The Chosen Few

Across the Atlantic Ocean on a small island, a group of Legion players gathered with the idea of practicing lists for Worlds. We agreed to meet up between Christmas and New Year and try playing with what new rules had been released so far. The idea was to do three rounds but without lists being locked so we could make small tweaks between games.  That way we could all try to finish the day up with the best possible list at the end to potentially work on taking to Worlds.

We had seven players turn up to play three games each so unfortunately there was going to be a bye each round (which was myself on the final game) but with the day being a practice day amongst friends and costing nothing, there was no bad feeling from the person getting the bye.

My list

Although the plan for the day was for us to take a list we are thinking about for Worlds, I’d been struggling to think about my list until we had the completed new rule book. I had enjoyed the new rules articles which had given me pause to think about creating my lists differently. Unfortunately, there were too many unknowns with how Jump, Scale etc. all interact which might influence my choice of taking certain units.

In the end, I decided I wanted to take a list that would demonstrate potentially how the new suppression mechanics would fare. It’s a list I’ve been wanting to take to a tournament but I hadn’t had the chance to play in any casual ones recently.

With the Raiding Party Leader, Reckless Driver and three swoop bikes I was hoping to give out lots of suppression a turn and see how the new panic mechanics would work out.

Previously when I’ve built this list I’ve also put in two naked units of Pykes and a Capo which still fit for the same price as Cad Bane. This would bring me up to 10 activations but I also wanted to try playing with a list that just takes meaningful activations and try and use the pass mechanic as best as I can.

Game 1

Nav’s List

Despite attending quite a few events together I had never had the pleasure of playing against Nav so we chose to play each other for the first game.

His double Magnaguards were going to be the scariest threat to me, as I had no Pierce and he had four repair bots. The STAPs are a good counter pick vs Blizzard Force but with both my guns and my own bikes I thought I should be able to handle the STAPs.

Turn Zero

With Nav having the better gun line and damage than me I decided to ban Hemmed In. In return he banned Minefield. I didn’t want to play Key Positions against his higher activation droid army vs my low activation count, so I decided to ban it. Nav decided to ban War Weary, as he had only a single commander with courage two against the potential suppression list. This leaves us playing Breakthrough, The Long March and Clear Conditions.

I divulged Cad Bane and put his reveal token within range two of where I was going to place one of my buses. I placed the other two tokens covering the middle and one of the flanks in case he wanted to move down.

I deployed both my buses flanking a building to move via the centre and placed both my Black Suns in the buses. That was my army deployed until Nav finished his units. I deployed the swoop bikes after seeing where Nav had deployed and kept them away from his Magnaguards.

Turn One

I Make The Rules Now Vs Standing Orders

I revealed Cad Bane and relayed his order to my reckless driver bus. My first activation was to Pass. This was interesting and fun to try it out since I had priority but my opponent went first. I decided to be cautious and move my bikes just the compulsory move along with the raid leader. I moved the reckless driver twice and took a shot on a unit of STAPs that hadn’t been yet. Rolling six black dice I scored zero paint on the dice. Not zero hits you understand – not even a single surge! Not that it even mattered. While I was being cautious, Nav had been testing out the new climbing rules and decided to climb his B1’s onto a roof he would not ever have bothered with in the past. With Nav having the activations over me he controlled his bikes until last and managed to strip the shields and inflict two wounds to my reckless driver bus on turn one.

Turn 2

Standing Orders vs Roger, Roger

I didn’t want to go first again, so I played standing orders. Using Discretion would give the dodges to the buses, which would be wasted as Nav had no Impact.

Nav went first with a unit of bikes to strip the shields off the bus again. I decided that with only taking two damage so far and with most units out of range apart from his STAPs, I would Pass as my first activation again. A second unit of STAPs fired, scoring zero crits, so I took this as my opportunity to move and shoot the last STAP before it got any dodges. Nav then started to go with his B1’s and repaired the STAP back to life. He also climbed on top of the roof to attack the bus looking for natural crits, scoring five! I saved none of them leaving my bus on one health.

Nav decided to try and kill the bus with a unit of Magnaguard by charging it in Melee but failed. His final unit of STAPs managed to kill the bus. I disembarked my Black Suns backwards due to the Magnaguard being so close, but I kept them at range one of a unit of B1’s on the building and one shotted them (we did not have the full rules yet which included the new face down token on transported units, so the Black Sun were able to act after the bus was destroyed). With Nav moving the Magnaguard into the open I started trying to kill them with my Swoop Bikes and Cad, leaving a single model alive after they kept getting healed over the turn.

Turn Three

Discretion vs Do Not Underestimate our Means

I managed to win the priority and managed to kill the stubborn remaining Magnaguard model with my second bus. Nav’s STAPs at this point contained two units with one model and one full squad, so he decided this turn to start moving towards my deployment zone to make sure he scored some points. At this point it was clear we were not getting the full six turns so we both started trying to score some points for the win. As the STAPs flew past they still managed to kill all except one model of my Black Suns.

I pulled Cad Bane quite early and I decided to move him into the middle of the board in heavy cover, since he had taken wounds the previous round. In return he could shoot the STAP who was already wounded and remove the potential victory point from Nav.

This shifted me into having the potential advantage for scoring next turn. Nav had also figured this out so he started to fire at my swoop bikes as they started to approach his deployment zone. With only having one heavy weapon unit of B1’s left he only managed to inflict two wounds to a unit.

Nav’s second unit of Magnaguard decided to charge the rear of my Raid party leader bus, scoring one wound with the whip to immobilize it and stop it from scoring.

Turn Four

I’m Your Worst Nightmare vs Preservation Protocols

With this being our last turn, it ended up being a case of how many units could I get in the deployment zone, especially since the two units of Staps that had run away I could not reach to stop.

