Count Dooku aka Darth Tyranus (RoS)

vs.

Maul (Dawn of the Rebellion)

This has always been an underrated dream match for me. Palpatine's former apprentice vs his current apprentice. Why didn't Sidious simply take Maul back as an Apprentice during the Clone Wars? Did Palp upgrade post Phantom Menace. One uses agility and fury in their attacks, another elegance and style.

I ran a total of 6 rounds. The first three had Maul use Hawk Bat Swoop roughly 60-70% of the battles. The last three was a HbS spam by Maul.

Dook has the advantage with the LS. 8/1 Sunder, Vicious 3, breach, free dark side point. Dooku has the advantage in diversity of their Force Powers and Force rating. Dooku has improved parry and a greater melee defense. Dooku has an adversary rating of 4. Maul has a slight advantage in strain, 9/2 on LS with breach 2 + Sunder and It has HBS. So overall, Dooku should have the advantage....all battles begin at Medium Range

Match 1: Dooku wins with some difficulty. Maul wins initiative (Vigilance). Early crit by Dooku leads to a victory with wound points to spare.

Match 2: Dooku wins. Cool initiative. Dooku blitzed. Wins in 4 attacks the last being an overpower.

Match 3: Dooku wins. Vigilance. Maul wins initiative Back and forth fight. This was the battle of the match. Dooku was brought down to 1 left on his wound threshold. Improved Parry came into affect. Maul and Dooku traded critical hits and wounds before Dooku manages to pull it out....barely.

Match 4: Maul wins. Vigilance. Maul gains an early critical. Then hits another critical on the second attack (Overpowered). Maul blitzs and stomps Dooku. This is the beginning of the HBS spamming.

Match 5: Dooku wins. Cool. Dooku uses move. Silouette 2 object at short range. Maul's first attack does a horrific injury (Brawn) on Dooku. Dooku finishes Maul the next attack with a critical.

Match 6: Dooku wins. Viilance. Maul wins iniative. Back and forth fight. Dooku hits Maul with a few crits including bleeding out. Maul ends bleeding out of wounds...Dooku dropped down to 5 wounds left on threshold and 2 criticals.

Winner: Dooku 5 out of 6. Used move only once. HBS made a huge difference in Maul's ability to win. In the end the melee defense of two, critical rating of 1 on the LS, and higher adversary rating brought Dooku victory.

Maul

(Creature of madness/Seeker of revenge..Dawn of the Rebellion)

vs.

General Grievous

(Droid General, Supreme Commander of the Separatist Army, Rise of the Separatists)

With the discovery of the usefulness of Hawk Bat Swoop during the last battle between Dooku and Maul, wanted to go back and revisit a three series match between Maul and Grievous. This has also been a dream match of mine for a long time and subject of many debates over at various comic book forums. We saw this match in the trade paperback, Sons of Dathomir, with no real conclusion. Although I think Grievous had the upper hand overall in that particular comic.

Maul has the advantage in light saber skill. Maul has the advantage with one more point in strain threshold. Grievous has the advantage in Adversary rating, and a much higher defense rating. Grievous had a better LS. Vicious 3 and Linked 3. Grievous has improved parry

Rounds began at medium range. The way I played HBS - At short range, Maul required a dark force point to active the power. Engaged, Maul was able to use HBS to automatically generate an advantage during the subsequent LS attack. Both characters were able to aim as a maneuver, Grievous gaining ability to activate aim for free with one maneuver due to multiple limb talent. Parry was used for each attack.

Round 1: The best round of the series. Maul wins vigilance initiative and scores a fearsome wound (Would have helped against Dooku) as well as 11 damage (Parried by GG). GG goes onto miss his first two attacks due to very poor roles. Maul continues to score with hits, but is never able to score a high damage hit. GG manages to use improved parry 3 times due to despairs and disadvantages (even with HBS spam) dealing Maul 9 damage each time. GG brought down to 2 wounds on his threshold before scoring a big hit on Maul for 13 damage. Maul parries, GG activates Linked on the attack and the fight is over with Grievous scattering Maul's senses.

