Battle Legion Review

A Legion of Fun

Did somebody say “new favorite Android game”? Oh that’s right, I did! Traplight’s Battle Legion is a mass battler sim that puts you in command of an infinitely complex battlefield under the guise of a pleasant and comical cartoon brawl. If you’ve seen the 2019 animated Christmas movie Klaus, it’ll be easy to draw parallels between Battle Legion and the antics of the rival families of Smeerensburg. Before each match, position your troops in any configuration you please. Then, with a quick unintelligible chant and a flailing of the arms, your minions plunge head-on toward the enemy to meet whatever doom fate has decided.

But let’s not give fate all the credit here. Your careful planning before each battle will significantly influence the outcome. Your troops have varying movement speeds, attack times, attack range, buffs, health, and crowd control functions. This makes placement, timing, and anticipating your opponents’ moves crucial. Battle Legion is a happy medium between RTS and Idle, because once you start the battle, you relinquish control and watch your strategies unfold.

The size of your army is determined by your Army Points. Stronger units cost more army points, so choose wisely. As you earn experience by winning battles, you rank up and expand your army point capacity, as well as the size of your battlefield. Increase your rank to unlock new units and level them up using gold and unit shards. For a free game, the selection of units is mind-boggling, not to mention the unlockable skins and perks that can be added to them. Even after 13 hours of play time, I’ve still only unlocked about a third of the possible units.

Play offensively or defensively, or position your units to surround your enemies. Maybe even use your enemy’s strengths against them. The choices are unlimited. Melee units range from fast-moving war hounds, spiders, and stealthy assassins to burly warriors and even monsters of myth and legend. Ranged units include archers, hammer-throwers, a variety of magicians, and even catapults or crystal spires that shoot lasers. Outwit your enemies with freezing traps, walls, magic mushrooms of betrayal, entangling roots, or even bombs with legs that sprint head-on into mayhem.

At first, I was a bit dismayed that I couldn’t choose targets for my archers, as they would focus on enemies that seemed unimportant. But I quickly realized that I was missing the point. Your units attack the closest target. The problem was that I didn’t have a complementary strategy before starting the battle. What makes this game amazing is that you must thoroughly consider all the possible moves your opponents might make in sequence as your units move across the screen. And the beauty is you won’t always win. Your opponents are chosen at random, and sometimes your strategies just won’t work. What’s more, as your adversaries unlock and utilize new units, you will always need to adjust your own, making progression and gameplay virtually endless. 

You can earn gold, bonus experience and unit shards in the background or while AFK. The menu screen is home to a collection of Wagons that can be unlocked after a certain number of hours. I like to let my 8-hour Wagon unlock while I sleep. There is also a free Daily Wagon, and a variety of other goodies that you may purchase in the store.

The only minor drawback to Battle Legion is that it is online only, as your opponents are always other players. This certainly doesn’t take away from the game, but with the addition of an offline story mode, Traplight could really expand on their characters and artwork. But honestly, I couldn’t recommend this game more strongly. I haven’t been able to put it down since I first tried it, and I’m sure you won’t be able to either. See you on the battlefield.