Spring Cleaning - with an AT-AT!

Here’s the thing: I really, really like the idea of Battleforces which AMG announced a while ago – tightly-themed armies with their own organization regarding list-building which also bring new Command Cards, released for free as PDFs and possibly as card packs down the line. What I’m totally miffed about is that the four Battleforces announced so far – Invaders of Naboo (Separatist droid army), 501st (Clones based on the Umbara story-arc), Blizzard Force (Imperials attacking Hoth), and Defenders of Hoth (the Rebel forces on Hoth) – do not require a dedicated Battleforce and can be build using the standard templates just fine and without compromizing the themes. And then we have Wookkiees for GAR and Rebels as well as Mandos for Rebels including Sabine and Clan Wren which would make great Battleforces that actually cannot be build using the standard template – we even have all relevant minis to do that already. It’s a shame.

So, since Star Wars Legion – like any other game – is OURS since we are the ones who buy and play this stuff, we can create our own Battleforces. And this is what I’m in the process of doing.

I always follow a few strict guidelines when creating my own game elements:

• Keep it simple, as in don’t create new complicated rules or abilities when existing ones do the job just fine.
• Go for clearly defined strengths and weaknesses which both make gameplay interesting and underscore the theme and lore behind the piece in question.
• Bring something new and unique to the table, add to the game in a fun and challenging way.

The first thing I did was defining the Battleforce – everything else would flow from there. The Clan Wren Uprising I set out to do is based on Sabine Wren’s story arc from Star Wars REBELS, which culminated in her re-uniting with her estranged family, killing Gar Saxon, the Mandalorian acting as the imperial gouvernor over the territories of the Mandalorians, thus setting in motion what would become a full-blown civil war between the Mandalorian rebels and the Mandalorians collaborating with the Empire.

In keeping with that storyline 4 elements quickly become obvious to be the basis for the organization of such a force:

• Sabine Wren is the commander and she must be equipped with The Darksaber, which initially represented her reluctance and then her growth into accepting responsibility and her quest to find a new ruler worthy of The Darksaber.
• The force must choose the Clan Wren-version for one unit of the Mandalorian Resistance, which must include Tristan Wren and Ursa Wren – Sabine’s younger brother and her mother.
• The remainder of the force must be units of Mandalorian Resistance.
• Operatives should be allowed to be chosen freely.

Creating some quick lists I quickly realized what I already suspected: The mandalorian units are expensive (though well worth the points), which results in lists with far too few activations. I don’t mind the Mandalorians being on the low end of activations, but the way things are, they would be too low. So I decided to create a new unit: A Strike Team-variant of the Mandalorian Resistance. It uses the same stats and keywords as the regular unit, but comes with only one initial figure and the Heavy Weapon Team-rule. This would inject a bit more flexibility with list-building, being able to get one or two more activations and one or two more heavy unit upgrade-options at the cost of one or two less wounds among the overall force.

This naturally led me to another issue: Currently, we only have one heavy unit upgrade option for the Mandalorians: The Beskad Duelist, a melee piece. Almost all other Strike Teams in the game have an option for a piece with strong or many attack dice and/or long range-capabilities. This wasn’t an option for the Mandalorians, though, because they usually prefer to fight at short to close distances, utilizing their iconic blaster pistols, as well as their jetpacks for mobility. Then I got the idea of giving them the option of a unit upgrade granting a unit the keyword Gunslinger. I and a competitive tournament player (current champion in Switzerland) I consulted with immediately liked the idea, because it was something new for a non-unique unit and thematically sound. At the same time, putting this unit upgrade into a regular Mandalorian Resistance unit with then four minis would be to strong, so it was a no-brainer to limit that option to the Strike Team-version, which would be two minis profiting from that keword. That decision also made calculating the points cost (and will make adjusting thepoints cost of) the upgrade much easier.

I also designed a unit upgrade for Fenn Rau, which was pretty straight-forward – it basically wrote itself considering his role in the show.

So here it is – I present you the first draft of the Clan Wren Uprising-Battleforce, which is ready to be playtested in earnest, to which I invite everyone who is interested.

