I was at Historicon all day and forgot to tune into AMG’s Ministravaganza. They didn’t announce any massive changes to Legion and pretend they were no big deal, did they? Let’s see!
Maybe they don’t have the level of scrutiny that GW gets from their larger customer base. Maybe they just aren’t as good at promotion and communication. Whatever the reason, AMG is one of the most opaque companies in miniature gaming. Announcements from them, no matter how tiny or how large, seem to come out of completely nowhere. I would not blame you for looking at the title of today’s Ministravaganza talk and thinking “no big deal. Show me that roadmap so I can see pretty pictures of minis!” That’s exactly what I did, anyway. War Table: New Battle Orders doesn’t exactly scream “major balance and rules update incoming!”
So, was this a major update? Will Shick, AMG’s VP of Creative Development & Strategy assures us it is not! Games just need “a little bit of pruning” as they age. This is “a new refresh, not a new edition,” he says at the start of the War Table discussion. “This is very much the original Legion that we all know and love, but it has been… dramatically affected and rebalanced.” That’s definitely what I think when a game I play is on Version 2.6.0! Shick goes on to direct viewers to the Star Wars: Legion Rules Refresh Deep Dive article that was posted this afternoon, referring to it as a “doctoral thesis,” so you be the judge!
The article in question is indeed quite long. It discusses the reasoning behind the changes first, then Cover, Squad Upgrades, Characters, Changes to the GAR faction, New Missions and Movement. It’s worth a read. Cover saves are changing, but LoS is not, meaning they are taking a math-based approach to solve a problem that I think is fundamentally gameplay based. Clones are now just clones, there is no longer a Phase I or II distinction. Squads move slightly differently and notched based units move a lot differently, with a 90 degree turn allowed at the start of their move. A bunch of cards were removed, but this is just because they are now obsolete. For example: integrated comms antenna and long-range com-link are gone because there is no longer a range limit on issuing orders.
Maybe it’s not a new edition, but it’s not nothing. And furthermore, Shick said that this is the first part of a two part process. Though there was not a lot of information about what that means, he said that this refresh is supposed to be complete by this time next year, and the second part would be explained more fully at Adepticon. So hold on to your butts, I guess.
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