awesome stuff, this is a neat meta discussion.
there's a lot of hobson's choice factor in this.
now, compare that table,
with "Direct Damage" options, and "Area of Effect" things.
and compare with the random seed of vong beat squads and diplomat/superstealth squads.
compare the chances of a successful attack with direct damage,
area of effect, splash, or disintegration,
and survivability of squad by turn 2 or 3,
and it's almost at the point where you'd want to go all in missiles or grenades and force lightning in 250 and 300.
it bypasses a lot of targeting issues.
that, or nom-bombs counter-camping.
gotta love the combinatorics of SWMinis meta composing hehe.
@donnyrides
why would you go heavy melee?
past discussions have suggested shooter-v-shooter simuls would be more likely, and the only way to counter would be to make a shooter-evade themed squad, or a glass-cannon theme squad. the glass cannon squad takes out the scrubs one at a time, asymmetrically.
so heavy melee to avoid the advantage to counter-shooter squads? ie, all their shooter defenses are useless.
trouble is, they tend to bring missiles or direct damage as part of their shooting mix.
you burn through forcepoints, and can't survive against any melee they have.
they back up and volley, or pincer near gambit and gambit-camp.
if you go super-stealth, that can still nerf non-sniper enemies for range.
superstealth/diplomat though has trouble for damage output,
and it becomes 'ring around the rosies' for gambit positioning.
that relies on disruptive pieces and whatnot though, and they're risky once they go down,
usually from missiles or flamethrower or corruption (dang that spooked ewok doctor of death!)