Star Wars Legion – Excited to Start Painting

As Legion gets closer and closer to reality, I find myself at a loss because I still haven’t decided on a color scheme for my armies!  It’s got me thinking more and more about how I’m going to approach painting and customizing the game once it arrives.

When to Paint

I’ve made the mistake in the past, of getting a game and refusing to play it until I’ve finished painting it.   There are several problems with this approach.  The most obvious of which is that it means I’ll have a brand new game but not actually be playing it for awhile.  The second problem is that I’ll be anxious to play, and perhaps be tempted to do rush jobs on my miniatures just so that I can get them finished and start playing.  Additionally, this doesn’t allow for an intermediate time of reflection.   For example, if I painted one squad of miniatures, then went to go play a game or two, I might see some other paint jobs that could inspire some variation on future models.   This helps establish some depth of variation and design.

So this time around, I’m going to assemble everything right away, and possibly even prime them immediately, but I don’t think I’ll have that much of a rush to fully paint everything before playing.   If you are torn on this, I could suggest a black prime and maybe a light dry-brushing, just to bring out the detail on your models to hold you over until you decide to sit down and hammer out a squad or two of troopers.

Pink Stormtroopers?

Do I want everyone to be standard?  I generally do, or at least I think I do.  When I got into playing X-Wing, I remember going nuts and painting a ton of my ships in all sorts of wild colors, like red X-Wings, purple TIE Fighters…  and now as I look back on these I think I was overanxious to do something different.   For now, I think I’d rather have the majority of my troops looking standard.  But there’s something to be said for doing a squad or two with some special paint scheme.

The key is (in my opinion) not doing a paint scheme that will overwrite something that’s likely to show up in the future.  I wouldn’t paint my stormtroopers black for example, because that might make them look too similar to Death Troopers if those show up.   Same goes for Chrome, as if they ever do sequel trilogy units, I wouldn’t want confusion with Captain Phasma.  So while I may not go so far as to do Pink Stormtroopers, I think some variation may certainly be a think.  Dirty stormtroopers, Sandy Stormtroopers, and maybe even some regular stormtroopers with a touch of snow on their uniforms for my Hoth terrain.  (To hold me over until snow

Bases

It looks like the figures don’t actually come attached to their bases.  This will help people who want to customize their bases have more freedom to do so.   The only risk with doing that however, is that it might look strange if you end up playing on new terrain at some point.   In my case, my terrain is all going to have a snowy theme, so weather I’m on Hoth, Starkiller Base, or the snow-crested mountains of Alderaan, my snowy terrain will be appropriate.   However, if I made all of my bases snowy, it might look strange when I eventually bring an army to a tournament and play on an urban setting, or an Endor map.  I may just paint all of my Imperial bases in grey, and all my rebel bases in tan, like I did for Imperial Assault.

Additionally, I won’t want any base decorations to cover up the sides of the bases.   This is specifically for the outer rings, which I plan to color differently for each unit.   One stormtrooper unit, for example, will have a red ring around it’s base.  Another might be blue, then purple, then green, etc.   This will prove helpful when units get close together and will help players differentiate between them.  This might be less of an issue for rebel units, which are more likely to have uniform variation between them.

Magnetization

In a recent videos by Sorastro, you can see the bases from below, and it appears that they have a recessed section that would allow for easy placement of a magnet.   This would be great for metal trays, and transporting armies.

This is something that could provide a ton of ease when transporting armies in a manner that will keep them mostly locked in place, and also look pretty cool to your friends.   The downside here, is that gluing a magnet into every miniature is likely going to be expensive, and time consuming.  It will also require a metal tray system for storage, which is great if you already have one from previous wargames, but if you are just getting started here with Legion and don’t have a system like this, you may want to wait a bit before magnetizing your miniatures.

 

Are you as excited about painting and playing Legion as I am?   It’s looking like February is going to be the month that we finally see it!   I’m hoping it’s not delayed!   There’s a lot of painting to do!

 

 

Type O Negative Fleet

Growing up, my favorite band was Type O Negative.  This was a major influence on me and why my favorite colors are black and green.  (Also helps that Luke in ROTJ was basically those same colors as well).  So when I got an Airbrush for Christmas, my first major project was going to be to repaint some of my Armada ship that I’d previously screwed up on and wanted to repaint them.

Here’s the video of the Livestream if you are interested:

The end result wasn’t half bad.  Here’s how they came out.

So the next day I went back and added some details.  I did some panels in grey, and then added tiny white dots where I thought lights should be.  I think it came out pretty good!

Here are some more closeups:

This is part of the reason I’m now trying to manufacture reasons to use these 3 ships in a list!  Might have to repaint some squadrons soon!

The Original Blue Objectives

The Original Blue Objectives

This third installment of objectives are dealing with the original blue objectives that come in the Armada core set.  I also have covered reds and yellows, and will soon be covering the objectives in the Corellian Conflict as well.  Lets get started!

