No way Maul could take out Neesons.

Agreed. eSTs are 7. That means rSTs can't possibly stay at 6 (and why weren't they changed in this season, if making Stormtrooper lists viable was an objective?) which means they're going to be 4 or 5, which drops below the 2-point-per-figure baseline and makes more than 20 figures in a list possible (with the suggestion on another thread that that will be countered by limiting to 2 of the same regular card, which would be another change to the core rules). It also means elite Rebel Troopers are now vastly overcosted at 9, and the basic rRTs will also have to drop below 6 points for 3, and let's not even start on Wing Guard. It's a cascading wave of changes that need to be made; at least five other units will need their points adjusting to match that one change, and that's only looking at direct like-for-like equivalents... but none of them have been, only eSTs.
All this despite the problem being identified as Hunters (really meaning "focused eQuays") being too easily able to one-shot figures like eSTs. Wouldn't it make more sense to make eQuays 8 or 9, rather than making eSTs cheaper, which compresses all units into a smaller points range (storing up big problems for later) and by the way doesn't actually help eSTs survive? And/or address the Rebel Care Package so Gideon and C-3PO don't give eQuays Focus on infinite loop?

yes for me the auto-includes are as follows:
Imperial - Thrawn. 6 points for all he does is insanely good. Shoutout to regular officer as well. So cheap and effective.
Mercs - Greedo and Hondo. Both are incredibly annoying and dangerous for their cost.
Rebels - Gideon and Threepio. Again for cost versus utitlity, these guys are the best 5pts you can spend in the game.

SC (the card) is too powerful, but that's just my opinion.
But the cries of doom have more than one reason:
IA is a great game. The basic game mechanics are great. It is easy to learn, but hard to master. There is not much room for cheating. It is the perfect mix of a board game and a tabletop game. And it is Star Wars. Therefore, there is is a very high degree of player dedication. Even more so, because entry cost is quite high (dedication becomes higher with higher investment).
AND there are no alternatives. When an edition of Warhammer becomes unplayable, then you just play any other tabletopgame, like Warmachine, or whatever. Or you just wait for the next FAQ or edition. But there is no other game, that's anything like IA. The alternative to IA is not playing something else, the alternative is to not play at all. Therefore, the fear of loss of the investment is much higher.
We had a truly perfect state of the game:
FFG once had a great player communication (like every Friday). But that's gone.
FFG once had great OP kits (including medals/coins for first prize, cool other stuff like dice bags, health counters, cards you actually needed). But the prize support became uninteresting. The started new designs of tokens before they finished the sets with older designs, stopped first prizes, etc.
IA had a great, diverse and balanced meta till SC was released.
IA had a fresh meta about 2-4 times per year with new stuff being released all the time.
=> We all know, what we've lost.
 
Right now, there is next to no player communication, OP kits s*ck to a degree, that local FLGSs don't even bother ordering them, we don't really know, if there will ever be new physical content. Many deployment and command cards have been rubbish, when they were released, others have become rubbish. I'd say half of my figures have never seen play, 90% of my figures have not seen play lately.
Maps are released way after being in the rotation, so FLGSs don't even order them.
And on top of that, we have the SC problem.
What's most frustrating: There would be easy solutions to all the problems. 1 article per week could be easily done. Better OP support could be easily done. A set of new, balanced deployment cards for all existing figures could be easily done. Changing the map rotation AFTER releasing a new map could be easily done. Fixing SC could be easily done.
 
I think that's part of why the SC problem escalates so hard in the forums:
Many believe, the end of this game is near (for different reasons). And if FFG cancels the line, the then current meta will be there FOREVER. And the current meta s*xks.
And many gave up on the other problems, like communication, new releases etc. because they realized, that FFG won't change that. But the SC is a problem, that could be solved, and a type of problem that FFG has solved in the past (Royal Guards). So there is a focus on that problem.

Vader - Palp - Thrawn + anything u like

Wasn't it just this?
http://tabletopadmiral.com/imperialassault/138dada3a21a1a5ca98b0000000000e50b0f63da7781d5cab635e617392b
It was on the thread about Nordic Nationals under Organized Competitions.

