YMMV / Star Wars: Legion

• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • The most common non-Corps unit seen in armies during the game’s first year were the Sniper Strike Teams. Despite their low damage, they have a high chance of eliminating at least one trooper miniature each turn (especially when allowed to stay still and collect aim tokens). Their biggest benefit however is their cheapness (44 points for one team), which not only gives them excellent per-point value, but also makes them an ideal filler unit that can comfortably sit in any list. The September 2019 points change update addresses this, both by nerfing Sniper Teams’ ranges from infinite to the newly-created Range 5, as well as increasing their cost slightly to 48. Snipers are still powerful, but no longer omnipresent must-includes for lists.
  • After the sniper’s nerf, the Rebel and Empire metas diverged in different directions, but both of which took advantage of units released around the same time as the nerf. For Empire armies, the ‘gunline’ list became popular; using rows of Shoretroopers and Death Troopers, supported by mortars, snipers and either Veers or Krennic, to create a Stone Wall that blasts away at anything that comes into its long range. For the Rebels, lists built around enabling the insane action efficiency and agility of Tauntaun Riders became popular.
• Low-Tier Letdown: With all four factions having settled down, the Galactic Empire has emerged as the consensus weakest faction. This is perhaps explained as the result of several factors. First, the Empire saw their dominant "Shoreline" meta get nerfed at an inopportune time, in February 2020 just before the pandemic shut down in-person play, thus stalling the development of new metas and the amount of data that can be gathered for balancing. Second, the Republic picked up a similar niche that the Empire has in offering a tough, elite army that doesn't resort to much trickery to win. And finally, the good versatility of Rebel units left them in a better place to deal with the Clone War-era armies; units like the Wookiee Warriors and Mandalorian Resistance are much better equipped to deal with both Separatist hordes and Republic armor depending on the opponent, whereas the Imperial Special Forces are perhaps the only Empire unit with that same level of flexibility.
• Memetic Badass:
  • The Dewback Rider, as explained below, has gained an ironic fanbase despite being underpowered prior to errata
  • Operative Luke Skywalker has one of the most devastating attacks in the game, with 7 surging black dice on his lightsaber, an additional red die from hos training slot, and the ability to make a second attack in one turn with his command card. Luke is often compared to a walking Death Star.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Fantasy Flight usually releases a pair of articles for each of the game's releases; one which announces it, and another that goes more in-depth with the product's contents. The one exception to this seems to be the Imperial Specialist expansion, which for one reason or another never received a second article before its release. The Imperial Specialist article has become a running joke among fans, who still hold on to the belief that it will eventually get released one day.
  • 'Dewbacle', to refer to an incident in which an early release of the Dewback Rider unit came with the wrong sized base, necessitating a repack that delayed the wide release of the product. The Dewback itself became a bit of a Memetic Badass for both this reason, as well as for how Ugly Cute its model and art looks.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Exhaustible weapons: In a game with a strict turn limit, weapons that require their user to spend an action to recover them are seen as highly risky investments for an army. The fact that non-exhaustible weapons are cheaper and usually more versatile means you will rarely encounter them outside of the occasional support role. The worst of these is the T-7 Ion for the Snowtrooper, due to its low damage output and limited utility, especially compared to the Flametrooper. The September 2019 points change addresses this a little, decreasing the points cost of several heavy weapon upgrades that were exhaustible, as well as increasing the range of the aforementioned T-7.
  • The Rapid Reinforcements condition was also initially this: it offers the chance to place aside up to two trooper units during deployment, which are deployed at the end of turn 2 instead. What players found is that in most cases the advantages of this simply isn't worth it; in a game where action economy management is the key to running an efficient army, removing units from the table until a third of a game has passed only risks letting your opponent steamroll you with a numbers advantage. Errata fixed this in two ways: players are now forced to leave aside at least one unit (meaning both players must commit, and reducing the risk of a disrepeancy between army sizes), and the reinforcements come in at the end of turn 1 instead (making it a more efficient use of a unit's actions since the first turn will likely be a setting-up turn anyway).
• That One Level: Of all the objectives, the first iteration of Key Positions is easily the most disliked. The main issue is that it features an odd number of tokens, which means the blue player gets to choose where to place two of them. Unlike Recover The Supplies, there was no requirement for one of the tokens to be placed neutrally, and so there was nothing stopping the blue player from placing their tokens in an easily defendable spot that makes life hell for the red player. A meta subsequently emerged in which armies were built to use as few points as possible in order to win the bid for blue player, until Key Positions was eventually errata'd so that one token must be placed as close to the centre as possible.
• Unexpected Character: The Rebels getting the A-A5 Speeder Truck came as a bit of a surprise, as it represents the first unit to come from the Legends continuity, and even from there it was a very obscure pick.