Choosing the faction
In general I am more of a defensive player. I have always felt that giving your opponents few (if any) options to attack is better than relying on high defense/hp/damage reduction (and/or negation) and saves. I like to respond after my opponent has moved, therefore I like to out-activate. I love to go last AND first in a round (who doesn't?) and I try to make that a priority in my squad building. I feel virtually every squad needs a good movement breaker and after that a damage boost (if not high damage in the first place). As for your actual attackers, they need to be able to hit, and the damage needs to be able to stick. I always love abilities that cut through damage reduction/negation abilities, and with all the non-melee hate - bringing a melee attacker is a solid plan these days. Door control, or at the very least good anti-door control is a must. I also feel that as the game goes on, and squad types vary more and more - squad customization becomes more and more essential (reinforcements, Pellaeon's exchange, etc). That last little tweak based specifically on your opponent's squad can easily mean the difference between winning and losing. Finally gambit cannot be ignored. You either need a squad that can take and hold gambit (tank), can get in gambit when needed (out-activate and movement breaker), or can punish the other squad for taking gambit (quick powerful strike w/ a movement breaker).
Based on my meta analysis, I felt my options were narrowed significantly. I really only was considering squads that had some kind of force immunity available, since I was so sure Force Powers would factor in to many top squads (Bastila Shan JM, Darth Sidious SM, Anakin Solo, Mara Jade, etc). That means virtually the whole Yuuzhan Vong faction, Ysalamiri (Talon Karrde IB in Fringe or Pellaeon in Imperial), or the weaker anti-Force Ability specific (i.e. Advanced Battle Meditation) Force Control (Kol Skywalker FS in New Republic). I eliminated Fringe from contention early. Even though the damage boost is awesome (+4/+10 period), the movement breaker is relatively weak, and there is no activation control. Not to mention the fact that the 10pt Imperial piece Stormtrooper TK-421 completely neuters Talon Karrde's +4/+10, and can be swapped in easily by Pellaeon. Although New Republic has the best activation control in the game (Dodonna), Never Tell Me the Odds (anti-init control) and a pretty darn good movement breaker (Levitation from Ganner Rhysode), they don't have full Force Immunity, and I don't think anything currently tops the 2017 runner up squad mentioned earlier. When considering Yuuzhan Vong, I actually wasn't considering the 8th Cortex Shaper. While powerful, I also know its Achilles heel, and no doubt others would too. I was thinking back to something along the lines of http://www.bloomilk.com/Squad/116962/jake-ks-2011-squad . Since then the deceptively strong Supreme Overlord Quorreal came out, allowing for Vong customization (via Reinforcements), the Peace Brigade Soldier (cheap but powerful shooter) and the YV Seer (expands YV abilities - i.e. Spit poison - to 8 squares.) It is a CE dependent squad, but it doesn't have to worry about Advanced Battle Meditation (due to Force Immunity), and you can stay out of range of disruptive (with spit poison range 8). Many top tier pieces with Distraction (especially in Rebels) would hurt the self destruct, but spit poison would usually be ok. With Jedi becoming more prevalent, it might just be the time to pull this out and surprise everyone. My squad that was a finalist for me to take to the championship was http://www.bloomilk.com/Squad/124126/carr-bombs-2018--2018-team-tournament-champion- . As for Imperials - Thrawn swap of some variety was the only consideration. I hate Daala (even while acknowledging how absurdly broken she STILL is) to the point that I won't play her, even if I think she would win. Sidious SM/Vader of Lothal is the antithesis of my play style. I have played Imperial Thrawn Swap squads for over a decade with great success, including many regional wins over the years, as well as multiple Gen Con top 8s. So between Imperial and Yuuzhan Vong there were pluses and minuses. Everyone expects to see Thrawn swap - especially from me. A Vong squad only slightly tweaked from a 2011 squad would surprise everyone. Facing Advanced Battle Meditation, Vong laugh and Imperials crowd together in the Ysalamiri "bubble" to weather it out. I am more experienced and successful with Imperials. Vong have many more activations (which is a double edged sword), and require tons of save rolls by the opponent. If the opponent plays cagey, it's hard to get a 3pt win. The deciding factor was that the current map list not having an extreme amount of low objects in the best places to provide cover for the super-stealthed Vong. It was really a close decision, but to the surprise of nobody - Imperial Thrawn Swap is what my Gen Con 2018 championship squad was going to be.

