What pieces do you consider most fun to play with? What about against? What about least fun? If you want, you can just mention your overall most and least fun pieces or separate answers for the WotC and V-sets.

Give reasons if you can! Maybe we can see some interesting trends. I'll post mine later today when I'm not on mobile.

Least fun:
IG-Lancer Droid (I know ironically it's the one Sep piece I banned myself from using) it's been toned down by counters but it's annoying that you still have to factor in being strafed by a long speeder that can hit every square of the board 2-4 times.
Wuher, if it wasn't already hard enough to play a competitive reserves team. This guy was like the counter that struck before they even had a chance to shine.
Buzz Droid; I really wish this hasn't been able to affect huges, another counter before it was ever needed and has kept them regulated to tier "never going to be competitively played"

Notable mentions to Revan "ridiculous swap"



Most fun:
Well I'm assuming we are talking about normal tournament play or else I would put in the epics here. I have to go with my top three:
Dooku, closest I can get to epics in normal play, great theme, solid beatstick and love the synergy with Grievous/Asajj. If it wasn't for the Poggle/drone double-tap nerf I think he would be a tier one squad. As is he squeaks down to tier 2 but still is a ton of thematic fun to play. Wishing for more 100 point BHC pieces and epics.
Pong Krell; really wish this guy had an affinity for separatist squads (but bringing in battle droids or maybe confused clones? Haha) but reserves is my favourite play style as this guy just does it best. Comes with built in tech to help him get his troops and I think he's the closest there is to a competive reserves team, please make a sep version of someone like this.
Grievous's wheelbike redux version, this thing is epic, it's a heavy strafe piece with the ability to become a better commander of duelist depending on the squad you are facing. Brought it two years in a row to different regionals and finished first and second. Such a monster and what huges should feel like to play.


Also in case I haven't said it enough, epics

Least fun: "Dash Rendar Turrets", Double/twin + GMA + whatever else you tack on, bleh makes me wanna vomit.

Most Fun:
I too am shameless, Darth Caedus Sith Lord, so freaking good, so much fun
Beast Rider on Drexl, i hate huge based characters, they're cool, but they almost all suck, the game i played with these bad boys, holy hell i havent had such a fun game in forever.
Mando Protectors with Fenn Shysha and Ressurector
Jango Mandalore, quite possibly one of my favorite v-set pieces ever.
Qui Gon Follower of the living force, top 5 favorite V-set pieces
Mandalore the Ultimate, i love him, in all his overpriced glory
Talon Karrde Info Broker, making all fringe truly playable for the first time ever is somthing i will be forever grateful to the V-set team for


Looking Forward to playing
Alto Stratus + Talon Karrde
New Plagueis
New Lando ( I will find a use for you blast it i swear)

Alright, here's mine:

Most fun:
-Jan Ors: Kyle Katarn is my favorite character and the Universe Kyle paired with Jan is a ton of fun. Luke's Heroes is easily one of my favorite squads to play
-Twilek Black Sun Vigo: I've built sooooo many squads with him and Rieekan or General Wedge to give Evade and GMA to random dudes. It's a combo that makes a whole lot of bad stuff much less bad.
-Anakin Solo: Unleash the Force! Very satisfying.


Least fun:
-Darth Caedus Sith Lord: I don't like the design of SBM. It's a real bad experience for my opponent to be moving my characters around that much. Push and Pull and things like that are one thing, but SBM is too much.
-Lancer Droids: Man I don't want to figure out your half dozen different routes and count them all out. Just does too much and is too punishing to not take seriously.
-Any character with Specialization: If you don't have every piece and every interaction memorized by heart, Specialization is super annoying to play against. A lot of squads have a lot of different stuff going on that you need to pay attention to, but Specialization usually just turns that to 11. It's especially bad in places like Vong that are already really complex.

Yeah, it doesn't really have anything to do with how good or not good Caedus is or with any specific squad or interaction. It's just a matter of it not being fun for me to have my opponent moving my pieces that much, and I also don't like going through the mental gymnastics of figuring out how to minimize its effect.

