Star Wars: Legion Customizable Imperial Officer and Agent Review

In our second Unit Review article looking at the new customizable units to come to a Galaxy far, far, away in Star Wars: Legion, we take a look at the new commander and operative units available to the Empire. The new Imperial Officer replaces the previous rather bland former iteration of the unit with the same name. The new Imperial Agent adds a twist to the Operative slot for the Empire, which recently has typically been filled with Din Djarin or Agent Kallus.

What’s in the Box?

The box contains enough plastic to create two miniatures. With 12 different head options, multiple copies of each of the three equippable weapons, multiple left and right arm combinations and two cape options, there’s plenty for hobbyists and players to get stuck into. In fact it's an improvement on the Customizable Rebel Officer and Agent pack which seems slightly lacking in options and multiples from a hobbying standpoint. As with the Rebel box, the poses for both the Officer and the Agent are identical. I hope you like tactical rocks!

Unit Cards

The unit cards for both the Officer and Agent are identical apart from a few notable exceptions:

The Officer has 6 wounds compared to the Agent's 5
The Officer has 2 training slots compared to the Agent's 1
The Officer has Inspire 1, whereas the Agent has Relentless

Both units come with white defence dice which surge, surge to hit on the attack dice, 2 courage and a standard 3 black dice melee attack and 2 white, one black dice ranged 2 attack. They come in at the same points value as their Rebel counterparts, with the commander coming in at 55 points and the operative at 50 points.

Doctrines

There are four different doctrines available in this pack. The Officer and Agent must both equip one. Each doctrine is unique and so you cannot run multiple units with the same doctrine in a list. Each unit has two shared doctrines available to select as well as one doctrine that is unique to each unit.

Academy Trained (Officer Only)

This is probably the simplest of the four doctrines on offer to the Imperial faction. Turning your Imperial Officer into a support commander for the cost of just 65 points might leave you wondering why you would ever see the likes of Krennic or Veers again. Gaining Strategize 1 to give out an aim and a dodge to a unit at range 2, or of course to itself, ties nicely in with Exemplar, allowing those tokens to be shared. Inspire 1 stacks with the Inspire on the unit card to give improved suppression mitigation in the list which is backed up by the increase to the commander's courage to 3.

At the same points value as Director Krennic and 10 points cheaper than General Veers, the Academy Trained Imperial Officer is a good value support piece for an Imperial gunline. Strategize increases the unit's efficiency and means you don't have to choose between aims and dodges, whilst the Courage 3 and Inspire 2 mean that the army around the Officer can continue to work as planned without too much disruption from suppression. I can still find lists where Krennic or Veers could fit in. Krennic likes Deathtroopers and Cunning is a good keyword. Veers stills pairs nicely with AT-STs thanks to his Guidance.

Tip of the Spear (Officer and Agent)

One of the faction's current weaknesses is order control. The Empire struggle to control the timing of when they want to activate some of their key pieces. This doctrine adds Direct: Corps Trooper, allowing the unit to give out an order to a corps unit at range 2. The unit also gains Tactical 1, giving it an aim every time it performs a standard move action. This pairs well with Aid, which allows it to give that aim out to another trooper unit at range 2 at the cost of a suppression token. I can certainly see units with this doctrine being used as aim factories, which could see the suppression tokens stacking up. However, this can be mitigated somewhat by the text at the top of the card, as when issued an order a unit within range 1 may remove up to 1 suppression - including itself. I could see a variety of good pairings with some of the Empire's corps units:

This unit is happy to move, as that's how it generates the aim tokens. Riot Control Squads also need to move to get into melee with the opponent. A Tip of the Spear unit supporting a unit or two of Riot Control Squads could help to give them some punch and importantly an order as they march into combat.
Snowtroopers with the T-7 Ion Heavy weapon would also make good use of the aim token with their white dice being thrown.
Stormtroopers can make efficient use of the aim tokens thanks to their Precise 1 keyword, allowing them to roll 3 rather than 2 dice with an aim.
Now that Shoretroopers move at Speed-1, they often need to make use of their Longshot keyword on their weapon. To trigger the range 4 shot they need an aim, and an extra one to help make use of the Critical 1 from the T-21B.

Defend in Depth (Officer and Agent)

If you are looking to boost a list with E-Webs or a sitting back gunline, this could be a good support choice, giving out aims through the Spotter keyword and helping out Imperial emplacement troopers (E-Webs and DF-90 Mortars) through Aid: Emplacement Trooper. The doctrine also allows a unit with an unspent aim to keep it for the following round, helping out units such as Shoretroopers with Longshot in the following round.

Platoon Commander (Agent)

The gift of Retinue to a corps unit allows this Agent to pair up with a corps unit. A Stormtrooper Riot Squad seems like a good choice to get a small strike team melee-based duo together. Gaining Surge:Crit and Surge:Block when engaged means you're likely going to give the Platoon Commander one of the melee weapon choices. The unit usually has surge:block, but if you give the Agent the combat armour you now have a red save unit which has surge:block. To double down on this defensive tech, if you give the unit the Z-6 Riot Baton it also has Immune: Melee Pierce.

Armaments

There are three Armament upgrades available to both the Officer and the Agent. Two of them are melee weapons whilst the other is a range 2 pistol with the ability to shoot at range 3 through Longshot. Out of the two melee weapons, the Stun Baton is likely going to be the more popular option. With Demoralize 1 and Immobilize 1 the unit can be annoying if you get into melee with it. The Z-6 Riot Baton pairs nicely with the Platoon Commander doctrine to give a really defensive unit if you're worried about running into saber-users.

Gear

The box comes with three gear upgrades which again, are available to both units.

The Seeker droid is going to be a luxury upgrade. Whilst not too pricey at 8 points, these units are going to want to be run relatively cheap. The free Observe 1 is a nice bonus. Even though both the Officer and the Agent have two Gear slots, one is always going to be filled with something else as we shall see shortly and there are other more viable options than the Seeker droid in some builds. The Command and Control Uplink upgrade is restricted to just one-per-list (fortunately). It's probable that this upgrade is going to start appearing in the vast majority of Imperial lists! It allows you to reduce the pip of a command card for one round in a game. This means turning a 3 pip into a 2 pip or a 1 pip into a 0 pip! This doesn't have to be played on the Agent's of Officer's own command card and can be combined with Cunning to reduce the pip of a command card and then win the tie using Cunning (you cannot use Cunning to reduce a pip to below 0; if you both end up on a 0 pip, you roll to determine priority). Being able to securely go first by reducing a 1 pip to a 0 pip could really turn the tide in a game and allow a player to gain the momentum in a round early on.

Command Cards

Each unit has one command card it can add to the player's command hand.

The Officer's card is a good one to take if you have the Bring Them to Heel secondary in your battle deck. Pairing nicely with a gunline, it effectively allows you to increase the chances of causing panic in enemy units and lower their contesting count on POIs. the Agent's card is mediocre. It pairs nicely with the Stun Baton as this already gives you Demoralize 1, boosting it to Demoralize 3 for that round. Again a potentially useful card for the Bring them to heel secondary - dishing out suppression tokens to the enemy and removing them from your friendly units, thanks to Inspire 2.

Being competitively priced against some of the Empire's existing cheaper commander and operative units means we shall certainly see these on the table. The Command and Control Uplink alone is a reason to bring one of them! Is that healthy for the game? Only time will tell!

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Tags: star wars | star wars legion | Unit Review