Dark Troopers Star Wars Legion Review

Changing up the scene of the game with the first trooper unit for the heavy type in the game is the dark troopers, a tough mean unit who are stopped by nobody and will take a lot of heat and still be standing.

Building

Since atomic mass games became the company that makes the new star wars legion content they changed up how they send out their products. This has impacted the way that they give instructions for the miniatures by instead of adding one to the box they will release the instructions either on day or release or a day or two after release online. They make these instructions very accessible to those who buy these products but can become problematic at times. Thankfully this unit like all the others is still easy to build without the instructions due to how their sprues work. Instead of games workshops approach of numbered sprues going from a maximum of 10 parts to 200 parts they instead go for a system of parts being labelled as A10, or E10. I always find this makes it easier as instead of having to constantly find the right number for the next step with each number being randomly assigned with you jumping from make number 10 to number 80, with legion you will easily establish the ten to twelve pieces per model.

This means that even without the instructions I could easily work out and put together the dark troopers even though they are all designed the same with different poses. The only challenging parts of building these models was the two flying figures that I needed to hold for a while to superglue to their relevant bases.

Painting

The dark troopers are one of the easiest models to paint with the only difficult aspects being the flame based projections at the bottom of two of the models, the rest only consisted of four different paints:

• Abbadon black - covering the entire model
• Leadbelcher - covering all mentalic parts of the model from its hinges to pistons
• Nuln oil - over the whole model to give it detail and shade for the paint
• Mephiston red - for the eyes to make the models have a more alive feeling

The next section focuses on how to paint the energy projections at the bottom:

• Macragge blue - covering all the energy to give it the feel of it being from the dark troopers
• Mephiston red - covering most of the energy leaving some of it uncovered to show the blue energy point
• Nuln oil - covering all of the energy to create the effect of shade on this section
• Troll slayer orange - heavy drybrush over the bottom half of the energy to create a burning effect
• Mechanicus standard grey - medium drybrush over the bottom quarter of the energy to create a smoke effect.

Playing

Having the dark troopers into this game is like opening a door to incredible opportunities, before they were brought in the closet alternative to this type of unit and how they play could be found in the special forces within the game. The special forces are the elite units for each faction that work at the highest efficiency and will be like the core units but much more superior, and now with this unit being the first heavy trooper unit, the game has changed. Having a heavy unit that it also a trooper instead of the usual vehicles can change a lot of play styles, whereas before players would be limited to only being able to take heavies if the terrain was open, now they can always bring heavies into the fight.

Now the question is do they fight well and the answer is yes, yes they do.

The dark troopers are a fascinating unit, by being both incredibly powerful with their combinations of double activation and their keywords that make them a force to be reckoned with. Yet they also can become very blocky, slow and avoidable on the battlefield making them not become overpowered. Having the keyword of ‘armour’ is the main reason that they have become the first trooper heavy unit, as counteracting ‘armour’ is difficult without the right keywords to counter it. When most players know that they will be taking on a heavy unit they will prepare accordingly, making sure they have enough of the ‘impact’ keyword to get through that armour, this makes sure these guys do not become unfair to bring into battle.

Having two activations for a unit this strong can seem unfair, but thankfully their attacks are not the strongest in the game and at no point can they recover the health they lose, this means facing them you know every hit will stay a hit.

So far it may seem I am talking about them negatively and by no means are they a bad unit, its just important to know that on the surface these guys can seem incredibly strong but there was enough factored in to make sure they don’t become too strong. As there is so much that is great about this unit, from the three variety of heavies and the fact you can bring two heavies meaning more diversity of weapons. Their double activations allow you to act twice with them, their ‘unstoppable’ keyword making them unaffected by suppression, meaning they can take the heat and key moving and full power.

All of these combined they become a unit that only those with the right weapons will dare to face, from rocket launchers to those with lightsabers encouraging the recreation of their famous scene against Luke Skywalker.

Overall

Overall this unit is a brilliant unit worthy to become a part of any empire list being the first heavy trooper unit that can install fear into your foes and become a force to be reckoned with on any battlefield.