I also painted Tress Hacnua, two Tusken Raiders and a Clawdite Shapeshifter lately:



 
And I'm currently in the process of painting two more Jet Troopers:

I modified their arm positions a bit to differentiate them from the other Jet Troopers deployment group without having to resort to symbols or colours on bases or shoulder pads.
 

Special Episode for the Nordics 2018!
Listen to the wise sages Jeppe and Isaac for some superior insight!
http://boardwars.eu/nordics-2018/
 

Here is the full list
 
http://tabletopadmiral.com/imperialassault/138dada3a21a1a5ca98b0000000000e50b0f63da7781d5cab635e617392b

Finally got the Lothar scenery set finished, quite a handful for a small expansion!

Episode 073 is up!
https://zionsfinestia.podbean.com/e/episode-073-spooky-spectres-gonna-getcha/   STRATEGY DISCUSSION.   I this episode, I am joined by Robert and Aaron to talk about Spectre Cell. We have been trying to play it pretty frequently in our testing and I wanted to get the brothers on to share their particular musings regarding the meta and how to crack Spectre.   Join the Slack so you can get in on Wave 3 of our Vassal League. We are going to be starting soon. Send and email to zionsfinestia@gmail.com.   Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/zionsfinest and let me know your thoughts on the Force Vision token!

I generally hate worker placement games, but I love Waterdeep.

Back to IA, we tried the App last week and we LOVED it!
I finished Agent Blaise from the Bespin Expansion/ Villain Box:

Throughout the galaxy, Emperor Palpatine’s Galactic Empire has created an atmosphere of suffocating fear and submission. No one dares to speak out, and those who do are quickly and efficiently silenced. These terror tactics are the work of the Imperial Security Bureau, the Empire’s secret police. Anyone you know could secretly be an ISB agent, and these agents are renowned for their lack of moral compunctions. Only the most foolish Rebels would dare to take the ISB lightly.
On Cloud City, the ISB operatives are commanded by none other than Agent Blaise, a cunning and dangerous interrogator and warrior.
And the 3 Ugnaughts from the Bespin box are finally done:

more as always on my site: http://www.adpublishing.de/html/imperial_assault.html

Yeah to say that these figures are unviable outside of Spectre Cell feels like an insult to the designers and presumptuous (well maybe Kanan, but the other 3 new ones are fine). The designers did a great job balancing the cool and thematic factor of getting to run spectre team while also not overpowering the units. Idk how anyone can condemn them for "limiting" our listbuilding when they very much just gave us a whole new archetype to play with, and therefore competitive incentive to put these guys on the table together and not just the "cool" factor (for example, the fixes allow Luke Leia Han and Chewie which FFG mentioned and is awesome- but so so not competitive and therefore never seen at high level tournaments, and how much wouldn't we want to be able to actually run them together??).

Added Hondo's cards as well as "Spectre Cell" and "Marked Territory"

I've updated and uploaded the contents of the Hondo pack (includes the Lie in Ambush card).  The new module version is 10.8.  There's no need to download this update unless you want to use the new cards from today's spoiler.
As always, it could be a while before the Vassal website mods approve the update, but as of right now I've done everything necessary from my end.
Enjoy!

Expansion, please

Got bored of him droning on as usual! ;-)
to be fair I am the mentioned whipping boy training person who hasn’t gloated about beating him. At all... until now! Lol

Got to try your build today. It was solid and super fun. Got to sling bullets all over the place and many targets for my opponent to choose between. Albiet his list wasn't top tier, but it still felt really good. I was slightly concerned with the lack of card draw. For thematics (and to get more draw power) I considered changing RCP with Jabba. Prolly not worth it though.

