I’ve watched a lot of films over the years, but there is one soundtrack (well, maybe two if you include the Lord of the Rings music) that brings chills, that makes me sit back ready to enjoy a proper sci-fi flick, with fast paced space battles and iconic lightsaber duels.

I am, of course, talking about Star Wars, a franchise that has spawned countless films, TV series, card games and tabletop games. 

I make no secret that I primarily collect and play Warhammer in all its various guises, however I have dabbled in one or two other miniature games, including Marvel Crisis Protocol. I mention MCP because it’s relevant to this article, where I’ll be checking out Star Wars Legion, specifically the new Rebel Alliance Starter Set and separate Rebel Officer box.

Atomic Mass Games are ever increasingly growing in stature, and we have them to thank for the Star Wars Legion, as well as the aforementioned Marvel Crisis Protocol and another Star Wars miniature game, Shatterpoint. 

When we were approached to unbox and review the two of the new starter sets, I jumped at the chance to crack open the Rebel box and see if this was a game system I could get behind. Matt is tackling the Empire box and will be following this review up with his own in a week’s time, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

We did a live stream a week ago with Dallas from Atomic Mass Games. During the stream we chatted about Legions, as well as MCP and Shatterpoint, so I recommend giving it a watch! You can find it below:

Our thanks to Atomic Mass Games for sending us both boxes to unbox and review. You can pick up either box via our affiliates over at Element Games. If you use one of our affiliate links you’ll be doing us a massive favour, as we’ll get a kick back from your purchase, which helps us to bring you our articles and videos. 

I will be reviewing the contents of the box shortly,as well as the new customisable Rebel Officer box, but first a bit of background on Legions.

What is Star Wars Legion?

Star Wars Legion is a miniatures based game which features dice and card based gameplay. If you play Warhammer you’ll be right at home with the scale and the fundamentals of how the game plays, albeit with different gaming mechanics. 

I must add, at the point of writing this article, I haven’t yet played a full game of Legion. I will be following up this article with a further post with my impressions on playing the game, but for now I am relying upon several battle reports I’ve watched. 

My first impressions are that the game seems, at its basics, fairly straightforward to play. Keywords and status effects seem to be king here, with lots of abilities to keep track of. The game does have cards to help with this, ranging from unit stat cards, to upgrades and objectives. 

The game features easy army building, with units and upgrades having points costs, and no overly complicated army organisation rules.

At this point it’s very important to state that all of the rules to play Star Wars Legion, are all completely free and available to download now from the Atomic Mass Games website. You can even download and print the cards. Honestly, all you really need to pay for is the minis (as well as ideally a gaming mat and scenery to battle over).

I’m going to be collecting the Rebels, whilst as I mentioned Matt will be leading the Empire. Jay is delving into the Galactic Republic, which only leaves the Separatists as a faction currently available. Dallas hinted to us on our live stream special last week that they are actively looking at adding more units and factions to the game over time. 

What is the Difference between Legions and Shatterpoint?

Atomic Mass Games have two Star Wars games as part of their tabletop portfolio, Legions and Shatterpoint, so it’s easy to confuse the two.

Legions, as mentioned earlier, is a game similar in scale to Warhammer. You command an army, led by a Commander, and do battle.

Shatterpoint on the other hand, features larger scale minis and is more of a skirmish type game, with only a handful of models required compared to a whole army. 

Review: Unboxing the New Rebel Alliance Starter Set

Right, let’s press on to the first of the boxes I will be reviewing in this article, the brand new Rebel Alliance Starter Set.

Atomic Mass Games have launched the latest version of Legions with 4 new starter sets, designed to help new players start to collect and play the game, 

You can watch me unbox this chunky box in the video below:

Wondering what is within this box? Well…here you go!

• 36 New Plastic Minis
• 47 Cards (split between Unit cards, Battle cards, Command cards, Upgrade cards)
• Red/Black/White Dice
• Tokens
• Movement Tool Set
• Range Tools

So as you can see, you literally have everything bar an opponent, opposing army and a board to play on. I love the fact you get all the dice you need, as well as some super handy movement and range measurement tools. As I mentioned earlier, the game has a lot of statuses and abilities, so tokens are also a great inclusion. 

