I'm not going to speak for everyone and say you are alone, and I feel bad because you wrote so much, but there are so many people in the game who do more or less than what it says on their card.

She's a lot more accurate than a lot of what wizards ever did, she's a very good fun piece, and


She can make Rakghouls. That's really all that matters when determining if her mini is "close enough" to how it "should" be.

1. I don't know, while Muur's Spirit was attached to the Talisman, I don't remember them saying that HIS spirit was how it worked. Otherwise, why would he make it for himself, if he was the source of the Rakghouls.
2. What you are describing is a 100+ pt fig. Or, a GOWK-esque figure. Also Cloaked is definately from her Shadow days.
3. The CE is there for balance. Plain simple, Celeste could not be a follower, for so, so many reasons. If you want a good beatsick (ie Triple Attack), it's going to be a commander. (Thanks Whorm) And why limit her. Rakghouls needed the boost, why not make it for all Savages.
4. Yeah, that's balance. Turning more than one of the opponents characters a turn is a huge swing, especially with Rakghouls who constantly swarm. Seriously, ONE is enough to cause the kind of havoc you are describing. Trust me.
5. Interesting idea, but she already was powerful enough.

In the end, never say never, but Celeste is an extremely powerful piece as is. I don't see any designer feeling the need to go back to her. Maybe for an Epic, but nothing really screamed Epic piece to me in Vector. There are limits to how accurate we can make pieces. TFU alone has to be toned down 3-4 levels.

Well I agree that she was very powerful it as that same fear of causing harm that is reflects in her piece. She is defensive and cloaks herself in exile, rakghoul-ing it up when attacked. However I do agree that someone that bested as many as her deserves a boost so withou further adue:
Karness Muir, Force Spirit
Sith
19, 0, 0, 0
SA
Unique
Dark spirit
Avoid Defeat
Muir Talisman (at the beginning of the skirmish choose one unique ally with a force rating, that ally gains sith alchemy 2. If this character is defeated, that atoses this force power)
Force Powers
Force 2
Sith Alchemy 2
CE
Allied Character named Celeste Morne within 6 squares gains force renewal 2 and may use abilities and force powers that replaces attacks twice instead of once.

I think she is allready amazing. z. I have not read ALL the comics shes in (just the legacy ones) but I think it reflects her very well. As a person who only has 3 people in my play group (my brother and friend) we usually dont use repeat squads, because it gets old. We all have our favorites, one likes Kazdan alot, I favor bane, and my bro is a potty palps fan, but we dont use them every game. Despite this I have used celest in at least 3 games (and we dont play to many per month) because I like her so much. I think she is an awesome character. As for alek, I guess your comment would go back to that old saying, You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time, but you cant please all of the people all of the time. I think 'thoes guys' are doing an amazing job. Personally I dont see alot of the 'character screw ups' as much as some of these other playes later on in WOTC life (mainly because I dont do tournys and I didnt play when all thoes came out) but these guys are doing alot better theny they did from my perspective. I mean look, Celest has cloaked, ok maybe she didnt turn invisible, but she could avoid range attacks, which is what the ability comes down to. Im pretty sure wizards missed a few good times to use that ability on a character, can any one say Marris brood?

This sums it all up.

Celeste was made with some obvious abstractions to help the game. Yeah, she could have had a CE that only helped Rakghouls instead of all Savage characters; but then all non-Rakghoul characters would have gotten nothing and still been awful pieces. With a CE that helps all Savage characters a lot more older crappy pieces get a boost.

The ideas that you posted, Neifi, would make her a much more complicated character (which is bad design) and a MUCH more powerful character (which is bad design). Celeste might not be 100% correct compared to the source material, but she is quite close using abstractions that help make the game better. Sure, Sith Alchemy could have instead said that all enemies within 12 squares without a Force Rating with 20 HP or less are defeated and you get a Rakghoul, but that would be insanely powerful and also seriously hurt a squad type that already isn't that good and doesn't really need to get pushed out of play any more (that being low-HP swarms). So instead of an ability that would be vary between being completely useless (when playing against high-HP characters or force users) and being overwhelmingly powerful (when playing against a low-HP swarm of non-force users), the designers decided to make an ability that would be useful in a variety of situations without being too strong or too weak and still present an abstraction of her ability.

