If you read last week’s article about the Las Vegas Open Invitational tournament and were a bit confused by what the hell was going on, then I’m right there with you. As of this moment, I’m the lone editor of this website and while I strive to stay on task there are some tasks that are beyond me. So yeah, if you were confused by all the sphere stuff, then I truly am sorry…we’ve purged the malware installed by the Vegas Sphere and we’ve begun the process of re-brainwashing Austin so that everything is back to normal.
What that article did not cover is the results of the Las Vegas GT, but we’re back now to rectify that, both tournaments were significant enough to get their own article after all and Austin was in that other one so it only makes sense that he wrote it. In any case, I had also planned to do a small preview of what my personal take on Worlds meta is gonna be so I wanted to see ARF troopers before I wrote this, though we’ll obviously be covering that more in the future.
The LVO GT was the largest event held so far in Legion 2.6, despite the fact that a few dozen players were participating in the Invitational just across the room from them. That’s pretty impressive, and I want to use that as a jumping-off point to remind folks that a win is a win. The people who went 5-1 or undefeated at the GT won just as many games as those who did so in the IS, and there’s no way to actually know if the pool of players in the IS was “better,” the only difference was that they happened to have played and won enough games to qualify. I know for a fact that a few folks in the GT are “Invitational caliber” but just don’t get to play a ton or are usually more busy running tournaments than playing in them. Ok, I’m back off the soap box, here is the faction breakdown for the event.
As we covered on the cast, this is a nice mix, and representative of the usual breakdown of “favored factions” in this game where bad guys slightly edge out good guys, and the classic trilogy substantially edges out prequels…and then there’s the merc boys.
The Top Ten
Alright, let’s look at the Top 10, which covers all the 5-1 players and of course our winner!
Rei David (Shadow Collective)
Of the six Shadow Collective lists, three of them had a winning record. Know what all three (the third was Izzy G’s list at a 4-2 finish in top 20) of those had? Two buses. The reason for this is two fold: they’re a great unit and Shadow Collective has zero other choices for armor, which makes it a pretty easy choice! In this list Rei really invested in those buses, complete with Gonks, lasers, and TWO tacticians as well as the Raiding Party Leader with his usual friends of triple Swoop bikes. This is similar, after all, to the list that won worlds last year so it’s certainly a sound strategy: the rules change of 2.6 has made the transport aspect of buses much less effective but it’s also made the suppression effect of the Raid Leader more effective since panicking a unit to affect VP score is much more of a “thing” than it used to be. I’m also noticing that there are TWO tacticians in this list: this is a bit of a gamble because the later you activate the bus the less useful that upgrade is, the nightmare scenario is to draw your heavy token out of the bag last then roll three blocks and give an aim to…yourself, meaning it’s mostly wasted. Shadow Collective has this issue less than Rebels do because it never wants to have orders on troopers not-named Maul anyway, but I might still consider a copy of improvised orders if you want to run a similar list.
Zach Olson (Shadow Collective)
Our second of two Shadow Collective lists in the top 10 is running Backworld Medics and HQ uplinks in buses without a Raiding Leader or any swoop friends. This is of course the second of the “utility options aside from Transport” that a bus can serve: healing. These buses have no guns which means it will often only need to heal and then recover (assuming it’s already where it wants to be on the map) to serve its function. Order control on healers can be quite huge, rescuing a Super Commando from half-health to full in two consecutive actions, and all before that Mando has to take its actual shot. Of course, these units don’t HAVE to wait for a medic to stay effective, I actually came back to edit this when it was pointed out to me that they all have e-stims. I think my head just saw an 8 point gear, defaulted to ) “yep Recon Intel” then moved on. I like that pick a lot, this is a 5 round game now which means any extra round of effectiveness matters, and if you use the stims on Round 5 to get a de facto double-shield (which unlike the real shield you can save for when you actually need it to stay alive AFTER your defense roll) that turn then all the better. That unit in particular has come a long way, when it was first introduced it was too expensive and the other two non-unique trooper options for the Battleforce were too cheap but things finally seem like they’ve evened out so Mandos can finally have their moment in the light, or at least a different moment in the light than what we usually think of!
