At some point there will be a counter to it. Right now there is not a great one. Some high tolerance figures with multiple damage causing actions are your best bet. That's why Jedi Luke is so good. He moves fast, has multiple attacks, he can take out 2-3 ugnaughts with with the right initiative or son of Skywalker.

He's got the best chance so far I think.

This is why even though I made and loved the ugnaught list, I never ended up really playing it a lot, haha.

I think the reason ugnaughts took these tournaments is because people generally have no idea how to play against them. I don't know that they need to be nerfed immediately.

Matches with ugnaughts in them play very differently from a normal match, and if you don't know what's going to happen, you will absolutely get wrecked. Luke and IG both hard-counter the ugs by being able to just go over there and kill them all unanswered if you have their command card. Jabba, with the correct supporting list (not the standard lists with fewer activations), should also make things significantly harder for the ug player.

With the new Vader out, he will basically be immune to ugnaughts and with whatever you have can easily kill whatever you're supporting them with.

This list has been around for a while, actually, just no one's really played it at a big event. I played against it back before Jabba's Realm came out. Awful game.

It seems a bit unusual that nerfing of the Hunters list (Gideon only focuses Rebels, ban Temp Alliance, only one beneficial condition for eWeequays, etc.) has now given way to calls for the Junk Droid to be nerfed. I've tried to build and play an Ughnaught swarm, and it was really hard to use. Is there really no counter that can be used against the swarm other than a nerf? Wouldn't a Bantha launched into the Ugnaught group cause devastation? Perhaps backed up by a Rancor who is effectively immune?

Just now, Georgedpalpatine said:

Wouldn't a Bantha launched into the Ugnaught group cause devastation? Perhaps backed up by a Rancor who is effectively immune?

That creates a scene in my mind where 6 Ugnaughts scramble around in panic to avoid being trampled by a Bantha, but a Rancor throws them back into the pile for the Bantha to sit on top of.

The problem is the idea of a tournament itself. Reject the false promises of the vainglory of man.

5 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

The problem is the idea of a tournament itself. Reject the false promises of the vainglory of man.

Vainglorious displays of skill and cunning are all the rage around these parts---not sure I can give that up. Plus my acrylic dice rolls are on point.

7 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

The problem is the idea of a tournament itself. Reject the false promises of the vainglory of man.

But, but... the tokens!!!! :-)

-ryanjamal

37 minutes ago, Georgedpalpatine said:

It seems a bit unusual that nerfing of the Hunters list (Gideon only focuses Rebels, ban Temp Alliance, only one beneficial condition for eWeequays, etc.) has now given way to calls for the Junk Droid to be nerfed. I've tried to build and play an Ughnaught swarm, and it was really hard to use. Is there really no counter that can be used against the swarm other than a nerf? Wouldn't a Bantha launched into the Ugnaught group cause devastation? Perhaps backed up by a Rancor who is effectively immune?

This is a well received point and the major benefit of this thread. I think we can safely say that maybe a "nerf" is not what's called for. The concern is how different the game is with them. The question is how to deal with it since it seems to rob a lot of people of what they like about the game. See the post from @TheWelcomeMat88

I tend to think (hope) it will just work itself out to some extent---especially if some people actually enjoy it I suppose I wouldn't want to take that away if it wasn't totally necessary.

I certainly know Ugnaughts can be powerful, having won French Nationals with them last week, but I'm not convinced yet that they need a nerf. I 100% agree with @DTDanix in that HotE brings Vader back to the table, and any Ugnaught list will have a really hard time against a Vader list.

If they end up remaining really strong even then, then I'd worry. In that case if I had to nerf them I think I would just change the droid's speed to 3.

Actually, a Bantha is a great counter to them. Has anyone played a Bantha on any of these tournaments?

4 hours ago, DerBaer said:

Actually, a Bantha is a great counter to them. Has anyone played a Bantha on any of these tournaments?

