Haven't given it too much thought. With major competition not beginning till after Dark Times, sort of been waiting to give serious thought for Regionals. Some thoughts:

Argyus: fun, not competitive. The Senate stuff is fun, but I have some real issues getting it to work.

FLObi: Will make it somewhere. Him and Rex are just a pair made in heaven. Add in Dash for some more fun. Will definately be seen and do well.

Anakin: A great piece, but I don't think he will place too high. Definately be used in Yobuck and/or swap squads.

Loathsome: Hard to pin down. Too many options to narrow down to one squad, but a Fett/Tyrannus combo at 200 sounds amazing. Also, some blends of Living/Droid seems possible. I find hard not to see some Sep squads at the top tables in the upcoming season.


In the end, ideally some map changes can help even more come Feb.

EDIT: Some minor thoughts:
Yularen may sneak up on some people. I also have some fairly radical ideas on Mar Tuuk, some with San, some without, and a whole bunch of noncompetitive stuff.

I think the biggest impact will be R7 now being the cheapest Fringe overide. Many squads that can't fit in either lobot now have another option.

Cad Bane swap won a 80 persons french tourney :)

I'm not too experienced with Republic, but from what I've read and seen, FlObi will be an excellent and fair GOWK replacement. Commander Ahsoka seems like her CE is very useful. Especially with Wookies or combined with General Skywalker (also very useful).
I think Argyus combined with Senate Commandos and Queen Amidala (CotF) could be competitive. Mobile Twin and hitting for 30s sounds like it could be competitive to me.
Yularen may make it into several squads as a booster to all Republic ranged squads. Unlimited range opportunist is too good to turn down in some squads.

And now for the Separatists:
Loathsome brings a lot to the Sep faction, especially to the living characters. There are now a lot more combinations for squads Seps can have and improves their already great living unique characters (Tryanus/Dooku, Durge, and Maul for the most part).
Mar Tuuk allows for a new Sep tempo controller. His slightly higher cost isn't that much of a problem, and his tempo control CE is better than San Hill's restrictive one. But his requirement to see the enemy is his downside.
The new Grievous and Ventress are meh. Ventress seems a bit overcosted for her abilities compared to Ventress, Sep Assassian. Grievous is finally a beatstick, and his CE is still great. But at his high cost and limited range CE, he'll still be taking second place to GGDAC.

Finally, the Fringe:
Bane definantly makes his mark in this set. He's the Boba Fett of the CW era (to me at least). His combined abilities make him an extremely tough piece to fight. But his 80 HP still make him vulnerable to being out in the open too long or being based by a solid melee fighter.
From my point of view, the Rodian Trader could cause some problems by giving Heal 10 and Grenades, but I don't think it will be that much of a problem.

Notice that I really only focused on the uniques for this post. I may move onto the uncommons and commons in a later post.

it was 60 something not 80 something. a Kreia han smugger leia dod squad made it to the top 16 thats all I am saying about that. 1,2,6th from what we know were playing cad bane swap in a mirror match its any ones game. I would like to know how many speeders were played by the top players like they were at Gencon. I know Gren played the cad swap and took 2nd. He lost in the finals to a mirror that out acted him.

Edit there were 24 rebel squads,11 empire.

Ah, anyone fluent in French want to ask them for an English version :) Or anyone want to translate it. I would love to read more about it, but alas, I do not speak french.

For Bill:
Rough translation of Swmini;


Author opens with a short chat about the pre-game scenario, getting there and chatting with a friend. First Photo is of the play area. The author remarks that the players are casually lounging, but will soon become very serious. The players on the bottom right are the German delegation.

Second photo is of the customs entered in the competition.

I believe that the Snowspeeder took first place, and the scout trooper sniper took second (well would have if the maker[also of the SS] hadn't of withdrawn it so as to not take both top 2 spots) He remarks that is a pity that Franck's custom Maleval didn't win as Franck's worked hard and did excellent work.

