8 List Building Philosophies

Written by Joseph Hicks

Star Wars: Legion list building can evoke many different emotions. New players tend to range from confused to blissful ignorance. It all depends on the goals of that player and the purpose for which that creative process began. Well… let’s be honest. Calling it a creative process may be sometimes giving too much credit - there are some who click Kalani, B1, B1, B1, B1, B1, B1, Spider, Spider. But for every one of them, there are those of us who spend countless office hours tweaking lists instead of completing work. Some who find themselves sorting through and deleting saved armies wondering where they all came from. Others who are familiar with their concentration on calculating upgrade costs being so rudely interrupted with a well timed, “Are you even listening to me?”. Wherever you might fall on that spectrum, I hope that this article can provide some direction, focus, and understanding into basic list building philosophies.

This article is aimed at a list builder who wants to be “a more competitive player” (relative to the setting they’ll be playing in), and who wants to optimize their list to be as effective as possible at whatever it’s trying to do. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of how to build an army - there are other factors to consider. So, without further ado:

Philosophy # 1 : HAVE A VISION

First things first, define what the list is trying to accomplish. Yes, it wants to win, but how does it plan to win? Latch onto whatever spark motivated you to start building, and let it guide the process. If a kickstart is needed, try exploring different factions or new units and upgrades, but at some point latch onto an idea and pursue it. Don’t let a bad idea slow you down. Some of my most fun builds consist of a chuckle and a “No way this can be good”. It’s probably going to be as bad as you think more often than not, but that initial idea will lead to a new or more exciting one - eventually you’ll fit together enough pieces to the puzzle where the vision becomes more clear.

This could be as simple as building around your favorite character or those three units that you just spent all week painting and want to show off. Often I like to start with a tactical concept, upgrade, or keyword and go from there.

Finish out your vision! Put that rough draft together and do some analysis. If it’s just bad in every way - scrap it - try something else. But more often than not, you’re going to need several iterations before your idea grows legs… DON’T QUIT TOO EARLY!

Philosophy #2 : UNDERSTAND YOUR WIN CONDITIONS

In order for a list to be good, it needs to know how it wants to win. Strengths and weaknesses centered around things like objective play, firepower, or area denial. This may not come to light until you are locked into a strong theme. The pursuit of a specific win condition could very well be the vision that drives the rest of the build. Understanding win conditions will help to shape your army, it's upgrades, command cards, and perhaps most importantly it's battle deck.

Factors to consider are what range your army likes to fight at. Whether your army likes to huddle together (ex. clones or droids) or whether your units are able to effectively function outside the range of their commander and allies. The former should lean into objectives and deployments that support that strength, whereas the latter may prefer wider battles especially if mobility and flanking are key components. Armies that focus solely on dominating one win condition may be very strong, but usually are less consistent since objectives and deployments can’t be guaranteed.

Self awareness is key. Knowing what your Army is bad at is just as important. If your army simply loses if a good force user enters melee with fragile troopers, make a list of everything you know that could affect that, mitigate it, or avoid it all together (Force Push, Immune: Pierce, Disengage, immobilize, mobility, melee threats, etc.), then see if there is a way to swap a unit or upgrade to shore up that gap. If you can’t find a way to make it work, at least you will understand your loss condition (which is essentially the same as a win condition from a pessimistic point of view). As a wise philosopher once said, “Same same but different” - Wise Philosopher.

Philosophy #3 : SYNERGIZE

Naturally, units in any given army should work well together. Keywords like Retinue, Entourage, and Coordinate may be obvious, but there is much more nuance to be had. It’s fun to come up with a wombo combo that just wins a specific objective or scenario, but that means nothing if you can’t ensure that setup, or at least have a plan B. Key off of getting maximum effectiveness out of command cards. Work out combos to ensure your strongest units receive those pivotal tokens when they can make the biggest impact. At maximum synergy, units and the order in which they are activated will enhance each other and set up for subsequent plays.

On a broader scale, try to ensure that you think about the purpose a unit or upgrade provides to your army. You wouldn’t include a repair droid in an army that has nothing to repair. Tokens (aim, dodge, surge, standby, suppression) play a major factor in Star Wars: Legion, so building synergy around them is a tried and true practice (ie. Rebel Trooper Captain and Situational Awareness upgrades synergy with the Nimble keyword). Command cards are pivotal to a synergistic army as well. Envisioning when you might play them and which unit is receiving orders will help to shape your unit and upgrade choices. Going first on key rounds can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Philosophy #4 : USE WHAT YOU PAY FOR

In theory, every single card in Star Wars: Legion is perfectly balanced and the point cost is an accurate reflection of their power. In other words you are paying for every single keyword, courage value, wound threshold, and surge chart on a unit whether you use it or not - so work on getting the most out of them.

For example, playing units that have ‘pro mobility’ keywords like Tactical, Agile, or Steady in an army tailored around standing still and shooting may not be the most efficient use of those resources. As another example, a commander that allows multiple units to recover with the use of certain command cards should incentivize you to include units that can take advantage of a free Recover action. Consider that health (a unit’s wound threshold) is a resource too. If you find yourself on the losing end of a nailbiter, and all your units are full health - then you may have played too passively.

