Klats are only broken in the squadbuilding sense, not in the game-on-the-board sense. On the board, it's just an NPE. :-) But at least not a new NPE - just a rehash of Nom Bombs or super-stealth Kel Dors. Can't shoot me from far away and when you're adjacent I blow up.

A Wuher-type piece would only affect reinforcement Klats. Klatooinians as a species were subject to the Hutts, though many rebelled or ran away. An enforcer for the Hutts would be the piece to rein in the Klats.

Weequay Enforcer
Treaty of Vontor [Medium enemies whose names contain Klatooinian, Nikto, or Vodran... (insert bad effect here)]

Luke can't blaster barrage non-legal targets, like those with diplomacy. However, if he can get adjacent, he can still sweep them (as sweep doesn't target, like you've confirmed).

Do you think we as a community could change the rules again to be back to how Lightsaber Sweep used to work? I'm all for making Lightsaber sweep relevant again, and the abundance of Diplomats is becoming really annoying. This would give a lot of the older pieces more playability. I don't think it'd be game breaking at all. We'd made rule changes before, like reversing the errata on SSM, so why not do it for this ability?

Klats messed with the costing system.

The synergies of the game are enough to be able to deal with them, but the package you get for a Klat is worth way more than 12.

I think giving overwhelming power out as aq CE to people with Lightsaber assault would be an issue, and not from a gameplay standpoint, but from a useage standpoint. So say each faction with force users gets a piece that can grant this CE to their force users. How is this piece going to fit into squads that already of have auto includes? If its just a one trick pony, it won't see play. Unless you have the ability to bring him in with a reinforcement, such as with Lobot, this piece won't see competitive play. I think the better option would be to just reverse the ruling and make it so that Lightsaber Sweep plays as we used to play it! What is the issue with this? I can't think of any earth shattering meta changing effect that this rulling would create. The one thing it would do though is make a underused force power have more playability, which is what I think is good for the game. People would take into consideration of maybe including a force user with Lightsaber sweep into future builds, just to counter the opponent bringing in a wall of Imperial Dignitaries for example (which can attack quite well in a Daala squad, but yet can't be attacked easily). Diplomat is one of the worst abilities in the game. Its confusing, its annoying to deal with and it doesn't have many counters. And the pieces that do counter it aren't seeing use very often. So we get problems like we had in Gencon, where a wall of diplomats surrounds Yobuck and prevents him from moving the rest of the game (if i remember correctly). Why not just bring back into usage, what used to be a viable counter to Diplomat? Its a simple solution. much simpler than taking time to test out newer pieces that add more complexity to the game and also take a valuable spot in a V-set set list.

I feel like maybe this topic should be made into a forum topic separate from the Rolling mini of the day forum.

this is possible, but is much harder to pull of than you might think. Are you going to waste a good attackers positioning to try and get a los on a low point cost piece? Are you going to take into account that you'll have to prepare for a diplomat wall when your shooters could be attacking a much bigger target? How easy is it to get a single LOS on a diplomat when you opponent runs swarms? Again, its possible, but not easy and hardly is good for a competitive tournament scene. This is very hard and takes away from competitiveness of squads, imo.

To clarrify to Tim, my earlier comment about the abundance of diplomats becoming annoying wasn't because of how many pieces there are coming out with the ability on it, but more because of how many can be played causing problems. So i understand if you dismissed that thinking that there are too many pieces with the ability as ridiculous. I agree. There are only a few. My main concern is that we have situations where swarms of them are causing problems, and that ways to deal with that effectively are few.

Now to address TheHutts

I just remember hearing about a Daala squad recently at Gencon this year that surrounded Yobuck with a bunch of Imperial Dignitaries that could attack for +8 for30 dmg cause of opportunist and prideful, and because Yobuck couldn't move, the dignitaries killed him and the player running yobuck lost the game (even though yobuck is supposed to be a good counter to Daala). also most competitive squadsh ave Lobot, so if they are going against a all melee squad, they can bring in 4 camaasi nobles in addition to any you may already have in the squad, and pretty much make a wall that is unkillable. I've seen diplomat walls used back when Lord Kaan/Revan swap was popular as a defense agaisnt that cause they would prevent Kaan from being dropped into your squad cause Revan couldn't get past them. Not bashing that tactic, but with Daala squads being popular and the dignitaries being used with her, i think it is becoming a larger issue. +8 attack isn't to terribly high, but it is high enough to hit most things and too high for a 5 point diplomat that can also deal 30 dmg which is usually hard to kill. Sure you can bring in Momaw Nadon, but not every squad can do that and I just think it would be good to give back another option to deal with the Diplomat ability by having Lightsaber Sweep being able to kill them.

