The Alliance Tournament Legion's First

Last weekend I went to the Alliance tournament, a large scale 40K tournament which had a Star Wars Legion small side tournament. The venue was great. Under an hour drive from my house which was nice for a change as most of the wargaming convetions and tournaments are usually over 2,5 hours drive from my house. The venue itself was great. The Schiphol hotel felt very luxourious compared to the gaming stores I normally go to. The tournament had 120 players for 40K and a whole whopping ........4 for Legion. definately something we need to work at promoting our game. I think we can draw more people in these tournaments when we ditch the whole tournament setting and name. Let's just call it an "event day" or "campaign". there aren't a lot of hardcore players for Legion and most people shy away from these tournaments because the feel inadequate and don't know the rules well enough. Most of the players in the tournaments however are more then happy to help new players and coach opponents through any game situation.  

There were 3 tables set up for legion. I had offered to bring my Tatooine table and so I came to the tournament half an hour early to set it up. The other tables looked good as well so we were set to have a lot of fun.

The organisation of the 40K tournament was great. all tables had a lot of nice looking scenery on it, every round started of with a very nice mission briefing video, there was a website with live updates of the player rankings, we all got water bottles to stay hydrated and the buffet...oh wow, that alone was well worth the ticket price. I'm definately going again which I believe will be May 4th for a special star wars themed event day.

This table on the left was set up by Tabletop Kingdom as a star wars legion demo table. It looks great and has a lot of nice looking line of sight blocking scenery on it. Over the event it even drew some attention from the 40K players curious about the Legion gaming rules.

The second table as a snowy cargo spaceport table. The lay out of the table was good but it had lot's of wide open spaces.

Table 3. My Tatooine table
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The third table was my tatooine table. The gaming mat was supplied by the tournament organisation. I got a lot of nice comments about the table and the players had fun playing on it. Having other people enjoy using my terrain give me a really good feeling so I'm hoping to add some more terrain to the "Mos Alta" table and continue to work on my industrial space table so I can bring two tables to the next event.

Below are some random shot's of my gaming table and below that some pictures of how my games went.

I tried out a new list which I never played before. I decided to field the wonder twins for the first time. I had Luke and Leia in the command slots, a sniper and proton strike team with a unit of wookie warriors filling out the special forces slots. Than a unit of fleet troopers and 3 units of rebel troopers each with a Z-6 and extra man in the unit.

For my first game I was watch up against Frank's imperial forces. He had a list with palpatine, royal guards and Boba Fett and filled the rest of the list with 2 sniper teams and storm trooper units. 

All I can say aboout the game is that I had a plan and everything went my way in this game. My units were in the right range all of the time. The timing of my command cards played out wonderfull and the fact that Frank rolled really bad with his red defence dice helped a lot too. I rolled up his army in round three. The plan worked and I was very fortunate with my dice rolls. 

My second game was against Joost who also had an imperial list with Veers, Boba Fett, double speeder bikes, an E-web, sniper team and couple of bare storm trooper units.

For this game a didn't really have a plan. I layed down a lot of fire towards his speeders and Veers but I was unable to criple any of them. On the other hand I lost most of my trooper unts pretty quickly and ended up with only my commanders, Luke & Leia with the Wookies at the last turn. My opponent outscored me on objectives and the game was lost.

The last game was against Hielke, an opponent I had faced before. In the previous tournament I had beaten him because I payed attention to the objectives and the clock. We had to end that game before it was turn six.

This time we started our game half an hour late and I had to quit half an hour early because I had other things to do that evening. We took 15 minutes to deploy and then only had an hour left to play. Because that's really short for a game of Legion we both made descicions we normally wouldn't. Both armies raced to the middle and all caution was thrown in the wind. 

It was really cool to play against a beautifull painted army on my table and I still enjoyed it even though it was too short.

I would like to thank the tournament organisers and tabletop kingdom for making this possible and hope we can grow our Legion-event-days from here. You guys are great, thank you! If they ever need any assistance in the future with other Legion events I will happily help them.

Rebel AT-RT Painted

The AT-Rt is the rebels's workhorse. It can be fitted with 3 different types of weapons and had reasonable good melee although I wouldn't advise to get your AT-RT's that close to the enemy. My favourite weapon so far is the rotary blaster which puts out decent damage but when you have a feeling you might be up against vehicles you can equip it with a laser canon.

I have played against another rebel player that had two AT-RT's with laser canons and it made me keep my own AT-RT's back and behind cover to block line of sight. It is that scary.

The At-RT is good value for points and a auto include in any list for me. That might change when more units for the support slot are released.

