Hello! I played in the store champs earlier today and had a wonderful time! I will start with my list and why I chose each one then I will follow with the breakdown and thoughts of each round and the lists I faced. What do you think I placed? Find out at the end of the batrep!

My List:

Darth Vader (29) [37]

-Proton Rockets (3)

-Veteran Instincts (1)

-Engine Upgrade (4)

Thats right! This is not the crew! I was the guy crazy enough to fly with Tie adv before the fix comes out with the raider! Bwahaha! The Dark Lord of the Sith is far too good and way to fun to leave behind! So... thoughts here.... I took proton rockets so that he would have one turn of massive damage. Engine upgrade allows for arc dodging shenanigans that I honestly live for! Vet Instincts I chose solely for the purpose of making Vader a phantom slaying machine. Being able to both move after AND shoot before any phantom is very huge and with the proton rocket it lets him nuke those little buggers!

Soontir Fel (27) [34]

-Royal Guard Tie (0)

-Autothrusters (2)

-Targeting Computer (2)

-Push the Limit (3)

Soontir Fel is quite possibly my favorite ship/pilot to play. He is an absolute monster and now that autothrusters are out he no longer gets popped by a single bad roll against turrets! Autothrusters and PtL should not need explaining and I chose targeting computer so I could have another option to choose with PtL and to increase my damage output. I wrestled between this or either stealth device or a hull upgrade but decided to go with increased firepower as well as opening up the 1 pt for Vet Instincts on Vader.

Dark Curse (16)

Honestly my favorite TIE Fighter (yes including howl) and in my opinion one of the most underrated pilots. People really underestimate how incredibly hard it is to kill a tie fighter when you cant modify attack against it at all. At 16 points this is an absolute steal. I would take a swarm of Dark Curses if I could

Obsidian Squadron Pilot (13)

Filler. I really wanted to squeeze a fourth ship in. Opted to go for PS 3 over the Initiative bid since I dont care all that much about bidding and being PS3 helps a lot against some lists ( two guys I knew would be there usually play swarms and they are both fierce competitors so I wanted my ship to be able to get shots off before dying)

Total : 100

Overall I really like this list. It has a tad bit less raw firepower than the other list i was considering (Fel, Jax, Alpha Interceptor, Dark Curse) but has a much better game against whisper while not really losing anything against other lists. I am very comfortable with flying Fel and TIEs and have piloted Vader a fair number of times so I really liked my chances going in.

Round 1 - Doug

Chewbacca

- MF title

- Gunner

- Predator

Leebo

- Outrider

- HLC

- Predator

Doug created this list with the idea of minimizing the impact of stress used against him. He went with HLC over Mangler due to wanting the additional damage and having chewie as the turret that can cover his donut hole.

This game was fairly straight forward. I bum rushed the falcon and poured massive amounts of firepower into it. I kept dark curse and Fel in the lead in front of obsidian to draw his attention since they are far tankier. It worked. I flew well and I also had some very good green dice. One round in particular chewie rolled 4 hits against vader who rolled 4 (through an asteroid) evades so he gunnered into another 4 hits and vader rolled yet another 4 natural evades. Chewie went down in a couple rounds of fire aided by 5 damage from Rockets. After that I stayed in the donut while predicting and blocking with my Obsidian. Eventually leebo too fell without a single ship being lost from my side

Win 100-0

Round 2 - BJ

Rear Admiral Chiraneau

- Expose

- Experimental Interface

- Ysanne Isaard

Whisper

- Vet Instincts

- F.C.S

- Advanced Cloaking

- Rebel Captive

I set up both TIEs in the middle so they could react to his placement. He set up with RAC in one corner angled toward the middle of the map with whisper set up on the other corner facing the center as well. I set up Vader and Fel inward between the TIEs and the edge with the phantom. First turn I gunned it forward. Second turn I suspected Whisper would try shenanigans so I had Vader turn hard toward the edge while the others fanned out some. As I predicted his decloak and move set him up perfectly where I hoped. Vader boosted and barrel rolled to get R1 on Whisper with no return. Vader landed 2 hits but I forgot about that cursed captive!! Whisper had no shot though so didnt get to cloak. The Next turn Vader ambled about to come around and clear stress but didnt have a shot. Fel and the Ties did their work on the RAC with the RAC getting his PS reduced to 0 through a timely crit. After I got whisper with another tricky maneuver and popped him. I have some trouble remembering exactly how this game went down but I ended up cleaning him up.

