UPDATE 11/21:
FFG have released their own 500-point format. Play that now!
Good news, everyone! The Imperial Discipline 500-point Format is now supported by both Legion HQ and Tabletop Admiral, our premier list-building sites for Legion. Many thanks to my friends there for adding this functionality.
Let’s cut to the chase.
Sometimes, Legion can feel like it goes on forever. Two and a half hours passes by quickly in the heat of a competitive moment, but decidedly less so if the game is lopsided or you’ve been forced into a bye. And with somewhere in the neighborhood 40 of your minis on the table at once, that’s a massive time commitment for newbies to invest just in assembly and organization, let alone actually painting the damn things or getting them on the table for a full match.
So if you’re trying to rope in new players or give veterans something different, how do you manage it?
I’m happy to present a project I’ve been working on for some time now:Â a standardized 500-pt Legion format for leagues and tournaments. The fast facts:
- 500 Points
- 3′ x 3′ map (a la X-Wing)
- 75-minute round timer
- 5-turn maximum
Click the image below for a link to the downloadable guiding document which contains the full rule-set and detailed instructions:
A Look at the Format
In order to streamline the Legion experience for a shorter, less-involved format, you’ll notice that a few important things have changed (as noted above).
The shorter time limit of 75 minutes and smaller map size should make this a much more amenable approach for hobby shops that are strapped for space and time. It also makes losses feel much less punishing, and allows for more frequent experimentation.
Unit min/max requirements have also been adjusted slightly, with a min/max of 2/5 for Corps Units, and a lowered maximum for all other units except Commanders (which stay at 1/2).
Unique Objectives
To help facilitate a cohesive league or tournament experience, I’ve created three distinct scenarios that are decided by the roll of a white attack dice at the start of each game.
In Deathmatch, players earn two Victory Points for each enemy unit that is fully defeated before time expires, or the end of Turn 5 is reached. Whichever comes first.
Partially wounded units do not count, only enemy units that are completely removed from the board. Similarly, half-points are not given.
Before placing barricades for this objective, place one objective token in the dead center of the playing field. (Measure Range 3 from one corner along the board’s edge, then measure Range 3 up from that point at a 90 degree angle.)
In King of the Hill, players earn one Victory Point for each friendly unit leader that is within Range 1 of the center objective token at the end of Turn 3, and then two Victory Points per in-range unit when time expires, or the end of Turn 5 is reached. Whichever comes first.
In Breakthrough (a format that will be familiar to regular Legion commanders), players earn two Victory Points for each friendly unit leader that is fully within or partially overlapping any part of their opponent’s deployment zone when time expires, or the end of Turn 5 is reached. Whichever comes first.
A Stable Condition
Update: Fog of War has been updated from its previous iteration.
Further, in order to make sure that long-range units don’t have an absurd advantage on a much smaller board, a unique condition is applied to the first turn of all 500-pt games.
Fog of War is in effect for the duration of Turn 1. During Fog of War, units may not see or shoot past range 3. In effect, this is the second stage of Limited Visibility. With Legion’s current ruleset this means that if one mini of a unit is at range 3 but the rest of the unit is at range 4, only the mini at range 3 is eligible to be shot.
More details about running your own league, scoring, tiebreakers, and set-up steps are listed in the guiding document linked above.
My hope is for this format to be used across the global Legion community; feel free to translate as you see fit.
Got suggestions or feedback? Get in touch with me via the Contact page and let me know what you think. I absolutely intend to publish a 2.0 version in the future and would love to hear from you.
And finally, thanks to the many playtesters listed in the guiding document. You all were so helpful in making sure this initial version was as good as possible!
Happy 500-pointing, Commanders.
Thank you for taking the effort to create this format 🙂 We will be testing this out in our local scene here in South Africa
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Excellent! Please let me know how you like it
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I’ll be trying this out as well, either on Monday or next weekend – when a couple of players will be gathering at our local store!
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Great! Please do shoot me an email (contact page) and let me know how it goes.
