Five Things I Love About MESBG - Because of Star Wars Legion

Good morning gamers,

My son Gorgoroth has thrown himself heart-and-soul into Star Wars Legion (though his soft spot for Azog is undying). After nearly gluing my fingers together assembling Battle Droids and Droid Commandos (and the likelihood of specialty droids and tanks in our future), I decided to invest lightly in Legion myself (picking up Clones, of course) and give the game a try. I've seen the models for a while, but had never actually played the game (check out the playlist on Zorpazorp if you haven't already - his batreps are excellent and there's a free downloadable campaign in his store). Having played a few games, I've determined one big thing:

Legion is a great game, but it's not as good as MESBG.

Why? Well, five reasons . . .

Reason #1: Dice Quality - When Your Dice (not Your Fight Value) Is the Problem

In MESBG, everyone uses six-sided dice (D6s) - and assuming your dice are fair dice, each model has an equally-likely chance of rolling a 6-high, 5-high, etc. If you want a model to be "better" in combat, you want to roll more dice and ideally have a higher "Fight Value" than your opponent (though this is not a given - see a recent math post I wrote as well as Rythbyrt's older analysis of the relative impact of Fight Value and dice being rolled). Any unit can "beat" another unit if it can just "roll well," though your ability to wound well is tied to how "strong" you are (your Strength stat), how "tough" your opponent is (his Defense stat), and once again, how well you can roll.

Not so in Legion: Legion uses the more traditional tabletop wargaming system of "wounds and saves", ignoring a "To Hit" or "Dueling" roll and instead giving players eight-sided dice (D8s) that have different ratios of blank faces to non-blank faces (which take the form of "hits," "surges," and "critical hits" - hereafter "crits"). Here's the skinny in case you've never played Legion before:

• White dice (BAD): 1 hit, 1 crit, 1 surge, 5 blanks;
• Black dice (FINE): 3 hits, 1 crit, 1 surge, 3 blanks;
• Red dice (GOOD): 5 hits, 1 crit, 1 surge, 1 blank;
  

A few things can be noted here: first and foremost, unlike other games made by Fantasy Flight Games (which has been bought in the past few years by Atomic Mass Games), the different color dice don't specialize/prioritize different things - their either "good" or "bad." Legion isn't the first Star Wars game from Fantasy Flight Games I've played - Rythbyrt introduced Centaur and me to Star Wars Imperial Assault (which I've invested in heavily since being introduced to it) and Centaur introduced Rythbyrt and me to Star Wars Armada (which I haven't invested in at all). Both games feature different colors of attack dice (D6s and D8s for Imperial Assault and Armada respectively), but each color of dice specializes in something - in Imperial Assault, your dice color either focuses more heavily on damage (Red), surge to trigger special abilities (Yellow), accuracy to hit things from farther away (Blue), or provide a balance of all three (Green). Similarly, the dice in Armada focus on hits/crits at close range (Black), hits at long range (Red), and a very moderated mix of damage and accuracy at medium range (Blue). In these two games, if a unit has a mix of dice in their attack pool(s), you know what the unit is designed to do just by looking at the dice.

In Legion, having one or more red dice is good and having one white dice is bad. I've been playing a lot with Phase I Clone Troopers (provided in the starter set) and they are good core troops - decent armor saves, 1 black die in melee or at range per model (so you don't care if you're rushed or not), average squad size (4 models base, with up to 2 additional models that can be added), pretty affordable both in points and $$$. Their black dice mean that, about half the time, they're going to get "something" - and if they have a surge token to convert a surge result into a hit result, you can reliably get 4 hits from a 5-man squad. And if you invested in upgrades like Fives who rolls 3 black dice (or one of their other specialized units, like the Z-6 Phase I Clone Trooper which adds 6 white dice), 5-6 hits is far more likely.

