Oh my goodness I just realised how good Darth Vader is going to be on a ship that can make up to 5 attacks a turn and can regenerate shields as an action.

Has anybody else realised something I haven't? Is this not the best thing ever?

Its called Doom Raider

And then you realize you burned all your energy to blow up a single ship in one turn and now your Raider is useless for 3 turns.

Depends what you blew up. A Fat Falcon being 1 shot would be worth it. While that Tantive can piddle away at you with it's Turbo lasers, you can nuke one of it's sections a turn. And with careful energy management and upgrades, you won't be useless at all. Even if you don't fire any of your cannons, you've still got a 4 dice attack.

There's always Tibanna Gas.

Also I believe your opponent decides which section to damage not you, so no dividing damage to prevent a section being crippled.

Vader is going to be ownage on that thing!

Yeah, which is why he isn't going to be allowed on it...

I actually don't see Vader being all that viable on it. Knocking off all of your own shields to get a critt on one or two ships in an epic game is asking to get over a hundred points tabled in one round of firing.

Darth doesn't HAVE to trigger though. He could just activate once or twice in a round, so he can regen safely. If he really wants to finish off another Epic ship or an annoying Large Ship, he can activate the full 5 times to smush them.

Yea I also feel like it probably won't be worth using Vader on there. Maybe one or even two attacks but there is no way I would burn 10 hp off a hundred point ship to do 5 when my opponent has 300 points. Sure you CAN but that sounds suicidally aggressive. Of course, that does fit Vader's MO... "Asteroids do not concern me, Admiral"

It also means you won't be able to use Vader in his newly-kitted out Advanced Targeting Computer fighter, which may turn out just as beneficial at a bit less of a risk.

Vader doesn't need to be used for every shot. If you are firing on another Epic ship, just a couple criticals will devastate it. Then again, just use Ion Cannons and cause those crits without the self-loathing.

The benefit of Vader has always been the sure thing nature of the critt. Against an epic ship, you are going to hit almost always. There are lots of better ways to get that critt, unless you want to try to hit an interceptor or something like that. Most of the time he'd be a waste of space.

No. No. No!

You're burning up like 30 some points in shields on your most costly ship. You're murdering your energy efficiency.

And regenerating shields means you cannot reinforce so you're going to be taking alllll the hurt.

With you five attacks you've burned 10 shields.

Assuming you had max energy at the time(A verry generous assumption) you made your attacks you'll get 6 shields back the next turn. You'll also have taken several attacks and have almost no firepower that turn. And you still neec to regen more shields because you're still taking fire and in order to fire all your guns at the enemy fleet you Exposed a huge chunk of your flank to people.

You will never catch back up.

And for that alpha strike. You paid 127 points. Minimum.

Meanwhile you did

5 vader crits.

An average of 5 damage off your primary.(-any evades your opponent rolls)

And 3 Crits off of your ion cannons(as they are the only gun that you can reasonably use for this idea.

13 damage is... Ok. It's nice how much of it is critical. But in doing so you did 10 damage to yourself. You crippled a 127 point ship.(You really did. Regeening shields is BAD! If you're in the thick of the fight you will never keep up with the hurt or have energy for attacks.

The only way you're making good use of this is when you're shooting something that pays wayyyy more pernpoint of hull than you. That 10 shields. That's 48 points. Odds are you're not taking 48 points with your 8 crits and 5 damage unless your nailing Interceptors or Phantoms.(If you are, well have fun. They'll be hurting ish(But they'll also be taking about 8 of that 13 damage.

Darth Vader is mostly used for dealing the final point of damage needed to kill a ship.

So why does getting to attack 5 times in a round make Vader better? Your most likely going to only use Vader on the final attack, so it doesn't seem any better than on something like a Patrol Leader.

And it seems like a poor strategy and a good way to get your humongous points investment killed early to sacrifice 10 HP in a single turn just to deal crits into enemy shields (assuming you are playing against Rebels in epic).