to each his own, to me these stats just don't have that Kaan feel to them. If you remove the name and Thought Bomb there just isn't anything there that really screams "This is Lord Kaan!" to me.

Well this was my take on him, now I didn't expect his vset stats to be identical, but was disappointed that Thought Bomb isn't near as devastating as it should be (personally I feel it should have a save 16, or at least a greater range), and the Vset incarnation is completely void of his biggest quality - his charisma which is what led him to become the leader of the Brotherhood.

I also would have rather seen him with (Advanced) Battle Meditation and a Lightsaber defensive ability than Illusion. That said I do like the idea of Bravado on a higher cost mini and the Backlash (though I think the name should be changed to something else - not sure what) ability, I just don't feel they are right for Kaan. Perhaps Kas'im would be a better candidate for that combo.

i dont think it should be save 16. He is pretty powerful as is. But i think illusion works better on him than lightsaber defense. IT is rather hard to show charisma in a figure. I mean Obi wan is very charismatic but they generally dont represent that. As for ABM i think that would have been cool for him, but would require him to have less starting force points and renewal. Thought Bomb is a very powerful ability. A 40-80 damage to every character within 6 can be pretty strong, especially with revan. (i know that is an expensive combo) With revan he can be swapped in make his attacks, and if he gets killed boom, kill half of the opponents squad in round 2 or 3. TO me that is probably the best they could do. IF they made it save 16 i think it would be overpowered. Save 11 means you at least have a 50/50 chance

Don't take this as an insult to your design in anyway, in fact it's quite a good custom. But by comparing ours to yours, you've done a great disservice to what designing a set actually entails, and you've set yourself up for disappointment nearly every time we ever make one you've made before. Let me explain.

Designing one figure to stand on it's own, is 100% different than designing a full set of figures to work together. Further, adding in that we aren't designing these 60 minis just to work with each other, but with 900+ other minis, the subject gets more complicated. Add in further that we are also trying to do a variety of different things, like make a good game, keep it interesting, balance the factions, provide variety/options in squad building, improve past figures, add new unrepresented personas, etc, all of which your design entirely ignores (because that's what you can do in complete isolation).

This figure had a number of issues going. Another 58pt Sith unique would be absolutely worthless for the game. Not to mention, your complaints about Kaan as a character, pretty well demonstrate he isn't worthy of a figure that powerful. You balanced your figure well, but that's because you made thought bomb ridiculous. TB needs a level of abstraction, more than more abilities, ala Darth Nihulus. It just does. The force flavor was in fact argued for, and I specifically fought against it. Why you ask? Because it makes the ability a complete waste of time for the actual play of the game. The last thing the game needs are more abilities that hurt/harm force users. Further, that rule is actually a complete abstraction in and of itself. TB affected anyone with the force, not just force users. So in terms of our game, that would actually be listed as "living" characters if we tried to be as correct as possible. Well let me see, what are some of the major complaint figures, are they perhaps mouse droids, lancers, and IG-86s? Sure are. Perhaps you can see why it wasn't a good idea to add yet another ability that these guys would get even stronger in the meta game for.

Now, as to cost. He's in the 30s for a specific reason. The Sith faction as a whole needs figures like that. The problem is, most Sith Lords are awesome beasts. Kaan is a perfect example of someone that wasn't quite so awesome, so I argued hard for a mid 30s cost. It creates a ton more squad building options, than anything higher would have done.

You bring up charisma, and completely ignore that he has three (count them three) critical abilities on him that are direct abstractions of his character, the CE, bravado and Illusion. Illusion put simply, is convincing someone not to attack you. In terms of our game, it makes the attack not work. We could have created a new ability named, "Charisma" that did the same exact thing, or used the other term for it, "Pheromones" but instead decided Illusion fit well enough. He was well known to use "mind tricks" to get people to do what he wanted. Since Jedi Mind Trick is a light side power, we decided against it (see last paragraph for more on this). Instead, Illusion also represents this ability. Second is the CE. I'm sorry you don't like it, but to say it isn't Kaan is flat out wrong. The guy was the leader of the Sith, true, but he's also the guy who friggen put Sith in the middle of the army. Something extremely notable because it was such an exception compared to others. Heck, this is one of the things Bane thinks is so horrible about the guy. Not to mention, that Sith Troopers need a boost, but more than that, the faction needs synergy between the Sith and their troopers. Kaan gave us the perfect chance to do that. To say that isn't flavorful is pretty weak in my book. Bravado is barely even an abstraction. The guy always felt inferior and that he needed to prove himself. How you can say we ignored his character qualities is beyond me.

