Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 30/12/25

Afternoon and we're back at Otty's shed playing Star Wars Legion, Rebels V's Droids for an all day 'twixmas' gaming session. I know from the date it was a Tuesday, but this liminal period between Christmas and New Year it could well have been any day.

Once again we fight, but Ben discovered we'd been setting the game up wrong, thinking it was more like a 40k set-up. In fact Legion means most units start off the board, with only those with the Scout or Prepared Positions special rule starting on the board.

With limited movement and fixed game lengths this felt like a downgrade, but in fact it means the first turn starts with just a few units on the board, so it focuses on what you can and can't do with the few models in play.

It also means that going deep into no-man's-land with rolling Droidekas is one way of getting them prioritised by Fluttercraft.

I think we ended up with a faction rules imbalance similar to when we played Adeptus Titanicus and I had Legio Gryphonicus bonuses and Liam did not. The rebels were from a specified Wookie faction, which gave us bonuses. Liam and Otty's Droids had no such buffs, which ultimately shifted the balance in our favour.

Otty's hospitality lunch was worth celebrating - nom, nom, nom!

My dice rolling was back on fire again, which meant the Droids began to have a really bad day.

But the game felt a bit more different thanks to the correct setup rules. I'm sure we played that way originally, we just somehow forgot.

We were finished by about 3:30pm which meant we could call it an early day. This was the last game we played in the shed of 2025. Of which I've been party to 37 this year! I know Ben and Liam have missed a few, but have been other times, in addition to the Thursday night sessions. I've not always been available either. But that's such a good record and it's been such a pleasure to spend time with these guys.

Genuinely the highlight of my week and I look forward to it and can't wait for 2026's round of gaming goodness!

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 21/12/25

Afternoon and we're back at Otty's shed to finish off playing Star Wars Legion, Rebels V's Imperial and we're finishing off the last game. Usually we meet on a Thursday night, but we all had commitments so we switched to Sunday instead.

Lets just say that resetting the game and changing partners helped Liam immensely while poor Otty was not as lucky. Not that I was a jinx, I had both awesome and shocking dice rolls. But I was decidedly less concerned about the outcome while the constant reduction in Rebel units while only managing to kill 12 Stormtroopers was a source of misery for our genial host.

What made it worse, was that Ben and Liam kept on asking use to choose their unit counters the circular stack on the bunker] and in one particular situation there was a one in eight chance of choosing Moff Gideon in combat with Chewie and inevitably I chose Moff Gideon

That was the absolute highlight of the evening for me, I was in hysterics.

We had a late surge to score some points, I think we scored 7, but Ben and Liam racked up 17 by the end of the game.

It's a tough one, but we had been saying up until this point the game was stacked in the Rebels favour. At least we finally got to buck that trend.

We may get a game in between Christmas and New Year but it's been a special full year of fun for the hobby shed. 

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 11/12/25

Afternoon and we're back at Otty's shed to finish off playing Star Wars Legion, Rebels V's Imperial and I have no recollection of how this game ended, but that's the point of these records - not the result but the experience.

I think the Dark Troopers did a 'valiant' effort to rout the rebels in the venga bus base so they could blow it up but couldn't quite do it.

I think the Imperials lost in the end.

So we started again! Making some changes to the forces, swapping Han Solo for Leia and swapping sides and missions. Again, I can't remember what happened but I know we had a lot of fun and will finish it off after the festive period.

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 4/12/25

Afternoon and we're back at Otty's shed to finish off playing Star Wars Legion, Rebels V's Imperial [what else would it be?]. Otty and Ben had chosen just Liam's Imperial figures this time and Ben could be there for the game so we got to finish it off together. If you recall we were certain whoever won the right to go first would potentially destroy either the Air Speeder or the AT-ST. Well you both put down order cards and whoever puts the lowest value order down wins priority. We both went with 2 orders. So then it's a roll-off. Whoever rolls a shield on a red D6 gets to go first. I rolled and failed! But the AT-ST survived a round of shooting with 1 wound left!

