Sssshhhhhhh, don't tell everyone about my squad! I'm sure nobody knows about it.

It's totally dominant in almost every way and I think the real problem with it is the CDO's. So much going on in a 22pt package. Movement, canon shot CE, stealth, twin and 70hp is massive. We (the Moore brothers grim) love it as we don't like losing so we created the ultimate power in SWM. At least that's how we see it here in NZ

I also just got wrecked by this squad last night. The CDOs are very strong with the BXes, but I don't think it's any worse than I would find any other Sep squad to play against (just not my style). I just see it as another squad you need to have a strategy to deal with.

Since seeing this squad hit the stage, I've been building most of my squads with counters to it. The most annoying thing is dealing with a 110hp durge. I think the OR faction actually handles the NZ gatekeeper squad quite well! ABM shuts off every important ce and really limits its damage output. You just need to build the squad with some durge counters like have Lobot and bring in a LIN droid or have jedi with Riposte or Jedi Reflexes. He is annoyingly good, but if you catch him its a lot of points. That squad really relies on winning init also to get the full effect from durge. I think the SHNN show last week said it best. The best squad to counter the NZ gatekeeper seperatist squad is...another seperatist squad. If you are running San Hill, then the NZ gatekeeper will most likely kill off their main advantage in the first round. I think a good design choice for future Vsets would be to make some peices have Reserves 20/30 on a roll of 1 in factions that don't have activation control (like the OR or Republic). This would really push back against the Muun Broker's effect on the game in a faction with the cheapest bombs. Unfortunately, Poggle created this monster, and my hopes are he will get errata'd some day, but till then there are squads that can beat the NZ gatekeeper, it just takes some ingenuity. It is a really solid squad!

Was there ever any discussion about making a cheap character that cancels self-destruct when it would be triggered by an ability/power/ce of the squad whose piece would be self-destructing? It always seemed silly to me that Muun Tactics Broker could trigger self-destruct.

It seems like garbage to me tbh. It seems just like other garbage to me. I love how we have gotten to the point of saying that garbage is not as bad as other garbage and saying it like it means something significant.

He punched me, but it wasn't as bad as other punches I have received.... getting punched always still sucks. If you know what I am saying.


Time for that Poggle errata in my opinion, lets just put an end to this silly stuff and crazy powerful builds.

I dropped Poggle from my CDO Chicago squad when I took it to PA. It always feels dirty playing what is effectively a 170-180 pt squad plus a sub-squad of Poggle bombs. IMO Poggle should cost about 29 pts. When building with Poggle, he and his Geonosians should be the focus of the squad.

I've been running that Durge lately and I have had Daman run it against me, so I can form a good opinion of that squad. My thoughts are as follows...

Regardless of if there is something out there that beats this or whatever, the CDO has WAY too much going on. At 22 points, he has good HP at 70, solid attack at 9, standard damage at 20. He has twin. He has an undisruptable, board wide +4 attack boost. Undisruptable board wide movement breaker. You can essentially run out 12 squares with the Commando Sniper, shoot, move back two squares, shoot again, move back two squares, top of the next round use intuition and drop back 6 more for a total of 10 squares. These things also work as a Cannon, as atmsalad said in our game last night, best Cannon in the game, and it's not even close. Oh and they give you a plus 10 to your damage on that free shot. All for the low low price of 22. Too much going on, on one piece. You don't have to like me, to see that I'm right on this. This piece is just bad designing.

I ran the Frostycon championship squad against Daman who was running this, and saw exactly what Daman would do to beat it. I played it against Laura who brought in a Bodyguard, who brought in a buzz droid and none of that stuff matters against this. Laura also brought in the Bomb Disposal Expert, and none of it matters. Someone mentioned bringing in a piece with Mines, with the exception of the Chameleon Droid which never sees play, it will not matter. The Sniper, and The CDO's would kill any mines piece before Durge ran in. Weeks mentioned Disruptive. Yeah it hurts the bombs, but if you are playing this squad to attack with bombs, you are playing it wrong. The bombs are there to help with acts, and to have another way to damage your opponent. But the real strength is the Sniper, with the CDO's, and Durge.

Oh and the icing on top, you can't shoot back at these droids because they have enery shields from the Spotter, and as if that wasn't enough. They have Stealth.

