[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/legionnaire_rpg_cover.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:In the battle between good and evil...this one counts!]]
->''You ride in 250 tons of molecularly aligned crystalline titanium welded to a ceramic ablative matrix. You carry a 200mm Gauss cannon, two massive 10-gigawatt lasers, two SMLM fire-and-forget anti-tank missiles, a Vulcan IV point defense anti-missile system, and a deadly assortment of other equally lethal weapons.\\\
Your vehicle is the ultimate product of 4,000 years of armored warfare.\\\
Your life expectancy is less than two minutes.''
-->-- Back cover of the ''Centurion'' box

''Renegade Legion'' was a series of tabletop games by Creator/{{FASA}}. Set in the 69th Century, they cover battles between the Terran Overlord Government and the Commonwealth.

Five interrelated games were published in the series:
* ''Interceptor: The First Line of Defense'' covers battles between space fighters.
* ''Centurion: Blood and Steel'' covers ground battles between grav tanks, artillery, and infantry. Two editions were put out, with minor improvements.
* ''Leviathan: Ships of the Line'' covers space battles between larger ships than fighters.
* ''Prefect: Assault from the Stars'' was a strategic wargame covering the invasion of a star system, letting commanders deploy units that could then fight using the earlier games.
* ''Legionnaire: TheRoleplayingGame'' was a role-playing game set in the same universe, with rules connecting it to the other games in the series.

In the 64th century, humanity was rebounding from the Snow Plague that had killed over 80% of humanity. Alien races had begun settling worlds that humans had abandoned; two, the [=KessRith=] and Ssora, had just reached a truce that divided up some of those worlds.

Humanity attempted to reclaim its former worlds, only to be conquered by the [=KessRith=] and Ssora and treated as a slave race. A cult arose around Earth's glorious histories, especially the Roman Empire. Alexander Trajan used historical legion pageants as the core of a rebellion, taking several Ssora worlds and ships, then using the ships in a FalseFlagOperation against the [=KessRith=], pitting the two historic enemies against each other again.

Out on the Orion Arm, a Human-Baufrin rebellion was able to reclaim the territory formerly known as the Commonwealth, and reinstated their old government. The Commonwealth signed a separate peace treaty with the [=KessRith=], earning the ire of Trajan.

Trajan's government shifted toward fascism, creating harsh citizenship laws that reinstituted slavery for those such as pacifists and free-thinkers. After wavering back and forth several times in the 66th and 67th centuries, in 6680 First Consul Kershaw's assassination led to the creation of the Terran Overlord Government, led by Caesar Ivanolo Buntari.

300,000 Legions and 3,800 Battleship groups chose to rebel against this, becoming the Renegade Legions. They fought their way to the Commonwealth to join forces against TOG. More Legions followed after Caesar Buntari issued the "Patria Potestas", which removed all rights from women and relegated them to possessions of their fathers or husbands. After Buntari's assassination by the women in his Praetorian Guard, many women chose to defect and join all-women units named for Athena or Minerva.

The Commonwealth has been getting pushed back, world by world, district by district. Now 8 of the 21 Grand Dukedoms lie under TOG control, and the Alaric dukedom is slowly being added to that list. 300,000 Renegade Legions and 200,000 Commonwealth Legions stand against the 8,000,000 Legions of TOG, fighting a last-ditch battle in defense of freedom.

The tactical tabletop games (''Interceptor'', ''Centurion'', and ''Leviathan'') used an innovative armor system where each armor side was viewed as a grid, and each weapon had a template to show how it would affect the armor. Lasers penetrate straight through one column, while electron particle cannons strip layers off, and APDS rounds penetrate and then blow out armor from beneath. ''Interceptor'' uses a flowchart system to track internal damage, while ''Centurion'' and ''Leviathan'' extend the grid from the armor down into the vehicle's internal systems.

As with FASA's ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', supplements were released describing the setting, adding new types of combat vehicles, and describing specific units on both sides, such as the 2nd ACR (Commonwealth) and the Harbingers of Death (TOG). Four novels were published, one by Creator/WilliamHKeithJr and three by Peter L. Rice.

