Ranking the Units by Canon “Accuracy:” Republic

I’ve been avoiding this for over a year.

Hi I’m Evan Paul, the other Evan here on this website. I realize I’ve been on here a while, I’m actually just trying to put off writing this article for a few more seconds.

Ok…ok.

Look, this is my faction. While it may be true that at the very day this is posted I’ll be playing “Blizzard” Force™ at Las Vegas Open, that’s really more of an attempt to help hang as huge a lantern as possible on its silliness to hopefully pave the way for an Adepticon that is a bit more diverse. When I go to THAT tournament, I’m going to go back to my home no matter what after over half a year off messing around with other factions. Call it my Legion rumspringa, but without the part about meaningful self-growth.

As such, I delayed this scientific analysis of the canon accuracy of Republic units until the new points and rules came. And well, they’re here so it’s time to dive in…I just need to be careful of my slight tendency to…get bristly when it comes to my Grand Army boys.

So, to limit my own fulmination, 🍷I’m going to drink just a bit of wine🍷 every time I “go over the top”. That way, I’ll almost certainly be able to keep an even keel all the way to the end. Like me Kyle is gonna be at LVO when this posts though, so he’s probably gonna have to do a pretty rushed job editing. Guess that means the pressure is on!

Here we go!

Commander

Yoda

Yoda sets the standard this time around, he is perfect. He has mind games, he empowers his friends, he is courageous, he’s usually slow but becomes fast when Lucas/you the player just kind of decides he should be fast out of nowhere. His Force Wave is suppressive, as it should be because if you saw this little green man hop up from the bottom side of a ledge just to blast your friends to the ground with a gust of force you’d be surrendering instantly. Just like Luke in the movies, Republic players are even encouraged to learn from the has-been straight-man doof (Obi-Wan) before they could possibly learn the nuances of this little lizard man. His lightsaber even throws less dice…because it’s tiny! Awww!

I’d venture to say Yoda is the best translation from film to game yet in this game’s somewhat short history, which is saying something because I’ve handed out a lot of S-ranks in these dumb things. So, for now, Yoda gets a special one:

Grade: Championship Belt

Obi-Wan Kenobi

If this were about gameplay I’d be pouring a new glass already, but given that we’re talking canon I mostly have nice things to say to be honest. His command cards cover his strengths in the movies and shows quite well, he’s primarily an “escort mission” Jedi who is very capable of protecting multiple other people at once from incoming blaster fire and is the only one in the game who is capable of using Guardian against melee attacks.

That said, there’s no indication yet if Atomic Mass is going to follow through with operative units for the Clone Wars factions as Fantasy Flight likely would have. If they did, I would hope they release an operative version who was playable for Rebels as well, because while one side of Obi Wan is very much the “steadfast General who looks out for his allies” the other side is Jedi Master Inspector Clouseau, a hapless moron who somehow bumbles his way through solo/duo missions and investigations. How can Legion capture the essence of a man who takes the following courses of action:

1. After literally learning about the secret plot of the bad guys on Geonosis, he stands outside his fighter in broad daylight to call home rather than doing so on his way getting the F out of there. He is captured.
2. Announces his plans to attack Dooku out loud, Anakin is smart smarter to zag here.
3. Acts suspicious as hell when trying to get information from Jango Fett (“CURIOUS!”)
4. Announce himself to a room full of droids, who if they opened fire would have toasted him.

and my absolute favorite…

5. Jumps out a window in an effort to grab onto the slug delivery droid. I’m sorry, what exactly was his plan? Do slug delivery droids all return to bad guy base when they’re done? The best assumption would be that it would self destruct, or just turn off its repulsorlift, or go back to the store for more slugs…basically anything but do something helpful.

This isn’t even counting all of his Scooby Doo moments in the Disney + show. If he ever gets an operative, they’ll need to invent a keyword that’s the opposite of cunning…lose all ties, that’s Obi-Wan.

This is a more realistic outcome

Grade: A

Clone Commander

These guys pretty much exist in the show to explain things to Jedi (check, holoprojector in hand) and order the regular troopers around. Now that the fish menace has thankfully been mostly put to sleep we’ll be seeing one in every GAR list again…which is fine, because they’re clones damn it.

I have some hope that Plo Koon will be the Jedi released after Ahsoka and Mace Windu, and that he’ll come with an alt unit card for this guy as Wolffe.

Grade: S

Wookiee Commander

Like many others I was confused as to why they didn’t just make him Tarfful. I guess it leaves room for a future expansion, but that seems like a stretch for a commander who is mostly only ever seen talking to people, since Republic Commando is sadly not canon (they should just retcon that to be so, honestly, who cares?!)

Anyway uh, so then this is one of a few guys who stands up and shouts a lot in the roughly 2 minutes of The Battle of Kashyyk that somehow inspired an entire wave of expansions. They seem very large, not particularly Agile, but I guess they would punch pretty good.

