Title says it, dunno what I should be concerned with when making a squad. I know I'll want someone fast for missions, and that I'll want lots of activations. I can't seem to make a squad with more then 4 activations though! Case in point, here's a few examples of what I've made.

Boba Fett + Prey upon the week

Bantha rider + beast master

HK droid's x 2

Bantha consistently destroys half my opponents forces before dieing, HKS and Boba get work done but always get over run in the end.

Ig-88 + prey upon the weak

Wing Guard

Trandoshan hunter X 2

Headhunter

Under duress

Devious scheme

Havnt played this, but the idea is command cards win games right? What if I get rid of it lol? Problem is, again, only 4 activations, too many upgrades?

Chewbacca + smugglers run

Gaakhan

Wookie warriors

Gideon +on a diplomatic mission

Furry of kashykk

Rebel high command

Wookies! Figured it'd be fun lol. But again, only 4 activations, too many upgrades. Suppose I could drop smugglers run and diplomatic mission for an alliance smuggler?

Luke

Diala

Obi-Wan

Davith

Leia

Rebel high command

This time, Jedi's! And wow, 5 activations and only 1 upgrade. Still, that's only 5 models on the board. What is average in a build? What do you focus on, what is your goal for your squad? I play xwing, when making a squad I focus on having an answer for everything, and 4 small ships or substitute 2 smalls for a large. I can't seem to find the balance in this game though.

The best advice is to play a lot of games. If you think something is good, but then it gets destroyed, think about why it happened.

I'm always looking for more people to play against on Vassal.

My recommendation is to have at least six activations and focus on adding in support units like Gideon and C3PO (for both Rebel and Merc lists (use temporary alliance)). You need to have units that can pursue objectives and sit on terminals. Also, maybe try out a storm trooper list as it's fairly straightforward and can be good. Start out with two elite stormies and maybe an officer (read the errata if you haven't yet), Zillo if you have it, and then one strong hitter like the grand inquisitor, and fill in the rest as you see fit.

Hope that helps!

-ryanjamal

Generally you want to look for the following key things:

5-7 activations
Most lists will have roughly this amount. You can certainly still play with more though less than 5 becomes quite difficult. Most lists will feature one or two support units. Stuff like Ugnaughts, Gideon, C3PO, officers etc... Most people activate those first, and if you have significantly less activations you may be forced into using your strong units before you would like to.

Synergy

You want stuff that works well together. There's usually no point putting in one Force User for example. They tend to do best with a lot of FU command cards, and it's hard to justify taking lots of FU command cards for just one figure.
Same with Troopers. They have some awesome command cards, (reinforcements and grenadier) but that's up to 7 points or half of your command card allowance. To drop that much for just one unit is also not worth it. That's why you often see 2-3 squads of troopers.
Same with a bantha. If you put in 2 jungland terrors, crush, size advantage, ferocity etc.... you can easily rack up 7-10 points in the command deck for just one figure. Again, that's why a lot of bantha lists also have tusken raiders or another creature like a nexu.

You simply get more value out of the command deck this way.

Same goes for upgrade cards. Unless you're going for something specific, 1-2 point is upgrades is enough. Anything more than that, and you'll probably be better off with an extra officer, or ugnaught or C3PO etc.

Someone to hold terminals/objectives.

You can certainly win without command cards, but they do help a LOT! Depending on the map, objectives can be very important. Having a fast unit (like hired guns) that can grab things quickly or a cheap support unit (like and Ugnaught or R2D2) that can sit on an objective can provide huge benefits for very little cost.

Action efficiency

If you're playing a proper timed game, most of the time you'll see about 4 turns. If you consider that usually the first turn doesn't have many attacks, that equates to roughly 8 actions per figure and 3 attacks per figure. You gotta make sure those actions and attacks count. Wasting attacks due to long range is fairly useless. Wasting attacks against targets you can't really hurt is useless. Eg a regular storm trooper vs Luke, they do about 1.5 dmg each to him, and then he can recover 2.

Take your Wookie list for example. You have 6 points in upgrades and only 5 attacks (3 of them being melee). Chewie is hard to kill but Ghaarkhan isn't, once he dies, it's pretty easy to stay out of range of the Wookies, and now your whole list is a single attack per turn from chewie and maybe one from Gideon.

Finally, Balance.

I find the most successful lists are the ones that have a bit of everything. They have some control (like spy cards), they have some solid fire power (like troopers or a big boy like vader, atst, luke etc), they have a support unit or 2 (like officers or gideon) and they have something that can take objectives (like hired guns). the more flexible the list, the better it will perform against different opponents

Deployment cards, that cost more than 10 points, usually aren't very effective. The figures are good, but most often too expensive. There are exceptions, but for a beginner I would recommend to stay under 10 points per deployment card.

Deployment cards, that cost more than 10 points, usually aren't very effective. The figures are good, but most often too expensive. There are exceptions, but for a beginner I would recommend to stay under 10 points per deployment card.

General Weiss

General Sorin

+Advanced Com System

Elite Officer

Elite Officer

Officer

Officer

Zillo Technique

The idea is to attack at least 4 times a round with the AT-ST, with most of those attacks focused because of Sorin's ability. You can also blast for 3, with Sorin's AT-ST swing blasting for 4.

Alternatively, you can go:

Bossk

Greedo

Card that gives you rebel units in a scum squad

Gideon

C-3PO

4x Hired Gun

+4x Last Resort

2 points leftover for more Last Resorts, Prey on the Weak on Bossk, Devious Scheme, etc. The Hired Guns tend to at worst break even when they die and Bossk and Greedo punch above their weight, with focus even Greedo is hitting something with AT-ST firepower. And you can kill Banthas pretty easily. Hired Guns with Last Resort are nice against Banthas, when one kills a bunch of Hired Guns he's roughly trading his Bantha for them.

This also gives you Terminal/objective control. Plenty of activations in order to stall more effectively.

You want to play units that cost more than 10 points? Pick Bossk and focused Greedo lol.