When I play my games of Star Wars: Legion I almost always play against my son Charlie. In fact, he is the reason I play games at all, and it was he who got me playing Legion the first time around. As any father and son duo will do, we share our forces, he will take one side, and I will take the other. I have been a little obsessed with the Separatists of late, always picking them and Charlie has been left with the Republic… the starter set of the Republic. While I have been having an ever-growing force for the Separatists, the Republic army has not been growing. When I let Charlie take the Separatist side and I could see just how light things were on the Republic side, I knew that I needed to reinforce my poor clones! I didn’t want some more troops; I needed some fire power!
I quickly found myself looking at the Republic AT-RT. I remember having this when I was playing Rebels in the first run of the game. I loved assembling it; I loved painting it and I really wanted it again. This time around I thought I could do a much better painting job and I’m sure it would start balancing things up on the tabletop. At £34.99, it also wasn’t too expensive, certainly compared to some of the price of other units.
Opening the box, there were cards, sprue, base, tokens and a leaflet. There were a lot of hazy memories from my first time around with Legion. I thought I knew that there were going to be some tough calls to make in terms of weapons, that much I remembered, so it was to the cards to see what this unit would provide me on the tabletop and what decisions I’d need to make in terms of the model.
In the box you get the unit card and three weapon options. Not too much choice but then again, it also means this is a simple, open, build and play. The unit is one model that costs sixty points. It has six health and rolls a red dice for defense, meaning that your enemy is going to have to spend some time dealing with this thing if they want to be rid of it. In terms of armament, it has grappling claws for melee, which do three red dice damage with Impact one. I’m not sure if this is necessarily something I want in combat, but it looks like it can certainly hold its own! For range it has a rocket launcher that has up to range three rolling two white and one black dice. This also comes with Impact one and Critical one. In terms of keywords, it has Armour two, just to really annoy your opponent and make it that more difficult to destroy this vehicle. It has Climbing Vehicle and Expert Climber, so it can climb and move two. Scout one also means that you will be able to set this up a bit more on the tabletop to help get it either engaged sooner, or finding cover to keep it away from any vehicle killers. All-in-all, just from a basic vehicle, this is a really solid choice. I can see why it’s worth the sixty points and how against something like a B1 battle droid unit, it’s going to be like cutting a knife through butter.
Of course, that’s not the best bit though, because we have weapons to upgrade! The box comes with three: rotary blaster, flamethrower and laser cannon. These range from twenty points to ten and I like that there is such a range in costs so you can really choose something that fits into what points you have to spend. All of the weapons have the keywords Fixed: Front, which seems obvious. I listed the weapons in descending order of cost, the rotary blaster being the most expensive. It is twenty points and provides you with a weapon that has a range of three and rolls five black dice. Nothing too fancy, but when you are up against something like droids, five dice is going to be fantastic. At five points less is the flamethrower. This only has a range of zero to one, and this is going to be the option if you plan to use the vehicle primarily in close quarters. It rolls two black dice but gives you blast and spray. Again, with large units, like droids, this is insanely powerful. Different to the rotary blaster as you are getting up close rather than a distance, but I imagine just as effective. The laser cannon is the final one that is only ten points. You roll a red and two black dice, and it has Impact 3, meaning you’re very likely to be scoring criticals. This is certainly good against choice characters targets. All these weapons seem to have their uses. I can see the first two working well against the hordes of battle droids, then again, the laser cannon would be great against the wheel bikes. Which to choose? For me, the flamethrower seemed the most horrendous, the one I’d want to be playing with the most. The fact it was also ten points, meant it wasn’t the most expensive out of the list either.
With the cards examined, decisions made, it was time to build my first Republic vehicle. You start with building the AT-RT itself and it is very straight forward. There are a lot of parts, but nothing is complicated here. It is worth noting that this was the vehicle that came with the very first starter set when Legion was released, so it should be accessible for beginners. From what I can see, little has changed. That’s not a complaint; I loved the original model. There is a lot of detail and as I was only just returning to the hobby, I really appreciated having a ‘big’ build that was not too taxing for me. Once the main body is built it is onto the legs. There is a choice of having the right foot forward or the left, not that it really matters but if you are having more than one of these, at least you can add some variation. The bottom of the legs requires you to guess where things fit, and I do remember this causing me a bit of stress the first time I did it years ago. This time, I was a bit more fearless. One thing I will say, glue the middle toe into one of the other toes and level it with that toe, it makes things a lot easier. Will I say that the feet are easy, and I didn’t feel like throwing them across the room at some points? No, they can be very frustrating. There is a lot going on and patience is key to make sure that the AT-RT can stand up. Once you have endured that little bit of joy, it’s onto the weapon (thank you flame thrower) and then there is another alternate build choice. You can have an ARF trooper phase 1 or a phase 2 riding the vehicle. I went with the ARF phase 1 because I adore the design, but I really appreciate how much variation there is in this set. With that the build was done, and the model was just as impressive as I remember. Full of detail and the frustration of the feet was well worth it.
It has felt like stepping back in time with this piece, a bit of nostalgia from the first starter set. This unit looks like a lot of fun to use, and the model itself comes with a lot of variation. While the feet are still a frustrating part of the build, for the cost I can’t really complain too much. You get a lot of model, a lot of alternate builds for the money and I think this unit might very well become a staple in my Republic forces.
The Star Wars Legion: Republic AT-RT pack from Atomic Mass Games retails at £34.99. It is available now from high street gaming stores and online retailers including Amazon UK and Amazon US.
