When I played Halo with my sons they would tea bag me so much that it was suggested that if I create my own account I should use the name 'Private Lipton'.

While I agree that Daala can be considered an NPE...she is for me...a number of other squads I have played in championship play are NPEs as well. I once lost 5 games in 7 rounds of the championship to YoBuck, and as an Imperial Thrawn player I never have beaten Yobuck in championship play. I hate playing against Naboo. I didn't answer this pole because I honestly don't know the answer. I will say that if anyone not intending on playing in regionals or GenCon is on here complaining about it then just ban her within your playgroup and stop wasting time here.

I am pretty sure that everyone contributing to this conversation was active during Regional season.

From looking just at the results, I don't think Daala is a problem. She went first-second in New Zealand but there were basically no scissors squads and the top players were using her. At GenCon, she did well but didn't win, and there were a lot of tough games. She has plenty of tough match-ups and depending on the build even some auto-losses. I didn't bring Bare Bones Snowtroopers (http://www.bloomilk.com/Squad/138208/bare-bones-snowtroopers) to GenCon because I couldn't see any way at all to beat Skybuck, and I expected it to be there. Even with the build I took I wouldn't have expected more than a 25% chance against a good player. (I was lucky to not have to see Skybuck.)

So I voted to just remove Reserves.

However, it is clear that she is an NPE for many people. More of an NPE than Naboo troopers? More of an NPE than Yobuck swap? Than a pawned Lancer? Poggle bombs? I don't know, but for some reason she gets all the attention. And I think the reason she gets attention is that the squads she beats most easily are the squads that most people want to play: balanced squads with 3-5 threats all in the 20-50 cost range. (Darth Jim's Talon squad fits that mold, so I'm not surprised it's an NPE for him.)

I've mentioned this before, but I think the solution is to introduce a handful of 20ish point pieces that are "minor scissors" pieces. Currently, in order to take out a bunch of small HP pieces quickly, there aren't a lot of options. Momaw is helpful, but just about all the other options cost too much to simply toss into a squad. A Lancer is optimized with pawn of the dark side and an MTB engine, which takes pretty much half of a squad. Yobuck is a huge chunk of a squad. Same thing for the newer strafing/galloping vehicles. For scissors, it's "go big or go home". If we had more options (including reinforcements options) that could cost about 20 and somewhat reliably take out 4 troopers all at once before dying, that would help a lot. Maybe you don't include a scissors piece in a squad - maybe you do. It's a risk to go without it, but no different from going without direct damage, where you might have a tough matchup against GOWK/Zannah/Caedus. But right now, those scissors options are not really available.

Those scissors options are needed for other squads, too. Klat swarm, Poggle, Naboo, Daala, Tantives, Vong swarms, Mouse dumps. A scissors piece that doesn't take up 25% of your squad would help against all of those. And I think I just named half the NPEs in the game.

So I voted for just removing Reserves. If Vset 9 doesn't have enough of those Scissors pieces to satisfy the majority, then I'd vote for a ban on Daala at that time. (Although I suspect this debate will then just move to Klats or Naboo.) I've had a lot of fun playing her and I really like the piece, but it's not worth running people out of the game for.

Flying Arrow is correct that my build just doesn't stack up to most Daala builds. I had a chance against ATM Salad, but neither one of us were sharp that game. Against Flying Arrow I think I could have played better and gotten a point, but I doubt I could beat his squad without his help. This is why I don't want to weigh in here; any further actions against her just make my builds more viable and that isn't fair. This meta will have bad matchups for everyone. Although reserves didn't really come into play in the championship, I can see where they could.

I will say this...whoever in this thread said that we need to address NPEs before FFG's new game saps those players away makes a good point. Whether we can actually do something about that is the real question.

+1

Thank you for that, the game definately would have been close for sure. Minus the positioning and the lucky net gun on durge and it is a whole different game. Congrats on making top 4! You earned it!

Seems like that would be a good role for Stormtrooper Zombies.

j/k

...

Or am I? =-o

Just got back from Gencon so still thinking about it.

With 6 different factions in the top 8 it still seems like a pretty good meta right now. At least as far as variety goes. And looking at the squads, it certainly isn't daala/anti-daala. While Yobuck is anti-daala I guess, Bill certainly didn't play it to beat Daala. Jim's squad certainly isn't anti-daala. Juicer's spec force isn't anti-daala. I'm not really sure how my handmaiden squad would do against daala, but it would have been fun to try it out. Weeks squad has been out there (I think he and trevor built it) for quite a while so again not anti-daala.

The only squad that could really be considered specifically anti-daala is the durge on speeder squad, but I couldn't tell you if he played it because of daala or just because he wanted to as he has been playing it since durge came out (same time as daala).

So 1 anti-daala, an old school wotc squad that is pretty good against daala, 4 random meta squads, and 2 daala sqauds. Seems pretty good to me. Especially considering what missed out on the top 8 because of tiebreaks.

Yeah, I remember that now. I heard about it, never got a chance to see it though.

Actually Jason My durge on speeder wasnt for Anti-Daala either. I just felt it would do well against most of the Meta. Honestly i was right. I finished every game with over 100 points so it ended up doing very well.

Daala is not good for the game. I get why she was made but there is too much damage out put for the IMP.
I have tried to make a Rebel build with Han but the lack of Mas and damage out put doesn't make it work.

My point is that the main reason why I don't think she is balanced is because of the damage she can gain and AP.

She won a big tournament and was close to winning a second. Its really not about here winning or not its that she is not good for the health of the further of the game.

With the new miniature game out I really think our numbers will be down next year more than ever. We really need to think about the health of the game and what it will look like in the next year or two.

So i still vote that she needs to be changed.