I went with Cad Bane first, falling just short of trying to shoot Kraken and hoping to try and claim the bounty. Instead I shot some B1’s, then moved into melee with the unit with the heavy weapon stopping them from shooting my Swoops as they moved into scoring.

The Swoops started triple moving into scoring, but Kraken and the two units of B1’s still able to shoot managed to kill a unit. Now Nav was in the lead on kill points and the score currently was tied at two apiece. It was down to my Black Suns to double move but they had three suppression. I had to clear a single suppression to be able to dauntless myself into scoring, otherwise if I dauntless to score with three suppression I would then have four, and under the new rules it would no longer count as scoring! I managed to clear two suppression on my rally step to take me into the lead and win the game three to two.

Game Two

Lyla’s list

Lyla has been running variations on Black Suns in buses or Pyke dodge spam. I’ve played her twice before and both times I’ve conceded by turn three or four. This was not going to be an easy game for me.

Turn Zero

Lyla banned Roll Out so we would be closer to each other. This favoured her especially with limited visibility currently in play. This led me to ban Limited Visibility thinking I could get a few shots before the Black Suns could get to me. What I didn’t realize was I only had two guns that were not range two. Both of these guns were on the buses which want to be close to drop units off.

Lyla then banned Recover Supplies to play Hostage vs Maul. I instantly banned Hostage Exchange so we could play Payload. Not thinking everything through from the beginning was a big mistake on turn zero for me.

I only have two corps and one of them was now about to be a Rapid Reinforcement unit. With quick hindsight I realized I should have just left Limited visibility and picked a better deployment zone. We deployed our carts in the normal long part of the deployments and both picked a piece where we could both touch if we moved all six turns.

Turn One

I Make The Rules Now vs Seize What Power We Can

I had deployed the reckless driver bus at range three of Lyla’s payload. This was to make sure she couldn’t hit me with the Black Suns on turn one. Unfortunately I had forgotten that she had put recon intel on all of her units which meant she could get the shot but would only be fishing for crits on the first turn. Naturally, Lyla managed five wounds from all her Black Suns, but I was lucky to have the two shields!

Turn Two

Aggression vs At Last

With Lyla winning priority she went from the bag and pulled a corps unit. She had the choice of deleting my bus or a unit of Swoops. She decided to remove the bus to stop me driving through her entire army. I pulled a corps unit and tried to delete one of the Black Suns that Lyla had rapid reinforced to stop my Payload. I had not made a recent sacrifice to the dice gods; I scored only four hits with my Blacks Suns and Lyla saved three of them. In return, Lyla managed to kill five of my Black Suns. This left a lone Black Sun and my bus to escort my Payload.

My rapid reinforced unit managed to kill one of her Black Sun units with the help of my Swoop bike before it got one shotted. At this point in the game Maul had done nothing. He continued to move with the Payload to help escort it along with the remaining Black Suns. We both got to move our Payloads this turn.

Turn Three

I’m Your Worst Nightmare vs Standing Orders

Lyla had tried to move her Vigos to catch up but they where currently in the doorway in the wall. This was my only chance to get the bounty. I had done a single wound at the end of the last round and with them running towards Maul I wouldn’t get another chance without putting Cad Bane at risk. I managed to score four hits on the first attack as the heavy cover downgraded to light cover due to Sharpshooter. Lyla only managed to save a single wound but Cad’s pierce one got the bounty in one shot! With my second attack I backed away from Maul and towards my Payload to help the bus and lone Black Sun.

A unit of Black Suns took an opportunity to shoot Cad to try and stop him scoring the bounty but unfortunately only managed to score a few wounds. My two Swoop bikes managed to kill the other Vigo which lead to a unit panicking during their activation. Maul had the decision to chase after Cad and risk the Swoops contesting her Payload, or escort her own. Lyla decided to instead safely escort the payload and finally got to swing Maul’s lightsaber, killing the rapid reinforced Black Suns but having to move in the opposite direction from Cad Bane.

The most important thing that happened this turn was Lyla killing the lone Black Sun model and having a unit of two models with a suppression contesting my payload. I only had my bus escorting the payload now. So I took an aim and shot at the suppressed unit to panic them and the payload would continue to move.

Turn Four

Discretion vs Duel Of The Fates

Cad started the turn with three dodges and killed one of the Black Sun units trying to contest my payload. A unit of Swoops was also on the way back to help escort the payload. Lyla and I talked out the rest of the game. Since Maul was being used to escort the payload she had nothing left to stop me also scoring three points and the bounty.

New Rules

Since we only had a partial rules update at the point of playing this, the two biggest things I took away had been that the pass mechanic seemed improved and did help lower activation list armies. The other positive I found was the ability to climb over walls or up onto buildings. It was something extra and made me change the way I think. I like both changes.

The panic changes made an impact and helped me win my game against Lyla but I think it’s something you have to be constantly aware of when to activate units due to the ability to panic units to stop them from scoring.

The biggest discussion we all had was the issue of only having half the rules for LoS and silhouettes regarding vehicles so we had to go by what we thought the rules were going to be. Unfortunately, we were proved wrong once the update came out!

In hindsight now we have seen all the new rules. The only thing we played wrong was Lyla’s unit would have contested my payload to stop me from scoring which would have gone to points destroyed and handed her the victory.

Conclusion

As far as my list goes, I don’t think the final rules update has affected it much in any significant way. In fact, I think it has benefitted from the changes to suppression and the Pass mechanic. I believe that if I was to seriously consider this as a list to take to Worlds it may need more practice but it is still a potential choice. Compared to other lists I’ve been trying (excluding Blizzard Force), it’s one of the better ones and it may still end up making the cut in March!