Very few things that come out reflect the source material 100%. That's done for the purpose of gameplay. This is a game first and foremost, and if a perfect representation of a character would break the game, either that character doesn't get made or its abilities are abstracted somewhat. Eeth Koth in Vengeance never actually encountered the Embrace of Pain, but we wanted to represent his Crucitorn technique, so instead of making a brand new ability that only he would ever use and add to the complexity of the game that would do basically the same thing as Embrace of Pain, we gave him Embrace of Pain. That's how design of a miniatures game based on existing source material MUST work.

I'm sorry that you feel that Celeste isn't what she should be. I wouldn't expect to get a new one anytime soon, though, because most people that I've heard from really love how she is, and she's not a big enough character in the lore to get another one so soon.

ya know, she's the BEST Celeste Morne we have, and I L VE Her!

especially my sexy custom of her.

I don't quite get what you mean by the limitations of options for Zannah vs Celeste. I would have thought that Celeste has more options than Zannah. Ambush is equivalent to lightsaber assault, as long as you're attacking an unactivated enemy, while Bubble is a reactive option if you get Djem So'd, Riposted, or take an AOO, but it's not really a strategy. Considering Celeste will probably take a couple of rounds to get into the action, and doesn't have any defensive force powers, apart from the initial Force Cloak, she should be able to use offensive force powers most of the time when she needs them.

I think it should look like this.

Darth Zannah's Options on her turn:
Double Attack
Single Attack, then Move
Move, then Single Attack
Move, then Lightsaber Assault
Lightsaber Assault, then Move
Force Corruption (replaces turn)

Celeste Morne's Options on her turn:
Triple Attack
Single Attack, then Move
Move, then Ambush Triple Attack
Move, then Single Attack
Sith Alchemy, then Move
Move, then Sith Alchemy
Force Storm, then Move
Move, then Force Storm

It's somewhat subjective, but I think Celeste Morne is a lot more flexible, and has a lot more offensive options than Zannah has.

Thanks, appreciate the comments. Also thanks for taking enough interests to give us your honest feedback. One aspect of fan created V-sets, is that you can know that we actually read all of these comments. As the person who designed Celeste, I can validate it :).


Yep, always going to be the case. Even as a designer, I haven't been 100% satisfied with everything we've created. But it's always a delicate balance between balance/competitiveness/flavor. Some pieces lend themselves very well to one of those three aspects but not the others, and some almost perfectly split them up.



Let me give you the break down of the "problem" of designing Celeste and how I attempted to solve them. But first, try this. I'd like you to try something. Please stat out (do not put a cost down) your "correct" version of Celeste in full. We will then give you an appropriate cost range for it, as well as tell you if it would work in the game or not.

Now to the issues you will face.
1. Era/faction - since she was a crossover character created to connect 3 comics from completely disparate parts of star wars, faction for her is difficult. She quite obviously has to be fringe, but powerful fringe force users are particularly difficult (actually nearly impossible) to cost and balance.

2. She has 3 completely different aspects of her character, first as a shadow, then as a Rakghoul creating hermit, and finally as a ridiculously powerful fighter of jedi. At this point in time, we were/are not convinced that she is important enough in canon to necessitate more than 1 version. Nor does her story lend to that. It's really one fairly short story, where she does just outrageous and ridiculous things. So you must put them together in one stat set in some way.

3. She defeated every jedi she ever fought, but with that said, no lightsaber style is ever identified for her.

4. Muir, or not muir. You either create a special ability/force power called "Muir Tailsman" that will only ever be used on one mini, or you make a more general version of the flavor that can be used.

5. Overall game balance and making old pieces playable.

Now let me explain how I answered each of these.

1. Fringe. No choice. Also means she has to be powered down somewhat. There are simply too many combinations in different factions that fringe force users always face this issue. She also has to be a commander. Didn't matter at this point what the CE was, she cannot be available to Whorm. You might think, well take away triple for double then it's not too bad. But that's the problem. She then only becomes good as a Sep (one of the factions she has 0 ties to) and crap in the others, where she actually acted... So commander - check.

2. This was the hardest part to design. I went with 3 things. To represent the training as a shadow, I gave her cloaked. And you apparently missed it, but she does in fact use this later. She comes out of the shadows often in lightsaber fights. Second, raks. Sith Alchemy is how the raks are created. It does not matter that it's the influence of Muir doing it, her doing it, or some combination of both. In reality, the comics never clarify this. Read the quote from her on the card flavor text. The Muir and her are joined. Third, I chose to address her ability to fight jedi with LS Dualist, jedi hunter, and ambush. Which all abstract nicely how well she was able to surprise jedi, how powerful she became with the MT against force users, and generic enough not to offend fans for point 3.