On the other hand, Battle Droids are awful - it's like buying Goblin Warriors for Goblin-town. You get a larger squad than the Clones do (6 models base, with up to 2 additional models that can be added), but they give you 1 white die in melee or at range for roughly the same points/squad (slightly less points, but only marginally so - and there's a limit to the number of corps squads you can take . . . something we'll talk about later). They also have specialized units that can be added to the squad, but the core unit is "just worse" than the Clones. White dice don't do anything "better" than black dice, so you're investing in "more dice" but those dice themselves are worse. When you compare a squad of 5 Clones against 7 Battle Droids, the 5 black dice are supposed to average 2.5 hits/turn if they don't have a surge token, while the Battle Droids are supposed to get 1.75 hits/turn. Yeah, it's not good.

In MESBG, investing in "cheaper units" often doesn't change their fight characteristics that much - an Orc Warrior is 2 points cheaper/model than a Morannon Orc with comparable gear and loses 1 Strength and 1 Defense. This reduction CAN make a difference in how well they wound (especially since both warriors can have axes/picks by default and so can Piercing Strike if needed to improve their wounding difficulty) and how resilient they are (+1 Defense might make a difference in what the opponent needs to get to wound them - especially if the Orc is using Piercing Strike), but it doesn't always translate into value. By investing in more units instead of better units, you might be able to overrun an army of elite units with a spam of worse units - something you're unlikely to see in Legion. And I think that has value.

Reason #2: Suppression - When Someone Else Can Depower Your Units

In Star Wars Legion, shooting at an enemy unit gives them "suppression" tokens - basically, the unit "goes to ground" to avoid being hit repeatedly. At the start of a unit's activation, you can attempt to "rally" for free to remove some of these suppression tokens, but if the number of suppression tokens a unit has equals or exceeds its Courage value, the unit is either "suppressed" (if it's not a droid trooper) or "panicked" depending on whether its Courage value has been doubled or not. A "panicked" unit runs (kind of like the Stampede of a war beast in MESBG) while a Suppressed unit loses one of its actions (so it can move or attack, but not usually both). It helps a lot if you shoot at one particular unit, since you might keep it from doing the action it wants (oh, and when it does get to go, it probably has only a fraction of the units it began the game with and so it's damage output is reduced as well).

This can lead to some really unfun game play - I know people gripe about being shot off the board by some lists in MESBG, but imagine if your big hero was unable to attack just because the enemy archers had shot at him . . . I mean, imagine the feeling you get when your Wookie Chieftain or Obi-Wan Kenobi figure is the target of a wave of Battle Droid squads who inflict no damage, but apply just enough suppression tokens that you can't do the move action followed by a charge action that you intended to do . . . yeah, that bites. A lot.

In MESBG, suppression really isn't a thing - except when Courage tests for Terror/Breaking are involved (and Severed Heads, I guess). It's possible to prey on units that have Courage as a "dump stat," but in general, you need to break through an enemy unit's Fight Value, Attacks value, Defense value, and Wounds value - not just "shoot at them." I've played exactly one game of Bolt Action with Centaur (see his thoughts on Bolt Action here) and it's got a similar mechanic - this may, in fact, be more realistic, but I can tell you in the same breath that it's a lot less fun. It just is.

Reason #3: Force Construction - When You Have To Play A Certain Way

Let's get this out of the way - LOTS of tabletop games have force construction requirements or limits. I've played Warhammer Fantasy, a little bit of Warhammer 40k, one game of Bolt Action, and now a few games of Legion and all of these games have requirements for how many leaders/HQ slots you need to include/can have, how many core/corps units you need to include/can have, etc. Force requirements are a thing - and in this respect, games like MESBG are actually the minority.

But I very much prefer games like MESBG (and Imperial Assault/Armada) where you have soft limits on what you can take. Points level aside (which is a variable for all of the games mentioned so far in this post except Imperial Assault), your ability to create an army that is interesting or thematic is much greater when you're operating under a few constraints. In MESBG, those include hero-to-warrior ratios, bow-armed-to-not-bow-armed ratios, and siege-weapon-to-Fortitude-or-greater-heroes. These kinds of constraints can sometimes be artificial (like bow limit), but they exist for balance and aren't that big of a restriction for most players.

