We’ll go ahead and assume you’ve tackled the learning game with the core set. Now you’ve bought some more units, maybe, and want to build an 800 point list. Where do you begin? What do you buy? Both answers depend on a few things: your budget and play style. For me, I’m all in on buying Rebels competitively and one of Empire stuff to collect and play house games with friends. As I was trying to figure out what to buy, I would go through the Facebook page and Discord to see what was in the meta. Surprisingly, the meta is kind of wide open for the most part. This is where play style comes in the most. I’m new to war-gaming and my thoughts might not be the best on the subject, but I’m going to give you my perspective as a beginner on what I think on the Rebel Commanders out at the moment. I originally was going to write an entire post about the Rebel faction and decided that may come out to be too long. So lets start here and throughout the next week I’ll follow up with the supporting units!
Luke Skywalker
We’ll go ahead and start with the horse of the Rebellion. It’s pretty clear cut that Luke is the best Rebel commander in the game, and possibly the best piece overall in the game. He’s mobile, has a good health pool, RED saves (which we’ll learn is rare in Rebels) with surge capabilities if you spend a dodge token, immune to pierce which always helps and has a decent ranged attack with his blaster on top of his lightsaber attack. He’ll cost a bulk of your points but he’s certainly worth it. The most common way to run Luke is with Force Push and E-Stims. The thought process on that is Force Push will allow you to charge a unit much faster and E-Stims will hopefully elongate his use on the table with survive-ability. There are a couple of things we could go over, such as maybe recon intel on him now with the Pathfinders being released.
Luke Command Cards
Luke’s 1 pip card is certainly his best card. Getting off two attacks simultaneously works wonders in any situation. I think the card speaks for itself! Of course, timing of the card is also a big thing. Which will always be in game relevant and situational.
Not as great as SoS, but still effective. Getting a dodge token on Luke and another trooper unit is always a key to success for the Rebels. Dodges are great on Luke because it will allow him to gain surge for blocks and Deflect. While Red Dice saves are particularly good in general, adding surge to block with Deflect helps!
Certainly a card that will be used situation-ally as well. It will depend on if you have suppressed units that need some help removing them, or if you really need to get that free dodge onto Luke as well.
Getting Luke into the fray is imperative, and ultimately rewarding once you can get Son of Skywalker off. This is important, because it allows Luke to get back to back attacks off. Luke’s other command cards are not as great as Son of Skywalker but they do serve a great purpose for Luke.
Leia Organa
Leia Organa, the second half of the Wonder Twins, is another great commander for the Rebels and comes at a great price. Opposite of Luke, she kind of hangs back with the troopers and snipers giving out dodge tokens and inspiring units. The main reason for her being deployed in the back is to try and get her Coordinated Bombardment off, which is the best counter to snipers there is. Personally, I have a hard time getting value out of Leia in the later stages of the game but early on she’s worth her price alone. I tend to run Improvised Orders on Leia, which is almost an auto include on a lot of Rebel lists with two Commanders.
Leia Command Cards
Easily Leia’s most important command card. Having basically a 3 shot sniper rifle in round 1 is a huge counter to your opponents snipers. Limited Visibility hurts this card a lot, so if you’re going to run Leia you might want to cut it!
I’ve played two or three games so far with Leia and I can’t remember a time where I have used this card. I’m still very young into this game, so my inexperience is showing here! That said, with the new addition of Keyword: Infiltrate I’m curious if this will be a good counter to those units, specifically Pathfinders.
Of course this card is somewhat self explanatory. It’s pretty strong if you have Leia up the battlefield and in range. Getting two shots off at once is always a positive. Whether it’s taking an activation away or suppressing units and hindering their activation.
Han Solo
Han, much like Luke, is a personal character favorite of mine for most of my life. That said, I haven’t played a game with him…yet. From what I’ve seen with Han is that you’ll want to keep him in cover to maximize Low Profile and get him up the field to get into range 1-2 of two units to maximize Gunslinger. Thematically, I think Han was done so well. Personally, I just don’t think he fits my play style. Which is why it’s important to figure out your play style! He works like a control piece more than a mobile, murder machine. (Luke Skywalker) Sharpshooter 1 and Pierce 2 are both great for Han and mostly he’ll get his shots through with those. Han definitely improves tenfold with his Command Cards, however.
Han Command Cards
Sorry About the Mess is more or less about getting Han those free tokens. It will allow him to either double move to set up next round or perhaps a move and a shot.
This is what I mean about Han being a control piece and why his command cards mean a lot. This card can really force your opponent to do some stuff they weren’t planning on doing. Playing against Han it’s always messed up my game plan, for sure. I’m always trying to think two steps ahead and this card puts me two steps back. It’s very good, but not Han’s best….
