Closed Lanes: Legion is Beginning to Feel Like a One-Way Street
November 18, 2024
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Hi everyone, Professor “Doc Velo” Paul here. Young Mr. Miller approached me some time ago asking how he can earn accreditation as a Star Wars Legion Canon. I lied to him and told him he’d come to the right place, and that then told him the truth that I had appreciated the work he’s already done as a comedy writer. You see, I’ve considered Austin a threat to me promising student from day 1, so now is as good a time as any to give him a chance to sum up what he has learned. SOme would say that homebrew is the lowest form of entertainment, and they’re right, but it’s the canonology we’re aiming at here, screw the rules! If I’m impressed I’ll hand him his own fake diploma the next time I see him, which will either be at Worlds or, more likely, never since Jay will finally read an article and do what he shoulda did a long time ago. Take it away kid!
Professor Velo, certain units in Legion should exist solely in their most evolved form and with all design emphasis on being thematic as opposed to “competitively balanced,” whatever that means anyways. (There, I said it readers, you can mail your hate mail letters here.) Units like Darth Vader, Count Dooku, Maul, Luke, Obi Wan, and Yoda should exist only as they are in the movies/shows. Yes, this means they can take on entire armies by themselves, but they should also suffer the same flaws in the game that they do in cinema. I will break down each hero and villain in such a dynamic and elegant way that you will not only be forced to agree with my opinion, you will also be compelled to promote me to the rank of Jedi Master of Legion canon.
Let’s get started.
Up first, we have none other than the original Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Darth Vader. For the sake of brevity and flow, we will just use the Commander Vader template. Let’s start with the health pool and courage. Vader is no easy target to take down, if not near invincible. He would have 24 health backed by red defense dice. Want to shoot at him? You need to aim first to gather all your courage, hope you aren’t suppressed!
Vader’s command cards are mostly thematic as they sit, but we’d need to juice some of them up just a little. Darkness Descends would give out Reliable 4 and Unstoppable to the non Divulge section, and he would gain surge:block, Outmaneuver, and Armor:2 in the Divulge section. Master of Evil would allow him to order each eligible unit as well as treat his maximum speed as 3 for the round. Fear and Dead Men gives him a dodge when he’s issued an order as well as deal a suppression to each enemy unit that targets him with an attack. New Ways To Motivate Them gives out 2 more trooper orders. Implacable would gain Permanent and give Vader Target:1. Finally, Vader’s Might would see the removal of the non-heavy unit restriction, because Vader ripped a ship apart in the Obi Wan show… Remember? That all seems fair right? But he does have a downside! Check out this flaw…
This seems like the perfect way to capture Vader’s unique style of…“leadership(?)” throughout the original trilogy. The ones fighting Vader were certainly terrified of him, however his subordinates were arguably more terrified of him, for failure essentially meant certain death.
An excellent start Austin, I especially like that the price tag basically means that you can only run him with naked stormtroopers, who basically just exist to get tossed around by their boss for giggles. Honestly, I hope you just screw around with the point costs to lure a rube or two to write an angry comment about them. Anyway, finally, our long-awaited “Vader Down” is here! Eat your heart out actual AMG devs!
Lord Tyrannus may not be the most iconic character in Star Wars but he is quite possibly one of the most powerful. Christopher Lee’s performance as the Count left much more to be desired from the character, but at the same time did an excellent job establishing his identity. He certainly deserves a Legion unit worthy of recognition in the archives of the Jedi order. After all, he’s the best duelist in all of Star Wars and this would be an excellent reflection of his defensive abilities. His courage would be 5 because let’s be honest, Dooku is quite brave. All the Jedi he killed before, during, and after the Attack of the Clones would probably agree.
Of course, the weapons of choice for such a distinguished gentleman must be of the finest quality. First off, “competitive balance” is off the table, remember? His ranged weapon would still be the same, except it would see the addition of 3 more black dice and it would have Beam 1 because HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE EITHER PLAYED A STAR WARS GAME OR WATCHED SOME SORT OF MEDIA WHERE FORCE LIGHTNING HITS ONE THING AND THEN BOUNCES(Conducts) ONTO ANOTHER?! THAT’S HOW LIGHTNING WORKS… Oh, and it would also have high velocity because I’ve never seen anyone actually “dodge” lightning… Ok, rant over! Sorry professor just had to get that off my chest. His melee weapon also naturally needs a boost as well
How do you like that new ability? Do you think it’s overpowered? Hear me out. Is this not a highly thematic way to replicate Dooku’s fighting style vs. literally every other Jedi we’ve seen him cut down? In Episode II when he relieved Anakin of one of his limbs, it was a parry and riposte. What more evidence do we need? Also, the greatest duelist in the war deserves ONE training slot right?
