So I have been away from the game for almost 4 years now, and would love to get back into playing with friends. I want to spend time teaching people how to play again as well. With that being said, I would love to have some great discussions with everyone (well everyone willing ) about building squads that don't include V-Sets.

I guess I want to start a general chat about which factions have the best power, what would you guys suggest for someone just starting out, and what are some of your favorite "for fun" squads I can put together to keep people interested!


Any input would be greatly appreciated!

The big 5 squad types at the end of WOTC were:

i) Rebel "Cannon" - with Han Solo Smuggler, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker Rebel Commando, General Dodonna, General Rieekan. The GenCon winning squad from 2010 used General Crix Madine, Elite Rebel Commandos, and Gha Nachkt, and Lobot as backup as well. You get tons of tech, triple override, Djem So (anti-Lancer), disruptive, a big end of round threat (Han/Leia), and the option to bring in 10 Mouse Droids with Lobot so you can outactivate almost anything with Dodonna.

ii) Skybuck - Yoda on Kybuck, General Skywalker, Dash Renegade Smugger, Captain Panaka, R2. Lots of movement, Yoda can take down activations, then Dash can put a big hit on the big piece (120 damage at +14).

iii) Solo Charge - Mara Jade Jedi, Ganner Rhysode, Mara Jade Jedi, Han Solo Galactic Hero, General Dodonna (there are variants with Kyle Katarn Jedi Battlemaster too). Mara levitates in and cunning assaults something for 120. Once she's finally down, Anakin can levitate in and blow up for lots of auto-damage. Han provides another good shooter and disruptive.

iv) Thrawn Swap - Thrawn, Ozzel, Mas, some attackers. Cad/Arica is an option, but it was a Lord Vader/Jarael build that came second in GenCon 2010.

v) Lancer - I'm a bit hazy on this, so someone might correct me, but I think most popular builds include some mix of Darth Sidious (the 36 point Clone Strike one), a Lancer or 2, GGDAC/Whorm, Battle Droid Officer, and IG-86s if there's space.

These 5 squads are generally seen as better than anything else, in the period after Wizards production ended and before v-sets started. Tempo control, mass killers, and movement breakers were dominant strategies at the highest level, so if your faction didn't have most of those things, you couldn't really keep up.

Sorry, I meant Mitt'Thrawn, the one from Imperial Entanglements. He surpassed GAT in most builds, since he boosts uniques with Opportunist.

Tournament builds switched from 150 points to 200 points for Regionals/GenCon in 2010 as well.

When it comes to people just starting out, I think that it is a good idea to start out with either no uniques or a limit of one or two uniques per squad. It creates more of a focus on squad building, and it also helps to prevent overly-powerful squads that might ruin the fun (for example, GOWK, or this).

I love using GGDAC. He allows a lot of fun, competitive builds using the vast array of sep and fringe droids that are out there. There are many great droids to choose from and the combinations are endless.

OK - here's a list of 5 well performing squads from 2010 (before v-sets). Are the squads your group has developed able to beat at least two or three of them consistently?

I have lots of "for fun" squads I use. I'm in the same boat as you are. Coming back to the game after a 2 year layoff and finding all my stuff can't compare to the V-set. Me and my few other SWM players have yet to use them in a live game. I have had a lot of fun with Gundarks, Wranglers and the Ithorian Commander. Sprinkle in some Bith BSV and Aqualish assassins and you have a fairly reasonable squad that doesn't require the purchase of $10+ pieces to play.

I also like to use simple Droid squads with Grievous scourge of the jedi and some other min-max buff ups like battle droid sergeant and commander and super battle droid commander. Then some cheap droids, whatever you have on hand. Like you said, squads for fun, not necessarily tournament squads.

one more that I like to use is the super stealth sev squad. bacarra, Mas, Obi jedi general and a bunch of sevs and a fixer and maybe a boss too. nothing fancy.

And my last "for fun" squad is at the below link. I got a ton of utapauns in a trade for a "lot of 50 common/uncommon" SWMs on the old WotC trade site. So I made lemonade from my pile of lemons :)
http://www.bloomilk.com/Squad/135607/thrawn-and-utapaun

That's awesome to hear! Yeah we play tournament style rules but are squads generally aren't. Its good you have a group as well. As of right now there's 8 in ours going strong and we actually do a lot of team games which is really fun like 2 v 2 or 3 v 3.

I agree with the above post - I think a lot of the reason people don't appreciate the v-sets is that they don't understand the level of power that could be squeezed from the very best WOTC combos, and how much better they were than casual squads. V-sets needed to be good to keep up with that, to bring the other factions up to speed, and to provide different viable tournament builds for all the different factions. I do disagree about the tech - I think three of the squads are pretty much still optimised with WOTC-only. IMO the changes are that Poggle/Drones are a strong supplement to the Lancer squad, and that Cad Bane/Pellaeon/Arica or Morrigan Corde has taken eminence as the premier Thrawn squad. Although Darth Jim made the GenCon Top 8 with completely different pieces with Thrawn this year, so again v-sets are providing options. I guess you could argue that the Lobot reinforcement options from the Cantina Brawl mini set could help the other squads though.

Also, for those who aren't aware - billiv15 made the GenCon final last year using only WOTC pieces, and UrbanJedi has won/placed highly at Regionals this year with WOTC only squads. Those above squads are all really strong, although changes in the meta can push and pull them out of favour, like what happens in any kind of game like this. Plus it's often just more exciting and fun to try out the new exciting pieces that just came out, rather than use something that's five years old and you know inside out already.

The Lancer build I posted was the one that UrbanJedi took to the Top 8 at GenCon 2010. I didn't trawl through Regional results for that year though.

Fun options that I do like:
- General Skywalker with Jedi Weapon Masters and Dash in Republic.
- Ossus Guardians in New Republic with Garm Bel Iblis to bring in an Ithorian Commander.
- GMA Kyle Katarn Jedi Battle Master in New Republic.
- Old Republic: 7 Jedi Battlemasters with 3 Ugnaughts (that's 800 hp to chew through....)
- Imperial TBSVs with Imperial Governor Tarkin, Xizor, and a Czerka (incredible damage output, but really squishy and no movement breaker to compensate)
- there's probably a fun Rebel Swarm with Han in STA, Leia Hoth Commander, and the Ithorian Commander - maybe Aqualish Assassins?

I think Bane gets some support from v-sets - even though there's nothing specifically targeted just for him. Bane's biggest issue is getting into melee range without getting shot up too much, and there are a couple of pieces that help with that. Darth Revan, Sith Lord can run up, and then swap Bane in adjacent to something so Bane can bash stuff. Similarly, Darth Zannah can stand in front of him and deflect shots while he gets into melee range. I've lost a game to the Zannah/Bane combo.

With Jango, I guess the v-set team have gone with the replacement option. Neither of the Jangos were top flight pieces by the end of WOTC - I'm not sure if they were top tier options at some point, but they definitely pale in comparison to the GMA shooters like Captain Rex, Dash RS, and Cad Bane. People will have different opinions about which pieces to support/pump up and which pieces to just replace. I think the new one is much better and more flavourful than the previous options - I like how Mandos and Seps are the two factions that work best for him, which makes sense thematically.