STAR WARS: Legion Update April 2025

Welcome to another Atomic Mass Games Transmission! We’ve posted an update to the Star Wars^TM: Legion Core Rulebook, Recon Rulebook, and updated cards which can be downloaded here. The Dev team is here to share some insights about the update!

Hello! This update to the Core Rulebook is the next step in our refresh of Star Wars: Legion! While there are a few minor rules updates (which we’ll discuss in a bit!) much of this update is style and language changes to bring the Core Rulebook in line with our upcoming card packs! Skirmish has also been rebranded as Star Wars: Legion: Recon.

We’ve updated every card in the game to match Legion’s new visual and language style. These are the same cards that are in the upcoming card packs: players may download and print the cards themselves or purchase the physical products.

The goal of these style changes is to make the game rules more accessible, concise, intuitive, and easier to understand. These changes are NOT marked in blue. One of the most noticeable changes is that the game terms “at,” “within,” and “beyond” have been replaced with “within,” “completely within,” and “not within,” making the functionality of these game terms in line with the definition of the words themselves. Many game terms have been capitalized or bolded for ease of reference, and many rules have been reworded to standardized templated language. Additionally, all tokens and cards shown in the rulebook have been updated to match their printed versions.

There are also a few minor rules changes in this update. Area terrain has been clarified, and the rules for building a Command Hand, playing Command Cards, and issuing Orders have been updated to function with Command Cards that name multiple characters in their restriction. Movement has received a small quality-of-life update: you may now move non-unit leader miniatures in a unit out of the way when moving a unit leader. Reverse Moves and Strafe Moves have been clarified and changed to be a Standard Move to simplify these mechanics. Line of Sight has been updated, units do not count arms and legs when determining Silhouettes of Vehicle units, and the Silhouette of a miniature no longer blocks LOS to other miniatures in the same unit.

Several keywords have been removed or changed. The Cache keyword now works even if miniatures that added the keyword to a unit are defeated. The Self-Destruct X keyword is now a die roll instead of an attack, dealing wounds and suppression depending on the results. Tow Cable now gives Immobilize tokens to wounded units, and Small has been rewritten for clarity. The Contingencies X, Flawed, and Loadout keywords have been removed, as they are no longer present on any units in the game. The One Step Ahead keyword is added.

Finally, we would like to discuss some changes to the Errata document. As part of the multi-year journey to complete the Legion refresh and rebalancing project, we didn’t just analyze all existing units based on their current place in the game, but, perhaps more importantly, against our larger plans for the games expansion and Legion’s long-term future. Additionally, the process of reissuing the Legion line into its new format gave us a unique opportunity to have new discussions with our partners at Lucasfilm about the role and place for each and every unit in the game and how it relates to the current and potentially future state of the Star Wars galaxy.

This process of review and analysis helped us significantly with the large rebalancing effort undertaken for the existing units, providing insight and ideas into how to better ensure every unit in Legion has a role within their faction and giving us the unique chance to take a holistic view on how our future design plans will synergize and add on to each of their factions, broadening player strategies, tactics, and opportunities to explore the ever expanding experience of Star Wars: Legion.

However, as with any significant change over, there was a small selection of existing miniatures in the game that will not transfer over into this next phase of Legion development. Know that, as hobbyists and miniature collectors ourselves, we do not make these decisions lightly, and wherever possible we have provided official options for players to continue to use the miniatures of the removed units.

Below is a list of the units that have been removed from the current Star Wars: Legion and will not be receiving new rules or further support at this time.

• Phase I DC-15 Heavy Weapon Trooper: The DC-15 Heavy Weapon was removed to allow for the new Clone Trooper Marksmen Unit. Players may use the Phase I DC-15 miniatures as official Clone Trooper Marksmen Troopers.
• Rebel Pathfinders: When looking at all current Rebel Alliance trooper units we made the decision to remove the Rebel Pathfinder unit to open key design space within the faction. Rebel Pathfinder miniatures can be used officially as Rebel Trooper miniatures.
• Generic Commander Units Imperial Officer, Rebel Officer, Super Tactical Droid: We have decided to remove the generic Commander Unit options for the Imperial Officer, Rebel Officer, and Super Tactical Droid to free up key design space for future planned expansions. The Imperial Officer and Rebel Officer will continue to have key value to their factions as unit upgrade options. While the generic Super Tactical Droid unit has been removed, the two named Super Tactical Droids, Kraken and Kalani, remain as key Commander units for Separatist Alliance armies.
• Emperor Palpatine and Royal Guard Units: We have made the difficult decision to remove these two units from the game. Though we understand that these units being removed may come as a shock to some players, understand that we did not come to this conclusion lightly and this decision is based on intensive discussion and analysis both internally and with our partners at Lucasfilm on how to realize our plans and vision for the next era of Legion.

We have also decided to remove a few upgrades from the game. The following upgrades were removed for gameplay balance reasons.

• Aggressive Tactics: Regardless of what faction it is taken in, Aggressive Tactics was far too efficient at delivering Surge tokens to units with red defense dice, substantially increasing their durability.
• Battle Meditation and Comms Relay: These upgrades were commonly used to “cheat” Orders onto units by bypassing Command Card restrictions, leading to unintuitive or unintended interactions.
• Esteemed Leader: Esteemed Leader had some unwanted interactions with the new backup mechanic and was constricting design space for the Guardian keyword in future designs.
• JT-12 Jetpacks: ARC Troopers are already incredibly adept at moving around the battlefield, and the removal of the Jump keyword limits their mobility and increases counterplay.
• Refurbished “Gonk” Droid: This upgrade was too efficient and was constricting design space.

We want to thank everyone for their continued support and passion for Legion as we officially take our first steps into this new era of the game’s life. We hope that you are as excited for the game’s future as we are. Everyone at AMG cannot wait to continue to showcase the wealth of upcoming content and new releases for the game that this update has provided the solid foundation for.

That’s all for this time, Atomic Mass Games signing off!