A Summary of ALL the Recent Legion News!

In the last three weeks we’ve had a lot of news and updates come from slightly unusual places: a trade show and three interviews. Given that two of those interviews of Will Shick and Will Pagani (who I will refer to as “the devs” from here on out) were conducted by none other than our own podcast Notorious Scoundrels, I’ve seen a FEW folks who decided not to watch them and instead simply demanded the TL;DR, as if some people don’t have 5 and a half hours to spend listening to YouTube videos and podcasts to get the part they actually care about.

WELL FINE! DON’T LISTEN TO THE CONTENT (door slam sounds, crying sounds)

Ok I’ve regained my composure, shew. Note that some of the information below also came from a trade presentation AMG did at the annual Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) convention/expo, which was not recorded but there were plenty of leaked screenshots that also generated a lot of buzz. But seriously, I do hope you tune in to the interviews at some point I think they’re all quite good! Some of the topics covered there have more to do with design philosophy, most of which won’t be included below since it’s hard to summarize in short form, but if you’re curious at all you can find them linked below:

• Notorious Scoundrels Interview of AMG Devs Will Shick and Will Pagani Part 1 (before GAMA)
• Notorious Scoundrels Interview of AMG Devs Will Shick and Will Pagani Part 2 (after GAMA)
• Grey Squadron Gaming’s Interview of Will Shick (after GAMA)

When I feel like it’s worthwhile to add my own two cents as subjective opinion I will put it in red for clarity. Other text is #justthefacts, and I’ll reference the source of the info (NS for Notorious Scoundrels and GSG for Grey Squadron Gaming) as well because that’s just good blogging, we even have a few from when the devs randomly emerged from their lurking on The Legion Discord to drop a few tidbits. If you appreciate what we do please do consider contributing to our work on Patreon, we’re actively trying to grow the site and every bit counts.

Also special thanks to Kris Sheriff of Dice Hate for cleaned up and reframed images!

Ok, let’s get to it.

New Starter Sets

• These will be priced competitively/aggressively, no MSRP given yet (GSG) which I read as aiming below a Warhammer 40K starter set that is $112, but thats a guess.
• Single player starters that will include the required components and Battle Cards
• Will be released in Fall but that really means Q3 which would include July, August, and September (GSG) This could mean that it will be a GenCon release with retailers getting it a couple of weeks afterward in mid-August.
• Each box will contain a 600 point list for Recon games (which is the new name for Skirmish, meaning the point value of Skirmish/Recon is going up to 600 points) which will mean new players will be able to play boxes against each other (GSG)
• The art is finalized for the Rebel and Imperial starters but not for the Separatist and Republic starters (GSG) and given that the Rebel art shows Luke, Rebel Troopers, and Wookiees while the Empire art shows Vader, Stormtroopers, and a Scout Trooper I am guessing that those units will be included in some combination. It seems somewhat obvious that the Sep starter will be GG and B1’s while the GAR starter is Obi and Clone Infantry but we don’t know what (assumedly) Special Forces will also be included
• No barricades or other terrain is included, decision was made to reduce price (GSG)

Card Packs

• Universal Card Packs: There will be one that has printed versions of the new battle cards sold separately but these will also come with the starter sets. There will be another universal pack that contains the entire set of generic upgrades for the game (GSG)
  • There will be no new universal upgrades compared to the ones we know. Future universal upgrades will be released en masse as packs in the future (GSG)
  • Similarly, there will not be new Battle Cards this year, those will start showing up next year (GSG)
• Unit Card Packs (Transitional): Sold per faction as well as one for mercenaries, comes with one of each unique and half of the allowed non-unique units rounded up (meaning, 3 of each corps, 2 support, 2 SF, 1 heavy) for the faction that will have been released to that point. It is “transitional” because it’s basically meant for converting players, newer players will get the unit cards they need in the actual boxes they buy, so these packs won’t get reprinted most likely (GSG)
• Command Card Packs (Transitional): Sold per faction as well as one for mercenaries and will contain a copy of all command cards
• The new order tokens with a non-faction oriented backside that we’ve seen in the new releases like Aquas and Crabs are “generic order tokens” that are basically meant to be replacement options for lost or damaged tokens. It’s noted that if you have a mixed of faction-backed and generic tokens then you’ll need to use a bag instead of a stack (GSG)
  • A bunch of these will come with a movement tools and range rulers “Essentials Pack” which hasn’t been shown yet but is basically similar to today’s essentials kit (GSG)
• These card packs will all be priced as aggressively as possible since AMG “is a minis company not a card company”
• None of the above packs will truly be required for veteran players, all cards are print-and-play legal (NS, GSG)
  • You will need to have at least one unit card (purchased or printed) for each unit in your army as well as a card for each upgrade that can be expended, exhausted, or flipped (GSG)
• As per usual lately, each card pack will contain cards in English, French, Spanish, and German (NS)