Round 2: Grievous wins cool initiative. Charges Maul, does 14 damage to the former Sith Apprentice and returns the Fearsome Wound. Maul misses with HBS. Grievous scores 15 damage, linked...round over with Maul winded. (Maul parried 8 damage, 9 damage, 9 damage)....As the announcers states in Mortal Kombat "FLAWLESS Victory." Street Fighter: "Per-fect."

Round 3: Grievous wins vigilance initiative, charges Maul wielding 4 twirling light sabers, scoring a nasty critical on Maul (At the brink) and 14 damage again. Maul returns the favor with HBS scoring 11 damage. Shocked by the hit from Maul, Grievous savagely barrages Maul with four light sabers sending Maul reeling, Grievous scores 13 damage and instead of activating Linked, decides to Taunt the Maul by maiming It, causing Maul's right arm to go flying.

In desperation a one armed Maul flails at Grievous with another HBS. This puts the droid general out of position for his next attack. Despite this, Grievous scores another critical to the already heavily damaged Maul..........leaving Maul at End is Nigh..DEATH for Maul........One of GG's Light sabers shorts out for a moment upon dealing the killing blow. But the droid simply tucks it under his cloak and walks off basking in victory.

Grievous wins 3 out of 3.

Analysis: @Underachiever599 had it correct....Grievous is a beast. If these two with these stats were to fight 10 times, Maul would win 1...maybe 2 at best. On paper, the droid general does not look super impressive with the lack of powers and talents...but in action he is a totally different story. Linked rating, adversary rating, defense...this is not including soak against non-LS wielders....the free maneuver is also nasty. Round 1, Grievous rolled poorly but still managed to eek out a victory. Maul had a difficult time scoring a big hit on GG due to the defense and adversary rating.

The lack of Vicious or linked on Maul's LS in Dawn of the Rebellion hurts It As well as having no defense and a low soak rating. I guess that makes sense, because Maul is usually squishy in games. Was hoping It would put up a better showing against Grievous..but I can see a Clone Wars Grievous slaughtering Star Wars Rebels Maul..

Asajj Ventress

(Assassin of the Sith/Nightsister, Rise of the Separatists)

vs.

Maul

(Fallen Sith Apprentice/Seeker of Revenge, Dawn of the Rebellion)

Poor Maul. 1-11 in the three previous duels against Grievous, Dooku, and Kenobi. Asajj Ventress, a new opponent and one of the main characters of the Clone Wars Animated Series. This is perhaps a match up Maul can claim victory in.

Maul has higher light saber skill and a significant advantage in strain threshold. Force rating goes to Maul. Ventress has a more powerful LS and melee defense. She has a greater diversity in ways to deal damage. Ventress has a higher initiative rating in Cool and Vigilance. Both are skilled with Form IV Ataru. Saber Swarm vs Hawk Bat Swoop.

Best of Five.

Match 1: Ventress wins initiative and throws two silhouette 1 objects at Maul (Enough DS points to activate). Both deal 12 damage, dealing 14 points to It's wound threshold. HBS by Maul deals 11 damage and knocks Asajj's LS out of her hand. Next round, Ventress picks up her LS and strikes down Maul, causing scattered senses. First round Ventress.

Match 2: Cool, round starts at short to encourage LS combat. Ventress deals 15 damage right off the bat. Maul returns with 11 damage and a Sudden Jolt. Ventress picks up her LS again and deals 14 damage to Maul. Maul HBS - Deals 12 damage and a grusome injury (Brawn), Ventress drops to a knee but manages to deal one last blow to the oncoming Maul which cripples the creature and drops It to the ground. Ventress leans up against a hard surface clutching her side. She is victorious with 2 wounds left to spare and an injury that will affect her....permanently.

Match 3: Maul wins initiative. Right off the bat It connects and 'winded' Ventress preventing her from activating parry on her own. Ventress stays in the match with an overpower attack that puts the match even. Their LS clash back and forth. Maul delivers the final blow but rolls two despairs which activates improved parry from Ventress. Their sabers clash and lock together, they complete a circular motion and manage to strike each other at the same time.

-Maul goes down with scattered senses. Ventress on the other hand after taking two previous criticals...closes her eyes....with blood trickling down her mouth.....hit with End of Nigh...and dies.