This is where the fun begins. I will start with existing cards highest pips to lowest, then add two new ones. You Disappoint Me would order an additional unit as well as adding the Blast keyword to his ranged weapon for the round. “The Sith Will Rule” would order an additional unit as well as allow Dooku to treat his maximum speed as 3 and allow him to perform any action more than once during his activation. Yes, ANY action, so that means attack twice or double force push if he so wished, or double Jump 1. Whatever Saruman wants, he gets. Double the Fall is perfectly adequate as is and is in no need of any such addition as to make it more thematic (try saying this line in your best Dooku voice). Fear, Surprise, Intimidation would see the addition of the Permanent keyword, as well as giving Dooku a dodge token when he activates and including the Cunning keyword on this card, because I can’t tell you how many times having Cunning actually hurt me when I wanted to go last with Dooku…
This is a great line from Tales of the Jedi, which I might add was an AWESOME show, especially the Dooku arc. It seems fair right?
Now, the best part of the Home-Brooku stew I’ve been cooking up. His flaw card speaks for itself.
No need to apologize for the rant Austin, to be frank it’s a little ridiculous that most ranged weapons don’t have high velocity. Are we to believe that rebel troopers can spend all day DODGING AT-ST shots? Peace and Order seems roughly on par with Inquisitor power level so I think we’re covered.
For all intents and purposes, we will utilize the Shadow Collective Maul platform especially since this is the most evolved form of Maul. Maul’s health would see a 100% increase to 12 health because to be honest, he’s not that durable in a fight. He’s all about the offense. His defense dice would still be red and he would have no surging. His courage would be 4 because he’s pretty courageous, but has been known to dip out of a fight if things weren’t going his way. This is best reflected in the Clone Wars animated show when he makes a tactical retreat from Obi Wan and Hondo’s pirates along with his brother Savage.
Seeing as how Maul “only” has 12 health as compared to the other Sith Lords, he needs something big to swing around to compensate major offense. His Darksaber would get upgraded to 4R 6B as well. Both would get Impact 3 Pierce 3 and all other keywords and text would remain the same. He would have no default ranged weapon, because unlike the others we very rarely see him actually do a ranged attack, so he has to pay extra for that! Check out the gear slot, maybe there could be some interesting combos with it… I’ll let the people decide!
Seize What Power We Can is quite thematic for SC Maul, but I think there’s a more thematic adjustment to be made. Wouldn’t it be cool if he’s literally stealing tokens from the enemy army? I think so. I would add the following to the current text, “When a friendly unit spends a token off this command card, it may gain one suppression to gain an additional token of that type and if able, an enemy unit must lose a token of that type.” Witch Magik is very thematic as is, all I would change is to allow it to return to your hand when At Last is played. His Eminence is almost perfect as is but how about adding: “Each enemy that gains a suppression in this way cannot use their commander’s courage beyond range 1.” Phantom Menace is quite literally the most thematic card in all of Legion, so let’s not mess with that one. At Last would see a minor change, it would become a 0 pip. Duel of the Fates is literally perfect as is, and there’s not a single thing I could recommend to make it more thematic. Woah, and it’s “competitively balanced” too? Sweet.
The Flaw… Maul’s single greatest flaw in all of Star Wars is that he simply cannot ever live with the fact that he once had spider legs because he was haphazardly written back into the fiction after being cut in half. Hey George what’s up with that anyways? Seriously though, he’s mostly afraid of running into his old boss!
We’re getting a back-door buff to Palp when he’s eliminating Sith Lords just by standing next to them. And that’s…VERY ON THEME. You’re on a roll, Miller.
Let’s stick with the Commanders here. The new keyword is meant to display how Luke is able to be more effective when he actually focuses because all his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing. Yoda, stop it now… However, he also can be really reckless, blasting door panels before knowing what they do and what not.
Command Card Adjustments and Flaw Card:
Luke’s cards as is, are either super-thematic or just completely lackluster. Commander Luke is not in his fully evolved form yet, and therefore should not have access to Op Luke’s cards. All three should just get a new “Operative Luke only” clause, this kid shouldn’t be able to do that mind game crap he’s like 18 years old! The remaining three, can be worked on though. My Ally Is the Force should order 3 units, and should state “If Son of Skywalker is in your discard pile, return it to your hand, and Luke may perform a free recover when he activates. Full of Surprises would have the following added: “After command cards are revealed you may reduce or increase this card’s pip value by 1.” Son of Skywalker should simply show how apparent Luke’s plot armor is by adding the following text: “If Luke Skywalker would be defeated during this round, he instead flips his order token face down and suffers no wounds, then discard this card.”
