Legion Community Poll – July 2023

In this article I will discuss the results of a recent poll on the sentiment of the Legion community.

I first want to mention that The Fifth Trooper Network and I were not involved with the creation or distribution of this poll. Credit for making the poll goes to Infiniteloop who spearheaded the poll with feedback from members of The Legion Discord. I want to thank the creators for making the results public allowing people like myself to dive into what it says.

My goal here is to summarize the general sentiment of the poll and give my personal opinions on the topics covered. 457 people filled out the poll and I grouped the questions into six categories: Legion Community, AMG, Rules Update, Units, Factions and Battle Forces. There were some errors in a few of the questions these are denoted with a *. The denoted questions are missing the Strongly Disagree option by mistake.

Legion Community

The first section contains questions pertaining to the Legion community mainly focusing on friendliness and the different kind of interactions one can have in the community. This section had the most overwhelmingly positive response out of all the sections. Each question had an overwhelmingly positive response. I personally believe the community around Legion is one of the major draws to the game. Legion has been growing quickly and I think this is in large part due to how welcoming and friendly the Legion community is. In particular the community is very friendly to new and inexperienced players.

On a less fun note the poll also asks about unsportsmanlike opponents. It is good to see that a majority of players have never had an unsportsmanlike opponent. For the people who have had an unsportsmanlike opponent I hope it was just someone having an off day. Sometimes you may have a slight miscommunication with an opponent which may end up feeling bad. I encourage people to always assume the best intentions in their opponent. Despite that this is still a great result for the Legion community and highlights how rare unsportsmanlike behavior is in our community. I have played in other game systems where unsportsmanlike behavior was common place, so I am happy to see Legion is not like this! If you are interested in my thoughts on how to be a good sportsman I wrote an article about managing tilt while playing Legion.

AMG

While the questions about Atomic Mass Games had mainly positive responses, they were more mixed than the community questions. In particular the poll showed concerns surrounding communication and transparency. It is worth noting this poll was held in July before the recent ministravaganza. This is most likely due to some of the communication issues that AMG has had with the community. For example, the recent confusion around store championship kits. I believe AMG hears the community loud and clear as they have made multiple Legion Transmissions lately such as the Legion Roadmap to try and be more clear about future plans. My hope is that AMG will continue to improve and resolve some of the communities’ concerns. Despite these concerns the poll shows that a majority of the community has positive sentiment toward AMG. Legion has continued to grow in popularity after the handoff from FFG to AMG and I hope to see this continue!

Rules Update

The questions surrounding rules were mainly positive with a majority of the community having issue with the new cover system. My personal opinions fall in line with this. I think most of the changes in the rules update were good for the game except for the changes to cover. For example, the climbing changes have made climbing much more streamlined, and the pass mechanic has been brilliant in my opinion. Additionally making line of sight reciprocal was a great change. My opinions echo’s the results of the survey with frustrations around the changes to cover. Cover is one of the core mechanics of the game, so I think it is unfortunate that this is widely considered the worst change in the update. I think it is extremely telling that only ~18% of players had a positive response to the first two questions shown in this section. For me personally I think there are two main drawbacks to the new cover system, 1^st the implementation for Vehicles is basically unusable, and 2^nd the new systems vastly reduces the ability to flank and get out of cover shots. For example, our current world champion Luke Cook did not know how to use the new cover rules for vehicles during the semi-final of the world championship and had to have the head judge explain it in detail. Luke Cook is arguably the best player in Legion, and it is not a good sign if he is not able to understand how a rule works. In my personal experience determining cover for a vehicle is so difficult under the new rules that I don’t even really attempt to figure it out and just guess roughly what it looks like. The second downside of the cover is more subjective based on my opinion. For some people the reduced ability to flank might not be an issue but ~55% of people who filled out the poll said the new cover system did not improve their game experience. I would prefer cover to be determined from the center of the attacker to the entire silhouette of the defender instead of silhouette to silhouette. Overall, the changes to the rules mainly improved the game with a major caveat around the new cover system.

Units

The next section was centered around specific units. The main sentiment of these questions was the desire for more updates to old units and for more units to be available to some factions. The rework to the Bounty Hunters is a great example of breathing life into older units. Boba Fett has been a staple competitive unit since his changes. Legion already has so many iconic characters and many people want them to be competitively viable. With re-sculpts for old units officially being announced I am hopeful for some reworks and updates to these units. People also said they would like some new Objectives, Conditions and Deployments to be released, but this is an opinion I personally disagree with. I find that balancing becomes much more difficult, and I would prefer some reworks of current objectives before new ones are introduced.