Maul wins third round.

Match 4: Maul wins a cool initiative. Critical hit on the first attack along with 13 damage - scattered senses. Ventress deals 13 damage in return. Maul winning after initial clash. Maul deals 10 damage and temporarily lames the assassin. Only one thing can save Ventress....Saber Swarm.....linked..activated....She barrages Maul with her twin LS and downs the creature once and for all....maiming It in the process (Maul is maimed a lot).

Ventress wins series 3-1.

Analysis: Incredibly close matchup. Especially with LS. If they were to fight 10 times, Ventress would win 6 of them to 4. She has a higher melee defense, and more ways to beat you. Improved Parry, Move, Saber Swarm...standard attacks. That is why I would give a slight advantage to her.

Edit: Further Analysis. Regardless, Ventress (RoS) vs Maul (Dawn of the Rebellion) could have gone either way depending on the rolls. If another person ran the same fight, and came back with a Maul winning 7 to 3, I would not be surprised. Sticking with Ventress would win 6 to 4 because of her abilities to beat Maul. Maul is also very squishy with soak 5 and no melee or ranged D. The one advantage Maul has is It's strain threshold. If the fight goes long, Maul will win.

Dawn of the Rebellion Maul is fairly one dimensional in combat with LS attacks mostly. That being said It's other powers offer terrifying roleplaying opportunities for the face, colonist, or diplomats of the group. :). I still would not like to run across Maul from Dawn of the Rebellion at the table.

Maul ends with a 2-14 record.

Next will be a Darth Vader series..when Big Daddy V in his prime...runs the gauntlet....

@Sincereagape When you say "in his prime", do you mean as Anakin, or as Vader?

8 minutes ago, Bellona said:

@Sincereagape When you say "in his prime", do you mean as Anakin, or as Vader?

In current canon, and especially in this rpg, suited Vader is Vader in his prime.

Battle over the pit of Carkoon!

For fun, I wanted to test Luke Skywalker, to see if he could actually pull off the things we see him do at the start if Return of the Jedi. I four changes to his statblock:

I gave Luke Improved Reflect, as he uses it in the movie. I upgraded him to Armored Clothes, as the appearance in the book for Armored Clothes is quite similar to what Luke wears. I gave him Influence. And I gave him Luke Skywalker's lightsaber instead of Anakin's.

Luke's Cool easily allows him to top the initiative. He first is faced with two Weequay and two Street Tough minions, all armed with Vibro-axes. The second skiff has not yet gotten involved. Luke's first action is to take out the two Weequay he is engaged with, dispatching one with damage, the other with a crit. The two Street Toughs attack, ending with 1 success and 2 threat. Luke parries, only taking one damage, and cuts the two down with his next action. His maneuver frees Chewie from his binders.

At this point, a Boba Fett joins the action, using his maneuver to climb the stairs, and an action to fly over to the skiff. Luke attacks, and with a lucky roll, disarms Boba Fett before the clone bounty hunter can fire at him. Boba Fett uses his whipcord instead, inflicting a wound, but not succeeding in restraining Luke. Chewie frees Han, before a gunner from the barge hurts Chewie. The second skiff moves in, with three Apprentice Hunters firing at Luke, but missing. Luke's action drops Boba Fett (staggering him with a crit). Next turn, Luke leaps to the other skiff. Han picks up a Vibro-ax, and with assistance from Chewie, rolls a lucky success and four advantage, disabling Boba's jetpack. No jetpack, no rocket. Boba is out of the encounter.

Meanwhile, four Street Toughs armed with Vibro-axes and two Apprentice Hunters attack Luke, bleeding through his strain and inflicting three wound and 1 crit, a gruesome injury to his Presence. It takes three turns, and a lucky Improved Reflect, but Luke dispatches all 7 minions. He then leaps onto the barge, taking out a Weequay minion that tried to pop out and shoot him from the side.

As Luke climbs onto the deck, he finds himself facing two gunners (who fire at the skiffs, not him), a Gamorrean, and an Apprentice Hunter. Luke cuts down the gunner, the Gamorrean misses, and the Apprentice Hunter dies to Improved Reflect. Luke's first attack staggers the Gamorrean with a crit, as two more Weequay, armed with blasters, pop up and start firing at Luke, bleeding away more strain and inflicting a wound. Two more Toughs with axes pop up, but aren't in range to attack yet.