Actually, I have a bone to pick with one of the commands this guy game with, by which of course I mean:

So I watched this scene a few times for research. These Wooks swoop in from a chopper out of nowhere and lay some mines on a snail, insta-killing it….and all they get is Demoralize 1? 🍷PPpffFFFfttt 🍷

Grade: D

Anakin Skywalker

Do I appreciate how the FFG devs went full meme with Anakin’s kit? You bet I do. They even took a risk by portraying him as someone who “grows” as the game goes on and it mostly works! The recent rules change even enhances him from a canon perspective, because Anakin didn’t “stand by” pretty much ever when there was killin’ to be done. I think generic clones will end up needing a little more of a boost, which may come in future expansions, but I see Anakin as someone who could conceivably be the “charge forward with your friends” kind of Jedi that he exemplifies, as opposed to now when he actually excelled most in a defensive posture.

Anakin only gets docked for his abhorrent performance as a member of a 501st Battle Force, the command cards and structure of which are nearly in opposition with him. Still, it was mentioned that the 501st in Legion was inspired by the Umbara campaign, so it might be fitting because Anakin wanders off after one episode of that arc.

Grade: B

Clone Captain Rex

And then…there’s Rex.

There really aren’t many dudes in the canon who are as gung-ho about leading from the front as Captain Rex. He’s always there at the vanguard, he never runs away. When he’s given orders by a huge, powerful, schemic Jedi he disobeys them and risks his own life by doing so. When he realizes that his own troops have been tricked into killing each other, he rushes headlong into the middle of the firefight with his helmet off to save lives. What a guy!

…Here’s a short, incomplete list of people “as brave as” Rex:

• Pyke capos
• Grievous
• Krennic
• Some dude
• Some lady
• Some clone (ok this kinda makes sense)
• A regular-ass T-series
• A sniper
• 🍷Pretty much anybody🍷

Whoops, there’s my first one already I should be careful. Let’s be real though, while his 1 and 3 pips work well with his character “Take That Clankers” is kind of weird thematically. Also, while it is a pretty funny quote, it’s not actually spoken at any point in the show. This is the tragedy: Rex was for the first two years of his existence defined by an overpowered command named after something that never happened.

Then they took that away too.

THE FIRST UNIT IN THIS GAME TO BREAK MY HEART MAYBE (sobbing)

Grade: F

Chewbacca

Republic Chewie is in basically two items in the canon:

1. A Clone Wars arc where he is following Ahsoka around, he lightly dusts up a couple trandoshans but looks weirdly meek in doing so, largely owing to the stilted animation that was still present in Season 4
2. Episode 3, where he’s following Tarfful around

…Commander???

Just admit that you want us to have no fun by preventing me from running him with Anakin/Rex and a generic commander.

ADMIT IT!

🍷

Grade: F

Operatives (plural, but barely) 🍷

R2-D2 and C-3PO

Unlike the Rebel version this one actually has command cards that make some damn sense. The “mystery” of why he lost his jets and oil cannon by the time the Galactic Civil War started has never been solved but thankfully this Republic version actually did have all the tools an overzealous George Lucas could envision at the time. I still don’t get why his weapon doesn’t have ionize, it’s literally electricity you silly beans.

Looks pretty ionizing to me!

“Threepio” is actually one of the most thematic upgrades in the game but unfortunately he never sees the light of day; ironically the one character that requires the least CGI is the one who is too expensive to be worth it in this game. If I wanted to pay 70 points for a unit who has a poor chance for a victory point and basically only exists to create one aim and dodge per turn I’d just bring Padme.

Grade: B

Padme

🍷Oh right, “I forgot,” she’s still 90 $#@!^# points.🍷 Well this one had the rug pulled out from under it didn’t it? Just a couple weeks before this publishes Padme was a legitimate choice in just about any Republic list because she had the potential to share standby tokens and now she’s R2/Threepio without the ability to heal herself, and hey she has a gun cool. Alright, I do appreciate the parallels she has with her daughter from a gameplay perspective, and her 3 pip is thematic…even though Secret Mission is an effectively dead gameplay mechanic when underpriced bounty hunters are everywhere.

Side note, I checked out a Vanity Fair featurette Natalie Portman made a few years back. In it she recounts how she tried as a 16 year old actress to mimic the movements of an actress in Kabuki theater, and says sadly “I don’t know if any of it reads, you’re paying attention to the…space ships.”

Oof.

Grade: C

Corps

Phase 1 Clone Troopers

Shoot: Good

Die: Hard

Help: Each other

Combat experience: Born yesterday

Grade: S

Phase 2 Clone Troopers

Shoot: Good

Die: Hard

Help: Each other

Combat experience: Born last year

Grade: S

A Third In-Faction Corps Option

Grade: 🍷

Special Forces

Wookiees (both kinds)

This one is tough, there is much shown of the wooks making a stand on Kashyyk before the fight but most of the action is actually in/from vehicles once that famous 2 minutes of footage really begins. There was a Clone Wars episode where Tarfulls and some buddies swoop in to rescue Ahsoka and Chewie, the carbines do hit their targets and the other guys do some decent punching but it’s unfortunately all in the under-animated budget style of Season 1-4 Clone Wars so it’s all a little unimpactful.