But why, I ask, do I HAVE to bring at least three corps units in a standard game of Star Wars Legion? The 1-2 commander slots for a standard game I get - you need a commander and it's okay to have an alternate if you want. Not requiring you to take things like operatives (the best corollary to these are Minor/Independent heroes in MESBG - they're named characters who don't lead troops as a rule, like Darth Maul or R2-D2), support/heavy units (like speeder bikes or tanks), and special forces (like Wookiees or BX Droid Commandos - I hate those guys) is a good thing, but there are limits on how many of these things you can take (so you can't bring "just tanks") and some units have a minimum requirement (like taking at least 3 corps units).

I said at the beginning this isn't new - lots of games do this - but if I like Wookiee units in Star Wars Legion (read: I really like Wookiee units in any game, but particularly Star Wars Legion), I have to bring along some Phase I or Phase II Clone Troopers with them because "I have to bring 3 corps units." No other reason - I could bring 1-3 units of Wookie Warriors, 1-3 Raddaugh Gnasp Fluttercraft (Wookie speeders), and a Wookie Chieftain/Chewbacca to lead them . . . but I also need to bring some Clones. Why? Because force construction requirements . . . not saying it's a bad thing, but it's a thing. EDIT: As of September 2023, you can now use the Kashyyyk Defenders Battle Force, which treats the Wookiee Warriors, Noble Fighters unit as Corps, so you actually can run a pure Wookiee army, but your access to most Republic units is limited to 1-2 or prohibited. 

Reason #4: Issuing Orders - When Activating Critical Units Is Outside Your Control

In Star Wars Legion, you don't get to move all your guys at once like you do in MESBG - nope, you roll for "priority" (more on that later) and the player with priority gets to activate one of their units. Like deploying troops in most scenarios for MESBG, players alternate activating units (a mechanic that is shared in Imperial Assault and Armada), but unlike MESBG (and Imperial Assault/Armada), you are allowed at the start of each round to issue orders to a certain number of units. Any units that aren't issued an order contribute a token to "your order pile" and these are placed face-down and drawn at random if you don't want to activate a unit that you allocated an order to.

What this can sometimes mean is that a critical unit (either one that drifted outside of the command range of your field commander or one that is prevented from being issued commands by a jammer) might not be able to activate when you need them to. Nope, they may have to stand there and get suppressed by enemy fire (or even shot off the table) because you needed to work your way through a pile and couldn't come up with the one heavy or support token amidst a sea of corps tokens. It's bad.

It's also not exactly uncommon in tabletop games - a similar mechanic exists in Bolt Action (though there's one bag for ALL the order dice for BOTH players - and if you're one of the scum of the earth who brings like 50 order dice of Russians to the table, well your opponent is never gonna go with some of his stuff). But it's annoying - I have this unit that's perfectly poised to do great damage right now if he can just. get. moving. But he can't . . . perhaps because I misplayed by letting him drift too far, maybe because my opponent killed the field commander I had near him, maybe because my command card that I chose limited the number of orders I could issue/who I could issue orders to, or perhaps because of some special rule I couldn't do anything about. Regardless of the reason, my critical piece might just have to sit there . . . and I have to live with it.

Perhaps one of the best things about MESBG is that you have full control over your units . . . most of the time. If your opponent has more Might than you - or just gets lucky with the Heroic Move-off rolls - he could deny you the ability to move your units (we've all been there - it bites), but on the whole, you are far more likely to get critical units where you want them to be when you want them to be there in MESBG than you are in basically any other tabletop gaming system. There's no alternating warband movement in MESBG, there's no denying your opponent the ability to command his guys because of some upgrade you bought (unless you've charged him first) - no, there's just smart play, lucky play, and tough-luck play. It's a dice game - and while some things are left up to the dice, some things aren't and we keep our agency as commanders. I love that about MESBG.

Tied to my frustration with this is . . .

