French Nationals Recap

Bonjour mes amis comment ça va? Whelp, my grade school french is basically exhausted.

The French National Championships for Star Wars: Legion were held in France the weekend of October 22nd.

They had a total of 122 players, (git gud everyone else) which is far more worthy of coverage than the measly 45 and 37 person tournaments that @evan-paul covered last week. (Don’t worry, I like you all, just notice which tournaments got the satirist 😉

The faction breakdown provided to us is 42 Empire, 22 Rebels, 28 GAR, 24 CIS and 6 SC. The provider of data believes that there was fewer empire than this and more Shadow Collective. However, with TTO going offline we cannot confirm exact numbers.

Putting aside the precision of the data we see a similar pattern as compared to other recent tournaments. Empire on top followed up by the others. We did see more GAR than other tourneys though, beating out both Rebels and Separatists in terms of total lists.

French Nationals Top 8

Among the players that made the top 8 (congrats to them) we had 1 rebel, 2 CIS, 1 GAR, 2 SC and 2 Empire (one of those was a Blizzard Force)

This is a good spread of the overall field. Shadow Collective seems to have overperformed starting numbers and Empire under performed.

Neffyl

Neffyl brought a list with 4 characters in it. Cassian, Leia, Chewie and K2. A pretty solid herohammer backed up by four activations of solid corp gunline and two units of snipers.

One thing that could be added to this gunline is a second vigilance to allow you to keep a dodge on all your corp. To do this you’d have to not bring Cassian which is one of his major downsides. Speaking of Cassian, the loadout on him is fairly standard, Ascension Cables is a great addition to him to allow better mobility and often he can get two uses out of it with Volunteer Mission. Also, if you bring Ascension Cables you can have in loadout Recon Intel, which can get you where u need to be in a pinch. Sometimes you need to Infiltrate somewhere but your opponent blocks it off with a unit. Often Scout 1 can overcome this zoning.

The only other trifle with this list is that it brings hostage exchange as an objective. While Leia has No Time for Sorrows which can give your hostage a free move, not having a force user should probably push you away from including Hostage Exchange.

Anetrotro

The one and only Blizzard force (shock) in the top 8 belongs to Anetrotro. This list is fairly standard, 10 activations, Vader, a generic officer, 4 bikes and Pew Pew Stormtroopers. This list does have two astromechs in it which will help keep the bikes alive. We have also seen versions of this list that instead of astromechs, for the same points, you take a medical droid to keep your Storms or Vader alive.

Kintara

Praise be range four. This list really leans into range four as a lifestyle, bringing eight total weapons that can shoot at range four with six of those weapons including the Critical keyword. One choice that is a bit curious is the inclusion of Offensive Push instead of Tenacity on the Magnaguards. The likely says that Kintara wants to keep all his units at range and shooting. Magnas do really benefit from tenacity if/when they need to act as linebackers.

This list also has no units that are really easy to eliminate which is a great aspect of it. The activation that is weakest is the Pyke Capo which should be really well hidden. The inclusion of Aggressive Tactics on Kalani also really increases the survivability of the Magnas and even the B1s.

Weedartwork

The first SC list we see was ran by Weedartwork. A seemingly ‘normal’ SC list but with a bit of a twist, two copies of Lead by Example. This upgrade gives those two Capos Inspire 2 each. This should be a fairly effective tool for controlling suppression for the army. The two copies of Lead by Example allows the list to include six units of Pykes all with heavy weapons, three with capos and three without. Because of the Inspire in the list the Courage 1 Pykes shouldn’t be losing as many actions as you’d expect.

French Nationals Top 4

Daedry

The second SC list we saw in the top 8 at the French Nationals was ran by Daedry. This list is a bit different. This list had none of the infamous Pyke Foot Soldiers with Rifle and Capo. Instead, we have five units with disruptors and one unit with electrobinoculars. Daedry also included a copy of Lead by Example to help keep his Courage one corp operational. The other inclusion to this list is Gar Saxon. Gar has Offensive push and his Rifle. Gar Saxon is here primarily to prevent action loss with Compel, while providing support with his sniper.

Safsouf

Ah, Vader plus gunline. Commander Vader, two shores, one mortar, two pyke units and three snipers. Plenty of good quality shooting to pressure and damage the enemy while Commander vader gets into the mix. Safsouf did decide to drop Fear and Dead Men choosing Push instead. Seems like an interesting choice, he probably just doesn’t like the card.

Runner-up

Nostrus

The runner-up of the French Nationals was Nostrus running a CIS list. This list brought some of the CIS good things that we have been seeing recently. This list has five weapons with critical at range four. This list is also very hard to do damage to as the magnas all have SA and free dodges from Retinue. There are also six points of repair that will put any bodies back you do manage to take off the board.

This list also has Cad Bane. Cad Bane should be able to operate as he does in most CIS lists; chuck his order away every turn and get two free SA dodges. He also brings Duck and Cover to make sure he has cover and Danger Sense activated.

Winner of French Nationals

Gitsnik

No offence to the rest, this is the most interesting list. Also, Gitsnik is mad, in a good way I guess.

This eleven activation Yoda list is a sight to behold. The list features Yoda, Chewie, R2, Three Phase 1s, two Pykes, and three BARCs. The command cards are very interesting. Gitsnik decided to bring every command card that would possibly be of benefit in terms of objectives. This can largely be done because of Yoda’s command cards and how they refresh. A command hand that involves Yoda acts a lot like you have contingencies.

Gitsnik obviously is a great objective player because to guide this list to victory would take a lot of excellent objective play. This entire list is built to do objectives, especially considering the 23 point bid.

Summary

All said and done we’ve heard nothing but good things about the French Nationals, congrats to the organizers and players.

In the top 8 we saw mostly expected finishers, with some twists. We also saw one list right out of left field that managed to win the whole thing.