New and Improved Competitive Theme

Something tells me the game is about to see more theme than ever! As many of you may have watched this past Friday, some of us here at The Fifth Trooper Network discussed the Adepticon news that FFG gave us post haste on Thursday. If you didn’t get to see that you can watch that here: Spoiled! Clan Wren and Inferno Squad. While we are unsure of when these units, and units we have already had spoiled, will actually be released due to real life circumstances we can continue to discuss and speculate! I mean, what else is there to do?

I know for the most part we tend to focus on competitive play versus casual play. What I mean in this instance is how most lists are known as “Cookie Cutter” when it comes to top level play in Star Wars Legion. Typically your top lists have a focus piece, corps to fill out, snipers to close it out. A lot of units don’t see regular competitive play, like say Jyn and the Pathfinders, whereas some units almost always see play, at this moment Tauntauns and Shoretroopers.

However, what if I told you that Legion is heading into completely diversified territory that can start blending both competitive and casual play together with a major factor: theme!

Starting with Iden Version, daughter of Garrick Versio and thrown directly into the Imperial system, she comes equipped with a multitude of options. You can choose to deploy her normally and keep her as a Commander. You can choose to infiltrate her and make her an operative. She has quick thinking, nimble, loadout, marksman and multiple weapon options between her configurable gun and her two pip command card. She’s something the Imperial army hasn’t quite had in their tool box, yet, which makes it interesting because she’s basically a tool that does everything. Thematically it would be cool if Iden paired with….wait a minute…

Inferno Squad! Speaking of tools that can do everything, Special Forces characters that can slot into Corps units anybody? Seems pretty good. Now, of course, we don’t know what the Inferno Squad can do, as we have yet to see their unit card. However, we can speculate and theory craft Del Meeko, Gideon Hask and what core unit you might like to see them on. How about those Snowtroopers collecting dust on your shelf? Miss those guys? Well, maybe, Del can slot into a Snowtrooper unit and now you have a sniper that has a very, very strong keyword in Steady.

Remember that Shoretrooper nerf we saw via comms relay? Does anyone have a live cut of Gideon Hask having a laugh? Increasing a courage value and adding Coordinate is pretty strong. While the first thing that comes to mind is to toss Gideon into a Shoretrooper unit, I think Mike Syrylo had a good point in putting him in a Stormtrooper unit instead. Either way, the fact that this is even a discussion is pretty dang cool, in my opinion. It’s going to add such a dimension to the game that we aren’t quite seeing when it comes to competitive play, because I think both Del and Gideon are strong options in any list. Not to mention, they’re both great for adding theme to an army.

Perhaps my favorite part of these named character cards coming out (seen first in Fives and Echo mild spoilers) is the fact that they come with extra health. Like sure, getting Del and Gideon is awesome but if they had one health (like normal heavy weapons) I think it would completely undermine their purpose in the game. Sorry, Bistan and Pao. I’ll pour one out for you, boys.

Speaking of the Rebel side of things, they have some cool thematic units that also seem capable of holding their own in terms of competitive play. Cassian is somewhat made from the same mold as Iden when it comes to versatility, and if you know me at all you know I am a huge Cassian fan. He’s perhaps a top three character of all time for me in the world of Star Wars. His eventual release is going to single handedly keep me playing the Rebel faction from time to time. Aside from all of his cool keywords, much like Idens abundance of keywords, Cassian also comes with his sharp tongued re-purposed droid K-2SO.

You’re going to have the option of running Cassian alongside K-2SO but you won’t be able to bring K-2 without bringing Cassian. While that might not be something some people will agree with, because K-2 is pretty good himself, you can see that the developers of the game care about the theme. You want that sarcastic former Imperial droid? You need to bring the handsome, yet dangerous, Captain Andor. (We’re going to completely ignore the fact that Cassian pairs extremely well with Luke Skywalker, which is clearly a broken timeline in terms of theme, for posterity’s sake.)

Say re-visiting Scarif beach with Cassian and K-2SO isn’t something that piques your interest and you want some Mandalorians? Say hello to Clan Wren, the Rebel unit we’ve all been waiting for without even knowing it. Why? Red saves! Red saves! Red Saves! Something Rebels have been missing, outside of Luke, Sabine and soon K-2SO, is a unit that is durable when it comes to saves. It’s going to be a breath of fresh air, I think, for them to get a unit such as Clan Wren. Again, much like Inferno Squad, we don’t have the full unit card for Clan Wren but still have enough for a discussion. Tristan Wren, Sabine’s brother, brings his own unique weapon, has two health and brings what I believe is the first Suppressive heavy weapon option for the Rebel faction! 

Something I want to see more of enter the Legion world, which again just continues to add to the diversity of the game both casually and competitively, are upgrades like the Jetpack Rockets. A weapon upgrade that only costs 8 points and can only be used once. There are endless possibilities for the potential one time use weapon upgrades and I hope we see more of it in Legion. Something else I’d like to see more of? The Duelist keyword! Having the option of spending an aim or a dodge to gain pierce or immune pierce is really, really strong. Those poor Wookie Warriors could use something like that! As long as the price is right, in terms of the full unit, I tend to think we will be seeing a lot of Clan Wren going forward!

Now, none of this speculation even puts into consideration that list building is also going to change due to Vital Assets. As much as I would love to keep rambling on, because no offense to myself that’s what I am doing, Kyle had a great post about Vital Assets last week. One thing that is for certain though is bidding and lists are going to be very interesting moving forward.

Star Wars is a very, very diverse universe and Legion should be as well. The biggest factor for me with Legion is the fact that they are pulling from other forms of media as opposed to just ripping from the movies. Clan Wren is from Star Wars Rebels, a cartoon, and Inferno Squad has appeared in a book and a video game. Most notably, I love that both units appear to be something that will enter the game and shake it up for the better. I think the more we can see theme in both casual and competitive play the better. Stay safe and while at home break those cookie cutters!