I’d apologize for the dark humor but this gif is pretty bright honestly…
Will Werner (Rebels)
The last of the “double bus crew” in this top 10 is Will who brought this very “in-your-face” list. From an efficiency standpoint, I definitely support taking 5 fleets with Scatters (with or without the “extra guy” over spending too many points on multiple super-squads, listen to our latest Scoundrels if you’re curious why . Wookiees may be less of an offensive threat than Sleeper Cell (who are so much cheaper that it basically gets insulting) but they’re a lot harder to suppress and are certainly better in melee…which is easier to get into when a bus is taking you into the fight. Once you add a medic to the math there I can see why they were effective in this extremely aggro army. Good on you for reminding Rebel players that Wookiees exist for the faction, sadly they will mostly ignore you but I appreciate your artistry, good sir!
Superboot (Empire)
Superboot was only one stormtrooper unit away from a Highlander list (where units and upgrades are never repeated) which is pretty fun in its own regard! I am impressed not only at the true smorgasbord-level variety of units here but also the lack of improvised orders in a list where the pool is quite chaotic. I would not have had the confidence to charge into waters that were so murky, but to his credit the sheer variety of units confers its own micro-version of order control on its own: if you need something to charge into melee then you can get that from Kallus, the IRG, or the Dewback after all! It’s fun to see Kallus and Boba together again, it was sort of a staple in Legacy Legion but has mostly been silent as of late. Finally, I’d ask Imperial players to take note: as you can see, DT-F16 on a Death Trooper unit is pretty cheap at 72 points and is honestly quite efficient from an attack dice point of view and more importantly is a source of Compel that can move up with your army: more people should be playing it in my humble opinion.
Houdini 33 of US Army E-Sports (CIS)
On a personal note, I think it’s very cool that the US Army E-Sports team decided to sponsor a couple of folks (RevanEternal was there as well and not far behind at #14 overall) to be present at LVO representing them. While I’m not a veteran myself I do work for the US Veteran’s Health Administration, and I think it would be more than just a little cool if I could work with a patient with whom I can joke about how busted Anakin once was before I retire (Anakin will be terrible when 5th edition comes out, so it’ll finally be alright by then).
I argued in my unit guide that General Grievous was better as a second banana and this is an example of what I mean. I’m sure his 1-Pip came in handy a few times throughout the tournament but Dooku, even without Force Push, is the one who’s really running the show. If it wasn’t for Anakin, Dooku would be da best…and he might actually be da actual best now because his faction is better (teaser for later!). I do wonder if Houdini would now replace that Snail with two Aqua droids now that they’re legal (they were not for this tournament, nor were Crab Droids) which would actually save 24 points…after which point you’re just 3 extra B1’s away from replacing reflexes with Force Push? Houdini will decide for himself of course but…just sayin’ man!
William Warf (Empire)
It’s not quite Vader Eternal and it’s not quite Blizzard Force. It’s Vader Autumnal!
Operative Vader is still Vader, he’s still very scary, and he can still get a standby from Krennic’s 2-Pip (even though the value of that standby is quite a bit less with his non-dash courage value and the recent Relentless nerf) so he can still wreck plenty of face. I’m generally a fan of E-Webs and would like to see people really dive into spamming them in actual Blizzard Force but assuming they lived past the first turn I imagine they became lower-priority targets than the scouts and Vader rushing in there. Inspiring presence is a good call in a single-commander list as well, Krennic is more of a lover (of himself) than a fighter and thus isn’t always going to be within 3 of the brave Stormtrooper trying to hold a distant POI against enemy plinking, thus reducing the risk of panic.
