Trying out the Atomic Mass Games version of Star Wars: Legion

AKA Return of the Scarif Beach Party...

 Blogger Pel and I decided it was time to give the new version of Star Wars: Legion a go. Given the wildly varying views on the internet and the bits and bobs that we'd respectively read it seemed like the best thing to do was give it a go. 

We both went through and built lists with a bunch of things that needed to be tested. Pel bought a couple of vehicles so we could see what happens when armour and vehicle damage play out and I bought the Dark Troopers (for armour) and a double-sized unit of Storm Troopers to see what that did.

The mission was a Bunker Assault with Sweep and Clear as a secondary objective - that was looking to defeat enemies in all areas on the board for VPs. Pel had Ordnance as his advantage (for a once per game bombardment) and I had Garrison (adding another Prepared Positions unit.)

The game began with both of us reading the orders rules to understand how we actually started with our commanders off the table and then working out how Prepared Positions worked. I deployed half my army (in the end) because Shore Troopers and their mortars, as well as my Storm Trooper garrison. Pel deployed his blaster cannon and his Rebel Veterans.

The first turn was VERY slow as we worked out how everything worked, looked up rules and abilities and double checked things we thought might have changed. By the end of turn one, I'd plinked some damage on the Snow Speeder and killed some Rebels and Pel had started a campaign on the giant unit of Storm Troopers but the amount of damage done to either side was fairly limited. 

Turn two and three were fairly violent - the Storm Troopers spent the whole game excessively suppressed and it was only Director Krennic standing next to them that kept them from panicking. The Dark Troopers armour and two activations did horrific things to Pel's Wookiees while Pel's rotary cannons destroyed most of my infantry.

This is about where we ended up. Darth Vader went screaming across the board and dispatched two reduced units of Rebel Troopers, the Taun Tauns and Dark Troopers continued to handbag each other and a Dewback had a good crack at Han Solo for not much of anything.

We called the game there as the Empire was ahead on VPs and while I was down to 4 Shore Troopers and one Storm Trooper in my line, I still had an angry Vader and most of my Dark Troopers still kicking while Pel was running out of infantry and the Dark Troopers dealing with the Wookiees blunted the Rebels attack. Also, Pel cannot make white-die saves in Legion.

What did we learn?

• Most units don’t deploy on table unless you have Prepared Positions. 
• Most units walk on the base edge. So unless you have range 4, you’re not shooting much of anything in turn 1, which isn't a bad thing. Speed One Darth Vader might struggle to really impact a game but that's just an inducement for transport.
  
• New cover rules are just straight better. 
• The flat hit reduction from v1 meant that the more attack dice you had, the better. Whereas the new cover rules allow for units to survive longer and they're more likely to be panicked than just shot off the board. Sharpshooter is a VERY good rule now.
  
• New armour rules just straight better, especially getting rid of the Armour with no number on it.
  
• Crit fishing is still a valid strategy for killing units with armour but it's possible to overwhelm armoured units with regular firepower. But dealing with armour is something that you need to have.
  
• Suppression doesn’t grant cover.
  
• That rule always seemed weird. Happy to see the back of it.
  
• Double sized units are interesting but not game breaking. 
• The recover Suppression markers using red defence dice, not white ones, and while it helps, they're also harder to hide since a 10 man unit takes up space!
  
• Pretty much all the simplifications are improvements we ran across are improvements. 
• The loss of fidelity on things like vehicle damage didn't measurably impact the game and having vehicles simply having a degraded state that requires a white die save to do more than one action is great.

The new battle plan setup is really good too. Picking out primaries and secondaries that your army can achieve and advantages that fill gaps in your army's capability is a nice way to go. We aren't on a 'who had the biggest bid to be Blue Player' stupidity either.

Overall? 

Well pleased. I think we'd both agree that this version is better than the last one. Most of the simplifications improve the overall feel of the game. The scenario generator is both more fair and more interesting. Dropping a turn and increasing the size of a basic army up to 1000 points doesn't seem to have much of an impact. I think at the end of three turns, the score was 5 - 3 and getting either of us to 12 by the end of Turn 5 was....looking unlikely. 