I played against a Bantha list in the cut at French Nationals. I don't think Banthas counter the list as much as it seems like it should on paper. The Bantha needs to get to the Ugnaughts ASAP and kill as many of them as it can before it dies. It also wants to do this on the last activation of round 1 if possible. This is difficult though since Ugnaught lists often have 8 or even 9 activations, and if the Bantha comes in before IG has activated he will often be able to finish it off during round 1 before Jundland. Additionally the Ugnaught player can sometimes hide the droid inside the Bantha but against a wall so that no other enemy figures can get LOS to kill it, and then it just steadily chinks away at the defenseless Bantha with every Ugnaught activation. In the match I mentioned, I hid the droid in the Bantha and did about 10 damage to it before it even activated.

did you face any rancors w/ 2 black dice?

A while ago I was trying to make an Under Duress list work, using the Junk Droid's Bleed as well as rJawa strain. Over time, I found that simply the nature of the swarm of low health, disposable units was actually its biggest strength over the huge damage potential of the hunters. The final variant was 4 rUgnaughts, 2 eUgnaughts, 4 rJawa, 2eJawa and rHired Guns.

Again, I'm not a particularly proficient player, but was it not inevitable that a counter to the hunters would be found amongst the vast array of options we have?

And if so, surely we can expect to find the counter to the Ugh Swarm in a few months as more combinations and options are tried against it?

7 hours ago, DerBaer said:

Actually, a Bantha is a great counter to them. Has anyone played a Bantha on any of these tournaments?

Banthas and Rancors are fine, but you run into the issue of the Nal Hutta map. It's just not designed for those two to do well. In addition, the Junk Droid is ridiculously good on the Raining Freight mission.

As noted above, Vader will provide a good punch, and hopefully any of the new maps that come into rotation cause problems for the Ug Swarm. Still will be a problem in the next few months while Nal Hutta stays in rotation.

1 hour ago, TheWelcomeMat88 said:

did you face any rancors w/ 2 black dice?

For me, nope. The whole Jabba wave hasn't been released in French yet so it wasn't legal. This was a large reason I chose to bring Ugnaughts in fact. Kudos to Patrick and Brett who successfully piloted the list in a tougher meta.

Personally, I don't think the companions really add to the skirmish mode in general. It's ugly on the table and isn't worthwhile in terms of gameplay. (But that's clearly a very personal opinion!).

I could do without them at all in skirmish...

I can still hear the echos of "Trooper swarms are OP", "the Beast Tamer is OP", "Ban Zillo", "Hunters are OP" and "Ban Gideon and 3PO from Mercs" ... I don't know what I should feel about that. "Ban Gideon and 3PO from Mercs" was like two weeks ago?

The Bantha was the answer to Troopers (low damage to many figures). Hunters kill Banthas (high damage to a single figure). Ugnaughts are the direct answer to Hunters. Hunters have long range and high damage. They kill everyone that leaves cover. Ugnaughts don't leave cover, they send the Junk Droid instead. The next big thing might be figures with high defense, because they can't be damaged by a Junk Droid. Or Jedi Luke, who moves in, kills an Ugnaught, SoS, kills 2 Ugnaughts, start of round, kills 2 Ugnaughts. Or the Bantha will be back or something like that ...

It's Rock Paper Scissors. If anyone is playing Scissors all the time, then Rock might seem OP.

Sometimes I ask myself, if the designers are laughing all the time, because they made an even more overpowered combination, none of us realized so far.

Maybe they roflcoptered about all that "Hunters are OP" talk, while thinking of those Ugnaught swarms, we didn't use at that time ...

2 hours ago, DerBaer said:

Sometimes I ask myself, if the designers are laughing all the time, because they made an even more overpowered combination, none of us realized so far.

Maybe they roflcoptered about all that "Hunters are OP" talk, while thinking of those Ugnaught swarms, we didn't use at that time ...

Tim w/ Twin Troopers played one designer playing a form of it some time ago, so ideas were already afloat for sure!