Game balance

The next section focuses on competitive balance in Legion. The community feels that the game competitively restricts your options but believe that Legion is much more balanced than other tabletop war-games. I feel the same way. Legion is in a good spot balance wise, not the best in its history but definitely not the worst. Compared to many other competitive tabletop games there is more list variety, and each faction has a competitive option. The recent points update has had a positive effect on game balance bringing some of the overturned archetypes down a notch and buffing many underperforming units. I hope that the iterative points updates continue to help make the game more balanced and give players more freedom in competitive list building.

Factions and Battle Forces

I will go into detail about each faction but I want to give a quick summary in this section before moving on. The community clearly finds each faction thematic but battle forces are more mixed with Blizzard Force being a big miss theme wise. The feedback about each faction balance is also mixed with certain factions being more competative and having more diversity than others.

Empire

The Empire is quickly becoming the Space Marines of Legion. Since this poll the Empire has gained another battle force (Tempest Force) and also have 2/6 of the new units annouced at ministravaganza (Inquisitors and Range Troopers). Empire is clearly in a great spot and has the most content out of all the factions. Empire is in a strong position with each of its battle forces being competatively viable. Basically everything is looking positive for Empire and this poll reflects this. The only real miss for Empire is the Thematic aspect of Blizzard Force. This “Hoth” battle force is mainly played with Storm Trooper Heavy Response Units and Speeder Bikes which are both not featured in the battle of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. That being said this is an extreemely minor gripe for faction overall. Empire has the most support by the game developers and based on this poll is also clearly a community favorite.

Rebels

Rebels are in a worse place than the Empire. In particular this poll highlights the issue with Rebel internal balance and the limited competitive options. Rebels have some units that are hyper competative like Cassian (who had his points dropped by 10 points despite already being one of the best units in the faction), while other units like Jyn Erso are basically competitively unplayable. Balance aside the Echo Base Defenders are much more thematic than Blizzard force featuring all units which are present in The Empire Strikes Back. After this poll the Ewoks were released but they have not made a real splash competatively. My hope is the Rebels get some further points drops and some potential reworks on old underperforming units. This would give the faction more competative options in list building.

Republic

The Republic results of the poll are almost identical to the Rebels but slighly less extreeme for each section. The community believes that the Republic has many of the same issues as the Rebels (Few competative options, and bad internal balance) but is in a better place than the Rebels. This reflects my experience with the factions. I feel Republic has some great competative options but their roster is much smaller than the Galactic Civil War factions which makes the faction more limited than the Empire. My hope is for more releases for the faction as they are falling behind and only have 1 out of the 6 new units annouced at ministravaganza which only further sets them back.

Separatists

The Separatists are doing slightly better in the communities’ eyes than the Rebels or Republic as a faction. I somewhat disagree with the poll on this section. The Separatists have more list options because of their good internal balance but I don’t think many of these are competitively viable. Outside of the Fifth Troopers’ own Austin Miller not many people are finding competitive success with the Separatists currently. The Separatists do have some exciting things on the horizon and they are receiving two expansions with the Geonosian units on the horizon. I am hopeful for the future of the faction as I think it is one of the most unique and flavorful mechanics wise.

Shadow Collective

The Shadow Collective was overtuned on release which was shown in the State of the Legion back in August 2022. Since then, the Battle Force has received some small nerfs which made it much more balanced. The Battle Force has not received any new units but remains a community favorite and still has competitive options in the current state of the game. I think the Shadow Collective is a great example of how point updates can significantly help the health of the game. Also the Battle Force is brilliant flavor wise, bringing many iconic characters from the underworld of Star Wars to Legion.

Conclusions

Overall, I think most of the opinions shown in this poll were not surprising if you are active in the Legion community. It is good to see these opinions quantified though! I am happy to see that so many people have had excellent interactions with the Legion community and find it such a positive atmosphere. I am hopeful that AMG will continue to improve its relationship with the Legion community, increase transparency, and incorporate feedback about the cover rules. I especially hope to see more updates to old units and continued balance/points updates. I think Legion is in a solid spot and again want to thank the creators of this poll for making the results public!