We're already looking at new models...

Next Time

Some more colours have been added to the Immolators. Well, black. I'll be pushing to get them done this week... 

Squeezed in some painting...

 It's a long weekend of chores and housework at the Casa de McZ this weekend so in between assembling furniture, tip runs and the other mundanities of modern life, I've managed a couple of things off the list. First off, I painted the Dark Troopers:

I know it doesn't look like it. :) There's not a lot to work with TBH and while I've put in a decent swathe of edge highlights and put colour in the two places it can reasonably go, they're mostly just black. But I'll take them out for a run with Moff Gideon some time soon!

They still need the water effects putting on but figured I'd get them done first and then they can be dispatched to the linen cupboard for drying.

A bunch of the locals are playing an ADLG comp this weekend that I couldn't get to but it did inspire me to dig this out of the to-do pile...

 

I got one Minoan chariot from Museum as a test and sweet jeebus it's a great model so this will be going on the 2024 to-do list...

Next Time

More? It's club day so I'll try and get in a game report for a change.  

Bringing a sword to a gunfight?

 Admittedly. it's the Dark Sabre so it's pretty effective. I've finished up Moff Gideon for Star Wars Legion:

It's a stunning model and I love scenic base of the Moff standing on the top of his wrecked TIE from the end of Mandalorian season 1 (spoilers? If you haven't watched it by now, I expect you have no idea who this is anyway!) Like many of my Imperial models for Star Wars Legion, he's a lot of black cloth and armour and so it didn't take long to shade and highlight! I'm not super sure I have the edge I want on the Dark Sabre but he's ready for the table. 

Secondly, I painted the Armiger Helverin I put together last week:

 

 

Styled like my two Armiger Warglaives in the style of House Cadmus, he's come up really well. I spent a lot of time matching the yellow (turns out it's an odd mix of GW Balor Brown and Averland Sunset in the end) and honestly, you wouldn't know it's taken me this many years to paint the third one. Quite pleased. 

 

Next Time

I'm testing my Berlin force for an upcoming event so will try and do a decent report of that game. Hopefully also some more Inquisition nerds and maybe some Dark Troopers....

Seeking the tomb of Marcea Lupul

Into the Lair of Marcea Lupul 

The penultimate game of our six-game Silver Bayonet Carpathian campaign saw the French unit, under Colonel Jean-Hippolyte Gavreau de la Framboise, marched into the ruined dining room in Lupul's castle searching for clues to where the evil Vampire King was buried only to be set upon by Living Armour which the French, and their Swiss opponents, were wholly unequipped to deal with. The Spanish, on the other hand, and their trusty Father Antonio were ready for it...

The French advanced into the centre of the dining room avoiding staring too much into the glowing green flames of the enchanted firepit! They were a bit slow in their discovery though  and the Spanish recovered one of the important relics and the Swiss the other two...

The French aggressively went after both the Spanish and the Swiss to try and get their hands on those treasures but singularly failed to do much of anything. Colonel Gavreau de la Framboise then started on some outright vindictive revenge and his Spanish and Swiss opponents happily waded in to do the same...

This last photo is where the vindictiveness was at it's absolute height. Zhantomeir the Cossack (henceforth known as Fancy Hat after he discovered a magic helm) charged into the Spanish swordsman and flattened him and his magic shield in a single mighty blow. The Spaniards Juan and Esmerelda shot him down!

The Swiss ran off as Hussar Olivier Cheveaux and Elodie the vivandiere tried to run down their two treasures too after a couple of their soldiers got absolutely clubbed to death by the Living Armour (and I totally forgot to take photos of that!)

 In the final game of the campaign, Zhantomeir felled the Vampire after a lunatic highlander woke it up...or at least thought he did. Then the monster stood himself up and Colonel Gavreau de la Framboise sabred the great beast. It was a glorious victory! Of course, on the other side of the park, a Swiss Grenadier shot down Georg Bitterlich (as Blogger Pooch rolled a double-10 reacting to Bitterlich's attempt to shoot him first!) as he defended the French exit from the crypt. Mercifully, it was just a nasty scratch and Georg will be up and running again in future! 

