It's too late now but what if Daala's card would have said something to the effect of: "Your squad may contain no more than 5 non-defeated Troopers at one time". The number "5" is completely arbitrary and could be adjusted.

Would that have dropped her power or would that have made her worthless? That way you couldn't snowtrooper spam at least.

Assuming this weekend confirms that Daala squads a problem, the options are:

* Do nothing. Let the meta be small. (Probably not an option.)
* Errata/change 1 or more pieces (likely both Zygerrian and Daala).
* Ban 1 or more pieces (likely both Zygerrian and Daala).
* Force a hard counter on 1 or more pieces in future sets.

Except, from what I've seen, the hard counters do not work. Do you know how hard previous designers hated on Strafe/Gallop from the beginning of the Vsets? And then, realize that it had little effect. Hell, we are still talking about Yobuck/Lancer as a counter to Daala. Unlike GOWK, there is a combination of things making this squad broken.

To me, the design issues are rather apparent in this piece. Others might not see it the same way, though. I am just one voice.

jak I really doubt we will see very many.

I 100% agree with you, I've played against Daala a lot since set 6 came out and I don't think I've won once, again I thought it was just me. But I don't see much a single piece could do to kill Daala's competiveness (without having other weird repurcussions that might her other not as comptetive builds.) and I really don't think that is what needs to happen with her, and as I was implying I think that as a long term fix that type of counter meta building would simply come too late after too much damage is done.

All of this is still hypothetical, I'm hoping that you are right GF and that people will not play her simply out of knowing there is an issue that the community needs to address. And I do feel bad in a lot of ways about that. FlyingArrow has been working with Daala for months now fine-tuning and optimizing her, and he has come up with a lot of scary, impressive versions...I know I've mentioned this before but I thought it was just me having issues with her due to my playstyle. So while I agree that Daala is not what the community needs right now, I feel bad that my friend's possible Regional squad might be squashed. UP SIDE, he has a lot of incredibly useful information about how Daala runs and knows her squad types like the back of his hand so that is good for the community.

The only one I disagree with you on is the Czerka Shield Tech. She has a negative impact. She really neuters the Mandos more than any other faction, and they were only just starting to get their footing. Last year they really started to shine and then a cheap fringe piece that everyone has access to came and shoved them right back down. Not to mention that big twin-shooter squads kept other squads in check so that we did have a nice balance.

The bottom line though is that none of this matters is we don't solve the Daala/Zygerrian problem.

I hope so. That was definitely the point of adding Advanced Destabilize Shields to a cheap useful Mando piece. But it only helps, it doesn't solve the problem. Mandos are still a step behind from what they were a year ago in my opinion. Soley due to that piece.

Look at last years GenCon top 8. We had 2/8 with twin shooters. 1 of which only has 2 pieces with it. Seems like a reasonable spread to me. BEFORE the shield tech.

Hard counters fail for a couple of reasons.

1. It doesn't actually counter the thing it is supposed to.
2. It works, but there aren't enough of that thing in the meta and people just end up not playing it
3. It works but creates a different auto-include (ie you can bring it in with lobot or another set of reinforcements)
4. It works, but only really works against 1 thing and just isn't good against others

For example the Mando CIO works great against act control, but does little else and in a mando squad where points are tight, it just isn't worth it unless you know that you will play against act control EVERY round.

And we have yet to make an actual competitive HARD counter to strafe/gallop. The only actual hard counter is the kota's militia guy in set 7 and he just isn't going to be competitive IMO. Part of the reason is that we (as V-set designers) have always been afraid of silver bullet hard counters.

However I do think that in this case a hard counter COULD work depending on what the actual problem is determined to be, or a hard counter plus a couple of soft counters would also work just fine.

For instance if it is deemed that the charging whatever is the problem, it would be very easy to make a 5-8 point fringe piece (rival for lobot or must start in the main squad or something so it doesn't make lobot an autoinclude) that has the following.

Whatever cool name for a SA -- Enemy characters who move more than 6 squares on their turn CANNOT make attacks this turn. This would actually be a pretty hard counter to strafe/gallop at the same time but would certainly take care of daala and some of her range. This could also be put on some other non-fringe pieces from other factions to give more than 1 option.


IF the Zyg is determined to be the problem, then I could see a different solution.

Another cool name for an SA -- If a piece were to move and it wasn't that character's turn that piece takes 20 damage before moving. This would pretty much take care of the slaver problem. It would also be a pretty hard counter for the Pawn of the Dark side as well as Tow/Carry. It would still leave swap as a viable option, but would take care of SOME of the super movement breakers that seem to keep making the map smaller and smaller.


There are lots of options potentially available, but we must first figure out what the problem actually is.

It also really hurt the Cad Bane BH sep squads which were popping up a bit last year, which were a lot of fun to run. I had been hoping that the designers capitalized on the BH builds and continued to produce BH's that worked with Cad, Aurra, in the seps.

I've never been a fan of Czerka ST.

Slave driver: (replaces attacks) one fringe ally with a printed cost less than this character's cost within 6 squares takes 10 dmg and moves it's speed, save 11.