I played Tim's squad (-Nute, +San, Ig86, micex2) last year at Owensboro regionals and at Gencon. After Owensboro regionals I talked to Gray about the fact that the squad was very good but I wasn't an advanced enough player to operate it quickly enough to get 3 pt wins and that proved true at gencon. Like Dennis has said above the squad is capable of strafing round after round without receiving much return fire. Top level players like Tim and Graham can win with this squad with little resistance. It is definitely not fun to play against. Hopefully Vset 2 will offer some relief to squad building by not having to worry so much about the lancer.

Time to build a better squad.

I could whine all day that my 66 ugnaught squad keeps getting killed and never gets a chance to attack. Or I could figure out a way to beat it. I think I'd rather spend my energy doing that.

Here - I'll even help you.

Great lancer counters:
Using pieces that have self destruct.
Using commanders that give death shots.
Using a piece with riposte
Using a piece with Djem-So
Position the above pieces in smarter ways
Using San or Nute (to prevent an MTB)
Using a Han with NTMTO
Out-activating it
Huge deep strike ability (kill it before it kills you)
Pick a better map
Don't run into a closet after you have lost your override

When I get beat, I analyze why. Then I look at the squad and find weaknesses. Then I look to correct them.

Design team is working hard at making pieces that will aid in this. I encourage it.

Players who play the best squads should not be looked down upon. They should be looked up to.

When a game finishes to 200 pts, nothing else can be said. It was played to completion. End of story.

If a squad can't beat the lancer, it's not a top level squad, or you're not playing it right.

Im still trying to get a solid sensical answer to how this is ANY different from someone hiding til your out-activated and then coming out to shoot you.

Denying one's opponent the ability to participate in combat...that is not stalling at all. It is simply good tactics: attack the opponent and deny him the ability to attack you. A martial arts master is one who can strike/attack his opponent whenever he wants, while denying his opponent the ability to effectively strike him back. "Unfair" or "underhanded" are not appropriate adjectives there; "superior" is a much better choice.

In SWM, it is not unfair, nor is it cheating to lock doors in the face of your opponent, or attack him while negating his ability to perform an effective counter-attack...no, it is effective squad design followed by effective execution of tactics...in other words, "superior." Now, the player with the superior squad and tactics is still required to try to reach the build total within the time limit, but he can go about doing that in any way he likes.

Thank you Trevor! I couldn't have said it better myself!

Yeah thanks for the great suggestions. I wasn't aware of all the different options or that the Lancer HAD to attack the pieces that could kill it, or even what the design team is doing.

EDIT: As you demonstrated against Alvey, you don't have to go in against the Riposting figure, you just circle around it. /EDIT

None of this, despite the sarcastic undertone, really changes or addresses anything that has been said about the Lancer squad with umpteen dozen mice not being in the spirit of the game.

It didn't stop you from trying all morning long.

I do try and defend myself against false allegations.

Regardless, I was very pleased with Trevor's response. Having a prominent player in the community (who is also inarguably one of the best) put it so eloquently does carry a great deal of weight.



I guess I still don't understand what you mean by "the spirit of the game". I define "the spirit of the game" as killing all the other squads pieces. And I do that with this squad. Consistently and at high levels of competition.

As for your reference to my game against Alvey (which it seems to be the source where all of this is really coming from), OF COURSE I'm going to fly around Kyle Katarn. Why would I let him riposte me if he positions poorly? The plan was to kill everything else with the Lancer and kill Kyle with the IGs, but he quit before I could finish. How on Earth is that my fault? I was floored when he ran his 4 main characters into a closet. OF COURSE I lock the door and finish off the rest of his squad first. To do otherwise would be unintelligent. He made a bad move, and I capitalized. That is how this game works. He also could have positioned Kyle better so that I had no choice but to fly over him, but he failed to do that.

Dennis, If I had locked and ran away, then you might have a point. But I locked the door and advanced in for the kill, and he quit. He said he knew he was beat (and he was right).

I know this is somewhat related to the 3/2 scoring system - but let's get back on topic. We can start another thread or continue this through PM if you wish.

Stalling and slow play has nothing to do with how you intend to play the battle out, its to do with the speed in which you use your figures. IF you choose to sit in the corner and use one piece to gain a lead its fine so long as you are actively and timely playing/spinning your pieces.

The lancer (or any massive movement pieces) tread the fine line of stalling slow play because choosing the correct path takes a lot of time, not because the rest of the squads sits in the corner until its safe to come out.

the 3/2 scoring system doesn't make playing defensively a player foul, it just makes it inferior to being aggressive.



people would still have collected masses of MDs, the advantage they bring is too much.

in any case, here we agree and share the same confusion over the design of certain pieces.
I don't think we'll ever know the reason for the mouse droid stats, Gha, lancer etc. Perhaps it was intentional but more like the accumulation of mechanics and counter mechanics gone awry buy attmepting to balance one thing (CE range) and at the same time excacerbating the other (activation advantage).
This isn't even mentioning the override issue that, to my preference, has never been dealt with properly. At times i have wondered if the impact of override was Robs sacred cow. Satchel charge has persistently been placed on low hp or difficult to use figs and very few other methods to deal with overriden doors have been made (satchel charge, shatter beam).

