Hello Bloomilk!!

Man, haven't said those words in a while!

My absence from the game and community has been partially do to pursuing a career and partially do to playing other competitive games. I've anguished over Armada, lavished in League of Legends, Mixed it up with Magic the Gathering and tickled some other table tops.

With those different gained vantage points for competitive gaming there are some things that really stick out about SWM. For this post I'm just going to focus on Lobot though.

Lobot, the perennial squad staple and flexibility flamingo of fear. Let me count the ways that I loathe you.

1. Unlimited flexibility: Any Fringe character ever created below 20 is up for game. How can I counter you? Sorry, I need to search bloomilk first to find out...

2. Killing his reinforcements don't net you any points. Not only does your opponent get to counter you, but if you do manage to kill the counter you receive no points for it. Oh, and Muun Tactics Brokers FREE sacrificial mice? Don't get me started.

3. No negatives. Other than some poorly designed counters there are no natural negatives to running Lobot. Unless you count the time it adds to the beginning of the game. Oh, and hes 27, 1 point cheaper than 20 points of something plus and R7, lol, perfect.

The reason I bring him up and Reinforcements is because I would love for this game to be as enticing as it can be to new players or even returning players. No other game are you given the rediculous amount of versatility Lobot gives you with literally no opportunity costs.

I do not want to see Lobot or Reinforcements removed from the game though. The versatility it provides is akin to mechanics a lot of other competitive games have. Just not to this absurd level...

I would love to see 3 changes to Reinforcements.

1. Limit Reinforcement Options: Each player would be alotted half the build total in Reinforcement options. So for a standard 200 point Tournament you would be allowed 100 points in Reinforcement options.

2. Reinforcements Kills: Allow reinforcements to count for kill points. It makes little sense why you can bring in these pieces, but not have them count. I understand the original reasoning, but it was foolish. Especially considering Thrawn and Yobuck were around.

3. Gambit scoring? If #2 is put in place then consider allowing Reinforcements to score Gambit. Personally, I do not mind them counting for Kill Points, but not being able to score Gambit. However it may be simpler to just say they can do both.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Anything we can do to push the game to be more appealing to a wider variety of players should be done, imo. As long is the community is onboarding of course.

-DarthFrenchy

Unfortunately, I think both of you are right.

I personally really dislike reinforcements, and Lobot is obviously the premiere reinforcements piece. I don't like building a squad and showing up the table and my opponent looks at my squad, pulls out a massive bin of every fringe peice ever printed, and basically just gets to exploit any weaknesses I have. Part of the blame for this, in my mind, is on the designers who kept pumping out sub-20 fringe pieces as answers to things. I'd like to severely limit that in competitive games.

At the same time, so many balance and design decisions have been made around the current ruling on how adding pieces works. Lobot is annoying and overpowered, but there's a good number of later pieces that are properly balanced and limited. I don't think changing the mechanics of reinforcements is a good idea, because there are too many "reinforcements but slightly different" pieces out there.

My solution? Ban Lobot. Just build a better squad before the tournament.

I haven't seen Lobot being used too often recently, but maybe that's just perspective bias.

Personally, I think this might be an option to consider:
--> Lobot costs 27 for squad-building purposes. During gameplay, Lobot is worth 7pts when killed, and his reinforcements give normal points when killed (and can score gambit if they fit the pts criteria). Same thing with Jabba (costs 43 in squadbuilding, but 23 when killed, or with Bib's rapport that's 35 in squadbuilding and 15 when killed) and other reinforcement pieces.

Lobot will still be valuable because he's the cheapest Override piece and brings versatility, but at least we won't have to deal with the stupid that is 0-cost pieces in combat.

Does this help to address the issue?

It looks like we can all agree that reducing reinforcement options to 100 is a reasonably change. It would save time at the beginning of the game, remove an NPE and help the game to mirror other competitive games out there.

As for having reinforcement options count for points and score gambit. I disagree with it being a death strike against reinforcements. Even with that change any squad I run would still have Lobot. He is quite simply to good not to run. Would reinforcements have a well deserved downside by having their units count points? Oh yes, but it would not be the death of those units.

I do like TINTS suggestion, but I do prefer for their to be a trade off for the versatility that Reinforcement/Bribery pieces bring. Obviously if we all aren't game for that then I think TINTS could be a good compromise and much needed.

I don’t think everyone does agree on that.

Then don't play reinforcements? You are wanting all of the benefits of maximum flexibility without any skill or opportunity cost? That's just bad game design...

Having to put together 100pts of reinforcements will be a massive pain.

It wouldn't be all that bad in an in-person tournament; whenever I played Lobot I always compiled a list of all of the pieces I needed and then left everything else at home--I just didn't want to have to carry a bunch of un-needed stuff with me.

However, think about how this would work with the BlooMilk squad builder: you'd have to repopulate that list each time you built a squad! If you make 5 squads with Lobot or Jabba, then you've suddenly got to make 500pts-worth of Reinforcement lists! ugh. not gunna happen...

Still, I think the simplest solution is to make Reinforcement pieces work exactly as normal pieces (count for kill points, can score gambit if they qualify) and lower the kill points for Reinforcement pieces (Lobot, Jabba) by their Reinforcement value. Simple, easy, done. And honestly, it just makes more sense from a gameplay perspective.

It's a benefit you may not value, but the reinforcement NPE, among others, has caused players to leave. It would be like having a side board in Magic the Gathering including every card ever made, lol. It is laughable... Limiting side of board options for versatility is a normal practice in competitive games. Not having it pushes both Spike and Jonny mentality players out of the game.

Going forward it would be great to start making common sense changes to the game so we can try to grow and not just maintain.

I am assuming that your answer if we did anything would be to just ban reinforcement pieces...

Benefit seems to be shifting the time spent squad building and digging through a collection pre-match to pre-tournament. Some time will still occur to choose from those 100pts, but it should be quicker. This punishes the player playing reinforcements, but reduces the punishment (npe) from the person who has to play against lobot.

It also limits power to respond via reinforcement (which grows more powerful with each v-set).

I don't know if that all is worth it or not. Lobot's been around longer than I have, so I don't really feel it's my place to judge him.

No, I think you misunderstand:

During squadbuilding, Lobot costs 27pts (obviously)
During squadbuilding, his reinforcements cost 0pts (because they haven't been decided yet)
...total of 27pts

During the match, Lobot is worth 7pts when killed.
During the match, his reinforcements are worth their actual pts when killed (ie, a Reinforcement Uggie is worth 3pts, etc)
...total of 27pts