Sometimes you just see something and immediately start humming some music in your head, and the Galactic Empire Starter Set for Star Wars Legion is something that did just that to me. Upon seeing rows upon rows of Stormtroopers led by Darth Vader I couldn’t help but start to hum the Imperial March to myself – and I’m sure I’m not the only person to do that! A Star Wars movie marathon and the John Williams soundtrack later, and I’m excited to talk about the new starter set from Atomic Mass Games for Star Wars Legion!

In this review we’ll be taking a look at the Galactic Empire starter set, seeing what’s in it, checking out the miniatures and painting them up! We’ve also got our hands on the new customisable officers set too, we’ll take a look at just how modular they are.

Massive thanks to Atomic Mass Games for sending us these sets over to review on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Star Wars Legion goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing and review of the set which you can see just below or over on YouTube

Dave has also recently dived into the Rebel Starter Set too, and you can see the unboxing for that just below!

So without further ado, let’s jump into the new Galactic Empire Starter Set!

Star Wars Legion – Galactic Empire Starter Set Review

So what exactly is this set? I suppose the best place to start is with what Star Wars Legion is. Star Wars Legion is the mass battle Star Wars game from Atomic Mass Games. You might have heard of AMG’s other Disney licenced games with them doing both Marvel Crisis Protocol which allows you to put together a team of Marvel Super Heroes, and Star Wars Shatterpoint which is their low model count high action skirmish game.

Star Wars Legion is more like a traditional Wargame, with each player controlling an army of iconic Star Wars units led by the heroes and anti-heroes of a Galaxy far far away.

When it was first released, Legion was produced by Fantasy Fight Games with a lot of figures done in soft flexable plastic (The same soft of stuff used in their older boardgames) – however, since AMG picked up the range they have been working through the line replacing any older kits with new modular hard plastic kits like you see in Marvel Crisis Protocol and Shatterpoint.

This has been a big year for Legion, with a new and updated rulebook, refreshed unit cards for every unit in the game and 4 amazing starter sets that give you everthing you need to get playing.

Retailing at around £84.99 (And available for £76 from Element Games) the Empire Starter Set contains an absolute truck load of stuff for the price. Let’s start with the gaming materials – you get the contents of the Star Wars Legion Battle Card Pack (RRP £24.99) which contains the dashboard, tokens and mission cards that you need to play the game. You also get the contents of the Essentials Kit, (RRP £19.99) which contains all of the range rulers and markers plus a set of Star Wars Legion dice (RRP £14.99) – already there’s £60 of gaming material here if you picked it up seperatly, and that’s not even factoring in the cost of the miniatures themselves

In the box you get a new plastic sculpt of Darth Vader (Approx £15), two boxes of Stormtroopers (£49.99 a box) and two boxes of Scout Troopers (£49.99 a box) – in total there’s over £200 of stuff in the box for less than half price. What’s really nice about these boxes is that they are designed to put together a 600 point army. You’ll want to add another core unit, a couple of heroes and another kit to make the army up to 1000 points (The size of a standard game), but we found 600 point games being a really nice way to learn the rules and get to grips with things.

So let’s take a look at the kits when they have some paint on them!

The first model I had to paint up for the Empire side had to be Lord Vader himself! I’ve got a couple of the older miniatures, but this new plastic one blows them out of the water with a really nice sculpt and likeness to to the movies. The model went together really nicely and I can’t wait to paint up some more of the Empire heroes available!

After Vader, the next most iconic Star Wars unit is probably the Stormtroopers! You get two sets of these in the Starter Set, and have the option for two different special weapons. What’s really nice about this is that you actually get enough bits to build 11 Stormtroopers including one of each special weapon. Because of this you don’t have to pick which option you want to build, you can simply build both and swap between games. It also means that you can actually build a single box as two small Stormtrooper squads too (Though you will need to mark a model as your leader in the second squad, as you only get one modelfor this)

They paint up really nice and have some nice sharp lines perfect for drybrushing them up! Very impressed with these compared to the old ones I got in the original Legion starter box from years ago.

You also get two sets of Scout Troopers in the box – each of these can be built as a 5 man Scout squad and a 2 man Strike Team (Letting you build 4 special choices from this box). Again, all the weapon options are included here and there’s enough parts to build both of them! These are cracking models too, I just wish there was some less “Endor” themed basing (though this is easy enough to remove or alter)

All of the models in the box come with all the cards you need to use the units – Star Wars Legion doesn’t have “army books” as such, and instead has cards packaged with each miniature. This includes the unit stat cards themselves and the various upgrades they can take. Points costs are also printed on the cards which lets you build up your force really easily.

So what else might you need to add to your collection? Well if you have any older figures, AMG have released some card packs that updates the profiles and upgrades – though it is worth pointing out if you’re new to the game if you pick up any of the new repackaged minatures (With the new updated Legion logo on the box) then all the cards you need for any unit you add to the game are included in the box!)

If you are a completionist you might want to add the Generic Upgrades card pack to your collection – this is a set of 189 cards that can be used by all factions to give your units various upgrades to improve them in battle – though it is worth pointing out that all the cards in the game can also be downloaded from the AMG website.

A Star Wars Legion army requires 3 core choices, so you’ll want to add either another unit of Stormtroopers, or alternatively you could add some Snowtroopers, Shoretroopers or a Riot squad

You’ll want some more HQ units too, and for each faction AMG have put out some customisable heroes that allow you to build your own custom heroes.

For the Empire we get the Imperial Officer and Agent set. These boxes give you a load of parts in order to create your very own heroes – and you get a lot of bits. In the Empire one you get 4 cloaks of 2 different designs along with a stack of heads, weapons and droids in order to pick and choose your own design. What’s great is that you’re going to end up with a load of spare parts too to use as conversion fodder in future

I built up two examples for this review, and already want to pick up another box so I can do some more variations too! They are really easy to put together, and it looks like there’s scope for even kitbashing these with the leader kits from the other factions too.

Like with all the other sets, you get all the unit, upgrade and command cards you need too!

So what do I think of the Empire Starter Set for Star Wars Legion? Legion is a great game, and these boxes at less than £90 for enough models for 2/3 of an entire army is an absolute bargain. Not only do you get a stack of models (With the full options without needing any additional packs of models to make them useable), but you really do get all the gaming material needed to play too! I do wish there was a physical copy of the rulebook in the box, but when this is available for free to download then I can’t complain too much! You get all the dice, cards, rulers and tokens needed to play, and if you’re a returning player then there’s certainly an arguement for picking up one of these boxes even if you have an existing collection.

We also have a full review of the Star Wars Legion game itself coming to the site soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that – we’re also going to be doing some Star Wars Legion battle reports in the new year too!

The Star Wars Legion Galactic Empire Starter Set is available to buy now for £76.49 from Element Games

Atomic Mass Games provided Sprues & Brews with a free copy for review purposes.