I think there's been a lot of play with the new stuff so far and I have to say I'm quite happy with the results. That is that this newest Lothal wave has brought us some great new toys, has not been too overpowering, and if anything has allowed other units to see the table that were previously unplayable.

So my hats off to you for making my favourite game better! Please keep up the good work

Yeah, I think Lothal has been a great expansion so far. There's a ton of goodies in that small box. I keep hoping we're going to get word of a new blister pack wave anytime

10 hours ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

I think there's been a lot of play with the new stuff so far and I have to say I'm quite happy with the results. That is that this newest Lothal wave has brought us some great new toys, has not been too overpowering, and if anything has allowed other units to see the table that were previously unplayable.

So my hats off to you for making my favourite game better! Please keep up the good work

That's good to hear! What changes have you seen so far?

11 hours ago, Stompburger said:

That's good to hear! What changes have you seen so far?

One major thing for me is the return of the brawlers. With dying lunge and extra armour, I think it's once again worth it bring in groups like Wookie Warriors and Trandoshan Hunters. One could even argue that Lie in Ambush could make them viable as well, but I haven't tried that yet. Second chance may also allow people to bring in the pricier uniques. I could go on an on, but I feel like now you can still win with any faction. I definitely am not disappointed by very much in this wave. I'm excited for the next wave. Make me a Boba Fett fix and I will worship this game! LOL

I think the Specter Cell is overpowered.

23 hours ago, DerBaer said:

I think the Specter Cell is overpowered.

It has been unbeatable in my group.

On 9/22/2018 at 6:07 AM, DerBaer said:

I think the Specter Cell is overpowered.

You could say the same of Vader fix and IG Weequay Hunters though. I think they are very good but with only 6 activations, they have to be.

It is beatable

4 hours ago, buckero0 said:

You could say the same of Vader fix and IG Weequay Hunters though. I think they are very good but with only 6 activations, they have to be.

It is beatable

Beatable and overpowered are not mutually exclusive.

4x4 was beatable, too.

In the right hands, I suppose it could be tough to beat. However, so are many other things in this game. There have already been counters developed, so I think it's just a matter of time before it gets figured out. I played against it only once, and the game came down to him hitting 40 points before me when I had 36 and would have scored 4 more at end of round. So I'm not sold on the fact that it's completely unbeatable. I made tons of mistakes that game, but it was the first time I ever played against it.

On 9/22/2018 at 7:07 AM, DerBaer said:

I think the Specter Cell is overpowered.

It is very, very tough. I'm still collecting data and my thoughts on it.

I'm not saying, SC is unbeatable. Just too powerful.

2 hours ago, DerBaer said:

I'm not saying, SC is unbeatable. Just too powerful.

I hear (and feel) the same about IG and Vader.

It's definitely can be a very strong list, and with the right cards can be a bear. I've had pretty solid results playing against it, and have some other squads ready for testing that I think will do pretty well against it.

Spectre is an in your face murder squad. They're really good at that, but do have obvious weaknesses. lack of bodies, trait synergy, and card draw. They're less reliant on card draw because of the great stats. 6 acts means that an opposing Queen is always going to get last activation against them. With bad card draw, they're less likely to have Take or Negation, so that opposing Queen will have a really good chance at a big end of round, beginning of round swing.

11 hours ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

I hear (and feel) the same about IG and Vader.

IG, Han and Vader are all very powerful indeed.

This means that all three factions were competitive.

The dutch nationals champion had none of them and did beat them all.

Right now, IG, Han and Vader are beaten on a regular basis by SC.

=> Right now, only one faction has a strong list.

8 hours ago, DerBaer said:

IG, Han and Vader are all very powerful indeed.

This means that all three factions were competitive.

The dutch nationals champion had none of them and did beat them all.

Right now, IG, Han and Vader are beaten on a regular basis by SC.

=> Right now, only one faction has a strong list.

Well then I guess we should see how the Dutch Champion's list does against it?

We get it. You can't beat it. I understand as FFG built a really strong ready-to-play list and it sells Star Wars Rebels really well.

It's still early, and people will find good lists to handle it. My personal experience and hearing from a large group in Montreal is that it's beatable. I assume in the hands of a player like DT, it could be unbeatable. But time will tell.

I'll preface this comment by saying that I've only played one game against the Spectres (which I lost while playing a riot swarm) so I'm not exactly what you'd call an expert. But with that said:

The thing that sticks out at me about calling this overpowered so early on is that it doesn't put a lot of faith in the designers. This isn't some obscure strategy like the Unshakeable Vader/parting blow shenanigans that might have slipped past the playtesters; this list was pretty much built as-is from the ground up. If SC was so far above everything else, it seems like that should have been caught pretty quickly in the design and/or playtesting phase. Someone must have been beating it when they were trying it out, or I'd assume it wouldn't have gotten this far.

