Hello all!

New player here from SE UK and very excited to be starting my journey into SW:IA!

The models are sublime (and I'm enjoying painting them), the rules are tactical and the background is star wars!

What is the competative scene like in the UK?

I like Vader - what should I be aiming to include in a competative list? (I get officers for movement shenanigans but - what would a list look like?)

A common list with Vader right now seems to be this:

18 Darth Vader

8 Regular Royal Guards

6 Regular Stormtroopers

2 Regular Imperial Officer

2 Regular Imperial Officer

2 Regular Imperial Officer

2 Regular Imperial Officer

If you only have 1 Core set, then you'll only be able to field 2 regular Officers. In that case, you have some options:

--upgrade your Regular Stormtroopers (6pts) to Elite status (9pts)

--upgrade your Regular Royal Guards (8pts) to Elite Royal Guards (12pts)

--add a Regular Probe Droid (3pts)

The Officers are pretty much required, for moving Vader around. And the Guards really help him to survive longer with their Protector ability (but don't use it when you're facing Rebel Saboteurs, because they'll Blast you to ribbons). The Stormtroopers are effective at capturing objectives and putting out some damage, or else focusing fire on one piece with all 3 of them.

You probably won't win regularly with this because it's too dependent on good defense rolls, but for fun you could run this squad:

18 Vader

15 Royal Guard Champion

5 Elite Imperial Officer (could change it to an Elite Probe Droid)

2 Regular Imperial Officer

It's only 4 activations and has a very hard time capturing objectives...but who needs objectives when you can eat everything in sight? lol