So I was fortunate enough to be involved in Vset 5 design. At the beginning of the design process it seemed that other experienced designers where going to be involved leaving me spectating but as real life intervened I ended up being brought in as a designer on the set.

As a result i came in at a reasonably advanced stage. The set list was around 90% done and a lot of preliminary stats were penciled by Sithborg, Boris, Echo and particularly in the micro set that was initially Tint and Brads (the_celestial_warrior) project before they became full designers on the entire set around about the time I joined. Coming in at this stage made it for a different experience from the other sets i've been heavily involved in as there were fewer areas to "mold" to my ideas about the game and a lot of my experience dealt with tweaking and fine tuning designs to what I felt was more consistent with WotCs design strategy to give the game continuity. In the end the main designers were me, scott, Brad and TinT

Another aspect of the design of Vset 5 that altered the process was the introduction of a playtest commitee which would oversee the playtesting and they have a top-secret facebook page to scheme against the designers. Just Kidding, this actually made the testing of figures a more fluid process with figures being tested by the committee and a separate forum was made to discuss the tests and alter the designs if needed. The committee consisted of many previous desingers (Urban Jedi, Echo, Weeks, Les) and some very proactive playtesters (Ultrastar, Timmerb123, Wacoblaze and greentime).

The result of all this was that the thread of ideas for Vset 5 came from a wide variety of sources, more than any other set i've been involved with. Mainly the designers penciled the stats but there were a lot of ideas implemented from the playtest committee and elsewhere that ended up in the set. Examples include Ultrastar having big input into several figs, Cad Bane especially; Timmerb also had strong involvement in lots of figs including watto, vong and Mando pieces, Jake K (neither PT committee or designer) basically brainstormed Sith Battle manipulation and renso'lare.

Even with the myriad of sources that contributed, i feel this set has a lot of cohesion and the process was surprisingly smooth.

The Old Republic video game is heavily represented in both the microset and main set and its an exemplary job IMO done by Brad and TinT of converting pieces from one game source to another. The microset has a lot of the uniques from the video game and the main set has several highcosted non-uniques that are supposed to represent the player classes you can choose in the Video game. It was debated for a time whether these would be unique "non-uniques" and ended up having single names (Smuggler/juggernaguht) to identify that fact. They pair well with their in game counterparts but were kept non-unique because their cost usually makes it hard to fit more than one in a 200 point skirmish but there are certain builds you can use with more than one both. Several of these builds are t1.5 or higher, some have great mass battle contributions and others are just great theme.

Scott seemed to make it his mission to bring back pieces from the dead in this set and his goal was undoubtedly achieved. Who would have thought, ever, that Kyle Katarn (the crap kyle) is now a valid choice as a playable piece? Much kudos. Severence Taan is a great gift to huge figs and I personally love his answer to the age old "Nien Numb should be a pilot!". If a fig helps an older one see play you can probably bank that Scott was instrumental in its design.

Improvements to the competitive game focused a lot on Vong and Mando's. Both factions got some great tools that hopefully will push them into top 8 status but there is something there for each faction. There was a particular emphasis on improving the odds of getting attacks through some of the ridiculous defenses out there now. Save rolls are at a peak at the moment and it slows games. Lowering the likelyhood of rolling them (or failing them) should allow tournaments to be more smooth.

Mando's get another movement breaker that will give them more of a "pod" like feel where you can split off from the main force with a flanking maneuver without losing your valuble CE's. They also get some great tech, and the flametrooper just looks like awesome crowd/bodyguard counters.
Vong get boosts to several build types; vong warriors get a push so perhaps we can start to see more of the unstoppable warrior swarms that they should be known for as well as methods to bring in a more powerful shooters to prevent being outgunned so often. Even the NR vong get a boost this set which will be interesting to see where they go from there.

Next up, the Sith got some great tools that should begin to see them being less reliant on Revan SL. Cadeus is a brutal piece with his SBM, Aing Tii and Makashi. He is basically the republics worst nightmare. But Wyyrlock with his booming voice brings Sid Holo back big time for cheap zap swarms and a boost to Bandons powerful CE. The Jugernaught also opens up fearsome Sith Tank squads that seem right in line with their ethos.

