It’s our first Sunday of going through the new CRB together, and I’m excited to get the Read the Rules project going! This post will be going through pages 1-10 of the CRB found at the top of the Links page.
Before we get started, a quick disclaimer on this project: simply reading these blog posts will not teach you how to play. In order for my commentary to make sense, you have to actually Read the Rules! I won’t be going through and rephrasing every single word of the rules. That being said, let’s get started!
Pages 1 and 2 don’t require much commentary, just the title page and credits!
Page 3 is the table of contents! Since all of the information is not alphabetically organized (like the previous rulebook) the table of contents is vital to read through now but also an absolutely invaluable resource looking for specific information. Here in the glossary, we can see that the rules are split into five large, logically ordered sections.
- Key Concepts – The rules speak about card anatomy, basic definitions, and terrain before we get into gameplay.
- Getting Read To Play – This is where the rules explain how to begin a game of Legion: building an army, setting up a battlefield, and reach the ultimate goal of winning the game.
- Game Mechanics – This is the meat of the rules and the section I reference the most when answering rules questions or personal inquiries.
- Appendices – The section which provides overviews of rules for specific types of minis or armies, rules regarding the battle deck, and finally a collection of steps for timing resolution.
- Keyword Glossary – The final section deals with the various and many keywords that units can utilize throughout the game!
Page 4 is a simple page filled with the game components that you might see when approaching a game of legion in progress. After the next pages, you’ll be able to identify what they all do!
Page 5 is the start of the Key Concepts section and we begin with an important rule: the core rules found in the CRB are superseded by special rules found on Command Cards, Upgrade Cards, or Keywords that directly contradict the core rules. This has an additional component as well, a “cannot” overrides a “can.” Additionally, this page contains an exception that is easy to miss. The paragraph near the top of the second column speaks to what happens when there is not physical base contact due to difference in elevation between two bases. You can still have base contact as long as, when viewed directly from above, there is no space between the bases, and the vertical distance between the two bases is inside of the lower base’s silhouette. We will learn more on silhouettes in a few weeks on page 27.
Pages 6, 7, and 8 provide definitions for overarching concepts. It is also the start of “The Blue Boxes.” The Blue Boxes (BB for short), have critical information in them. They are all must reads. We see an extremely helpful BB at the top of the second column of page 6:
Page 7 has the entire anatomy of a unit card and page 8 has the anatomy of an upgrade card and a command card.
We now have reached pages 9 and 10 and the end of our first week. These pages start out with another extremely important BB — regarding “X Keywords.” The next section contains an extensive list of all the tokens in the game, with a short blurb about how they are used!
Thank you so much for getting started with me. We will pick back up next week on the 5th of March, starting on the Measurement section on page 10, and proceed all the way to page 19. We will finish our week at the end of the Getting Ready To Play section.
Love this idea. Keep it going!