Warsaw GT Top 8 and a Short Reflection of the State of the Legion 2.6 Meta

Warsaw is a lovely city in a lovely country. I was lucky enough to travel there toward the end of college and the architecture/history combo is right up there with Prague and Paris. If you’re planning a Euro Trip and are going to remotely plan on being in the Central or Eastern part you should consider making Warsaw (and Krakow) a leg of the trip.

They also play a lot of Legion there! Many of you who have been paying close attention to tournament results over the last few years probably already know that they have a robust and consistent community of players who are also more than competitive at the world level (including a Top 4 finish at the most recent Worlds from the mysteriously mononym-ed “Oskar”). A couple of weeks ago, Warsaw hosted its first GT for the new version of the game and the players definitely answered the call, to the tune of 75 players! The tournament was run as a 7-round Swiss, which they seem fond of across the pond since it allows more people to get more games in (I assume). Let’s see what they ran!

Faction Breakdown

It’s not shocking that GAR is the most played faction since well…you know. It’s insanely good at the moment. The other factions were pretty close to being even in terms of popularity. Even despite how tilted these numbers are to begin with, most of you won’t be surprised to find out that GAR outperformed even its own relative proportions here: they were “only” 39% of the field but 60% of both the top 10 and the top 20 finishers.

We’ll get to the Top 8 in a second but I do want to invite you to scroll down the Longshanks page to look for the top lists in a couple of factions. The top Shadow Collective list (Jozek Kula) certainly didn’t do “badly” but at 4-3, it only ended up at #26 overall.

This is close to what was mere months ago the world championship-winning list…and I still think it’s the best “type” of Shadow Collective list out there. Even so, there are various reasons (which we may get into in a future article or podcast) why it has weakened with Legion 2.6 and Shadow Collective has generally done poorly in the new edition in comparison to the standard factions.

A few slots below we’ll find the top list for the faction that won worlds last year, played by Michel Kalinski who was also 4-3 for the tournament.

You may notice how similar this is to the Empire list that won the biggest Grand Tournament to date (Milton Keynes Grand Tournament, the “Vader Immortal” list piloted by Dave Grant). That list has also performed quite well in the US, taking the Empire spot at NOVA. There is a key difference between this list and those, however…this one uses speeder bikes in the support slot while the others used flamer dewbacks. While I understand the idea of wanting a list that could be “zippy” while also using full scout troopers for close-range threat…Dewbacks can actually perform both those functions, plus it allows you to field more medics which can also heal the Dewbacks. Further, even though he’s a few points more I think it’s pretty much always worth using Krennic instead of the generic officer for his 3-Pip alone, though the extra health and better attack doesn’t hurt either for a measly 10 points.

The above two lists were the only ones within their factions with winning records. We’ll have a bit more on that later, for now let’s take a look at the Top 8!

8 – Przemek Rozalski (GAR Obi and Bad Batch)

This will be a bit of a running theme but Republic just so happens to have the most efficient Operative (Bad Batch), the most efficient Special Forces (ARCs), and the most efficient support unit (Clone Commandos) in the game which means that there’s a variety of units one can slot in without choosing to really dive into the ruthless, full mega efficiency route of Anakin Quad Strike (AQS for short for this article) which we’ll get to in the number one slot (spoilers! oops!).

The Achilles heel of Bad Batch is that their efficiency drops off a lot after 3 wounds and a TON after 5. Obi-Wan’s Guardian, Barrier, and two medics mitigate that quite a bit, however.

7 – Aleksander Wertynski (CIS ExD)

The ExD snail was one of the biggest benefactors from the Legion 2.6 rules change since its second Ordnance slot, allowing it to make impressive and heavily modified 11 dice attacks at range 3. If it wasn’t for GAR’s nonsense I think this would easily be the best shooting list in the game, and the new version of the B2 battle droid is perfect for contesting POI on offense. Vipers are a nice addition to a B2 squad since it’s fighting at range 2 anyway and 6 points is a cheap price to pay for two more dice.

6 – Krzysztof “derrkater” Trojanowski (GAR Anakin Bad Batch)

Well, you can take everything I wrote about the previous GAR list and toss in the most efficient Commander in the game in the form of the new version of Anakin Skywalker and…surprise! It’s good!