Thoughts?

It's a really really cool campaign. We replayed mission three as we absolutely stuffed it up quite badly on the first play through but it was SO much more fun getting it right. At the end of the campaign we mostly had second level characters across the board too. It gives out a lot of extra experience with artifacts and mission XP so we all moved through it pretty quickly. Definitely keen to play it again with a different crew.

And some workbench as well...

I started working on the Inquisition crew in advance of a planned Kill Team so did the first model. Look at me go! :) I have no idea what it'll do in game but it was cute so I did it.

 I spent some time clearing some of the backlog of assembly that's been sitting on my shelf so I dug out my Dark Trooper box and put them together. It's definitely one of the cooler kits I've done:

The box comes with with every option the unit can have - 4 Dark Troopers and 3 heavy weapons to pick from - and holy moly are they big. They're comfortably a head taller than a Storm Trooper and carrying some fairly beefy kit. They look really interesting in game too, with no ability to move at speed (although they can fly and reposition!) but they get two activations a turn to reflect their relentless nature. Should be really cool!

I've also finally got off my chuff and built this Knight Armiger Helverin too. It's been sitting on the shelf for a long time waiting to be the third Knight in a Lance of Armigers. It's a super sweet model too and will go well with my other Warglaives.

Next Time

More Inquisition work and the Dark Troopers and Moff Gideon will join the Scarif Beach Party.

So many ways to be unproductive....

 I have achieved a bit this week but not as much as I'd like. I was supposed to prepare a report of my excellent refresh game of Silver Bayonet with Tank yesterday but I did not because we had so much fun that I forgot to take a single picture! But, you'll be pleased to know that even though this was a scratch force, the legend that is Georg Bitterlich lives on as he killed a pirate and two revenants and escaped the table with a single wound remaining! I also ran the Nighthaunts into Scotty's Lizardmen in Kings of War and oof. When I'm allowed to do what my army wants, it's backbreaking. When I'm not, those DEF 6+ Lizards are HARD to put down.

Also Blogger Pel was teaching some Star Wars Legion at the club and that reminded me I needed to finish IG88:

So he's sitting in the hot water cupboard now setting the last of the gel medium. I'm weirdly pleased given how simple it was. I've also carried on with the basing my 15mm Wallachians:

The skeleton archer in the front is a kitbash (amazingly!) made out of an infantry archer and a skeleton horse. I'd forgotten I'd made them until I broke one and had to put it back together! That finishes up the light foot archers and half the light horse.

And why only this? Well, it's Film Festival time here and that always dents my productivity. Today I saw this:

 

 instead of painting and it was great. So....

Next Time

No excuses?  

Pooch's July update

Seven months down, and the painting momentum continues as I work away at a bunch of different things for myself, as well as knocking through commissions I am painting for other people. 

Generally speaking, I am feeling pretty good that I will be able to maintain my momentum for another 5 months!

1. Paint a platoon for Flames of War

Ok, so my visions of painting more Late War US infantry ran into a snag, in that I decided to paint some Early War German tanks instead! 

I painted up two Zvezda Panzer IIs (these match the other ones for my DAK army), and a Panzer Befelswagen. Because nothing says Early War like a Panzer I with a giant aerial on top!

They are less yellow in person, DAK Tanks continue to be a paint to photograph....

And again!

I'm a little disappointed with how the top coat of tan/yellow came out, it's more yellow than the other tanks I have already completed. Not sure whether that was just "this batch" of paint, the weather, me rushing.... who knows. I'm still generally happy with them, so I'm calling them done!

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

First up in this category is something for my Star Wars Legion Seperatist Army, Asajj Ventress!

Great pose, great figure!

She is really leaning into chopping someone/some thing!

Speaking of very dynamic poses, second up is another Marvel Crisis Protocol figure, Elektra!