He lists his squad and talks about how its a favourite of his, but instead of ewoks this time, he's using Crix/Rieekan and Wookie Commandos.
-Crix Madine
-General Dodonna
-Han Solo in stormtrooper armor
-Ithorian Commander
-General Rieekan
-5 Wookie Commando
-Elite Rebel Commando
-R7 astromech
-2 UD


The following text and photo go together. Players are paired up and seated. Once everyone is seated the judges go over the rules (must be nice to have their own play area eh!) and add a small supplemental. The final Playoff will have 16 players, 8 determined via these swiss rounds and the other 8 determined by players that won local regionals/championships (german/french, etc[denoted as 'cibles']). Also the first player to beat one of these 'cibles' would win a booster!

His first match is versus Nicolas, who drove 400 km to play! He says that Nicolas was one of these 'Cibles', so if he beats Nicolas, he gets a booster, but he doesn't think its likely as the last 4 or 5 times they've faced, he's lost!
He loses map, and they play on hardboard. I think he sets up on the right, and using double override and dodonna, moves his wooks into that lower room, open and closing the door to protect them, from there he is able to take out his opponents Lobot and a whipid tracker {reinforcments}. Amazingly when time is called he wins the game, and booster, hurray!
Team de Nicolas :
-Boba Fett, Mercenary Commander
-Mandalorian Scout *2
-Caamasi
-Czerka Scientist
-Lobot
-3 Mouse Droid



2nd match is vs Gerolstein Franck, who was the germany champion!
they have a small language barrier (lol) but proceed roughly along in english. They are playing on the hardboard again. The author is worried about his opponent's squad, as it is very mobile and can get to his commanders and wreck havoc. He gets an early round shot at R2, and needing only a 1 to miss... rolls a 1. The rest of the match goes very quickly, he loses Han and the Ithor, but manages to get Yoda down to 10 hps.. only to have Panaka swap him to safety for Mas! With no way to match the points, it is a loss.
Team de Franck :
-Yoda on Kybuck
-General Skywalker
-Captain panaka
-R2D2 Astro
-Mas Amedda
-3 UD
-1 Mouse Droid


Break for lunch, he has some delicious sandwiches thanks to AFJV {whoever they are!} and spends some time talking with the other players. They discuss the various squads and particularly the strength of Cad/Thrawn being run by the German players. Also he gets a chance to meet and talk with some members of the [swmini] forum in real life rather than over a keyboard.

Barely enough time to finish eating when the 3rd round begins. His opponent is Laurent and when the roll for map.. he loses again and plays on.. Hardboard.. for the third time!



He uses a similar strategy as the first time, moving into that bottom room, and manages to sneak up on Luke and hit him for 50.. said Wook is then popped by Fett and both shooters run away to the Conference Room. He is then able to base his opponents Uggys and eventually killing them, and locking Luke and Fett in the room, while killing the rest of the squad! He even gets crit on Leia, hurray! A tough loss for his opponent, but fair, they agree to meet later on.
Team de Laurent:
-Boba Fett BH
-Luke Skywalker Hero of Yavin
-General Dodonna
-1UD
-Princess Leia of Cloud City
-Obi Wan Kenobi Jedi Spirit
-General Rieekan
-Caamasi
-1 UD



4th match is vs Salezzo Jean-Michel (who would finish in the top 8), once again.. map loss! he gets to play on Muunlist Commerce Plaza, which is reasonably symmetric.

His opponent brought in 3 mice and 3 Uggies to counter his activations. His opponent remarks that they have even activations and the first one to make an error loses. As the match progresses, he is able to hit Kreia once for 50 .. but since he had a placement error, is unable to get a 2nd wook close enough to finish her off! His opponent nets 9 points and fights defensively the rest of the match. The han/leia combo is too tough to handle and the author takes another loss.
Team de Jean-Michel :
-Lobot
-Kreia
-General Rieekan
-Princess Leia
-Han Solo Smuggler
-General Dodonna
-Juno Eclipse



5th match is vs Christophe Collobert !!!!! {who he was talking to earlier, seems to be a good friend met online, goes under pseudonym 'ADX'} doesn't win map.. again.. and plays on rattatak arena.

Christopher is running a jedi hunting squad, but with no jedi to hunt this time! A pretty lopsided event, as he had his opponent badly out activated. He gets a good streak going of rolling 20.. 1...20...1.. And even though he won, it was the most fun he'd had all day and couldn't think of a match where he laughed more, thanks to his excellent opponent.
La team d'ADX :
-Grand Master Tsavong Laa
-YV Jedi Hunter *4
-1 UD
-1 Mouse Droid.



