Brian from Indiana: A Wolf in Baer’s Clothing

In the Star Wars: Legion (Publisher: Asmodee) community, there are names and then there are names. Few would cock their head questioningly if someone were to speak about players such as Luke Cook, Olly Dier, or of course The Fifth Trooper’s former editor Kyle Dornbos, but in the insular social sphere of this quaint, modest game based on a moderately popular Science Fiction property, there exists a special tier of personalities who are particularly revered. While the aforementioned players have often found success with somewhat unconventional “lists” as they are so-called in this tabletop miniature wargame, they can just as easily be found at the top of a local tournament sporting an army that any “meta-chasing” hardcore fan of the game could have come up with. Not Brian Baer though. Brian would beat you just as soundly as those others, but he would do it with “style.”

A father of four from the very heartland of America, Brian’s legend grew more quickly than his win percentage over the years during Legion’s slow but steady return to form following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022 he nearly made the final cut at Adepticon with an extraordinarily unique list featuring several “units” (a stationary turret and an armored convertible) that were theretofore considered to be of poor quality. Ill-contented to merely be seen as “Triple FD Double X-34 Guy,” Brian followed this performance with ascendancy to the Top 8 of Gen Con the following year with a list that featured skeleton-like robots firing a “radiation cannon” instead of the more typical rifles and carbines others usually chose. His legacy was truly made, however, in 2024. He began that year with a pair of shocking performances (at the World Team Championships followed closely by the World Championships themselves) with a “double-bus Luke” list which utilized a “transport” mechanic with oblong rectangular floating trucks to ferry both a powerful melee unit as well as a “Secret Mission” unit into and across enemy lines in such a way that he could achieve victory, not through brute force, but through clever manipulation of the game board.

A noted author, podcast host, and top Wookiee Defenders/Fluttercraft player at the 2025 World Championships, who also happens to be an Assistant Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Washington but who wished to remain anonymous for his safety had this to say: “people essentially worshipped him, his success with armies no one else could have predicted or certainly played themselves left the community awed, and it was all magnified by his aura of home grown Americana.” In Brian’s own words on the premiere podcast for Legion (Notorious Scoundrels): “As I was growing up I wrestled all my life and did MMA for six years after high school and loved it, I love competitions [they are] my jam and one of my friends invited me over and showed me Legion and when I got the mechanics down I was like ‘this game’s awesome!'” He went on to explain that, aside from a brief flirtation with the tabletop game called Heroscape that he essentially went directly from playing chess to playing Legion, a revelation that caused that podcast’s hosts to beam at him with adulation. Little did they know that Brian was playing his own version of chess in that very moment, the same game he had played his entire life. One where he sees every person around him as nothing more than an enemy pawn that must be crushed.

“So you adventured for how long with this drug-runner before you visited your son?”

“There is something you should know about Brian Baer” began a short but clearly anxiety-laden e-mail sent from an anonymized account, “our community praises him not out of admiration, but out of fear.” It went on to suggest that I should not reply directly so as not to leave a paper trail, but rather that I should find him on his usual game night if I wished to pursue this. I visited a local game store in Indianapolis to investigate this tip, but in doing so, I was struck by the furtive glances exchanged between its patrons. I asked one of them if Brian Baer played there. He grinned at me and declared “Brian is a sweetheart, he even lays down a rubber mat under you at the beginning of a game to make it easier on your feet and back. And of course he plays crazy stuff and still wins. He’s the best!” When I asked if Brian was ever known to have a temper or even a hint of unsportsmanly conduct, this player shook his head with a nearly-genuine look of bewilderment. “Ha, I have no idea what you mean! We love him here!” As I reached out to shake this fellow’s hand on my way to reporting to my editor that this leak must have been nothing more than a prank or a rumor, I felt the slight scratching sensation of a scrap of paper placed in my palm. On it, there was written an address and a time, along with a single word.

“International House of Pancakes
Bloomington
2 o’ clock AM
PLEASE”

As I looked back at the young man, I noticed him wiping his eyes while he forced a weak and insincere smile. “Are you enjoying Indiana so far, sir? Stay here long enough and your eyes will just get watery all the time from hay fever like this, it’s terrible! But it’s more than made up for by the quality of the people here, yes sir” I politely replied and apologized for taking his time, before biding my own until the intended hour of our meeting.

As I walked toward the worn-down and dimly-lit restaurant on a slightly rainy night, hungry both for information and a delicious tuna melt, I was halted by my anonymous source as I moved to open the door. He gently but swiftly walked behind me and stopped my hand as I reached to open it. “Not here,” he said softly, “we can talk in my car.” From the apparent safety of his 2003 Ford Taurus (a hand-me-down from his uncle, the young man admitted with chagrin), I reassured him with my credentials and my promise to maintain journalistic standards no less than four times before his respiratory rate finally began to slow.

