Hopefully the next wave(s) will make this redundant, but Vinto and Elite Weequays seemed pretty much ubiquitous at the top tables at Worlds, suggesting that they're a bit too good. There were plenty of other popular Mercenary units but Vinto and Elite Weequays seemed compulsory (I certainly didn't regret using them).
So I had an idea to give them both a new negative ability.

Unexceptional: You cannot become Focused.

It gives them a (hopefully small) nerf, without really changing the way they were designed, and as an added bonus reduces the incentive to include everyone's two favourite Rebels. Probably not enough - we'll just see Greedo or Onar or Gamorreans focused instead.

On an unrelated note, I think it would be nice if Fury of Kashyyyk had a negative cost given the usefulness of Wookiees in skirmish.

I expect that the skirmish game is being built UP to the standard set by Vinto/eWeewuays. Already we see changes being made to the new Rebel non-Elite heroes, Darth Vader (and two more unannounced skirmish upgrades for iconic figures), etc. I like your unique approach but within 6-12 months I don't think IA Skirmish is going to be still restricted to Focused eWeequay lists.

Vinto almost has to be focused to get any damage through or to get any of his surges to work, otherwise he's an overpriced stormtrooper.

eWeequay die when shot and sliced or to anything with pierce, so I would say they are not overpowered. They do provide some consistent damage, but are not overpowered. They also give up 8pts when killed. The Worlds competition is a little deceptive, it does not represent the whole world's meta, but just the few folks that have enough time and money to play games in MN for fun on a certain weekend. Jabba was the newest thing, so most people took something from Jabba's Realm.

1 hour ago, buckero0 said:

Vinto almost has to be focused to get any damage through or to get any of his surges to work, otherwise he's an overpriced stormtrooper.

eWeequay die when shot and sliced or to anything with pierce, so I would say they are not overpowered. They do provide some consistent damage, but are not overpowered. They also give up 8pts when killed. The Worlds competition is a little deceptive, it does not represent the whole world's meta, but just the few folks that have enough time and money to play games in MN for fun on a certain weekend. Jabba was the newest thing, so most people took something from Jabba's Realm.

I'm not saying you're wrong about Weequays or Vinto but I feel like it's pretty apparent that stuff from Jabba's Realm is defintely better than most stuff from before that. You can just look at most deployment cards to see that IMO.

Jabba's Realm set the new bar for IA power level, and everything that has come out since then has been at roughly that level. The fixes for IG88 and Vader bring those units up to the JR level.

29 minutes ago, pheaver said:

Jabba's Realm set the new bar for IA power level, and everything that has come out since then has been at roughly that level. The fixes for IG88 and Vader bring those units up to the JR level.

Saw your match the other day with the new figures. Any thoughts on them after tinkering around? Hera in particular seems like a standout for sure. Really wish Imperials had some good unique pseudo support units like that.

Thanks for critique

I did try running Weequays against new Vader. The Weequays shredded him in three shots (plus the obligatory fistful of Hunter cards). Of course there was a lot more experience with the Weequays than new Vader so it wasn't really a fair test.

Poor Elite Stormtroopers; I thought they used to be the dev team's benchmark of a "good" unit.

2 hours ago, incognito22 said:

Poor Elite Stormtroopers; I thought they used to be the dev team's benchmark of a "good" unit.

And they still are, what ruined them isn't stats its the rule about losing points per model rather than unit and that was only brought in because people were hiding with the mostly dead last trooper and playing out the clock.

@incognito22 You have upset the Great and Mighty Jabba the Hutt. for not pointing out that only through him and his slaves do Weequay or any scum unit become really good. Focus removal only brings back the HKs, which just got a whole bunch of droid cards.

TBH I think FFG is just trying to speed the game play up a bit so it only lasts a few rounds.

9 hours ago, Mep said:

TBH I think FFG is just trying to speed the game play up a bit so it only lasts a few rounds.

Ding ding ding! Get this person a plush Rancor!

It'll be interesting to see future skirmish maps in the official rotation. Will they be smaller? Will at least one mission type per map have high-VP objectives, forcing players not just to smash their lists against each other for 65 minutes?

If the weequays are unexceptional, the scum player will just focus greedo/onar/shyla etc. first round. I think the major problem with weequays is their long range. Automatic accuracy of 2 plus the surge 2 and whatever comes out of the green dice can easily go to 7+ unfocused and focused even more. It's just wrong that they have more guaranteed range than the hks who are supposed to be snipers.. Reducing their accuracy values means they couldn't be positioned somewhere to far back and actually have to come to you to get a good shot or need to use the surge for acc instead of dmg or pierce.

