Star Wars Legion: Fortify Your Position
Let’s take a look at the newest heavy firepower expansions coming for Star Wars: Legion.
This week Fantasy Flight Games announced a new pair of expansions for Legion, the E-Web, and the 1.4 FD Laser Cannon. Back in March, I suggest both these units as needed expansions, so it’s nice to see those predictions coming true. These units both represent heavy support weapons on the battlefield and sure add a lot to the game. Let’s take a look at them and the upgrade cards they come with.
The E-Web
The E-Web is an interesting unit for the Imperials. It’s a slow-moving gun emplacement, with a lot of rules. Cumbersome means you can’t move and fire with it, while plodding means it can’t move more than once a turn, and only at speed one then. Reposition means and can pivot after or before moving (good since it can’t move twice) and full pivot means it can turn to face any direction. Interestingly these guys are classed as emplacement troopers, something we haven’t seen before, troopers are supposed to have 360 sight, but there must be new rules for emplacement troopers that have them acting more like vehicles for moving and LoS.
Their main gun is decent, with a red, two black and 2 two white dice. The big thing these guys have is Sentinel, which lets them standby out to range 3. FFG has recently clarified that cumbersome units CAN fire on standby even if they moved that turn. This means the E-web can move, pivot and go on standby, then fire on the enemies turn as an interrupt. This could lead to some fascinating tactics for area denial.
Price wise the gun clocks in at 55 points making it the same cost as a five-man Stormtrooper squad. With four health and a red defense dice it’s as tough as 4 Stormtroopers, but also doesn’t degrade like a Stormtrooper squad. It’s got more offensive power than 5 Stormtroopers, but less mobility, all in that seems pretty balanced, and neither option is immediately better. It also almost half the cost of a unit of 74-Z bikes, with only one less red dice and no impact (base). Overall this unit has some good uses and has lots of variabilities.
The 1.4 FD Laser Cannon
The 1.4 FD Laser Cannon is the Rebel counterpart to the E-Web. It shares some similar traits, like the E-Web it is an emplacement trooper with full pivot and sentinel, letting it work as an area denial unit. The 1.4 FD is also a stationary unit meaning it can’t move at all. It packs a pretty mean gun, five black dice, impact 2 and range 1-4 are all good things to see on a unit. It’s got both offense and defensive surges and six health, though it does only have a white defense dice.
The real kicker on this unit is the price, at 70 points it feels a bit steep. For just 50 points I can get a 5 model unit of Rebel Troopers, who also put out five black dice in attack, though they lack impact. Defensively the 1.4 FD only have a single extra hit point, and the tenability to move and fixed front hurt it. For 72 points I can also get a 5 model trooper squad with an MPL-57 Ion trooper, giving me be more and better attack dice, impact and ion, plus mobility. 70 points could also get me an AT-RT with a flamer-thrower, and for 85 I can get an AT-RT with a rotary cannon, which also puts out five black dice, though without impact. The AT-RT is a much tougher unit that is also mobile.
So, all in all, I’m not totally sold on the 1.4 FD laser cannon. It’s only real role is as long-range fixed anti-armor, with some standby tricks. For pretty much any other role there is a better option. If you want to do that one thing, it’s good, but it lacks flexibility. We’ll have to see.
Upgrades
The new packs also come with three upgraded cards. Both units come with and can take the same ones, so let’s look at the options here.
HQ Uplink is a new comms slot upgrade that is an amazing card. During the Issue, Orders step you can exhaust the card to issue an order to yourself. This means you in effect get to grant an extra order over those on your command card and with no regards to range, meaning a unit, no matter where its at can skip the random draw processes and activate when you want it to. While this is useful for both the E-Web and 1.4 FD, allowing you to make sure they go early in the turn to standby; for instance, it can also be taken by other vehicles. For the same price as Long Range Comms this seems like its like to be better in a lot of situations and promises to be a great addition to many armies.
Barrage Generator is one of a new upgrade type for the E-Web and 1.4 FD which helps up your anti-infantry firepower. Exhausting the card gives your attack two extra white dice and suppressive. While suppressive is nice, adding an extra suppression token to the target no matter what, the two white dice are pretty meh. Even with an offensive surge white dice have a less than 50% hit chance. Suppressive also doesn’t work that great with the E-Web or 1.4 FDs plan to sit on standby. FFG ruled that units check for losing actions due to suppression after their rally step. Thus if you use standby to shoot a unit in the middle of their activation, the extra suppression won’t an effect their next activation. If the card didn’t need to be exhausted, I’d say it was solid, but for 10 points and the lost actions, I’d rather add another Stormtrooper or Rebel trooper to my list.
Overcharged Generator is in a similar position but seems a little better. When you exhaust it, you add a black dice and impact 1 to the attack pool. Personally, I’d rather have one black dice than two white dice, so that already makes it better. Impact one is also really useful for taking down tough armored targets, and I find it more useful when I need it. This seems like a decent card to have in a pinch when you really need to take down that walker.
Man the Guns
Reservations aside I’m pleased with both these new units and think they will help open up the game more and add variety to armies. I also think due to the look of the 1.4 FD that we will get some Rebel Hoth Troopers soon. I’m always happy to see new units coming out for Legion and look forward to playing with them.
Let us know what you think about the new units, down in the comments!