Hi, this is my list. Got me to top 8

Deployments:
Weequay Pirate [Elite] [7]
Clawdite Shapeshifter [Elite] [6]
Onar Koma [6]
Vinto Hreeda [5]
Greedo [4]
Gideon Argus [3]
Jawa Scavenger [2]
Jawa Scavenger [2]
C-3P0 [2]
Devious Scheme [1]
Black Market [1]
Temporary Alliance (M) [1]

Commands:
Assassinate [3]
On the Lam [3]
Tools for the Job [2]
Heightened Reflexes [2]
Tough Luck [1]
Negation [1]
Intelligence Leak [1]
Primary Target [1]
Strength in Numbers [1]
Take Initiative [0]
Urgency [0]
Positioning Advantage [0]
Element of Surprise [0]
Toxic Dart [0]
Celebration [0]

Of course elite jawa is a nice unit, but i had 4pts left to fill, and didn't want another upgrade so it was either hired guns or 2 rjawas. 5 speed is awesome, but hired guns don't get dodges, have worse range, surges and no extra defenses. Besides with so much long range attackers these days it is hard to get a decent parting shot. Also the 9th activation gives me advantage over 8 act scum lists (if i lose initiative). 

They did great on all parts, as extra activations/grabbers/door openers or to block LoS. Ability to trade into extra block often lets them survive an attack. As for eClaw, he probably not worth 6pts but it is an amazing figure, i really like him. Tried regular at first, but the conspire surges become too inconsistent, and he needs focus to hit anything decently. On the other hand elite can do just fine on his own. Even did some focused scout shot on 1st round, as he hits 10-12 range pretty easy. And since there were many empire players its also good to bait zillo exaust with scout so that vinto can go in and do his pierce+bleed surge later in the round. The drawback on elite is that you really dont want to take much dmg with inteligence leak because it becomes way easier to one shot him. I also had to get rid of strategic shift because i want him to be attacking instead of using his whole activation for the shift.
Dealing with with vader is pretty easy, there are several sources of unmitigated dmg in my list. I think the worst match up is IG since he has assault, blaze and doesnt need to get as close as vader. And han, well, i either ignore him or try set up some shooting places so i dont get return fire.

Of course elite jawa is a nice unit, but i had 4pts left to fill, and didn't want another upgrade so it was either hired guns or 2 rjawas. 5 speed is awesome, but hired guns don't get dodges, have worse range, surges and no extra defenses. Besides with so much long range attackers these days it is hard to get a decent parting shot. Also the 9th activation gives me advantage over 8 act scum lists (if i lose initiative). 

One solution to the map problem is to print off the maps in advance. There’s a high res file somewhere (help me out here people ?) that you can print off for about $8 a map. This aren’t tournament legal, but if you talk with the TO it might be allowed in anything up to the Regional level (the TO okayed it for the two Regionals I went to). 
Also, if you get involved in organizing local store tourneys, you can run those how you want. I run my store’s tourneys, and I end up supplying about 3 lists and my friend @Brigadierblu supplies another 2-3, or at least supplementing those lists. We allow proxies and generally tone down our level of lists to help my local friends enjoy the game more. 
But your experience was the same as mine a couple years back. I played campaign, started dabbling with skirmish, and then said hey, there’s a Regional in Tulsa. Why don’t I check that out. 
Well, that was back in the Vader’s Finest days, and Grant and Jesse were there, and @Masterchiefspiff came in from KS, and and a few drove up for Dallas. I got smoked ?. However, I met some cool people and then buddied around with them the next time I saw them at a tournament, and now we’re friends. Fast forward to this Regional season, I stayed in a house with a bunch of KS and ND guys for the Omaha Regional (shout out to @ThatJakeGuy for organizing that!), stayed with @Masterchiefspiff for the KS Regional, and then stayed in a house with 10 guys for Worlds, with the already mentioned players and more, including new friends I met in Omaha and others I hadn’t met yet. My point is that it can be intimidating but the competitive IA community is fairly small, and man it’s just the best. The more you go out to tourneys, the more you’ll see familiar faces and become friends with some truly awesome people. 
So, hopefully that was encouraging and not just a long winded backstory. ?
Also, consider joining the Zion’s Finest slack channel. That’s another great way to meet people in the community.
-ryanjamal 
 

Of course elite jawa is a nice unit, but i had 4pts left to fill, and didn't want another upgrade so it was either hired guns or 2 rjawas. 5 speed is awesome, but hired guns don't get dodges, have worse range, surges and no extra defenses. Besides with so much long range attackers these days it is hard to get a decent parting shot. Also the 9th activation gives me advantage over 8 act scum lists (if i lose initiative).