This one is a simple points race.   You land a ship on an obstacle, and you can gain a victory token.  It also has the clear benefit of allowing the 2nd players ships complete immunity when landing on asteroid fields and debris fields.  There are some common questions with interactions here that have been answered in the FAQ as well.  First – Grav Shift Reroute moves these obstacles, the tokens move with them.  Second – Squadrons with Strategic are allowed to move tokens off these obstacles.   In that case, the tokens must be placed back on an obstacle before it can be removed for scoring.   And if a ship lands on an obstacles with multiple tokens, you only remove one token each time.  See the Armada Errata page for a link to the latest FAQ.

Why you should include it:

One thing that’s nice is that you’ll get the ability to move through obstacles unhindered and your opponent won’t.  Large Based ships can certainly take advantage of this.  Also, if you are running Grav Shift Reroute you can pull some of these obstacles closer to yourself to make collecting them easier.   This doesn’t give a ton of points though and isn’t terribly strong, but it also typically doesn’t help your opponent either.

If you are 1st Player:

If you’ve got Jaina’s Light in your fleet, is usually a sure thing to select this objective, because you’ve already got a ship that can land on those obstacles without taking any punishment!  Also if you are running an Interdictor with a Grav Shift Reroute of your own, you may be able to reverse the placement of some of these rocks and pull them closer to yourself, giving you an advantage.

 

Another points grab, but this time it’s winner-take-all.  Flotillas have made it easier than ever to send a ship after one of these objective tokens.  Years ago, this objective used to be very bad for Imperial players who tended to run a Demolisher, and either VSDs and/or ISDs.  An Imperial Player typically could NOT afford to send any of his or her ships out chasing after objectives, so this was an easy pick for rebels running a lone CR-90.  Nowadays however, flotillas are so common that this becomes a more risky objective to take, as it can easily be turned against you.

Why you should include it:

If you’ve got several Strategic Squadrons and ways to give them extra movement, such as Squall, Fighter Coordination Team, or Adar Talon, you’ll have a much easier time of quickly grabbing three tokens.  As 2nd player you’ll be able to place 3 out of the 5 tokens, so be sure and place them in such a way that you’ll be able to get to them before your opponent.  You also want to ensure that you can keep your objective ship alive.  For Empire, consider something like a Gozanti with Minister Tua and Electronic Counter Measures.  For Rebels, a Bright Hope with Major Derlin would prove incredibly hard to kill.  Fast ships like Raiders and CR-90s also can make for good objective ships.

If you are 1st Player:

If you’ve got more Strategic than your opponent, and think you can get to those objective tokens before your opponent can, then you can turn this against him or her.   Alternatively, if you’ve got a force that can quickly kill their objective ship, then you can also stop them from collecting points.  A swarm of CR-90As with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits for example, can quickly move into striking distance and concentrate on a lightly defending objective ship.

 

A classic objective of telling your opponent which way they should approach.   This one used to get used a ton before Strategic came around.  Now it’s quite risky to use this if you don’t also bring in some Strategic Squadrons of your own.

Why you should include it:

If you’ve got Dodonna, you can trigger his ability if your opponent trips one of these mines and rolls a crit, so that is a very fun part of this objective.   It also helps you generally control which ways your opponent can come into the fight, so if your fleet is very vulnerable to flanking this one can help.   You’ll probably want to include some Strategic into your build, just in case your opponent has some Strategic of their own.  And if not, it helps to re-purpose those mined that your opponent managed to miss.  It’s great to push them again and again!  Also, keep note of your opponent’s build.  If they don’t have any strategic, you might even consider putting many of these mines closer to the center of the board so you can push them all directly into your opponent regardless of where they deploy.

If you are 1st Player:

If you’ve got several Strategic Squadrons and your opponent does not…. then absolutely pick this one.  Nothing is more satisfying than pushing the 2nd players mine field back on themselves!

 

In my opinion, this one is by far the best of the original blue objectives.  This one is especially helpful with modern fleets that might only run 2 or 3 activations.  I also think this will be especially good in the future, with Wave 7’s new large ships.  It punishes the 1st player by making them deploy EVERYTHING first.  It takes away any deployment advantage they had.   And it allows rear shots to reward both of you with victory points. Rear shots SHOULD be easy since you can see where your opponent is setting up.

Why you should include it:

This one is great for any list that has a big deployment disadvantage.   3 or less ships, for example.  This list can also be very nice if you’ve got a good number of squadrons that aren’t likely to get engaged and locked down.   Squadrons with Rogue are particularly nice here, but Intel will easily help your squadrons get rear shots.   Maneuverable ships will also help you sneak around slower ships and get those rear shots as well.