Win 100- 0?

Round 3 - Andy

Chewbacca

- Predator

- Jan Ors

- c-3po

- MF title

Leebo

- Predator

- Mangler Cannon

- Recon Specialist

- Outrider

He flew Chewy and Leebo pretty tightly together the whole time. Again I ran roughshod all over chewie and took him out fairly quickly. Leebo fell too but took a bit longer as he was rolling really well on the evade dice for leebo. Fel ended up falling to a mangler cannon shot but Vader finished the job with Rockets again. After a good bit of shooting I lost only Fel as my ships were all much harder to kill than he thought.

Win 100-0

Round 4 - Trey

Bwing (Dagger)

- FCS

Bwing (Dagger)

- FCS

z-95 Bandit

z-95 tala

Ywing Gold

- Ion Turret

This is one of the lists I really didnt want to face as it was simply so incredibly tanky. At this point we both knew that we were locked in for top 4 no matter the outcome due to our record. I wanted to try a different approach than my usual so I rushed him head on. Range 3 shots yielded nothing and then we ended up R1 of each other, knowing that this turn would likely determine the round. Long story short my dice betrayed me and I couldnt kill either z-95 so he got to fire with his full force. He landed a good ion, popped Fel who whiffed several rolls, and popped obsidian as well. The next turn the Kturn had one of his daggers shoot 3 crits at Curse who then rolled one evade and took a direct hit to pop him as well. At this point the only ship i had was vader and while I was sure I could take out a couple of ships I knew it was over so I conceded to him so that I could get some snacks.

Loss 0-63

Top 4 - Rich

Keyan Farlander

- PtL

Green Squadron

- A-wing Test Pilot

- Chardaan Refit

- Expert Handling

- Veteran Instincts

Dagger

Gold

- R5 astromech

- Ion Turret

This was an incredibly close game. He made a very surprising maneuver with his Y that ended up causing Vader to barely bump. With no action Keyan and the Green Killed him with his Rocket unfired. Dark curse and obsidian sold their lives dearly until the only two ships left were Keyan and Fel. He tried a few tricky maneuvers to deal with Fel but between moving second and some clutch predictions on my part I was able to keep on Keyan and take very minimal return fire. Eventually I wore him down and finished the game with a wounded Fel.

Win 100-66

Finals - BJ

Whisper and RAC from before. I was actually happy to see this matchup since I consider it a better matchup for me than the one against the 5 rebel swarm Trey had. We agreed to have the finals be untimed as we wanted to duke it out and see who would emerge victorious!

The beginning looked good for me. I used vader to harass and chase his Whisper around so that he could not effectively flank me while Fel and the TIEs went to work on RAC. RAC fell in short order while I lost only the Obsidian. I then turned to the task of hunting the phantom. Here fatigue began to catch up to me and I proceeded to make a series of mistakes. First I used the target lock I had been saving on Vader after the second round of rolling double blank (TL rolled double blank again) only to find the next turn I am able to boost Vader and get R1 on the phantom. I decide to risk the Rocket shot but roll 3 blanks and he rolls 2 evades on his 2 dice. I should have just saved the Rockets and taken another lock but I was worried I wouldnt be able to easily get R1 again as the Captive was really restricting my movements) The dice continue to fail me and I hunt him around the map. The my second mistake comes when I 3 kturn Fel and barely clip an asteroid. Autothrusters and the focus he got from the kturn keep him alive through the fire but he is badly wounded. I then make a second error with a fel maneuver and he dies. Dark Curse K turns and rolls a hit due to a crit (had to risk it since I needed to get the shot) and he died to the crit effect. Vader then danced with Whisper until one turn I think I have him in R1 (he has 1 hp left) and i boost and barrel roll but end up just barely not getting an arc on him and he gets a R1 shot and finishes me.

