62 Boba BH
55 GOWK
15 Mouse Droid x4
09 R2
09 Ugnaught x3

Survive for one hour - GO!

EDIT: Okay, this is mostly a joke, but I started discussing the GOWK issue with Moses this morning - who had not really been following the threads about it on WotC - and it took about 2.2 seconds before he said Boba Fett BH.

I fully expect this to be the squad to beat at GenCon - in this structure - and I'm not the only one.

Heh, yeah, that will get frustrating....I'm still holding out hope that perhaps Rob will see some of the crazy discussions, and perhaps they will errata GOWK so that it only prevents damage from all types of ADJACENT attacks, not just all attacks anywhere. That would at least make him more vulnerable, and less of a stall tactic piece. I could definitely see a squad like this becoming a problem though.

Again, however, depending on what it's facing, if you do play stall-games until late in the game, the opponent should be playing smart enough to rack up at least a 20-30 point lead in gambit. You can bet if I sit down across from somebody playing this, I'd be calling the judge over VERY quickly if there was even the slightest hint of stalling going on.

It's squads like this where I start to dislike the time limit, and wish we were forced to play and at least TRY to kill the other person's squad within the time limit. Hiding for 55 minutes and then running out to kill 1 thing in the last round just irritates me, and starts to smack of lousy sportsmanship. Of course, I understand there are circumstances where that isn't necessarily the case (thinking of Bill/Wedge's game at GenCon '07), but I really have to remind myself that I'm playing to win in those situations, instead of doing what I consider the 'more honorable' thing and engaging in combat.

The one thing that gives me hope against a squad like this though....It can only do a maximum of 80 damage per round, barring criticals. So, against most squads, that means it will struggle to pull off that big kill at the end of the game if they sit back too long. Granted, killing either GOWK or Boba could prove tough too, but most squads can dish out a lot more than 80 damage per round, and depending on how good the rolls are, fairly easily take down Boba even towards the end of a game. Like I said, would all come down to rolls, but it's the one thing that keeps me from being TOO worried about having to face this squad.

This is what I keep saying. It's a fine line between proper strategy in accordance with the rules, and deliberate cheating. Factor in the challenge of facing a tougher opponent and/or on an unfamiliar map, and it becomes all sorts of murky.

If it really seems like it's going to be problem, then I would suggest the following for GenCon: You must gain victory points equal to 50% of the build total of more in order for the game to be completed. If neither player has achieved that level (so, 75 points for a 150 point game) when the time limit has expired for the round, then the judge will award 1 extra round of play. If both players still fail to reach this 50% limit after the additional round, then the game is a double-loss.

I'm sure there's a way to abuse that idea as well, but it would at least cater more to the original intent of the game, which is to battle it out, rather than sit in a corner and hide till the last minute.

WOW!!! That would really skew the Swiss standings.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure if that's an incredibly brilliant or incredibly stupid idea.

EDIT: Thinking some more about this, the GOWK squad would need to get 75 points and then have the lead to win. That doesn't sound too difficult. GOWK can outpace with Gambit and fodder slaughter.

Yeah, if you can pick off enough fodder early on, and then have Boba or Obi-Wan camp in gambit near the end of the time limit, might be able to pull it off. Will still struggle against Tempo Control squads though, as those types which are well-built will have ways of gaining their own gambit, and hopefully denying yours.

To me, I still feel like it might be tough for GOWK and Boba to do enough damage in the late game to pull off the win under those rules though. In most games I played at GenCon, it was not unusual to only play 7-8 rounds and accomplish a total win. And 7-8 rounds in an hour is pretty decent timing per round as well for most games. If we take those same 8 rounds to a GOWK/Boba vs. something else matchup, then you're looking at a maximum of 40 points of gambit earned by either team. Once you're down to the final 1 or 2 rounds, can GOWK/Boba's 80 damage per round be enough to pick up the extra 35 points? And this is, again, assuming that the opponent hasn't done something to deny gambit in the earlier rounds.

EDIT: Obviously, if Boba has been able to pick off fodder throughout the game, then it makes those last 35 points less, but as I've pointed out in other threads, I think most high-end players will do whatever they can to make that pretty difficult (Reinforcements through Lobot, etc.).