Great post, I really agree with it (other than San he rocks hahaha)

But Bastilla really killed the CE-squads and forced the creation of all these non-CE "effects".
She would have been a great one to have errated back in the day but as is the damage is done, so where is our prideful Grievous now? Haha

Wow. That's super disappointing. I hope this changes!

I don't think the designers are trying to inhibit emergent gameplay, but rather make sure that the pieces created don't have any undiscovered interactions that may make them OP and therefore in need of errata as has happened in the past with pieces like the zygerrian slaver. The piece was intended to work a certain way and ended up being able to be used in several abusive ways that were just not good for the game. Same with the Imperial piece that allowed the Thrawn double swap. I don't think a bit of caution when designing is a bad thing!

I haven't worked on a set with Echo so I am not sure what he's referencing, but in my experience this is the exact opposite of how it works.

In general we try and have some easy to find combinations of pieces that are good but not broken (think tier 2), but have those pieces made in such a way that there will be other natural synergies that good squad builders will dig for. Cream will always rise to the top.

Now sometimes there is intent based on theme or power level. If we are intending to make a "fun" piece (not a faction defining power piece), we will intentionally limit the piece slightly more to fit that theme and keep the power level in check. Trying to push every piece in a set to top tier competitive level is about the biggest mistake a set can make, and one we are determined not to let happen again.

But when a "fun" piece makes it's way into an unexpected top tier squad, I am personally delighted. Awesome, creative squadbuilding should (and will) always be a part of this game.




Agree with all of this. It's literally impossible to know all interactions in our game. By its nature, it expands exponentially, and gets more complex all the time.

We need to be even more vigilant all the time. Mistakes can happen, but virtually all of the designers of the vsets (most of whom I have worked with personally) specifically state that the only mistakes are the ones that end up "broken". Skewing the game into a direction that drastically narrows the meta and becomes a huge NPE for the majority of the community is what needs to be avoided.

It takes a lot of work to be such a vanguard. For vset 14, we literally spent months discussing what the games needs, what it doesn't need, what defines SWM, what each faction needs, what each shouldn't get, how to keep a faction's flavor, the specific wants of the community (both in gameplay and characters), etc.

Only then did we make the setlist, trying to implement those discoveries. We tried to balance new characters, with ones that have been begged to be made for years. We worked "backwards" on some - knowing a mechanic that we felt a faction needed, and choosing the best character that would fit it. There are some characters everyone knows, and some obscure but interesting. But with each one - when we came to the point of starting design - we had a specific plan. Over the course of our design, many have evolved, and that's great. They had such a solid foundation from the prior prep work, that they are going in thoughtful, intentional directions. All along the way we have been discussing the fact that we want to find methods of creating pieces that are versatile and can be used in many different ways, yet broken in none. We don't want to "build squads for players", but rather give them intriguing options that make them excited to make various builds with them.

Not that it always works out perfectly. There will always be "oops" that happen. It's inevitable. The more you truly explore the possibilities of each design, the more you can prevent the broken.

Safeguarding from the "broken" gets harder with every set, but it is our job to not be careless about it. We do need to explore all avenues we can, knowing there will be other discoveries later. But shrugging your shoulders and saying there will always be other discoveries and therefore not putting the work in to be as vigilant as possible to avoid the broken is just lazy design. It would be arrogant to think that we could control all the possibilities of a piece (much less a set) to only our intentions. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be a clear direction, power level, and intent - and that gives room to land where it may, with as much assuredness as possible that it won't end up broken.

My point in laying all of that out is to say there is much work that goes into a set. A huge focus is on preventing any more major mistakes. It's a personal goal to not have any Balance Committee errata have to be made again. A lot of the pre-planning work is done in person or Facebook subgroups, so even other designers may not even realize how much work went into a set before designs started in the design forum. The more work that can be done to prevent pieces from being broken, the better. Nobody I know of actually thinks an unintended interaction is a mistake . . . as long as it's not broken.