Right now, scum can chose a lot of good units from all factions: Gideon and Hera via temporary alliance and with the help of the jawa c3po/bt1 and other droids. Just being able to cherry pick all the good support units from rebels gives scum too many good options while imps can't even use jabba to focus one of their troopers. And I think the solution is already found in the wording of Jabba. If Gideon, c3po and Hera can only focus/buff friendly rebel units weequays and other scum units couldn't get buffed to having so many dice in their pool increasing dmg and range even further.

This way people could still build some fun list with temporary alliance but not overly abuse that card by taking the best units the rebel factions has, almost making rebels itself obsolete (no real good upgrades like devious sceme or black market in the rebel faction)..

On 2017-6-12 at 3:16 AM, Knallhase said:

If Gideon, c3po and Hera can only focus/buff friendly rebel units weequays and other scum units couldn't get buffed to having so many dice in their pool increasing dmg and range even further.

I like this idea!

yeah, this would be good errata for rebel care package

As I said in the nearly identical post below.

Completely unnecessary. Wait a couple of months and Ahsoka will be out and weequay focused or not will die to her attack. Throw in Jedi Luke and you'll be down 2+ weequay round 2 and may not even get a chance to shoot with them. The game will be more hero-centric. Having Force Users jump 5-6 spaces and cut down a figure every attack will not make weequay more useful or overpowered.

I've said all along, that Gideon is the most cost efficient figure in the game. But there is only one of him and he seems to be holding up well.

It's not the access to focus that has made the eWeequay so powerful. I would argue that Focus doesn't actually help the weequays any more than it (had the ability to) helped other mercs in the past (focused HKs hit just as hard or harder).

The thing that arguably makes the weequays overpowered is the ability to prowl. That's the easiest access to a beneficial condition of any figure in the game. The ability to have 4 eWeequays both hidden and focused ready to attack in round 2 is what i think causes them to be somewhat imbalanced right now. I wouldn't restrict focus and I probably wouldn't change their prowl. I'd simply limit them to one beneficial condition.

5 hours ago, Fightwookies said:

The thing that arguably makes the weequays overpowered is the ability to prowl.

This. I have been doing some analysis with this calculator, http://mattyellen.github.io/imperial-assault-calculator/

Assuming that calculator is correct, and going against the ubiquitous black die, the surge from hidden allows for a lot more damage on average. Example, the odds of doing 4 damage goes from 38% to 67%. Of course being focused helps, and increases the odds of doing 4 damage to 87%. The damage curves created by the calculator show the damage boost from Hidden right in the middle between unfocused and focused. Now being hidden and focused does little for the attack unless against a white die. It is the combo of hidden and the surge abilities that make the eWeequay really good. I imagine the "fix", should one ever come, would be to reduce the +2* surge to a +1.

The thing I find interesting is the eWeequay and HK actually do pretty much same damage against a single black while unfocused/unhidden with a slight range advantage to the HK. Once hidden, the eWeequay can either out damage or get the accuracy bonus and become the more reliable unit, all for 1 point less and 1 health more. This of course doesn't even account for the range protection hidden gives.

So really, it all comes down to hidden on the eWeequay. If he isn't hidden, he becomes mediocre. So anything that puts them into a need to move, or stunning them really takes that advantage away. Of course they could also just get focused which puts them on par with the focused HKs.

Any unit with built in surge protection is hate against the weequay. So they can be countered. You just need to know which unit to challenge them with.

7 hours ago, Fightwookies said:

It's not the access to focus that has made the eWeequay so powerful. I would argue that Focus doesn't actually help the weequays any more than it (had the ability to) helped other mercs in the past (focused HKs hit just as hard or harder).

The thing that arguably makes the weequays overpowered is the ability to prowl. That's the easiest access to a beneficial condition of any figure in the game. The ability to have 4 eWeequays both hidden and focused ready to attack in round 2 is what i think causes them to be somewhat imbalanced right now. I wouldn't restrict focus and I probably wouldn't change their prowl. I'd simply limit them to one beneficial condition.

I'll agree Prowl is easy access to a beneficial condition and even better on eQuays because of one amazing and a couple decent surges. One thing that might tone them down a bit is a change in maps. If there were maps with close objectives that needed to be contested round 1 or maps that allowed for more shots fired on round 1 instead of what's happening now where everyone's round 1 is just prep and focusing units for round 2.

