+1

This!

I will see your +1 and raise you a +2

I honestly don't see what's wrong with a squad like that. It's bad if one squad is unbeatable, and it's bad when a squad doesn't engage. But if it plays for engagement and the squad plays quickly what difference does it make if all the pieces are the same or if it is two one hundred point pieces?

Carrying on from my swiss report on the previous page, finals:

vs Sharron (Revan SL, Kaan, Elite Supercommando, Mando the Lesser, Lobot)
Sharron won map, so we played on Tomb of the Acolytes, which is fast becoming my least favourite Restricted Map - it takes a long time to get across it. I deferred set up, so I got to set up in the opposite corner from him, to leave Revan a long way from my commanders. I bought in Needa for the SSO, since there aren't a lot of doors and I didn't need It's A Trap. I left Pellaeon back with my commanders, divided my troops up into four pods so they could advance through the four different passages, and blew one door to make my commander effects almost boardwide. Second round I got a guy into gambit, so I got a lead. After Sharron was finished in round 3, I charged some guys forward to shoot the Supercommando and Mandalore the Lesser, and I dropped them before the end of the round. I could see the Revan/Kaan explosion coming, but was happy with the trade, since I'd already taken the two Mandalorians without much cost, and was only going to lose 5-6 troopers in exchange for Kaan as well. He won initiative and deferred, so I charged one of the in danger Snowtroopers up the board to shoot Lobot. He ran in Revan, taking an AOO, and swapped in Kaan. Kaan blew, and took down 5-6 troopers - at this point I had traded 7-8 troopers for 3/4 of his squad. After that, I was in a huge lead, and I just needed to push forward and take down Revan. Revan barely made a lightsaber defense save, I hit every shot without using Needa, and got a few crits as well. It was ridiculous dice, and it just made a very difficult matchup horrible for Sharron - there wasn't much he could do to kill my guys quickly enough, and he was vocally frustrated with having to play Daala even before the game began.

And even if he'd won, he would have just have to play Daala again.....

vs Dr Daman again.
This time Dr Daman won map roll, so we played on Anchorhead. I kept the SOS in, but in hindsight I probably should have used Needa. Again my rolls weren't great, and along with the Imperial Officer 2-1 trade trick, I was a bit behind on the exchange - I'd lost something like 8-9 Snowtroopers vs 6-7 Raxus, but still in the game. I'd just charged up a trooper at the end of the round to kill a Raxus, and if I'd won initiative I was poised to charge in and take down the Repulsor Sled. On the key initiative, I rolled a 4 and Daman rolled a 6 - so he both won initiative and got four extra Raxus - in such a terse game, it was enough to tip the balance totally his way, and he confirmed it by rolling another 6 next initiative. By the end of the game I managed to kill 12 of his Raxus Prime Troopers, but he still had 8 left.... Full credit to Daman, who's obviously really good with his Raxus squad (I think he's lost in a tournament game once), and who has won four NZ 200 point majors in a row, which is a fabulous achievement. I feel like Raxus vs Snows should be a 50/50 matchup, but Daman's very well oiled with his squad.

So altogether, I played six squads, all of which did reasonably well overall - Hayden who finished at 11th (out of 19) was my lowest ranked opponent. Three of my games were cake walks, two were comfortable wins after a tense start - I do feel like Daala has a big advantage over most of the popular squads out there. I do enjoy running her, as I like the movement that her squads have, but some of the games on Saturday were simply too easy and not much fun.

It's true, I oil each one of my Troopers before every game. that's my secret

18 Mouse Droids usually means an attempt to avoid engagement. Either a wall or out-activate and smash (or both).

I guess I would be reluctant to play Daala at GenCon if I suspected billiv15 was coming with Yobuck. I do think that a well run Yobuck squad would do very well against the field at NZ Nationals, and have a good shot at winning the whole thing, but I do have my doubts about any of the strafers.

Strafers would do well against Daala, but if we look what else is in the top 6 -
- 10 Klats are a nightmare - and if they can get Disruptive safe near gambit too, your bombs don't work either. Grievous would do well against Klats, but I'm always deterred by the Speed 8, and he still gets affected by Buzz Droids.
- The Cloaked Vong can clog everything up with Tso'asu. The strafer can probably win, but it won't be a fun game.
- Luke Hero of Endor has Djem So at +18 for 30s with twin - a Lancer really doesn't want to touch him.
- Lobot can bring in LIN Demolitionmech and/or Buzz Droids

I don't know that any of these things are insurmountable for a good player, but I certainly didn't feel like I was good enough at running strafe squads to counter these kind of things. I'd also be worried about Tantives; even though they didn't show up on the day, a Tantive squad did well at LowerHuttACon in May. There's a lot of strafe hate out there, and I think you have to be a really good strafe player to deal with them.

A lot of the players who ended up in the top half of the table were running things that had something to help them hang in with Daala.
Revan + access to Momaw is good against Raxus.
Cloaked stuff - Vong and Klats at least put up a good fight.
Han can turn into Han in STA with accurate, and take down some troopers.
Gungans with R2 and double-Momaw are pretty decent against Daala too.

It feels people were too worried about running strafe, and instead chose to run other stuff that could hold its own against Daala, but it came up short, since Daala is really strong.

If my memory is right, the two players who've placed highly with Yobuck at a 200 point NZ tournament are .... Dr Daman (5th in NZ Nationals 2012) and myself (2nd at LowerHuttACon 2011) - so the two people who were running Daala. Darth O did respectably with Yobuck at Nationals last year too.

What would you run with Yobuck? I know Skybuck's the popular choice, but I'd probably be tempted to run Mace and Yobuck swap - Mace can handle big baddies, and hope he gets a lucky crit or two against bad matchups eg Talon Karrde squads.

that's hilarious. I designed it so you could traverse 1/4 of the map automatically.
Seems i have failed, epically.

Why is it taking you so long to cross?

I played Lou on that map at the PA regionals. He had a Quednak against Daala and as soon as he missed one attack he was stuck and couldn't move any further because it was at the bottleneck. Of course, the miss came on the first or second trooper.