It was atmsalad vs billiv during Swiss at GenCon this year.

It was on Tomb of the Acolytes with a narrow passage where it only took 2 Diplomats (one on each side) to pin Yobuck in. I assume Panaka was already defeated. Also, atmsalad was running Elite Scouts, not Raxus Prime or Snowtroopers, so Yobuck didn't have the strong advantage he would have over other Daala variants.

Yoda, Hero of Geonosis, from Bounty Hunters Challenge





Yoda HoG is a topical mini for the randomiser to select, since he recently featured in the Hutt100 tournament in New Zealand, with one squad winning the whole thing, and the two HoG squads going 5-1 between them. At the same time, he hasn't made much of a splash at Regionals or GenCon - I think the jury's still out about whether last year's high activation meta didn't suit him, or whether he's not quite there as a competitive piece. He's certainly a major, fast moving threat; since he's in the same faction as R2-D2 Astromech Droid, he can easily move 18 squares and hit a piece for 90 damage with R2's Tow Cable and his own Leaping Assault with Momentum. Since a lot of squads revolve around pieces with less than 90 hit points - Thrawn, Cad Bane, Talon Information Broker, Han Smuggler are all squad lynch pins, with no melee defense, that Yoda can easily finish in one set of attacks - he's an intimidating threat, and opposing squads need to negate his deep striking ability by bringing in a bodyguard or surrounding vulnerable pieces with fodder.

As well as his attacking prowess, Yoda has some staunchness defensively. He has Lightsaber Defense with Master of the Force 2, while he also has the far more unique combination of Immediate Order 66 Reserves 20 and his commander effect, where followers with Order 66 gain bodyguard. With reserves 20, he can bring in four Spaarti Demolitionists, who can each bodyguard a hit for him. Yoda also has more spoiler abilities in Riposte and Force Defense - a Lancer won't want to attack him, and he can negate any force powers used within 6 squares.

At 100 points, Yoda Hero of Geonosis is a huge chunk of your squad, and we're really yet to see him make a splash at 200 points. In a faction without tempo control, he's going to be outactivated by almost any tournament squad, and he has bad matchups against a lot of squads that were popular last year, like Daala swarms, Vong swarms, and Fringe squads with Ysalamari and Disruptive. He is a threat though, even at 100 points, and he certainly could come into his own in some lower activation metas, or at lower point levels - I'm interested to see if he shows up at next weekend's 150 point HaweraCon tournament in New Zealand. For now though, I think he's hovering just below the competitive level at 200 points, but he's enough of a threat that it wouldn't surprise me to see him make a splash somewhere down the line, 7/10.

Stormtrooper Advance Scout, from Renegades and Rogues





You'd never take the Stormtrooper Advance Scout over the similar Elite Scout Trooper as an attacker - the Elite Scout Trooper offers extra attack, hit points, and evade for 2 extra points, and it's much better to build around. But Stealth and Recon is a useful combination for any squad that revolves around reserves - and it's noticeable that the Advance Scout is in the same set as Darth Vader Agent of Evil, the piece to build an Imperial Reserves squad around. When Daala had reserves, I did flirt with running a Stormtrooper Advance Scout in my Daala squads - it wasn't a bad attacker in a trooper swarm, and Recon's useful for winning initiative as well as an extra chance for reserves. Since Daala's lost reserves and reserve squads generally aren't tournament level, as they can be negated with a Muun Tactics Broker, I don't know that there are quite any tournament level applications for this piece, but Recon and Stealth is a useful combination, on top of a respectable attacker for 11 points, and you can easily slip it into a squad for some extra initiative control. 7/10.