Legion / Legends A legion was a military unit . Typically , the term indicated a large - scale formation comparable to a division or battlegroup , consisting of several regiments and comprising about ten thousand fighting troops . Republic and Empire . The Legion was not a standard element in the line Army forces of either the Galactic Republic or Galactic Empire , which identified comparable formations as divisions and battlegroup s . It was , however , a key field formation for the white - armored clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic and their successors , the Stormtrooper Corps of the Galactic Empire . A clone legion consisted of 9 , 216 troops , normally headed by a Jedi General and a Senior clone commander . A Grand Army of the Republic legion , with some 7 , 000 attached support personnel , was the standard complement of an " Acclamator " - class assault ship . Imperial stormtrooper legions were equal to the size of Imperial Army battlegroup s , 8 , 192 troops , and are likely to have been led by officers of comparable rank to the High Colonel s and Major General s of the Imperial Army . A stormtrooper legion ' s exact numbers are unknown , although the official field manual for the Imperial Military , the " " , estimated that the total amount within a legion lay between 8 , 192 and 12 , 800 troops . In addition , although legion was the largest possible unit of the Stormtrooper Corps , various legions from other sectors have been known to join in a major offensive with other legions belonging to the Sector Group where the offensive took place . Even though the Stormtrooper Corps was the only major Imperial Military branch to utilize legions , various Imperial Military units that included both the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy could sometimes be compared to legions if the manpower and force strength was sufficient , especially if the unit in question was a joint task force for all three major branches of the Imperial Military utilized for a vital objective . This was especially evident during the Battle of Endor , where the Galactic Emperor Palpatine , when revealing to captive Rebel commander Luke Skywalker that the Rebel Alliance ' s Endor strike team was headed into a trap , referred to the unit guarding the Endor shield generator bunker , Tempest Force , as " an entire legion of [ Palpatine ' s ] best troops . " Other legions . As a unit designation , the legion goes back millennia , to the earliest ages of Galactic warfare , and it seems to have been used by adherents of both Jedi and Sith traditions . The Legions of Lettow were the Jar ' Kai - using warriors of Xendor , the earliest recorded Dark Jedi , while in the New Sith Wars the Third Legion of Light was one of the major component units of the Jedi Army of Light . The Mandalorian Neo - Crusaders used legions during the Mandalorian Wars . In the period of the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War , it was not only clone troopers and stormtroopers who were organized into legions . In particular , the term seems to have been widely used in the Trade Federation : it was said that the C - 9979 landing craft which bore the Trade Federation ' s battle droids into action could carry " legions of troops , " while the Neimoidian soldiers who guarded Neimoidia and the purse world s were known as the Neimoidian Home Defense Legion s . Further Legions were found among the forces of governments at galactic , sector and planetary levels . The term was used occasionally by Rebel Alliance units , including the feared Alderaanian Death Legion . The Pembric Security Legion provided security on Pembric II , although in practice they worked hand - in - glove with the Bombaasa Cartel to exclude other factions from a " de facto " condominium between crimelord Crev Bombaasa and the planetary government . Order of battle . Different Legions varied drastically in size and structure : some were armies charged with guarding entire sectors , while others were little more than local gangs . The term contained connotations of size and importance , however , and in the terminology of the Republic and Empire , a legion was a large force composed of several regiments . The best - documented legion organization was that of the Grand Army of the Republic , in which a standard legion consisted of 9 , 216 soldiers , as mentioned above . These were divided among four regiments , each of four battalions of 576 men . Under the Empire , the strength of a stormtrooper battalion had been raised to 820 men , suggesting some restructuring of the legion organization , although it remained a force of several regiments . Some sources suggest that a stormtrooper " division " was carried aboard each Star Destroyer , and it might be possible to equate this unit with the legion and in turn with the Imperial Star Destroyer ' s troop complement of 9 , 700 men , but no unequivocal support for this hypothesis exists . It is also possible that stormtrooper legions were closer in number to battlegroup s in the Imperial Army , which had approximately 10 , 000 front - line troops in an overall strength of close to 15 , 000 . Under the Empire of the Hand , it appears that the 501st Legion had been reorganized , with the reduction of the standard company to forty men ; it is unclear exactly what this indicates about the overall strength , but if the companies were all indicated by individual letters of the Aurebesh like Aurek Company , the overall strength may have been no more than 1 , 360 men .