So where are we at in the current meta? That's what I asked myself right after I won the Gencon 2014 championship. One of the prizes involved (besides resounding pride) is designing a piece for the game. This prize was a nice bonus for me, I've already designed a number of sets for the game and a lot of the pieces that made the top 8 (Mandalore, Daala, Durge, and Derlin) I had either a part in or I was heavily involved in design for. So for the piece I had several ideas. My first thought was a new Mara Jade. I love Mara Jade. She's a strong female character who kicks ass and takes names. I even named my daughter Mara, so there was that. But ultimately all I could come up with was either too strong or just putting Mara Jade, Jedi into Imperials in some way. But after I asked myself the first sentence of this probably super long post I came to a conclusion. People don't play Jedi anymore....

Why is that? Well to just put it simply Jedi or just big melee beats in general just aren't supported by the very base rules of the game. Melee has always needed tricks to succeed in this game. Also there is so much damage getting poured out by shooters that it makes it really hard to get your melee piece up into the fight to start doing damage. Shooters are just putting out too much damage for melee to survive. What we need is a more elegant weapon from a more simpler time. We need a piece that helps push the meta back to the middle. Where you can play a melee squad and not get laughed and blasted out of the fight.

Lets look at the top 8 from this past year.

Mandalore/Scouts
Daala/Scouts
Durge/Cad
Talon
Skybuck
Thrawn/Echani nightmare
Daala/Snow
Specforce

So from that list what do we learn about melee? Well, the only mainline melee pieces included there are Yoda on Kybuck and Durge on Speeder. Both melee pieces are strafer/speed types. The game once again shows us that melee just isn't going to cut it with just mainline melee pieces.

So when I really thought about this I went back through some of my old design notes. When we needed a subset for one of the sets I worked on I had two ideas. One was for a set full of vehicles and a mechanic where people used vehicles to get around and could get on and off them. And the other set was for only pieces that would be two characters on one base working together. So with that in hand I found scribbled down the answer I was looking for. I found the piece that could be mainlined as a melee piece and survive any number of shots poured into it by puny shooters. I found a piece that didn't care what you threw at it. It didn't look for answers to how to counter other peoples squads. It made other squads find a counter to it. I found the piece I wanted to make. I found.........

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker

That's right. Both guys on a large base at a reasonable price bringing tech from both of their skillsets in one piece. There was a lot I could choose for them to do but I decided to make them as simple as possible. There's a lot of butts over there, and they could use a swift kick.

The piece went through many forms but I think we finally nailed down the final version and got it right. I have been told the full stats under my hat for one more week. The full stats and a discussion on it will happen next week on SHNN. I will post the stats in this thread or somewhere on bloomilk after the show.

The Jedi need help. I have brought you help. Those with guns will need to prepare for a world of pain.

I'm very sure the community at large will love this new piece....it is a game changer. Like Weeks said, if you are planning on running an all shooter squad in the future, do so at your own risk when you face up against these guys. It was by far the most talked about peice in the set, and Weeks did a great job designing it. For those who want the jedi to be viable again...just wait til V-set 10.

I think the Jedi/shooter balance has been out of whack since Talon Karrde and Daala came in the same set with Force Immune guns, but at the same time, I don't necessarily want to see a meta where melee can stroll up unopposed either. It would be a better game if you started losing accuracy for each square further away than 6 squares that you attack from, but it would also slow the game down calculating stuff.

Excellent discussion! It'll be interesting to see what ideas flow forth from this,
I think a few things'd make Jedi more appealing,
Lightsaber Defense (while this character has base DMG greater than 20) becomes a SA, not requiring force points. if DMG reduced below 20 (such as via Phyrk weave or Cortosis Gauntlet, Mandalorian Armor etc), then character loses powers containing Lightsaber.
All Jedi get either Parry or Evade as a default, with "Greater Parry" or "Greater Evade" being for uniques - much as many have suggested as far back as '10/'11.
All Jedi are considered to have Force Renewal 1, and MotF 2 (all prior printed MotF {X} abilities are raised by +1)
Jedi can have "Meditation: replaces activation, place a meditation counter. The jedi heals 10HP and 1FP for every meditation counter on the card. When this character next has a standard/normal activation, remove all meditation counters from the character." - a potentially very powerful ability, allowing Jedi to break from an attack gone wrong, and pair up with an R2 unit with override, to 'heal up'.
Force Heal oughta function more like Meditation; a gradually building thing as a base, but can be more healing if more Force Points are spent...

Also, having played SW:JKA, Battlefront and SW:RotS console games,
Where are 'lightsaber clashes'? I want to encapsulate that dynamic; and also tie up the melee fighters in combats.

In non-competitive games, where strategy and fun are the champions
there's usually 1 'main game' - the heavy hitters from both sides duel, and then theres a couple of 'side games' from the swarm or from the light hitters. If you can revise how the main game works, maybe it'll be a little more balanced that, the side games can take down the main game again.
Thats why in the present meta, too much power creep or pieces that can wipe out the sidegames are there, and have nerfed the original 'main game duel' element, taking out a lot of the strategy and movement aspects to the game.

