In a meta Before Wave 8 (in my country isn't arrived yet), the Deci-vader list with chirenau or kenkrik and vader ace, is still viable?

In my meta there are: Miranda,Poe, stress-hog, palp ace, and in general a lot of ace and a bit of swarms. 4 TLT are very rare...

Palpatine is a must or i can carry the decimator with gunner, rebel captive, ysard, eu, VI?

In an ace meta is better a tanky kenkrik (Lone Wolf/ determination, palp, ysard, eu) or a hight Ps chirenau (vi, palp, rebel captive, eu)?

alternately I've try this squad: palp mobile, howly+crack shoot, scourge+crack shoot, wampa, tie interceptor+AT (as blocker).

What do you think about?

Thx

I can only say that, in my.experience, Palpatine is NOT a must. Not after wave 8, or 7... He is only one of the best options in Empire's arsenal, not the OP Destroyer of Worlds.

You might be better off with Deci/Soontir, currently.

I was running PS11 Vader (standard 35pt build) with RAC who had Predator, Engine, Palp, Ysanne. It served me well but Vader is a bit weak to the U-Boats. In addition to that, it has a "fair" match-up against other Imperial lists, but not a heavily favorable match-up. Omega Leader is tough on a list with two ships, as are the autothrusters of the Inquisitor.

The trouble with Deci + Vader is that Vader really needs help from Palpatine to fix his blank dice on the offense and his green dice on the defense, but that only leaves you with on crew slow, and there's not a clearly favorable crew. Ysanne Isard is waaay better vs. U-Boats if they target your ace first and your Deci ends up in a game of attrition later (and Ysanne is just great in general) but Rebel Captive is clutch against other Imperial Aces like Soontir, Whisper and Inquisitor.

I think that Deci-Vader still has game, but you need to go with Adaptability on Vader so that he can be PS10 when he needs to be, but so that you can save a 1pt or so for a bid vs. Omega Leader and Inquisitor, who are both more easy to deal with if RAC can arc dodge them by moving second.

RAC > Kenkirk, imho. Kenkirk + Palp + Ysanne was good for turtling back in the day, but against U-Boats your best defense against Torps is to get in real close and you'll probably bump a ton, so RAC is key here, along with Predator. With Predator + RAC it's actually great to be able to boost and still have two offense modifiers before factoring in Palpatine.

EDIT: Ooooh, PRE-Wave 8. Yes. Deci/Vader is actually really good then, imho. Crushes Rebel Regen which should still be a real part of your meta if U-Boats didn't chase them out, and still has a fair match-up vs. other Imperials. Use PS11 Vader, since the pre-wave 8 meta was still all about high PS Aces.

In a pre-wave 8 world, there was no list that I really feared while using Deci + Vader, with the exception of an expertly flown TIE Swarm and maybe Maximum Danger Zone (Stresshog+Z95+2x Tacticican KWing). It was either very strong against your opponent, or had a fair match-up against them.

Absolutely, yes. RAC/VI/Palp/Gunner/Engine, Vader/VI/title/ATC/Engine.

Horrible build to run any kind of aces against; very high PS, highly reliable damage, good repositioning.

Another answer: palpatine in RAC Is so good? Or i can change it with another combination of great crew (gunner, rebel captive, Isarde, ecc).

Sure he can improve the life of vader but is so necesary?

I'm very struggle about this...

Another answer: palpatine in RAC Is so good? Or i can change it with another combination of great crew (gunner, rebel captive, Isarde, ecc).

Sure he can improve the life of vader but is so necesary?

I'm very struggle about this...

I think that Palpatine is very important for Vader, in the pre-wave 8 meta. Vader at PS11 was the ultimate trump card, in an all ace meta. He was capable of beating up enemy Soontir and Poe thanks to PS11, but his offense was not reliable since he had no way to fix his own blanks and he was only a late game trump card if he lived until late game, which wasn't a given when you consider all the stress flying around.

Half the meta before the shift was regen Rebels. Gunner/Rebel Captive is great against Imperials, but less powerful vs. their Rebel counterparts, where as making every die count with Palpatine is always powerful, even for the Decimator itself. You'll either want to use RAC with VI for arc dodging the enemy aces, or Kenkirk with Predator for tanking up when half the units die via Palpatine and Ysanne.

The important part is to keep your Deci at 63pts (or below) so that against Palp Aces, which was 35pt Soontir, 35pt Vader, 29pt Shuttle, you can blow up Vader+Shuttle then still win 64 to 63 if you Deci blows up and enemy Soontir lives, which is a very plausible outcome to that game. Also this meant that you were at 98pts, which gave you the initiative bid against standard Palp Aces which ran a PS11 Vader with a 1pt bid.

It's also important vs. quad TLTs, because if you kill 3 of them, that's a full win of 75 to 63. It's also a full win vs. BroBots if you kill 1 Bro and get half points on the other. Against Poe/Miranda/Stresshog lists (37/37/26), it's a draw if you don't get both of their aces and they get the Deci, which isn't great, but it's better than a loss if you go over budget on the Deci.

EDIT: ...as you can see, I have never thought about this before.

Rule of Two 4ever!

RAC-Gunner-Palp with Vader makes both ships average hit/hit/crit/crit in range 1. Which they should get because they should mostly win PS.

It's a brute of a list especially pre Wave-8.

Thank you guys! Great tips here, you are great!

I flew RuleOfTwo list a lot pre wave 8, but with kenkirk and it was very very reliable.

Now i came back to DeciVader and im trying Rac +Ysanne+Gunner+Captive+VI+EU+Title.

Ysane for late game damage mitigation, captive is anti ace tech (plus it stresses uboats) and well gunner is just gunner Since vader also got VI i dont care about the bid thats why title. It helps A LOT versus blockers- there is high chance you can boost past him.

So far works nice.