The problem with on table performance to gauge whether upgrade cards are valuable is that you factor in the skill of the commanders and we are never always perfect logicians all the time.

We need theorycrafting to understand what to expect from a ship or an upgrade card if we are skilled enough to take advantage of their capabilities in a battle.

Example : people say the Neb Bs suck. Yet, I've won most of my Rebel games fielding 1 to 2 Neb Bs.

I would argue that variable player skill is a factor that would skew that data favourably towards actual expected performance rather than taint it.

if you want pure numerical impact, you can work that out with a calculator and some time and some assumptions. Playing different lists, more or less skilled opponents etc will (with sufficient data) actually make a more informed picture of a particular Admirals worth. Sure some people will always be on the high end of the curve and some people on the low, but it SHOULD be a bell curve around actual combat performance (all of which can be shown once data is collected)

Example : people say the Neb Bs suck. Yet, I've won most of my Rebel games fielding 1 to 2 Neb Bs.

It's been my experience that whenever someone makes a sweeping statement that broad, it's best to simply interpret it as "I've tried using X, and I didn't do very well with it."

I've been around long enough to hear that B-Wings suck, except then they didn't and everyone loved them.

I've heard about how Nebulon-Bs suck, except they don't (and were a linchpin ship for fending off the Gladiator-a-palooza of wave one).

I've heard about how Raiders suck most recently, except clontrooper5 just won the international Vassal tournament with them.

I've heard about (and for a while even believed) how squadrons suck except then Worlds was won by a guy with 8 A-Wing squadrons and the community consensus nowadays in wave two is you need a game plan for dealing with bomber blobs or else you're going to be very sad.

About the only thing I believe sucks nowadays is the pricing on some of the upgrade cards. Otherwise, take everything you hear with a big heaping spoonfull of salt.

Exactly, which is why I have said in several places around the forums including the "which is best/worst admiral" threads that I would not call ANY Admiral bad or good and I've moved on to analyzing along expected cost/benefit x optimal list x skill.

There are so many upgrade cards that I look at and think, if this were 2 or 3 points instead of 5 it might be worth taking, because yes 2-3 points is a big **** deal!

To rewind the convo a bit,

the reason I think collecting at least some rudimentary data from actual games is important is because math and theory are great, but it matters what lands.

My Sensei always said that the cleanest, most perfect technique in the world won't help one bit if you can't land the blow. If you somehow guarantee you get 5 ISDII front arcs out of 6 rounds X 2 ISDs I would say take Vader every time or you are crippling yourself. But in my experience I have won games where my lone ISD II shoots out the front arc 1 time, maybe 2, sometimes never or only at red range, so for that list and play style, Vader is a waste and it would be silly to take him.

To that end, basic list makeup, how many dice you rolled, how many rerolls you did and actual effectiveness is such better objective data!

even if all you do is keep a scratch pad with a few columns where you make a hash mark for every die you roll in the first column, how much unmodified damage in second column, how many dice rerolled in the third column and how much final damage in the last column.

You would end up with numbers that gave you a rough idea of ​actual impact which I think would be extremely interested. For example you might have a game where you see

50 | 36 | 22 | 45 which would give you an idea of how much more damage you did over base

The challenge is to collect enough data to be statistically significant and relevant to a commanders advantage while not being burdensome to record or introducing too much opportunity for error.

Agreed. Something akin to a "usage rate" metric would be very helpful. I'd venture a guess that the league leader in usage rate (at least on a use-per-round basis) would be Demolisher, because who's going to not take a move-and-shoot every round possible? On a per game basis...,probably Demolisher's Ordnance Experts.

I was hoping to get some data like this from our match last week that sadly didn't materialize. We're on for a re-try in a couple weeks, so maybe then.

I think Vader works best spread across more ships. They will all benefit from the rerolls, plus you should have the activation advantage in that case. (IVGG for the win)

Red and black dice love Vader due to their higher standard deviation of results than blue dice. Vader wants you to fly in fast and deliver big punches to the face. The VSD helped in my recent store champ by deflecting attention from the ISD, and backing up the other ships as a 'trailer'. With Vader you can't ignore its damage potential from the front arc.

I think Vader works best spread across more ships. They will all benefit from the rerolls, plus you should have the activation advantage in that case. (IVGG for the win)

Red and black dice love Vader due to their higher standard deviation of results than blue dice. Vader wants you to fly in fast and deliver big punches to the face. The VSD helped in my recent store champ by deflecting attention from the ISD, and backing up the other ships as a 'trailer'. With Vader you can't ignore its damage potential from the front arc.

I definitely feel your points, but every time I tried rushing in with an ISD (or to some extent a VSD) it just got nimbled on by tons of multiple attacks, which is clearly the ISD's weakness in the games I've played (the inability to defend against death by a thousand cuts). So, with Vader on an ISD 1, I tend to rush so as to take advantage of his ability, and in lists with 2 activations (ISD/VSD). I just feel Vader is best with it "hanging back" at speed 2.

It's great to see how Vader stems so much discussion about builds. Perhaps the trick with him is that there isn't a single good build, but many different ones !

I think Vader works best spread across more ships. They will all benefit from the rerolls, plus you should have the activation advantage in that case. (IVGG for the win)

Red and black dice love Vader due to their higher standard deviation of results than blue dice. Vader wants you to fly in fast and deliver big punches to the face. The VSD helped in my recent store champ by deflecting attention from the ISD, and backing up the other ships as a 'trailer'. With Vader you can't ignore its damage potential from the front arc.

