This article is a unit guide for both the Pyke Syndicate Capo and Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers in the game Star Wars Legion.
The Pyke Syndicate runs the largest spice racket in the galaxy. Because of their intergalactic presence, the Pyke Syndicate requires a trained militia to both protect and enforce their rule on the black market. In Star Wars Legion the Pykes are guns for hire which can ally with any faction in the game… for the right price. This article will give a summary of the two Pyke units and explain how you can play them on the tabletop. Original article by Lucas Ustick with updates for Legion 2.6 by Evan “DocVelo” Paul.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Pykes are 44 points for the base unit and are 86 points in their most popular configuration (Pyke Syndicate Capo + P13-M Disruptor Soldier). This puts them on the more expensive end for a corps unit. They typically fill the role of elite core unit being both offensively and defensively effective in combat.
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers have four different weapons available to them. Below you can find a breakdown of the average results of each weapon profile, but I am going to focus on the average damage of two popular loadouts. The most popular loadout is the Foot Soldiers unit with the Capo and P13-M upgrades. With this loadout the unit averages ~4.9 hits at range 3 unaimed. 4.9 average is one of the highest average attacks out of all range 3 core units. The other popular loadout for Pykes is a unit with the Electro-Whip Soldier. This unit averages 3.5 hits in melee and has Immobilize. The Electro-Whip can be a good hedge against aggressive enemy units slowing them down with Immobilize 1. Overall, the Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers are highly effective offensively considering their cost.
| Name | Range | Avg Hits | Avg Hits With Surges | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stun Baton | Melee | 0.5 (Per Mini) | 0.75 (Per Mini) | |
| P13 Long Blaster | 1-3 | 0.5 (Per Mini) | 0.625 (Per Mini) | |
| P13-M Disruptor Soldier | 1-4 | 1.75 | 2.125 | Impact 1 |
| Electro-Whip Soldier | Melee/1 | 1.5 | 1.75 | Immobilize 1, Suppressive |
Foot Soldiers are quite difficult to kill despite having white saves. It is more difficult to quantify the defensive profile of Pykes with effective wounds since they have both dodges and Danger Sense. In short, they are extremely resilient to small attack dice pools since they can use dodges to avoid the few critical hits that get through cover. Then once the dodges have been exhausted, they have Danger Sense 2 to raise the chance of blocking. That said, Pyke’s have lost a fair amount of their defensive edge with the changes to cover rules in Legion 2.6. Before, a shot that contained two hits and a crit would nearly always be guaranteed to whiff after using cover and their dodge. Now, that same dice pool will typically result in a wound.
Because Pykes have limited Personnel upgrade options they do not have as much potential for utility or support roles. They are only useful in combat and do not provide other support to the army.
Pykes have average trooper mobility with speed 2 and no additional mobility keywords.
Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldiers are playable in all 4 factions under the Mercenary rules and in the Shadow Collective Battle Force. You can field up to 6 Pyke Foot Soldiers in the Shadow Collective while you are limited by the Mercenary rules in all other factions.
I also want to touch on the Pyke Syndicate Capo commander briefly since. The Capo is 48 points and has the keyword Aid. Aid makes it so the Capo can give any tokens it gains to friendly Pyke units at range 1. This ability is helpful for supporting Foot Soldiers. The Capo increases both the offensive and defensive capabilities of Foot Soldiers handing out both dodges and aims with Aid. The Capo also provides an important courage bubble for Foot Soldiers to overcome the drawbacks of Self-Preservation.
The Electro-Whip Soldier is the cheapest heavy upgrade option at only 10 points. This weapon is usable in melee and at range 1 and has the keywords Immobilize 1 and Suppressive. This heavy weapon is a solid option if you want to save points but gives a unit of Foot Soldiers some more utility against aggressive enemy threats.
The P13-M Disruptor is the most popular heavy weapon upgrade option. The weapon is range 1 to 4 and has Impact 1. This gun is excellent for a variety of reasons. First, it can be used for long-range chip damage, and Impact 1 gives it some utility against armored enemy units. Once you close to range 3 the Disruptor makes the Foot Soldier’s attack pool hit quite hard. Overall, a well-balanced and solid heavy weapon option.
The Capo is the most expensive Personnel upgrade for the Pykes at 18 points but increases the courage of Foot Soldiers by one and gives the unit Independent: Surge 1. This upgrade is amazing since it basically negates the drawback of Self-Preservation by giving native courage 2. Also, the surge augments the unit’s offensive abilities by adding roughly an extra hit to range 3 attacks.
