By "reel it in a little bit," I'd like to see more pieces like Jango Mandalore where it's just not feasible to try and gun through their high defense. We have enough strafe/gallop, making more of those only kills the Trooper builds that aren't swarms.

I don't think there's enough denial around. Bastila was good for the meta, but Trooper swarms with Ysalamari and Vong swarms can largely ignore her. Both builds aren't too bothered by disruptive with the right support and right map too.

Enter Ability name here- Non unique characters may not have their base attack raised while attacking this character


EDIT

*This issue would be helped by making CE not board wide

The biggest problem (IMO) with swarms, is that they often utilize cheap pieces, which in turn means that they have a bunch of stay in the back commanders. This creates an almost impossible situation for the opponent because it is very difficult to get 1 pt, let alone a 3 pt win against a swarm unless you have some sort of scissors piece.

I think some way to make the commanders be vulnerable (ie out front) with the rest of the guys, or some piece that maybe increases the points you get when you kill swarm pieces (ie when you defeat an opponents piece that costs 10 or less you score double points for that piece) would go a long way to making swarms playable while at the same time not impossible.

I'm fine with the board wide CE's, but why not have an ERRATA that makes the commander have LOS to the Character gaining the ability or to a character with Relay Orders? You could still "hide" them from most, but would still have to be careful of accurate shooters.

So, I didn't read the comics, but I think I can guess how they play out: Vader takes down an army of "non-uniques" single-handedly. When characters like Vader do something like that, you can walk away from that thinking about it one of two ways:

1. Wow! Vader is awesome! He can take on an entire army of elite soldiers single-handedly!
or
2. Wow! Those people are so lame that Vader can take out an army of them single-handedly.

I'm guessing the writers of stories like that want people to think about it the first way - that the hero of the story is awesome, as opposed to: Vader took down an army? So what? Anyone who's anyone can do that because those troopers are so terrible.

I think the same thing should be true in SWM. I think if a piece like Vader is able to dispatch an army of non-uniques, it should be because that piece itself is awesome enough to take them on, not just because it went up against an army of lame pieces. And if a piece IS able to take on an army of non-uniques, that should be one really good piece! Not just any unique should be able to take down a bunch of troopers. Otherwise it's not impressive anymore...

Right now, most of the squads that I see on Bloomilk are just a few of Tank warriors thrown together Three Musketeers style, but I think it'd be awesome to see more squad with one or two heroes leading a squad of troops! Like squads recreating epic battles like Crystophisys (I probably butchered that spelling):

A squad with a bunch of clones, clones w/jetpack etc, then just a few heroes like Rex and Obi-wan
vs
a squad with battle/super battle droids, some Octuptarras and droidekas, an AAT (if it were an actual piece) and Whorm.

To me, that would be an epic game to play! Imagining getting to recreate battles like that was one of the big things that got me into minis in the first place! I'd love to see more people using predominantly non-unique squads!

I definitely don't have anything against those Three Musketeer squads, and I think matching them against swarm squads can be a lot of fun! I think match-ups like that even add a very cool flavor to the game!

One final argument in favor of more boosts for Swarm squads: swarm squads seem to do pretty well in the movies. Palpatine used this one in Episode III, and it seemed to work:

--Operation Knightfall--
Darth Vader, Sith Apprentice
501st Legion Clone Trooper x200

Swarms are fun, especially when used in casual play. But I will agree with others. They need a big name to lead them. and the big name should not be taken down by other non-uniques, like at all. Big time uniques should really only be taken down by special circumstances or other big names.