If 2 factions could have one piece added to each, what factions do you think need it most and what figure would benifit it most? And please, do NOT say a "Rieekan", a "GMLS", etc. because honestly, that would dull the game lol.

Here's my take:

Sith: Tempo Control/Cheap movement breaker (Sidious SM is too expensive and too easy to kill IMHO)
Mandalorians: Tempo Control

These two factions would be a whole lot greater with just one movement breaker apiece. Their respective beats/commanders in each faction are pretty high costing (Sith lords; Mandalores) so tempo control would really help them a lot. Movement for Sith would be helpful as well since the majority of their characters have melee (excluding the usual trooper figures of course).

So...what do you guys think?

Also, Mandalorians can have a movement breaker in Jaina SotJ. ;-)

Activating people with SS works great. Many players don't take advantage of those guys. I Think Evade might be a little to much for the Sith, but I do wish they. Had some ability to help them stand up against non melee figures. Watching Bane get shot to pieces by Rex, Cad Bane, Atris' handmaidens as he runs up to do some heavy damage is pretty frustrating

This thread is similar to a series of threads I posted on the old Wizards forums called things like "5 to Save the Sith" (the idea was to create five custom pieces that would bring each minor faction up to the level of the major factions). I haven't thought about it for a while--and the threads were before the virtual sets and I think even before the last set or two from WotC--so things have changed quite a bit.

Still, if I recall correctly, we felt that the biggest thing the Mandos were lacking was tempo control, and rather than copy what the other faction has, we created some options to shut down tempo control for others (in The New Lost Twenty, which used some of these ideas and was finalized before the first virtual set, we had Cassus Fett, who was an anti-tactician, presaging the Mando CIO).

The biggest problems for the other factions (Old Rep, Sith, and Vong) all revolve around the following:

1) Inability to survive to ajacency/Poor defenses
2) Limited choice of pieces
3) Tempo control
4) Relatively low damage to cost ratio

Most of that has been addressed these days by the V-Sets, but if a few possible ideas/solutions:

A) Although Sithborg is right that the Sith have a form of Tempo control, it is costly (and that's the problem with some of the solutions for the smaller factions: they don't have access to cheap, flexible options like the other factions). One simple solution would be an Old Republic Merchant with something like "Bondar Crystal Supplies (Replaces turn, one adjacent ally with a lightsaber gains Jolt against adjacent enemies until the end of the skirmish)." Give him Sith Affinity, and two factions now have another option besides Sith Sorcery and Force Stun 3.

B) In terms of limited choice of pieces, we came up with ways for each faction to round out it's selection. For the Old Republic, two different pieces were considered: an Old Republic Senator (who allowed for non-Unique, non-Order 66 Republic pieces to be in an Old Rep squad and counted as Old Rep pieces) and Hylo Visz (who let Fringe and Old Rep pieces be counted as either Fringe or Old Rep for CEs). The Sith also had two options discussed: Darth Maladi (who could recruit Stormtroopers into the Sith faction) and a piece that could bring in non-Unique Force users of any dark side faction. One option for the Mandos was a Mandalorian Rally Master, who had both Relay Orders and an ability that allowed all allies within 6 squares to count as Mandos. The Vong options were geared toward a specific type of squad, a "monster" squad, if you will, that (if I recall correctly) allowed any Savage or Dejarik piece to be counted as a Vong (and also gave YVA armor and maybe another benefit), so suddenly all those big ugly pieces have access to some very good commander effects.

The idea with ALL of these pieces would be that they would be relatively cheap, and they would offer multiple things (generally, a comprehensive commander effect combined with the ability to "recruit").

C) Survival to adjacency seemed to be the biggest problem for the melee-rich Vong, Old Rep, and Sith, so we discussed ways to bolster their defenses and get them to the fight faster. For the Old Republic, a few pieces with swap or Telekinesis were discussed (my personal favorite, and my "signature" piece, was Gryph, who combined a variant swap commander effect with Disruptive and Diplomat), and many of the Admiral Saul Karath's discussed (including the one for the New Lost Twenty) provided Shields or some other defensive option to the Old Rep and Sith. The previously mentioned Darth Maladi (who, if I recall, was actually "Darth Maladi, Hologram," so she was VERY cheap but had no combat abilities--almost an auto-include) could not only bring in Stormtroopers, but also had an ability called "Assassination Mission" or something like that, that allowed her to give an adjacent Force-user Ambush and Cloaked. I felt that the Ambush/Cloaked combo was definitely in keeping with the feel of the Sith and compensated for many of their weaknesses.

Another defensive option for the Sith that I toyed with, but was never able to make fully playable, was what I referred to as "the Trooper defense", in which Sith support troops would gain Draw Fire and defensive/recovery abilities (eg, Avoid Defeat), allowing them to draw fire and die for their Sith Lords. I think it was a very interesting, very Sith idea, but could never get the balance quite right.

If anyone is interested, I can probably dig up the links to the old threads on the Wizards forums. I also need to find time to post the stats for the Next Lost Twenty in the customs section.

Both of these are awesome ideas!



And this is absolutely fantastic! Extremely helpful to the faction and very "Sith" in flavor. I hope we see this in a V-set at some point.

This thread has made me take a little trip down memory lane, complete with links!

First, here's a link to the post for the final pdf of the Next Lost Twenty, if anyone is interested:

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75862/26276801/Next_Lost_Twenty_custom_set

I think there's actually a post on bloomilk, but I'm not sure. Although it may not be apparent, one of the guiding stars for this set (like the the first two virtual sets) was elevating the lesser factions (although the poor Old Rep only got one piece--well, two if you count Karath). We tried to be as conservative as possible with the "major" factions, while going a little crazy with some of the lesser faction pieces.

*****

Second, I completely forget that after the release of the last WotC set, I tried to do a custom set called "Balance of Power," devoted primarily to boosting the four smallest factions (with a little help for the New Rep). Here's the thread:

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75862/23145837/Star_Wars:_Balance_of_Power?pg=1

And here's a copy of one of the posts, including drafts of a number of the pieces I was talking about:



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Finally, I forget that I had a cute name for those "save the faction threads: Five Easy Pieces. I present below the link to the Mando thread (the last and shortest of them), which has, in its first post, links to the other three:

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75862/20544417/5_Easy_Pieces:_Challege_4--the_Mandalorian_Menace!

When I read this, the first thing that came into my mind was Darth Bane having Ambush and Cloak... Wow!!