Closed Lanes: Legion is Beginning to Feel Like a One-Way Street
November 18, 2024
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The weekend of June 14-16th saw the birth of the first ever Frontline Gaming Atlantic City Open Legion Teams Championship, in addition to a solo event for players who wanted that variety of Legion instead. The event was held on Father’s Day weekend, so a belated happy Father’s Day to all the Legion dads out there!
There were 6 three-person teams present, which meant with 5 rounds we would all play each other once. This weekend was for the fun, good times, and rollin’ some dice. There was nothing actually “at stake…” well, except I had to defend my title from the previous year, but this time…this time I’d have some help from The Boys. Side note: if you haven’t watched this show yet, you should. Major viewer discretion is advised though.
The team format was essentially as follows: Team A and Team B play against each other. Then the captains meet and exchange total bid numbers, then the team with highest combined bid (Team A) chooses the first match up and the other team’s (Team B) captain chooses which table that match up will be played on. This then repeats, except Team B will now choose a match up from the remaining 4 lists, and Team A will select the table for said match up. This then leaves two lists and one table. Clean, simple, and to the point. I will say, one small improvement I would add would be to allow the team with the highest combined bid to choose: first match up or second match up.
Now that the format has been ironed out, I’d like to take a moment to introduce the team I played on and the lists we brought, then get into the thought process behind why we took the lists we did based on the tournament format. After that, I will do a breakdown of the top 3 teams and include some photos of my time in Atlantic City. Ladies and Gentlemen I present, The B.A.M Batch roster.
This is naturally a variation on the “Brian Baer” list that he went undefeated with at the WORLD team championships back in February. As you can see, this list has a lot of repair. If I remember correctly, Bushman told me he lost 3 maybe 4 busses all weekend. With that being said, you know whoever dropped those busses must have had to work for it because Repair 12 should keep those things alive long enough for Luke to get into melee and begin chopping things up. The busses and Luke being the focal points of the list means your opponent better have plenty of Impact and/or Critical and if not, it’ll be a rough time for them. This tournament format is quite good for skew lists, because the team that has the highest combined bid gets to select the first match up. We figured that since most teams wouldn’t have 2 dedicated anti-armor skews, this list would thrive. In the event they did have two anti-armor skews, we could just pair the best match up for this list, unless it was an armor anti-armor skew, in which case this list does quite well against. I think I remember Bushman telling me he dropped two AT-STs by end of round 2 in his first or second game. This list can definitely do some work against other armor lists.
Matt, a fellow Florida Man (and actually the first person I ever played an 800 point game of Legion with) brought his flavor of Wookie Defenders. This is about as minimalist as you can get in terms of upgrades. Yes, all the troopers have Tenacity, but other than that it’s basically just a naked wall of fur coming at you full speed. Matt is also very well equipped to handle Commandos with this list, as he actually did a few times this weekend. The objective deck is quite chaotic and disruptive for static gunlines, but he will definitely struggle vs armor. This isn’t a problem though, because the format allows us to sort of protect his list by either forcing the first match up with his list vs another non-armor list or putting a different list against their one armor list. This actually came up in game 4 on Day 2, and Matt was able to get a solid match up vs. Obi Commandos. Meanwhile, I had to handle the Dark Troopers and Bushman had to deal with Echo Base double T-47s (not a great match up for Double Bus). All in all, another skew list added to the arsenal.
The idea behind this list is pretty simple. It has 6 units that can all shoot at R4-5, which allowed me to take it slow to give Vader enough time to enter into melee effectively. I will say, I do wish I had taken Operative Vader since he’s just flat out better, but Commander worked out alright in all but one game (that’s right Brits, I said it Op Vader is better).
I felt like I was fairly well prepared for pretty much anything other than Triple AT-ST Tempest, Ewoks, and Experimental Droids. Alas, the format would ensure I remained safe from one of the three of those, given we somehow played a team with all three. Oh, what’s that you say? Still relishing in disgust at my decision to take Force Guidance? Well gee, that’s a shame because it was actually useful every game I played. Between the Range Troopers, Snipers, and even Vader himself having the extra 2 surge tokens every round actually made a huge impact. I cannot tell you how many times snipers would have an aimed shot, and the end result would be surge, hit. I was definitely thankful to have the extra tokens lying about.
