Star Wars: Legion expansions guide

So, you’ve bought the Star Wars: Legion Core Set, assembled its miniatures, given them a loving lick of paint, and pitted the Rebel and Imperial infantry against one another in a tense sci-fi skirmish or two. Now you’re after something more. Not content with the casual Stormtrooper, nor the achingly vanilla rebel infantry, you want to field an army capable of swiftly dispatching any plastic miniatures that might muscle up to your side of the tabletop.

Enter: the expansion packs. While Legion’s core set introduces the game’s mechanics and operations of play, the real meat of the game comes from fielding a variable army of customisable units and their attendant accoutrements. Unit expansions provide additional squads of increasingly deadly troops to fill out your ranks, while heroic -or nefarious – commanders leverage powerful abilities that can turn the tide of battle. And, in any case, you’ll need to grab a fair few expansions to fill out a standard 800-point army.

But, with so many tantalising options lovingly depicting your favourite Star Wars characters in all their miniaturised glory, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Quash that fear like you squash rebel scum, because we’ve created a list of our favourite Star Wars: Legion expansions to kickstart your miniature-hoarding career, and have you well on your way to dominating the icescape of Hoth or storming the jungles of Yavin 4.

To create this list, we’ve picked out the most essential Legion expansions. Not necessarily the most powerful, unique, or game-defining units, but those that make for stellar accompaniments to the core set, and staple additions to any existing army. They serve as useful starting points and, whichever of those you pick from this list, you can’t go far wrong with them.

We’ll only be picking expansions for the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire for now. But, for those players loyal to the Republic or with a love for the clanking Separatists, keep your eyes peeled for a prequel-era update to this guide in the future.

Getting started with expansions

Before digging through the many expansion options available and picking out those that appeal, it’s useful to have a clear idea of how you’ll be deploying additional units in your army. You can’t go fielding a battalion of heroic commanders, or filling out your ranks with swarms of squishy grunts alone, but rather must abide by Legion’s army composition rules.

Fortunately, these rules are dead simple. Each army requires one to two Commander units, and three to six Corps. The remainder of your army points can be spent on up to two Operatives, three Special Forces, three Supports, and two Heavy units. Bear these in mind when purchasing expansions. You’d hate to grab a new pack of Imperial Death Troopers, only to realise your army’s special forces limit has already been reached, leaving the fresh elites as dejected subs on the sideline.

With that consideration in mind, let’s look at some of the best expansions for Star Wars: Legion.

Rebel Commandos

A staple of any Rebel army, commandos are invaluable for cover, cloak and rifle capabilities. Not suited to dealing high damage, they instead excel at swiftly moving around the battlefield’s edge, and ducking out of the main fray to agitate enemy units from afar. With unlimited range on their DH-447 sniper rifles, commandos can harry enemy units from beyond their range, and, in combination with their Pierce keyword ability (which allows them to ignore enemy defence dice), they can consistently pick enemy units off, dwindling your opponent’s forces before they reach the main conflict.

Commandos can litter the field with remotely-detonated proton charges, too, to keep distant from the enemy. When deployed strategically, they can prevent opponents sneaking up on your flanks, or directing them to the line of sight of stronger units. Although these folks can be fielded as a single, large squad sporting two heavy weapons, some players choose to build a two-miniature strike team carrying only a single sniper – a points-efficient way of dishing out harrying volleys.

Commandos won’t form the core presence of a force; rather, if played right, they’ll spend most of the battle darting between cover on the fringes of combat. But the consistent supporting fire they provide is guaranteed to aggravate your opponent, as you chip away at their frontlines from a safe distance.

Scout Troopers

The Imperial equivalent of the Rebel Commandos. Packing similar weapons, movement buffs, and upgrade cards, Scout Troopers serve an identical combat function: sprint around the map to pick off enemy units before they close the distance. Again, they can be fielded as a full, single unit with two heavy weapons, but are often deployed as a two-person strike team for a minuscule 16 points, packing all the gain of a sniper team with little cost.

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Their Sharpshooter ability mitigates any cover advantages that their target might accrue by cowering behind neighbouring hunks of debris, and their DLT-19x Sniper can reach any target on the field, useful for dealing with that one pesky commander making mincemeat of your frontline. Seed the field with sonic charges to block your opponent’s path, and lure them into the firing line of your main force.

Leia Organa

Building legions of elite Stormtroopers and dogged Rebel soldiers to skirmish on the tabletop might evoke Star Wars’ grand infantry warfare, but what’s better than seeing your favourite Star Wars heroes lead the charge of miniature battle? Luke Skywalker is arguably the best commander in the game, but if you’re keen for an addition or alternative to spice up your force from outside the core set, look no further than Leia.

Not dealing the same high damage as Luke, Leia’s skills across both ranged and melee combat instead make her more flexible as a commander. Her Sharpshooter keyword ability is noteworthy for dismissing target cover, but it’s through her team buffs that she really shines. Inspire removes suppression tokens from nearby troops, and the Take Cover ability grants doge tokens to those nearby. Keep her close to weak troops as you charge headlong into the throes of conflict. With a smaller points price tag than Luke, fielding Leia will free up enough space to add another Rebel Trooper squadron with an added Z-6 chaingun to your army – useful if you’re after greater heavy firepower.