Why yes that whole model is only connected by her hand to a rock

Looks cool as hell too!

3. Finish up a piece of terrain

This month's terrain is this beautiful Sisters of Battle statue printed by Potbelly Miniatures. I actually ended up with two of them, as the first print failed, but that gave me a great opportunity to play a bit more with the different paints and textures. I used the Games Workshop Nilhank Oxide to provide the verdigris, which I probably went too far with on the broken statue, but got a better balance with the larger one. 

4. Play a game a month, that was different to the last month

This month I headed up for a Flames of War tournament in Palmerston North (you saw the armies from McE already).

Just the one photo of Scotty's awesome Hungarians, deployed for battle

The tournament was great fun, and hooning around with Hungarian tanks was a really enjoyable. Does it make me want a Hungarian army? Kiiiiiiiiiiiiidnof.....

I also got Ventress out for a game of Star Wars Legion, which was a blast too- reminding me that I really need to play more of that game! 

Dooku also killed that young upstart Luke Skywalker. Which was very pleasing

5. Paint a Hundred Years War French Army for ADLG

The ADLG train rolls on, with a month very similar to the previous one!

I also put all of my ADLG army onto bases, which meant that I realised I was short a couple of Peasants to fill out my four bases. So first up was a couple of new Peasant figures, or more, one Peasant, and Rudyard the Bard, one of my DnD characters!

And you thought I was done painting peasants!

Paint one Knight for ADLG

I also finished up a new Knight!

Paint one base for ADLG

But wait, there is more Crossbowmen!

Paint up an army of 15mm Celts

I not only finished up a bunch more Celts, I also glued them onto bases and based them! 

Chariots!

Boudicca!

Just the start of my horde of Medium Swordsmen!

More of the same next month, with more chariots and more infantry (I hope!)

Pooch

Guns and swords

 Well, sword. 

I picked up Castellan Crowe for a couple of reasons. It's a great model and also offers a chance to run a slightly different Boarding Action with my Grey Knights (which I haven't used in a game of 40K yet!):

Mostly happy, considering I painted all the other Grey Knights in one go about three years ago. I used the Ghosty technical paints on the sword, which I rather enjoyed and played around with the runes too. I  don't love how the back banner came out and I can see I'm going to need to do a bit more work on the white especially to even it up and I think the sword needs a couple of edge highlights. I've got time for that!

Since I had the gunmetal out, I decided to sort out a model that I got from blogger Pelarel. He picked up the Star Wars Legion IG expansion and knowing I was keen for an IG-88, offered me the parts so we have one IG:

Not a complicated paint job. Gunmetal, some black, some rust and some oil. That's it. Base is still TBD since I'm trying to find the notes on how to do it again. It's been a while. But now it means my TERRIBLE Star Wars Legion list, No Disintegrations, is a go. I'll look to line up a game in June and try it out.

Next Time

Blogger Pooch and I are finally going to play a game of Kill Team using the Gellerpox and the Elucidian Star Striders. How will it go? You'll have to wait till next week to find out!

Happy Holidays

 So I took Christmas Day off from writing blog posts and honestly, seemed like a good idea. However, in amongst the small mountain of 1:1 scale work that's been going on around my house, I have got a bit of painting time in. 

I've spent a lot of it on prep - the rest of my 15mm Spanish infantry has been ice-block sticked and primed, I've painted the last of the horses on my cavalry (but not the riders yet...) so they're ready to get moving on. I've also built some vehicles and finished up painting another warband for Warhammer Underworlds.

So here's a quick few photos:

Skaeth's Wild Hunt was one of those Underworlds warbands I really wanted to paint and I'm fairly happy with how Skaeth himself has come out. I've based this on the studio scheme but done a few things a little differently to suit how I like to do things.

The first two turrets and hulls of the Battlefront Ostwind / Wirbelwind kit came next. I can't say these were the most fun kits I've ever built - the turrets are a touch fiddlier than I'd like although they're 1000000% better than the old metal 2cm quads and that's for damn skippy. The casts on the crew were also a bit of a letdown - very fuzzy. However, it's great that there's enough in the kit to do both turrets and given I wanted both options for lists for Bulge, I'm stoked to have them. 

