Closed Lanes: Legion is Beginning to Feel Like a One-Way Street
November 18, 2024
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This article will be a meta guide to the current state of the game and my predictions going into Adepticon 2023.
After waiting 4 years and surviving a global pandemic, Legion is finally having its second ever World Championship. Adepticon 2023 will be the first event that has players from around the world battling it out. I have already covered some of the top seeded players going into worlds and now want to discuss the types of armies that will most likely show up.
First, my expectations are purely speculation, obviously we cannot know exactly what people will play. This compilation is based on feedback from other players and the general sentiment in the community. In this article I will list the main armies I expect to see at Adepticon 2023 in the hope that this information can help you prepare for the event.
Empire has always been the most popular faction typically making up ~30% of the armies present in events. After the points and rules update the Empire has skyrocketed in popularity. Empire made up nearly 50% of armies at the Las Vegas Open 2023 (LVO) and the introduction of Dark Troopers is expected to only increase their popularity. Rebels are typically the second most popular faction, but they have been underperforming lately which I think will result in their popularity dropping to be more in line with the Republic. Separatists have also been placing poorly in the past few events but the release of Asajj gives the faction an exciting new option. Asajj will be released only days before worlds, so I do not expect many players to attempt to hobby her up last minute and play her. Shadow Collective is still a very strong Battle Force but has reduced in popularity after the nerfs made them more balanced and in line with the other factions. Overall, I expect a strong majority of people to be playing Empire, followed by Republic and Rebels. I think Separatists and Shadow Collective will see the least play.
Currently the entire meta is being warped by Empire, in particular Blizzard Force and the Dark Troopers. If you are attending Adepticon you will need a plan to deal with these armies since they are going to be the most popular ways to play Empire.
Unless you have been living under a rock you have heard about Blizzard Force and its current dominance. AMG announced they would not be doing any balance changes before worlds so we can expect to see a lot of players playing Blizzard Force at worlds. I am not going to go into much detail here about how Blizzard plays and why it is so dominant because it has already been extensively covered. If you want to read more, we have a large back catalogue discussing the army starting from back in August of 2022 just after it first released:
The basic summary is Blizzard Force has no real hard counters at the moment and stomps many armies. If you are attending Adepticon you may be playing Blizzard force. If not you will need to practice against it and have a plan since you will undoubtedly run into it as some point at worlds.
While Dark Troopers only just released, they are already making waves in the Legion community. The Dark Troopers are devastating and difficult to kill. Full armor combined with red saves and large attack dice pools makes them impossible to ignore. The main difference between Dark Troopers and Blizzard is the fact you can take weapons that counter Dark Troopers. Armies that bring lots of Impact (and I mean lots of Impact) can make a game of it. That being said if your army does not have a lot of Impact or a way to deal with them you essentially lose before your game even starts. Dark Troopers are very matchup dependent; they completely crush some armies while struggling against others.
On the list building side, you can pair Dark Troopers with a variety of units. We saw a variety of Dark Trooper armies do well at the Cherokee Open 2023. You can play Imperial Dark Troopers alongside bounty hunters to form a gunline, you can combine Dark Troopers with a transport such as the Occupier Tank or LAAT Patrol Transport, or you can use them in the Imperial Remnant battle force. The Dark Troopers are new to the game but already making waves, it will be interesting to see how the meta shifts and if the early grumbling about their power level is warranted. Despite them being new, the community seems to think they are strong so they will show up at Adepticon.
Bounty Hunters are all great units and you can run all of them in Empire. There are a variety of ways you can support Bounty Hunters. They pair nicely with Iden, you can spam activations to help support them, andr you can even pair them with Dark Troopers. The most popular combination is Boba Fett and IG-88. Boba Fett is excellent for dealing with aggressive melee threats with Whipcord, and IG-88 is just a ranged beast.
Republic had some buffs in the points and rules update. The points reduction on many of their units and the climbing changes helped make them more viable. Of late there is one archetype in particular that has been performing well.
With the new cover changes, trooper units are in heavy cover most of the time. Stacking dodges and Force Barrier on top of cover makes Clone gunlines extremely durable. They can out attrition many other gunlines and Anakin can flex as a linebacker/playmaking unit. You can also flex into the 501st Battle Force opting for ARC Troopers. Because units are usually in cover, Sharpshooter 1 on the ARC Troopers is now more valuable. Clone Medics also dropped in points, giving a new tempting option to help support your troopers.
