Loving the podcast so far and expect to be a regular listener. One thing that bugged me a bit in Episode 1 was Matt's reaction to John's idea to make a sort of generic officer to leave room for making the army "yours" instead of being forced to use established heroes. I think this is a great idea that was misunderstood a bit, and greeted with "you know that's never gonna happen, right?" while Matt himself is hoping for things like Trade Federation and Hutt armies on the board (which I personally find less likely). Part of this dismissal was based on Matt interpreting the idea to mean a sort of progression system, which is further than I think John was going with it.

I love the diversity of opinion and background represented on your podcast, and hope you continue to highlight it!

Honestly, I think Matt's dismissal goes more towards the fact that Star Wars is still largely character-focused, and the chances of seeing non-characters at the head of armies in the game is probably something either Disney, or FFG isn't going to allow. FFG is in the position of having a large-army game, but still finding ways to put iconic characters in every fight as well.

Personally, even though I grew up with Star Wars, I've never revered the OT heroes as much as I loved the fringe characters and books that dealt with the "nobodies", like Tales from the Empire, etc. SW: Galaxies is something I play to this day. The idea of playing my own personal detachment of Imperial troops, as opposed to "oh hey, a buncha red shirts and Darth Vader...whoooooo" has a lot of appeal. But I can certainly see the other side of it from Matt's perspective and that makes much more sense from a Marketing perspective. You have to give people those familar touchstones.

Of course, once my Vader mini gets a 40K Commisar hat plopped on his head and becomes Commisar-Captain Vader...all bets are off.