11.07.07
Present and Future Vong

Today’s letter is from Sivok:

In today's game, where do you think the Vong are going? Do you think that Nom Anor is going to lose playability soon?

Thanks for the letter Sivok. The Vong are one of the pet factions that really have not seen a lot of love yet. Right now the Vong have some very nice promise, but with the figures are currently out, the squad building options are really rather limited.

With the initial release of the Vong, we had a very nice figure and new mechanic in Nom Anor and his super stealth bombs. After that, though, quality dropped off very quickly. Tsavong Lah was an absolute beast to take down with his huge hit points and massive crab armor, but he fell flat because, although he could take a pounding, he couldn’t dish the damage. Characters that attacked him could deal out a world of hurt in the time it took him to take them down. The other vong were left with such horrid stats that they were left depending on their thud bugs to do anything. Well, unfortunately, anything with damage reduction or the droid ability could just spit in their faces because Vong couldn’t hurt any of these. Also, the Jedi have become a lot more powerful as well.

In Alliance and Empire, we finally got a few more figs. They were what people were hoping because they now had ways to deal out 20 damage with both cunning and spit poison. They also finally got a pretty cheap Vong that had stealth. Unfortunately, there were two problems. The first was that their attack values were still horrible, so the new poison effect they gained was useless. The second was that all of their new powers were brought in by commander effects in a set that brought disruptive to the forefront. The new R2/3PO and all of the rebel help brought one end, while Mara made the new republic much more powerful making Talon a more common site.

Through it all, Nom has been the only one that has been consistently playable, but even now his powers are diminishing. He is good, but with all of the disruptive out there, his bombs just are not as fearful as they were. His other problem is that he has always depended on new stealth fringe to help him out. This left them vulnerable to Depa’s Force Sense as a diffuser. Well, now we are getting two new figures in Force Unleashed that also have Force Sense. One will not see much play, but I guarantee that the other will see LOTS of play. ;) It will give three factions the ability to take away stealth instead of just Depa.

So right now Vong are a wanna-be faction left on the outside looking in. There are always going to be new fringe that can help them in a Nom build, but that can only take them so far. They really need some vong figures that will allow them to do some serious damage using attacks. We know there are more Vong coming down the pike, but I don’t know if it will be the next set after Force Unleashed or even later. Those of you out there that are Vong players just need to be patient for a little bit longer. The good side is that the era of interminable waits between sets seems to be at an end. We have a set in two weeks and three promised sets for next year.



I hope this answers your Vong question. If you have any further questions let me know, and I will try to clarify further. If anyone has any questions or topics you would like me to cover, drop me a line at sithdragon13@yahoo.com. I will get to ALL emails, so if you have sent something be patient.


May the Force Be With You.