ARCHIVE: Competitive List Building For Dummies

 This is an archived post relevant to Star Wars Legion in its original iteration. We are keeping it on the site for historical purposes but it should not be used for reference to Legion 2.6 (the current iteration of Legion as of Fall 2024).

This week I’m partnering with one of my good friends, Kevin from the Imperial Discipline Blog, to bring you an article on list building.

General Considerations

Success in Star Wars: Legion begins before you ever hit the table.  First, you have to decide what units to bring, and what upgrades to put on them.  On Never Tell me The Odds, we talk a lot about efficiencies.  You have 800 points to spend on plastic that goes on your table.  You have to use that plastic to do stuff, which usually involves killing bad guys, taking objectives, and preventing said bad guys from taking objectives.  Since you only get so much plastic to do that stuff with, you need to make sure what you are taking accomplishes your goals in the most efficient way.

There are a couple general guidelines to keep in mind, which we’ll hit in detail.  First, you want your list to be focused.  Both factions have access to a variety of high impact units.  Generally, you want only one or a few such units.  While these units are often individually tough, fast, and/or hard hitting, they are usually either limited in quantity or are not inherently efficient when “spammed.”

After choosing your focus units, you want to fill out your roster with supporting units.  These are units that capture objectives, dish out suppression, take fire, and kill stuff.  Basically everything else in your list.  Make sure every unit has a purpose.

Activations are a really hot topic in list building.  There isn’t one single number of activations that you “should” have.  Most competitive lists have between 9 and 11; Empire can play slightly down compared to Rebels.  We’ll talk in more detail about the relative strengths and weaknesses of high and low activation counts.

You also want to consider your token mix.  A “healthy” token mix is one where you have good activation control, meaning you know roughly what you are likely to pull from your bag, or you don’t care what you pull from your bag.  Token mix is why most competitive lists have 5 or 6 corps units; you are stacking the contents of your token bag with one type of token.

While building your list you must consider upgrades.  I consider heavy weapons upgrades part of the unit itself as they are so integral to the function of trooper units, so I am mostly referring here to things like gear, training, grenade and command upgrades.  You want to be very lean and intentional about which upgrades you are taking, because every point matters.

There is one overarching requirement as we go through list building.  Every card you take has to have a role and a purpose.  I can’t stress this enough; every point matters.  Make sure you are spending them in ways that are intentional.

We’ll build a sample list as we walk through each step.

Let’s get into the nitty gritty.

Read the rest over on Imperial Discipline!