I think its important for the OT Rebels to be playable, but I don't feel that they need to be at the center of the game any more than Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padme, or Bastila/Revan/HK-47...

Personally, one of the things that I like about the direction of the V-Sets is that is somewhat reverses the trend of squads centering around non-Uniques powered by a series of commander effects. They are still viable, but are a bit riskier as an increasing number of counters appear (Bastila, the Vong, a proliferation of Disruptive and similar things).

Theoretically, that should favor the Rebels, or at least what was at the heart of the Rebels when the game started. I remember a day a long time ago when there were two factions, and not a lot of options. If you played the Imps, you were probably playing Vader with a gaggle of Stormies supported by commanders. If you were playing Rebels, you were probably playing mid-point Uniques supported by filler pieces and might not have a single commander effect in the whole squad! With the right finessing, the Rebels could (should?) returns to those good old days.

One approach might be to create very specific character abilities, along these lines:

Han Solo's Co-pilot (An ally whose name contains Han Solo gains Pilot) (One one of my custom Chewies)

and

Lando Calrissian's Co-pilot (An ally whose name contains Lando Calrissian gains Bravado +10 and Pilot) (from a custom Nien Nunb)

Doesn't matter which Han you play that Chewie with, your you're encouraged to play Han and Chewie together (the custom Chewis in this case also had Synergy with Han, so he was boosted in return).

A Luke that gives Leia a Force rating and Mettle, an Artoo that gives Luke Pilot or something, a Lando who gives Han and Chewie Independent Outfit... Of course, if there are new versions of all of them, there's no reason all the new characters can't be played together, but clever character design might encourage use of the older pieces.

Besides new abilities, I think Synergy and Protective are your friends.

In my opinion, the problem with Rebels right now is actually twofold. First off, they are a faction that is very reliant on CEs. Dodonna, Rieekan, Princess Leia, and Crix Madine are all very powerful figures that are present in many Rebel squads. They also have the Bothan Noble and synergize extraordinarily well with the TBSV. This has always been their strength; very powerful cheap commanders that help a variety of squads/squad types. As has been pointed out, Bastila totally nerfs this concept, which was a big hit to the Rebels.

However, Rebels aren't the only squads that are very reliant on CEs. Plenty of Republic or Imperial squads do, also. But they don't seem to have been hurt as much by Bastila. Skybuck is still one of the strongest squads in the game, being played by 3 of the top 8 at Gencon this year and getting second place (barely losing to the Bastila squad which won). What's the difference between the CE-heavy Rebel squads and the CE-heavy Republic squads? I believe it's because of the lack of stamina that the average Rebel piece has. If you look at the squad I used to win Gencon 2010, I had 2 characters with 70 HP, and they were the two highest HP characters in the game. Luke had Lightsaber Deflect and a few pieces had Stealth, but otherwise there was absolutely no defensive powers in the squad. It survived by tempo and map control (very high acts for the meta and a lot of override), as well as Rieekan giving Evade to everyone so it did have a little more survivability. Not only does Bastila take those things away directly, but it's getting harder for Rebels to keep up with other factions in that regard. Separatist squads now dominate the high end of the activation count, easily breaking 30 activations with Poggle and a bunch of Drones. A new map list with more open maps like Theed and Smuggler's Base take away the huge amount of power Override had before.

A year ago, a Rebel squad could handle having a relatively low amount of Hit Points On Table (HPOT, as it was coined in a conversation I had about it this past weekend) because they had other ways to control the game. They didn't need traditional defenses like HP, Parry, Lightsaber Defense, or even high Defense ratings (Smug Commandos has Luke as the highest Defense character with 18 Defense, everyone else is 16 or less). Due to recent advances in the game they've lost that control, and have not gotten any sturdiness to back it up. Even their strong attacks aren't much in the meta anymore; 90 or 110 damage from the Han/Leia punch used to be a lot, with only a couple of characters (Mara Jade, Jedi, Lord Vader) dishing out more than that. Now we've got Darth Maul in 2 factions, Mace Windu, and other high-power pieces that make that 90 damage look kind of pitiful. Lethality in the game has accelerated, and Rebels have not kept up. Control in other factions has also accelerated with more door controlling pieces (Spaarti Clones, Atton "Jaq" Rand, Darman) and better tempo control (either pure high acts with Poggle's Drones and San Hill or Palleaon letting you opt out of having Ozzel), and they haven't kept up with that, either.

I used to be a heavy Rebel player. Now I barely consider them when thinking up a squad to bring to a competitive event.

