Star Wars Legion is an easy wargame to get into. Star Wars Legion has a a bonus in being an easily recognized wargame with the Star Wars brand. But to me it’s the wargame I have wanted to play since I was a child. That is complimented by how cheap the game is! Extra good news is that you can play on any table that is 6 by 3 feet. Which is almost all of them! If you can’t tell, I’m in love!
The Models
Before I talk about the game, I’ll talk about the most important part of the game, the models. Now the biggest advantage Star Wars legion has is the models. Mainly in price, as they look good and they are cheap compared to Warhammer. You can get an entire factions army for under $200, which heavily encourages multiple factions without breaking the bank. As someone coming in from 40k, this is a godsend.
The Rules
The rules are all available for free online. So if anything so far has interested you I recommend looking them up. I will say that I like the way orders work, first turns are decided and the alternating activations. It is a unique game that engages you at all times. All of these systems are tied together in a deck of cards that can be unique for each faction, and is worth taking a look at!
The Factions
I will eventually be making full breakdowns of each faction of Star Wars Legion. As I learn more of the game and play more I wish to share the knowledge to those interested.
I played as the Shadow Collective, which is Darth Mauls crime syndicate. This is my favorite faction because it was linked to one of my favorite childhood shows, the clone wars. They are fun to play and also have a lot of powers that require you to play differently then most.
Playing against the Empire I got the feeling it can be a very gunline heavy army, or at least that is how my opponent played. As a first impression the Shadow Collective and Empire are pretty well balanced, and doing some online research it does seem the best faction right now is the Empire, so the fact it felt like I had a chance is a very good sign.
Playing Star Wars Legion
The first game I played had the hostage main objective, a strange deployment zone called Danger Close, which led to a lot of early combat, and clear conditions as my condition card. I played against an infantry heavy empire opponent who ran a lot of stormtroopers, some E-webs and Darth Vader. It was a back and forth battle with me moving incorrectly and losing about a 1/4 of my army. Then the game turned into a defensive battle as I tried to tie it and failed.
I later learned that if I had just done one thing correctly my Maul may have been able to kill Vader in combat. But these things happen and it was a very fun learning game. This is definitely a skirmish wargame. While not as big and grand as the 40K large battles, it is bigger then stuff like Killteam.
Better then 40k?
This is what I was curious about, and in the end I would say they each scratch different itches. Star Wars Legion is great if you are a Star Wars fan of any era. It is also great if you like a game where getting tabled before turn 4 is a rarity. Movement is also arguably more important in Legion then 40k. Blitzing across the entire board with an army is very difficult in Legion.
However, 40K has an advantage in model variety. Also, if your verisimilitude is broken that Darth Maul is dueling Darth Vader with people who died at the end of the Clone Wars then this game is not for you.
Should You Get Into Star Wars Legion?
The best thing I can say about this game is it is fun. I will eventually have a GAR, Separatist and full Shadow Collective army. The list building apps you can find make it fun to experiment and look around. The fun different ways you can do and the synergies of the army are amazing. While it can be annoying that some units feel bad, that is balanced out by the power you can feel from elites.
It hasn’t been that long since a game pulled me in so fast. BattleTech Alpha Strike get’s that previous honor, but it is amazing that it happened twice. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that 40K is like D&D. They are both serviceable systems but there competitors are sometimes more fun.
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[…] an amazing first impression of playing Star Wars Legion, I wanted to jump in and summarize the pricing research I did. Included are lists of the cheapest […]