This is pretty close to where my views are. Time to put the brakes on the steadily increasing damage output, IMO.

@Monsterkhan007: While I am excited to see I am not the only dissenting opinion, I must ask you to not be so hostile and disrespectful toward V-sets and V-set users. I realize I too used the term "fake" Mini's in reference to V-sets, but I was trying to communicate the idea that they didn't have actual pieces to go along for them...and still yet I should have not used that term as it is offensive and antagonistic. My apologizes to everyone who likes V-sets for using that term! Let's try to be civil here and focus on the actual argument: whether there should be a separate squad rating category for pure WOTC squads.

I totally agree with your points about the overloading of Special Abilities and Force Powers on V-set pieces and I agree that it is sadly rare to see a pure WOTC squad that is competitive these days. Although it must be noted that, as stated in this thread already, the power creep has been present since the early days in Mini's.

@EmporerDragon: While I disagree that the top tier of squads would never change without V-sets, I do agree that V-sets are responsible for the vast majority of the change in top squads (which does indeed keep things interesting).

You make an excellent point for the value of V-sets with the argument that without the marketing of Mini's, we loose stupid filler pieces and only get the good stuff. I would like to point out that I don't disagree with you, or anyone else defending V-sets, as I think that V-sets have been an invaluable lifeline to the SWM community.

While I agree that a lot of dumb WOTC pieces have been made obsolete by V-set pieces, I would say a lot of good WOTC pieces have also been made obsolete in the process. Which goes back to my main point: the combination of V-sets' power creep, added SA and Force Powers, and the fact that they are Virtual pieces makes enough of a divide to warrant separate ratings.

@komix and Biggsy: "Hate it or not, Vsets have really opened this game to nearly endless possibilities." -komix
- I totally agree.

"...you might want to bring some constructive criticism to the table instead." -Biggsy
-Some constructive criticism would on both sides would be most welcome! Let's all try to do our part. =)

I ask that you both don't focus on petty arguments made by others. I feel that the top of the second page was just starting to go in the right direction with respectful arguments on the topic and I feel your input could be valuable and helpful toward steering back to the intellectual discussion. While I agree with what both of you said, I think you should focus on the arguments made on topic, instead of giving response to silly things said by others which have little to do with the actual question in debate.

@Boris and saber1: Please accept my sincere apologizes for using the term "fake mini's". I meant to convey that I really loved the physical pieces aspect of WOTC mini's so much that Virtual Mini's are not able to fill that hole for me. I shouldn't have used such an injurious term- I apologize!

The reason you don't see many competitive pure WotC squads is that there weren't that many to begin with. There were only a handful of competitive squad types when WotC stopped producing minis (Skybuck, Lancer, Black&Blue, Rebel Commandos, Solo Charge, maybe a couple more that I missed). Two of those have already won regionals in the past month or two. Vsets have opened up possibilities with - what - a dozen more competitive squad types?

I'd put money on you winning with an all Dejarik squad too.

I understand where your coming from, but let me make a few points:

Lord Vader: He's 71 points. Not nearly as cheap as other's we have seen in the last few sets. Weir cost's 28pts and he can easily be bumped up to 120 dmg at +14 attack for only 22pts with Gov. Tarkin. Plus, he can easily be shot down. With Weir, you have to get past stealth. I'd rather take Weir than Lord Vader, especially since you have to have Thrawn with Lord Vader to be effective, and that's already costing 100pt+ to do. Weir + GA Thrawn + Tarkin+Mas+ Storm Commando = 112pts Total dmg output = 240 from both Stormie and Weir. Meanwhile it costs 116pts to have just Grand Admiral Thrawn + Mas + Lord Vader. Total dmg output = 120.

Mara Jade, Jedi: This is pretty much the only competitive damage dealer that the NR has, so I'm fine with them having at least one to be top teir. She was designed aggressively and the advent of Ganner, made her a real threat. It took until MotF to make the NR truly competitve. So I think WotC did know what they were doing with the NR. Now compare to what the NR has gotten in recent sets. Gray Jedi can do 120 dmg without any boost's with tripple dark temptation (which is a steal if you ask me, since if they fail the save, you can easily get the 30pts by simply killing it with your own stuff). The NR faction, IMO, has been the least tampered with. They still have the flavor they had when WotC ended the game. And that's great! The designers have done a really good job making peices for this faction, by not only keeping damage output relatively the same, but by giving the faction newer options rather than Mara + Ganner + Anakin Solo + Han Solo, GH. I think that the designers do have to be very careful however with the introduction of C3P0 and R2, GH. This is one of the most aggressively costed mini's I've seen in a while. He's an auto include in pretty much most competitive NR squads.

Gen.Sky/Yobuck/Dash : These are really good peices. But not overpowered. Yobuck could do 120 if you did it right, and so could Dash. Yobuck was the answer to activation control, and a direct counter to the Imperials/Seps with their insane activation counts. So Yobuck is completly nessesary. Gen.Sky is one of my favorite peices made. He made melee attackers in the Republic competitive again. Dash thankfully suffers from low attack, and so I don't think he's overpowered for his cost. He has to get momentum in this squad to actually hit anything. And once that happens, what good is his evade?

