I definitely forgot ahsoka

Obi-Kin is a bad piece... He costs 85, and is a Large? Can do.... 80? Compare that to Imp Troopers, who cost ...5? 13? and can do 60-80, while having.... 10+ of them? I'll take my chances on Obi-Kin making his SSM saves vs my mass attackers.

And before you start spouting the defense of "Well you have to pay X amount for the CE". I totally understand that. But what person wouldn't spend 80 points on multiple Commanders, to make 5-13 point Gods in a squad if you can run 10+ of them? I blame the person running those squads, because they are a crutch design. Your not a good player because you can run a Daala squad to perfection. It doesn't mean your a bad player, or can't run anything else. To me, it just means you can't be competitive unless you run a crutch design. But, I understand people running them, because its available. I blame the designers MORE, because they have allowed access to these types of squads. To This day I will never understand why anyone ever thought Naboo Troopers should EVER be competitive. I also understand, that this is strictly my PoV. I feel that way about MULTIPLE pieces and squad types.

I see the confusion tho, as you lump all of us together and say you say you want this, you say you want that. But I feel very consistent in my views. If its bad for the game, its bad for the game. Period. Jango, bad for the game, not because I think he is overly powerful, in my experiences against him, he hasn't really impressed me. But that doesn't mean he is good for the game. I could care less about the Qui-Gon, because he cost 56 and can't really do anything.

Mace Windu, LOTS, why is he bad? He encourages you not to attack him with a Melee piece. Why is that? Ask Corran Horn in Gencon, where Mace RIPOSTE him and killed a full HP Corran Horn. That is a bad mechanic. Mace Windu is my FAVORITE character in Star Wars. I stood up and booed when he was killed in Episode 3 in the theater on opening night. ( ASK THEULTRASTAR) That doesn't mean I want a piece of his to be made thats an NPE.

I have NEVER been on board with pieces that punish you for targeting them. Zannah is another one. LCE is a cool idea and all, but why on earth is it there? She can totally change a game... By my enemies attacking her. And I know the argument, well just don't attack her. I'm sorry, I thought this was a skirmish game where attacking and defeating your enemy is the point of it? So why are we creating pieces that don't follow those core rules?

I don't think the Baze Malbus is a great representation, because he is not. I tried to see the good in him (go back and read the posts) but I lost all faith, when the defense of his damage and attack not being high, was that he only attacked troopers, which I actually AGREED with. But then... I find out the Death Troopers would destroy Baze... Because they have 80 HP, and all this other neat stuff going on.

The issue is Melee pieces are not properly designed. Either the designers go out of their way to make an NPE, Mace, Caedus, Malgus, and so on. Or they over cost a good Melee piece, and he is lost in squad building, because small swarms eat them up. Is there an answer? Absolutely. But I don't think any designer is willing to go down that road. Because, for whatever reason, swarms are adored.


And Yes, before anyone gets their feelings hurt, their have been multiple good Melee designs. The Problem is, the bad designs out way the good designs, and prevent the good designs from seeing play. Darth Bane, Sith Ari, such a beast. But what Melee piece can really stand toe to toe with him? You can't knock out his FP. He can drop 100 Unpreventable damage. His attack is sky high. Where is the SKILL in him at all? There is none. He is a drop in. and attack piece. With no consequences. Unless of course, you are playing against a swarm squad, in which case he gets destroyed. So he is either an NPE if your opponent is playing Melee, or he gets destroyed and is worthless against swarms.

For the record, I find unpreventable damage to be just as ignorant as punishing someone for targeting you. It is a crutch design that allows one player to attack with NO consequences. Which is WAY different from attacking someone, and potentially having a GAME ALTERING consequence. And before we get petty, I understand that every roll, and every save COULD be game altering.But some COULDS have more effect than others. Example, I attack Mace Windu, he Ripostes and kills my full hp Jedi vs I attack someone, and they parry the damage. The first one is BAD, the second one is GOOD. I hope we can all agree on that, and see the difference.


My recommendation, be more creative with Melee. Put more time and effort into the idea of making Melee more powerful... Because they are more powerful. A single Jedi can change the tides of an entire war. But in SWM, a swarm of 10 troopers will mow down an entire squad of Force Users.

And before anyone gets their feelings hurt, again, this is only my PoV.

So, the most important part of this post: do you know what exactly you would like to see to make melee pieces more playable? It's a tough question, and I'm not expecting that you've got a doctoral dissertation ready to answer it, but in general, what do you think they need? Do we need a few well-placed bans on commanders that put Troopers over the top? Do Jedi need more damage negation? More movement?

I think Jedi are kind of in the same boat as Clone Troopers - Clone Troopers have billions of Commander Effects at their disposal, but are still worthless, because you can't get everything you need without spending most of your squad on support. Jedi can't really get much support by Commander Effect because usually the only people commanding Jedi are other Jedi. It doesn't fix the meta to say, "Here's Obi-Kin for 85 points, now all Jedi get Soresu Style. Problem solved." But if the support comes cheaply, it's either you-get-what-you-pay-for and not worth anything, or it's WAY too good for the cost (i.e. Imperial Knight).

For the record, I played a game the other night, and beat Elite Republic Commandos with a 5-man Imperial Tank squad. I freely admit that I used Vader of Lothal, and that he was important to the match (I also had the Grand Inquisitor, 5th Brother, 7th Sister, and Palps on Throne). However, it wasn't just "Vader of Lothal. I win." There were several moments in that game where, had things gone differently, it could've turned the game in my opponent's favor quite quickly. I (purely by accident) Battle Readied Vader to a position where he could Surprise Move up to Scorch right away. Killing Scorch right away was a major blow, but even with 6 attacks, Vader almost didn't take him down except for a crit. Also, Captain Rex failed a crucial Telekinesis save against the 5th Brother.