5 – Michal Lawniczak (CIS ExD)

I promise you aren’t in a time loop, this IS the last CIS list you’ll see and what do you know it’s more ExD. This one went with the vibro-sword approach instead of shields and took even more PK droids instead of vipers but it’s otherwise pretty similar to most ExD lists out there. Let’s take a small moment to appreciate the irony of the fact that there was an entire Special Issue unit created for this battle force (the Magna Corps) and it never sees the light of day even in a melee-friendly environment because the other stuff is still just better. If it had a personnel slot I think the story would shift a bit, but c’est la vie.

4 – Dominik Hawryluk (Wookiee Defenders)

Here’s something new!

Very few people talk about it but in my mind it’s a rock-solid fact that Wookiee Defenders are right behind Experimental Droids and farther behind 501st as the third-best battle force in the game. Legion 2.6 is a close-range adventure and 5 rounds just isn’t a ton of time when you have (deep breath) 117 wounds to chew through. It’s worth remembering that the high actual health of Wookiees decreases the effectiveness of small-pool piercing weapons and despite their unimpressive boost from effective health (which accounts for their crappy white dice non-surging saves) they are still just a couple shades away from mandalorians in that regard.

While my own personal preference for Wookiee lists includes three fluttercraft you can’t argue with results. It takes at least a little bit of confidence to field FOUR “shooter” Wookiees but they do respectable damage on average (about two wounds to Stormtroopers in heavy cover) and nowadays even if that single red dice is the pool is the only one that hits you’re going to get a wound out of that almost every time. This list also benefits from constantly getting free moves when models go out as well as being very hard to keep suppressed and having a perfect order pool every turn (since it uses one commander token and NINE special forces).

Casual Wookiee enjoyers may be scratching their heads: why Chewbacca over the Chieftain? Well, Chewie is harder to kill, has a melee profile that’s just about as good, and is also cheaper. Chewie is, in my (and Dominik’s apparently) opinion the go-to Wookiee Commander. It’s honestly incredible that a list can do well despite having no more than one command card that carries any meaning (the Wookiee 1-Pip), which in my opinion is more proof of the stealthy strength of this battle force.

3 – Artur Szyndler “Mad Bull” (Rebel Smorgasbord)

This exemplifies what I think is something close to the ideal Rebel list. First, start with Leia, Bistan, and Bad Batch. Then add whatever you want to throw in there as far as unique units go, add your required three naked rebel troopers and/or fleets, and then finish it off with your favorite flavor. In this case, that flavor was Clan Wren (without Sabine!) and a medic bus that likely carried Clan Wren into the fray. It’s also fun to see Mando with Grogu in Rebel lists since the downside to Grogu was heavily pared down (only bounty hunters can claim it) which thereby allows using “The Hand Thing” as a way to truly get use out of that sixth command card that usually goes to waste in most lists.

Runner Up – Michal Mroczny Wisniewski (GAR Anakin Bad Batch)

Ok, we’re down to the top 2 which means it’s time for the non-Anakin lists to take their respective seats. This one is pretty similar to the other Anakin Bad Batch list but this invests more heavily in Arcs and Commandos by keeping the corps naked. They can still contest, make pot-shots, and share tokens after all so it’s much less of a head-scratching decision than it used to be when big dice pools or critical X was the only way to get damage through cover.

Lukasz ‘Obi1Tobi’ Majewski (Anakin Quad Strike/AQS)

And here it is, THE list.

AQS has now won 4 Grand Championships, starting when our own Austin Miller dominated with it in America’s Crucible GT. He came up with the list in combination with Luke Cook, who also took it to a GT win in Canada, and I myself had an experience that many others probably shared when they looked at it. That was to say “Oh…oh yeah, I guess this is just plain the best list in the game.” And this is probably actually the first time since RexStar that I’m so willing to state that as an absolute fact.