Building the squad
About half the squad builds itself - Thrawn (Mitth'raw'nuruodo) 32, Mas Amedda 8, Admiral Ozzel 11, Admiral Gilad Pellaeon 16, Lobot 27, and a mouse droid 3 (97pts) makes up the engine. Then you customize attackers and swap fodder according to the meta. Cad Bane/Arica, Boba AfH/Mira of Nar Shaddaa, and Lord Vader/Jarael had been featured in many winning builds. In 2016 and 2017 I ran Thrawn Swap squads with Mira of Nar Shaddaa, Morrigan Corde, and Mara Jade Hand of Judgement (or a way to swap her in). The ladies are powerful, and excellent in this meta. Morrigan Corde was an absolute must in my book. She's too good not to be included. Charging Fire, Twin Attack, Bounty Hunter +2, Agile and Evade are all pretty great, but the coup de grâce is Suppressive Fire. The ability is so ridiculously overpowered I have petitioned to have the Balance Committee nerf it over the years. Not only does it cut through ANY damage negation/reduction on a character - it also shuts off their CEs for the round. That leaves me with 72 points for at least 1 other attacker and fodder for activations and swapping. Mara Jade, Hand of Judgement is a powerhouse piece for 30pts. Even without a boost, she can do 80 damage just from twin lightsaber assault. With opportunist from Thrawn she hits a consistent 120. Being melee, she cuts through a lot of pieces bulked up with anti-non-melee abilities (such as Vader of Lothal). Agile is a nice bonus, and the fact that she is an Imperial Commander, means I could swap her out in key matchups (for a strafer vs a swarm perhaps?) She was in for sure as well. That left 42 points. Next was Mira of Nar Shaddaa. She's a powerful twin shooter with lots of mobility (mobile attack and agile), has direct damage (grenades 20 with overload), enemy auto-fail of saves when on or next to low objects (rigged detonators), satchel charge and Force Sense. She's a loaded figure for only 28pts! However, the current map list (as mentioned above) didn't have an excess of low cover in key places, so that made her rigged detonators less valuable. Much less thinking about Sabine Wren and her potent Rigging Defuser ability making her and all allies within 6 immune. While Force Sense can be handy, Lobot has pieces that can deal with stealth (especially effective with swap), and I wasn't worried about satchel charge. Also with lower activations and beefier figures being more popular, the splash damage from her grenades was less useful. I could have gone with an exact copy of last years squad, but I always like to make some alteration, and this year was no different. Mira was going to be the one dropped.

Tweaking the squad
So what to do with the last 42pts? Spend most on another attacker and that's a low activation count and few swappers. I felt that the squad needed another punch, since all swap fodder and extra tech (R7, uggies, etc) would leave the squad lacking in offensive power. Kyle Ren was a strong consideration. His 26pt price tag is enticingly low, and what he brings could be huge. 90hp, dark armor 2, and telekinesis make for good survivability. The fact that he's melee gets around a lot, and crossguard lightsaber delivering 10 auto-damage when someone makes a save vs his attacks is pretty sweet. However, Force choke is what intrigued me the most. It moves your enemy, and that is no small deal. In addition to the 20 damage, you can pull an enemy out from cover to have Morrigan shoot, or pull an enemy to within range of Mara Jade's lightsaber assault. Ultimately it just wasn't exactly what I was looking for. With only 4 Force points, he would only get to use that twice at most, and more likely only once. What I wanted was a second Morrigan Corde! I really was brainstorming how to get more out of Morrigan Corde. Extra attacks? GONKS really are not very practical, but I did briefly consider it. Darth Vader, Legacy of the Dark Side gives all allies extra attack! Now we're talking! I'd have to drop Mara to have exactly the right amount of points, but then I'd be using my commanders as swap pieces, and I'd have a much lower activation count. I could in theory bring a Twi'lek Black Sun Vigo in with Lobot to then give Morrigan greater mobile double twin, but if I could be fine bringing in just 1 activation with Lobot, it was probably a game I could already win. Vader brings his own game too of course. The full damage reflect will make almost any shooter think twice. Djem So Style makes melee attackers think twice. 23 defense, 140 hit points and dark armor means his got pretty great survivability. His damage output is lower than Mara Jade's, but his attack is 6 higher so he'll miss much less often. The thought of only 8 activations with Ozzel just seemed ludicrous. It would likely clownstomp other low act squads, but I needed more versatility against different squad types. Then there was the seldom used 38pt Dray. He can dish out 80 damage with Bravado and Opportunist, and having 90 hp and lightsaber defense makes him not utterly fragile. Force Lightning can be quite handy, although his Force points are precious. Dark Master could come in quite handy when given to Morrigan Corde. A key missed attack could mean an enemy lives, or a key missed evade could mean Morrigan dies. Compounding the issue is See-Threepio cloaking his whole squad if you miss but a single shot. Using Dray's Force to reroll could be clutch. The greatest interest in Dray however was Force Vision. It replaces attacks to allow a lower costed ally to have an immediate attack. With 2 powerful twin attackers, having them attack again could be an easy extra 60 damage where needed. The downside was that it left me with only 4 points left, meaning only 1 expendable swap fodder piece and only 10 activations total (pre-reinforcements). Even though the activation count felt slim, I felt good about the squad and built it, pulling cards and finding figures, ready to take it to Gen Con.