Now who knows, maybe they did goof up and SC is too strong relative to other choices. Like I said, I'm not an expert. It just strikes me as early to be making such grim predictions. I think it's fair to complain/argue about the design decisions (I can see how it kind of sucks from a list-building perspective that these units are so much better in this one particular list) but in terms of power level I think it's probably worth giving it a bit more time.

1 hour ago, ManateeX said:

I'll preface this comment by saying that I've only played one game against the Spectres (which I lost while playing a riot swarm) so I'm not exactly what you'd call an expert. But with that said:

The thing that sticks out at me about calling this overpowered so early on is that it doesn't put a lot of faith in the designers. This isn't some obscure strategy like the Unshakeable Vader/parting blow shenanigans that might have slipped past the playtesters; this list was pretty much built as-is from the ground up. If SC was so far above everything else, it seems like that should have been caught pretty quickly in the design and/or playtesting phase. Someone must have been beating it when they  were trying it out, or I'd assume it wouldn't have gotten this far.

Now who knows, maybe they did goof up and SC is too strong relative to other choices. Like I said, I'm not an expert. It just strikes me as early to be making such grim predictions. I think it's fair to complain/argue about the design decisions (I can see how it kind of sucks from a list-building perspective that these units are so much better in this one particular list) but in terms of power level I think it's probably worth giving it a bit more time.

I heard the original design for Hondo was that "negotiate" forced your opponent to choose 3 damage or spend 3 victory points. Luckily that got caught by the playtesters, but it was also much more obviously broken than spectre cell. My point is that the designers aren't necessarily infallible when it comes to balancing. It's possible that Hondo was beating SC and then got nerfed, but SC remained untouched.

I'd like to reiterate that a list losing sometimes doesn't necessarily mean it's not over-powered.

53 minutes ago, brettpkelly said:

I'd like to reiterate that a list losing sometimes doesn't necessarily mean it's not over-powered.

This reminds me of when everyone was all bent out of shape over ugnaughts. Then the map rotation changed. So either it fixed the problem or people want to actually play the game with honour instead of sitting back in a corner and letting a companion figure do all the work? Maybe a combination of both?

Winning with a pre-build list will grow tiresome for many. I also think that a good map being rotated in could spell trouble for a 6 figure list.

And let's be honest...can you imagine if they had made using Spectre Cell su-ck? Disney would probably flip. If anything, I think it will spur people to come up with good counters. If it stays OP, so be it. As long as it's not broken.

Map rotations are a band aid. It's great that they can be used as a tool for balancing, but it's not a catch all and can cause its own problems (Hi, Nal Hutta!). They also don't fix fundamental design problems with toxic lists.

On 9/24/2018 at 6:10 AM, NeverBetTheFett said:

In the right hands, I suppose it could be tough to beat. However, so are many other things in this game. There have already been counters developed, so I think it's just a matter of time before it gets figured out. I played against it only once, and the game came down to him hitting 40 points before me when I had 36 and would have scored 4 more at end of round. So I'm not sold on the fact that it's completely unbeatable. I made tons of mistakes that game, but it was the first time I ever played against it.

Those of us who have played with and against the list more than once are saying that it's very strong and very forgiving. A mediocre player using the list will be a challenge for anyone to take down, but it has plenty of play to it that a strong player can dominate with the list.

The bigger problem is that it's having a compressing effect on the meta where lists that don't have huge single attack spike damage can't compete against it. It's like the Vader effect, multiplied by 5.

I don't think skirmish is getting a lot of test runs anyway. Just look at all the units (especially rebel heroes) with bad stats. It seems the designers don't even have a rough formular for cost/hp/damage ratio... SC has around 4 queen pieces whereas Vader and IG lists only have one.

1 hour ago, Knallhase said:

I don't think skirmish is getting a lot of test runs anyway. Just look at all the units (especially rebel heroes) with bad stats. It seems the designers don't even have a rough formular for cost/hp/damage ratio... SC has around 4 queen pieces whereas Vader and IG lists only have one.

This post might be of interest to you

16 hours ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

We get it. You can't beat it.

It's not just me. Our local small group of players include the current german nationals champ, the two time former german nationals champ, the current dutch nationals champ, the first dutch champ, way more than 10 regional trophies held by 3 players ...

And we are meeting regularly, coming up with new list, trying to beat the SC. And most of the time it's not even close ... I promise, we keep trying, but it's not much fun ...

6 hours ago, DerBaer said:

It's not just me. Our local small group of players include the current german nationals champ, the two time former german nationals champ, the current dutch nationals champ, the first dutch champ, way more than 10 regional trophies held by 3 players ...

And we are meeting regularly, coming up with new list, trying to beat the SC. And most of the time it's not even close ... I promise, we keep trying, but it's not much fun ...

Ok. Well that's fair then.

@Kalandros are you guys still having trouble with SC? Nobody plays it here, but I've built squads with some of your suggestions to beat it.