Finally, you question "Backlash" as a name of a new ability. Well, quite frankly, I don't care. He isn't the only figure with it, it wasn't named because it went with Kaan, it is most simply put, the opposite of Ambush. To question the name is petty. It went on Kaan, because I wanted it on more figures. Kaan was a good choice, because it gave him something unique in the Sith faction. No other particular reason is necessary to be honest with you. We went through a couple of different names for the ability, and the one we all settled on was Backlash. It sounds cool, has the right generic feel to fit on any character we wish to put it on, and clearly passes along the plain English meaning of going after someone who just went after you or your buddies.

Now that I've said all of that, I still haven't talked much about faction balance. You say the save should be higher, I say no way in heck. He's in a faction with Exar FS, who can make the save 15 already. Not to mention that the two together, allow Kaan to use his other FPs and TB.

You suggested ABM for him. Sorry, that's a light side power. This comes directly from WotC, and is one of the areas we have tried to stay with their design as much as possible. ABM requires concentration that most Sith don't use. JMT is another that he had, but we chose not to use it because WotC never intended it to be on a Sith. Illusion fit better, and still represents his ability. I know he was known to have been able to do "Battle Meditation". However, that ability is already present in our game, and it sucks. ABM is meant to be very specific and limited, and we don't want it in the Sith faction that has plenty of things that would make it over the top in combination. It's also meant to be a power that only 1-3 people ever have access to, Kaan would not be one. Instead we abstracted that part of his character into the CE for Sith Troopers.

I actually think this was a great representation of Kaan (I didn't make him mind you, so I'm not complimenting myself), that not only represents a great deal of the positives of Kaan (remembering that his entire point in the Bane trilogy is to contrast him to Bane to make Bane look better), and adds a great deal of other interesting things to our game - which is why we do this stuff. Abstractions have always been, and will always be a necessary and significant part of design for a game like this. Not everything will ever be the perfect version of it. For example TB. I full well know it should be "living" characters with the force. But our game needed something more than that. So I argued for it, and got it. You can blame me if you want to.

Just to set a few things straight:
I wasn't exactly comparing the Vset Kaan to mine, I only linked to it to show Yodaccm one way to illustrate Kaans charisma in minis form (Affinity/Brotherhood SAs), other options would be Rapport/Betrayal, while your explanation of illusion is fine and understandable, it just doesn't have the same impact.

Thought Bomb is a tough one - while the Vset version is nicely balanced to be applied at a lower cost, it just leaves me feeling underwhelmed.

From the beginning I said the 1 thing I actually liked was the CE. As for Backlash - the mechanics of the ability are great, the name is just wierd (not a real issue - nor was I intending to make it one). The name just makes it seem like it should be in response to an attack, not just activated - again not really an issue, just a very minor annoyance (WOTC had plenty of minor annoyances, along with some major ones, as well so it's not like I'm trying to pick on you guys).

All this boils down to the Vset representation of this character doesn't fit my interpretation of his abilities*, while the stats are nice - and certainly something useful to the Sith faction, it just doesn't feel like Kaan, this is the exact same issue I have with the new Dooku - they aren't terrible stat-wise (infact quite the opposite really) the stats just don't fit these specific characters in my opinion.


Edit: *to clarify, abilities in this sense refers to me seeing Kaan as having less combat prowess and more leadership (which coincidentally is the exact opposite issue I have with the new Dooku... hmmmm).

A whole three once Zannah and the Gloomwalkers stand by his side. That would be an awkward team.
Kaan: "who's she?"
Bane: "a friend..."
Gloomwalker trooper: "Des? You got big?"
Zannah: "I will outlive you all"

+1

Except for the fact that shes half woman

well then!.................I'll settle for just a half then! ....more than enough woman for me!

I said the same thing while watching Felicia fight Bishamon in Darkstalkers and seeing the end result of being cleaved in two by his sword. Of course, I was branded a pervert after that statement.