A lot of GAR lists take advantage of the usual good stuff you get from playing the faction but this is the list that truly squeezes out every drop, and it’s because of those strike teams. Coming out of deployment those units will have TWO aims of their own as well as one to borrow from the full ARC squads who will have taken earlier activations to get positioning for the next round, but who also got multiple aims from deployment and movement. Furthermore, as long as those two aims are enough to get two hits out of their red-black pool they can borrow the third aim to give it Pierce. If they only need one aim to get a hit/crit and a surge, they can spend their second aim to get Pierce and then borrow a surge token instead. Any way you slice it, it’s very likely going to be 2 hits with Pierce 1 into light cover, which usually means that non-armored units are GONNA take two wounds unless they have dodges or Low Profile. Every once in a while an opponent will hit cover or roll double save so you shouldn’t expect 8 wounds for the first volley of four snipers…but it’s not far off, closer to 6 for Stormtroopers in “heavy” cover.

Imagine you’re running an Empire list like Vader Immortal and you deploy in the usual way, ready to hit hard on turn 2 with both Vader himself and a wave of critical 2 white dice pools. But then, as soon as you deploy a unit your opponent wants to bully, they can just get started piling on wounds. So, take those 6 wounds and add in the four or so you can expect the Commandos to pile on and you get…the equivalent of two squads, just wiped out with almost no way out. Or perhaps those wounds are put onto Dewbacks? You COULD use half of the medic charges in your army to POSSIBLY keep the target alive, but that’s a lot to ask for.

None of this is meant to disparage Lukasz at all, if Worlds were to happen today he and about a hundred other people (including me) would be taking it because it’s just the logical thing to do if winning is your main priority. He had to beat some very good players to get here, so remember that it’s OK to say two things at once as separate ideas.

1. Congratulations to the winner!
2. This list is a dang problem

What to do?

I’m working on a larger post about the state of the meta for closer to the end of the year but let me at least give you one story-telling graph, one of the total number of Top 8 appearances per faction in Grand Tournaments since Legion 2.6 dropped:

This is a pretty wild flip from Worlds where GAR didn’t even make the top 8, which was DOMINATED by CIS (which contrary to popular opinion isn’t actually really doing better than the other 2 non-GAR core factions) and WON by Shadow Collective, which has yet to make a Top 8 at a Grand Tournament in this edition of the game.

I do realize there are other factors at play…GAR is the “group think” faction of the moment, Shadow Collective is the least popular by a fair margin, etc…but these numbers are convincing enough to me that they’re whacked out that it doesn’t matter what way you slice it. When I come out with beefier data in a month or so I think I’ll have a more solid argument, but sometimes you just need to call a spade a spade.

I do think there’s hope though. You’re going to see plenty of opinions out there that GAR’s unit cards need to be taken down to earth but AMG is unlikely to do that when these cards have possibly already been sent to the printing press for August (I have no info on that but they typically work with long lead times) and historically nerfs to unit cards have always been in the form of points or core rulebook changes. Unit cards are the most “sacred” cardboard in this game and the company has (rightfully in my opinion) only changed them to make them better and MORE fun and not to turn their heat down. So, I think the first part is that points adjustments should be all GAR needs to get the anchoring it needs.

Has anyone seen this man lately? I haven’t, you probably haven’t either…and that’s WILD

The more interesting question to me is when AMG releases the rest of the updated cards. In a recent interview with Grey Squadron Gaming, AMG’s VP of Product Development Will Shick confirmed that many more unit updates are on the way (particularly noting he was excited about changes to Lando and Kallus), which pretty much aligns with what we expected back when all this was first announced in July. Given that there IS going to be a lot of lead time before printing, I hope that AMG will consider releasing those cards as print-and-play once their text has been confirmed. As things stand now, there are too many units that were designed for a very-different version of the game (such as Lando, Moff Gideon, and the Geonosians to name a few) that are basically all collecting dust right now and that is absolutely hurting enthusiasm for the game. I think that the 2.6 updates have by-and-large been pretty solid personally but it would be a shame if the game begins to shrink during this intermission period between Legacy Legion and the start of actual new products designed for these rules.

I am not acting like I have the answers here, ultimately I’m sure AMG has a plan to see this through in a way that is best for the game, but I hope that the status quo changes soon.

Otherwise, you can bet we’re gonna keep doing what we can to update our content for Legion 2.6 over here, hopefully you enjoyed reading about these lists!