OR was dominated by the TOR figures but the jedi exile makes another appearance with a big defensive boost for the NU jedi in the faction, killing them just got even harder and the covenant get their leader, a force pool and some heavy duty init control.

The republic get some heavy wookiee love (its really not wise to anger the elites), and a couple of cool tools. Cheap fast swapper and an arrogant jedi who is designed to blow open the republic build strategy as it behooves you to put as many obscure cheap jedi on the squad as possible.

Seps get serious bounty hunter love. The sep "living" game has generally struggled to show up so Cad brings it large. Add in a couple of bounty hunters and a new "young" Aurra and there are some scary builds.

Rebels got some pilot help, some unblockable potential, reinforcements, cheap shooters and more awesome Spec Force tech courtesy of Echo. Lots of tools. They share Jan ors and Mon mothma with the NR keeping up the theme started by WotC.
NR got Luke (nuff said IMO), and boosts for Kyle courtesy of the rebels keeping the NR rebel sharing flavor. For fun and theme the witches give good boosts to Rancors if your feeling beastly.

Empire focused on Legacy with the imperial knights getting good defensive boosting and a new emperor, as well as perhaps the beginning of a "Reborn" subfaction.

Lastly the Fringe got some figures that i think have been a long time coming. Watto (who should've been Gha Nacht IMO) took a more "slave" approach allowing any faction to turn their best follower savage (and thus access to overwhelming force) as well as bringing his chance cubes into play.
Marn is a personal favorite using bribery and con artist to boost himself, jarel and Zayne as well as the little people he bribes. I think he captures the swindling snivvian accurately.
Uria Fenn is an interesting fringe piece with some minor crowd control that adds to the Zaan subfaction and there are a couple of Lobot tools in the fringe for some issues that needed at least a counter.

I had a lot of fun in the design of the set and would like to thank all involved for making the process what it was, Yes it was difficult and took a lot of time but the result is very pleasing to me, i hope it is to you. It was great designing with Brad, Scott and Trevor and i appreciate all the helpful advice and commentary from the play testers.

Obviously, there is a need to thank Les profusely for completing the cards at the last minute. We all owe you a beer buddy.

Even though the pool of contributors was relatively small compared to the community that still plays the game, it really did start to feel like a community project which I feel is where the future of the game lies.

I really should thank Swinefeld as well for his proofing at the last minute.

He caught so many errors he really deserves his praise.

Thank you Swinefeld! You deserve big props for a tough job!

Rancors are ALWAYS salivating! Rancors are just like Great Danes that way; the only exception is that rancors can walk on two legs, they have opposable thumbs, and they're very photogenic!!

This set went through an interesting evolution for sure. Long before the design process for it really began in earnest, there was an idea thread where any of the designers could throw up their concepts. I put a LOT of stuff into that thread, and much of it got at least onto the set list if not the first draft of the stats. This included Mirith Sinn, all 3 of the new SpecForce characters (my favorite subfaction!), Urai Fen, Zann Consortium Grenadier, the Antarian Ranger Captain, and Jan Ors. Some just got tweaked by the design team, some got overhauled, but either way it was still cool to help with the set list. I was brought into Vengeance at a similar time that Deri was brought into this set, well after the set list was determined, so even though I was a designer on that set I didn't have any significant input into the set. Billiv15 and Boris also both had a lot of input on the set list and first drafts of some of the figures. It really was a more collaborative effort than most of the v-sets so far.

I was also very happy with how the Playtesting Committee worked out. Set 4 had... underwhelming playtest support, and we had a discussion about how to address it. The Playtesting Committee was an idea I put together after discussing it with greentime and ultrastar on the way to the Kokomo regional last year, and it got full support from the other designers. It was an experiment that worked out incredibly well and that I'm very proud of. The PT Committee is continuing on with set 6 (and a few changes to the team).


A lot of things were done differently with this set, and for the most part they all worked out. It's great that we are still finding ways to make this process better 5 vsets in, and that we still have great people working on them. The four designers have produced a really great set here. Good job, guys.