Imagine it's 2010, and Masters of the Force has been out for a while. There are no v-sets. People are sick of the same things winning all the time. and as an alternate way to balance the game, the best Wizards pieces are banned.

I made a list of my choices for 30 of Wizards' key pieces. I generally chose:
- the best Tempo control pieces
- the best mass killers
- the best movement breakers (Panaka isn't on my list, but I think he's much less effective without Mas Amedda)
-the modern double/twin GMA shooters (including Mando Scouts and TBSV which have the potential to be twin/double shooters too).
- modern pieces with really good CEs (eg Wedge, Rieekan, General Skywalker)
- cannon CEs - Princess Leia, Bothan Noble

I kept on:
- Han Solos and Darth Vaders - some really good pieces, but there are a lot of relatively similar options, and they lose power without Princess Leia and Thrawn respectively.
- a lot of fringe pieces - R7s, Lobot, Mouse Droids, Ugnaughts all probably belong in the best 30 pieces list, but I don't think any influence squad choice too much.

I don't entirely like my list - I think getting rid of Ganner is almost enough to take the rest of the New Republic out of the contention without banning the others - but there we go. You can make your own list instead, or tweak the below one instead, if you want!



- If you take away all these, what does it do to the game? Would it make the game more balanced and interesting, or less dynamic and fun?
- Would there more options or less options at the competitive level?
- What would be some good squads out there, with the above pieces removed?

I find this... Interesting, if you remove these pieces you destroy some very good squad combos some that aren't even OP. You also missed a bunch of "cheesy" broken combos. Super stealth (all factions applicable), Nom Bombs, some of the insane combos you can pull off with clone troopers and the right CE's, Bith black sun vigos are pretty beast and lets not forget the original GGDAC the Battle Droid Officer.

I think the Rebels would dominate if they got to keep the Bothan Noble - you'd see Han Solo Scoundrel or Boba BH with a bunch of Nobles (and probably a Force Sense piece as well). I think the Seps would be very strong if they got to keep San Hill and no one else had any tempo control. On the other hand, I don't think the BDO is a big issue at all. A lot of Droids have low attack ratings to start with; I think Wizards just assumed that you'd have a Battle Droid Officer in every Sep droid squad. For instance, the Chameleon Droid, a decent piece overall and released in 2008, only has an attack rating of 6. It's an auto-include for a droid squad, but I don't think it really warps anything - with the IG-86 and Lancer gone, it mainly just makes mediocre droids decent.



You can make your own list too if you want! I do think that without access to Cad Bane, and with Lobot/Treadwell Droid available, Nom Bombs aren't too much of an issue. The Clones lose GMA without Rex, and I don't think I've ever seen the BBSV used for anything except the BBSV/TBSV combo to give Greater Mobile to a piece with Stealth.

I think the squad types you listed all had their moments during Wizards history, and are good examples of potential Negative Play Experiences, but weren't a major part of the competitive game in 2010 - I looked at the 2010 GenCon Championship squad sheets, and there was only one Nom Anor, and the only superstealth piece was one Nyna. Superstealth might be more of a dominant strategy in a meta with no Yobuck or Lancer though.

As some context, these are the squad lists for the top 8 from GenCon 2010 after Swiss:

47 Luke's Landspeeder
27 Ferus Olin
27 Han Solo on Tauntaun
20 Princess Leia
17 Bothan Noble
14 General Rieekan
9 General Dodonna
8 Juno Eclipse
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Mouse Droid
3 Mouse Droid
3 Mouse Droid
3 Mouse Droid

51 Yoda on Kybuck
47 General Skywalker
28 Dash Rendar, Renegade Smuggler
27 Lobot
23 Captain Panaka
9 R2-D2 Astromech Droid
8 Mas Amedda
4 Gran Raider
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist

51 Yoda on Kybuck
47 General Skywalker
28 Dash Rendar, Renegade Smuggler
27 Lobot
23 Captain Panaka
9 R2-D2 Astromech Droid
8 Mas Amedda
4 Gran Raider
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist

71 Lord Vader
32 Thrawn (Mith'raw'nuruodo)
27 Lobot
23 Jarael
11 Admiral Ozzel
8 Mas Amedda
5 Imperial Dignitary
3 Rodian Brute
3 Rodian Brute
3 Rodian Brute
3 Rodian Brute
3 Rodian Brute
3 Rodian Brute
3 Rodian Brute

51 Yoda on Kybuck
33 Captain Rex
27 Ferus Olin
27 Lobot
23 Captain Panaka
11 Human Bodyguard
9 R2-D2 Astromech Droid
8 Mas Amedda
5 Rodian Diplomat
3 Rodian Brute
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist

