After some general discussion with some of the top players something very interesting was brought to my attention. With all the great squads at 150 or 200 out there how many are using to much tech? Id like this discussion to stick with 200 point squads seeing as thats what regionals and gencon will be set at. The name of the game in SWM is killing your opponents stuff more then they kill your stuff and scoring points when you do so. So the discussion of "Tech" i.e. (pieces that dont do damage but boost you ability to do damage or delay our opponent from doing damage) i feel is a very important one. Why would i pay 17 points for a r7 and 3 uggies when i can get a TBSV for 1 point more? The answer to that in this case is who is going to open your doors? your beatstick? Your big gun? have your tech do it.

Everything in this game has a job. Shooters shoot stuff, Melee guys hit stuff, tech helps them do those tings.

All this being said about tech some squads take it a bit too far. For instance spending all your points for bothan nobles and having BFBH as your one attacker. I know that squad is good but what happens if the worst happens BFBH dies? you lose, and all your tech is wasted. Im not trying to get a BFBH thread going thats just an example.

As ive learned from observing some of the best players their general rule of thumb is in a 200 point squad no more than 50 points of characters should be pure tech. Pure tech meaning something that you only get the boost from and nothing else. Vader LOTF isnt pure tech cause he is an attacker, but imperial governer tarken would be considerd pure tech.

So id like to open it up now and discuss everyones feelings on tech.

David

Yeah

I was offered once a position as the Judge at my LGS

I turned it down, but had thought about what changes I could put in place, as our LGS wasn't (the was being as it closed years ago) part of the DCI, and, given a fair vote, I could enact whatever bans and house rules I wanted

No Override
Obvious benefits

No override means you could use pieces that can fight in place of Uggies
if you still want fodder you could use Rodian Brutes then instead


No swap CE's

The only one who should have ever had one was Thrawn, but now too many beings have them, and, while my friends are polite enough not to field them and so I've never faced one, I think it'd be better to have to think about how to keep your units alive rather than switching them around so your opponent get to them.

In my opinion, every squad (with a few exceptions, like, say, an all uggie squad) can win a tournament

The "good" squads just make it easier to win, but I think any build has the potential

Just a few of my thoughts on the subject

This whole post is not about the topic. However, you strongly underestimate the power of doors. Removing a door, even when not facing Override is still extremely useful and powerful. And the anti swap rant is really pointless. We have 4 swap CE's, and they all play extremely differently. Panaka is cheaper than Thrawn, with access to Mas, also limited to only Med, Sidious has the very cool combo of Pawn then swap, even though it is more expensive, and K-3PO is in a faction that really doesn't need swap to compete. And then there is the strategy of keeping the swap fodder alive and able to get to the target.

To me, the biggest issue I have is people trying to stack too many CE's. If you are spending 75% of your squad on mainly commanders for 25% of your squad, then you have issues.

To me, tech is always a meta call. It is something you include to specifically counter a strategy. Uggies are the most common, but Jawas, Capt Antilles, Talz Chieftan, etc are what I see as tech.

What the original post seems to be referring more to support, imo.

I'd guess "tech" could be classified several ways and the amount of each you want/need is dependant on the rest of your squad and your metagame.

I'd say the first type of tech is that involving battlefield control. A lot of this stuff may be hit or miss depending on what you face where. Override and door control in general is worthless if there are no doors on the battlefield but can be critical somewhere like the train station where doors are everywhere. Activation control may also count here but how valuable are Ozzel or San Hill when your opponent is fielding a low activation squad and is basically expecting to be "out activated" and is prepared for that.

The other basic kind of tech will be unit boosters and I'd break those down into two general areas: specific boosters and squad boosters.

Your specific booster are those pieces which only benefit one other piece. The original version of this is the Imperial Officier who is only as good as the piece he's giving an extra attack to. It is these specific boosters which I think can be the most hazardous to play because if the primary goes down you may be in big trouble.

Squad boosters are those pieces which aid multiple pieces. The benefit of these may not be as great as the specific boosters but more pieces get to share the wealth. GOWK is an example of this type of "tech". This type of tech may be the most useful when it takes a large portion of your squad and makes it that much better but the downfall may be that when this tech is lost the rest of the squad is also diminished. Those Horde swads often use this type of tech and while 75% tech to support 25% of the squad is extreme spending 40-50% of the points to boost the effectiveness of the other 50-60% of the squad may not be such a horrible idea.

I tried playing a Mitt'thrawn/ Vader swap squad a while back and did very badly. Playing such a squad is not an automatic win as that poster suggested. It takes practice and skill, both of which I lack.

On that theme I say tech is only as good as the player. If you are good and feel confident using a tech heavy squad, then go for it. If, however, like me you are not so well practiced, then it is a good idea to spread those proverbial eggs into different baskets. I do like some specific tech though. I find the TBSV and the czerka work well paired up, provided the squad is activation heavy.

Yeah, sorry if my post was taken the wrong way.

I wasn't complaining so much about the prevelance of swap squads as I was the reasoning for them.

For me, the reason I think only Thrawn should have them is because of his ability to bluff every opponent he faced

He could trick the enemy into going wherever he wanted them and thus leaving his main target defenseless

That's why they gave him the swap squad at first...it wasn't so much him swapping things around as it was him making you think something was at point A when it was at point B

I don't see Panaka or any of the others having such talent

Anyhows, what would Gunray count as?

He makes your squad WORSE and you PAY 10pts for him to do that

Is that, like, tech handouts for your opponents? O_O

Episode 2, I dont remember Panaka in there, he must be in the back round.

It's mainly due to the fact he's rich, as Droids are not affected by his stupidity and he provides both reserves and renforcements, basically making a 10 point piece. In combination with another figure, you could get a IG-86 and 2 Mouse Droids in with every reserve roll. Which is pretty neat considering how each IG-86 will generally make it's own points back and mousedroids with grevious is a useful one hit sheild.

So pretty much a droid army only figure at high point levels, he's a rich guy who helps supply the living seps and every Living charcter hates him, XD but it's only been recent that we seen living charcters taken advantage of. Whormsome being the (and probably only) commander that can inflicence both droids and none droids effectively.


As for pure tech, I rarely run any, probably about 18 points (R2 Doom bot and 2 Uggies and one mouse droid) in republic and about 6 to 19 in mandos depending on whether I run scientist or not, though considering the nature of my real life squads. (Mandolorians and Republic Commandos) most figures are able to serve as a passable attacker or sheild.

That being said, due to funding and having Yu-Gi-Oh as a main hobby, my squads are hardly optimal, but it would probably be roughly the same, the only real tech i can think worth running either leaves my figures free to battle while the Uggies/mouse droids act as door openers, or figures that double my fighting ability like scientist.