Finally, the truth began to reveal itself. “I sent the tip, I just didn’t expect you to come so fast, or else I would have done better setting up the meeting,” he explained. He went on to tell me in detail how Brian’s desire to win with oddball lists was something more than meets the eye. Far beyond the relatively simple concept of gaming success via hipsterism, my source suggested that Brian’s motivations were much more menacing than this. His nervousness was apparent; though the car itself (which he left off) was a comfortable but slightly chilly 60 degrees or so, his visage was crowded with beads of sweat. He began rambling, so I attempted one last time to ease his mind before nearly abandoning this chase altogether. I asked him point blank: what does Brian want? After an entire two minutes passed, he took a deep breath and spoke. “Power,” he began, “and to make others suffer.”

“At least they thought you were cute at the time, Wicket”

Over the course of the next hour my source relayed story after story that chipped at, and sometimes downright smashed, the veneer of Mr. Baer’s image of home-grown humility. I was regaled with tales about Brian’s boasting about his achievements after his performance at Adepticon 2022. While dining at a humble Pizza Hut after a local tournament that he had won shortly afterward, my source remembered his incessant bragging. “These idiots think I’m playing this stuff for some kind of noble cause” he recalled Brian saying with a mouth full of pie, “f****** morons, I’m in it to win it, and if I have to use weird s*** to get them to kneel at my feet then whatever.” But that night, one where Brian walked out early with a slice of pizza in one hand and a lit cigarette in another without having paid for his portion (a common offense per my source, which was corroborated by others familiar with Mr. Baer) was only the beginning.

After Gen Con the problems magnified. Local players were starting to grumble about his antics, including various repetitive puns where Brian would refer to his Legion persona as a sort of animalistic avatar of dominance, “The Baer.” Through my anonymous source as well as eleven others who wished to remain on background, phrases such as “there’s meat lying around and The Baer is hungry” as well as “don’t mess with The Baer when he’s on the hunt” were common refrains at game nights. I would later receive an encrypted voice memo from a second anonymous source at the urging of my initial one, both hopeful that they may be rescued from Brian’s tyranny if he were exposed. In this memo, he spoke of one particularly egregious encounter.

It was January 13th, 2024 and the very first tournament of the new year was being held after the usual lull during the holiday season. Brian brought his double AA-5 list that he intended to bring to Europe and later Adepticon. While Brian was crowing something along the lines of the difference in strength between a Kodiak and a Eurasian Brown Bear, the pairings for Round 1 were announced. Brian’s first opponent was a new face at the game store: an 11-year-old boy who just three weeks before had gotten an original starter set for Christmas as well as a few accompanying expansions. “At first he played it cool: smiling, laughing with the kid, complimenting his brushwork while giving a few tips about thinning the paint next time. He really made sure the boy was at ease.” Brian reportedly continued to give his wide-eyed but excited young opponent pointers as they deployed their units, ending with Brian’s two speeder trucks. Brian took a couple of wounds to his AA-5 from DLT shots early on, which he quickly repaired, as both players moved their other ground units into position around the objective. “Don’t worry my man, I’ll run out of repair charges soon” Brian reassuringly explained to the green player “and when Vader gets in there I’ll be in trouble for sure.” On the game’s second round, however, Brian’s facade began to crumble to reveal the menacing darkness behind it.

The man behind the voice memo paused a moment, then took an audible breath before continuing. By their report, Brian quickly performed what is called an “aim and standby,” which is essentially an intentionally-laid trap for an opposing player to dare to walk into. Naturally, per this source, which I later corroborated with my first one, the child walked directly into that trap with Commander Vader in the open as Brian gleefully and quickly grabbed the six black dice needed to use the AA-5’s main weapon, all while Vader’s controller had not yet even taken his finger off the template players use to move their miniatures in this game. The burgeoning player had neglected to take a dodge action first: in his excitement and unfamiliarity with the rules he assumed that Vader’s “Deflect” keyword (which makes him harder to defeat, but only when certain conditions are met at that time in the game’s history) would automatically protect him from most blaster fire; after all why would a bus be a threat to the Dark Lord of the Sith? He rolled two blocks total against Brian’s full boat of attack dice from the two trucks, and he tearfully reached over to pick up his model. The child was surprised, however, when the table began to shake violently at the same moment his little hand grasped his miniature.

“He started dancing on the table, I swear that it’s true. Brian had been playing the nice guy to put the little dude at ease, and once the game was decided from one standby trap, he just let go. He laughed at the kid, called him a newb, and taunted that he should come back ‘when he’s grown big enough to stand up against The Baer.’ I’d never seen anything like it and I hope I never do again, I didn’t start playing this game to have that kind of toxicity in my life. When I want to play now I just go to a friend’s basement, one that Brian doesn’t know. It’s sort of funny, the word even got out about it over time, and we have about 6 people who meet there every Wednesday. It sucks that we have to keep it a secret but we’re starting to have fun again like we did before Brian got Legion-famous.” He later emailed me a picture, the basement’s owner seemed to have a sense of humor as he had 3D-printed a sign that looked very similar to the classic multi-colored peacock of NBC Broadcasting.