The plan was to have one list that could fill the all-rounder role and depending on what lists we faced, either use one of our three lists to jump on a grenade, or let them force me into an unfavorable match up to protect the other two lists if that’s what looked like the most optimal path to victory. All in all, I had a great time even though I promised myself I would never run this list again after a very, very narrow win vs EXD (yes the good version). Range Troopers are not quite the juggernaut some feared them to be, very mid-tier though they are quite good at doing one thing. But they still suffer vs a wide array of other units, and their dice can be somewhat fickle. My only loss was to Dashz’s Yoda Commandos and it revealed one thing: for once Empire didn’t come out on top with the new wave of releases. Hallelujah!
Well, we can keep this segment brief because B.A.M (Bushman. Austin. Matt) Batch finished 3-2 with an 11-4 overall record (tied for first with most individual wins, but the losses always came in pairs when we needed to win 2/3 games).
Defend Title: Unsuccessful.
Have a blast with the team format and make new friends/hang out with old ones?
We’ll be back!
The Capital Capos finished 4-1 with 9 overall wins, so for them it was either sweep or get swept for the most part (too bad these weren’t the Boston peeps, they could’ve renamed their team the Boston Brooi-ms…ya know like the hockey team?) Alright, I’ll stop with the forced Dad jokes and focus more on the players’ lists.
Great list, and with the best play-maker in the game. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it will be to actually kill the Commandos. Obi Wan might be the only one who makes it harder, but Yoda can pull off more tricks so that just Boils (yes Doc this is capitalized for a reason fine) down to personal preference.
As the title suggests, this is a list we may have seen elsewhere in the tournament. But where? Josh basically decided to drop some repairs and a couple upgrades on the busses to add in a Swoop. This adds a lot of play into Bombing run. Other than that, it’s basically the same strategy as the list Bushfacts took. Now, I guess since this is the second time this list has popped up in only 5 list breakdowns I should take time to write an homage to the progenitor of this monster. Weebaer, just know it would appear you’ve influenced almost an entire band of Rebel players with your impressive WTC performance and your Day 2 push at Worlds, hats off sir. All in all, a great list and with Josh piloting it, you had better be on your A-game.
Sam’s list also being Vader + gunline should indicate that having a powerful force using play maker is probably essential for a team tournament. This version can match up vs a wide variety of different lists, and it’s honestly going to have about the same luck vs Triple AT-SS Tempest as most other Impact dedicated lists. Sure the Critical is slightly more unreliable, but there’s enough of it. It would seem that the plan still remains…have an answer for armor because, well you still have to.
Congrats to the inaugural FLG American Team Championships Champions. It was well earned and deserved! Just know, we’ll be back next year and we’ll be Maul About It.
I did the best I could to replicate John’s list, as for some reason it wasn’t on Longshanks, so feel free to correct anything I have that’s incorrect. Commandos are almost a staple in all Republic lists right now, and for good reason: they’re durable, reliable, and efficient. As I mentioned earlier, Obi Wan might as well give them a new keyword, Immune: Defeat. Seriously though, in the 4 games I’ve played them, it’s virtually impossible to kill them with Obi backing them up, and medics backing Obi up. John played a phenomenal tournament and I believe was the only player to go 5-0. Congrats John!
Steve made a solid pick with double Dark Troopers because it’s simply a great team format list. It can be protected if necessary, and it can also be a decent anti-armor match up with the added DLT Range Troopers. Congrats to Steve on his Championship, and hopefully he comes out again next year to defend his title!
Kyle’s list is another example of an excellent team format list. It can handle a few popular lists very well, but struggles vs dedicated Impact lists, and coupled with a Hotshot Pilot (last one I promise) that should equal a winning formula. I will say, this breaking the trend of copying Brian’s list AND being on the winning team should go to show, Rebels DO have options, and I find that a team format is where the faction shines brightest. Congrats to Kyle for his Championship run, and I hope to see him again next year!
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