Honestly; the worst part is games like Legion, Armada and X-Wing are some of the few actual competitors to the Games Workshop systems that exist. Armada and X-Wing are, admittedly, closer to historical wargames of naval and air battles of the world wars and earlier; but with a much more accessible and modern view point than... historical battles. Meanwhile Legion is here as one of the few games connected to an established sci-fi IP that could be considered in the same league as things like Warhammer 40k; to the point where some of the larger 40k meta sites such as Goonhammer have run articles discussing it. The Star Wars licence was likely making profit, especially Legion and X-wing since Armada was stuck with extremely long periods of no releases; and I don't believe sales were super high because of that.

Even today; the Legion rules reference update sheet for the upcoming wave (the wave in question was delayed without public announcement) was incorrect, and one of the former developers corrected it on twitter. FORMER EMPLOYEES taking the time to correct the information. That doesn't exactly bode well.

They also aren't communicating about things with the player base. They don't publically announce delays or product cancellations; whereas most other game development companies do so when they can provide timelines or answers. The reveal cycles for the Star Wars games under AMG have also been terrible - after a wave releases, we have to wait months before there's any remote evidence of new stuff coming out, and it's still from the FFG days. There's less transparency than even Games Workshop can claim to have; and GW are rather notorious for hiding the truth and not acknowledging mistakes for as long as possible.

Do I blame the global pandemic? To some degree, yes. Do I blame Asmodee? Immensely. Do I blame AMG? Ehhhh.... honestly; at this point I want the games continued by a company outside the Asmodee group.

OK; I'm not going to touch the revealed sculpt for the Razor Crest; we'll save that for a Ministravaganza post. That will be when we find out if/when there is more X-wing content coming out after this next wave, or if it's just going to be Organized Play support while they wait to hire more developers. Either way; we've got some new things to talk about; and once again only one of the three that I personally am invested in. Anywho, enough talk. Have at them!

Zorii comes out swinging with a modified version of Lieutenant Sai's effect - as long as she has the action on her action bar; if an ally flying at range 1 does it, she can do it too, but she performs it as red. Could be nice if she's got a blue maneuver dialled in; so she can perform a target lock alongside a lower initiative ally, then clear the stress and Focus for the double-mod. There's a nice bit of play with this, as far as I can tell.

Aftab Akbar, on the other hand, feels like a decent pilot for this ship. After all; it's a Y-Wing with a lot of red on the action bar, and a fair bit of red on the dial. As long as he only has one stress on him after performing a red move or red action, he can cleanse it by swapping it for a Strain. "Oh no, I'm rolling no defense dice!" Except you were only rolling one anyway, so... it's an option at least.

And finally; the gift Scum has been waiting for... Babu Frik. The cupholder-sized Illicit option that holds a comparison to Contraband Cybernetics in potential use, at least as far as the stress plays you can make. Get an unwanted red or orange token? Give it to Babu. He holds it for up to two turns, then you get hit with it. I can think of a lot of ways this could be used. Think you can use the incoming tractor token in a couple of turns? Set it aside; then enjoy your free systems phase boost or barrel roll later on. Want to instantly fire your reloaded munitions? Give Babu the Disarm; enjoy having two turns to spend your charges, then take a double-disarm turn when he hands it back for a second reload. It lets you control and telegraph your incoming debuffs, and that in itself is a massive boon. My best friend, who mainly plays Scum and Seperatists, viewed it as being an alternate Contraband Cybernetics; but after having a day or two to actually digest the card, I'm seeing the power that Babu Frik offers a lot of lists, especially Scum.

In regards to Babu Frik and Tractor tokens, I can see a lot of questions from players coming up: who actually assigns the token to the ship? The owner or the enemy? Why does it matter? If it's the enemy, you may rotate your ship 90 degrees for a stress.

I think that in this case the owner assigns the tokens, even if the original effect was by the opponent. Partially because this is "worse" as it doesn't allow that free rotate, partially because of source the token: your card.

I'm not saying you're wrong. But this will definitely need clarification, if the card gets popular, because people will be at odds about it.

But yeah, I'd agree the owner assigns the token.

It's babu's text that is giving the tokens. and i wouldn't call it worse that you miss out on the rotate for stress because you also get to choose the direction to move or you may choose to not move at all.

Yea Babu is really interesting with tractor tokens, including when she absorbs self-inflicted tractors. Makes me wonder what kind of delayed tractor shenanigans you could employ with, say, a quadrijet buddy.

But you're definitely assigning the token to yourself with Babu when you run out of charges, IMO that much is clear. No tractor rotation occurs in that case.

I think Babu is just an amazing effect. It affects all types of bad tokens except locks, letting you put off their effect until next round if not later. So, so much potential!

• Stress? Talk to me later.