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Just started a poll in our local group to see if the guys want to run this format in our next league. I am super interested in this!
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Excellent! Please let me know how you like it, and what changes (if any, I suppose) you’d like to see
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This looks very cool. I will be playing a few games at our FLGS and let you know how it goes.
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please do!
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After a game I have this feedback:
The reason I’m so interested in this format is the time. And our game was mid turn 5 at 75 minutes. So great job there.
The “fog of war” rule can be abused. In fact, I admit I did it. Turn 1 I bummed rushed a Flamer AT-RT and wound up just inside my half of the board. Turn 2, I had 2 options for my flamer. So I would suggest changing fog of war to be like turn 1 of limited visibility. You can attack in range 2. And then all limited vis lifts turn 2.
Also – both my opponent and I think that Veer’s and Leah’s 1 pip command card should be exceptions to fog of war. Otherwise your opponent knows you must play it turn 2 or you lose the ability to target anything.
Just my thoughts….
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Thanks for the feedback! This is definitely useful stuff
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This looks like viable option for me and my group. Thanks for putting on the effort.
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My group played 3 games of this format between the 4 of us tonight and we had a blast!
We agree the Fog of War can kinda be abused, but it also made for some really competitive turn 2’s!
I really want to being an AT-ST next time…
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My flgs used this format and we were able to get several games in an afternoon. Breakthrough and deathmatch are my least favorite scenarios to play…..and ironically those 2 are the first 2 I got to play, but it was nice to get 2 games in the time it would take me to play 1.
I did find the alternate crate scenario, which will be fun. Overall, I love the format. Well done
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Thanks for the kind words!
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Kevin,
I agree with Tim’s comments. Fog of War for Turn 1 only. I can imagine Death Troopers and Fleet Troopers waiting at the mid-line, daring each to cross over. I agree that Leia and Veers’s command cards should be exempt from Fog of War. Otherwise, I love this! Death match is my favorite.
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This is superb! Thank you Kevin and all the testers for your work on this project! My friends and I have been wanting to play a smaller points format for months now, but none of us has taken the time or energy to make one ourselves. The format you’ve made could be exactly what we’ve been waiting for! I’ll actually have the opportunity to play twice this week, so I’ll be sure to comment and let people know how things went using this format. I’ll also be adding a few of my own changes/additions, so I’ll let everyone know how playing with and without those felt too.
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This format has revitalized interest in Legion at my local store after it died almost a year ago. Well done! Furthermore, every piece feels more impactful at this level & board size. My Vader list with 3 basic snowtrooper squads (frags was their only upgrade) and 2 unupgraded EWebs was able to steamroll my friend’s Krennic-Deathtrooper-Bossk list in a game of King of the Hill. How often does that happen at 800 points in a competitive setting? Thank you again for your work on this project.
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More feedback based on another game:
First, we decided NOT to play with the Fog of War rule. Instead, we decided to roll for both mission (breakthrough, king of hill, recover supplies) and condition (clear, limited vis, hostile environment). We wound up with limited vis, recover the supplies. We set 1 box in the middle and the other boxes at range 1 from each side board edge along the middle line. These conditions prevented long range shots on turn 1, but each of us were running rebels, and I don’t think either uf us had r4 units anyway.
My opponent played 2 sabatours, and the bombs were quite oppressive on a small board. There are so few lanes that the bombs can effectively shut you down. And despite my Leroy Jenkins attack, the dice conspired against me to keep them alive which turned out to be the difference in the game. By turn 5 we each had one box, but I only had Han and 1 Corp leader left, while my opponent had 2 sans, 1 slightly injured Corp, and 4 wounds on Jyn.
Range 3 of your commander is a huge bubble on a 3×3 mat. About 1/2 way through the game we thought maybe command ranges should be R2. This will allow some possibility of panic, as well as offer a chance to not be able to issue orders anywhere. We will probably experiment with that for the next game.
Overall, really fun game. Still short enough to get many games in an afternoon. I’m not sure FoW needs to be part of the rules, and I like the random conditions we adopted.
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