Shane “Avacado” Leabch (Rebels)
The SX-21 remains the game’s most economical choice for a heavy weapon, though my take on something no one cares about is that the Stormtrooper HH-12 should be almost as cheap since cumbersome is just awful in this current version of the game. The rest of this list is a Rebel soup if I’ve ever seen one, it’s fun to see a list where out of 13 activations there are none that I’d really call “true filler” and good for Avacado to run something without Sleepers for the sake of variety! A super Slingers unit with Forest Dwellers does seem like an extremely good buy at 61 points, it’s one point less than a scatter gun fleet and will do about half a wound less to stormtrooper armor on average but the Slingers are significantly more survivable with 4 extra health and Low Profile PLUS the scout and first-round dodge, not bad at all!.
Steven S (Empire)
IRG’s presence in both top 10 Empire lists is fairly surprising given that the unit, in most folks’ opinion, is in need of an update. Still, at the end of the day Guardian and Charge are both things that have seen a value boost since Legion 2.6 dropped so it’s rarely going to be a true “drain” on a list and clearly, it must have done something right to land Steven in the #3 spot of the GT. Otherwise, perhaps AMG will consider making the new Empire core set Vader, two storms with medics, and two Dewbacks to get people clued in to the strengths of the faction sooner rather than later, it’s a positive testament to the utility of these choices as well as a negative testament to the internal balance of the faction that we see those come up over and over and over again. But hey you gotta Dew what you gotta Dew.
Runner-Up: Scott Brunson (Republic)
Perhaps you’ve been feeling the odd tug on your brain: “wasn’t this party missing someone?” I wouldn’t blame you, after all if this GT was held in October this would have been the 7th GAR list so far but times have changed. I’ll get into it more deeply in the meta section below but if this weekend suggested anything aside from “Sleeper good” it was “GAR seems to have fallen a longer way than many of us thought or realized.”
Luckily for the sake of Clone fans, Scott came through with an Obi list and almost made it all the way with it, only losing to the winner in Round 6. Clone commandos are 10 points more now it’s true but man can they still pack a punch, especially if you can manage to nail some Sleeper Cells on Round 1 with their High Velocity shot. Scott did an impressive job squeezing 11 acts out of a Republic list with a Jedi and 3 Commandos though, I like the threat mix a lot between a few huge Ranged threats and a couple of scary melee ones too.
Sadly for Scott, Obi-Wan’s Soresu Mastery rolls in the final reminded us all that entropy cares little for mobility: twice Scott re-rolled defense die and twice got more wounds on Obi as a result, leading to his unfortunate very early demise which pretty much sealed it for the Rebs.
Winner – Kevin Clow (Rebels)
I did say that you saw the last DOUBLE bus above but Kevin Clow’s winning list did have one, and even just one can make a huge difference. Aside from benefitting from some unfortunate Obi rolls Kevin also benefitted by being able to force Destroy Enemy Base in the final which can very easily swing games on its own, especially when he has a bus and the opposing list is infantry only. There are few units in the game that can gleefully just chug its way directly to the enemy base the way a bus can. and if it can drop off some Sleepies on the way then why the hell not? Between this list and the LVOIS winner it sure seems like we have a new king of the hill: Han, Bad Batch, at least two sleepers, at least two AT-RT, and then dealer’s choice from there as long as you end up at 13 activations. What you’re left with is a list that can do just about anything: mess up an opponent’s plan with Han’s 3-Pip, unload a billion dice with Sleeper Cell or Bad Batch, plink away at armor with the AT-RT’s, or just dump units onto the objective with 13 activations. Between the raw amount of health and the constancy of dodges and Nimble. it can all just be too much for some lists to handle: this Rebel list can be fairly aggressive without sweating too much if one unit or another goes down but many other lists (such as the Obi one) will melt if they lose their centerpiece.