Rebels got hit fairly hard in the last points update. Previously Luke, Situational Awareness DLT Captains, and Wookiees were the most popular units in the faction. Each of these units got caught in the crossfire of the rules changes and increases to neutral upgrade costs. Because of this the Rebel meta has started to shift and explore new options.
Cassian received some slight buffs with the change to the Cumbersome keyword, and while Rebel Boba Fett is not as strong as Empire Boba Fett, he is still an amazing unit. Whipcord Launcher provides a force user counter to a gunline. K-2SO is also still an excellent unit and benefits from all the increased cover on the map. This army can also leverage fire support for some cheeky attacks. Rule With Respect provides a fairly solid alpha strike when augmenting all the range 4+ attacks. The one major shortcoming of this army is its lack of Impact, making it especially weak against Dark Troopers.
While the previous army is weak against Dark Troopers, this army uses Airspeeders (Impact 3, Surge to Critical) to counter Armor and play mobile objectives like Bombing Run and Breakthrough. Hold at Any Cost is still amazing with just Rebel Veterans and MK2 Medium Blaster Troopers. Six aims and three standbys can cause heavy casualties to your opponent. You also get great order control on the 3 pip turns because the 3 Rebel Veterans Coordinate the 3 MK2 Medium Blaster Troopers removing all corps troopers from the bag.
Separatists are in a tough spot currently. Their force users were hit hard by the Deflect changes. Also, since Droids cannot be suppressed, the faction has few built in ways to remove suppression tokens and avoid panic. This makes the new panic rules changes another nerf. The faction still has some good options they are just currently overshadowed by other armies.
Asajj Ventress will come out just before Adepticon 2023 and will be legal for play. Asajj is the cheapest force user in the game and adds some interesting options for the Separatists. Asajj is the only force user with Independent which synergizes well with the amazing order control of the Separatist faction. You can pair Asajj with Cad Bane and reverse sort your orders (give orders to every unit beside your operatives) to have perfect order control and trigger independent on both operatives. Separatists will need to bring some amount of E-60R Troopers to help deal with Dark Troopers. Luckily the E-60R cost the same amount as the E-5s Trooper so you can swap between the E-60R or E-5s depending on how many Dark Troopers you expect to see at Adepticon.
I am treating Shadow Collective as its own faction and expect it to be the least popular faction at Adepticon 2023. This is not because it is weak but mainly because it is the least popular as far as notoriety in the Star Wars IP. Despite the nerfs, Shadow Collective still has strong armies. The Battle Force is much more balanced in their current form than previously. Shadow Collective was previously popular because of “meta chasers” but Blizzard Force received no nerfs and is now the dominant “top” army.
Maul Pykes is still quite powerful. The new version has 9 activations instead of 10, but Pykes received some benefits from the new rules changes. The new LOS rules make it much easier to get into heavy cover. When in heavy cover the value of each dodge increases. Also Pykes are less reliant on Vigilance than Rebel Troopers so they are less effected by the points increase to Vigilance. High Velocity Spam is becoming less popular since dodge spam is no longer the top army to beat, and snipers were hit hard by several of the rules changes. So there are less armies built to counter Pykes. Maul suffered from the Vigilance and Deflect changes but is still quite powerful when played properly.
Initially I was quite disappointed when I heard there would be no balance changes before worlds. AMG has done a great job with unit balance thus far (Din Djarin, Rebel Boba Fett, and IG’s) the main misses have been the Battle Forces (Shadow Collective and Blizzard Force). Shadow Collective was fixed in the points update which was awesome, but this left Blizzard Force to dominate in its wake. This should be an easy fix since Blizzard force is the main army dominating the current meta (maybe Dark Troopers are also a problem but too soon to say). Normally something like this would not be a huge issue since it appears to be an easy fix. It feels worse because we are going into worlds which has been four years in the making, especially considering we saw Blizzard Force was dominant all the way back in August of 2022. The post-worlds future looks quite bright as far as balance goes. Even if Blizzard is nerfed into oblivion Empire still has multiple competitive armies and will not be in the same place Republic was post Rex-Star nerfs. That being said, Worlds is not just about the competition but is also a time to celebrate the international community coming together and sharing our love for this hobby. I have had the privilege of playing with both the North American and European Legion communities and can’t wait to see them battle it out. While playing this game I have made many friends and I look forward to seeing them at Adepticon!
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