Morning folks
Yesterday my son and I attended our first tournament for Star Wars Legion which has been an overdue event. Previously work has always conflicted with events in the past so it was good to finally get to one and support the community.
The location was Brisvegas Comics which is a store tucked away in Fortitude Valley near the heart of Brisbane. Parking wasn't too much of an issue and the venue itself although a little cramped had good air conditioning to ward off the 30+ degree day outside.
$25 for 3 games at a good venue and a feed was included by the resident celebrity chef. Bargain. 8 people showed up and we were all ready for the laughs and frustration that come from rolling blank dice.
As per usual with any game of Legion I decided on a list and then analysed it to the point where I decided not to take it, and go with some complete different. I repeated this process a further 6 times. I really want to get competent at a single list type, and just continue to craft that approach. No doubt it will take a considerable amount of time and effort in order achieve that greatness or the 'zen' of legion but it is the current path.
I ended up running the following list:
800/800
11 Activations
Agent Kallus (Strict Orders, Offensive Push, Ascension Cables, J-19 Bo-rifle)
Bossk (Hunter, Seize the Initiative, Targeting Scopes)
Stormtroopers (T-21 Stormtrooper)
DF-90 Mortar Trooper
2x Shoretroopers (T-21B Trooper, Offensive Push)
2x Stormtroopers (DLT-19 Stormtrooper)
3x Scout Troopers (Strike Team) (DLT-19x Sniper)
Developing Sympathies, Covert Observation•, Merciless Munitions•, Push••, Reptilian Rampage••, Ruthless Tactics•••, Lying in Wait•••, Standing Orders••••
Contingencies: Face Me!•, ISB Investigation••
The Long March, Advanced Positions, Hemmed In, Major Offensive
Key Positions, Intercept the Transmissions, Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators, Breakthrough
Clear Conditions, Fortified Positions, Rapid Reinforcements, Supply Drop
Round 1
The matches were drawn and my first opponent was Rob. Firstly, the paint job on his army was incredible. In fact, I didn't see a poorly presented army at all over the course of the day which was cool to see.
Rob was running Cassian and K2SO backed up with Wedge in an Airspeeder, Shriv driving the bus full of Wookiees and an assortment of Rebel Troopers and Veterans and a pesky unit of Tauntauns. We ended up running (from memory) Recover the Supplies, Roll Out, and Supply Drop.
My biggest threat was the bus full of angry bears, and the Airspeeder getting behind me taking out my long range assets piecemeal.
I deployed most of my firepower anchoring a corner, whilst a sniper team scouted into a good position to snatch a crate early in the game. Rob has Tauns on a flank ready to scream down, the other flank was covered by the Airspeeder and the bus took near centre stage with its hairy payload. Although it wouldn't come into play, my bounty went onto K2SO after seeing Cassian deploy on a tower close to a board edge. Wisely, he wasn't coming to play with the Empire. At least not closely.
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| Deployment |
Summarised the battle went something like this. Rob pushed his Airspeeder forward, and I think I popped it first turn. The DLT's certainly helped, but the sheer amount of critical hits that the Shoretroopers generated from combined fire made me nervous that my dice would abandon me later.
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| The Empire gun line.... |
After the bus took a few wounds he backed it up swiftly to prevent the Wookiees from being left out in the open. A bit of cat and mouse took place jockying for position in order to charge my lines but for the most part well timed standby tokens and elevated positions nullified the Wookiees preventing them from rushing into an open area only to take damage.
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| The Bus backs up in self preservation mode |
The Tauns plinked some wounds onto my units and Kallus ended up charging them and killing them over a few turns locking them down. By this stage both Rob and I had nabbed a box each. There was a quick one to grab in the centre and I just had too many bodies to achieve the objective and came out a point ahead.
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| Kallus about to charge the remaining Tauntaun. |
If Rob has pushed the bus forward instead of reversing it, I think the game would have looked very different. Perhaps even if Cassian and K2 played a greater role in the game I would have been spanked. But alas, the spankings were to come.
Round 2
I met Jerome, interestingly enough, Jerome runs a list similar to what I love and play. Operative Vader backed up with some meaty reptilian monstrosities who hurt when they hit. Secondly, Jerome won the last event so I knew from the on set this was going to be an uphill battle. He was running something like this:
Krennic
Op Vader
Royal Guard
2 x Dewbacks
2 x Snipers
2 x Stormtroopers
Snowtroopers
Objective weren't kind to me and I was stuck between Payload or Hostage Exchange. Both terrible options against Vader. Lastly, I was in a horrid spot when Hemmed In was the deployment.
I was so pissed off with myself for making such a rookie error in this game and it ultimately led to my downfall. I was so fixated and confident that Jerome would use Darkness Descends as Vader's first order card, that I was totally rail roaded when we played New Ways to Motivate Them. Of course, first turn I was dealing with a pair of Dewbacks slammed deep into my lines. To add salt to my wounds, I intended to pick Kallus' ISB Investigation command card in order to nullify Vader's 1 pips for a turn, but for whatever reason I instead pulled Ruthless Tactics. Not a great start.
I managed to drop an opposing sniper team first turn, and his Royal Guard were hurting after taking a load of accurate fire from Shoretroopers. Despite being charged by a pair of Dewbacks, the casualties were minimal as some solid saves came through. Vader went and did Vader things to my Shoretroopers, Snipers, and Mortar whilst the rest of my army charged and dealt with Dewbacks eventually killing them.
By this stage though it was clear I wasn't going to be close enough to the objective to score. I went for a hail mary against Vader with Bossk to nail a bounty but the law of averages weren't broken and he remained alive.
Jerome took the victory through clever play and running the objective from turn zero. I took the morale victory nailing Krennic and the Dewbacks. All in all, a great game and I certainly walked away from it with a new mental check list.
Round 3
Dan was my third and final opponent for the day. He was running a Cassian/Sabine rebel list with Mandos, Clan Wren, Bus + Wookiees and some Rebel Troopers. It was Recover the Supplies, Hemmed In and something else.
I stacked an area of heavy fire support in one area and lit the bus up immediately. Once again, all the crits and stacking damage from Impact was enough to take the bus out in the second turn I think. Of course this left the Wookiees in no mans land but Dan wasted no time and charged through a bunch of units into Bossk, killing my lizard.
There was a lot of back and forth action with Cassian sitting back sniping away my snipers and other targets of opportunity. Kallus's ISB Investigation came through blocking Sabine's Explosions command card a turn earlier and when he eventually played it, I used contingencies to play Kallus' one pip and charged her ensuring she copped some bomb damage as well.
She would eventually drop to punches from Agent Kallus and Shoretroopers for what feels like 2-3 turns later.
Once again I was happy sitting back and shooting at stuff, rather than actually focusing on the objective. Dan jumped in and eventually Cassian walked away with the winning pot of gold in which I couldn't get the angle to nail a shot onto him. Well done Dan.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the best part of the day for me was attending a tournament with my son. We both performed terribly placing 7th and 8th but I guess consistency works at both ends of success and failure right? He had a good time, is still learning the game and the GAR as an army and was running Yoda for the second or third time. The lucky lad even took away the Imperial Bunker terrain piece as a lucky door prize. Guess who gets to paint that?
Everyone walked away with some great loot in the forms of alternate artwork cards which was great but more importantly, pumping more life blood into the local Legion community. Big thanks out to Aaron for organising and Bryant's support as well.
Both my son and I are looking forward to the next one. If you read up to this point then I salute you.