How to fix this? I'm not sure of the best way. I like some of the ideas presented here to give the core group of heroes some boosts. I really think the best way to do it is to make the heroes be self-sufficient. Before they needed control of some kind to even stay alive (either door control to keep the enemy at bay or tempo control so they didn't have to expose themselves), and now they don't have that control. I think if they got some strong pieces that didn't need commanders and were both offensively powerful and defensively sturdy that would help. Basically they need pieces that are good on their own, because what they have is mostly pieces that have great synergy together, but that synergy can now get torn apart too easily.

I'm glad this thread has gotten this conversation going, because it's something that I don't have the best answer for, and I will be very interested to see what others have to say about it.

Tru dat. I'm all for SAs not being CEs!

Bill and the Gamers guys hit on something with naming Luke as the EPIC Rebel (something I totally agree wi', by the way). If we follow that to its logical conclusion, we might be actually due for this uber-Rebel-beatstick Luke - or something like it. Perhaps a 90hp RotJ Luke wi' Parry/Evade built in (or simply just Parry) and some kind of alternate-Betrayl, so those Maul-Mace-Vader beats have reason to be wary of him etc... wi' a synergy for Han or someone, or one of these Hero 4 SAs... without going SA crazy, of course!

This SA idea sounds pretty much like a custom I made probably 1-2 years ago, back on the WotC boards. My idea back then was to put it on a Leia, who gave specific (and different) boosts to Han, Luke and Chewie. The reason:

- Leia is not a fighter, but should be the "glue" in that combo
- it replaces Princess Leia. We need new versions of Leia that are a viable choice over Princess Leia

Now that the game has changed so much since then, it's still an idea which I would like to see happen.

Something else to consider: not every Rebel game will be played against a Bastila squad. Even if you know you'll face Bastila 70% of the time, it's still going to be worth the points to run Dodonna. That's a huge advantage in those other 30% of matches, plus forces Bastila to spend those FP.

Another aspect to the Rebels falling out of favor is that not only do they do poorly against Bastila, they do much worse against the Lancer. Before Poggle Rebels had a chance of outactivating the Lancer, which meant at least a few phases to advance without reprisal and do something like send an ERC booking it down towards the Lancer. Next round on a won init the ERC takes it out, on a lost init the Lancer has to burn its turn early to kill it, letting you act more freely for the rest of the round. Before the most recent map list change Rebels could just lock the Lancer out until they were ready to make a move, making the Lancer play on the Rebel's timetable. Now if you get stuck playing against the Lancer on Smuggler's Base, or the outside of Ravaged Base, or something like that, the Rebel player has to hustle to do some damage before the Lancer takes him apart. This problem with the maps also applies to Yobuck, but to a lesser extent.

I like that idea. Although it should be called Force Defense 5 or something like that. On a related note, Force Absorb and Force Defense should have had the same name (one with a "1" and one with a "3").

At any rate...

Force Defense Force 3: Cancel a Force power used by a character within 6 squares
Force Defense 4 Force 4: Cancel a Force power used by a character within line of sight
Force Defense 5 Force 5: Cancel a Force power used by another character

Boardwide Force Cancel should be expensive enough in Force points that it can't be used continuously. If Bastila skips round 1, she can activate ABM at the beginning of round 2, 4, and 6 - for nearly continuous ABM. Only exception being if she's outactivated at the end of rounds 3, 5, 7 (or of course if you can get to her to turn it off).

Consider a Yoda like this:

Force 4
Force Renewal 1
Force Defense 5

This Yoda would only have the Force Points to stop ABM once in the first 5 rounds.

Or this:

Force 2
Force Renewal 2
Force Defense 5

This Yoda wouldn't be able to stop it until round 3. In either case, Bastila has ABM active at least half the time. Certainly helps the Rebels to get their CEs for half the time, but it doesn't restore them to their former glory, especially if you have to bring along a Yoda for 20-40 points.

An example of how I'd prefer Synergy be used in regards to the Rebel Big 4:

A new Leia that has Synergy(an allied Rebel[optional] character whose name contains Han or Solo gains Protective +X0(Leia))
This benefits old and new Hans, and offers a modest damage boost under the right conditions.

Then perhaps making a new Han with Protective (or whatever ability Synergy grants) built-in but has Synergy that grants Luke something. This route would make it more encouraging to mix in the old with the new rather than just fielding all the new characters.

Agree with Sithborg's Edit a gazillion percent.

Before the Vsets I probably would agree that Synergy was reserved for strickly stat bonuses, but when Jaster Mereel's Synergy added Jango-specific Mandalorian Conscription to the ability the game changed and I see no reason why synergy couldn't be used to grant an SA or Force Power or even a CE (though that would be kind of goofy IMO).

They could create a new ability, but if it can be handled with creative use of an existing ability then why not go with the existing one.

Edit: Just looked at the CW WOTC rulebook and it says +4 Attack - well WOTC itself changed that when they added + to Defense (which oddly enough was in the CW set...) so the inclusion of gained abilities is just a natural step in the abilities evolution.