I love the concepts of both of these. VA isnt nearly as limited as you guys are saying. Hes a great secondary beat - not a primary. I dont think lightning squads will even be his best use as its way to easily nerfed. I would go 200 pt B&B with Vader and add the VA. Two strong beats has always been good, and if you set up the timing right devastating.

The Shadow Gaurd is awesome. My first thought was a couple of these, with some Storm Commandos, Thrawn, Mas and a Bith Vigo. Will be very fun indeed.

My friend Erick's Tank squad just got some new friends in these guys as well. Cant wait to see the new Vader.

The apprentice is a piece that many fans will use. It is a piece that some will try desperately to make into a competitive one. It will take some major support to make him into one, and in the end, he will just flat out fail.

He can deal out 40 damage with attacks, miss almost as much as a JWM, and has a major defensive problem. His Force Powers are a waste, and I am glad of it.

Time will tell how wrong I am.

Both are sweet. You can see the revised pricing Rob mentioned on the Shadow Guard. He's much closer to the JWM than past mid-cost melee pieces.

I like the Apprentice and the way higher cost characters are being set up to be more deadly to each other but overpriced vs grunts. Maybe grunts will someday start being valid to mix in outside of very specialized swarms. I also like the setup of the massive Force Powers. Sure, Yoda will nerf him Force-wise, but Yoda is a more expensive character with similar modest standard offense--it works out well.

I don't know, I see his Lightning as both offensive and defensive. Still, I think saying he will not be competitive right now may be a tad early. We still need to see what his master does. It does give us an idea of what Force Grip 4 will be like compared to the old Grip...

There is so much anti-force stuff out there now, that I would not trust those Force Powers *ever*. You got Yoda, Vong, General Windu, Qui-Gon, Thrawn, and who knows what else this set.

Yeah, I have a feeling Luke/Yoda will have Defense as well.

Both Pieces are nice but not top draw stuff.

I can't see the shadow guard being used that much. 23 points is a lot for imperials that shell out for big beats. No double, force sensitive. Boosted Marauder and how often do you see those. Perhaps he would be ok with BBSV and Mas. Ok fig but nothing special.

VA is a nice tool for thrawn. Zap and stun is strong and works great as a tool for Thrawn against San where you have a 3/4 chance to stun boba bh. He kind of blows against anything with force defence (luke with Yodapack will probably have this). Nice novelty fig but i'll be suprised if he ever makes it competitive for mirror matches against thrawn if nothing else.

Cool new pieces...Cool new stats. Whn you add this in from Erik things start to come together.

"An Ugnaught with a commander effect that gives all Ugnaughts Self-Destruct 10.
Yes, there's a Vader, but Force Grip 4 is kinda new

Because you demanded it, Someone(s) has a power that rhymes with Force Tush
The Rebel Troop Cart has a special ability called, Troop Cart. It's very long.
I don't recall seeing the ability Immediate * Reserves before."

I would imagine that Force Grip 4 will be along the same lines as the force lighting. Edit: Opps sithborg beat me to this point

If Luke unleashed has the varying Force powers, it would make Ben-Ghost more interesting as well as yoda ofdag. Or Ben Unleashed and Yoda of Dag.

Very interesting. Good thing we have Disruptive to disconnect VAU's force battery.

Again, you have no idea whether or not there will be synergy in this set that will push this piece (or Leia, or any others) into top tier meta, much less future sets. You could easily end up being correct, but to make such definitive statements is absurd.

Great previews from Wizards.

Okay, Vader's Apprentice first. Not actually as powerful as I was expecting. Without Palpatine (which kind of defeats the whole 'Secret Apprentice' thing) you're only going to let loose with those Lightening strikes a couple of times.

I can certainly see a new B&B possibility, Blue Lightening

Emperors Shadow Guard, well, everything that's been said. Will replace the Dark Side Marauder and he useful to back up those Melee characters should you choose not to play a Thrawn swap squad.

I love these pieces. It may be hard to work these guys into existing concepts, though I'm sure plenty of peeps who will come up with better ones

Shadow Guard: Nice piece.

Apprentice, Unleashed: OMFG. OMFG. OMFG. OMFG. Damn, this is going to be a fun set!

I will need as many of those Shadow Guards as possible. At least 7. I also love Vader's Apprentice, will possibly be one of my favorite finesse pieces since it will take some level of strategy to use him well (unless you use Thrawn and Palpy, of course). More than likely, I will not manage to pull him in one of my cases.

I would tend to agree to a certain extent. Especially when you compare it directly to the Dark Side Marauder, though he's not too much better. The sculpt looks better than the DSM anyway. But I'm digging the Shadow Guard. He's going to be fun to play, and I play the Marauder every once in a while. Sometimes you just want a change of pace.

Lobo, my friend recently rolled a 17 to bring his Rebel Snowspeeder back to life. The game was already his to win, so part of me wanted to see Snowspeeder come back. Great fun, but yeah, making that save is really tough.

I hope we eventually find out that the Secret Apprentice will be more synergistic with Vader Unleashed than with Palpy. I think it will be the case. The last few sets in particular have given us some good combos with figures that should go together.

Shadow Guard is going to be the ARC Trooper of this set. Works very nicely with the Stormtrooper Commander as well (I've run this combo in the past with the DSM anyway).

I predict it'll take 2 weeks from release for everyone to be sick of hearing "Force Lightning 5. YOU'RE FIRED!".

The shadow gaurd will be great buddies with the storm commando. Several of both, combined with Thrawn, mabe veers, mas and a vigo or two, and then balence the cunnning attacks with a lot of aqualishes sounds like fun to me.

My Swiss Army Knife may have gotten a whole new look. Seems like the SC's with Force Immunity will be stronger and the Guard could be a great melee balance to my squad. I look forward to this!

Wow, you quoted a lot, but you missed my last sentence on this subject...

That's like saying "You're such an obnoxious, stupid, ugly prick, your mother dresses you funny and I hope you internally combust... no offense."
The tag line at the end doesn't change the preceeding opinions-stated-as-fact. You're doing the same thing with Leia. Without having seen you post such strong opinions againsts such statements, I would simply have chalked it up to more internet doom-saying; but your hypocrisy stabbed me in the heart like one thousand swordfishes.

It's like an intervention; so you can, you know, get better.