This is of course under the guise of a perfectly balanced game. It is not inherently bad or wrong to not take advantage of a resource you are ‘paying for’, but worth keeping in mind as another factor in maximizing your army’s potential. Utilizing everything your unit’s can do can help in building synergy and shaping your win conditions.

Philosophy #5 : CHOOSE UPGRADES DELIBERATELY

Like anything you spend points on, you should understand what purpose an upgrade is bringing to your army, which means that you must first understand what purpose that unit serves. Try to envision on what turn or in what situation those points are going to give you the most bang for your buck.

Let’s take a Portable Scanner for example. Putting a scanner on a unit that wants to constantly go forward charging into melee may not make a whole lot of sense. That unit can’t afford to spend that action to be slowed down to give a dodge to a key unit. Instead put that upgrade on a cheaper unit that provides less value elsewhere, but can give that dodge out just as effectively. Additionally, putting a scanner on a naked Corps unit whose purpose is to stay on the back line and capture a distant objective isn’t super helpful unless you’re a big double dodge guy. Although, if you find one of your units with one action in a position to either take a dodge or use a portable scanner on themselves, always go for the style points.

Wisely choosing upgrades goes hand in hand with game experience. Often it will take playing through games on the table to realize what seems out of place. External factors that might influence optimal upgrades are important too, including knowledge of the type of tables (terrain type and density) and/or the local meta (what units/factions you anticipate matching up against).

Philosophy #6: CONSIDER OBJECTIVE PLAY

Star Wars: Legion is overtly an objective based game. More knowledge of objectives and how they’re played will without a doubt result in better list building. Simply mowing down your opponent's army will usually do the trick, but not at the cost of falling behind on objectives. Each game brings a new objective, which may redefine a unit’s role in an army. It pays to loosely map that out as you build your army.

Troopers, troopers, troopers! A few of the objectives heavily favor trooper heavy armies. Creature troopers and emplacement troopers interact positively with some objectives but not all. If you lack troopers, have a plan for dealing with these objectives, or avoiding them all together - this goes back to win conditions.

Always remember the blue player has a tie-breaker advantage. If objectives and kill points are equal, then the blue player wins. This should factor into your build and your bid, but most importantly into analyzing your win condition during ‘turn zero’ battle deck selection and deployment.

Philosophy #7 : ACTIVATION CONTROL

Having say over which order your units get to activate can be very important, especially on key turns. This can be accomplished in a few different ways. The most straightforward is to issue out as many faceup order tokens as possible. As a matter of fact, until the new Independent mechanic that was introduced with the Shadow Collective Battle Forces, there was essentially no downside to face up order tokens (with a very few niche exceptions). The Separatist army is the leader of order control, thanks to keywords like Direct and Coordinate being prevalent. Considering droids have the downside of Artificial Intelligence, handing out orders is especially important to their armies. But for all armies, the ability to decide when a unit activates provides a big tactical advantage by being able to more consistently anticipate how you can/will react to your opponents actions.

Other ways you can gain activation control are through manipulating (in many cases limiting) the types of units you include in your army. If your army consists of three or fewer unit types, it will inherently increase your chances of gaining predictability over your activations by narrowing down tokens in your bag to draw from. Furthermore, it is possible to gain perfect activation control while only issuing out a few orders. For example, if your army consists of one commander, three special forces, and six corps, you only need to issue out a few orders to leave only corps tokens in your bag - gaining perfect control for that turn.

A common upgrade that helps with activation and/or order control is Improvised Orders. Another quick way to improve this is through upgrades like Comms Relay, HQ Uplink, or Seize the Initiative. Taking advantage of keywords like Entourage, Direct, and Coordinate are effective as well.

Every army is different, and some rely less on controlling orders than others. But in almost all cases, there are big play turns where it’s imperative to draw a token or guarantee an activation at a key moment - identify when that might be for your army and try to implement a mechanism to up your odds.

Philosophy #8 : BIDS - Red vs. Blue

The meta of bidding ebbs and flows, and it may be much different amongst your friends or in your local area than others. Regardless, this is another important aspect of finishing out a list. Like every section discussed so far, it could use an in depth breakdown to really dive into the nuance of what is optimal for different types of armies. Remember which advantages each side gets and cross reference that against what your army does and what your win conditions are. Think about objective play, and think about your armies strengths and weaknesses. If you are familiar with the meta where you plan to play, that can play a major factor as well.

These Philosophies are meant to serve as a checklist, either sending you down the right path or to remind you not to miss a key component. In any case, just remember that many of these ideas intertwine and overlap, and that you can’t always hit all these boxes in a single army. We hope to expound upon these ideas and more with in-depth breakdowns in the future.

For better or for worse, get out there and build an Army that you can be proud to call your own. For every time I’ve called up my buddy to tell him, “I’ve created the perfect Army”, there have been several that went into the recycle bin. My secret is that I’m not afraid to fail or embarrass myself. I have more fun and get a better sense of immersion when playing an army that I built from the ground up.

And don’t forget,

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take - Wayne Gretsky” - Michael Scott