Luke sure did fall really really far at the end of ESB, I wanted a flaw card that truly brought that into the game…he’ll be back he just needs to…keep falling for a while.
If only Legion had disarm tokens. Man I really need to sell my X-Wing stuff before it’s a fully dead…er, complete game.
Ah yes, General Kenobi. We’ve been expecting you. You are a bold one. Yes, I know those lines are from different parts of the movie. Bold is exactly the word to use when it comes to Obi-Wan’s health pool. It would most definitely be on par with Darth Vader, so I think 22 health for now is acceptable…I mean thematic. He of course has red defense dice, and his courage would be a dash just like Commander Vader’s. Obi Wan is probably the most courageous of all the force users in Legion, so it makes sense he’s got infinite courage.
Obi isn’t much for being on the offensive, except when he literally jumps into the middle of 100, 200, 300? I can’t even count how many droids..so I made his saber modest to fit the bill. You never know if his offense will just pop off, or fall flat and the 3 white dice really solidify that!
Teamwork: Anakin is long overdue. HOW many times did we see the two of them on the same mission? Working together? Helping each other? USING TEAMWORK? Ya know what? He should team up with everyone, why not! Obi’s upgrade slots would see a two additional force upgrades, and two additional training upgrades. This is mainly to accommodate for Saber Throw since his melee weapon now has Versatile.
Obi Wan’s command cards are semi-thematic as is, but none of them are the greatest when it comes to “competitive balance.” Let’s dive in like he did in the link above! His new command card is meant to capitalize on the obvious line that FFG failed to capture, your opponent had better hope he’s not holding a box!
This flaw card is unique in that it literally enables your opponent to give YOU (the controlling Obi-Wan player) the chance to outright win the game if it’s close on VPs, but it requires Obi Wan to waste precious actions moving to different places on the battlefield and could result in him fumbling around like a bumbling moron and come up empty handed. His flaw card would state the following: I feel like this really captures the essence of detective Obi Wan from the prequels.
I would love to get Lucas drunk enough to admit what the hell he was thinking with the Sifo-Dyas business, it thoroughly confused literally everyone I’ve ever talked to about it, even Star Wars fans. Your Obi is superb and deserving of GENERALship.
Grand master of the Republic he is. Health, 12 it would be. Not very tanky is Yoda, better to avoid attacks than take them, earrrgh yes? Defense dice, the same they would be. With saves, the surges he has. Courage, a “-” it would be. Not afraid is Yoda, brave he is. One with the force, yeaaaaaas. Already have that which you require. Except, more dice, never hurt it won’t. 5 red dice for melee lightsaber it would be. Force Wave, only two more dice we will add for 6, gooooood. Surge:crit he will keep. Impact 3 Pierce 3 on the lightsaber and Versatile on Force Wave, sufficient they will be. Arsenal 2 he should have, two hands he can use!
Master of the Force 4 is needed yeaaaas. Much to learn, you still have eaaarrgggghh eaaaargh eaargh ergh! Unstoppable keyword is also required. Agile 2, Incognito, and Defend 2 are much like Yoda. Upgrade slots, a Jedi craves not those things, but knows when they are needed. Two force slots, added yeaas. One training, and that is all young Padawan.
Thank god… That wasn’t easy, Doc but I did it for you. I’m really hoping I get promoted to the rank of master with this thesis.
Command Card Adjustments and Flaw Card:
Yoda’s command cards are pretty thematic as is, he needs a flaw though. When Yoda failed to defeat Palpatine in Epsiode III, he forced himself into exile and became the crazy old hermit frog we know and love from the original trilogy.
ANOTHER stealth buff to Palpatine! Also, with five force powers we may even see Hope played. LOL! J/K!
Yes, I know this all seems wild and completely unbalanced, but Doc, I have but one bit of sentiment to leave you with.
If these units were this powerful, no one would ever not take them, yes that’s correct. My Magnum Opus, my Coupe De Grace, my master stoke. . . Is this: If we all had nuclear weapons at our disposal, then wouldn’t the playing field just be even? So I say go ahead, give everyone an ICBM. What’s the worst that could happen?
Well you had me until that last part, but I’ve taken at least one arms control politics course in college and also have played every iteration of Metal Gear Solid, enough to know that your logic is…somewhat flawed. You did well today, and I have a little something for you. It’s what you were hinting at this whole time…mostly. Also mad props and thanks to Table Top Admiral for their card creator, check them out!
YOU’LL HAVE TO WORK HARDER THAN THIS TO REPLACE ME, BOY!
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1 Response
PLEASE tell me these cards will be available in the Legion HQ list builder. 🤣🤣🤣
Love it!