I recently picked up Star Wars Legion, at the urging of my son. He had played it at a miniature night at the Nerd Store in Greeley, while I played my league X-Wing game. He was also in the league, but had a bye. Afterwards, he was hooked, and we searched around looking for more Clone Troopers for him to add to his force. I had picked up a box of Imperial Storm Troopers long ago, when we were trying to play the Edge of the Empire rpg, so I tried a game with them. It seemed good, but I had no interest in Empire. However, the Shadow Collective has been recently released, so I grabbed a starter. And then another. Managed to play 4 or 5 games, one of them even at the standard 800 points. So, what was the obvious next step? A tournament at Tacticon, of course.
Being as I this was going to be my second, third, and fourth games of Legion at the 800 point standard game level, I wasn't looking to win. However, I was hopeful about doing well in the painting competition. My force looks good, and it is fairly eye catching, so I thought my chances were good.
But, let's get to my list:
My main goal of the list was to run forward with Maul and the Mandos, follow up with the Enforcers, and have the Pykes sit back and objective for me. I have found that this is my general play style for almost any game: "Hey look at the scary! Yeah, kill it. Don't mind these little things in the back, they are just winning the game." It works well for me, and I figured that Shadow Collective can lean into that pretty hard. Also, this is, basically, all the units I have. I could have taken another Mando unit, added more upgrades, but I was at max points and already short on activations.
For Legion players, you will notice my Battle Deck is basically just the starter stuff... cause that is what I have.
Round one, Fight!
I walk up to the table, and see two big ol' tanks staring at me. I comment on them and my opponent says "Yep, I built this list to fight Shadow Collective. What are you playing?"... Um... Shadow Collective.(or it went something like that). So, feeling strong.
Deployment: Roll Out
Mission: Key Positions
Condition: Hostile Environment
I'm red player.
I choose a large building as my KP, he chooses a small holo ad for his, and the crash site in the center makes that central objective.
Much of the game is me learning things I didn't know or got wrong. Including running over to Dylan's table and explaining that Critical changes Surges without Surge tokens... oops.
His list is really good at taking down Shadow Collective. Lots of my stuff gets hit hard, but I still have a few things left. One unit of Pykes hides behind my building all game, so I'm confident that is mine. Maul flanks forwards, and I learn LoF is from the model, only distance is from the leader. So Maul gets murderized, which was my only real threat on his KP. This frees him up to move a lot towards the center. I have several units that can make it, but just seem to evaporate every time they try. I guess my good save rolls are done. In the end, I basically relegate myself to a 2-1 loss. My opponent disagrees, and moves his tank into contact with my building.
Fun fact: The whole "only troopers score" thing is only in skirmish. No such thing in standard missions. Guess whose second standard mission this is. *sigh*
Result: Loss(0-3)
Round 2. Fight!
For round 2, I am facing another Collective player. Sweet! I'm gonna pick his brain. Also, I get to see Gar Saxon on the table. His card and upgrades haven't really sang to me, and I run 3 units of Mandos. My opponent has a hefty bid, but gives me blue player. Wait, what? I don't even know what to do. Thankfully I had brought my deck, though.
Deployment: Major Offensive
Mission: Breakthrough
Condition: Rapid Reinforcements
I really like this draw. About the only thing better would be Disarray deployment, though maybe not in this match up.
I play Maul's card to let him Infiltrate(another rule I had been playing wrong previously, Maul's card must be played at the beginning of deployment). Being blue, I also was able to deploy him first. I placed him barely outside of my opponents deployment zone, on my left side, in a nook in the terrain, so he would have to move out and around to get him. I then placed my stuff all along the front edge of my L. My opponent mostly conceded the whole bottom of his L to Maul, placing only Saxon and Bane remotely near(behind the face) and clustered the rest of his forces along his board edge. I chose my Enforcers for Rapid Reinforcement and he chose his Mandos.