It's just an idea I've been tossing around. Gambit was designed to force people to play the game, not kill one piece and then hide in a corner. While it works pretty well, it also provides the scenario we see before us now, where competitive games are played by such a razor-thin line of just barely having enough points to beat your opponent. I can't even count the number of times I've won by an Ugnaught any more.

I keep thinking there has to be a way to encourage people, even in the highly competitive environment, to actually play the game and fight each other, instead of just jockeying for gambit control. At the top tier tables, the game becomes less about killing the other player's pieces, and more about controlling gambit and counting up points.

While this version will probably be the most abundant, I'm more concerned about what your proposal would mean for a stronger variant that uses Dash, Rex.

Well the problem has been Override all along. Sure, Gambit solved Override turtling, but it created its own set of problems. Originally, Rob had mentioned the idea of making sections of the map worth points, but the idea developed into having a center chokepoint, despite the fact that a DDM article came out a few months later talking about why it's important for a DDM map to have multiple victory areas as opposed to one that both players fight for.

The solution probably has something to do with getting rid of gambit AND eliminating the 10-round rule (which btw is still in effect) in place of some other way to declare the game over if one side can't win. Maybe at the end of 10 rounds, if no side is defeated, the player with the highest point-cost character closest to the middle of the map is the winner regardless of points.

Just throwing out ideas.

We keep throwing out enough, eventually something really great will be discovered. That's what I figure anyways.

If you eliminate both Gambit and the 10-round rule, and make it highest point piece closest to the center, you could still end up with trouble. Granted, it would probably cause a shift in the meta I guess, but I'd expect to see more R2-Astromech builds with high-point pieces like Boba or Cade, that way you have a good chance at having the 'highest cost figure' near the center of the game at the end.

Of course, you could run GMLS and camp for several rounds in a corner gaining FPs, then just run near the middle at the end of the game, and...voila! Highest cost character near the center.

I'm personally not all that worried about Override anymore though. With the advent of the Ugnaught, and now with Lobot CLO giving access to cheap Fringe Override, door control doesn't concern me quite as much at the competitive tables. (Yes, Lobot UH was a net cost of 7 which is cheap, but a lot of squads can't well-utilize the reinforcements, so it's tough to justify his original 27 point cost, thus 15 points for Lobot CLO is a much easier trade-off, especially with the Recon/Reserves possibility.) If you build a squad without sufficient door control even in today's environments, you deserve to lose.


I think your idea might be OK. The only map where I could really see it being a problem would be something like Ruined Base or Bespin, where it's very easy to completely lock out an enemy from the center of the map if you have double Override and can pick off your opponent's door control early enough. Still though, if it looks like that is going to be an issue in your particular game, then it is just even more imperative that you carefully guard your door control pieces as you approach, and then you blow the doors as soon as possible so you can't get locked out. I think that may possibly be a valid idea, and might keep people running Ugnaughts instead of quite so many Mouse Droids.

As soon as they reprint the Ugnaught Demolitionist, I will agree with this statement. When's the last time we had a piece with Satchel Charge on it? For newer players, its like those pieces were never made, given how hard they are to find now.

True. Then again, if newer players are having trouble getting a hold of Ugnaught Demolitionists, then I'm not going to worry about them at the top level of competition either, because they probably don't have Boba BH, R2-Astromech, UH Lobot, UH Thrawn, Mas Amedda, etc.

I definitely agree though. I have really hoped that they reprint the Demolitionist, if only just to get a couple more for myself. At this point it's 3 years old, and we have reprints of pieces that are even newer than that, so it would be nice to see that one come back up instead of reprints of pieces that nobody's going to use.

I'm hoarding them

like Copper

I've got a store here that sells Ugg-Demos a dollar a pop. Problem is that they from other people's stuff so there may or may not be cards. I go in there 2x a month and buy a couple. I usually use them with Exar. I have to take a count but I may be able to procure some if anyone is interested.

I like the idea of several areas on the map to earn "Gambit" points. At least the game would be more fluid then.

With multiple gambit points however, each map would need to be considered individually. I mean really, they would almost have to be printed with colored scoring areas so we would know where to go. The center of the board is generally easily identified enough, but I cannot think of any other area that is the same on Every map to designate as a scoring area. It would seem like they would have to go through each legal map <and perhaps some illegal ones> and designate scoring areas. That seems time consuming. More time than I would want to spend doing it. And the result would be confusing. <Younger Players, better just leave the game rather than memorize these scoring areas>