Luke kills the guard, the toughs close in and inflict two more wound, and the Weequay burn through more strain. Luke, who has been using most of his Advantage to recover strain, is still dangerously close to maxing out. He strikes down the two Weequay, the two toughs miss with their axes. Luke takes the Toughs down, but gets shot by a new hunter who pops up, dealing two wound. Luke's last action drops the hunter, ending the encounter.

All told, Luke had 11 strain, and over half of his wohnd threshold.

Ran some more character gauntlets between Vader (dawn of the rebellion) and maul and Vader and grievous....Vader outlasted grievous. However grievous can win 50 percent if not more against Vader in a pure lightsaber duel. Vader had to resort to the force in many victories. Grievous from RoS is indeed a beast and won 2-3 against Vader in a best of 7.

After a very, very long series of sporadic tourneys, and through simple comparison of stats in close matches, I have my (unofficial) tier list for all of the major named characters. I didn't include each iteration a lot of the smaller variations (For example, the difference between DoR Vader and A&A Vader, or A&A Maul, DoR Maul, and CotR Maul). I just took the best version of each incarnation. For what it's worth, I used the dual wielding rules for characters like Asajj, Ahsoka, and Grievous, which did have a meaningful impact on their placement (Grievous in particular, as I feel he'd be way, way more terrifying if I didn't increase the difficulty of those attacks.)

Lightsaber Tiers:
Sidious (adversary 4, improved parry 5, YYYYYWWWWWWWW, dmg 9, crit 1, vicious 2)
Vader (adversary 4, improved parry 5, YYYYY, dmg 10, crit 1, vicious 2, I Have You Now)
Yoda (adversary 4, improved parry 5, YYYYYBB, dmg 7, crit 1, vicious 1)
Dooku (adversary 4, improved parry 4, YYYYY, dmg 8, crit 1, defensive 1, vicious 3)
Grievous (adversary 4, improved parry 4, YYYYG, dmg 9, crit 2, linked 3, vicious 3)
Anakin (adversary 3, improved parry 4, YYYY/YYYYGG, dmg 10, crit 1, vicious 2)
Maul (adversary 3, parry 4, YYYYY, dmg 9, crit 2, Hawkbat Swoop)
Ben Kenobi (adversary 4, parry 4, YYYYY, dmg 10, crit 1)
Obi-Wan (adversary 4, parry 4, YYYYG, dmg 10, crit 1)
Asajj (adversary 3, improved parry 3, YYYYG+1P, dmg 9, crit 2, defensive 1, vicious 2, Saber Swarm)
Savage (adversary 2, parry 4, YYYYG, dmg 8/10, crit 2, linked 1, Anger Is Strength)
Grand Inquisitor (adversary 3, parry 4, YYYY, dmg 6, crit 2, linked 1, Saber Throw)
Luke (adversary 3, parry 3, YYG, dmg 10, crit 1, vicious 2, One In A Million, Touch of Fate)
Ahsoka, TCW (adversary 2, parry 3, YYYYB+1P, dmg 8/6, crit 2, Saber Swarm)
Ahsoka, Rebels (adversary 1, parry 3, YYYY+1P, dmg 6, crit 2, dual phase, Saber Swarm, Dodge 2)
Seventh Sister (adversary 2, parry 4, YYYG, dmg 6, crit 2, linked 1, Saber Throw)
Kanan (adversary 1, improved parry 3, YYY, dmg 6, crit 2)
Fifth Brother (adversary 2, YYGGG, dmg 6, crit 2, linked 1, Saber Throw)
Ezra (YY, dmg 6, crit 2)

Grievous' placement was rather difficult to ultimately pin down. With his Linked 3, he could potentially deal out devastating damage in a very, very short amount of time. But Sidious, Vader, Yoda, and Dooku can all more consistently trigger high crits, and tended to have him dropped by the second or third turn, during my testing. Savage also wound up being extremely powerful, due to how much of a tank he really is. 25 wound, and crits only making him stronger, tended to result in him just smashing his way through enemies unless they had really high damage, really low crit rating, or both. It was interesting to see TCW Ahsoka outperform Rebels Ahsoka, by merit of simply being better equipped. Lastly, Luke continues to be deceptively powerful, thanks in large part to One In A Million. It was honestly a coin toss between who wins between Luke and the Grand Inquisitor, with the GI typically only pulling off his wins when he managed to trigger Linked. Otherwise, Luke was typically able to drop him with really, really high damage output or ridiculously high crits, thanks mostly to how good his father's lightsaber is.