Reason #5: Priority Order - Taking A Hit And Not Getting A Reward

So priority is a weird thing in Star Wars Legion - and elements of how priority works I like and wouldn't mind seeing in MESBG. Players build decks of "command cards" (two one-pip cards, two two-pip cards, two three-pip cards, and the "standing orders" four-pip card). A one-pip card usually means only one unit (and sometimes the kind of unit is given by name) is being issued orders this round, while a three-pip card might issue orders to lots of people and do cool things for them. Some of my favorite commanders are able to issue orders in the Command phase to supplement the orders that are being handed out by these cards - and many of Gorgoroth's favorite units from the Separatists can be issued orders if a similar unit has just been issued one (so multiple Battle Droid units can "coordinate" off of a single order).

Each player secretly selects a card and once both players have their cards ready, they reveal them: the card with the lowest number of pips gets priority. This means, in short, that the more pips a card has, the more units it's going to activate (and might even do cool things for them), but the less likely you are to win priority. If players play cards with the same number, you roll a red defense die (3 block sides, 1 surge side, 2 blank sides) and one side wins if a block is rolled, while the other side wins if a surge/blank is rolled (so, a 50/50 chance roll . . . kind of like SBG). Some really tricky models (like Count Dooku and Director Krennic) have the "Cunning" ability that can win ties when the Command Cards have the same pip value so long as the Command Card is their specific thing.

Some aspects of this I like - you might go for a high-pip card on a turn when you want to move second and get more control out of the units that are going to respond at critical times, while at other points, you might choose to take more risks with your order pool by assigning fewer orders with a low-pip card in order to "go first," but if you happen to be facing a team that's running one of those Cunning heroes (like a Count-Dooku-led Separatist force, which my son likes to run), you might auto-lose priority and go second when you need to go first . . . even though you took the hit of using a one-pip command card. It's tough, it's rough, it's strategic, and most importantly, it's a perfectly fair part of the game . . . but it's also not very fun.

In MESBG, there are some models (like models with Cunning in Legion) who can help you win the priority roll (either by boosting/reducing it or by rerolling it) - but on the whole, it's you and your opponent each rolling a die and hoping to get the higher number. Sure, you can roll poorly - and you can do that several rounds in a row. And yes, not getting priority a bunch of turns in a row really hurts (especially if you don't have a lot of Might or if you have a lot of cavalry). But the ability to determine who goes first, who shoots first, and who pairs off fights, is always, always, ALWAYS based on a die roll you make. It's not based on a rule on one of your opponent's units or some sneaky method of manipulating the pips on their command cards - it's based on you . . . as it should be.

Conclusion: Why I Love MESBG . . . and Star Wars Legion

If you like Star Wars Legion and thought I've done it a disservice, please make note of the following:

I like Star Wars Legion enough to invest in a Galactic Republic army . . . and I'm sorely tempted to invest in a Rogue-One-style Rebel army too . . . and Darth Vader in an LAAT intrigues me too . . . darn it, I'm hooked . . .

Yes, I like the game - it's new, it's intriguing, and it's given me some thoughts about how to run different formations for MESBG, oddly enough. But it's also never gonna be my first love (heck, it's still behind Imperial Assault for me - a game that is vastly superior to Legion when you consider almost every objection I've listed here). Since Imperial Assault (and SBG, obviously) doesn't allow you to play with Galactic Republic/Separatist Alliance units, if I have that itch to scratch, I'll play a game of Star Wars Legion. Why not, right?

More than that, despite my gripe fest in this post, the game is fun - and it's one of the first games that my son has really gotten excited about that he didn't learn from me. After getting him hooked on MESBG (and Imperial Assault and Heroscape and . . .), it's my turn to be the supportive "other player" and find things to like about Legion. It's here and it's here to stay.

But I like SBG better. :-)

Like Centaur did for Bolt Action, I hope that this short rant on Star Wars Legion has made you gain an appreciation for the game we have - and if you like Star Wars Legion, let us know below what you like about it (and if I've been too mean to it)! If you didn't like this rant, hang in there - Centaur says he's writing up a post to slam what I wrote here. Until next time, happy hobbying!