I firmly believe that all these problems lead back to the poor options for dealing with override/doors. Its not really the activation advantage that does the major damage, its usually the combination of activation advantage and superior door control that turns a difficult (but do-able) situation into an impossible one.

I only made reference to it because of your tongue-in-cheek list of counters. The example demonstrates that you as a solid player no better than to simply point to stuff the Lancer can ignore. The only viable answer so far has been Jedi Reflexes, and I can promise you that you will see more of that as more sets come out. Not in R&R I'm sorry to say - that was a shortcoming that I share blame in - but in the future for sure.

Sincerely, I think Jedi Reflexes is a great ability, and I look forward to seeing it more. It's not like I want to cling to the dominance of the Lancer. It's very strong - that's why I play it. Once it isn't strong in the future Meta, I won't anymore (at least in competitive games).

One of the things I have always liked most about minis is seeing what rises to the top. I look forward to seeing how the next V-set and beyond shakes things up. I will surely be digging to find those golden combos.

And I'm sorry if my list came off as tongue-in-cheek. It was a legitimate list (and not even a complete one), and I know you know these things, as well as many others know about them. But perhaps some people might be helped by that list. And it's not just adding one or more of those elements to a squad - it's also applying it correctly. That is often the hardest part.

That list was more about when I am playing lancer what gives me problems. And everything on that list HAS given me problems. Often I am able to overcome them (example vs Jake K's Nom Bombs with Cad Bane) - but that's why we play the games. You have to build a good squad, and play it well, even against tough match-ups.

I apologize for getting a bit defensive. It felt as if my integrity were being questioned.

It was my choice to concede the game to Tim in the top 4 at Kokomo. I was beaten before we even sat down. His squad was superior to mine in every way, which I threw together the night before and had not even played. He had double the amount of activations that I did and a deep strike movement breaker in the lancer that I did not have in my squad. My squad was entirely melee except Ben Skywalker and Dodonna who doesnt really count. Kyle CI was my only piece that could damage the lancer on its strafe attack and I had no way to position where Tim was forced to attack him. Tim played smart and did exactly what he needed to do. I quit because there was no way in hell I could compete. I saw no sense in playing it out and Tim did encourage me to continue. I admit I was frustrated because I like to at least be competitve and once I saw the lancer make a strafe through my squad the first time I knew I had no chance. When your beat your beat.

All predicated by/on a sarcastic response to your comment about choosing squads that don't play slow. I believe the Lancer squad is a slow-play squad by design, regardless of who is using it. The only part of that that has to do with you is that you ran it.

Not quite, it's when you have no intent of ever using the piece again that it becomes stalling. Hit and Run tactics are acceptable...as long as you continue to hit and run.

Ok I was going to play the lancer squad tim played last year at WI regional without nute. I play tested it a lot and it was pretty strong but I 50/50 vs mara/Han GH and Yodabuck. Which I know was going to be seen a lot. I played the squad a lot difference I lost my lancer most games. I used it to take out acts so my 86's could hit what they wanted. It has a few more 86's but had enough acts to play the mtb. I was iffy about san and thats a big reason i never played it. The squad can play fast if you want it to. So I disagree thats its a stall squad. O there is no reason for lancer turns to take more than a few mins. YOU SHOULD KNOW YOUR MAP AND YOUR OPP MAP. I know throne room very well. I know the key 24 then to 24 save spots and the key points where I have to go. I know the same thing on ravaged,Rancor,Temple,cloud city.I spent about 100-120 hours studying the maps so I could play the lancer 86 squad. I spent around 5-6 hours each night studying where the lancer needed to go.

I dont know the new maps because they are new to me and I really dont care about the game anymore.

The point for the player is the same as it's always been: to teach you to build a better squad that can actually compete in the metagame.

This basic problem goes back to B&B, and elements of it go all the way back to RS.

IMHO, there remains an inherent design flaw in Override that people still find ways to exploit. I thought we were going to introduce at least one doorless map to the game to see if that helps, but it didn't happen. (Not saying there weren't other legitimate concerns with that particular map though I think it was worth giving a chance to see where the metagame moved.)

Mass kill options for zero-Damage 3-point scrubs doesn't bother me at all. Punish that. However, the crowd control remains a bit too effective against masses of combat troops so they aren't even competetive in an environment where crowd control is common.

Completely disagree. Slow play is a player issue. Not a squad design issue.

Others have defended why Lancers are, in practice, one of the fastest damage-dealing squads in the game. It seems like such a counterintuitive argument to make that the squad design that is frequently winning games in 15-30 minutes is somehow the slow-play design.

I think a doorless map could be quite interesting. It would need a couple of specific things as well though. Short Los, as well as lancer safe squares on both starting areas and within 16 of the starting area of each side for safe movement. Otherwise, it would never make it as a competitive map. But I'm definitely interested in the possibility. Perhaps this is something for JC and AG to work on

Yep. Swamp Caves had a real deficiency in that regard that wasn't immediately obvious. All the beveled corners eliminate most of what would have been strafe-proof squares. It's too bad that we hadn't reached the Lancer-dominant stage of the metagame when Chris was designing it, because I'm quite sure he would have changed the map to create that given all he did do to make it support the metagame of the time.

Yep, that's probably right on. Heck, maybe Chris would be up for a redesign, or maybe making something like the Caves with new art, and some minor adjustments to allow all squads to compete on said map.