The Playbook - Turn 0: Bids & Battle Decks (Star Wars Legion)

[@GORDUNFREMUN]

I have been searching for a channel like this

[@TeamRelentless]

At last we have revealed ourselves to The Free Man. :)

[@czarvak9186]

You should redo/update this to include vital assests. (Plus more videos is always good!)

[@battlefieldcustoms873]

I second the updates I have questions haha

[@caseyjones4431]

Great video! Grats on making it into the single elims of invader league by going undefeated in round robin!

[@jayemage]

Great summary! 😁👌🏼 I maybe have to view this a few more times and compare for which army list of mine what applies. 😬🤓

[@Longo556]

Super helpful! Thanks!

[@liquidrock8388]

Very nice summary and pretty much in line with my own observations. Especially the part about picking the board edge. It's so common to see people just shrug and pick whatever edge they put their stuff on when they approached the table. It takes no more than a couple of minutes to measure the probable locations of objectives with different deployments and see where you're likely to have better cover etc. The only thing I think is a bit of a stretch is the claim that being blue gives you 3 extra vetoes. In reality it's not nearly as much. For one thing, players tend to exclude similar cards. In general vaporators and mines are seldom included in players' lists so if you don't like those, there's a good chance you'll never have to play them once during a tournament even if you're red all the time. The only popular differences are whether you like disarray or long march more (imperial players usually prefer the latter) and whether you want limited visibility or not (imperials usually don't). In mirrors it doesn't matter much then. In non-mirrors it might but only provided A) the cards you don't like are drawn and B) cards you don't like can't be vetoed easily, preferably in a way that leads to choosing a card you do like. In practice I found that it's usually not worth it to bid too much (or even at all) just for the cards but it can be worth it to bid for the board edge, especially if orgs don't do their homework and don't balance the tables well enough. It's not easy to set the tables right because of all the possible deployments. To someone who doesn't know the game the table might look quite okay and if battle lines are picked it might indeed be fine. But then you end up playing disarray or advanced positions and it quickly shows that one of the players has a much easier time getting cover whenever he needs it.

[@macdansav1546]

Thanks for another informative post! I really like 'Advanced Positions' as it's a great way to get deep into the action from the start. I have, however, been known to lose about a third of my forces charging in on turn one. 'Key Positions' is fun but can be rather predictable as the key positions tend to be; one near my opponent, one near me and one in the middle of the battlefield. The initial placement of units is certainly key. I love units like speeder bikes that can confound the enemy by deploying in one place and then moving in an unexpected direction. As an aside, it might just be me, but in this post you seemed to be more in focus when I took my glasses off.

[@TeamRelentless]

Macdansav ROFL about being more in focus without the glasses! And yes, AP can be verrrrry dangerous. It’s an especially exciting deployment when your list includes emplacements, as they get to scout after already being speed 1 away from their complimenting corps unit.

[@macdansav1546]

@@TeamRelentless Cheers. I'll give that a go!

[@azza50jaffa]

Groovy

[@battlefieldcustoms873]

I am planning on doing a few custom environment cards as well as a few classy ass game types like a Modded Payload where each side elects 3 core minis to represent “bomb carriers” totaling 6 bombs 3 per side. on the battle field each side has 2 bomb sites A and B to both defend and attack. working on deployment cards soon but I would love to hear how TR feels about Payload/search and destroy games

[@charlescassier3199]

