Yesterday I played through a fun game of Legions Imperialis, we played 1600 pts aside with Imperial Fist Space Marines and Heretic Sollar Auxilla. It was an intro game and both sides had two formations, one Infantry based and one Armoured.
It has been about two years since my last game, see post below 🙂and I was eager to try the revised rules from the FAQ and the new compendium Liber Strategia. It also allowed me to reflect on some of the rule interactions which I will go through after a recap of the game
The mission was Devastation and the lists were
Both players were new to the game so had fun moving towards each other and rolling dice. On the second turn we had some excitement with the Auxiliary Commander leading a charge with their ogryns and auxiliary against a structure garrisoned by terminators. The combat was inconclusive and when more marines joined the following turn it swung in the loyalist’s favor. There was also an air-assault launched on one flank when the marines tried to attack and destroy one of the Auxillary’s home objectives from a Thunderhawk. They managed to melta bomb a detachment of tanks but the Veletarii launched a counter attack and pushed the marines off (FYI the Veletariii are 33% more expensive).
We didn't really keep track of the points and the game was more about learning the rules then winning. At the end of the game the marines certainly controlled more of the board, but with the three undamaged super heavy tanks the auxiliary were not out of the game. Some general observations
Setup. I deliberately kept the large structures or clusters of small structures 6” apart so that infantry could not move between them shooting all the while. Also I think a fun game needs more types of terrain then just structures and open terrain. Ruins and/or obstacles will certainly make the game more interesting and not just about destroying infantry hiding in buildings.
Orders. I think revealing all the orders at the beginning has grown on me. Rather than ruining the “suspense”, It mitigates the advantage of having more activations. This way if your opponent has more activations you still get an idea of what to expect when your activations are finished and you can no longer react. You can also still use a master tactician to try a few surprises. Another great rule is the Auxiliary Chain of Command, The Auxiliary have slightly better tanks for a similar price to marines, only being able to be given first fire if near the commander is a huge disadvantage, but also something that is fun to work around. Ogryns cause a lot of fuss as well, seemingly because they are better than the lore would have you believe by easily smashing through large groups of marines. I am less worried as they are expensive and without them the Auxilary would be hard pressed to push garrisoned space marines off of an objective.
Moving is moving, now that infantry are no longer marching triple the transports make more sense and transports with assault are monsters. I do think that transports with march orders should not be able to unload detachments but that is a minor quip.
Shooting works well and the best part is if your opponent has a unit you really covet, no problem, it's a civil war and you have access to your own version (most of the time). Natural game balance, brilliant!
Close combat gets a little confusing, it can be resolved quite easily in friendly situations but since the player with initiative organizes the pairs, and if there is a garrisoned detachment involved (that can be assigned to any opponent touching the building) it could get a bit cheeky with the player with initiative gerrymandering the combat. Long story short, you want initiative on a turn with important combat.
All in all, I think I am enjoying it more now that I have printed tons of stuff and that I am getting some of the nuances in the game. The baked in balance helps as well.
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