The main problem that Melee and Jedi characters have, is that survivability during the 2+ turns it takes to get to adjacent.

Some of that was 'solved' with "Force Cloak",
some by 'Force Maelstrom" (Force 3: select an edged border of 2x3 squares - that area is treated as a wall for the purposes of LoS, and any character in that edged border takes 20Dmg attack made at +10 ATK per turn that Force Maelstrom is in effect)
or Force Cover: force 2, select an edged border region 2x1 squares, place a token on that region, this token has 30HPS and 'Draw Fire'

Attack |X|, where X is the number of Adjacent characters, was partly made to counter that.
Attack |x| meant a character which also had Ambush and Twin, could potentially move into adjacent with 8 other figures, for a total of 16 attacks against 1 of those characters...
So, Asajj Ventress:Separatist General could move 12 and make upto 16 attacks against 1 adjacent enemy, which often meant insta-death or simul-death for Ventress and whatever she was attacking

Recently, we've experimented with 'Lightsaber Redirect (distinct from Reflect or Deflect)' - pay force x, choose another legal target in line of sight and redirect the prevented attack to that target, save 11.
there's also the SA variant, which replaced 'Evade'
Lightsaber Redirect: if this character is hit by a non-adjacent, non-melee attack, prevent and redirect that attack to another legal enemy target within LoS, save 13.

---

We need a few simple abilities that will increase survivability of Jedi or melee pieces, and preserve the majority of their hitpoints for CQC,
as well as their force points, for squads that don't use a Force Battery (though locally, we from day 1 brought in a houserule that made force points function more as they do in the WotC Star Wars Trading Card Game).

I'd also add in the Commando Droid Officer and the Neo Crusader Officer also as major pieces that have completely shifted the meta to be shooter dominated, along with the influence of Daala and Talon.

Bascially, the last few sets have seen some major boosts for shooters, but hardly any on the same scale for melee. So to me, it is no wonder that melee squads are suffering when you've got a Mando squad that can do 390 dmg in the first turn of a round. If we could consider getting some errata's down the line, the Neo Crusader officer should have been limited to just followers on his CE instead of allies. The mando squads with Mandalore the Vindicated and 2 Neo officers + Mando tactician are just brutal hence the 390 dmg in the first turn.

I'm saying if you create a piece that's strong enough to tank shooters then shooter squads will be forced to either bring a counter or change to a more balanced version with Melee. Once that happens then all sorts of older Melee options become viable. To do that though you need a super strong piece that people are going to want to play. Hopefully this is that piece.

Change happens one step at a time. This is step 1.

...my fantastical and fictionalized account...

Suited up and dropped via helicopter high above the ocean's pitch-black depths,
we were given no warning of the treacherous play-test waters that lay ahead.
At first, flashbacks of large bases and Jedi entered my mind as if from some distant lifetime.
But then as the sea unfolded, wave after crashing wave, instantly eroded the old dreams away.

I was no longer dreaming. At best this piece would ruin games but would never win them.
Worst, it would never stand up to the dominance of "paper-shooty" "swarm-nasty" squads like i knew Weeks wanted.
I turned in my mission reports and muttered a few complaints before returning to my quarters for some peace and relaxation. I even sent out a little post "it's been fun, but I am done PTing.. later dudes"

Suddenly, sirens filled the dusty halls of SWMgamers. Some ancient brokeness, as ridiculous as a Gungan inviting himself to your honeymoon, had awoken that Sith graveyard with dark prophecies! One could hear the violent clashing of sabers through every corridor and echoing off outdated banners. I tried pulling my pillow over my ears to drown out the heart wrenching sounds. But my Holoprojector flared alive with the image of a Citified-Jedi ordering me to return to my post(ing). Yes sir, i grumbled...

The old faction lines were drawn and all manner of renowned warrior had returned to join the battle.
Paper Kresh and Rock Sadow circled around the sculpted form of a long vanquished Jedi. Then Weeks appeared like the fearsome Sith Spirit of Marka Ragnos. He declared, only the strongest should inherit his legacy and that the only Weakness he would tolerate was..."Weekness". Then in a powerful voice he said, "I am listening to the play-testers, and I am listening to the players."

One-by-one offerings were brought to that spirit for Weeks until he was satisfied. My flashbacks returned, but this time before the crashing waves Obi-Wan & Anikin made Mace and GOWK look like Jedi out of a Clone Strike booster.
Then we broke out squads I haven't touched in years and were going toe to toe with Obi-Wan & Anakin in some gloriously fun battles.

Week's Obi-Wan & Anakin design is something he can be really proud of.
The fact that so many people pulled together, despite heated debates, to perfect this design with around 30 play-tests is something our entire community can be proud of. BRAVO!

I see what you mean.... And I can't wait for it to be released!

It's happened before, with the Jedi Weapons Master, GOWK, the Lancer, and others.