• Disarm from reload/slam? Not right now please.

• Jam? No I need my lock this round.

• Ion? That would be devastating this round, let's put a pin in it.

• Tractor? I prefer to stay here this round, but wouldn't object to a free reposition later!

And you have 3 charges to work with to either push off when the bill comes due or rack up the token debt. Put off one or two tokens for one or two turns, or just fill up on 3 after a particularly active round (e.g. hit by ion bomb or red maneuver through debris). And with Jabba in the fleet, Babu's charges are extended, with just the right timing so you don't fail to pay in the system phase... Very interesting.

Scum has a few crew and gunners that shove tokens onto you, like 4-LOM, Zuckuss, etc. I wonder if they'll see some use with Babu. Ally tractoring with a quadrijet has some potential. And resistance has shenanigans like Pattern Analyzer + Babu on Aftab Ackbar or Zorii Bliss etc, for a long-duration game of little to no stress, plus the potential for several extra actions on clutch rounds and the ability to attack after a reload.

All this has me suspect that Babu will be a tad pricey. Probably not Force Crew pricey, but certainly not a couple points.

And another thing with Jabba: You can run out of charges and receive all the tokens and pay the price, then in that or a later end phase, decide "You know what? I am 100% ready to go into debt again" and ask Jabba to give you another loan. He gives you another charge that you can spend to absorb another token next round, but when this debt comes due, it hits at least as hard as last time.

But think about it for tractor tokens. Load up a lancer or hound's tooth or whatever with tractor tokens with a friendly quadrijet, run out of charges, and reposition next system phase. Then in the end phase, Jabba grants another charge. Either absorb a token this round to reposition next round, or don't and reposition the round after. Jabba will let you do this 4 times, for a total of up to 5 repositions over the game.

It's a bit like a cloaking mechanic for the repositions, but a defense penalty instead of bonus, and you can attack the whole time.

Not sure if it's actually useful compared to other Jabba options (there are many strong ones), but at a minimum it's good silly fun!

New post; and let's not Force this discussion... but I think Kylo Ren is an exception to the normally established rules here.

To start with; this Kylo is in a similar niche to the classic one; but I'd argue his pilot ability here is weaker than I'll Show You The Dark Side. It's not bad by any means; spending Force to ensure that unshielded enemy ships in his bullseye arc take critical damage by converting from regular, but compared to his classic ability; it's more supportive than aggressive. Sure, it has more options than just throwing Pilot crits; and can trigger multiple times against the same target. I guess I'm still just unsure of the Whisper as an ace platform vs. the Silencer. Not that I'm in the best place to judge, I don't play the faction. Also, going by these cards, Kylo is the first character in the game that I can think of able to equip both Light Side and Dark Side cards. Unsurprising, of course, but gameplay wise Light Side is a more support oriented access line, for an I6 pilot... Again, still mixed.

Now; before I come across as being just extremely negative; I'll say it. These new Force powers are really good. I'm just not sold on Kylo. Malice is a gamble; but what a gamble it is. The ability to spend a Force to convert a focus or hit to a crit is already really strong; it's what makes Fifth Brother such a powerful gunner, and one of the reasons why Proton Torps are costed the way they are. But the fact that Malice also restores your Force points if you inflict a Pilot or Crew critical effect... in standard, that's a roughly 24% chance of just casually regaining 2 Force. Incidental upside, but incredibly strong when you get it off. These percentages are calculated based off a full damage deck, though, so your mileage may vary.

Compassion; on the other hand, also has a 24% chance to trigger in standard, and it makes the Force-sensitive pilot into a longer-ranged Biggs for those damage types. Better yet, the damage the Light Side user takes is only a single standard hit instead. And, if the ship is damaged already, the pilot regains two Force. Again, it's incidental upside, but it's also incredible upside for a lot of bulk lists. I'm looking at you, Kanan. On the other hand... Compassion is fully bound to that trigger chance. It's a very powerful upgrade type; especially against Silencer or Crew Kylo, but it ends up being mathematically harder to trigger. I'm hoping the ability is relatively cheap to go with the less frequent trigger rate.

Finally; there isn't really all that much to say about Shattering Shot. It's like Trick Shot, but for the Force. Instead of removing the bonus dice; Shattering Shot just adds an automatic Focus for you to mod. It's simple, it's good, it's worth considering.

What do you guys think of these Force Gamble upgrades? I'm intrigued, though I really feel like Compassion kinda took the short straw.

Malice pairs really well with kylo's ability. since damage is dealt individually he can flip each one to crit if he has the force and bullseye giving more chance to get that force back. and even without the bulleye it lets him push crits through.

I can see compassion being used on beefy ships like rey or leia in the falcon but its usefulness really depends on the enemy getting crits through on your other ships and at that point why not just focus on the big target...