Playtest No. 0 – We build a list and compare a few statistics.

I’ve often come up with my own new game elements for games, and I like to take a structured approach. Before the first test game is ever played, I first build a list, compare it with other lists and see what I notice. That way, you have a chance to discover the first blunders or aspects that could potentially be too good or too bad, which you can then pay special attention to in test games.

In Star Wars Legion, I see the following 6 aspects as being central (experienced players and especially tournament players should feel invited to jump in here with their own experiences – so far, I’m looking at the whole thing mainly hypothetically and statistically):

• How many activations do I have (more is better)?
• How high is the wound threshold in my army and how many wounds are distributed among how many units and figures (more wounds are better)?
• What is the maximum number of attack dice of what type I can potentially bring to bear in a turn, and at what ranges? More are better, black are better than white, red are better than black, more range is better. This is actually where granular aspects like Surges, Aim Tokens, keywords like ‘Pierce’ etc. come into play, but for now it’s about getting a rough impression that you can compare to other lists. To do this, I combine all the ranged dice and all the melee dice, and use a dice simulator to determine for each of the two categories the average number of wounds you can inflict with the respective maximum number of attack dice in a round against red defence dice.
• On average, how many attack dice are spread over a figure? More tends to be worse because each loss reduces the potential maximum pool more for the rest of the game.
• How good is the defence of the units (defence dice, defence surge, keywords)?
• How mobile is the army? This aspect can become as important in games as the potential damage output, because with a mobile force you can potentially use terrain more advantageously and achieve mission objectives better.

The List – 499 Points Clan Wren Uprising (Skirmish)

Sabine Wren (125) 147 Points

• The Darksaber (15)
• Personal Combat Shield (5)
• Recon Intel (2)

Mandalorian Resistance Clan Wren (34) 116 Points

• Tristan Wren (38)
• Ursa Wren (38)
• Offensive Push (4)
• Recon Intel (2)

Mandalorian Resistance (72) 112 Points

• Fenn Rau (38)
• Recon Intel (2)

Mandalorian Resistance Strike Team (30) 62 Points

• Gunslinger (32)

Mandalorian Resistance Strike Team (30) 62 Points

• Beskad Duelist (28)
• Offensive Push (4)

Activations: 5 (rather bad)

Wounds Threshold: 21 (bad -very bad)

Defence: very good (Red, all surge to block, ‘Impervious’, ‘Nimble’)

Attack Dice Max/Round: very good (Ranged 1-2 3 Red, 28 Black, 3 White, all surge to hit at minimum = 11 Wounds on average // Melee 2 Red, 18 Black, 7 White, all surge to hit at minimum = 8 Wounds on average)

Attack Dice/mini: 2+ (tends to be bad, here I estimate it as a clear disadvantage, as the Wound Threshold of the army is also clearly bad overall)

Mobility: very good (Speed 3, Jump 2 – no need for discussion here)

For comparison:

My Rebel roster with Sabine, Clan Wren and Mandalorian Resistance accompanied by Leia plus two units of Rebel Troopers inflicted an average of 9 wounds in ranged combat with the potential maximum number of attack dice in a turn, had a significantly higher Wound Threshold (28) with worse defence (2 units with white dice), and one more unique character with very useful abilities for the squad (‘Take Cover 2’, ‘Inspire 2’).

A Skirmish Clone Troop with a likewise better Wound Threshold (25), comparable, slightly worse Defence (no ‘Nimble’) as well as 6 Activations can inflict 12 Wounds with potentially the maximum number of Attack Dice, and at a higher Range (1-3).

First conclusion: On paper, the Battleforce looks pretty good so far in my eyes and in the first rough analysis – the clear weaknesses like the low Wound Threshold due to fewer figures in combination with a potential damage output in the clearly higher categories fits thematically and the latter is not excessive (it is still below the clones, and that fits). Based on this data, I expect Clan Wren Uprising to be a challenge to play, but also to present challenges to the opponent. I don’t see any major outliers on paper and in comparison, but I’m interested in the thoughts and insights of other players, especially competitive ones.