Updated Opinion:

There are some really janky things about the junk droid. Terminal Protocol seems borderline broken. I have no idea why that wasn't limited to a number of figures (2-3)

Nerfs are a last resort. I think any sort of 'fix' is probably going to come via an errata to companion rules. I vote for @ryanjamal's suggestion to restrict command card use for companion figures. It really does make the most sense to me both for gameplay mechanics and thematic purposes.

We tested Hater Vader vs my Ugnaught swarm this weekend. Vader singlehandedly cut the swarm to pieces.

It was Jabba's Palace, Vader was accompanied by eJets and Officers.

So: OMG, DOOOM! Vader is so overpowered! He needs to be nerfed!

... just kidding. Finally the Dark Lord is where he should be. Junk Droids don't hurt him at all. Even Hunters have a hard time killing him. 6 blocks on those 2 black dice make your eyes pop out ...

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”

9 hours ago, a1bert said:

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”

I can't imagine a more well place comment to have ever graces the vastness that is internet forums.

@a1bert Well played!

More on topic, I played a version of the tink swarm this weekend at a store championship. I wanted to do something different than the Nationals list. I was handled twice, won one game confidently, and was handled in another. Granted there were 3 top 16 worlds players there and I lost to 2 of them, and I haven't played the list all but once before (yes, excuses excuses). I was going for more figures that weren't tinks while still trying to get the tink benefit:

BT, Vinto, Hired Guns, eJawa, 3PO, R2, Tink, Tink, eTink, eTink, Devious Scheme.

R2 for better card draw, however I found quickly that he (always considered R2 a he for some reason, very masculine beeps I suppose) loses that value with out Gideon to give the moment bonus, or a Command Card for movement. He can't safely reach a terminal for Scomp Link in round 1 on Nall Hutta or Anchorhead. His Command Card however does help regain some of that value.

I'm a big fan of Vinto shinanigans, and I really wanted to be able play Smuggled Supplies with Draw....didn't see Draw through 4 games, ugh. Still had great value with Rapid fire alone however.

Hired Guns are great for objectives, especially since the junk droid can really only participate in close to half of the mission objectives on the 3 maps.

eJawa - I really like the eJawa. I think if it gets attacked I'm about 50% on rolling dodges haha. You just can't teach that. Oh and he brings friends (3P0, R2, BT)

BT - 10 health w/black die vs 15 health with no defense seems comparable and BT actually has a better attack unless Onar is up close. BT bring droid synergy and a better likleyhood of redrawing Command Cards (Shared Experience & Targeting Network).

Devious Scheme - With the inclusion of Nall Hutta, and the existence of Anchorhead, both maps IMO, make this card an auto add.

First game I almost lost, completely due to ignorance. General Weiss, 2x Snow Troopers, both with Vader's Finest, and Stormies. Jabba's Realm statshes. I had no idea what Weiss brought to the table, so I got blasted for +3 damage to all 4 of my Tinks, and the attack did 4 damage to an eTink. I got lucky he went for Terminal control/go by the troopers with the IO, or else I likely would have been out of the game round 1, I was able to hide my tinks after that and keep most of them alive long enough to sift through the troopers and avoid Weiss.

2nd round brought the tinks to their knees. Nexus are a formidable opponent, especially when there are more than 1 to deal with. I played Raining Freight, so since the Nexu's could get the crates, it was very even in that department, and my opponent was able to mop the floor with me after the 1st round.

3rd game I beat some jets and dewbacks. Learned my lesson and kept the Tinks out of LOS of the open door on Jabba.

4th game "might" have gone differently had I gotten some droid CCs, but Anchorhead without any timely cards proved to be a loss for me.

I love playing with the tinks, as I feel like there is just so many options. And the are clearly beatable. Had I run the list with IG and Onar, I may have come out on top one of the two games I lost, but I think that is really because IG is just so good. So much for being different haha.

All that said, I'd hate to see a nerf. I'd consider a figure to be really broken when a mediocre to maybe better than mediocre player like myself can still sweep a competition. I didn't run away either of my two wins, and had 1-2 attacks/risks gone differently, I still could have lost.

I say end the call for blood (well oil)!