In addition to the primary five games, one additional tabletop game and two video games were released in the setting.
* ''Circus Imperium'' was a separate game covering antigrav chariot racing; it shared the setting but did not tie in closely to the other games, and has more of a humorous feel.
* ''Renegade Legion: Interceptor'' by Creator/StrategicSimulationsInc was a 1990 MS-DOS and Amiga implementation of the ''Interceptor'' tabletop game.
* ''Renegade: Battle for Jacob's Star'' was a 1995 MS-DOS SpaceFighter SimulationGame based on the ''Interceptor'' tabletop game. It was developed by Midnight Software and published by Creator/StrategicSimulationsInc

FASA licensed the rights to Nightshift Games in 1993; Nightshift published a few items before reverting the license.

Several other games were left uncompleted; some of them were released on the Internet.
* ''Phalanx'' was a game of individual combat, akin to Battletroops in the Battletech setting. The rules have been made available and some groups have attempted to turn them into a complete game.
* ''Renegade II: Return to Jacob's Star'' was the sequel to the ''Renegade'' video game. It was completed enough that review copies were given to game magazines, but it was never shipped.
* ''Interceptor Second Edition'' replaced the flowcharts with something more like ''Centurion''. It is widely available on the Internet.

In 2020, Budgie Smuggler Games started releasing betas of an updated version of ''Centurion'' with significant changes to the backstory; TOG is now called the Tellun Empire, and the group attempting to fend them off is the Union. The game system has also been completely overhauled, using a movement-template system akin to ''Gaslands'', custom d12 dice, and cards for internal damage.

