Here are some facts;

In this years VassalCon 200pt Champs, 6 out of 13 squads had Tulak ( 46.2% ). 5 of the 6 squads in the playoff bracket had Tulak. 6 of the top 7 squads had Tulak.The 2 squads in the final had Tulak. This was Tulak's 2nd major championship since his debut in 2023 , with TINT winning GenCon 2024 Champs with his "Presence of the Horde" squad.

These comments were posted on Tulak's stat card after this years VassalCon championship;



FlyingArrow
9/11/2025 1:36 AM
VassalCon 2025 agrees. 6 Sith squads in the field of 13. All 6
used Tulak, and after Swiss they finished 2nd through 7th, taking 5 of the 6 slots in the brackets. Both squads in the finals use Tulak.
Udorian84
9/12/2025 2:19 AM

Make him not be able to use force powers / points from allies and he is fine.
adamb0nd
9/12/2025 11:34 AM

62 points. I bet people would still play him.
Lightsaber
9/12/2025 12:26 AM

Could remove [Darth]. No Nexus summon, no Rule of Two, probably knocks off a couple other things from Sith.
UrbanShmi
9/12/2025 10:41 PM

I'm in the increase cost camp. Also have heard a suggestion to limit the CE to non-unique allies, which makes sense and would help some. I also think there could be a balance committee ruling preventing one piece from hopping all the way from the starting area to gambit just by using his friends' Identical Forces multiple times. There are options.
FlyingArrow
9/13/2025 7:24 AM (Updated: 9/13/2025 9:32 AM)

I am pretty much always in the camp of "just raise the cost". That way, no one has to remember any changes in how he works. And, usually, I'm in the camp of "do nothing." Power creep in general, and direct counters as well, usually take of things on their own. However, 5 out of 6 squads that made the brackets were using Tulak... that's enough to warrant something

I've heard peoples' complaints about Tulak from the start, but I never thought he needed a change. There just wasn't enough data to back it up! He seemed to be popular when he was released, but he really didn't win anything for the first year, and it was only last year at GenCon when he won the championship, barely squeaking by some other matchups (which he could've very easily lost, with different dice)...very few of those victories were easy.

The inclusion of Vaklu by the Overley brothers was brilliant, IMHO. Micah played him to great effect with Nomi-Thon at GenCon (finishing just outside of a playoff spot), and Drew placed at the top of the heap after Swiss with the same Tulak-Bane-Vaklu squad that he used here at VassalCon. Micah and Drew accurately understood the tank-heavy meta and found an excellent solution, since Vaklu isn't half bad himself, and giving Stifling Attack to an ally (Thon or Tulak) was a tremendous improvement. Still, at GenCon this year there was only 1 (or was it 2?) Tulak squads, so it really didn't appear that he was a problem. Good? Yes. Broken? Not a chance.

But now, as others have said, the numbers at the VassalCon championship this year cannot be disputed. I played Tulak-Cognus because I expected to see several people playing Tulak (or Tulak-Bane-Vaklu), which I did. I figured that my opponent's buffed-up Tulak is welcome to try to roll 15s to hit my Tulak, and I was right: I won my match vs Drew's Tulak-Bane squad. Other melee-centered squads also struggled to deal with my 29-Defense Tulak, so it worked.

So now, I've officially changed my opinion: I DO think Tulak needs to be toned down in some way. He's one of my favorite pieces, and I've been against nerfing him in the past...but 6/13 championship squads, and being 5/6 squads in the playoff rounds...that's too much.

I think these are the things that Tulak has going for him:
--Darth (interactions with the Nexus, Rule of Two, and I'm sure some other things)
--Melee Duelist (25 Defense in cover or vs adj enemies)
--SSM (it's fine and other pieces have it, but they don't have the other stuff that Tulak also does)
--Sith Reflexes (when Bane or Maul attack him he's likely to fail his SSM save, but he'll only take 1 hit before Teleporting away)
--His CE is excellent (he's basically Talon Karrde, but instead of one instance of movement at the start of the round, Tulak basically gives 2 or 3 free moves, at any point during the round)
--Having and giving out Distraction. From a flavor perspective this kinda shows the "always 2 there are, a master an an apprentice" reality, but in practice it's tremendously powerful. Does it perhaps need to be only on a lower-Cost sith ally?

None of these things are too much in an of themselves, but together in one (very) hard to kill piece, it's just too much.


I'm curious what solutions people would suggest. I'd still like him to be playable, but I don't think there's any question that he needs to be toned down.

I think TJ has the right idea- several different changes could work to tone him down, but the simplest method is to just increase his cost. He was intentionally aggressively costed to make the Sith good but I think it went too far in that he's practically an auto-include now, even if not using his second CE. I think he would still be playable at 52 or even 57.