Hey, great point! I hadn't looked at it that way. The LIN protects against what is probably Daala's worst matchup (Lancer) and also against the mirror-match's deep strike threats.

Ok. I imagine that most of the time I'd rely on Reinforcements for the LIN.

As for the Daala squads...it's really painful to drop 3 Snow/Raxus Troopers for the LIN; it might be the right call in some situations, but it is definitely a sacrifice.

But how long do you plan to out-activate them for? You can't offer this piece and this piece alone for a legal target. They are going to find a way around it. And in the end if this piece proves to be too great an issue for a Naboo Trooper squad then that squad can respond by adding a single pilot and it's a goner.

It's a great piece but I still think it very much has its limits.

I think the standard 8 pilot Naboo Pilot squad will struggle against Daala on most maps. Not enough attackers to keep up - Naboo can only move 8 and shoot, Troopers can move 24 and base a pilot with help from a Zygerrian, and will have a healthy activation advantage.

Naboo Troopers should be a good game, quite possibly advantage Naboo Troopers, and I'd like to try it next chance I get to play. However, I think there are Daala builds that will be able to do quite well - anything with lots of troopers and access to Ozzel can probably hold its own. An Imperial Dignitary wouldn't go amiss either. And these are the type of Daala swarms that we might expect to see often anyway, if Daala gains the popularity that some of us New Zealanders are anticipating, as the builds with lots of troopers with fewer commanders are likely to succeed against other Daala squads.

With superstealth Vong, my original plan was to play Marn Hierogryph in my Daala squads, so I have access to crucial tech like a Treadwell Droid for Vong. In my perceived current meta, however, where I anticipate to see lots of Daala, Marn becomes too expensive to be worthwhile. So Vong are maybe a good choice. One thing in Daala's favour though, is that my preferred map for swarms is Bothan Spynet. There's not a whole lot of cover on that map, so if Daala wins map roll, I think they're got a chance.

It's hard to pigeonhole Daala squads, as they're quite adaptable for different metas with all the tech options that Imperials have. But generally, we're seeing them trample squads that are otherwise strong - normally solid squads like Thrawn/Cad Bane swap and Solo Charge are getting stampeded by them. It seems like they don't have too many matchups that are much worse than 50/50, and a lot of really straightforward ones.

Hopefully things aren't quite that bad; maybe there are more squads that can handle Daala than we think. I'm hoping that some good players run Daala squads and Daala counters at FrostyCon so we can see if it translates to other areas. But we've got to the point where it's worrisome for us, and our NZ group doesn't have a history of complaining about v-set pieces. It is frustrating at the moment - I would love to play the Vong stuff in v-set 7, but it doesn't stand a prayer against the Daala squads.

I'm no expert on Vong but wouldn't they still have to be Troopers to get Daala's CE? the War Coordinator only switches out Faction wording.

You can still make it work, with a different squad build still using Nom Anor and Workers, the Domain Shae Subaltern is in Faction Charging Fire for the vong and that was a squad type that I was thinking of trying against Daala.

I love the way Daala squads play and the way they bring Troopers back to the table. But if we see her do as well in other areas as we've seen in New Zealand, I'm a total +1 for TINT's post. Daala squads at 200 seem very potentially meta-warping at the moment, and is constricting an otherwise wide open and diverse range of squad options, and it would take a bunch of power creep to take the wind from out of her sails. It's still very early days though, but if it follows through, I'm definitely in favour.

Very well said. The idea has my vote.

but as soon as the Daala squads switch to more troopers and less commanders, don't they become much more vulnerable to strafe/gallop. I haven't really played much with Daala (or against her) but if she starts trying to include anti-strafe (LINs) in the base squad, then doesn't she become weaker against things that don't care about that? And if you aren't including some protection then strafe/gallop should just walk all over Daala, correct? At least on the surface (and without more data) this doesn't seem much different than a couple years ago when Weir and Storm Commandos tore up the regional season and then exactly 1 player brought them to Gencon and went 0-3 with them.