The Pyke Syndicate Foot Soldier adds an additional mini and gives the unit Cache: Aim 1. Considering this upgrade costs only 9 points it is a pretty great value. The main drawback of the card is Self-Preservation which means the unit will struggle with suppression management. If you have Compel and a Pyke Capo unit in your army though the Foot Soldier upgrade can be a great budget option.
Pykes rely heavily on dodges for defense. Prepared Supplies gives the Pykes an extra dodge they can use at any time. This is expensive but great effect.
As with most corps, 5 points is very often worth it to get some action efficiency in Round 1.
An impact grenade plus the heavy weapon gives you impact 5 at range 1 which will make most vehicles upset.
Typically, when playing them you need to manage two things. You need to make sure they are in cover and have proper dodge support. Cover is often table dependent, but Foot Soldiers die quickly when caught out in the open. Pykes are still just white save units and will go down eventually to any sustained fire. Dodge support is usually managed by Pyke Capo units providing the Foot Soldiers with extra dodges from Aid. I will often focus most of my dodges on my most exposed Foot Soldier unit then rotate that unit out once its dodges have been spent. The ability to choose which unit receives the dodges from Aid can be a game changer. For example, you may have a Foot Soldier unit with a box from recover the supplies that needs to survive and escape to safety. Each Capo unit in your army can feed two dodges to that unit between Independent: Dodge 1 and simply taking the dodge action. Similarly, you can keep a one model unit alive on a scoring turn by pumping multiple dodges into it with your Capos.
The main weakness of Pykes is their reliance on dodges making them reliant on (a now down-graded) cover and extremely vulnerable to high velocity. Their bitter enemy used to be Snipers but it’s now specifically Republic Commandos. As one of the most popular units in the game, Commandos and their range 4, 4 red dice, high-velocity gun represent something of a boogeyman for Pykes. Once you are at range 3 and in cover there are not many units that can trade well against them. Foot Soldiers also struggle against Dark Troopers. Dark Troopers have full Armor and Blast. While the Disruptor has Impact 1 the Foot Soldiers rely on large hit counts to do damage. Armor completely blocks these hits. Then the combination of Blast and a large dice pool removes cover from Pykes and destroys the white save unit. When playing against Dark Troopers you need to do everything you can to stay out of their range 2 Blast attack.
There are many ways to loadout the Pykes but here I am going to focus on the two most popular ways to play them. You can also play Foot Soldiers with no upgrades as activation fodder.
The cheapest option beside running the Pykes with no upgrades is the Electro-Whip Soldier. This unit is a great “flex” unit and can also be spammed at only 54 points. Multiple Electro-Whip Soldiers can stop aggressive enemy units in their tracks. The main drawback of this unit is its reliance on range 1 for full effectiveness. At only 54 points the unit is flexible enough to justify its inclusion. 5 black dice at range 3 is also not the worst attack profile. In Legion 2.6 where fights in the middle are common, an option with immobilize and a melee heavy isn’t half bad.
The most common loadout for Pykes is the Capo and P13-M Disruptor. This loadout fixes the courage issue from Self-Preservation and gives the unit a devastating 8 dice range 3 attack. The Capo+Disruptor can out trade virtually any other corps unit at range 3. While this unit has a high price tag at 86 points it is great in combat and objective play.
True fish-lovers out there will weep for the current state of Pykes and lament that their appeal outside their home faction of Shadow Collective has waned so much lately. The rest of us likely aren’t so perturbed by it though, there was a time when we’d see them on over half the tables in a given tournament and that honestly felt a little silly for a bunch of pelagic pugilists. This is partially related to the changes to cover and partially due to the disappearance of Exemplar as a trait in Republic lists, who used to sometimes favor these units over Clones (a very unlikely choice these days).
Still, Pykes do have their place…though I’d argue it’s in fewer numbers than time past, even in a Shadow Collective list.
Now that the games are both 1000 points and closer-quarters than before, I think Pykes are usually a two-of in any given army. The rest of these units will be closing in, and quite effectively, and someone does typically need to hold back-controlled points down.
This goes to show that Pykes can still have a role in good guy factions, it just ain’t clones anymore. Their ranged efficiency is still much better than any Rebel corps so if you have points to spare then they’re worth considering in that list anyway.
Overall, the Pykes are a feisty and flavorful unit in Legion. They bring the seedy underbelly of Star Wars to the Legion tabletop. I hope this article encouraged you to get Pykes off their sprue and onto the table!
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