I’ve mentioned 36 new plastic minis, but I’m sure you are wanting to know what exactly we get in here:

• Luke Skywalker – The Commander (HQ) choice in the box, and it’s a brilliant model. Equipped with his lightsaber and optional pistol
• 22 Rebel Troopers – The backbone of a Rebel Alliance army.
• 7 Rebel Commandos – Veteran Rebels, aka Rebels with big coats
• 6 Wookie Warriors – Lots of different weapon options for included, including crossbows and knives. 

These are all new plastic sculpts, moving away from the heavy resin range of the previous Star Wars Legion models. In points, you are probably looking at roughly 500-600 points of models. 

For contents and value (as the box can be picked up from Element Games for £76.49, which IMO is very cheap for what you get!). 

Review: The Miniatures

Miniature based games can have the best gaming mechanics known to man, but if the miniatures aren’t up to it, then the game will struggle.

With this in mind, I wanted to take a closer look at the miniatures. 

Because I primarily play Warhammer, of course I’m going to immediately draw comparisons with the models GW put out.

Now, whilst they aren’t as intricate as Warhammer minis, but take nothing away from these minis as they are still very detailed, especially the character models. They have some very nice poses and sculpts, with varying assembly builds for some of the minis, especially the Wookies and Troopers, to help diversify the larger units. 

The box does not include assembly instructions. Instead, like the rules, you can find the assembly guides to all of the minis from this box over on the Atomic Mass Games website. They are super crisp and detailed, with only one piece (the back of a crossbow on one of the Wookies) making me have to spend a few moments to work out how it went on. 

Even without the instructions though, you’ll have little issue. Every model is marked with a Letter and Number, making it really easy to pair up parts for individual models. For most of the models the parts are grouped together on the sprue. Speaking of the sprues, they unclip really nicely and easily. 

What really impressed me though, was the absolute ease it was to assemble every model in this box. They go together really, and I mean REALLY nicely. In the time it took me to assemble 22 Rebel Troopers, I’d have probably built 3 Space Marine Terminators. None of the parts are overly complicated, the joins are easy to connect…honestly, I absolutely loved assembling these minis. 

These are some really nice, detailed minis, with a greatset of optional builds. Very impressed. 

Review: The Cards

The box includes 4 different types of cards. 

• Unit Cards showing off each of your models stats, points and keywords
• Upgrade Cards that well, as you may guess, provides upgrades to your units
• Command Cards are a really interesting mechanic. They help to determine initiative, how orders to each unit are issued and what effects come into play.
• Battle Cards are in essence your objective cards, providing you with missions to complete as you are playing your games.

Each of the cards feature clear text and in a lot of cases some really nicely drawn artwork.

The mechanics seem really interesting, especially the Command cards. It’s hard for me to foresee how I’ll get on with them when I get to roll dice, but my first impressions are that they’ll provide a really fun and tactical game. 

Quick shout out to the high quality tokens too, that are included in the box. The game has a fair few statuses and abilities mid-game, so these will come in super handy.

Review: Customisable Rebel Officer Box

Moving away now from the big starter set, we were also really lucky to receive one of the new Rebel Officer boxes.

This one box provides two officers for your Rebel Alliance. The first is an Officer, whilst the second acts as a Rebel Agent, both being two separate unit entries when assembling your army. 

Now, I’ve always been a big fan of customisable HQ units, and am really happy with some of the multipart HQ units we’ve been seeing for 40k, but none of them come with the amount of options this box provides. 

There’s over 20 different options on the plastic sprues in this box, allowing you to create two unique characters. You can even mix and match them with other Legion sprues to create something truly unique (Dallas from AMG on our stream showed us a couple of really good examples of this).

Again, just like the plastic minis. These are nicely detailed and very easy to assemble. 

Not only do you get the sprues in here, but you also get a small token sheet and cards, again ensuring you have everything you need to use these characters in your games. 

Summary

I had an absolute blast assembling each and every mini, from the Starter Box to the additional Rebel Officer supplement. I honestly cannot stress enough, how easy and fun to build these kits are.

I love Warhammer and the level of intricute detail they go too, but this at times comes to the detriment of assembling the minis.

The value of the starter set is insane for what you get. It covers all of the bases and allows you to get to the tabletop as quickly as possible. This is further empowered by the availability of the rules, for free, over on AMG’s website. 

I’ve got a strong feeling (perhaps it’s the Force…) that I’m going to love playing Legion. I will be back once me and Matt have had our first full game, to advise on how it went and will give further thoughts on the units included in the Starter Box. 

Until then, I need to get some paint on my Rebels!