Curious about what went down at one of the East Coast’s premiere Legion events? Look no further!
Ah NOVA. The last time I was there was in 2019, back then I was thoroughly convinced I wasn’t gonna play Legion because you know…painting. So, I charged forward ready to go with both my Armada and X-Wing lists in hand and ready to kick some space butt. I’ll now tell you about all the butt I actually kicked:
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NOVA is the premiere minis tournament in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. For a while this tournament was held in the distinctively LEGO-like skyline of Arlington, VA but since the end of the pandemic, it’s moved to Washington, DC proper. I grew up just a few miles away in Baltimore, so for our international readers who don’t know a lot about our nation’s capital…well, imagine being in a room surrounded by brilliant and driven people pacing back and forth, ignoring and often bumping into you, who generally look halfway between being focused and exhausted. Now, imagine that the air conditioner stopped working a few hours ago and no one has left the room since then. That’s “The District.”
Speaking of smart and sweaty people, I suppose it’s time to get into the lists. This year brought 33 players amounting to 10 Republic, 7 Imperial, 6 Rebel, 6 CIS, and 4 Shadow Collective. The tournament began with a 6 round (!) of Swiss followed by a cut to a Top 8 elimination bracket. Alright, let’s dig into the lists that ended up on top of that pile.
Top 8 – Josh Prosser
I once took a “triple lightsaber” list to a league match and…it went poorly. Back then, however, a major weak point in that list (among others) was order control. All of the “good” commands mostly just ordered their own damn selves which meant you’d be leaving quite a bit to chance when you consider how important order control can be for force users. Well, now, things are slightly different.
The added points for Legion 2.6 allow this list to add some beef on top of the saber users (three Magnaguards is a healthy slab) and the addition of Entourage: Magnaguard to Grievous’ keyword list makes it easier to keep an order on them. Additionally, Dooku has Direct: Trooper now which allows him to either give an order to himself or start the B1 chain depending on the command card being used. The Magnaguard that will likely be closest to the commanders (the whip) has a comms relay, which can turn the B1-chained order into an order for anyone. To complete the picture, Grievous has a copy of improvised orders. If we take Grievous’ 1-pip for example, which would normally be tied for the most restrictive command, Grievous will order himself and a Magna off the bat. Then, Dooku can direct to a B1 and chain through the rest to get their tokens out of the pool, using the relay to get the order back to himself. This leaves Josh with three orders in his pool (two special forces and Assajj’s operative token) which isn’t perfect order control but pretty close to it thanks to improvised orders; quite a boon for a one-pip! When you consider the general buffs to both Grievous and Dooku as well as the buff to saber throw (via the fact that cover is generally much worse now) what you’re left with is a list that is very cool and VERY “Legion 2.6.”
Top 8 – Jhonatan Snaider
We’ve seen this list recently as it took down MK;GT over there in the land of Oasis fans and warm beer, to this point still the largest Legion 2.6 tournament. He only lost to other Empire Vader lists (Josh, who also ran Vader Immortal as well as Jules with Blizzard Force both of whom are listed below. I still haven’t gotten to play against this myself, I would think that the idea would be to focus down whatever unit has the least access to medics at the time while basically just staying away from Vader, but that’s easier said than done.
Top 8 – Kyle “Orkimedes” Dornbos
In a feat that would have literally been impossible before Legion 2.6, the chief editor of this website and host of Notorious Scoundrels has made a Seperatist army that features nothing but red saves in it. This list is effective not only for that reason and the aforementioned buffs to Grievous but is also helped in a major way by the drastic reduction in the risks posed by playing units with AI in lists without access to Coordinate.
The recent changes to cover has made the pricier B2-HA trooper less of a necessity in B2-focused lists since the relative value of blast has gone down to match. The ACM doesn’t need to be recovered to be used every turn, so now you can just get close and keep on trucking with big shots every turn with aims or moves as necessary. When you consider the access to the excellent Super-Tactical Droid commands you can see that while this list certainly does NOT have a presence at anything beyond range 2 it has plenty of tools to make things hard for you once it’s able to close in. Kyle lost in the Top 8 in a close match with Josh who ran Vader Immortal.
Top 8 – Mooseus
I appreciate the apt description of Mooseus’ list title.
I don’t know if you’ve heard but Clones are still pretty good in Legion 2.6. I’ll get to some of my deeper thoughts on the faction later but for now we can appreciate this list which was also much harder to run in Ye Olde Days of 800 point armies. While I do miss the clever tricks one used to be able to perform with Anakin-Yoda and standby guidancing/sharing, the combination is obviously still extremely potent. In fact, the list has a new advantage over its previous iterations in that Anakin no longer needs to hog the first two turns of commands just to become a real Jedi, he gets all the goodies right off the bat now! Both character’s 1-pips (either a free jump or double guidance) allow Anakin to have a maximum of FIVE moves per round, which could be speed 3 if Burst is used. Is this likely? Of course not, but when you consider that such a thing is possible it speaks to the versatility of this combination of Jedi.