Force Tiers:
Sidious (FR 8, YYYYY, Enhance, Farsight, Foresee, Influence, Move, Seek, Sense, Unleash, Power of the Dark Side)
Yoda (FR 8, YYYYY, Enhance Farsight, Foresee, Heal, Move, Seek, Sense, Do or Do Not)
Ben Kenobi (FR 6, YYYYG, Enhance, Foresee, Heal, Influence, Move, Sense)
Vader (FR 6, YYYGG, Enhance, Force Choke, Move, Sense)
Dooku (FR 5, YYYY, Enhance, Move, Protect/Unleash, Sense)
Obi-Wan (FR 4, YYYY, Enhance, Influence, Move, Sense)
Asajj (FR 3, YYYG, Bind, Enhance, Move, Sense)
Anakin (FR 5, YYG, Bind, Enhance, Move, Sense, Chosen One)
Kanan (FR 3, YYYY, Enhance, Kanan’s Farsight, Move, Sense)
Grand Inquisitor (FR 4, YYYG, Enhance, Move, Sense)
Maul (FR 4, GGGG, Enhance, Move, Sense)
Savage (FR 2/4, YYY, Bind, Enhance, Move, Sense, Anger Is Strength)
Luke (FR 3, YYGG, Enhance, Foresee, Move, Sense, One in a Million)
Ahsoka, Rebels (FR 3, YYYG, Enhance, Move, Sense)
Fifth Brother (FR 3, YYY, Enhance, Move, Sense)
Ahsoka, TCW (FR 3, YYY, Enhance, Move, Sense)
Ezra (FR 2, YGG, Enhance, Foresee, Influence, Move, Sense)
Seventh Sister (FR 3, YGG, Enhance, Move)

This one was a little more interesting to settle on. Rather than having a combat tournament for most of these, I looked at the characters' Force Ratings, Discipline dice pool, list of available Force powers and development in those powers, and any other interesting or relevant abilities at their disposal. It goes without saying that Sidious and Yoda topped the chart, hands down. However, it was interesting to see Ben come out above Vader, due to having a wider selection of Force powers and a slightly better Discipline. It was also amusing to see Anakin lag so far behind the likes of Dooku, Obi-Wan, and Asajj, despite his high Force Rating. This was mostly because of how terrible his Discipline and Willpower are, and the fact that two of his Force Dice will almost always be committed to Brawn, leaving him far less capable as a Force user. Kanan wound up being a shockingly powerful Force user, as he's one of the few named characters capable of using pips to upgrade the silhouette of objects he can Move, putting him way above most other Force users we have statted out so far. I could arguably put him above the likes of Anakin and Asajj, but they just have more options at their disposal with Bind and Anakin's more powerful version of Enhance. Maul is hilariously underpowered, thanks to his lack of any ranks in Discipline, in any of his three appearances in the books. I still have him above Savage, however, due to Savage requiring a crit on him to have a Force Rating of 4. Luke is shockingly better than Ahsoka in pretty much every way, with pretty much equal Force Rating, near equal Discipline, more Force powers at his disposal, and an arguably better version of Enhance. And lastly, Ezra actually is arguably better than the Seventh Sister, despite his lower Force rating. Mostly thanks to his wider array of actual Force powers at his disposal.

All in all, I had a lot of fun testing out all these named Force users, and intend to do something similar with the non-lightsaber wielding characters sometime down the line. But given how long I've been working on this (between a wide array of other projects and hobbies), I'm not sure when I'll have that done.

my nearly-missed-the-boat copy came this morning... that's my Friday night reading sorted. I can't be arsed to go out as The Wife is out instead and it's peace and quiet time 😍