How does one use the dark Lord in his squadron form...

If you're feeling like spending some points...

.. Park him between Dengar and Soontir and Giggle Maniacally when people shoot at you.

Brace down anything big. Rely on the Auto Damage from Soontir and the Counter Given to you by Dengar to 'discourage' people from shooting you with fighters...

Don't let ships get bunches of anti-squadron fire on you - that's where you're more fragile as a group.

With 5 hull, ESCORT and 2 Brace defence tokens he is a tough method of adding resilience to mobs of fragile tie fighters or interceptors. He can also act as baby sitter to Rhymer, Dengar and as Dragnista says has a nice combo with Fel's ability.

He hits ships like a tie bomber but witout resolving the crit effect, but it is the antifighter punch of 3 damage on average where he shines. This should usually get you a kill or two during the game so while he is a damage sponge he also makes his points back most of the time.

Rather than taking a token force of 3 Tie Fighters I prefer to take Vader on his own. He won't win you space superiority but should last 2 turns in combat unless he gets swamped by 5+ bandits.

I need an excuse to paint/use my eta 2 with vwing escort tbh.

Together with Flight Controllers.

I've run Vader / Soontir / Mauler / Dengar / Tie-Advanced / Tie-Advanced with a Imp I with Wulff, Flight controllers, Boosted Comms, Expanded Hanger bays, every round after the first you can activate all 6 at once.

So Vader gets 4 blue, 1 black (FC) and his crits cause hits, giving you a 75% chance of 1 damage on blue dice, 50% chance 1 damage or 25% chance of 2 damage on the black dice, counter 1 from Dengar, 75% chance of dealing 1 damage, and take 1 damage from Soontir.

Soontir 5 blue + reroll (take 1 damage every time you shoot someone else)

Mauler 4 Blue + reroll (take 1 damage when he lands)

Dengar 4 Blue + Reroll (everyone else gets 1 or +1 counter) and he has Intel to allow Mauler to move again and inflict another point of damage.

Tie-Advanced 4 blue each (escort)

I usually try and work a triangle with my Escorts placing the other 3 inside it, and then activate and place them on top of your opponents squadrons for the maximum havoc, roll lots of dice, watch them all melt, savor opponents impotent rage as he watchs his Rhymer bomber/fireball disintegrate inside 2 rounds.

Then you get 4 black, and 2 blue anti ship dice, not to be sniffed at.

And there are several variations, you can just use 5 Squadrons instead of 6, and take an Imp II with Wulff, and Boosted Comms. Or switch out Tie-Advanced for IG88 + Rhymer, giving you even more ship threat after you have removed the enemy squadrons. or just take Vader/Soonitr/Mauler/Dengar for 74 pts if opponents run token screens.

I have run just about every permutation of this build, and it can be utterly devastating to opposing squadrons, the only real counter is a mirror build, or a lot of Rebel Aces with Rieekan.

I've run Vader / Soontir / Mauler / Dengar / Tie-Advanced / Tie-Advanced with a Imp I with Wulff, Flight controllers, Boosted Comms, Expanded Hanger bays, every round after the first you can activate all 6 at once.

So Vader gets 4 blue, 1 black (FC) and his crits cause hits, giving you a 75% chance of 1 damage on blue dice, 50% chance 1 damage or 25% chance of 2 damage on the black dice, counter 1 from Dengar, 75% chance of dealing 1 damage, and take 1 damage from Soontir.

Soontir 5 blue + reroll (take 1 damage every time you shoot someone else)

Mauler 4 Blue + reroll (take 1 damage when he lands)

Dengar 4 Blue + Reroll (everyone else gets 1 or +1 counter) and he has Intel to allow Mauler to move again and inflict another point of damage.

Tie-Advanced 4 blue each (escort)

I usually try and work a triangle with my Escorts placing the other 3 inside it, and then activate and place them on top of your opponents squadrons for the maximum havoc, roll lots of dice, watch them all melt, savor opponents impotent rage as he watchs his Rhymer bomber/fireball disintegrate inside 2 rounds.