I don't think at the moment the "several smaller ships" solution is very workable. The problem is that cheaper Imperial ships are black-dice focused and thus better when spammed with Screed (Gladiators, Raider-Is) or they are easily fixed to guarantee damage without a need for rerolls (Raider-IIs with SW7 Ion Cannons). Only more expensive Imperial ships regularly throw red dice (VSDs, ISDs) where Vader begins to edge out Screed, and I'd rather spam VSDs/ISDs with Motti or perhaps Tarkin than Vader.

If/when we get future releases that are less expensive but throw reasonable numbers of red dice, I think Vader will find more of a niche. At the moment he's good for upping the damage output of low-activation 2-3 ISD-beefcake lists if you choose to focus on upping their offensive potential (to make up for lack of individual attacks) instead of their defensive potential (with Motti).

The problem is that cheaper Imperial ships are black-dice focused and thus better when spammed with Screed (Gladiators, Raider-Is) or they are easily fixed to guarantee damage without a need for rerolls (Raider-IIs with SW7 Ion Cannons). Only more expensive Imperial ships regularly throw red dice (VSDs, ISDs) where Vader begins to edge out Screed, and I'd rather spam VSDs/ISDs with Motti or perhaps Tarkin than Vader.

I agree - Vader is really great with red dice. But that ability also applies to black dice when you pay for the reroll with a defence token. The more ships you have, the more defence tokens and therefore those are a fungible asset with Vader for extra damage on the opponent.

When I crushed my opponent's Fireball fleet at the third round top table in my local store champ, I was able to trade in those defence tokens as 2nd player with pretty much impunity. Red dice rerolls are there as an insurance policy - combined with damage maximising rerolls on the black dice, this turns Vader's fleet into an unholy train of damage output. My last round opponent commented that every semi-decent roll turned into almost maximum damage - a bad result which adds up turn after turn.

Urgh. Played with Vader last night (VSD2 gunnery teams, ISD2 gunnery teams, raider and some fighters).

Vader stank. Didn't achieve a single thing. None of his rerolls helped in the slightest. I rolled average (or a bit below) with every volley and his rerolls didn't boost damage at all. Stupid Red Dice.

Sure, Ive had some great games with him before, but pretty down on him at the moment.

Urgh. Played with Vader last night (VSD2 gunnery teams, ISD2 gunnery teams, raider and some fighters).

Vader stank. Didn't achieve a single thing. None of his rerolls helped in the slightest. I rolled average (or a bit below) with every volley and his rerolls didn't boost damage at all. Stupid Red Dice.

Sure, Ive had some great games with him before, but pretty down on him at the moment.

It happens. Were you rolling aggressively?

Urgh. Played with Vader last night (VSD2 gunnery teams, ISD2 gunnery teams, raider and some fighters).

Vader stank. Didn't achieve a single thing. None of his rerolls helped in the slightest. I rolled average (or a bit below) with every volley and his rerolls didn't boost damage at all. Stupid Red Dice.

Sure, Ive had some great games with him before, but pretty down on him at the moment.

It happens. Were you rolling aggressively?

Typical roll - ISD2 front arc - blank, blank, hit, hit. Reroll the blanks. Blank, blank.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes he pays off big time. But last night he was a 36 point passenger!

Urgh. Played with Vader last night (VSD2 gunnery teams, ISD2 gunnery teams, raider and some fighters).

Vader stank. Didn't achieve a single thing. None of his rerolls helped in the slightest. I rolled average (or a bit below) with every volley and his rerolls didn't boost damage at all. Stupid Red Dice.

Sure, Ive had some great games with him before, but pretty down on him at the moment.

It happens. Were you rolling aggressively?

Typical roll - ISD2 front arc - blank, blank, hit, hit. Reroll the blanks. Blank, blank.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes he pays off big time. But last night he was a 36 point passenger!

Ouch - sometimes even rerolls aren't enough to help when the dice are against you! I would suggest that Vader is more useful on the 1 version of those ships to get the black dice too, then drive them at flank speed into the enemy fleet. Blues are consistent and don't really need that reroll unless fishing for a crit or accuracy (per one of the posts above).

@Ophion : yeah, when the rerolls suck it's horrible and there's not much you can do about it (which is why I think Vader is best for sustained damage rather than volley damage, Screed is better for that with the crits).

On the elusive ship that you couldn't damage, you should totally have said "The Force is strong with this one !"

"The Force is strong with this one !"

"The Force is strong with this one !"

Vader quotes are the only reason I run him right now

In today's Store Champ, I did manage to place 2 fun quotes :

- After shooting at a ship through an asteroid : Asteroids don't concern me Admiral ! I want this ship, not excuses !

- After a Needa Evade reroll on the ISD at medium range forced a reroll on a double hit that still stayed a double hit : Apologies accepted, Captain Needa.

Good times

Speaking of which, a IVV Vader list placed second in the store champ, it was pretty epic ! The guy had some very good deployment that would really put you between a rock and a hard place. A 1-2 punch by a Vic 2 with Overload Pulse and Avenger was pretty intense. I won't steal the list, but I'll definitely steal his deployment, that was probably the most elegant and hard to counter way to fly an ISD I've seen.