Vinto and Elite Weequays are both quite good figures to be certain. However, to think that they are going to remain top figure forever is too hard to speculate on. They are great now because all of the other traits can't compete against hunters/smugglers given that Jabba's Realm brought lots of Command Cards (CCs) to the hunters/smugglers. Heart of the Empire will more than likely bring aid to other traits to bring them on par with hunters. It is impossible for FFG to bring all traits/figure/waves to an even keel all at once. At the end of the the game would be boring if all characters were equally as good as each other. Some figure will always be better than others, and will always make appearances at worlds and other competitive competitions.

As @Fightwookies mentioned, the HKs are as good or better than the Elite Weequays in a vaccum, they just aren't so lucky to have access to the smuggler CCs that put the Weequays over the top. Also, given that almost everyone list includes the rebel care package at this point, I don't see the point of getting rid of it. However, with the new wave of figures, I have a feeling Gideon and 3PO will be seen less often (obviously not never) together in many Merc lists. I've personally had a hard time justifying 3PO in many recent builds. In any case, the package was existed long before Jabba's Realm came out and the Imperials have ruled worlds prior to this year. With the new figures that Heart of the Empire has to offer, I wouldn't doubt if they may another solid run at the champion seat next year as well.

*edit* as @caseycheesecake rightly pointed out, HKs do have access to hunter cards. @Fightwookies with the save...hunter changed to smuggler!

That's what I get for rushing through a post at 5pm instead leaving work like I should. *palm to forehead*

1 hour ago, wannabepudge said:

As @Fightwookies mentioned, the HKs are as good or better than the Elite Weequays in a vaccum, they just aren't so lucky to have access to the hunter CCs that put the Weequays over the top.

Hunter-killer assassin droids do, indeed, have access to the hunter CCs.

I'm about 60% sure that he meant to say HKs don't have access to Smuggler cards like the weequays.

HKs do have access to droid cards and IG-88 and BT-1 put droids on the map. None of those cards scream OP, but some can be useful. However, the math says eWeequays are better than HKs, when hidden, regardless of the cards available.

No doubt the eQuays are setting the bar right now. From what we all can tell they arent going away after HoTE...

IMO there are too many variables to consider before we can really be calling for fixes on new figures like Vinto and eQuays with any justification. Not to mention one huge factor there is not much discussion about is how new competitive maps will shake up how the game is played over the next year. I'm looking for some help in the form of map selection for melee attacks...

Speculative and Slightly Unrelated: A figure who can open a door without using an action could open some of the gameplay up as well giving eQuays less focus/hide/setup time.

10 hours ago, seef1033 said:

No doubt the eQuays are setting the bar right now. From what we all can tell they arent going away after HoTE...

I don't want stuff to go away. I actually wish the stuff from the Core set was usable (outside of Gideon and an occasional officer). I think they've learned from messing with stuff (I hope) as the regular Royal Guards would still be very viable without the neutering as would the regular sabs, etc.

let's make lots of stuff playable otherwise you'll only see whatever the newest Hot Mess of releases at all your tournaments.

36 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

I don't want stuff to go away. I actually wish the stuff from the Core set was usable (outside of Gideon and an occasional officer). I think they've learned from messing with stuff (I hope) as the regular Royal Guards would still be very viable without the neutering as would the regular sabs, etc.

let's make lots of stuff playable otherwise you'll only see whatever the newest Hot Mess of releases at all your tournaments.

100% agree. It's sad to see so much cool stuff from the Core and the first few waves be completely unplayable in a competitive setting. I'd love to be able to throw some Trandoshans in a list with Bossk and take that to a tourney. Aside from remaking all these units though I don't really see a way for this to happen.

43 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

I don't want stuff to go away. I actually wish the stuff from the Core set was usable (outside of Gideon and an occasional officer). I think they've learned from messing with stuff (I hope) as the regular Royal Guards would still be very viable without the neutering as would the regular sabs, etc.

let's make lots of stuff playable otherwise you'll only see whatever the newest Hot Mess of releases at all your tournaments.

If an eQuay is 8.5/10, and HK droids are 8.1/10, are you going to play the eQuay every time? That's the discussion here. Not every unit is going to be exactly as playable as everything else. Therefore you'll have to choose, personally, whether you'll be willing to not use the MOST efficient deployment for the sake of a themed list or CC continuity or whatnot. If you're willing to use a slightly less efficient card, then that becomes playable by definition. If you aren't, then what you're really saying is that you want as many units as possible to be exactly as good as each other - which is impossible and frankly, lame IMO.

Point being, there will always be a few "best" units in each faction. What we saw at Worlds was the difference between 8.5 and 8.1 and because it was so competitive, they all chose the 8.5. Simple as that. Even if it had been 8.5 vs 8.4, they would have chosen 8.5.