3. Dualist, Jedi Hunter, Ambush. Without an identifiable LS style, I did not have the option to give her a powerful ability. I cannot make one up (or I will not) nor can you guess at what her's might be. The facts are this. She defeated every jedi she fought, beat some of the best fighters in galactic history, and was virtually unstoppable. You cannot make an unstoppable mini, same as you can't make a Darth Nihilus that could eat a planet. Those don't make fun games. "Aww crap, you brought 200pt Celeste? I lose. Next round." Stories have the advantage of plot to limit power (like Celeste's inner desire not to do all of Muir's bidding). Game rules cannot easily represent power limitation via conscience. So you have to choose to accept some level of abstraction. Dualist, hunter, and ambush/triple make her extremely nasty against force users, but maintains balance to her for the game.

4. Her without/before Muir is entirely boring. So she must have it in some way. I default to attempting to use abstractions that represent what a character should "feel" like that can be applied elsewhere when possible, rather than making every single new unique with 2-3 new powers/abilities that will never be used again. Rule sets must remain somewhat limited. As is, we add 25 or so new things with every set. Considering hers is exactly Sith Alchemy, I chose to represent it in a way that can be used again. And it is used again, look at set 3, and it's coming again in set 4 I believe. That is good design when it works. And further, we have as a group said we are committed to keeping new abilities in check. We will stick to that when possible and when it doesn't sacrifice flavor too much.

5. She commanded Raks, armies of them. That makes a commander effect for those a necessity (and its the only thing she ever commanded). Add in that she must be a commander and not simply have synergy or something else (via point 1), and it's a natural design start. Now, you have a legit point, didn't have to be all savages. But this is where designing a character hits game balance. Another commitment we've made to the community is to bring out old pieces from the game as often as we can. But we stay within flavor to do so. There are literally about 5 people in Star Wars who would qualify as a true savage commander, celeste was clearly one of them. To restrict it to just raks, would have been a major, major mistake. Not the other way around. "Savage" itself is an abstraction of characters who weren't really "commanded". We did not create that. No matter what you think, some characters with Savage are not the same at all as others, before we ever touched it. A Young Krayt Dragon certainly represents "savage". But a rakghoul? How about Quilan Vos? Is he the same as a Reek? Explain to me this. Why do savage creatures run after the enemy? Why would they not eat the guys closest to them to start the game? Point is, "Savage" is simply a game abstraction of something like "difficult to command" characters. It is not a representation of a race or grouping. It's not at all comparable in real life to something like "Trooper", yet the two function exactly the same in the game - as a primary identity.

So you could argue that Celeste could easily have commanded/controlled other savages had she run across them. Or that rakghouls are not really savage (as you argued). Both are abstractions. Your interpretation is no more correct than the one I gave. The fact is, it was an opportunity (of which there are very very few in canon) to help savage characters in some way. So I went with it.

In the end, I am very very happy with Celeste. She is well balanced, works well in multiple factions (something that was a must for her flavor even though I didn't specifically mention it yet), and she works best as a Sith/OR/Imperial/NR - which are not-coincidentally the factions she worked in. She's powerful, and "feels" very much like the Celeste I read in the comics. Finally, "complicated" minis are something we try to stay away from when we can. This game is fairly simple, so when possible we try to stay as simple as we think we can. You may or may not agree, but it's another design commitment we have made. I love Celeste and she came out really well considering all of the issues of creating a representation of her.

I look forward to seeing your corrected version and critiquing. Thanks for the feedback, and I hope you enjoyed reading my book about what goes into designing every mini we create. :)

In order to make the piece you are talking about, you have no idea what it would take to BALANCE. And I can tell you right now, there is absolutely no way you can balance changing a bunch of your opponent's figures into your own Rakghouls at once. EVER. Even if it is just Ugnaught scrubs.
As for just standing there in a middle of a barrage, well, again, I point out that GOWK had to be banned and SSM changed. I'm still not overly happy with SSM being back to the way it was. This is one point that is not ever going to match with what has been seen on screen to the extent people want.
I agree that there are other ways to interpret Celeste. That does not make this one incorrect, it just isn't what you see or wanted. Right now, we have a beatstick with some interesting force powers, that can boost figures that rarely ever see play outside of use with one other figure.

Some where in here I recall some one mentioning the controversy of her being able to turn jedi, this is proven when in the legacy comic she almost turns Cade Skywalker (not 100% sure) but I think the only thing that stopped him and blue from becoming racks were his uncanny healing powers.