After Action Report - Yet More Legion from Biggs (Game 1)

Got two more games of Legion in on Saturday.  Let's take a look at what happened and the impressions to take away from the games.  The first game was against Jake, a local player who is new to miniatures in general, but has bought in hard to Legion.  He's putting together a very impressive Scarif board.  Anyway, let's get to the fight:

Biggs' Company:

Luke Skywalker

- Jedi Mind Trick

- Battle Meditation

T-47 Airspeeder

- Mo/Dx Power Harpoon

- Wedge Antilles

AT-RT (x2)

- AT-RT Laser Cannon (x1)

- AT-RT Flamethrower (x1)

Rebel Troopers (x1) - (Unassembled Squad)

Rebel Troopers (x3) - (Gold Squad, Not Quite Painted x2)

- Rebel Trooper

- Z-6 Trooper (x2)

- MPL-57 Trooper (x1)

Jake's Imperial Forces:

Darth Vader

- Force Choke

- Saber Throw

- Lightning Reflexes

AT-ST

- General Weiss

- 88 Twin Light Blaster Cannon

- DW-3 Concussion Grenade Launcher

- AT-ST Mortar Launcher

Speeder Bikes

- Long Range Commlink

Stormtrooper (x3)

- DLT-19 Stormtrooper (x2)

- HH-12 Stormtrooper (x1)

Setup:

I'll be honest, I don't remember who was Blue / Red this game.  I do know that we quickly decided what kind of game we wanted to play:

Jake wanted to play Rapid Reinforcements, and I didn't want anything to do with Disarray.  So we quickly selected Key Positions, The Long March, and Rapid Reinforcements.

The obstacles were the same from my previous game with Chris, with some added crates that we ruled gave Heavy cover, and blocked line of sight when stacked on top of one another.  The two piles of crates were selected as our key positions, as well as the arch in the center of the map.  This would be a fight for the middle.

Jake selected one of each type of Stormtroopers for Rapid Deployment, while I held "Unassembled Squad" and my Ion squad in reserve, figuring I could drop them in a great place to hit the AT-ST.

Our forces set up to push on the center of the map.  My AT-RTs held the left flank of my lines, against his Speeder Bikes.  Vader and his remaining Stormtroopers would push forward from the "middle" and his AT-ST held the far side of his line.  Meanwhile, I had my two squads of Z-6 Troopers coming around the big rock in the middle, and the Airspeeder against his AT-ST on the right.

Round 1, I found out Jake reads the blog, as he had correctly guessed my opening of "Standing Orders" by playing "Assault" - he wouldn't need to worry about any randomness in his opening moves.  Unfortunately for him, going last was exactly what I wanted, and I really didn't care about the order of activation except that my Airspeeder needed to go after his AT-ST.

Otherwise uneventful, we moved our units forward towards the objective, and only a few shots were taken, my Airspeeder on his AT-ST, his Speederbikes on the Flame AT-RT and my Sniper AT-RT on his Speederbikes.

Round 2 opened with my "Ambush".  Unfortunately for Jake, he misunderstood the tactical situation, and used "New Ways to Motivate Them" - removing Trooper tokens from his bag (he wanted to activate the AT-ST / Speeder Bikes) making it very likely he will be dropping his reinforcements early.  I offered to let him swap it with "Push", same pips but it would give him the orders he actually wanted, but he declined, saying he wanted to learn from his mistakes.

My Airspeeder, which had been given my one command from Ambush, flew past his AT-ST with the compulsory move and a second move, and harpooned it, spinning it away from the fight.

Elsewhere, things continued to go south for Jake, as his speeder bikes damaged my AT-RT Flamethrower, but I was able to destroy one with my AT-RT Laser Cannon.  He moved his troopers forward, but found that his trooper squad was quickly destroyed by concentrated fire from my own troopers and Luke.  He was forced to drop his reinforcement troopers early as well, one basically on top of the crate objective nearest to him, and the other behind the arch.  I was able to drop my reinforcements near the arch with my expendables, and behind the AT-ST with my Ions.

But Vader was coming, and he put the hurt onto the flame AT-RT, destroying its flamethrower just before I could bring it to bare in Round 3.

Round 3 opened with his "Push" against my "Assault".  He had priority and a good game plan.  Specifally, he had Darth Vader and an AT-ST.  He gave his order tokens to the Stormtroopers he had left.  The AT-ST drew first, lighting up my troopers gathered near the objectives with every attack he had available to him (Weiss).  I responded by trying to use my damaged (former) flamer AT-RT before it died.  I had it hop over the obstacle and melee the Stormtroopers, eliminating two of them.  Unfortunately, that would be all it would do, as Vader finished it off, and moved back to contest the Arch objective (and be out of return fire).

My Ion Troopers moved up and fired at the AT-ST and the Stormtroopers, missing the AT-ST and suppressing the Stormtroopers, who then immediately cleared it with their rally.  They moved into cover, hopping the barricade and moving forward towards my troopers.  Meanwhile, the Rocket Stormtroopers found themselves suppressed, while my remaining AT-RT finished off the speeder bike.

Round 4 opened with a desperate push from Jake.  Vader pulled an "Implacable" and would proceeded to rush my position, cutting down my Troopers and suppressing the rest.  But I had "Return of the Jedi" ready, which let me issue orders to Luke and my remaining Non-Troopers, and I would be able to dictate who activated when.






The Airspeeder went first and then this happened:

And then this happened.

And suddenly there wasn't an AT-ST to worry about anymore.

His troopers (and Vader with his two activations) put the hurt on my troopers, eliminating the one Z-6 Trooper and injuring and suppressing both others.  But I decided to forgo rallying them with Luke's activation, and had them and the AT-RT to fire at Vader, wounding him, before Luke charged into the fight.  Vader was weakened as Turn 5 began.

And I still had "Son of Skywalker" left to play.  Jake played "Master of Evil" but Luke was able to quickly eliminate Darth Vader with the first activation, which lead to Jake calling the game.

Overall, I think we both gained a good deal of respect for how the game works, and we both realized rules and mistakes we had been making before (tokens don't carry over between rounds!)  This game really emphasized the importance of the Order Cards, as the game turned on turn 2 really messing up Jake's plans with "New Ways to Motivate Them" being just straight up worse than "Push" for this scenario.

Again, Luke wound up taking out Vader by starting combat with his Dad and then following up on the weakened Vader.  In this kind of match-up, having Luke start the fight is crucial to winning.

The Airspeeder did quality work, taking out the AT-ST.  Tow cables worked well, though my next game will call their effectiveness into question.

Finally, I really wanted to see how the Flamethrower would work.  Oh well, I'll get to see how soon enough.