will fall back on combat training and can convert attack surges to hit or critical hit results. The attack surge rolled by the Stormtroopers above is immediately converted to a hit. When a unit comes under attack, it rolls one defense die for each hit rolled by the attacker. Rebel Troopers roll white defense dice, so the Rebel player immediately rolls two white defense dice in an attempt to block your hits.
One blank and one defense surge has been rolled, meaning that one model is hit and if their wound threshold is matched or surpassed, they are removed. Some units—especially vehicles—have higher wound thresholds. This means they won’t be destroyed in a single hit, but they’re still far from impervious. Vehicles have a resilience value printed below the wound threshold on their card. When this number is matched, they suffer one of three conditions: damaged which will sacrifice actions, it may be disabled and suffer movement restrictions, or one of its weapons may be destroyed, preventing you from using that weapon for the rest of the game.
Melee combat is not that much different from ranged combat. The only differences are that you are just limited to melee weapons and how you engage. Melee starts whenever you move your unit leader into base contact with an enemy miniature. When this happens, you’ll move all of your unit’s minis into base contact with the enemy unit’s miniatures, and from that point onwards, the two units are engaged. Once engaged, enemy units can only withdraw if they’re willing to sacrifice their entire activation in order to make a small retreat and disengage from the melee combat.
Suppression is another mechanic that you will have to become familiar with. Having to duck and cover due to concentrated fire is reflected by suppression tokens. A single suppression token is gained after a trooper unit suffers a ranged attack that produces at least one hit or critical. There are benefits and downsides to this. If a unit has at least one suppression token, it benefits from increased cover against ranged attacks. However, if a unit has a number of suppression tokens that equals or exceeds its courage value, that unit is suppressed and loses an action. If a unit has more suppression tokens than twice its courage value, it becomes panicked and is unable to perform actions other than a single move towards the closest battlefield edge. Move off the battlefield edge and that unit can be lost. You can attempt to rally to remove suppression tokens at the beginning of each activation, and at the end of every round, a single suppression token is removed from every unit.
Star Wars™: Legion: $89.95
Warfare is an inescapable part of the Star Wars universe, from the Rebel Alliance’s defeat in the Battle of Hoth to a few elite Rebel strike teams taking on a legion of stormtroopers on the Forest Moon of Endor. You can seize your chance to get your boots on the ground and lead your troops to victory with Star Wars™: Legion, a miniatures game of thrilling infantry battles in the Star Warsuniverse!
Star Wars: Legion invites you to enter the ground battles of the Galactic Civil War as the commander of a unique army of miniatures filled with troopers, powerful ground or repulsor vehicles, and iconic characters like Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. While innovative mechanics for command and control simulate the fog of war and the chaos of battle, the game’s unpainted, easily assembled minis give you a canvas to create the Star Wars army you’ve always wanted to lead into battle—whether you fight for the monolithic, oppressive Galactic Empire or the ragtag Rebel Alliance.
That wraps up the Combat preview for Star War: Legion, which is available now for pre-order online and at your FLGS. Unit Expansion are also availble for pre-order as well.
For more on Star Wars Legion and other great tabletop games, visit Fantasy Flight Games!
