Holiday season is upon us, hopefully everyone’s Christmas was merry and full of Star Wars Legion. However, now that Christmas has passed, it’s time to turn to the new year. What does that mean? New Year’s resolutions, of course! Most people are going to do typical, standardized thing: buy a gym membership, swear off the sweets, and maybe agree to not chop off a family members right hand. For us Legion crazed people it’s time for us to sharpen up our game as we head into Las Vegas Open (January) and Adepticon, aka Legion Worlds (March). Here are five New Year’s resolutions for me (and perhaps the community):
Play More Locally
As a husband/parent I find myself playing a lot of games at my place of work or at my home. While this is great for a plethora of personal reasons it’s not great for growing the game, something I need to focus on a lot more. Having a completely painted Clone Army is something that should, and most likely would, garner a lot of attention at my local store. There’s honestly nothing better than someone walking by your table and going “wow, is that Star Wars? What is this?”. I’ve probably explained the game to more people than I can count when I do play at my local game store, the only reason I haven’t been playing there a lot is just time constraints with the holidays and life in general. These reasons aren’t really an excuse, they are real life problems, but I need to start treating them like an excuse. The onus is on me to make more time to play at my favorite local game store and grow this great game! Ironically enough, I am playing multiple games this weekend at my local store. Nothing like getting ahead on a resolution!
Reps for LVO & Worlds
A lot of the same reasons mentioned above go hand in hand with this second resolution. This one, perhaps, may be the most important one. For Las Vegas, I think, I am sticking to my guns and playing Clones whether R2D2 is out or not. While LVO is good practice for Worlds, I already have my ticket and I want to play the faction I enjoy most at this current moment. If anything, I find this as a challenge to myself to try and win with a new faction. As for getting in reps, that’s another issue in itself. Trying to coordinate holiday and work schedules with my wife is quite an interesting feature, especially with a two year old involved, and this is where everyone’s “frenemy” comes into play: TableTopSimulator (TTS). Nothing beats in-real-life games but TTS is going to allow me to get in even more reps than I could get on a real table. The issue with TTS is it tends to let your real life table habits go by the wayside, which is something I’ll discuss in a little bit. As for Worlds, I’m not too sure what I am going to be running in terms of a list or a faction. To be quite honest, that actually horrifies me as I am somewhat of a planner, but with an unknown release schedule (and my burning desire to not play Tauntauns unless I deem it necessary/sell my soul) I’m not sure exactly what to do. That’s going to make the reps for Worlds an extremely interesting task at hand for me because I am going to be testing multiple lists, which is not really the greatest. If there’s one piece of advice I can give: play the same list over and over because muscle memory is a real thing, especially when it comes to Star Wars Legion. I just hope I give myself enough time to hammer down a list and get ten or more reps in it before Adepticon comes flying at me like the freight train it is.
Relaxed Habits
This third resolution is something I noticed I was doing recently in a 500 point game: I just had some sloppy, bad habits. Maybe it was because I wasn’t into the 500 point format or maybe it’s something I just haven’t realized I was doing in all of my games. There’s things like not *actually* pulling a token from the bag right away because you know that all you have left in there are corps tokens. There’s been times I have been eyeballing a measurement, whether it be a movement or a range check, rather than physically using the tools to double check. While I may have been right for 98% of everything mentioned above, these are habits I need to kick in this new year. Especially with LVO and Worlds right around the corner. I’d like to think that in a tournament setting I will be completely dialed in with what I am doing but I need to remember I am a creature of habit. I need to make all of those good habits and eliminate any of the bad ones.
Cohesion
Speaking of bad habits, I don’t tend to do this a lot, but it’s something I need to sharpen: cohesion. What do I mean by that? Well a lot of things. Mike Syrylo talked in depth in his article about terrain scoping a few weeks ago but the way I am discussing it is in the reverse: don’t get terrain scoped. This goes for your heavy weapons and your unit leaders, especially on certain objectives. There’s nothing more feels bad than dropping a box on recover the supplies because your unit leader got terrain scoped. You can always better your cohesion in so many different ways! It’s another creature of habit type of thing, especially with Clone token sharing in the mix, that I want to continually get better and better with!
Playing Quick
I’m not sure if it should be discussed as “playing quick” or discussed as “playing at an appropriate speed” but either way this resolution is for all of us in the community, not just myself. When it comes to tournament play there’s always going to be a clock involved, or at least available to you, and this has been quite the topic these past few weeks. (Orkimedes brushed upon some of this in his latest blog) Upon walking up to a table, there is an unwritten contract as players that we sign the moment we start a game with an opponent. One of the main aspects of the unwritten contract: play at an appropriate speed. Star Wars Legion IS a six round game and it should get to six rounds. However, there’s always the potential that you and/or your opponent don’t move at a speed that will get you to that sixth round. It’s on the players, you or your opponent, to recognize such a thing to either:
Unfortunately, calling the judge over basically voids the social aspect of the contract (something the Scoundrels discussed) between you and your opponent but when it comes to something like LVO and Worlds that shouldn’t matter. It would be great to keep everything friendly, not hostile, but both events are going to be about winning the game and the tournament. You don’t want the speed of a game dictate your entire tournament. So, again, this New Year’s resolution is for everyone: play at an appropriate speed.
I know most of these resolutions were more about me and things I want to work on going forward as a competitive Legion player. That said, I hope these are resolutions you read and think to yourself “Hey that’s not a bad idea!” because at the end of the day, none of us are perfect! If none of these resonate with you that’s okay! Let me know what your resolution(s) would be!
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