Re-Releases

• All new boxes for units that can run “super squads” will contain enough miniatures to run that super squad out of the box. This is being done to make it clear to players that they will only ever have to worry about one box to be able to kit out any unit (NS). The corps upgrade boxes are presumably an exception to this, the exact strategy there hasn’t been made clear yet.
  • The devs noted this means the box is more expensive though the cost per mini is less than before because it is more efficient (NS)
  • Players are encouraged to use modeling to take advantage of this if they only want to run basic units. For example, if you take heavies out of the equation you’d have enough models to run two basic units from one Geonosian warriors pack, you don’t always have to use the designated leader mini…as long as your leaders are clearly marked in some way it is totally ok to do this per AMG (NS)
• All the B1 heads will now be in one piece, an example of how SOME previous hard plastic sculpts are being slightly re-worked but they will basically look the same as prior hard plastic (GSG)
• The corps that come in the new starters will also be sold separately. Rebel Troopers and Stormtroopers will actually release prior to those starters, Clone Infantry and B1’s will release after their respective starters (GSG)

Completing the conversion to Legion 2.6

• This was said before, but to make it clear the finality of card updates to 2.6 will be done by mid-April rather than Adepticon which will be more about showing a road map and future release (GSG)
• A very small number of miniatures may not make the leap to being legal in the new edition “right away” to the updated version of the game by the time the April updates drop (NS). I’m going to use an exact quote here:
  • “One of the big things right is that we are re-releasing everything that was soft plastic and hard plastic we’re also repackaging everything from the previous line as we’ve seen with the Geonosians right into kind of the new Legion style with bigger squads or just the multilingual packaging all that stuff so everything there goes through the process again right it all goes through the review stuff and obviously Star Wars is a is a much like the miniatures games themselves is a living breathing thing it does have changes that happen to it or evolutions of its story or kind of where things are going and that kind of stuff so there are some things that have shifted from when those things came out but I do want to be clear like people aren’t going to see 50% of their previous Legion armies disappearing and in every instance where those things might disappear like the dc15 for instance for the Clones yeah we’ve made sure to say that uh you know the the miniature can be used in another context.”
  • This was summarized as “a heavy here or a heavy there and one or two units”
• The heavy weapons for the “primary” corps units have been adjusted for the sake of gameplay variety, we don’t have the whole picture but as an example Stormtroopers will come with the T-21 and HH-12 while the RT-97 and DLT will come in an upgrade pack that is not formally announced yet (NS)
• As confirmed previously Jyn, Kallus, and Lando are getting big reworks. However, most of the “re-worked unit cards were in the first set released alongside Legion 2.6. The “vast majority” of units that still have their old cards are not going to be changed aside from art and format. Of course, this doesn’t exclude points updates to improve balance (NS). If I counted right (I’m probably off by a couple) there are 79 unit cards that are still officially in the old format. I would guess that maybe 8 of those are actually going to get changed, total guess for the record.
• Some command cards are being updated for a mix of reasons including non-functionality (Jyn’s 1 and 3 Pip for example) or for clarity, and sometimes to alter their power level. This may be true even for characters whose unit cards will stay the same when April hits (NS)
  • The devs wanted players to feel less like there is an appropriate scripted timing for their command cards and didn’t want all command cards to be “must haves” since your hand has 6 cards for 5 rounds anyway meaning you usually won’t use them all (NS)
• All refreshed rules will release in April (Will Shick on The Legion Discord). The one that we know of is that the way commanders and operatives are handled will change, the “conventional wisdom” is that all armies will be able to run 4 commanders/operatives in any mix as long as you have one commander (or a field commander)