Then you get 4 black, and 2 blue anti ship dice, not to be sniffed at.

And there are several variations, you can just use 5 Squadrons instead of 6, and take an Imp II with Wulff, and Boosted Comms. Or switch out Tie-Advanced for IG88 + Rhymer, giving you even more ship threat after you have removed the enemy squadrons. or just take Vader/Soonitr/Mauler/Dengar for 74 pts if opponents run token screens.

I have run just about every permutation of this build, and it can be utterly devastating to opposing squadrons, the only real counter is a mirror build, or a lot of Rebel Aces with Rieekan.

The problem is you're spending 98 points on pretty much hard anti-squadrons squadrons. Vader, Dengar, and the Advanceds can do all right vs. ships (thanks to Vader being himself and the others using black dice) but they're still not very cost-effective at it.

Don't get me wrong, it's an ugly thing to face if you're expecting to win the squadron minigame, but when I see a setup like that I always find myself wondering if it wouldn't be more cost-effective if trimmed down or just replaced with a bucket of TIE Fighters (12 TIEs = 96 points).

I've run Vader / Soontir / Mauler / Dengar / Tie-Advanced / Tie-Advanced with a Imp I with Wulff, Flight controllers, Boosted Comms, Expanded Hanger bays, every round after the first you can activate all 6 at once.

So Vader gets 4 blue, 1 black (FC) and his crits cause hits, giving you a 75% chance of 1 damage on blue dice, 50% chance 1 damage or 25% chance of 2 damage on the black dice, counter 1 from Dengar, 75% chance of dealing 1 damage, and take 1 damage from Soontir.

Soontir 5 blue + reroll (take 1 damage every time you shoot someone else)

Mauler 4 Blue + reroll (take 1 damage when he lands)

Dengar 4 Blue + Reroll (everyone else gets 1 or +1 counter) and he has Intel to allow Mauler to move again and inflict another point of damage.

Tie-Advanced 4 blue each (escort)

I usually try and work a triangle with my Escorts placing the other 3 inside it, and then activate and place them on top of your opponents squadrons for the maximum havoc, roll lots of dice, watch them all melt, savor opponents impotent rage as he watchs his Rhymer bomber/fireball disintegrate inside 2 rounds.

Then you get 4 black, and 2 blue anti ship dice, not to be sniffed at.

And there are several variations, you can just use 5 Squadrons instead of 6, and take an Imp II with Wulff, and Boosted Comms. Or switch out Tie-Advanced for IG88 + Rhymer, giving you even more ship threat after you have removed the enemy squadrons. or just take Vader/Soonitr/Mauler/Dengar for 74 pts if opponents run token screens.

I have run just about every permutation of this build, and it can be utterly devastating to opposing squadrons, the only real counter is a mirror build, or a lot of Rebel Aces with Rieekan.

The problem is you're spending 98 points on pretty much hard anti-squadrons squadrons. Vader, Dengar, and the Advanceds can do all right vs. ships (thanks to Vader being himself and the others using black dice) but they're still not very cost-effective at it.

Don't get me wrong, it's an ugly thing to face if you're expecting to win the squadron minigame, but when I see a setup like that I always find myself wondering if it wouldn't be more cost-effective if trimmed down or just replaced with a bucket of TIE Fighters (12 TIEs = 96 points).

Can you effectively activate 12 squadrons at once? can 12 tie fighters live 2 rounds fighting squadrons near a 1 or 2 AA dice enemy ship? no is the answer to both of them questions.

The listed builds can do both, and live keeping your points safe, and earning you anything from 40-134pts in the process. if you take a 2 ship fleet as an Imperial, killing all enemy squadrons, can get you an effective win at little to no risk.

On a modeling note, when I buy another pack I plan to make a trench run Vader squadron..