I haven't used the heavy flamer option yet because I don't like putting my AT-RT's within range 1 of my opponent's units but the potential damage it can do is great and a good deterrent in objective areas.

I have two AT-RT's from the two core boxes I have bought. I haven't changed the AT-RT's itself so they both have the same pose but I did use some green stuff to model the shooting arm of the pilot to make it look different. I also changed the color scheme and skin color of the two pilots and did a quick and easy head swap. This way they don't look like twins to me. What do you think?

Princess Leia Organa Painted

This is a personal favourite of mine. I loved the princess (General) Leia character in the movies, all of them. The options that she brings to the Legion game a pretty good and I include her in most of my lists. The model itself is not that great but it's ok. Painting the face was a bit of a pain but I like the end result.

Leia is a cheap commander option for the rebel army and her command cards are good. The benefit she gives to units around her make her really good. What better way to start a game than rain down a orbital bombardement on your opponents sniper teams.
Usually the only upgrade I put on her is the esteemed leader card to make sure she lasts longer under attack. This makes her a cheap pick for the army. The facts she dishes out a lot of dodge tokens and removes suppression is good. Her sharpshooting blaster is quite deadly with pierce 1 and remove cover.
I let her run up with a unit of fleet troopers which have range 1-2 as well to keep her safe.

T-47 Airspeeder painted

Star Wars Legion T-47 Airspeeder
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One of the most debated units in the Star Wars Legion game is the T-47 airspeeder. The wave 1 "Heavy" rebel unit sure is a cool model but it's point cost is so high you rarely see any in a competitive army list. They usually only feature in scenario plays or taken for their "fun factor" in casual games. It's a shame really because it's a nice unit to use. The damage it put's out doesn't seem too high or unbalance.Here's my painted model. I painted mine in between my rebel trooper units and it was good fun painting it and a nice change from all the trooper uniforms. I didn't use the orange striping you see on most other T-47's but instead used the same red-brown color that I use in the rest of my rebel army. It ties the army together nicely I think.
The sad thing is I have never used it in a game. The unit is so expensive in points and dies fairly quickly there are just many other and cheaper options that seem more viable.

Star Wars Legion T-47 Airspeeder
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Rebel Fleet Troopers Painted

Star Wars Legion Fleet Troopers painted
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The fleet troopers are basicly the unit that pulled me in. Just before I went on holiday last summer and saw a unit of fleet troopers painted by a fantastic painter (Mattijs Pels). I really liked his models and I was hooked and started looking for more Legion stuff. Unfortunately that shop didn't have the core set but before I was off on 2 weeks holiday I managed to get a box. That holiday I put together the models, removed mold lines, read the rules and looked for information and battle reports on Youtube.  Back from holiday I started painting up the models. I was still looking for fleet troopers for my own rebel army but I couldn't find them anywhere. Legion isn't a big game in my region so there are not that many players or shops selling the game.

Star Wars Legion Fleet Troopers painted
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A couple of months ago I finally got a box and quickly painted them up in the classic color scheme. I have since then played a couple of games with them. I find them very handy for securing an objective close to my deployment zone. Keeping them back a bit keeps them alive. I also sometimes let them run up with Princess Leia as a personal bodyguard to pass off wounds from her to the fleet troopers. I once played them agressively and they ended up dead within a turn so I probably won't do that again.

Star Wars Legion Fleet Troopers painted
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First Legion tournament

Last week I went to my first Legion tournament and I hope many will follow. This tournament was at the Tabletop Kingdom in The Hague, a good venue with great staff. The organised their third Legion tournament which gave me the oppportunity to get some games in. The tournaments at TTK are always noob friendly so I decided to give it a go.

The venue is really nice, it has a decent size play area where 4 tables were set up for the legion tournament. The tables were of good quality as you can see in these pictures. Yes, there is some 40K stuff there but it didn't bother me, there were enough Star Wars terrain pieces that gave it that Star wars feel.

 My first game was on the snow table against imperials. It took a while before the game got going so I realized before my opponent did that I had to seize the objectives early to snatch the win and so I did. If the game lasted longer I could have gotten into trouble but I scored two objectives and my opponent 0. win for me!

 My second game was vs rebels and this game was a good lesson for me. read the mission objectives! It costed me the game becaus eI thought we would score at the end of the game but my opponent scored at the end of rund two and I was playing catch up from then. In the end time beat me as the clock ran out when I was just about to wipe my opponent from the board. First loss for me and lessons learned.

The third game was vs rebels again. this time the dice rolls all went my way. I cleared all suppression tokens in the rally phase all the time and my opponent never got lucky. I ended up wiping his army off the board. First I focussed on his Luke and then one by one his army crumbled. I felt bad but my opponent was a great guy and took it on the chin.



