It only counters the MTB if you roll a 1 and can give it to your opponent.

Gha Nachkt, from The Clone Wars





Rapport is potentially a very powerful SA and should be used sensibly. That's certainly not the case here, where Gha Nachkt's Rapport, especially for the already powerful 3 point Mouse Droids, made him a competitive mainstay. With Gha Nachkt and Lobot in a base squad, a player has the option to bring in 10 Mouse Droids with Lobot, if they need to have an activation advantage. The 2010 GenCon winning squad used the Lobot/Gha Nachkt trick, as does the very popular and successful Solo Charge squad. He also gets plenty of play in Separatist squads, where his Rapport allows cheap droids, and his Repair 10 is great for fixing up a pawned Lancer.

The Gha Nachkt/Lobot combo still gets some use, but it's not as widespread as it used to be; one good counter from the v-sets is Momaw Nadon, who can come in via Lobot and War Throat through a Mouse Wall easily. While his impact has been lessened, Gha Nachkt is still both a badly thought out piece and uber-powerful piece; a piece with little screen time who was almost ubiquitous in tournament squads during 2010 and 2011. 11/10.

Update - since the errata to rapport not being able to reduce pieces below 3, Gha Nachkt is much less significant. I think you might see him in some Sep squads, but he's more like a 7/10.

Jedi Master Kit Fisto, from Galaxy at War







WOTC really didn't do expensive melee pieces very well; albeit there were a few notable exceptions like Lord Vader. At 60 points this Kit Fisto is priced out of the game - 130 hit points is very good, and his stats get impressive with Shii-Cho. But with no defensive abilities, and not a very impressive damage output given his cost, he's a lame duck. For one point more, a Republic squad can grab Captain Rex AND Dash Renegade Smuggler, who between them can pump out way more damage than this Fisto can. Shii-Cho does give him some interesting potential for really high stats, but overall he's costed far too high to be of any conceivable use. 2/10.

I don't think it was that they didn't do melee pieces... I think they just did what everyone does when making a trading game. You make some pieces that are awesome, a lot that are mediocre and and even more than suck. It's a money thing, and that is why personally I was really excited when the community picked up the game and not another corporation. Granted we lose the new pieces(and some players) but we have gained some great new mechanics and characters. I think the meta is much more interesting than it was before. Yes if you play daala snow troops you will most likely end up in the top 4(they are very beatable), but we have lancers, tantives, poggle bombs and talon karde squads. And no two of those squads are the same. This community really enjoys thinking up new ideas on how to use current cards and there isn't a lot of net decking that goes on. I used to play magic and that was one of the things that frustrates me the most... That is a bit of a difference, but you get the idea.

Shock Trooper, from Imperial Entanglements





A Missiles 30 piece for 13 points doesn't seem that bad. Browsing through squads with Shock Troopers, most seem to revolve around boosting their defenses to ridiculous levels via Vader IC and the Felucian Stormtrooper Officer:



Boosting their defense to ridiculous levels can cause headaches for some shooter squads, but it doesn't help Shock Troopers much against Jedi, who can reroll their missiles saves and should be able to get up close and cut through a high defense quickly. If you're going with Shock Troopers, I think Ysalamari is the way to go with them, to cut out rerolls - at least that way, they're scary for Jedi.

Even with the help of Ysalamari, Shock Troopers are intrinsically a Tier 2 or 3 squad type - a swarm of slow, 20 hit point pieces is asking for trouble, they're very vulnerable to a Lancer or Yobuck. Gungan Artillerists are a similar piece with much better support options, and have enjoyed some tournament success - I'd much rather go that way, and leave these guys in the box. 5/10.

The only thing I disagree with is that his impact has lessened. I just won a regional using him (and he was very important) and in the MI regional I beat the Daala squad using him with my rebels, (then losing to Critdu rolling 2 crits on his first 2 attacks against me to allow the Daala squad to win the tournament). Used to great effect in both tournaments in many different ways.

Yes the 10 mouse dump can be quite effective. Mouse walls can be really tough to get around (20 defense is stupid), but I think the more important factor is the flexibility of being able to bring in more activations through Lobot when needed. Being able to out active is awesome. Even being able to match or get near your opponents activations can sometimes be the difference. I spent most of my game vs Daala in MI throwing one of my 10 FREE mice in front for the snow troopers to kill. I'll trade a free mouse for your supped up 5 point super attacker any day. The strategy worked, I won.