Top 4 – Jules
In a list that is sort of halfway to Blizzard Force, Jules brings two exemplar commanders as well as a source of Direct – Vehicle in Veers to really squeeze all the juice out of those AT-ST’s. Big armor has become more prevalent in this edition thanks to the expanding point cost and the increase in relative value of Armor over cover (despite the end of the “infinite armor keyword”) and this list makes it tough to completely ignore the walkers, especially when their long range shooting is combined with 3 range troopers who have also gained quite a bit from the cover changes. All the while, if you aren’t paying enough attention when playing against this list, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the “double stuffed” snowtrooper flamer squad slowly marching towards you. Jules lost to his fellow EMpire player Josh in the Top 4 match.
Top 4 – Brian Labay
While NOVA was going on I was supporting a small local company here in western Washington state called “Atomic Mass Games” by helping run a small event for Shatterpoint as well as demoing their three active minis games at PAX West. In the course of doing so I mentioned Blizzard Force a few times, which was a true test of my mettle. While I did joke about the silliness of the name to just about everyone I brought it up with, I managed to hold myself back from even making a single comment about the logic of centering the trudging, cold-weather army from the best film in the franchise around…speeder bikes operated by a trooper who is completely exposed to the elements at high speeds. See? I can be a company man too.
Anyway, check it out it’s Blizzard Force! It’s a little funny that this list doesn’t do a ton more than account for the various nerfs Blizzard got (removing Op Vader, making HRU’s more expensive) by filling the new space it was given by expanding to 1000 points. Blizzard’s advantage from having 4 speeder bikes is now much less about their attack dice than it used to be since the bikes are so necessary to keep pressure on your weak side of the board in terms of POI’s. At the same time, anyone will tell you that having a permanent “Cover 1” is about as useful as a cappuccino in a sauna which means those things will go down right-quick with the mildest amount of fire. Still, when the bikes can hang around your opponent can’t simply wear Vader down the way they’d want, the medic helps with that too of course!
Runner-Up – Josh “Fluffysaurus”
Speaking of Blizzard Force, Josh decided to sidestep the list that won this entire event for him last year to chase that sweet, sweet dragon known as Vader Immortal. Josh is a transplant to the DC area from the far-less boggy and crowded Pacific NW (come back jabroni) and he obviously wasted no time leaving his footprint on that scene.
The main difference here from the https://www.longshanks.org/event/16925/is the decision to go with DLT’s instead of T-21’s, which are the same cost but ultimately I do think I like this choice a little more since it nets you a a little more in terms of forcing saves from your opponent as well as giving you a decent range 4 option. Additionally, Josh changed Esteemed Leader out for Aggressive Tactics which gives Vader some surge access that he’d normally lose out on if he divulges Darkness Descends to get the free infiltrate.
Winner – Mike “Dashz” Barry
I’m a huge fan of this list. Those of you who are more on the cynical side will roll their eyes at that statement. Perhaps that’s because we’ve seen similar lists do very well already, or that we both work for this website or that I’ve always been an Anakin fan but also bemoaned the prior incentive to have him sit in the backlines generating tokens. Well, I only have one thing to say to those charges.
This list only features 4 types of units, so let’s break down how these choices…which were already strong in the prior edition, losing (regularly) only to an ExD list archetype that doesn’t exist anymore got better with the advent of Legion 2.6:
- Anakin: Begins the game as a real Jedi, has command cards that do things (his 1-Pip changed from “turn charge on” to one of the best commands in the game), gets a free move or attack on ANY turn that a nearby ally dies. That’s pretty damn good for losing Exemplar and Defend 1 all while costing the same.
- ARC Troopers: Transformed from a ranged unit that needed help from Yoda to be worthwhile to the most efficient range 2/melee threat in the game. Oh…and they got cheaper
- Clone Infantry: Lost fire support which is less necessary anyway thanks to cover changes…and basically got cheaper since it’s otherwise a Phase 2. 7 points cheaper per unit in fact for a Z6.
- Clone Commandos: Was already very cheap for what they did but now with POI’s and the change to deployment you pretty much always know where to put their tokens. Plus, the functional nerf to cover made their attacks even better than they were before. 4 regular hits used to mean that you were rolling 2 saves against a Pierce 1 gun if you were in heavy cover…now that same result on attack dice into heavy cover will force almost an entire extra save on average. Multiply that by 3 units and…you get the idea.
While the list is not “easy” to play by any means someone who is experienced with it like Mike has all the tools in the world to make life hard for their opponents. It’s not only extremely efficient with its shooting but it has one of the most threatening (and fast) melee threats in the game with Anakin and the ARCs. I hope that the Legion community at large can figure out a partial counter to this because it’s enough to raise my eyebrow for sure in terms of the health of the meta. It’s not unbeatable at all but it may be in that zone where it requires being significantly better than your opponent in order to stand much of a chance. I’m not making a declaration along those lines yet but…we’ll see.
I do want to add that an important choice Mike made should serve as an important point of interest to my fellow clone fans out there: this is NOT a 501st Battle Force even though it could have been with just a single adjustment. That Battle Force limits the support slots to 2, so you’d essentially need to run a fourth ARC instead of that third commando. While that list is certainly still extremely good, I think Mike ultimately made the right call in determining that this switch leaves him in a better place overall, even if that means playing Push instead of Lead From the Front.
Congratulations to Mike on the win!
Encore: A Haiku For the Fallen
I haven’t had a chance to do this lately but there was one more Fifth Trooper member who didn’t quite make the cut last weekend. Here are some words in his honor. This one is for you…Evan Bulriss
Rogue One's Back Baby!
Oh crap I forgot they all
Died in that movie
Hope everyone has a great week!