So after having the squad played against me, and playing the squad myself my opinion is the CDO's are stupid good. Way too good for their price. And Durge, well I've been quite open with Durge and the rest of the vehicles already. No need to beat a dead horse.

I agree with you on the points you made about the CDO. On the rolling mini of the day thread that theHutts made, when it came to ranking Princess Leia she got a 10/10. If Princess Leia, a WotC piece, gets a 10, then this piece is like a 20/10. It is literally twice as good as Leia!

Let's look at the 2 pieces:

Princess Leia
Cost: 20
Hit Points: 50
Defense: 14
Attack: 7
Damage: 20


Special Abilities:
Unique
Force Powers
Force 2
Commander Effect:
At the end of this character's turn, 1 Rebel follower within 6 squares can make 1 immediate attack at +4 Attack and +10 Damage.

Commando Droid Officer
Cost: 22
Hit Points: 70
Defense: 17
Attack: 9
Damage: 20

Special Abilities:
Droid (Immune to critical hits; not subject to commander effects)
Twin Attack (Whenever this character attacks, it makes 1 extra attack against the same target)
Commando Droid Upgrade (Allies named Commando Droid gain Stealth)
Coordinated Movement (At the end of this character's turn, 1 Commando Droid ally may immediately move up to 2 squares)
Fire Control (Non-Unique Droid allies get +4 Attack)
Rapport (Characters named Commando Droid cost 3 less when in the same squad as this character)
Stealth (If this character has cover, it does not count as the nearest enemy for an attacker farther than 6 squares when choosing targets)
Commander Effect:
Droids are subject to these effects:

Allies named Commando Droid get +2 Attack, +2 Defense, and +10 Damage.

At the end of this characters turn, 1 Droid ally within 6 squares may make an immediate attack at +10 Damage.


The power level comparison between these 2 pieces is insanely lopsided. I would have gone about designing the CDO from a basis of how Leia was designed or other cannon shot pieces were designed. Basically low dmg output at the cost of a great ce that is in and of itself a movement breaker. Leia's CE is good, but she doesn't have the 70 hp, the stealth, the twin attack, the movement breaker SA, the undisruptable +4 attack boost. All she has is her CE, and that was enough to make the Rebels Gencon winners for years! Now we got the CDO and it's insane stats + abilities + CE in a faction that was already reeaaaaallllly good, and it just pushes the faction over the top in a way. To me, the CDO was completely unessesary. I'd like to know the thought process behind designing of this piece. Why was it made? Did the Seps really need one more power 11 piece to add to their arsenal? No way! This piece is a major reason I think melee has suffered so much. It's no wonder that this piece has featured heavily in squads being run in NZ and Chicago and Pennsylvania regionals/tournies and won those events quite easily or at least finish in the top 4. Its fine if the designers wanted to design a new droid to replace the Battle Droid Officer, but this piece was overkill in the highest extremes. I completely understand why people are frustrated with this piece and why it maybe it factored into people leaving the game. To me this piece is another annoyingly unnecessary NPE almost on the order of Poggle. It is a NPE, but there are ways to deal with it. I could see the OR coming back in a big way to deal with the NZ gatekeeper. But for now, I won't be surprised to see it win Gencon this year if someone runs it or if it wins many other regionals. Daala had her counters to, but she got errata'd to be not so much of a problem anymore, maybe something will be done about the CDO also. A good example of how powerful this peice is, is looking at Lily's squad that was played in Chicago. It had 5 CDO's i do believe. It didn't even need Durge. The CDO's are so good that you can simply run packs of them and easily win. If their HP was 60, i think that they wouldn't be as bad, as it would only take 2 30dmg shots/hits to kill them, but with 70 hp, it takes 2 30dmg shots/hits + 1 20dmg hit to kill them, or 4 20dmg shots/hits to kill these things, and the fact is that most peices that could deal with 60 hP are being killed before they can activate next round to finish the job that should have been done the round before. I didn't have any problems with the Sniper/Spotter combo before because they only have 50 hp. a Skybuck squad can easily deal with those peices. But even a Skybuck squad can't deal with 70 hp commando droid officers. most strafers/galloping attackers can't deal with 70 hp in one round.

I wonder how Luke's Art Class type build would handle this. It's pretty tough to kill with strafe and it can match pace after you rob them of their Lobot fodder.

I do think Seps are strong enough now that you could nerf Poggle (losing rapport and self destruct 10 sounds good to me), and they'd still be one of the stronger factions.