Congrats to BJ for winning! He flew flawlessly this game and capitalized on the mistakes I made.

Loss 57-100

Final Record: 2nd Place

While I was sad that I didnt get to take that beautiful plaque home or get the bye for Regionals I was happy with my flying overall. With the exception of my mistakes in the final round I felt I flew incredibly well (not counting round 4 which I knew was a poor decision but wanted to try it for fun and science!) and I am happy with the neat loot I made off with. I am looking forward to playing with S&V soon as there are a ton of cool ideas I have with them!

Thoughts: This list was incredibly effective and fun to play. The ships are all pretty resilient and Vader was absolutely amazing. I dont know why people think he is "too" weak until the fix. You simply have to save the Rocket for the right moment and let his double actions and high PS rip your opponents to shreds!

Thank you for reading this long Batrep I hope you enjoyed it!

Edited to add a couple thoughts

Well done on doing so well with a very different list! Thanks for sharing.

VERY nice! That's an inspiring list and makes me want to try it!

Good to see Vader out there. Had Scum no been legal, I probably would have run Vader and Fett. I think Vader with Engine upgrade is awesome!

Sounds like some fun matches with a neat list. Personally, I think I'd dump the Obsidian down to a nice cheap Academy, to run a Stealth device on my Fel -- I find I never use my Targeting Computer, and every green die helps! -- but all in all your list sounded like a pretty cool one. Congrats on a strong 2nd place finish, and on running Vader before the Raider hits, too!

Thank you for the responses everyone! and thank you for taking the time to hear my tale!

Critias I am considering doing that very thing. I did use targeting computer a to good effect so I never felt like it was wasted points but I do feel like the extra green dice would just be insane with the autothrusters. Even against the lists without turrets AT was very useful as I made sure to have confrontations at R3 if I wasnt going to be dodging arcs. The only hesitation I have is that I went with Obsidian over Academy for a good reason and not just because I had unspent points. Obsidian gives me the distinct advantage of being able to shoot before swarm lists so I can get in at least one good round of shooting (especially rebel swarm since they tend toward PS2) while still being able to serve as a blocker against elite ships. Ill give it a try and see if the defensive boost on Soontir is needed and how different the filler tie feels with -2 PS.

I do recommend this list to anyone who wants to try a more "dark horse" build that is still extremely strong. Many people underestimate Dark Curse and Vader, while people know his ability is bonkers, still sees no play simply for being in the Advanced. Its true I could definitely tell Soontir hit harder than Vader but that by no means meant he wasnt worth every point I spent on him. Vader pulled his weight for sure and I was very happy that I chose to take him at the end of the day.

Also Budgernaut you are right on the money... Engine Upgrade is very very fun and potent on Vader. He pulls off Interceptor level arc dodging with that.

I usually put Engine Upgrade and Daredevil on him. He can do some really fancy flying!

Thanks for posting...great info. One question...if you conceded the game you lost 0-63...wouldn't you lose 0-100?

Thanks for posting...great info. One question...if you conceded the game you lost 0-63...wouldn't you lose 0-100?

Ah thats an odd happenstance. When I conceded I told the TO that the score was 0-100 but my opponent insisted that it be recorded as 0-63 since he technically didnt take vader down. I told the TO I was fine with 0-100 but it didnt matter to me since either way I didnt think it would have any effect on the standings since up to that point we were the only two undefeateds and up to that point I had the overall best MoV anyway.

I am glad you all are getting some use out of my batrep even if its just an interesting read

Budgernaut that sounds really fun. I would love to try him with Daredevil. Probably in another list some other day. In this build one of his main goals is to be a hard phantom counter with the rockets while still being potent against any other list. If I dropped the VI then he would be tied with a Whisper and lose some of his purpose in the build. At that point I would probably switch him out for Jax since I love Jaxs ability and he has a higher damage output over time.