As a final little note, bravo to Kevin for cramming two copies of Improvised Orders in there: newer players should take note that even if this card isn’t “sexy” from a game effect standpoint the ability to dig into your bag can be absolutely crucial for a faction that has the least access to order control in the game, especially when you have this many activations.
Congratulations to Kevin and all the other Top 10!
What does this signal for Worlds?
Now that we’ve seen ARF troopers we know what the available-minis landscape will be for Adepticon in a month and a half. First, let’s remind ourselves of the large scale faction meta situation we were in for the first phase of Legion 2.6
Yikes, and honestly I don’t even think these numbers do justice to the dominance GAR had in the first phase. Below, we can see the statistics from 11/15/24 (post-points change and Sleeper Cell release) to 2/2/25 for ranked matches:
This is significantly more parity but Rebels are clearly in the power position now, and for whatever it’s worth, this aligns with the way I’ve seen things generally. Once GAR lost a decent amount of its pure murdering potential, and Rebels got access to the most efficient unit in the game (yeah, I’m ready to say that Sleeper Cell has taken the crown from ARCs for the moment), things shifted in a few ways, and not just for the obvious pure loss and gain in those factions. When I consider what the “Worlds meta” is likely to be I keep going back to thinking about how each faction can overcome this new “King of the Hill” in the form of high-act Rebel Soup. Rebel-minded players can also of course consider playing Ewoks, which while in less of a spotlight seems very strong in its own right still.
CIS was already weathering the GAR storm pretty well but was somewhat vulnerable to drowning in charging ARC troopers which is now a much less common circumstance. It’s true that they’ll melt just as fast as anyone against a 12 dice sleeper attack but they can return the favor in a variety of different ways. Whether it’s the charging threat of Magnas, the suppression from Droidekas, or the…both of those things from a Bursting 1-Pip Dooku, CIS has plenty of tools to take care of business and they just got a couple more with Crabs and (in my opinion, to a greater extent) Aqua droids. CIS can also field just as many activations as a Rebel list can, and while that list would usually be more top-heavy it does a good job of keeping its commanders alive enough to wreck face.
Meanwhile, Republic and Shadow Collective lists typically have to aim more for a 10-11 act list that focuses on resilience while also remaining quite top-heavy. A Shadow Collective list would at least have the advantage of Infiltrating Maul in the exact place where he’ll disrupt Sleepers and other soft targets the most which is a plus but if the Rebel player took a couple of laser RT’s then the AA-5 that the Shadow player will likely be relying on to threaten deeper POI’s will melt pretty fast all while the Shadow player has to be wary of their Black Suns getting double-double Pierced by Han or charged by a Bursting Luke or Speed-3 Bad Batch.
Republic’s dominance in the pre-nerf era was largely driven by their insane math which is now pretty sane (though still strong), and I believe this will mean these lists will rely on their Jedi to carry it over Rebels which now, dizzyingly to many of us veterans, would be expected to win a straight-up brawl against GAR (unless Commandos can truly just obliterate the Sleepers early, which is tough between terrain and getting out-activated). This will work sometimes but true-to-form the ever-selfless Jedi of the Republic are also the most vulnerable to getting wasted by a Sleeper or Bad Batch. Backup doesn’t work at that range after all, and since GAR doesn’t have Magna or a multi-mini vehicle to block LOS it can lose 230 points worth of Anakin in an instant which would likely be a game-over. The most “clever” piece GAR had access to was Yoda but as we’ve covered to the point that you’re all probably very tired of hearing it he ain’t what he used to be in this new age of the Charge/Steady/Relentless keywords. I was curious about whether ARF Troopers would be a game-changer in this respect but it feels clear to me that it will not be: we’ll cover this more in the near future but suffice it to say it is NOT a unit that will fundamentally change the options the faction has in the way Sleepers and Aquas have.1
Clearly, we need an infiltrating Kit Fisto to save us!
