Legion Epic Play+ 4 vs 4

Time to lay down Star Destroyer levels of firepower 😀

So we have been playing about with ideas for running large Legion games for a while.  The Epic Play rules in the rulebook don’t really scale at all to multiple players as you’d have half a dozen people waiting at all times for something to happen so we made some amendments.

The main thing is to sort out turn decision and activations.  So here’s what we did.

Setup / Mission

I’ll be looking to make a full list of mission modified cards but for the test run I selected the 3 cards and slightly modified the mission to give more objectives.  As you can see here I’ve modified the Sabotage the Vaporators mission card to suit the extra players.

Command Phase

Relatively simple here.  All players have their own command deck as part of their standard army.  We play no uniques duplication on each side for commanders but in reality it doesn’t really matter much.  Players on the same side can confer in secret and when cards are revealed you total up all the pips and lowest pip total side goes first.  Abilities like Han’s zero pip and cunning pretty much work as on the tin – ie if the total is the same cunning would win it without a roll-off.

Activation Phase

Here’s the clever bit.  Once a ‘side’ is due to activate, all players on that side activate at the same time.  The only additional thing they do is that if a player attacks an enemy unit, he marks it with an appropriate token.  This token means that the other  players cannot attack the same unit in that activation.  What this means is that units can’t be ‘volleyed off’ in a single activation by being hit by 2 or more units in the same activation.  As soon as the activation is completed, the targeting tokens are removed.  It’s that simple.

If anyone wants to give it a try, here is the current DRAFT RULES.

So, how does it play?

BATTLE REPORT

Setup

The basic setup rules mean that it’s basically a line-up down each side of the board.  We have 4 rebel players vs 2 Imperials, 1 Clones and 1 Droids.  There’s a few proxy models in play, with Ewoks being used as Rebel Troopers and an Ewok Catapult being used as a Laser Cannon tower 😀

The pre-deployment battlefield in all it’s glory

Turn 1

Command Card Choice

The imperials take the first activation decisively and poem with some strong attacks at the top of the table.

End of turn Pics / Summary

Mando’s and Droids close quickly on each other, jumping rapidly on 2 objectives

Imperials in the centre left table section split their forces, looking to secure their own objective while assisting the other Imp player with a distant objective.

That objective looks secure…

Clones and Stormies side by side!

Bossk has been hit hard, punished for his desire to reach a good vantage point

At the far end of the table, the already hard-hit rebels set up on their objectives but find themselves mostly outranged

An objective was damaged, only for the activating squad to get wiped out!

Plenty of rebel cover on this objective with speeders benefiting from hard cover / high ground.

F**king ewoks!

Turn 2

Command Card Choice

Where it all gets nasty… Everyone plays for first activation but dirty Han steals it for the Rebels.  The consequences for the Imps are grave…

End of turn Pics / Summary

Note the lack of Bossk in this picture.  Caught in the open by the Air Speeder, he is activation sniped before he can regenerate.  To add insult to injury, the Speeder goes on to survive the turn with 1 wound left.

The Droids have lost a heavy Bot squad and Droideka Squad and barely scratched the Mandos, really struggling with their heavy armour.

It’s a bloodbath at the other end of the board, with the Rebels finding it tough against the Clone Troopers and 2 ATSTs / Stormy support

An intimidating sight but the rebels are still flipping objectives.

Centre board rebels are really getting thinned down on this objective

Sneaking to hit the Imps centre board

Turn 3

Command Card Choice

With the loss of Bossk and his command cards, the Imp side are losing the initiative at command stage.

End of turn Pics / Summary

The Mandos and Droid Commandoes go at it, with the Medic droid aiding the Mandos.

Where have all the rebels gone?

Imperials dominating but not advancing…

A large group of unscathed rebels are being really hesitant about pushing forward.

Dooku just can’t make any saves, and even killing 2 of his own droids a turn with Guardian he is still haemorrhaging wounds.

Oh there’s the rebels!

Tactical placement of Scouts keeps them as a threat

Mandos have almost broken through to the Droid objective

Turn 4

Command Card Choice

The Imps finally take the initiative due to the use of Cunning.  Dooku is poised to party…

End of turn Pics / Summary

…And indeed he does, taking down the Speeder and shredding some Pathfinders

That said, the Droids’ numbers are getting very low and the Mandos are all over the objective.

Clones are cleaning up but still not pushing forward onto the far objectives.

Bill…

…and Bob, the ATST twins, are unscratched and starting to run out of targets…

Scouts clear the objective, they just need to get to it now….  not sure the walker will let them.

Last stand of the Imperial Officer as she tries to hold off the rebels flipping her objective

The Droid’s last stand, with Dooku murdered horribly by Sabine.

Turn 5

Command Card Choice

Rebels once again on the initiative, with the Imperials down 2 commanders.

End of turn Pics / Summary

Last stand!

Clones finally push towards a rebel objective

The Scouts move towards an objective, with Rebels finally noticing their sneaky gambit

The Officer is overwhelmed and the objective grabbed

Rebels have this end of the board totally locked down

Sabine gets brave and does the Hero jetpack move…

Turn 6

Command Card Choice

Rebels once again grab it…

End of turn Pics / Summary

The players quickly mop up and nearby objectives and call it once any objectives triggerable have been flipped.

THE WINNERS

As GM I was keeping a rough eye on proceedings but not an exact count.  At one point I thought the rebels may have lost it by letting the Imperial Scouts get a sneaky flip on one of the undefended objectives, but in the end the Rebels took it by 3 points.

Analysis

At the near end of the table, the Mandos and Elite Rebels hit the Driods really hard and fast.  With the mobility of the Mandos, they were hitting and advancing rapidly and were able to overrrun the Droid objective pretty easily.

Once the Droids ‘teeth’ had been blunted, the rebels supporting the Mandos were able to start to move mid table and hit the next Imperial objective.  The Imperial mid-left table holder tried to support both sides of his table and thus blunted his effectiveness.  This was compounded by really strong rolling from the 2 opponents his end of the table (especially armour saves).

At the far end of the table, the Imp and Clone players crushed the rebel opposition.  But the Rebels flipped all of their objectives before dying and the Imps / Clones didn’t move to secure the abandoned objectives…

How did it play?

As GM I would say it ran really well.  With the simultaneous action rules, each turn took around an hour – mainly due to people chatting rather than it being mechanically slow.  The initial objective placement needs some adjustment – likely to be 3 from deployment / other objectives and/or some fixed locations on the centre board.

The players had an absolute blast.  It’s likely difficult to see from the report, but there were some real rip-roaring Star Wars moments such as the fall of Bossk and Dooku slicing up the speeder with the appropriate command card and quotes a-plenty.

Happy to recieve feedback on the Epic Play rules, and any ideas to further enhance it.

Look out for another game soon!