How do you beat Darth Vader? As in, you want to kill him.

What Rebel or Scum list would you use?

BeSt way to deal with Vader is don't engage him. Get your points from objectives.

He's like a train. What happens when you shoot a train with a pistol? It makes a spark, and the train keeps on coming.

Stun him. Stunning Vader really slows down the damage he can do.

What about Chewie? He can stun. Also, he's got that slam ability. Can he slam Vader and then attack him?

Saboteurs. This is one reason they are so popular.

I dont recall chewies slam text but if it doesn't say Attack in it then yes.

Chewy could attack Vader and stun him, then slam Vader and push him. On Vader's turn he'd have to burn an action to get rid of the stun, but even then he'd need to move to get next to Chewie.

He could yes as long as he gets the surge for stun and Vader doesn't block all the damage from the attack with his two Defense dice and reroll.

I just found Team Covenant's articles on this. They talk about using strain to do auto-damage on Vader. Is that the case?

Does the damage caused by strain bypass blocks?

EDIT: I think I get it now. If the strain was applied as part of the attack then the defense dice could apply, but in the case of IG-88 or Trandoshan Hunters, the strain is applied before any dice are even thrown.

Yes that is correct.

What about this list as a well-round Vader killing machine?

Chewbacca (15)

Gideon (3)

Rebel Saboteurs (5)

Luke Skywalker (10)

Jyn Odan (5)

C-3PO (2)

Gideon and C-3PO can give out focus, Luke can give re-rolls and pierce 3, and Chewie, Jyn, and Sabs can stun. 6 Activations, 8 figures.

What about this list as a well-round Vader killing machine?

Chewbacca (15)

Gideon (3)

Rebel Saboteurs (5)

Luke Skywalker (10)

Jyn Odan (5)

C-3PO (2)

Gideon and C-3PO can give out focus, Luke can give re-rolls and pierce 3, and Chewie, Jyn, and Sabs can stun. 6 Activations, 8 figures.

It looks like that would be a decent Vader-killer. If you can keep him stunned he'll be severely hindered, since at best he'll only be able to Choke your guys. And it's worth keeping Jyn focused so that she can use her Hair Trigger ability to maximum effect and hopefully Stun Vader on his own turn.

What about this list as a well-round Vader killing machine?

Chewbacca (15)

Gideon (3)

Rebel Saboteurs (5)

Luke Skywalker (10)

Jyn Odan (5)

C-3PO (2)

Gideon and C-3PO can give out focus, Luke can give re-rolls and pierce 3, and Chewie, Jyn, and Sabs can stun. 6 Activations, 8 figures.

It looks like that would be a decent Vader-killer. If you can keep him stunned he'll be severely hindered, since at best he'll only be able to Choke your guys. And it's worth keeping Jyn focused so that she can use her Hair Trigger ability to maximum effect and hopefully Stun Vader on his own turn.

Agreed....looks good, but go after him as early as you can(without ignoring objectives)... focus fire the swine...keep him stunned as much as possible......if he's around for the end game and you're without decent units or activations.....he will kill you.....all of you....

If you are going to kill Vader, do it early, the longer you want, the more of a chance he has to draw his command cards.

Just keep in mind that while Vader is almost half your opponent's army, he's still only half your opponent's army. If you concentrate on Vader, the other half of his army is going to have all sorts of free shots on your poor figures.

It gets a little wonky when people play the Vader, 2 Royal Guards, 3 Officers build. Now Vader has a Royal Guard next to him giving him +1 Block on top of his two dice (+reroll). Now who do you go for? If you start blasting the Royal Guard, now you're not concentrating on Vader.

I wouldn't try the Chewy stun method. Or at least, as someone who runs the above build, I welcome it. Chewy is a bit fearsome, but it's really easy to put Chewy in range of getting stunned himself, and then my figures mob all over him. 15 points.

What has worked the very best is Elite Saboteurs with Gideon's focus. Focused Saboteurs can generate both the Pierce and the Stun that put Vader down, and is the list I most often lose to. Though Luke is included in a great deal of Rebel lists, you don't need to expose him to Vader's wrath for those Saboteurs to do their job.

On the advice for winning on points through objectives, I would caution you to really think about it before hand and decide if you can do it or not. I have swindled opponents out of victories because they were trying to run from Vader and count on their objectives to win, only to discover that either A) my army is capable of getting objectives too, or B) Vader may not sit back and let you have it. The mission to kill Tuskens for VPs come to mind. As does that one mission where you can let the terminals stack VPs and then at the end of the round you can decide to claim them for points if you want. There may not be enough time to simply gain objective points before Vader and crew come around the corner at you. So just be careful.

Either attack Vader with any given activation or stun and ignore him, if you can.

Good advice, I'm new to skirmish so I really appreciate it. I played this Chewy/Luke list last night against my wife (who beat me twice in a row with a Vader list). Instead of playing the Vader list, she decided on her own that it would be a good idea to bring in multiple Royal Guards and Imperial Officers. I groaned, then explained to her what a 4x4 was and the history behind it. She ended up going with Regular RG, Elite RG, RGC, and a couple Imperial Officers.

I beat her twice, but she's not as good as I am at utilizing Imperial Officers (I've played the campaign and Twin Shadows all the way through). Her guys were constantly getting stunned and Jyn did a good job of restunning. Chewy did a good enough job of rolling evades (2 dice!) to only get stunned once, and C-3PO got me 2-3 additional command cards each game.

Anyways, she wants to play me again with her Vader list, we'll see how it goes.

I wouldn't try the Chewy stun method. Or at least, as someone who runs the above build, I welcome it. Chewy is a bit fearsome, but it's really easy to put Chewy in range of getting stunned himself, and then my figures mob all over him. 15 points.

I would. Stunning Chewbacca doesn't hurt as much as it does other figures. SImply put, Chewbacca has a really good ranged attack.

As for the rest of the comment.... that goes both ways. Plus, Chewbacca can slam Vader, move him so that he's not next to the Guards, then attack. There are so many circumstance and random comments that people can make in these situations--- it will come down to dice rolls and command cards.

...it will come down to dice rolls and command cards.

I totally lucked out on a command card play. Activated C-3PO, played Devotion, searched for Son of Skywalker, then first chance I got I re-readied Luke and zoomed past a couple Royal Guards to grab a holocron.