If you are 1st Player:

If perhaps you were going to have a deployment disadvantage either way, then you really didn’t lose much by selecting this one.   Perhaps you are running a 2-ship build heavy with Squadrons?  Just set up in the middle and adjust accordingly – hoping your squadrons will get you a ton of victory points.  Make sure you get those rear shots!

 

Hope you enjoyed my breakdown of the basic blue objectives!   I’ll be covering the Corellian Conflict soon so check back often!

Super Star Destroyers in Armada

There is so much talk of Super Star Destroyers coming to Armada these days.   I’ve been a proponent of seeing the executor come to the game for a long time, and as such I’ve been involved in many of these discussions.   But even now so many arguments tend to repeat themselves and it becomes tiresome to repeat the same talking points over and over.

Argument number 1: “The Executor is too big!”

Yup.   It sure is.   It’s massive.  Fortunately Armada has a sliding scale, which has already accounted for the fact that the ISD cannot fit a CR-90 in it’s hangar bay.   It had to have a sliding scale.   We all know that at some point we’ll probably see the “Finalizer”, the First Order’s Star Destroyer, which is DOUBLE the size of an ISD – yet nobody expect that it will actually be double the size on the board.    Honestly it would only need to be a little larger than the Raider from X-Wing, so probably around 2 feet in length, to really stand out and look ominous.  At that length it would still dwarf every other ship, and entire fleets would tremble in its presence.

And don’t forget that perspective is a real thing in Star Wars battles.  Consider the end of the Rebels epsode “Secret Cargo”, where we see the entire rebel fleet jump in at Dantooine.  So many of these ships are all over the place.  There is an MC-80, (Possibly Home One) which looks smaller than the Quasar carrier.  This is because space is in 3D and allows a lot of forgiveness in terms of ships appearing out of scale.

And this is the case in just about every space battle we see.   A Super Star Destroyer doesn’t have to be 6 feet long to work.   Two feet or less will still look amazing.

Argument #2: “It would be too powerful”

Well it certainly COULD be.  But you have to consider that power in this game has a direct correlation to point cost.   Suppose a ship has 10 red attack dice in a single arc, but costs 350 points?  Power doesn’t always make a ship worthwhile.   As any veteran of the game will tell you, a ship’s overall worth is determined by several factors, including maneuverability, upgrades, defensive options, firing arcs, and even the ability to combo with other ships in your fleet, besides simply the sum of battery armament.  And suppose there were multiple ship cards for it to reflect various capabilities?   A damaged Super Star Destroyer might only cost 150 points, and may have less of it’s batteries available to fire.

Argument #3: “There would be nothing for the Rebels”

This is demonstrably false.  In the recent Aftermath trilogy of books by Chuck Wendig, there are three different Executor Class Dreadnaughts mentioned by name (They refer to Super Star Destroyers by the more appropriately generic term “Dreadnaught” fairly often).  The Executor of course, plus the Ravager, which is featured heavily in the book, and whose remains can be seen covering the desert in Episode 7.

Additionally, there is the Annihilator.  The Annihilator was stolen from the Empire by pirates, during the chaos that ensued after the fall of the Emperor.  These pirates happened to be less of the evil type and more of the free-spirited rebel type that you might associate with a young Han Solo or Lando Calrissian; trying to live life on their own terms away from the rule of the Empire or the New Republic.   They were generally kind spirited and even liberated people and allowed them to join up.  I would consider this group relatively “Good” and as such, they would likely fight against the empire in a fight, so I would argue that you could field the Annihilator in a battle against the Executor or Ravager.

And let’s not forget about the Viscount!   This mighty Mon Calamari creation is still likely to be pulled out of Legends and placed back into canon at some point soon.

It would be an amazing option for the rebels not only because of the size, but also it LOOKS like it belongs in Star Wars, and that is one of the driving forces behind what comes back into canon and what stays lost in Legends like the dreaded Suncrusher and the Christmas Special.

 

My prediction : The Campaign

The Corellian Conflict served two purposes as far as I’m concerned.   It tested the waters for how interested players are in a campaign, and it also gave a trial run into players running 500 point games.  So far both have been a moderate success, with the greater in my opinion, being the larger games.

Both of these aspects can work with a Super Star Destroyer release.  Imagine a campaign based on the rebels attacking a shipyard to slow or halt construction on a super star destroyer.  Suppose it comes with several different versions of the ship, including the various stages of construction.   An early “Under Construction” model might only cost 40 points, and may have very little operational weaponry.  And even if a full constructed Executor-Class Super Star Destroyer costs upwards of 300 points, we’ve already seen the point limit work at 500 points.   They may even extend the official tournament cost to 500.   Personally I’d love that.

And with the recent re-canonization of the Eclipse, we are destined to see Super Star Destroyers show up in Armada sooner rather than later.  I predict we will see an announcement regarding them before the end of 2017.  They are gorgeous, they are iconic, and frankly… where ELSE are they going to show up?