Change of Plans is….to put it short: Very, very good. If I thought Reckless Diversion messed up my game plan, Change of Plans basically sends a shockwave to it. A prime example to understand it’s use is if my opponent expects me to drop Son of Skywalker down, they toss Change of Plans out. Now I, as the Luke player presumably, need to put SoS back into my hand and pick something else. Again, another great control piece for Han. Speaking of control pieces…..
Jyn Erso
First and foremost: what a beautiful model. Now on to her as a unit…again, this is someone I have yet to run but I’ll give you my best understanding of her. She’s more objective and control based than a shoot/melee unit. Her gun is a free upgrade, so of course you always want to bring that with her. She brings a lot of new stuff to the game and let’s dive into those because they’re important to why I think her role is objective based. Quick Thinking allows her to gain both a dodge and aim token, which helps a lot. More so when she has teamwork triggered, but that’s for later. Danger Sense 4 is really interesting. Adding extra defense dice in theory is great, but too much suppression could really hinder Jyn down. Surviving is one thing, suppression and panicking is another. Infiltrate is the real key to Jyn. Specifically, it will most likely(in theory) allow her to deploy near objectives and force your opponent to answer for it in some way. Duck and Cover seems to be an auto include for her.
Jyn Command Cards
“IT’S A TRAAAAAP!”
At first glance, you say to yourself: Charge is good, I can run into a unit and hit it. Which that might be how you play, and if so go ahead and let that Tonfa swing. However, in my opinion, it might be better to move into cover of some sorts if it’s there for the taking. There certainly will be moments where you will charge a unit if the situation calls for it, but I’m willing to gamble more often than not you’ll choose to shoot or move rather than charge. Either way, the best part of it is that you get to do this before the opponent activates, no matter what you choose to do.
Inspire 2 is a great addition to Jyn for a round but Teamwork is where it’s at! The thought process is you do Quick Thinking to get whatever unit you decide to give teamwork to and everyone has a dodge and an aim. However, remember that Jyn is nimble. So if your opponent decides to shoot Jyn, she’ll keep producing dodge tokens for the other unit. Hello there, Luke Skywalker! Want some dodge tokens?! OR the triplet teamwork synergy with Han and Chewbacca?! A lot of cool things you can do here. Ultimately, you might end up just doing it with a set of Rebel troopers to help them survive up the field and get the free dodge, especially when they have nimble.
This card gives Jyn Low Profile but if she doesn’t have a suppression on her yet and you give her an order token, she basically has heavy cover if you choose to give her that suppression token. Not to mention that also gets her an extra defense die with Danger Sense as well. Jyn is built to get in, get out, and hopefully survive. The biggest part of this card is that you don’t even need to issue Jyn a token but give them to three trooper units. This is certainly going to be a later used card, assuming Jyn has survived(!) to round 5 or 6, because of the suppression aspect on the troopers. Giving troopers cover via suppression is good, however the best part about this is they can’t panic or take the effects of suppression for that round. You can have a unit with a stack of suppression the size of an X-Wing on it and it won’t matter, they’ll get their full activation no matter what! That’s a huge late game swing.
Generic Rebel Officer
Not going to focus a ton on the generic officer here. They are a cheaper option if you feel like you need a second commander. Perhaps you’re playing on a 3×3, points are at a premium and need a commander. Here’s your guy.
Final Notes
Typically as a Rebel your units tend to cost less than the Empire. This will allow you to bring two commanders as opposed to one and that means a lot. Especially issuing orders in the command phase. If you spread out your commanders the more range you’ll have for commands. Some things you may see as a new player and not know are some names of lists. Wonder Twins will be some variation of Luke and Leia. Flyboys will be a variation of Luke and Han. BBQ lists tend to be Han with some flamer At-Rt’s.
Competitively speaking: Luke is the staple for the Rebels. Never Tell Me The Odds has stats from the Las Vegas Open that were eye opening about Rebel lists, in a competitive stand point.
Casually speaking: Build fun lists! Experiment with things. Run thematic lists! Play the game however you want to play it and make it everything you want out of a Star Wars game!
No matter whether it’s competitive or casual there’s a simple formula here. Star Wars is awesome. The characters are awesome. Star Wars Legion is awesome. Just have fun, no matter what. We’re adults(mostly) pushing plastic and tossing dice with characters we have loved for many, many years.
– GrandAdmiralThrawn
PS
I grabbed all of the awesome pictures from TableTopAdmiral.com and speaking of that here are some sites and apps to help you with your list building! Personally, I use both TableTopAdmiral and Legion-HQ the most. TTA I use more for cards and Legion-HQ mainly for list building. I’ll leave that choice up to you, though!
Sites:
- https://tabletopadmiral.com
- http://legion-hq.com/home
Apps:
- Star Wars Legion Builder
- Battlescribe
- Legion Army List Builder
Join the Discord @ https://discord.gg/8NzFFE