But I feel the greatest benefit of Gha is being able to bring the MTB and SIX mice. We refer to Gha and Lobot as having an MTB Engine. Especially used to devastating effect when you already outactivate an opponent. Kill your FREE mouse at the start of the turn, win init virtually everytime, outactivate, then pound. Win init again and get yourself out of danger or pound more. Bringing an MTB in your base squad is dangerous and unnecessary (no reason to give San hill or other characters with reserves on a 1 more characters on the board). Without Gha, you can only bring in 4 more figs with an MTB, and that's not quite enough. I find that games rarely go more than about 8 rounds these days (even complete ones), so you don't need more than a couple pieces of fodder in your base squad with an MTB engine and you're good to go.

Plus, he's a gambit getter himself, and another sacrifice to the MTB if necessary. Also, don't overlook the simple -1 to figures like R7s, IG-86s, Treadwell Droids, Buzz Droids, LINs, etc. It allows you to often get an extra activation or 2 in with your reinforcements while getting that key droid (or droids) you need.

Honestly, I don't always play him, but I do consider him in every single squad I make.

I think when you add in the new Death Watch overlord or mando Darth Maul this guy gets bumped up to a 10. Death watch are amazing now.

Emperor Palpatine, Sith Lord, from Revenge of the Sith





On one hand, this piece is dated for 62 points - with no defensive abilities and limited mobility, he doesn't quite stack up as a competitive piece. On the other hand, he has far more than his share of really interesting and unique capabilities:
i) he can bring Order 66 pieces into the Imperials. While there are some interesting possibilities, the most significant is arguably Captain Rex, who can be boosted up the yazoo with Thrawn and Imperial Governor Tarkin, making him into a triple/twin/opportunist at +16 monster.
ii) Execute Order 66 means that no Order 66 characters can target him. It's a weird ability that's never been seen again in any form, as far as I know - a piece that's immune to a specific faction/sub-faction. I'm glad it hasn't seen much play, as it would obviously lead to some lop-sided games.
iii) Betrayal - it's a little bit scary attacking Palpatine if you can't reroll your 1s - other pieces have Betrayal, but he's probably the strongest front line attacker with it.
In some ways, the game has moved past Palpatine Sith Lord, and he's not really a competitive piece anymore. But with Pellaeon around, he's probably back in the game as soon as a strong Imperial attacker with a commander effect who costs 62 points or less is released (for the Tarkin, Rex, Thrawn, Pellaeon combo). But even now, he does have a unique place in the game, and I think he deserves a good rating. 6/10.

Yeah, maybe it would have been fairer to say that he's less ubiqitous than he used to be. You had him in an Old Republic squad last year too, right? I agree that the 10 Mouse Droids is useful against a Snow Trooper swarm too (less good against a Raxus Prime squad).

With Seps, I don't know if he's an auto-include, even in MTB engines. I kind of think MTB + 4 activations can work fine in a lot of builds, especially if they're not droid-oriented. Hopefully by round 3 or 4, you'll want to start triggering your drones with the MTB. That's open to debate though - I'm not really a big Separatist player.

Commando Droid Captain, from Galaxy at War





Separatist Droids have at least three ways of picking up double attack - they can get it as a Special Ability from the fragile Geonosian Overseer, there are a bunch of fighter/commander Grievous iterations who hand out double or extra attack, or there's this guy. They all have their advantages and disadvantages - but the Commando Droid Captain is strong enough that he's definitely an option for some builds. He's cheap, since he's also a decent supplementary or cleanup attacker. Of course, Separatist Droids also have access to twin via Whorm or GGDAC, and twin is often stronger than double since it can be used on the move, but there are some builds where double is the way to go; especially with BX Sniper droids who have Intuition, Stealth Single Shot Blaster, and Stealth, making them an ideal candidate for double attack. Some builds might still opt for Grievous on Tsmeu-6 Wheel Bike to hand out double, since he doubles as a galloper and he's much hardier, but the Commando Droid Captain is still a nice, efficient piece for 24 points, and he definitely has the chance to see some competitive play. 8/10.