Below the logo, in brightly visible letters, reads “No Brians Club.”

“Admiral what do you make of the White House’s choice to hold the summit at Long John Silver’s?”

In an effort to validate Brian’s proclivity toward boorish behavior, I turned to more internationally known entities in the community. Given that Baer very recently participated in the 2025 World Championships, held for the first time this year in Milwaukee, WI. The anonymous but talented Fluttercraft player whom I mentioned before recounted what playing Brian (which occurred in the second game of Heat 2) was like. “We were on an extremely open table, and Brian’s list not only out-activated me but he had multiple Range 4 weapons with decent order control, including two X-34’s that could double-tap ion and rocket shots.” The handsome anonymous source continued: “By the time he destroyed my second Fluttercraft I took a deep breath and looked up at him, ready to joke around about surrendering or saying uncle or something, but there was this look he had when our eyes met, I felt like a paralyzed wildebeest being grinned at by a hyena. ‘What’s the matter doctor mister Fifth DOOPER? Did I break your little toys?’ It even got to the point that he started activating two units in a row because I didn’t ‘need to bother activating my s*** Wookiees, I’m just gonna kill ’em anyway.” I did my best to protest, but at a certain point I just asked for us to math it out at the end of Round 4 so I could get on with my day.”

I approached one Nicolas Bucaille, a talented player who traveled to Adepticon with the rest of his Quebec group because his list name caught my eye for obvious reasons:

To the common observer this would be nothing more than a friendly joke referring to Brian’s public image as a skilled but affable player who would kindly laugh at the “suggestion” that anyone should fear being his opponent. Nicolas was brave enough, however, to demonstrate why such assumptions can be dangerous with a statement he consented to be on-the-record:

“Quand j’ai donné ce nom à mon armée, tout le monde a cru que c’était une blague, mais en réalité, ce n’en était pas une. La vraie raison pour laquelle je ne voulais pas l’affronter était que je ne voulais tout simplement pas avoir à supporter son esbroufe et ses fanfaronnades.” {When I gave my army that name, everyone thought it was a joke, but in reality, it wasn’t. The real reason I didn’t want to face him was simply that I didn’t want to have to put up with his bluster and bragging.} – Nicolas Bucaille

Nicolas did get his wish: they did not meet face-to-face in the entire tournament. Ironically, however, since Nicolas and Brian finished 3rd and 4th overall, respectively, Nicolas’ list will “face” Brian’s until the end of recorded history. “I did well” Nicolas said wistfully to me in English “but the fact that we are neighbors on the scoreboard will continue to trouble me. Ah well, la roue tourne”

Even Brian’s podcasting partner at Winter Moon Wargaming David “Endless” Zelenka (Legion’s premiere streaming content presenter) felt compelled to share his thoughts with me for the sake of the mental health of the greater Legion community. “His sportsmanship when we had him on stream was horrendous,” Zelenka said, “after the fifth time he beat his chest shouting ‘THE BAER’S GOTTA EAT’ following a good roll on his part, I nearly shut down the stream out of embarrassment.”

“They said I wasn’t getting a medal because I was ‘just a Y-Wing pilot’ but I think we both know what’s really going on right?”

Perhaps these accounts provide a harsh lesson for the consequences of elevating community members who lack the self-control necessary to carry the burden of what one might call being “Legion-famous.” The truth is, I know Brian personally, and I wrote this under a clever pseudonym to hide my true identity, one that I can only hope to maintain if I don’t want to suffer Mr. Baer’s ruthless and vitriolic harassment. At the end of that initial fateful night at the Bloomington IHOP, I donned my surgical mask and sunglasses in an effort to obscure my face so as not to be seen next to my source. As I closed the door of my own car, which I had parked a block away as a part of the same effort, I caught something in the corner of my eye. It was a man with a well-styled grey beard, standing in the cold rain without a coat or a care in the world, the reflection of a lit cigar bouncing off unblinking eyes. In a mild panic, I turned the key on the ignition and sped away. As his figure grew smaller, then eventually disappeared I finally summoned the strength to pull over and catch my breath. In my paranoia, I looked through my rear-view window one more time, and noticed not a man but a small bumper sticker that was newly placed there. I exited my vehicle to examine it: from the looks of it, it was one that came from a national park or something similar. It had a simple, three word warning on it.

“Beware of Bears”

Cartoons by Benjamin Schwartz and Saul Steinberg from New Yorker Magazine, captions written by author of this piece.