When it comes to favorite Star Wars characters, and Star Wars stories, I’ve always leaned towards the pilots. As a youngster I logged far more hours than was probably healthy in the Rogue Squadron and X-Wing series, and as time’s gone on the characters who I got most invested in were the Luke Skywalkers, Wedge Antilleses, Poe Damerons, and Hera Syndullas of the universe. I think, looking back, that they’re the characters I kind of always wanted to be. In putting together my Legion army, and doing my first game with KinpatsuSamurai, that’s what I wanted to reflect and bring to the tabletop.

And so, I put together 800 points of pilots leading Rebel troopers, pilots flying X-Wings, droids, and a couple of AT-RT walkers as ground support. Hera Syndulla and Chopper each got to lead a squad of their own, and I had a third where I snuck in an old Reaper model as a specialist pilot/mechanic person, and of course if I was running pilots I wanted to have Luke Skywalker in the HQ spot. Wedge took to the skies in my X-Wing, which I use as a Snowspeeder proxy, which I’m probably going to continue to do until I get my own Snowspeeder done and figure out how to use it in-game. Needless to say, though, Star Wars: Legion is shaping up to be yet another wargame where my plucky, cherished characters rush into danger only to get slapped right down. I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.

Kinpatsusamurai has a fantastic Legion army and I can’t say enough good things about the way he’s got them painted up. My inner Rebels fan grinned a little to see the Governor Pryce miniature from the specialists box on the table, and I noticed Iden Versio too, but the real centerpiece of the army – and biggest hurdle – was the AT-ST. The Mustafar-style lava basing that Kinpatsusamurai has done on his army is also just gorgeous, and really makes the models pop, especially where there’s some OSL on the lower bodies and legs of the models.

We played at Noble Miniatures for my first Legion game, and it followed a format that I’m pretty accustomed with given my Warhammer 40K track record: I rushed in with reckless abandon, while KP’s troops held the line, picked more solid and defensible positions, and largely routed what I had to work with. It was a great time, though, and I’m hoping once I get a few more models painted up and tweaked to be back at it again soon. This will probably always be at least second place to 40K for me, but the game’s solid and I can see why it’s caught on so hard in our local scene.