Closed Lanes: Legion is Beginning to Feel Like a One-Way Street
November 18, 2024
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Hello! I’m Evan Paul...author, dreamweaver, visionary, this sentence exists because the SEO says I’m supposed to put keywords in the front. As you read this I may already be losing my first game at worlds, if so be sure to say hi and tell me what a fool I am for not bringing Dark Troopers or Blizzard. Given the strange timing of this post, I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what I’d write about. Would it be more silliness? Something deadly serious? Would it even be about Legion?
Then I decided, why not do a bit of a grab bag? Kyle isn’t paying attention right now he’s busy tricking the world into thinking that [INSERT META LIST HERE] was actually a hipster choice, and that you should feel bad for calling him a try-hard. I’m pretty sure Jay hasn’t even read one of these, which is probably the only reason I still have the job, along with the fact that StabCast never aired that letter I sent in after a late night at the bar that one time. This might shock you, but I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things. A dear friend of mine once observed that after years of knowing me she hadn’t yet come across a topic small enough for me to be unopinionated about it, but hey that means I never will run out of things to write about doesn’t it? Well, the problem is that people do have to want to read it in order for my job to be successful here. I mean seriously, take the following examples of things that I definitely have strong opinions on but that you definitely would not find interesting whatsoever:
HOWEVER I do have a few things that are each worth maybe a paragraph, ideas I’ve thought of and then decided didn’t rise to the level of a full article, so why not empty the chamber? Adepticon will likely be the biggest event in the game’s history, and I imagine that all that comes after will represent a new chapter in Legion where we’ll have quite a bit to write about. In the meantime though, you’ll have to make do with this.
Counting Cody, below is the sum total of how many different units each faction can play at the various ranks. This does include mercenaries by the way.
It may surprise you to know (it did me when I considered it myself) that we’re nearly at the end of the line when it comes to announced products. Now don’t panic people, I said announced but it is very fair to say that we know far more about what’s coming for Shatterpoint, a game that is not even released yet, than we do for Legion. Here’s the list of Legion products that have been actually confirmed that are not released:
Cody will be the first Republic release for well over a year, a year which has seen three units for Empire as well as an extra battle force for Empire, which also gained (tied with CIS) the most available units from the Shadow Collective release. Given the pace at which Atomic Mass has been able to roll out new product (which was obviously affected by the pandemic and supply chain issues) it’s easy to see a world where we hit 2024 and GAR/CIS still have less than half the available operatives as the GCW factions, still do not have a third in-faction corps option, and do not have access to any characters with six command cards such as Luke, Vader, and Boba.
Now, of course, it’s possible they will reveal some cool upcoming stuff at Adepticon and surprise all of us,, so I reserve the right to back off the puzzlement. Also, I’m not over here saying the GCW factions should have gotten nothing, but why have their releases outpaced the ones that are still significantly behind? Even if things were going to totally flip, and for the rest of the year it’s nothing but Gungans and Geonosians and generic Jedi and the Bad Batch and Jango…is that good for the game, to take huge swings into one side of the factions at a time?
Again, time will tell, but my eyebrows are quite furrowed I’ll have you know!
I qualified for Worlds with some straight up broken stuff, but I couldn’t bring myself to try repeat that with Empire again (probably with Dark Troopers this time) because it’s really not “my faction.” I already knew I wanted to play GAR, luckily the meta has made the choice for me when it comes to what variety of Republic list. I needed something that can really stand up to Dark Troopers and uh…that’s really not either of the other Jedi in the faction. So yeah, I’ll be playing Anakin at worlds, here’s what I might be losing with right as you read this:
Anyway, I’m not gonna bore you by getting into the nuances of the choices of my worlds list, I guess if I do well I can but right now I’m just another player in the sea of worlds invitees and many more who will join from the LCQ. I did however I find it funny that I’ve come full circle on Anakin in multiple ways. I played him in Adepticon last year as well, with Wooks back then (RIP, thanks new rulebook) then spent some time cheating on Republic with Shadow Collective and (ugh) Blizzard Force but now I’m back baby! What’s even funnier to me though is that, at first, I was cold as ICE about him as a Legion piece. And you know…I think I was right to be! His command cards after all did very little to affect game-state, they merely enabled him access to more keywords. But then, a year later, they changed the two-pip.
And it changed everything! Yes the extra order does help, but man, when every command card has an added phrase of your Jedi gets a dodge then it’s a decent command card. When you consider the fact that this one card mitigates 5 hits (it’s usually the second command played) and often does a few wounds via Djem-So, one can start to appreciate what a huge difference one short phrase makes. It was a brilliant change, and I hope AMG can continue that tradition with pieces that are currently under-played (Hi Obi).
Izzy won the thing on SOS (jerk) but this is just your regular reminder that the Fluttercraft is actually pretty good as-is and I look forward to it maybe getting buffed just because most people fly it directly into enemy lines and expect it to live. If you want to be a part of the elite group of Fluttercraft apologists/defenders, please read this as an introduction to your new journey. Also, I’ve dabbled in some fiction in the last year with Stormtide and One-Shots but I think the first paragraph may have been the only good thing I wrote in this category.
I’m not sure how long it will be before I am struck by enough lightning bolts of inspiration to write a third theme song guide, but it would be wrong to allow Worlds to get started without me having declared a theme song for the list that’s probably going to be the majority of the Top 8! I knew from the start this would have to technically be two songs, they activate twice after all, but the challenge was thinking of such a duo that were meant to exist side by side (often because, back in the day, they would have shared an entire side of a vinyl album which happens to be the case here).
However, I could not let such an important task fall to a mere long instrumental (Boston’s Foreplay/Long Time) even if that instrumental was insanely rad (Van Halen’s Eruption/You Really Got Me Now). Honorable mention to Soldier Side/BYOB (System of a Down) and Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid (Led Zeppelin) but I have to give it to Ronnie James DIO(!) and his pair of operatic tunes. There are so many amazing Rock vocalists out there but man, DIO, I think he’s unique en son genre. I’m not gonna pretend I’m old enough and/or cool enough to have actually listened to the vinyl of this in-person but damn…it must have been awesome.
I had an amazing time writing about Andor, a dude who actually is a real writer and not even a Legion player complemented it on this very comments section which really made my day. I can tell you right now: The Mandalorian ain’t gonna have enough adult themes and/or ties into our actual shared history for me to say much about it from that direction, but I am enjoying the variety we’ve already seen in this season. I also…don’t really have any idea where the plot is going, because it’s bucked my assumptions, and for now I m thoroughly along for the ride. One quick note…this show exemplifies that all star wars media is enhanced by Babu Frik. My local friends know this well, but I think Babu Frik is such a wonderful, Star Warsy character and he’s nearly the only good thing about Episode 9. I really love the shots of Mando scrunched into a tiny workshop, because that’s what it would be for tiny people! MORE BABU!
No squeezey! Bad Baby!
Speaking of adorable puppets, I would be remiss if
And that’s all the time we got folks, Evan Paul has been hooked up to a mind flayer gentle brain massage device to learn how to stay on topic. See you at Adepticon! – Kyle
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4 Responses
So what is the correct Sabaton song to start and end games with? Curious on your answer!
Start – Ghost Division (they always start their concerts like this, saw them right before pandemic so cool)
End – The Last Stand
Write more about pathfinders, I love playing them.
Then you probably don’t want me writing about them, I am uninitiated