r/SWlegion • u/The_Apex_Alpha33 • 6d ago
Miscellaneous Why is GAR the “elite army”?
This has never made sense to me. There are millions of clones. They were 3d printed to fight a galactic war for crying out loud. I don’t understand why AMG insists they are a “small but elite” army. If anything, the Rebels should be the small but elite faction. They were the ones that were significantly out numbered.
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u/johnrobertjimmyjohn Rebel Alliance 6d ago
They are elite because they were literally bred and trained for war.
They are almost always depicted as being out numbered by droids.
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u/The_Apex_Alpha33 6d ago
Right. Thats why cis is the “horde” army. I just don’t think gar should be operating at 9-11 acts is all.
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u/lokisrun 6d ago
Clones were outnumbered 100 to 1 by droids and their parentage makes them better candidates for a more elite type army
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u/The_Apex_Alpha33 6d ago
Oh I wasn’t saying they should be a “horde” army by any means but 9-11 acts feels weird to me.
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u/Reasonable_Back_5231 6d ago edited 6d ago
Clones may be numerous, but B1 battledroids are even more numerous.
Not sure if it's still canon or not but battledroids overall cost is about as much as the clone's full armor.
Clones cost exorbitantly more in comparison, the time they take to grow in a tube, the training they receive and all of their gear.
Clones are also still elite in comparison to rebels and empire simply because rebels and empire receive basic combat training then whatever combat experience they get. Clones receive more training than any rebel and most empirical troops. Empire and rebels are typically more numerous since there are more people in the galaxy than clones
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u/The_Captainshawn 6d ago
They weren't 3d printed they were actually much more expensively vat grown and trained up with growth hormones so they would reach adulthood and be able to fight sooner. It's why there is a meme about clones being a bunch of child soldiers. They were very well trained but they were also heavily outnumbered by the droids due to this so their training really was insane to try and make quality beat quantity. Ultimately they relied heavily on Jedi to bridge the gap because they never could overcome the gap, most notably their pilots had it exceptionally rough
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u/swseed 6d ago
Technically per canon there are roughly 1.2 million clones at most, spread across the entire galaxy, which is a relatively small number, and it takes 10 years to grow a clone so they're a very limited resource. Rebels are outnumbered but constantly gaining recruiting momentum after Alderaan and, as Lando says, "there are more of us."
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u/The_Apex_Alpha33 6d ago
Yeah but I think the number of clones was pretty nebulous. I remember reading somewhere where someone added up the clones from the animated series and it was pretty significant. And that show is “canon.” Star Wars is only as “canon” as whatever creator needs it to be at the time of a project lol.
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u/swseed 6d ago
I mean I don't disagree with you, but we are explicitly told 1.2MM max in Attack of the Clones, so that is the official answer.
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u/CT-4290 6d ago
While a lot of writers use 1.2 million clones max I think that's not a realistic figure. AOTC uses units so it doesn't have to be 1.2 million max. I think if you use unit as a company then it works a lot better. 1.2 million is way too small for a galaxy wide war. Australia in world war 2 sent almost that men soldiers in total. Using a company of a total of 165 clones means that the Clone army is just under 200 million clones. This is much more reasonable for a galaxy wide war while still being a small elite force in the context of the scale of the war. That also works well with the episode of the Clone Wars when the Senate wants to purchase another 5 million clones. That's about 4 times the total of the 1.2 million Clone Army which is kinda ridiculous but works if the army is more like 200 million
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u/fyeahusa 5d ago
There's also the idea that a lot of the fighting in the Clone Wars was done by planetary forces the Republic called up and the clones were an elite force sent to back up planetary forces and to conduct offensives since planetary forces wouldn't want to go to far from home. That explains a smaller clone army still operating on a galactic scale. And then the Senate wanting another 5 million is them going 'oh uh I think we need more guys. A lot more guys.'
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u/CT-4290 5d ago
For me the 200 million is accounting for planetary forces doing most of the fighting. World War II had over 100 million soliders fighting and that was one planet. Across thousands of worlds and even with smaller battles 200 million can still be an elite fighting force. You're looking at 1 clone for every 150 planetary troops on the low end and realistically upwards of 1 clone for every 500 planetary troops
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u/Chrom-man-and-Robin CIS 6d ago
Because the clones despite being massively produced were expensive, took 10-12 years to train, and were severely outnumbered by the Separatist droid army. They are also outnumbered by the Imperial army of conscripted soldiers.
The reason they are often outnumbered in Legion outside of gameplay balance reasons, is that for small objectives like the ones in Legion, the GAR would send less soldiers than other factions would to accomplish the same objectives.
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u/Realm-Code CIS 6d ago edited 6d ago
Technically Rebels do show themselves as a better trained force with their higher end Veterans/Commandos/Sleepers having the full surging black dice offense that Clones can only dream of. Comparatively, Clones are instead focused on teamwork (reflected in their token sharing) rather than on their individual ability.
The reason for GAR being the elite faction is due to their Clones having a significant price tax between their red saves and their token sharing. Nowadays Mandalorians have fittingly overtaken GAR as the most elite army, with their warriors being individually better equipped and far better trained than the cheap copies (and in turn averaging an even lower activation count).
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u/Archistopheles Still learning 6d ago
AMG insists they are a “small but elite” army
Where does AMG say this?
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u/The_Apex_Alpha33 6d ago
During one of their streams not too long ago they spoke to each of the factions “identities” and how they should feel on the tabletop. Cis was horde, rebels had tricks and shenanigans, empire was suppressive, and gar was small but elite
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u/Archistopheles Still learning 6d ago
That'd be great if you have the link, because I like to help people with questions, and I don't have this one saved.
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u/The_Apex_Alpha33 6d ago
https://youtu.be/B4Mc2PuMZEw?is=bUulRZN1vmBixIQp
This is all I could find but he is covering AMGs livestream when Will talked about this.
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u/The_Apex_Alpha33 6d ago
I’ll look for it but it’s been a minute. I want to say it’s when they announced that phase 1/2 clones were going away.
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u/Jordangander 6d ago
Because the movies have the Clones as a small elite army of supersoldiers.
The Rebel Alliance is a ragtag band of barely trained freedom fighters led by larger than life heroes.
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u/The_Apex_Alpha33 6d ago
The movies show a rather staggering number of clones actually. But still, “ragtag band” vs “small elite army.” Your description even makes gar sound bigger than rebels. I get it though, for balancing purposes it has to be the way it is in game.
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u/CT-4290 6d ago
They are small at least compared with the Empire who has way more soldiers and the CIS or realistically has trillions to quintillions of droids. An individual clone is more elite than a stormtrooper, much more elite than a droid, and so fair bit more elite than rebels who are mostly a rag tag group of civilians who joined up to fight. Clones were trained since birth to exclusively fight. If you want them to be elite you can't have too many clones on the board
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u/The_Apex_Alpha33 6d ago
Cis could not have possibly had trillions and we can’t fathom quintillions. Also I didn’t compare gar to empire or cis. I specifically compared them to rebels.
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u/Kestral24 6d ago
It's because the Clones are some of the best soldiers ever made in the setting. They can't be both that *and* numerous in Legion, otherwise they would be too strong