Food for though also I won't be as clear cut to blue player is the best. Board side choice is always a good thing and that's one of the most reliable advantage from being blue. But the thing is player and tournament organizer tend to make terrain relatively even so this one can end up being negligible. Battle deck construction is great and this one is gone be more and more important when they add up cards (witch apparently they are planning on with cards that will benefit vehicle...). On top of you argument on battle card I'll had that the 3 additional veto you get are for sure and prevent you from having a card you really don't want. It prevenr them to be set in place 3 and have you opponent go for it with you not being able to do anything about it (and that is Imho the biggest advantage of blue player). That being say there are times when this advantage don't come into play that much: - first in order for a card to not being vetoed by your opponent it need to be draw in 3rd place. All other scenario let you opponent with a good way to mitigate the battle card construction advantage. - second is that in order for it to be an advantage you need to be "profiting" from the card while your opponent is put at "disadvantage" by it. In the end of the day they just define the "rules" of the battle and both you and your opponent are still playing by the same rules. - third you can find yourself in a "mirror" match. By mirror I mean that both list have the same kind strength and weakness. Meta game tend to have this hypothesis true more than often. The adding of the new "asymmetrical" faction and game balance might make this one less relevant but for now it is still a relevant point. - forth your opponent might not have particular weakness to a battle card that you can exploit. Imho good competitive list should know how to play red. To concluded on battle cards deck I'll agree that having the ability to be blue can be a huge advantage due to the fact that it can allow you to play to the enemy weakness. But that plan has a big randomness due to the fact that it rely on the fact that your opponent has an inbuilt weakness, that you can actually exploit that weakness, and that the card that allow you to do this is drawn in the third position. On the other hand red player advantages if they can be less cunning are not random: - last veto allow you to have a contingency tool for battle cards draw. - last veto can also be used "offensively" to turn the battle card deck in you advantage because it can let you go to a second raw card without your opponent being able to react. And this is due to the fact that if battle deck construction allow you to veto 3 card for sure it does by no mean guaranty that the remaining card are in your advantage. - starting to deploy second, in a game where position is key, is giving you a huge advantage in information and decision. - list can actually be build to optimize red player advantage (over activate your opponent and having heavy hitters that gone profit from a good placement...) Your battle card analysis is great about what are a list weakness. That allow you to quickly assess not only your army strengths and weakness but also the ones of your opponent list. Because choosing the cards that benefit you while disadvantaging your opponent is the real thing.

[@TeamRelentless]

Charles CASSIER Glad you found portions helpful! It’s on my list to do “turn 0 deep dives” eventually, and one of them will focus on being red on purpose (for many of the reasons you mentioned here).

[@Dancan799]

Only just started getting into this game loving the vids, you say you roll off if the bid is a draw what would you roll or just bring a normal d6?

[@TeamRelentless]

Welcome to the game, and glad to hear you're finding the videos helpful! To answer your question: rolling off ties in Legion always done by rolling a red defense die, where rolling a shield vs not rolling a shield is the deciding factor (so that it's 50-50).

[@Dancan799]

@@TeamRelentless awesome, thank you 😊

[@garoka]

Sorry for a noob question, but does bid here refer to total number of points in your list? Loved the video, thanks!

[@TeamRelentless]

All questions are good questions-don't apologize! Bid refers to the distance your army point total is from 800. So a list that totals 798 would have a 2-point bid, for example. Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@benniediek7347]

If you only have the standard battle card does it make sense to go blue player?

[@TeamRelentless]

If those standard battle cards favor your list over what your opponent might bring, then yes. It all depends on the list and how worried you think you need to be about it being strong or weak to different objectives.

[@justondavidson6929]

forgive my ignorance, new to legion. What are bids as you are discussing them?

[@TeamRelentless]

Your bid is how many points your army is from the max allowed. So a list with 792 points out of the 800 allowed in the standard format would have a bid of 8. Bids right now are very high in the current meta. Most of my lists are 15-20 point bids, or almost nothing.

[@Major_Problems]

Can you do these for the available operatives?

[@TeamRelentless]

Evan Osborne I can add it to my ever-growing list of episode ideas! :) In the meantime, did you check our the Turn 1 Explosions episode featuring Sabine?

[@mrl501]

Need to redo this since red player now picks table edge

[@seamusmcg23]

Whats bidding?

[@TeamRelentless]

How many points away from 800 your army is.

[@Scribbles42]

The camera zoom changes are really distracting.