Han Smuggler: Ah the rebels. 90 dmg is pretty tame nowaday's. I'm honestly suprised the new Leia didn't have Disciplined Leader on her. It wouldn't have broken the faction. It would have helped it, IMO. Han is one of the few really competitve peices the Rebels have, mostly since it is such a high damage shot. But look at the rest of the faction. Do you see anything else that comes close to having high damage? He was it, prior to V-sets. So I'm absolutely fine with him being the way he was. The Rebels have suffered greatly with the V-sets, and its time they get back into play. Case in point: How many Rebel squad do you see being played in Regionals and Gencon for the last 2 years? Barely any. While that may be counted as a success on the designers part, its also a problem. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next couple sets. I didn't like where the meta was prior to the V-sets. I like what the V-sets have done to change it up. But they have also made some things worse, and damage output is the primary reason.

Lancers: These guys are good, no doubt. But they take a lot of skill to run. And they can do 80 dmg if played right to pretty much everything. But the V-sets have just about completely taken them out of the equation. Bastilla/Disruptive/Distraction hurt them a lot. And self destuct will always be the downfall of them. Stuff like Djem So/Riposte/Jedi Reflex's all hurt them. The Lancers aren't nearly as big a problem as they used to be. Yeah they can still compete, but they won't destroy most squad like they used to, and for that the V-set Deisngers should be thanked immensely. Just by themselves, Lancers aren't overpowered. They cost 31pts, and can only do 20 dmg. It takes other CE's and tech to make them good, which is what this game is all about. Its good/bad when you have pieces that are already super powerful that can compete. Good because Bastilla isn't much of an issue. Bad, because most of these peices are undercosted, IMHO, for the damage output they give.

All of these WotC peices you mention took many many sets to get good and be used competitively. My fears are that with the V-sets, things are moving to fast and we are getting overloaded with damage and aggressively costed peices. All Bastilla has done, is give rise to the Imperials.

I am a playtester. I've done playtesting for the last 2 sets and look forward to doing more in the future. Of the figures I've gotten to playtest I haven't found most of them to be too overpowered. The few that I did, the designers took note, which is good. But, since I don't playtest a lot of the other figures in the sets, I get the feeling others don't see things as I do, and think its cool to have so many abilities on a peice for a great cost, but don't see how much this will affect latter sets. If I had playtested Weir, I'd have suggested he cost at least 10pts more or at least not have had such a powerful CE. I like how they went the direction of making Storm Commando's better, but they didn't need to make them insane for so cheap a cost. I didn't like Poggle giving SD 20 to 2pt drones from the begining, and right now people are starting to see the problem. Poggle is going to have to be errata'd at some point, cause giving a 2pt geonosian drone SD 20 is to powerful. I think we have made a lot of progress in these V-sets, but there is still some issues. I'm not slamming the designers, since I respect them a lot. Its a hard job, and they do indeed playtest the heck out of mini's. I just think they should be aware how the damage output we see in squads today is dramatically affecting how squads are built and what becomes top tier. A few peices I think we really well designed are Kyle Katarn, Rebel Operative and Rolan Dyre. Katarn is expensive for the cost, but serves a similar roll that Han Smuggler takes. Rolan Dyre doesn't do an insane amount of damage by himself. It takes a couple CE's to get him to do 120 dmg.

I just really don't understand why the designers figure that the Imperials need help. They get all these powerful peices in addition to all the powerful pieces WotC made. Other factions need more help. The OR has almost crippled the rest of them, and the Imperials have capitalized on it. The way other factions can deal with this is to have pieces that don't rely on commander effects to be good, but aren't overpowered with CE's that do exist. It's a hard thing to do, I know, but that is what playtesting is for. For the next set, I'm going to see if I can playtest the Imperials, cause I'm getting worried at what they have become. I predict the Imperials will win Gencon this year, and it is because of Bastilla's effect on every other faction.

When searching for squads, you can limit them by the most recent set used, so if you want to exclude V-sets, all you have to do is select MotF. Perhaps this functionality would be helpful for squad-building, as well.

And those of you lamenting because you miss opening boosters, may I recommend the sealed event at GenCon? The ticket price includes two boosters of custom minis.

With a Rebel Squad, against a field with what 6-7 HoFers?

I took the PDF's and an original card to a professional printer and they were able to make a really good copy of them. you don't get the SWMGamers logo on the back though.

I don't agree that V-sets are broken, but at the same time I don't agree that the changes to the game are "just like" they were with wotc. With EVERY faction getting multiple playable pieces per set for the most part, I would argue that each v-set changes the game MUCH more on average than most any wotc set.

I can see how that is disturbing to some. The severity at which the v-sets each affect the game is pretty stark (especially since unlike wotc the sets are not 20+% pieces that are useless before they hit the scene), and for people who were expecting that the v-set effort would ease into the game instead of tearing it wide open (in terms of impact of sets on what you can play and expect to win) have just cause for some alarm.

I am NOT saying that is a bad thing that the v-sets have huge impact, but I do agree that the effect of each v-set on the game is more drastic than most of the WOTC sets did each alone.