The Dark Troopers are an odd unit that gets the chance to be activated twice in a turn, making them a nightmare. Throw in our order card that allows armoured units to activate an additional time these OP robots got 3 goes this turn doing a heck of damage. Moff Gideon managed to kill Luke Skywalker, even without the Dark Sabre and the AT-ST took out the Boar Wolf. 

So things looked really good for us, but again Otty and Ben started to score points on mission objectives and although we got our bomb close to the Venga bus, we then realised we had to secure it, not just context it and there were rebels occupying the base. I had a run of bad dice roles and every tactical decision I made failed because of the dice. So things looked bad for us.

Luckily Liam made some good decisions and put us in a good position to finish off next week.

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 27/11/25

Afternoon and we're back at Otty's shed playing Star Wars Legion, Rebels V's Imperial [what else would it be]. Otty and Ben had finished off the previous game with Otty managing to claw back some self-respect but not quite win.

This time we were using Liam's Imperial army, plus a few Pike Syndicate. Moff Gideon was in charge with some Shore Troopers and his AT-ST

Otty had Rebels, with a few Wookies and a converted Boar Wolf. This was a creature from the Caravan of Courage, Ewok Adventure and is a proxy for a Rebel Land Speeder

We managed to get one turn in by 11:30pm, we did start about 8:30 so 3 hours. But it was a fun game, no ridiculously OP units yet. Some were good on both sides and some didn't quite perform as expected so balanced all round. Turn 2 looks to be pivotal who gets to go first though. Both the Snow/Air Speeder and AT-ST are on their last wound or two. Whoever gets the drop on the other is likely to tip the game in their favour. We shall have to see what next week brings.

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 13/11/25

Afternoon and we're back at Otty's shed to finish off playing Star Wars Legion, Rebels V's Imperial [what else would it be], but rebels were Ewoks, Wookies, Pyke Syndicate and Mandolorians. 

Things did not get better for the Empire. Despite a really good turn where the AT-ST wiped out the unit of Ewoks on the central objective, to deny them 2VPs we were destroying squads, not making them panicked, which was scoring the rebels lots of secondaries.

And we would still lose units, while Ben was able to work with what he had left.

We discovered we'd been playing the armour rules wrong, which we think then meant even the 'primitive' Ewok slingers had a chance to damage the AT-ST through rate of fire. Given they're rolling black dice [white dice are worse, black dice are better, red dice are best] to hit and the AT-ST's armour just ignores the first 5 hits there's a chance other shots get through. The slingers are just wrong and cost a third of what a unit of Stormtroopers does and they're hitting on white dice. Yes I know that tracks with how bad a shot they are in the film but there are no strength Vs toughness roles here. A hit and a save is what you get. Stormtrooper saves are better than Rebels, but even so it feels all wrong.

Ultimately we lost but decided to start again...

Pretty much the same board, different mission and deployment.

But in the first turn I think the Ewoks were at it again. For something we'd found to be so much fun the previous week this was quite the rude response.

We've a week off as some of the guys are on night shift and hopefully we'll come back refreshed and keen to play on. But at this point it seems there's a definite imbalance...

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 06/11/25

Afternoon we've had a couple of weeks where we weren't all able to meet at Otty's shed but we finally managed it. Back playing Star Wars Legion, rebels V's Imperial [what else would it be], but rebels were Ewoks, Wookies, Pyke Syndicate and Mandolorians. 

Got to roll out some of the terrain I recently painted. Now, this was a very interesting night of gaming after our 3 week effort to play 40. We only managed 2 turns, so the speed of the game was comparable.

We discovered new rules for the units and just how ridiculously OP Ewoks are - their slings totally wrecking two speeder bikes. Again, these things were similar to our 40k experiences.

The dice rolls were fickle both ridiculously good and bad, well that happens in every dice game.

But despite sharing many of the issues we had with 40k this game was not just fun but often hilarious. I don't know what it is about the game or why this light-hearted atmosphere was created.

Is it the IP, based on childhood memories versus 40k that has always been steeped in the grimdark?

We can't work it out, but we're all in agreement that we love the game. 

I mean even if the Imperials were being utterly savaged by these local teddy bears there was a lot to enjoy. Can't wait to try and finish it off next week.