Finally, to welcome in 2023, Boba Fett! I really enjoyed painting this and spent longer than I probably normally would working out exactly which colours I wanted everything. Turns out there's a lot of inconsistency between the original movies, the new TV series and the comic illustrations. I basically scrolled through pictures and wound up with a weird mishmash of all of them. Meh.

Next Time

The last of the holiday break WIPs and a bit of a plan for 2023, thinking about what's on the to-do list, what I might start and what I'd like to get finished. 

Pooch's November update

Ok. So November is now done too? This is REALLY ridiculous now. But at least this blog is on time?

With one month left to go, how have I gotten on?

1. Paint a platoon of DAK each month

This month we are back to tanks for the DAK, this time the largely unappreciated workhorse of the German Army, the Panzer IV. I say unappreciated for two reasons, the first because it very quickly gets overshadowed by the later marks of tanks (looking at you Herr Tiger!), but also because in Flames of War they are cripplingly expensive in Mid War, especially when you put a long 75mm gun on them.

Which of course, for three of them I have. Because I have always liked the Panzer IV 'special' from the desert battles.

These four tanks represent a Company HQ and a platoon of 3 Panzer IV F2 tanks. 

Company commander Panzer IV F1

Platoon of 3 Panzer IV F2

Next up, back to infantry I think, now that I have managed to get my grubby hands on some more DAK infantry packs!

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

One of the models I have been meaning to add to my Star Wars Legion army is the Spider Droid. It's such a silly design, but oh so wonderful, and so very much in the Star Wars aesthetic.

Plus, it's packing a flamethrower which is just entertaining!

Googly red eyes and a flamethrower nose. What's not to like?

3. Finish up a table of terrain

This month it's back to painting terrain for the Silver Bayonet, first up with the wonderful barn from Battlekiwi, which I built while watching the Black Ferns rugby final...

Done up in the same red tile and moss style as the rest of my buildings

Removable roof, opening doors, all very cool.

And I also finished up this Loonshrine, which I got from somewhere at sometime for reasons. None of which I can remember.

It'll work well as a piece of terrain for goblins to be fighting around for Silver Bayonet, or even Kings of War?

Skulls, a grumpy face and a big bad moon on the top

And more of the same on the other side!

I've got one more building to paint for Silver Bayonet, so aiming to finish that in December to round out the massive amount of progress on that table this year.

4. Play a game a month, that was different to the last month

This month I managed to take the aforementioned Spider Droid out for a spin, taking on McZ's Empire!

The game went poorly (if you are a B1 Battle Droid) but well (if you are the rest of the Separatist force), which is pretty consistent with my experience of playing Droids so far!

Droids!

More Droids!

The Empire!

Playing full size Legion was a good experience, 800 points does provide a lot of things, but not all the things (even for Droids!) The Droid Tank is very good, but the internet had already told me that, repeatedly.

5. Paint a new historical army

December has rolled around, and with it comes the next installment of our end of year Remember December event. 

This time it is Late War, drawn from any of the three Bulge books for Flames of War. I decided to go with my US Paras, and remembered this scene from the Band of Brothers series, where a line of British tankers as a part of Operation Market Garden turned up, then promptly got ambushed....

And so I decided that my Paratroopers needed some British Tank support, in the form of 4 Shermans, two equipped with 17pdrs and all of them equipped with Tulip Rockets!

Four cool as heck Shermans

Side view- I really like the pop of colour that the Tulip rocket provides 

And the front- showing the absurdity that is turret mounted aircraft rockets.....

I'm playing a little fast and loose with the history aspect here- the addition of Tulip Rockets came about later than the Market Garden campaign- but I at least made sure that I got the markings right to represent the Coldstream Guards who used them.

Will they be any good in the game? No clue. They look great in a completely Ork-ish kindof way tho!

ONE MORE MONTH, PROGRESS MUST CONTINUE

Pooch