What basically happened is I moved forward a bit, piling suppression on a unit of Mandos on a building(literally 6 suppression), but doing little wounds. They rallied like bosses and cleared most of the suppression. I piled more on, again they rallied. I did manage to get them down to one model at the end, but they took a BUNCH of fire power. My Enforcers dropped by Maul and on the other end of my L by his table edge. This meant that he had very little place to drop outside of 2 of my stuff. Basically the neutral corners, behind my lines. Considering the mission, thinking about it now, he probably should have. Instead he dropped them with the rest of his cluster. I just owned the board and marched into his firepower. Only the Pykes didn't make it, but they were past or near the center line, by the time the game ended. In the end, I loaded his zone with my stuff, killed both Pyke units and Bane. I think I lost Maul, but not before he took an electroslap from Bane, which he Witch Magic shrugged off, and then ate Bane, denying Bounty.
A good game, and a surprising win. My main take away is that I still don't think I like Saxon. He wasn't terrible, but for a Mando list, he didn't seem to support them, just fits in. Pyke command Capos can be useful, but I get way more out of unit Capos. Plus, the suppression stacking/saving/losing to make the Capos do anything, is a tough conundrum. And I'm lazy.
Result: Win(4-0)
Round 3. Fight!
I had so much fun getting my stuff kicked in on round 1, I thought I would try again on round 3. Though this list is different, and would lead to other new learning opportunities.
Deployment: Roll Out
Mission: Breakthough
Condition: War Weary
I'm red player again.
Alright, I'm riding high from the last win. Breakthrough is my jam. B1s are slow, I can do this. Stick to the plan. Go "Rawr!", sneak the other stuff. I'm thinking War Weary is good for me, since I don't use Maul's courage anyway(cause I can't), but B1s don't care as much about suppression anyway(I don't learn that the command sharing is only for panicing until the next day).
I do really well sticking to the plan. Maul Infiltrates again and goes screaming into the snail tank. Vehicles don't lock in combat. Ah, crap. Lesson learned... nope, I will screw this up again tomorrow(spoilers). Also, the Snail is open, so I could have attacked the Enforcers inside. Instead, I end up piling a lot of shots into the Enforcers later, to do what I could have done turn one. I do manage to damage the Snail, but it didn't really matter.
My game plan goes pretty well. Most of my force is in to him along his board edge. My Enforcers, both units, are sneaking along my board edge. The only thing in my way is Bossk. Well, Bossk has to move to see anyone, so he does. Then he deletes the squad. Next turn, next squad. Crap, I'm out of stuff to get there. His snail tank is moving up, along with two B1s. Only one unit of B1s will make it, so I may be able to get my Mandos into them and take them off. The snail tank moves to a position that might barely be in my zone. I'm pretty sure it isn't, but I don't bother saying, or measuring. His B1s make it. Another unit moves into my Mandos, but I'm pretty sure he should have AI shot me instead. But again I don't bother saying anything. With my Mandos in combat, I can't take out the B1s, so he wins the game.
I didn't bother with the end stuff, checking and all, because it was a win/loss tournament with strength of schedule being the tie breaker. I only had a unit of Mandos left. He had both tanks, plus Bossk, plus the Tactical Droid, plus B1s... Once I lost the Enforcers, the best I could hope for was a draw, which would go to kill points, which I would lose. I'm not sure my opponent thought of this, because he was going hard to the end. But, whatever, I still finished it out strong(ish)
Result: Loss(0 - 1 or 2)
Final standings
In the end, I came out 24th out of 40. Better than I had planned. Dylan came out 28, which was less than he hoped. He wanted top half, but I don't think he thinks about tournament math as much as I do. Top half is a 2-1 record. That is pretty good. Would have liked to see it, but he went similar to me, loss, win, loss.
Good day. I recommend attending 5280 tournaments, they are well run and a great group of players.
Now, for the really important stuff.
Yes, I did win best painted. I also received a lot of compliments during the day. People really liked my red over black Mandos. I was also, by far, the brightest army there and my bases really sealed the deal. Being as that was MY goal, I consider it a triumph.
Achievements unlocked: Play three games, Win best painted.
Finishing WAY outside the top 8 meant we didn't advance to day two, but there was a matching factions doubles tournament on Sunday. Dylan wanted to play in it, I wanted to do other con stuff, was even eyeing teaching somebody to play Malifaux. I plan to have the low down of what happened up later this week.
Until then: play to play, paint to win.
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