6th and final match was against Bouschri Loïc, who was playing a similar squad as himself. Finally he wins map choice and plays on Chancellor's Starship. He gets to set up on the left even! However his opponent brought along a disruptive piece, and kept Juno alive long enough to make it too difficult for the Wooks to take anything down. A tough loss, but good game.
Sa team :
-Aura Sing CS
-Han Solo Storm
-Jarael
-Ithorian Commander
-R2D2 extensor
-General Dodonna
-Juno Eclipse
-Aqualish Assassin *5


The Final standings are shortly announced:

**note that there are no commas, but it goes Last Name, First Name**
Top 8 Photo



The author finished with a 3-3 record, which is what he was aiming for, so is pretty happy about that!


The top eight move on, as well as these 8 earlier champions:


The first round pairings are:


The author's friend Nicolas, was paired with the eventual winner C. Allroggen who was running the Cad/Thrawn comment. It appears that he lost badly {or was facing certain defeat} as the author and their friends heckled him for the rest of the night with comments such as "you could count your points with your teeth" and "Do you need to go to the pharmacy to get some Vaseline?". Clearly it was a bit one sided!

He recounts that he had some trouble sleeping as his bed-mate was a prolific snorer {I'm sure most of us can sympathize}.

I'm just going to briefly summarize the next bit where he talks about his participation in the Sealed 150 event. It seems the rest of the Top 16 was played out in another room at the same time.

Plus there was some cool 3D Terrain!


2 Boosters, 27 Players.. and everyone was searching for Cad! Only 2 Players pulled him though.



Our author played;
-Général Skywalker
-Nadhar Vebb
-R7 astromech
-IG 100 artillerist
-ARF troper
-501 clone trooper
-Senate commando
-Weequay pirate

and in the 4 matches he won twice.
Played against:
Rex and Repeater Cannon - was able to win, thanks to override and a small mistake by his opponent.
Obi GJ and Rex - Loss, looses r& due to placement error and Anakin and Nadhar don't stand a chance vs Obi.
Obi GJ and B3/R7/LR Combat - Win, is able to use direct damage (Force Push) to kill Obi after killing the B3 and finally hunting down the LR
Obi JG and Kit - Loss, Triple/twin and 2 Surprise moves cause him to loses Anakin before damaging Obi and thus the game.

The Author spends some time remarking on how much he dislikes the new Obi, and in fact refers to him as GWOK throughout the article. His first opponent tries to convince him that Obi GJ isn't as good as he trades FR for 5 fps and Surpise Move, but the author is not convinced. In his opinion Obi JG is just as good as GWOK.

Even though he places 11th, its enough for some prize support! A Rex! Plus his VR pull (Nadhar) helps him to complete his collection, so that is good news.

The final bit is about the prize support given to the top 16 finishers. Everyone received 2 boosters, with extra stuff going to those who finished higher up.


Top 16 Final Placement


The first place finisher, Daniel Koch, received a Yoda FX lightsaber (batteries not included!)


Third placer, and top French finisher Rémi Janouscewski received a signed Darth Vader poster.


The author ends with Thanks going out to friends and the people who helped make such a great event possible (like the organizers and WotC).

Ends with the 'second' place picture of the Scout Trooper Sniper by Fabrice


If you speak and can translate better than me feel free to correct me! Original Article Here!

Its amazing to see so many players congregated in Europe! About 15 players met up in Stockholm to play for this worthy prize. http://www.innsmouthsfinest.se/docs/img/vp.jpg

I have my name engraved for 2007 and had hoped to see it back there for this year. Just as in France however, a swapped Cad Bane was able to win it all.

Yes first place was a Cad Swap and secound place was a Bane Swap too-
The only game i lost was against a Bane Swap, i played Bane Swap myselfe and got 6th place. There is "no" chance to defeat it in 150 points without Yobuck.


Sure its a fragile Squad if u do i mistake you´ll lose but if not its allmighty- against Speeder and lobbin Luke you´ll win very easiely.

IF you have Microsoft 2003 or newer you can copy the text into a document then click Tools > Research... > then in the pull down box that appears on the right select translate, if you have an inter-net connection. It's not perfect but it works...

Here is the intro that Ruhk skipped.


[edit] Also the Google toolbar will translate some sites on the web-page