----
!!Tropes found in Renegade Legion include:
* AliensStealCable: The Naram watched Earth closely, and argued about intervening in World War II.
* AncientAstronauts: The Naram visited Earth; the Mayans were a Naram colony.
* ArbitraryWeaponRange: Laser weapons attenuate at range. Although all weapons have an absolute maximum range of 30 hexes regardless of type, this is more of a game balancing factor than a realism issue.
* ArtificialGravity: Gravity control allows grav tanks to fly at speeds approaching 500mph, and gravity control is also used to generate DeflectorShields.
* AwesomeButImpractical: Grav tanks can fly at 500mph...but to do so they have to be high enough off the ground that they become easy targets for everything. Most tanks end up creeping slowly along at nap-of-the-earth levels.
* TheCaligula: Caesar Buntari was bloodthirsty and likely mad, and singlehandedly turned the New Roman Republic into the current Terran Overlord Government. He murdered an entire planet with billions of people on a whim, ordered his troops to execute anyone protesting his rule, and then ordered his troops to execute any troops who refused to execute protestors.
* DefectorFromDecadence: The Renegade Legions are this en masse, soldiers who left their homes behind to fight for freedom.
* DeflectorShields: Pressure-gravity fields are used to create shields; however, due to power drain issues, shields cannot be run continuously, instead 'flickering'.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Buntari relegated women to the status of property...while 20% of his bodyguards were women. After he went on a trip, his body was found floating in space as the bodyguards took his ship to join the Renegade Legions.
* TheEmpire: TOG plays this extremely straight, deliberately modeling itself on UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire.
* FantasticRankSystem: TOG uses Roman ranks for ground forces and Greek ranks for naval forces. The Greek ranks are claimed to be from ancient Greece, but are the ones used by the modern Greek navy...which, almost 5000 years in the future, is ancient.
* FasterThanLightTravel: Via T-Space, a tachyon realm where the speed of light is a minimum speed, not a maximum. The faster a ship is going when it transitions into T-Space, the faster it travels in T-Space, up to a maximum of about half the speed of light, which gives a travel speed of 100,000 light years per month. Spending time in T-Space gives one "Tau Shimmer", an energy field that bleeds off over time. Humans can remain in T-Space for about 725 hours before Tau Shimmer causes problems.
* TheFederation: The Commonwealth, unlike TOG, insists that all its citizens are equal. It governs using a parliamentary system, and has had Regents of multiple species.
* GenghisGambit: One of the Commonwealth's greatest fears is that this is why they still exist. By providing TOG with an enemy to fight, they help the Emperor maintain control.
* GraffitiOfTheResistance: A red R made of a straight line and a zig-zag one is the symbol of the Renegades, and of the Renegade Legions.
* HoverTank: Grav tanks can hover and fly up to 500mph.
* HumanAliens: Naram are close enough to humans that the two species can interbreed. The Mayans were a Naram colony.
* InNameOnly: The Budgie Smuggler version of ''Centurion'' shares the basic concept of grav tanks and some names with the original FASA version, but almost nothing else.
* InsectoidAliens: Baufrin are described as looking like spider centaurs.
* JustTheFirstCitizen: Until Buntari's coup that created TOG, the New Roman Republic was led by the First Consul.
* LaResistance: Renegade organizations proliferate throughout TOG, using the graffiti R as their logo. The Renegade Legions now use it as well, in solidarity.
* LizardFolk: The Ssora are lizard aliens, possibly descended from Earth dinosaurs.
* MagneticWeapons: Ubiquitous. Mass Driver Cannons are one of the primary weapons in ''Interceptor''. The primary weapon of a ''Centurion'' tank is generally a Gauss cannon, and the primary weapon of a capital ship in ''Leviathan'' is a spinal-mount mass accelerator.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: TOG claims to be the fifth incarnation of the Roman Empire. While the fourth occurred sometime between the modern day and the 7th millennium, the third is the Third Reich. The symbol of the Lictor is the 'fascio', the axe-and-sticks that is the source of the word 'fascist'.
* NoWomansLand: Women are property in TOG. They're property that's allowed to join the military, although they are limited in rank to Centurion Maximus.
* OurCentaursAreDifferent: The [=KessRith=] are like rhinoceros centaurs with large numbers of very sharp teeth.
* PlanetTerra: Ruled by the Terran Overlord Government.
* PretentiousLatinMotto: Interceptor and Centurion give some of these for units, especially TOG and Renegade units. (Commonwealth units also have mottos, but they're typically in English or a nonhuman language.) Examples include:
** TOG Interceptor Wing the "Blood Eagles": ''Malus avibus''.[[note]]Literally meaning "under ill omens" but idiomatically meaning "with bad birds".[[/note]]
** Renegade Minerva (women-only) Pursuit Wing "The Witches of Defiance": ''Audemus jura nostra defendere''.[[note]]"We dare defend our rights", a reference to the Patria Potestas.[[/note]]
* RecycledInSpace: TOG is the Roman Empire IN SPACE. The Commonwealth is the United Kingdom IN SPACE.
* TheRoleplayingGame: Legionnaire
* SecretPolice: TOG's Lictor are a dreaded, terrifying secret police.
* SpaceFighter: ''Interceptor'' is all about space fighters, mostly one- and two-man but also including smaller FTL-capable ships like gunboats and corvettes.
* SpaceNavy: Both sides use naval ranks for their space forces.
* SubspaceAnsible: Two different ones.
** The P-Comm sends messages at approximately 0.46 light-years per minute - good enough for close-range communications but taking a month to traverse 20,000 light-years.
** The VLCA (Very Large Communication Array) requires a much larger array, but communication between two VLCA arrays is orders of magnitude faster than P-Comm.
* SyntheticPlague: The Snow Plague is rumored to have been deliberately created by an alien race, with the [=KessRith=] and Vauvusar being the most frequently named candidates.
* ThemeNaming: TOG one-man fighters are named for Roman missile weapons, with the ship's weight roughly corresponding to the weapon's weight, in general. Two-man fighters are named for Roman melee weapons.
* TooManyCooksSpoilTheSoup: An amusing version for the Martiobarbulus fighter. It was an attempt by a committee to design a light fighter. The end result was a capable ''heavy'' fighter. This caused problems for the Commonwealth after intelligence, assuming from the ThemeNaming that it was a light fighter, sent in a force to destroy the test units, only to find that it was a much tougher combatant than they expected.
----