Balance Changes

• Devs are constantly hungry for data and believe that keeping the game balanced is a “team effort” in that they use the player experience as a guide to decisions, but they are also careful to not hurt some players by helping others (by turning a bad card into an oppressive one or vice versa) (NS, GSG)
• Riot Control Troopers will not be updated yet this April, AMG recognizes that they are weak right now but have not yet determined what the best way to improve them is (NS, GSG). I think this boils down to the fact that the repercussions of overcorrecting on a corps unit that can be taken up to 6 times is higher than those affecting units that can’t be used as frequently
• Flaw cards will be removed from the game by the April update, the new versions of Lando and Kallus will not feature them (GSG)
• The devs consider it ideal when players work together to fight meta monsters but the devs will step in to change points or (much less likely) unit cards to help with balance. They stress that when you try to change things too fast/without enough care you can make things worse, and also state that unit cards should almost always be static from the time they release because this is better for the player experience.
• The devs acknowledged that Advanced Intel is very strong and did not confirm any changes but did say they’d usually be more inclined to make other advantages better via new releases or changes than to make Advanced Intel worse (NS)
• The devs don’t like the way Cumbersome works right now given the limitations it puts on the game, and at least one meeting was held to discuss it internally between the first and second interview the Scoundrels did after we brought it up (NS)
• Secret Mission was tough to transition to 2.6 because it was so potentially powerful in the legacy game, there was no confirmation that it will be changed but Will Shick said that the nice thing about keywords is that they can mean whatever the devs want without changing the unit card. It was also acknowledged that the need to play Padme’s 3-Pip on Round 1 makes it awkward for her
• A conversation on Notorious Scoundrels was reportedly the inspiration for scheduling balance changes twice a year (NS, sorry had to get that in there)

Organized/Competitive Play

• Retail Support Kits are free for retailers and include miniatures, art posters, and promo/full art cards and will be released alongside certain products in the future for display and promotional purposes. This is meant to elevate local game stores and can be used however the store feels best such as bonuses for demoing or pre-order bonuses.
  • The Starter retail support kit will have holographic/foil versions of faction-specific command cards
• Store League/Tournament Kits can be used for either of those of course. They assume a four round event and have card promos for each round as well as special cards for Top 4 and an acrylic unit card for the winner. There will be three of these a year!!! (NS). These will have an up-front cost to retailers.
  • Kits will have guidance for specific formats for leagues specifically that are suggestions for stores/groups (NS)
• In addition to the above, there will be more “Event” kits such as Paploo’s Wild Ride in the future.
• The devs believe that asymmetric tables should be encouraged more since this would somewhat blunt the advantage given to whoever is initially Red Player (NS). This is one that could be its own article/podcast topic and will likely slowly evolve via the TO community in conjunction with AMG OP.
• Battle card packs will be released in the future and there will be a regular rotation of what cards are legal for organized play somewhat similarly to Marvel Crisis Protocol (NS)
  • Rotation will ONLY involve battle cards, NOT miniatures/units which will always be legal (aside from the very few that do not make the transition as referenced above)
• The core rules will change to make it clear that print and play is fully OK for tournament play
• The devs are aware of the fact that high activation lists can sometimes unintentionally run out the clock causing games to end at time-called/dice down with a result that may have been different if a game ran to completion (Round 5 or 12 VP scored) and did not say anything final but confirmed it is something they are watching closely and considering options (NS)

Other Tidbits

• There was one unit that was initially designed with a “super squad” option long ago that was produced but had to sit on the shelf because AMG wanted to fully develop the concept first. The devs noted that it’s a unit that shouldn’t be intimidating but that the large dice pools represented too much of an advantage with the legacy cover system so it was temporarily shelved. This unit will be revealed at Adepticon (NS). Mike, myself, and of course others have theorized on this a lot and the two hottest contenders to me are Mud Troopers and Gungan Warriors (ala the Mon Cala episodes of Clone Wars) but we shall see.
• There will be some things revealed early via AMG articles in the run-up to Adepticon (Will Shick on The Legion Discord)
• If you see a pic out there of the new Luke with a droopy lightsaber, AMG wants to remind you that the displays at GAMA were made from a mix of hard plastic and resin casts, so don’t fret that droopy lightsabers will return again! (Will Shick on The Legion Discord)
• There is a pic from GAMA of the Imperial High Command pack without Thrawn but this was an error, he will definitely be in here (Will Shick on The Legion Discord)
• AMG art is rigorously checked for the use of AI before publishing (Will Shick on The Legion Discord) I love this
• The mini below seemed to be grouped together with Rebel Commandos (possibly troopers?) in a pic of minis from GAMA, he seems to be a Zabrak with a big ol gun. There have not been AMG confirmations of what his deal is, presumably a new heavy for that unit that is not a sniper or it may be the new “Rebel Z6” since the Rebel Z6 still kinda sucks anyway plus this could differentiate Rebel guns from clone guns more

Shew…

That’s a lot for just a couple weeks but I hope this helps folks and gets them excited! Tell us in the comments or on socials what you’re most excited about!