9 General Dodonna
14 General Rieekan
16 General Crix Madine
20 Princess Leia
27 Han Solo, Smuggler
27 Luke Skywalker, Rebel Commando
8 Obi-Wan, Jedi Spirit
16 Elite Rebel Commando
16 Elite Rebel Commando
12 Gha Nachkt
27 Lobot
2 Mouse Droid
2 Mouse Droid
2 Mouse Droid
2 Mouse Droid

54 Kyle Katarn, Jedi Battlemaster
45 Mara Jade, Jedi
29 Ganner Rhysode
28 Dash Rendar, Renegade Smuggler
10 Jagged Fel
9 General Dodonna
8 R7 Astromech Droid
5 Caamasi Noble
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist

57 General Grievous, Droid Army Commander
36 Darth Sidious
30 IG Lancer Droid
30 IG Lancer Droid
16 IG-86 Assassin Droid
12 Gha Nachkt
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
2 Mouse Droid
2 Mouse Droid
2 Mouse Droid
2 Mouse Droid
2 Mouse Droid

Since this is a list of the "best pieces" not broken ones do you think people like Kol and Sid Hologram should be there too?

It is always tough, because you have to predict what will rise up in it's place.

Pieces that I would remove.
There are about 20 listed. Mainly tech with a couple of clearly stupid pieces. I considered leaving wedge and reiken in because i think those factions suffer most in this exchange.
I'd mainly remove major movement breakers and let pieces move on their own accord and i'd rid the slow tempo control completely (Tarkin gets a bye because he actually needs LOS and if you can set it up more power to you, it takes skill).

I think by the end of the game every faction pretty much got some great pieces but the top 5 got some stupid pieces. Messing with the tempo of the games activations was not something i was fond of and i've been abusing tow ever since r2 was released. Thrawn's were both incredible figs and although it took a while once people figured out what San hill was all about he was in every tourney, often winning.
It just so happens that removing thrawn takes away ysalimiri which makes force sence better to stop superstealth.

I don't think that cad bane is as potent without swap or tow because he is quite a low hp fig for cost. I think in this meta boba merc might be more annoying to pin down.
Likewise Arica now has to step out to get her shots and take the punishement. Without thrawn or movement breaking shooters need to earn their shots.

I think without these figs the game is very interesting without any V sets at all.


REpublic

R2 astromech
Yoda buck
panaka
mas amedda
GOWK

rebel
dodonna
princess leia
bothan noble
crix
K3po
Reiken
Luke Commando

NR
Ganner
Wedge

Seps
Lancer
San Hill
Whorm

Imperials
Thrawns
ozzel

Fringe
Lobot
Gha Nacht
MTB

No Captain Rex?

Thanks for talking about this on Sith Holonews Network (http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=63807&cmd=tc) last week - I was at the dentist, so I missed it live and am just catching up now. My main interest in starting this thread was whether banning a select group of pieces would:
a) Open up the WOTC meta so that lots of different squads would be able to compete.
b) Just result in a different small handful of squads that dominate.

For those of you who haven't heard it, the consensus on the show was (b) - that squads unaffected by the hypothetical bans like Exar Kun's UPS squad would do really well.

It's also worth noting that fingersandteeth, who's a noted meta expert, reckons some select bannings could really open the game up, so it could go either way.

To be honest, I did completely forget about those tier 2 movement breakers like Exar, K3PO, and Sidious when making my list.

But either way, I think the direction the game has taken with the v-sets has been far more exciting and interesting than it ever would have by banning the interesting pieces. But the power pieces from Wizards are still huge influences on the game - mass killing, tempo control, and movement breaking will always be significant parts of the game.

All this stuff's hypothetical - just a what would happen if the game had gone down the path of shaking things up by restricting the meta rather than by adding things to it. I wasn't suggesting that we ban those pieces at all, just picking them out as 30 key pieces, and asking what would happen if they were banned.

To be honest, I'm barely familiar with those tier 2 movement breaker pieces, as I wasn't around for Exar's heyday, I've never seen K3PO on the table, and not much Sidious either. But on SHNN they basically thought that the second tier movement options would come back as major options if the other big game changers like tempo control and efficient movement breakers were gone, and a handful of squads that weren't affected by the restrictions, including Exar Kun's UPS squad, would dominate. So a less diverse meta than what they've created with the v-sets.

Sith Holonetwork News - it's on at every Thursday evening at 10pm EST - Darth Jim, UrbanJedi, Leshippy, Echo24, and Lou are among the people who discuss what's been happening in Star Wars Miniatures over the last week. It normally lasts around an hour and a half.

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=63807&cmd=tc - you can also listen to old episodes at that link.