Last minute change
I finally got a chance to take it for a spin in a test game vs Paul Moore from NZ. It was quite a mismatch vs his Yuuzhan Vong Warmaster squad, and I won easily. Nonetheless it made me feel good about my squad. Then I got a match in person vs Richard Allen (also from NZ), who, along with his son Zak, was staying with me before we headed to Gen Con together. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to figure all this out! The matchup versus his Rebels was VERY enlightening. We discovered crazy abuse of an opening move across-the-map attack on outlaw city (thank goodness that map is gone!) With Artoo-Deetoo alone you can open 3 doors in one move (yes 3), then double-twin attack with Kyle Katarn RH with splash 20 to wreck half my squad. I limped back to a slim 2pt victory, but it taught me a lot. Finally, I got a partial game in vs David Moore (also of NZ - gotta play these guys so the Americans don't know what I'm bringing, lol). He brought his Durge/Spotter/Sniper/Poggle Bombs squad. We literally only got 1 round in, but I learned: A. Much more of a struggle vs higher activations, and: B. Suppressive Fire doesn't work on the "cannon shot" from Dray's Force Vision!!! I had played it wrong with Paul Moore, and Graham (also from NZ) mentioned that Supressive Fire doesn't work outside her turn, and then it was relayed to back to me. The whole point of having Dray was moot! Back to the drawing board. The only other realistic option to get more out of Morrigan Corde was dominate. The Imperial Governor has it, as well as Instill Fear (Enemy and allied followers within 6 squares get -2 to save rolls) and a commander effect to allow followers a reroll of a successful save (considering you want to FAIL the save and be dominated, this is a good thing). When this character was first released, it didn't have the caveat of the CE and Instill Fear being only for followers, and thereby was being abused to have Thrawn activate twice, thus creating a "double swap". It was far too strong and created many negative play experiences for opponents. The Balance Committee issued an Errata that changed both Instill Fear and the CE to followers only. This meant I only had a 50/50 chance to dominate Thrawn, and likewise for Mara Jade (she is a commander, although her CE was moot in my squad.) Of course I could use a Force point to reroll with Mara Jade if I were to roll a successful save while the Governor attempted to dominate her (again - you want to fail here), but she starts with zero force points and only has renewal 1. Every single Force point is precious. With Morrigan however - that makes it a 75% of her being dominated, closer to 80% while within 6 of the Governor. I liked the idea of that. However, the Governor has a mere 10hp. He does have Aggressive Negotiations, which makes him a pseudo diplomat to protect against any targeting by enemies without Ambush, Backlash or It's a Trap! However, I had to always have another ally within line of sight of any enemies anytime that he is in line of sight. Since Dominate replaces turn, he has to stand still to do it, which either means swapping him around with Thrawn (thus not your attackers), or leaving him where he can see what he needs to. It's tricky to make it work, but it falls more in line of the original design intent for the piece - give attackers another turn, not other commanders. I also had to beware direct damage abilities that don't target, such as Momaw Nadon's War Throat. The thing that gave me the most pause however was that it was an ability that activated purely on luck of the roll. I always feel like I have bad luck, especially in the championship (and I have a laundry list of examples). Now this ability makes me want to FAIL a save, but I still feared, knowing my luck, that I would get the opposite of what I needed. HOWEVER - the positives outweighed the negatives, and with mere days left before the tournament, and I didn't have any better options. At only 23pts, it did afford me 19 more points of swap fodder - enough to include the ultimate gambit getter Droopy McCool and 3 Rodian Brutes. That brought me up to the lucky number of 13 as far as activations, which in my estimation was the perfect balance for this meta to be able to outactivate most anything but still have good power output.

I had my squad. But what to name it? It was a tweak on my Femmes Fatales and Femme Fatales Évolué squads of the last 2 years. Domination was the new feature ability in the squad, so that needed to be highlighted somehow. After not being happy with M&Ms (Morrigan and Mara), or Supressive Domination, I starting scanning other key abilities and playing with combos. I was delighted when highlighting Opportunist (Thrawn's damage boost and a signature ability in the squad) and Charging Fire (A key ability of Morrigan Corde's) along with Dominate, it created the abbreviation O.C.D. (Something with which I was personally familiar, but also a great description of how the squad plays). Thus my squad was complete!


Les Femmes Fatales Redux:
O.C.D. (Opportunistic Charging Domination)
{2018 World Champion squad}--

32 Thrawn (Mitth'raw'nuruodo)
31 Morrigan Corde
30 Mara Jade, Hand of Judgment
27 Lobot
23 Imperial Governor
16 Admiral Gilad Pellaeon
11 Admiral Ozzel
10 Droopy McCool
8 Mas Amedda
3 Mouse Droid
9 Rodian Brute x3

(200pts. 13 activations)

http://www.bloomilk.com/Squad/190925/les-femmes-fatales-redux---o-c-d---opportunistic-charging-domination---2018-world-champion-squad-

Reserved for tactics, goals and possible matchups

Reserved for final analysis

Finished and posted "Choosing the faction", "Building the squad", "Tweaking the squad", and "Last minute change" sections. (See above, post #2)