General Veers

Darth Vader is undoubtedly the most /intimidating/ figure of the Imperial forces, but General Veers might be the most effective. Best known for his Maximum Firepower ability, which drastically boosts the chances of successfully hitting targets, and grants attacks deflection immunity, Veers is at his best when on the front lines. Equip his Commanding Presence upgrade, too, to issue orders at a massive range of four, keeping him at the front of the charge but not sacrificing any potential buffs.

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Combined with Veers’ Esteemed Leader ability – which forces nearby Stormtroopers to sacrifice their own lives for the General’s if a particularly well-targeted blaster shot comes his way – he’s a threat to behold and a bastard to kill. Be sure to bulk out your forces with a TX-225 or AT-ST, too, to take advantage of his vehicle abilities. While they can often be caught out by devastating flanking manoeuvres that’ll quickly turn them into scrap metal, Veers can cancel critical hits against them, making them more effective in headlong assaults.

Iden Versio

Introduced to the canon in DICE’s 2017 videogame Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Iden Versio has become something of a hot topic in Star Wars: Legion. Boasting a slew of original and effective abilities that can be easily integrated with an existing force, Versio’s power is matched only by her variability. A 100-point unit cost might seem steep, but her abilities make every point worth it.

The main draw of this commander is her unit-specific upgrade cards. Her DLT-20A Rifle carries infinite range on two black dice, with a High Velocity effect that cancels targets’ dodge tokens, and a Pierce 1 ability that ignores a defence roll, ensuring any landed hit deals devastating damage. Pair it with her Cover Ops card ability, allowing you to deploy Verso anywhere on the battlefield beyond range 3 of the enemy, and you’ll be quickly storming objectives or capturing a strategic tower to pick off the enemy units as they advance. Or, if close-quarters aggression is the order of the day, equip the TL-50 Repeater. Converting surge and hits to criticals, it’s perfect for dealing concentrated damage with consistency in the thick of firefights.

Versio’s Loadout ability also allows you to swap any of Versio’s upgrade cards for others upon deployment, effectively allowing you to build multiple, comparable builds of the same point value, and choose between them at the game’s start. Particularly useful in tournaments where you can’t be sure of your opponent’s forces or the table’s features, as you can instantly swap loadouts to suit.

Fleet Troopers

When you’re craving short-range, high damage infantry that call for little tactical depth, Fleet Troopers have your back. Excelling at rapidly dishing out high damage over short spurts, Rebel Fleet Troopers trade range for damage. Kit them out with a shotgun to double down on close combat damage, or opt for a grenade launcher if anti-vehicle support is required. Even the vanilla troopers are no pushovers, boasting the highest crit chance and dishing out consistent hits.

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However you field them, be sure to get up close and personal as quickly as possible. When away from the central melee, they’re little more than useless meat sacks with funny helmets. And be wary of /how/ you get them stuck in, making sure to zig-zag between cover, or you’ll find your squad of seven deadly troopers is quickly reduced to a paltry few. Ultimately, look at the table’s terrain to determine their effectiveness. If there’s a lot of easily-traversable cover to move between, Fleet Troopers are guaranteed to upset the Imperial forces.

TX-225 GAVW OCCUPIER COMBAT ASSAULT TANK

For a long time, the vehicles of Star Wars: Legion carried a reputation of obsolescence. The AT-ST served more as bullet sponge and physical obstacle to the enemy than a deadly bipedal beast stalking its prey, and Speeder Bikes only shone in large groups of disorienting speed. But the TX-225 shows the potential for vehicles to pack destructive power worthy of their unit cost.

Equipped with two sets of cannons – one for dispatching ground troops, the other focused on obliterating armoured units – this versatile tank not only dishes out formidable damage in concentrated volleys, but easily soaks any returning fire that might come its way, using a red defence die and generous health pool. Load it up with Stormtroopers to ferry them to the frontlines, or simply use it as a more primitive barrier to block incoming fire.

But be wary of its limited speed. While able to generously pivot, its limited movement makes it a burden for rapid-fire assaults, so employ the TX-225 to complement a slower-moving, considered advance. Coming in at a lower point cost than the AT-ST, it’s a no brainer for any vehicle-fond commanders keen on a slow game.

Snowtroopers

Although making only a fleeting cinematic appearance in Episode V’s Battle of Hoth, these flannel-faced soldiers function as a mean force of concentrated firepower in Star Wars: Legion that would be sorely missed in any Imperial force. Their health, courage, and unit size of only four miniatures is nothing to rave about, but their Steady keyword ability places their combat effectiveness far ahead of that of an ordinary squad of Stormtroopers. Able to perform a free ranged attack after any move action, Snowtroopers can provide some tide-turning additional damage.

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And the damage dealt is significant, maximised with a plethora of effective upgrade cards. Add an extra miniature to your Snowtroopers, equip a T-7 Ion Trooper if vehicles are the mainstay of your opponent’s force, or, most popularly, choose a Flametrooper, whose Spray keyword ability adds a black hit dice to the Snowtrooper unit’s attack pool for each targeted enemy. Snowtroopers are suited to forward advances – not only countering the enemy, but wiping out a healthy chunk of them along the way.

Source: Wargamer