Gilded Legion - Unit Guide (english)

Gilded Legion - Unit Guide
One of the three restricted selections of the Imperial Officer and, according to the background, one of the best trained groups in the Hundred Kingdoms and the original reason why I started the faction. They are the epitome of brave humans with sticks.

Overview & gameplay

Essentially, we get a comparatively cheap selection with average values and which is unfortunately heavy. Apart from the R4, nothing particularly stands out and outside of the Knights of the Order we don't find this anywhere until the appearance of the Sicarii. Your main task is the "the hedgehog lives here now" principle, i.e. to hold out against enemies for as long as possible and maybe even win. With Clash 3, which is good for infantry, and Cleave 1, hitting back also works quite well and thanks to Pike Formation (opponents don't benefit from inspire, shock in the charge and make 3 impacts less per stance), some opponents don't want to go head-on into the legion . Thanks to Iron Discipline, flanks and rear attacks aren't quite as bad, but the pike formation doesn't work there.

Their main weaknesses are the mediocre armor of 3 and being a heavy pick with Movement 5. Both can be offset by officers, but unfortunately you can only pack one. The Seasoned Veteran gives Bastion 1 (cannot be combined with Imperial Officer's Bastion) and the Drillmaster gives Double Time and +1 Attack for each Stand (but not for the Support Attacks). Which officer you want depends somewhat on how you want to build it and whether you want an Imperial Officer to join the force. Without an attached character I would always choose the Seasoned Veteran and the Drillmaster only as an upgrade if I have a large block with an attached character. If the character has "Armor of Dominion" in it, you can simply stand 1" in front of most monsters and say: come on. They usually find a charge without Inspire, without Cleave, with little to no impact against D3/R4 not great. But then turning around is no longer for the monster. Important if you try something like that, you should play block 3 narrowly, because the "Armor of Dominion" only works if the opponent's stance is in contact with the character's stance . Why do I write D3/R4 when we have Bastion? Well with Bastion it's a problem because you have to activate the regiment first to get it. This is often a big disadvantage because the guys don't necessarily go into the game early Events want to intervene and we don't get a Bastion on the turn by marching onto the field, since draw events from outside the field are not triggered. Without Bastion we are very vulnerable to the high-caliber fire from the Spire, Wadhrun and Nords, because there are many there Regiment have no problem with Move Shot.

Veterans
Since we actually always want an officer, in case of doubt the Imperial Officer who doesn't give us any bonuses for veteran, the costs for +1 clash are low and the benefit with larger blocks is immense. Purely in terms of damage output, there is no change between Relentless Drills and Veterans in the Gilded Legion, at least until the first losses occur. In addition, with Clash 4 you can possibly save the Inspire and thus the rerolls in order to possibly do a move action after the Clash to run over the slaying enemies into a zone.

Relentless drills
Support is essentially a bad rule, as it is almost always better to deploy a regiment wide rather than deep. Up to 5 wide is absolutely legitimate on most playing fields and you don't lose any attacks. However, since the Gilded Legion and Household Guard already have Support 2, you can get to Support 3 here and only have a loss of one attack per stand. Since Relentless Drills cost nothing, it is an interesting choice, especially for larger blocks, if you are short on points or doesn't want Veterans for his list.

But what do we play now and do they necessarily need a character? That depends entirely on your own taste and the task you have in mind. Small regiments of 3 stands, small blocks of 5-6 stands or large force blocks of 9-10 stands fulfill other tasks and in any case the Supremacy of the Imperial Officer is highly recommended, as they are simply not good without Vanguard. Small regiments are more for covering and should be kept cheaply, medium ones act as an anvil and can also contain a character with "Armor of Dominion". This means you can also save yourself the Seasoned Veteran and/or Drillmaster. If you want violence you can play 9-10 stands, five stands wide and two rows deep as a block. As veterans, they put a lot of pressure on and with Drillmaster they march across the board with murder, but it also costs a mountain of points. And I would probably pack an Imperial Officer alone for the Bastion in the murder block, otherwise the regiment would shrink too quickly. What would of course also help would be a Noble Lord with "Best of Men" nearby or if you choose the Seasoned Veteran in the regiment itself. But that requires the Lord's Warband and you have a very similar selection with the Household Guard Medium.

Conclusion: It was hardly played before the update and even now you rarely see it. There are several reasons for this: their two areas of responsibility, hammer and anvil, are simply better fulfilled in other regiments. One of our best warbands, the Steel Legion, is fighting for a restricted slot and they simply have more cleaves and more attacks. As an anvil, you always have to activate first in order to ignite Bastion and therefore, in my opinion, you would need at least Untouchable or something else/further. It doesn't help that Ashen Dawn exists where 8 stands of Gilded Legion with Seasoned Veteran cost the same as 5 stands of Ashen Dawn and have the same number of lives. The fact that their two competing regiments are also heavy doesn't help either and so they only remain the second choice in both cases.