STAR WARS LEGION

“Lieutenant Page, how did you manage to fight your way to the bridge? …I realize that you and your men are exceptionally capable soldiers, and that ground combat is not my area of expertise… but those kind of odds sound overwhelming.”

“Well, actually, we didn’t fire a shot.”

— Admiral Ackbar and Lieutenant Page, regarding the capture of Accuser.

KATARN COMMANDOS

New Republic Special Forces

Established shortly before the Battle of Hoth, the Alliance SpecForce unit that would become known as the Katarn Commandos (and sometimes Page’s Commandos) would cut their teeth in the defense of Echo Base, the Liberation of Endor and destruction of the second Death Star, the extraction of former Imperial Grand Vizier Sate Pestage, and the taking of Borleias, codename “Blackmoon”. Originally under the command of Major Bren Derlin, leadership would pass to Lieutenant Judder Page who continued the Commando’s tradition of being the go-to Alliance-turned-New-Republic commando unit capable of the impossible.

It seems quite natural, then, that the Katarns would eventually find themselves frequently paired with another such New Republic unit – Rogue Squadron. As the demands placed on these units increased exponentially with the fledgling New Republic attempting the final overthrow of the Empire, the coordination between these two unorthodox units, now covering multiple engagement zones with their expertise, drastically increased the odds of success.

Named for a ferocious predator of the planet Kashyyyk, the Katarn Commandos are a crack team of individual specialists who combine to form a Special Forces team capable of accomplishing any mission. Under air cover provided by the Rogues, the only thing that could ever hold this force back is… well… my complete ineptitude at the game of Star Wars Legion. Heheh.

COMPOSITION

I’ve selected the game-units that I think best fit a Commando force (while taking game-legality into consideration), and chosen to give them callsigns based on colors, a fairly common thing in Star Wars. I’ve made the Rebel Veterans BLUE Squad and consider them the most elite and longest-serving unit of the Katarns. While all of these soldiers are representing commandos in my force, BLACK Squad is the most guerilla/special tactics unit, encompassing the sniper and saboteur. GOLD, GREEN and GREY Squads are the generalist units, flexible enough to be assigned a variety of goals in-game. Skipper and Floater also serve as necessary, be it recon, hunter-killer, bait, or sitting on distant objectives.

More units may very well be added in the future, particularly Pathfinders and Swoop Riders.

HOBBY

Like my NULL Fleet project [page coming soon], my Kataran Commandos follow a “best & most fun regardless of timeline” approach. The Katarn name was not adopted until post-Endor, when Luke was no longer a Commander assigned to Rogue Squadron & wielding his father’s lightsaber. Similarly, the personnel I’ve chosen as the Rogues are from the Dark Horse comic era of the X-wing series – I’ll be posting a blog about that at some point – which also do not fit terribly well with this “version” of Luke.

What I’m saying is, no: this force is not all “factually” correct. It did, however, get me interested enough to actually do the project! As a side note, I added Chewie simply to have a Wookiee for the Rebel Commandos Squad in the Spec Ops version of the game and I already own Han and will likely paint him up at some point anyway. While Chewie fits well enough with this force, he could also be considered to be Frorral, a member of the Katarn Commandos.

Theme, baby.

Lastly, there are few fun conversions here, namely 3D-printed rebel commando alien heads, head-swaps & kitbashing, some light sculpting, and a toy repaint. I will get further into this (with WIP photos and links) in a blog post soon!

The Katarn Commandos logo is taken from the Katarn Commandos page at starwars.fandom.com, linked via the image. It is credited as “Source: Heir to the Empire Sourcebook; Original designer/artist: vector trace and colors by Trip based on the original design by Stephen Crane.”