I had to go back and refresh my memory about this design, but it was an interesting walk down memory lane.

I knew when I started working on this set that I wanted to work on fixing what had come to be known as "Windu Syndrome" - that is, melee pieces that have a high point cost but are not really playable due to the rules of the game. If you sink too many points into a "rock" piece from the WotC era, your game is almost guaranteed to fall apart when that piece dies. What's more, it's almost a certainy that will happen quickly if the piece has little to no survivability.

The designers and playtesters who worked on that set with me were on board with the idea of trying to make a great rock piece. Timmer's analogy to Boba BH is accurate (no pun intended), and that was intentional. Luck is a big part of this game and an important part of V-set design is honoring Rob's philosophies and traditions for design. One think I used to ask myself when I worked on a stat was, "Is this something Rob would make for the game?" If it wasn't, I usually scrapped the idea or made revisions. Not every piece is perfect, obviously, but overall I felt pretty good about the designs I helped come up with.

"Critdu" went through a number of revisions and everyone had a say in how it turned out. To illustrate, most stat blocks get 1-2 pages of comments and discussion. It's rare for a figure to generate more than 3 pages of discussion. I think the record was Master Yoda because of his Commander Effect. Critdu had 5, plus some external debate from playtesting. Reflect was not on his card originally and was only added because he just wasn't getting the job done. FR2 needed a Force sink, and Deflect or Defense were too cheap at only 1 point.

I'll never apologize for the fact there's a Jedi figure that frightens people, and I am glad Mace Windu is that character. Yobuck can do more damage overall and has better survivability but no one ever calls him an NPE that I've seen.

Your statement is incorrect, Yobuck has a max damage output defined by the distance he moves. Mace can flurry infinitely.

There are lots of jedi figures to fear when they are placed opposite you, none of them have the ease of obtaining the potentially infinite loop that Mace LotLS has.

It is the wayward ceiling of his power that is all too obtainable that turns me off.

You may not wish to apologize for it, but i also won't apologize for calling it sloppy design.

As someone who has played Critdu in competitive play with at least as much success as anyone else (I think Josh Hink is the only one who's used him as much as me in competitive play), I truly think he needs to lose Flurry and drop his cost down to 60; then he'd be great. Or at the very least, have a restriction that Flurry can only trigger once per round (cost 62ish).

People often refer to the triple-17s I had vs Deri in 2012, and I completely agree: I would not have won that game without them. It wasn't fair to Deri at all, that all he could do was watch as my three dice rolls completely changed the game. He made no tactical error, and frankly, I was scrambling when I even moved Mace into that position anyway. There's no way I should've won that game. And whenever a piece's design has that potential (140 damage on someone else's turn) there's a problem. And this is coming from someone who loves this piece (and strong melee pieces in general)!!!

IMHO, what we need is to release a subset of 9 new VSet cards with errata which corrects the mistakes of past designs. Poggle, Daala, Panaka of Theed, Klat Assassins...and Mace Critdu. There have been a few mistakes in the V-Sets over the years (just a few...the vast majority of the V-Set project has been great, IMHO), and it would make sense to fix them. To err is human, but to refuse to acknowledge it is...just plain dumb.


To get back on topic, though, I agree with the rating: 10/10 on a power scale. A cost of 60 and losing Flurry would still keep him at a 10/10.

I'm not excusing myself from anything. There are things i've influenced and designed i'm not happy with. I will say that Mace had a lot more put on him than what I was suggesting. But regardless, i agree with Trevor.

I've often thought of addressing the miss-steps of the V-sets. I wonder how many figures people people would actually want to change?

Lord Krayt, from Jedi vs Sith





Lord Krayt is an extreme piece; for 114 points (!!) you get 130 hit points and a great stat line, but no defensive abilities outside of Crab Armor, and a mere Force Renewal 1. He's not going to last long in an all-in brawl against 114 points of efficient characters. But what Lord Krayt does offer is an extremely potent combination - Transfer Essence and Master of the Force 2. This means that Lord Krayt can transfer essence into an ally at the start of a turn, make his triple attack, then transfer essence back to safety - as far as I know, no other piece in the game has such extreme movement potential in one move. He also has the potential for 120 damage without assistance, with Advantageous, Sith Rage, and Triple.

Despite this, 114 points is mega expensive - especially considering that he only has Force Renewal 1 - and I would have written him off as competitively unplayable if he hadn't stormed into the top 8 at GenCon 2013 in this build.



It's great to see such an extreme squad type doing so well - I'm sure it has its bad matchups, as you'd expect from an extreme squad. But Lord Krayt's a really unique, and a vibrant square in the rich tapestry of our game. 8/10.

While I agree that Mace is very very good for 65pts and that you got 140dmg on a figure in Gencon was a surprising come from behind win story, I really think he is fine where he is at and doesn't need an errata. The only thing I saw on him during playtesting that I thought was a little over the top was Force Absorb, but I'm fine with him having the chance to deal lots of dmg. If Mace doesn't role crits, he is over priced for 65pts. If he roles crits, then great! You paid 65pts to have that happen so why punish the figure for doing what you hope it can do when that happens. Mace costs 65pts. That is a lot of points to spend on a melee figure in a meta with a lot of good shooter squads. I always viewed Mace as 65pts the opponent is throwing at me hoping he roles a crit or 2. Usually his crits were overkill, and didn't impact the game to much. If you have a lot of figures grouped up next to each other, aren't you the one at fault for Mace going crazy and flurrying your entire squad? Counters to Mace are numerous, so I disagree that he needs a errata. I know its hard to get past the fact that he can do insane damage, and probably everyone has had a game where Mace completely destroyed their best piece in the game. But on the other hand how many times have we seen Mace not get his insane damage. I've had figures on my squads demolished by Mace, but I congratulate the opponent for it cause that is what he spent the points to have happen. If you want to invest in a strategy that relies on getting crits, best of luck to you in that, but its not a winning strategy and most often will not work.

But as for the other figures you mentioned, yeah I agree an errata should be made. Whoever thought 2pt geonosian bombs with SD 20 and just happen to be in a faction with San Hill was a good idea probably needs to re-evaluate their design skills. I'm surprised Poggle even made it past playtesting. Panaka, was in a mini-set that is know to have suffered from lack of playtesting, so I'm all for re-evaluating that set and applying erratas where need be on some of the figures.

You could also do some sort of a positive errata...like giving Galen Marek Rapport -5 Rebels or something else that helps a piece that could see competitive play with just one little change.

I said "most often will not work"....meaning sometimes it will work but most times not. If you don't roll crits, you don't win. You can't predict when crits are rolled and thus there is no real strategy with it. It's just pure luck.

Galen Gets IO from V-set Kota, but I agree that Kota should have had it as well (or a way to get it with Galen)

Still the Rapport on Kota and the stat boost is really nice for Galen and the Rebels.

I don't think we 'need' an errata set. I have no idea if it would do more harm than good. I like the game. Things could be a little better with a few tweaks, but I don't think they are necessary. I would rather get more new pieces than errata. But if it results in more players I would be for it.