For me it was a great learning experience, the setting was good and the fact that I didn't have to look up that many rules and even won two out of three was really nice. I'll put up some more pictures down below.

 In the first game I seized two objectives early and never was in danger of losing them. Grab the objective and hop back behind the cover of the barricades together with Leia to keep them safe.






My opponent didn't secure his objectives but made a move towards the middle where the centre objective was placed. My focussed fire and sacrificing an AT-RT made sure he wasn't going to make it very easily.
The game ended in turn three where I was holding two objectives and my opponent hadn't secured any yet.

 The Imperial army I faced was a very good looking one. Nicely painted miniatures and some minor sculpting.

 In my second game I thought I had the upper hand. I won the bid and was blue player and chose the table edge (long march) with the best cover.

Because I didn't fully understand the mission objectives my opponent grabbed the lead and just when I was about to crush him time ran out. I made a nice pincer move but was unable to finish the turn and my opponent won by victory points.




Whilst my unit's were still pretty sollid his had depleted rapidly.

Third battle was against another rebel player. In this 650 points tournament he was the only player having two commanders in his list. He had Luke and Han so many of his points went in there. My list was much more basic and used more cheaper units. I had 9 activations and I used them to focus fire on his units one by one and they crumbled fast.

In the end I won two and lost one game which gave my the second place over all and a best painted price. Got my first Legion coin and alternative art cards so I will be hunting for more.

Some more pictures below:

Han Solo painted

Star Wars Legion Han Solo painted
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Han Solo from Corellia was an imperial cadet before he was a smuggler for the Jabba the Hutt clan. He met Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Moss eisley Cantina and agreed to bring them to Alderaan. From this moment he reluctantly started to help the Rebellion but when he fell in love with Leia Organa his role changed and he became a general in the rebel alliance.

Han solo is a great character in the movies because he is a rascal but with the heart in the right place.

I really liked painting this figure. I know there are a lot of people who do not particularly like this sculpt and have converted the model but for me he is fine as he is. Because most of my rebel army features the brown colors I painted Han's trousers blue with a red stripe like in the early movies instead of brown with a yellow stripe. The brown with yellow trousers are from the scenes on Endor which seem to be correct for this model but I like my army commanders to stand out on the battlefield so the blue/red was a logical choice.

Luke Skywalker painted

Star Wars Legion Luke Skywalker painted
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Every army needs an inspiring leader and Luke Skywalker is just that. I really like the Star Wars Legion sculpt of the model and he was really easy and fast to paint. The only thing that bothers me is the slight bend in the lightsaber. I tried to straigthen it a couple of times with hot and cold water but to no avail.

I'm looking forward to fielding this fella on the tabletop. All the early players already used him countless times because he was the first and only rebel commander and comes with the core set. Because of that you can see him played in many battle reports and from that it looks that Luke is a heavy hitter but expensive in points as well.

I was supose to play in a tournament today but alas that got canceled because there weren't enough players. I guess I have to wait a bit longer and hope to find other players soon.

Rebel troops painted

Star Wars Legion rebel troops painted
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I have started painting my models and began with the Rebel side. Since it's been a while since I last painted snything I thought the rebel troops would be a good start. I think the Storm troopers might be a bit easier but I wanted rebels first.
I wanted to give them a uniform look and feel but I didn't want to paint all the models the same way. So no all green shirts and brown trousers but instead I have made a selection of colours that I used throughout the units. The boots, gloves and helmets have all been painted the same way.

The way I paint is block paint all the parts of a model first then wash the parts with a GW wash and then repaint and highlight the model. This turns out a decent table top standard for me. I like to put a little more time in individual models like the commanders.
Besides using a few colors througout the army I have used the red/brown color on the helmets and backpacks to tie them all toghether.

 As you can see I have done some conversions. I went for a few regular headswaps so no unit is really the same but I also used some heads from some old Wizzards of the coast models. I really like how they turned out. If you want to see the conversions before I painted them have a look HERE.
I had fun painting up the units, it ws nice to be painting again but 21 models was a bit much. I was looking forward to painting up this game slowly, unit by unit but I decided to throw that plan out of the window straight away.

The bases have been done pretty basic. Just a paint, wash, drybrush there with a tuft of static grass here and there. Because it's Star wars they could be fighting on a Tattooine table, Endor forrest moon table or on some sort of space port. Because I kept the bases quite nutrual they won't look too much off on like say a Bespin table.

I can't wait to get them on the table for a game soon. Unfortunately the tournament I wanted to go to got canceled. But a t least that give me a bit more time to paint up more units.