Empire meanwhile…poor Empire. Obviously, as we saw above, it can compete generally, but in doing so it seems extremely reliant on Vader (who can only do so many wounds in a game and can get a bit flustered by dodge spam softening his blows) and Krennic (who contributes quite a bit but almost nothing to the actual fight) while the rest of their lists have to work hard to keep up with the newer threats that are out there. It’s frustrating for me to see, because if the Riot Control was either cheaper or had something like Dauntless then I think it could have truly breathed new life into the faction. I have seen them in action: Gideon plus Security Droids plus Tenacity plus Emergency Stims turns it into a pretty real threat, the only problem is that said threat is 123 points for something that is basically about as scary as an Electro-Whip Magnaguard with no other upgrades (100 points). Since that expansion didn’t change the math though, and since Empire’s other somewhat-obsolete units (such as IRG, Kallus, Inquisitors, ISF, Boba/Cad, and Speeder Bikes) are hoping for some love with the April cards and points update, it feels like they pretty much have Vader and the armor-focused Battleforces and all of those feel like they have at least a slightly uphill battle against Rebel Soup.
We’ll have more in the near future about Worlds meta, for now we’d just like to congratulate Kevin and the other finalists for doing so well in such a big pool of players! As always please do let us know what you think about the GT finalists and the potential Worlds meta in the comments, see you again soon!
https://www.dcode.fr/aurebesh-alphabet ↩︎
7 Responses
Fun article, I liked the silliness. I think Republic will make a comeback after people chill out a bit. Anakin, Arc’s and Commandos are just too good to sit on the sidelines for too long. Keep up the good work. Thanks
I played both Houdini in R4 of day 1 and Avocado on R6 of day 2, first of all, I can’t speak enough of how good people and players they are. Second of all, I played 11 Act Anakin 501st (with Fives super squad, which I wish I could’ve heard dash’s opinion before taking them to the GT, but I digress), and it felt like a super hard match up into both of those types of list. But in any case, thanks for article Evan, I’m super excited to see what world’s ends up looking like.
Bravo to you for trying it, it IS fun it’s just not actually as effective as I’d like for that cost
Could an ARF, Kenobi, Commander Cody, and ISP list be good?
1000/1000
10 Activations
Clone Commander Cody 105 + 8 = 113
–Recon Intel (8)
Obi-Wan Kenobi 150 + 30 = 180
–Force Barrier (10), Saber Throw (5), Aggressive Tactics (15)
2x Clone Trooper Infantry 56 + 20 = 76 x 2 = 152
–Clone Medic (20)
Clone Trooper Infantry 56 + 17 = 73
–Clone Engineer (17)
3x ARF Troopers 66 + 26 = 92 x 3 = 276
–ARF Trooper Duo (26)
2x Infantry Support Platform 65 + 38 = 103 x 2 = 206
–327th Star Corps Elite Armor Pilots (8), Twin Beam Cannons (30)
Hello There!•, Bring it Down!•, Knowledge and Defense••, Have I Ever Let you Down?••, General Kenobi•••, Combined Arms•••, Standing Orders••••
1000/1000
10 Activations
Clone Commander Cody 105 + 8 = 113
–Recon Intel (8)
Obi-Wan Kenobi 150 + 30 = 180
–Force Barrier (10), Saber Throw (5), Aggressive Tactics (15)
2x Clone Trooper Infantry 56 + 20 = 76 x 2 = 152
–Clone Medic (20)
Clone Trooper Infantry 56 + 17 = 73
–Clone Engineer (17)
3x ARF Troopers 66 + 26 = 92 x 3 = 276
–ARF Trooper Duo (26)
2x Infantry Support Platform 65 + 38 = 103 x 2 = 206
–327th Star Corps Elite Armor Pilots (8), Twin Beam Cannons (30)
Hello There!•, Bring it Down!•, Knowledge and Defense••, Have I Ever Let you Down?••, General Kenobi•••, Combined Arms•••, Standing Orders••••
Sorry, I accidentally sent that list twice.