Sorry this shot is still just disturbing to me vis a vis the animation in this show. I hate it,

I do think the concept of the battle shield from a game mechanics perspective is kinda funny, is the offensive form just the dude using it like a baseball bat? Also, this actually gained some ground when it was decided that the three factions that had regular access to scale (GAR, Rebels, CIS) needed to be taken down a peg in order to make room for scrappy Empire lists, 🍷who really are still waiting for their moment in the sun the poor bastards🍷.

Grade: B

ARC Troopers

The galaxy’s ultimate badasses, the result of the combination of naturally gifted super soldiers whose natural talents are augmented by superior training and state-of-the-art equipment. The best of the best of the best of the –

Wait, they have to borrow surge tokens? That can’t be right.

At least their heavy has cr-

Oh sorry never mind.

Well surely the unit plus heavy is cheaper than death troopers, they naturally surge and have access to an excellent free weapon plus precise 2 so –

Oh, more expensive you say? Well surely they have natural Jump 2 they’re basically always seen with those jetp-

🍷10 POINTS WOW COOL🍷

Grade: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Support

Biker Advanced Recon Commando (BARC) Speeder

This scene is probably the prime BARC appearance in the canon and it actually tells me that the devs did a pretty darn good job with this one. The gun seems to basically be the same as the Imperial (74-Z) speeder bike and the side car definitely adds to the punch majorly (although honestly, they should all be omnidirectional, it’s on a rotating mount for goodness sake!). The most inventive feature is that its larger base makes it technically faster than the 74-Z and it’s obviously beefier “per bike,” which is even accurate to canon in that they were made by the same Star Wars Corporation and the Empire wanted a cheaper bike with lower insurance premiums, I’m guessing they had an early look at the “skills” of their pilots which I covered over on the Imperial Canon article.

Unfortunately, its speed is also its biggest point of silliness. Why oh why does one side car make this thing exactly as fast as the sluggish Rebel Landspeeder, which can sometimes carry 3 people, a droid, and several weapons? Look folks, all I want is a speeder that’s not either “competent filler/looking for crits” (naked BARC) or “brazenly inviting death after I take my first shot” (BARC with weapon). Also, 🍷WHY IS THE FACTION THAT FIGHTS DROIDS LIMITED TO A DAMN BARC ION GUN AS IT’S ONL🍷

Grade: B

Raddaugh Gnasp Fluttercraft

I need to be careful here this wine is startingf to make it hard to type. In the three minute Battle of Kashyk this thing two shots an HMP Gunship, which has 7 health in X-Wing. I honestly don’t know where I’m going from here, since the real LAAT is also in X-Wing (even though they basically were atmosphere only) and we only have the dumn stupid LAAT/le in Legion we don’t actually have a true point of comparison between the two. But, I think it’s fair to say one health in X-Wing is worth like two in Legion, so therefore this thing should be….7 dice, Impact 7, Pierce 7.

I like the bomber one though, it fun.

Grade: D

All-Terrain Recon Transport (AT-RT)

These rthings seem faster than speed 2 I dunno man did you SEE how fast they go and oh man they tke out AAT’s like they’re nothing…they don’t even surge crit bro!

Also, tyr movingn in formtion like this in Legion, you’ll hvea traffic jam like…immediately

🍷WHERE IS MY MACE PILOT?!🍷

Grade: Booooo

Heavy

Infantry Support Platofmr (ISP)

Much like the speeder bikes in Blizzard Force, my real favorite faction, these things are basiclly a figment of the vehicle guides you see at Barnrs and Noble when youre bored and got time to kill. I love how these things were inspired by fanboats, but side-note…doesn’t that seem a bit silly when every other repulsor vehicle flies with the same voodoo BS that also doesn’t rely on contact witht he ground to move? I guess it keeps the troops behind the ISP cooler on hot planets k I chnaged my mind.

Grade: A

THX…1138, i think, the Saber Tank

Weridly this thing is basically only a Battlefront vehiclr?, oh well its basiclly dead on. I’m glad standby sharing is gone it was a boring way to play a supposedly mobile vehicl, now of course I am SURE that the cost will go down as a result right?

🍷RIGHTT????!!🍷

I dontkt tjknk this is the rihghtn tank,,,lol who cards Kyl wmnot notice LOLOLOL

Grade: C

CRAP LAAT

Knwo the dfifnnece between the legion a dn nthe conan? In the canoan peeepleee kactualyl use this thing a ciuioplee itmes! LOLOLOLOLOLOLLOOL if i wanted to throw 105 points awya i’d jsut use an ISP becauste then at least I can gunsloigner with twow crap attsasck pollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Grade: lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

You know what, the quality degradation here isn’t really that much of a downgrade from your usual, and we’re all at LVO so no one is going to read this anyway. Go ahead and post. – Kyle