Sorry, I'm rambling. The thing I wanted to note is that the 7th Sister took very little damage in that game. She has 0 defensive abilities, except for Agile being able to keep her out of the way. On the other hand, the Inquisitor, JH died (my only casualty), despite having Lightsaber Deflect, 130 HP, DARK ARMOR, and endless FP from Palps. Even with defensive abilities, the Inquisitor got taken down pretty handily (dork couldn't roll an 11 to save his life), but even without defensive abilities, the 7th Sister made it through relatively unscathed. BECAUSE: I played strategically. I moved Vader in first to make sure he was the legal target, and brought her in behind.

Yes, their are a few ideas I have to make Melee better. And to note, my main issue is against swarms. Bobba Fett shooting a Jedi I don't have AS MUCH of an issue against. Its a 5-13 point pawn in the war, who all of a sudden can stand toe to toe with GOWK, because Daala is standing in the back. My ideas are as follows.

Ban Booming Voice, and make all CE Range 6.

Limit the number of non uniques per squad, I.E. You may only have 5 (random number) of any non unique in your squad

Set a cap on activations. You can have 30 pieces in your squad, but you can only activate 16 of them (random number)

Give out more Evade (Soresu)/Melee Duelist Combos. Or Cloaked/Melee Duelist

Change Soresu to work against adjacent

Start banning pieces. WOTC banned GOWK, so its not like we wouldn't be doing something they already did. One piece I would ban is the Mouse Droid

Make sure every faction has their own, cheap Door control, and then make Fringe their own official faction, where you can not use them in any other faction.

More HP on Melee pieces

More abilities with bonuses for saves

Penalty for targeting a character farther than X squares. 12 would be the number I would consider. And before people start complaining about how much time it would add to a game to count those squares, play against any Strafe or gallop squad.

* Note, I am not advising doing every bit of this. These a few different routes that could help. Doing them all would absolutely be absurd.

Special Abilities


Hero - Non Unique Enemies do not gain bonuses to their base attack when attacking this character.


Master Lightsaber Reflect - Force 1. When hit by a non melee attack, this character may negate the damage with a save of 11. On a success, he may choose any legal target, including the attacker, and that character takes the damage, save 11. ( wording is shotty, its early)


Lying in wait Replaces Turn. This character may wait to activate till all the enemy pieces are activated. ( Completely stole this from a fake Darth Maul stat block, but its a really neat ability, and I probably butchered the wording)

This has been one of my goals since becoming one of the PTers and later a designer for the V-sets. Having each faction have its own form of door control so you don't have to see a bunch of ugos on the board.

And I think we have hit the mark for the most part

Spaarti
Mando Demo
AoL trooper
Bothan Sab
zonomo sekot scout
shamed intendent

plus additional fringe option
killik drone
Klat Black Sun Thug

Melee needs speed, speed, and more....speed.

pieces like zam wessel, morrigan korde, watto, etc that can make the ranged damage stick on melee pieces will hold just adding defensive abilities in check for quite awhile. What matters is speed. melee just can't close the gap in enough time for it to matter in the game. yay I made it to you...well here take your 60 damage and then kill me because I have 60 life left. Even evade isn't the answer because its a save not an auto prevent ability, so most of the time by the time they close the gap...they are almost dead anyways.

This is one my of my all time favorite pieces to play:

Jedi Master, Shaak Ti 52

Hit Points:
120
Defense:
21
Attack:
11
Damage:
20

Special Abilities
Unique
Melee Attack (Can attack only adjacent enemies)
Twin Attack (Whenever this character attacks, she makes 1 extra attack against the same target)
Acrobatic (Ignores enemy characters when moving)
Momentum (If this character has moved this turn, she gets +4 Attack and +10 Damage against adjacent enemies)
Camaraderie (A character name Maris Brood gains Stealth)
Stealth (If this character has cover, she does not count as the nearest enemy for an attacker farther than 6 squares when choosing targets)
Makashi Style (When hit by a melee attack, this character takes no damage with a save of 11. Shii-Cho Style cannot be used against this character.)

Force Powers
Force 2
Force Renewal 1 (This character gets 1 Force point each time she activates)
Master Speed (Force 1: This character can move 6 extra squares on her turn as part of her move)
Force Alter (Force 1: range 6; any 1 enemy rerolls its last attack)

Commander Effect
At the end of this character's turn, 1 follower within 6 squares can immediately move 2 squares

She flips the script on shooters, suddenly you can't wall her off and she can do 60 to you before you do 60 to her. now the shooter is in trouble not the other way around. if a shooter gets adjacent well do your thing to her, but this build allows the melee character to have a chance to dictate how the fighting will go down even though the shooter has the advantage of being ranged.

Ven Zallow is awesome because of the build he has access to, body guarding, healing, boardwide disruption of commander effects, etc.

until melee can close the gap on shooters the game will be shooter driven.

the issue is the rise of stuff like boba--- accurate shooters so tanky pieces don't matter as much when they just target your other piece, now satele and him together is awesome because she can bodyguard and spread some damage around while bastilla limits the damage its just a strong squad option, but it meshes perfectly which is what matters.

the other problem is that, like I said if you give out enough evade/soresu etc. there are already shooters in place to handle that change as well. pieces have to be able to close the gap to be very effective.

Charging Assault, sir, Charging Assault.

I'm a designer and I prefer melee!