Hello Everyone,

I am a relatively new player and have been following the forums for quite some time. There was an interesting topic awhile back about the value of putting Lone Wolf on Vader, with Blade_Mercurial being a strong advocate. I've yet to play Vader with LW so I fully intend to try him out with it. I also wanted to have the Inquisitor join him but I'm having trouble coming up with the final piece of the list. Here is what I have so far:

Vader - LW, Engine, TIE-X1, ATC - 36 points

Inquisitor - PTL, TIE-V1, Autothrusters, proton rockets - 34 points

Sigma squadron pilot - Stygium, FCS, Intel agent - 30 points

Do you think the sigma is a good addition here? Options I thought of would be to drop the prockets from Inquisitor and upgrade the intel agent to Rebel Captive. In that case, I was thinking I would fly the sigma and Inquisitor together (far enough apart to allow good decloak options) with Vader flanking to take advantage of LW. I would hope to control the engagement at R3 to make 2 unappealing targets (RC on sigma and thrusters on Inquisitor).

Other options I considered were to add Turr with PTL and autothursters instead of the sigma.

I don't have any of the new ships that came out after inquisitor, so I'm rather limited. I appreciate any feedback.

Tomax Bren would fit nicely into that bracket.

I don't think it's a bad pick in my opinion. The phantom is nasty with its 4 primary attack, and either attracts attention from your late game aces or punishes them for not focusing him.

Keep the prockets on inquisitor. It makes him much more threatening!

Try the list as is. Looks good, albeit hard. You will probably lose a bit until you get the hang of it. ? good luck and have fun with it!

I took this list to Naboo and finished 6-3:

Vader w/ lone wolf, x-1, ATC & engine = 36

Inquisitor w/ PTL, v-1 & autothrusters = 31

Quickdraw w/ crackshot, FCS, spec ops = 32

99

I still really like the list, although VI Rey is a frustrating matchup. I fly it mainly with a '3 flankers' deployment: that is, 1 ship in each corner, +1 in the middle (Inquisitor goes directly opposite of enemy ships, Quickdraw in middle, and Vader farthest away).

Quickdraw is extremely worthwhile in today's meta----much better than a generic phantom, imho. I've never had a game where his ability did not activate at least once, and if you get to use it multiple times, its just really bad news for your opponent.

Having said that, I think Backdraft is a reasonable alternative because you can fit LWF on him and maybe keep him around a little longer than Quickdraw. The switch from crackshot to Veteran Instincts makes a lot of sense to keep that 2nd PS 9 ship.

Another good option for 32 points is actually Soontir Fel. Alot of people swear by Stealth Device on him, but honestly, its not that important these days. PTL + autothrusters keeps him lean and mean.

I think the Proton Rockets you're adding to the Inquisitor are making it tough. 30pts has limited options, but 33/34pts buys you a good TIE/sf or TIE Defender.

Thank you for the feedback everyone!

I'm debating about the proton rockets too. They make the Inquisitor more of a threat at actual R1 but the extra 3 points opens up more options for the third ship. One option could be the 33 pt. bounty hunter. A large-based PS 3 ship may be handy for blocking.

I can totally relate to the difficulties with VI Rey. The list had VI Rey with Kanan for the white s-loop and BB-8 Norra. I focused on killing Nora first and got her down to 1 hull but couldn't quite make that killing blow due to her crazy maneuver shananigans. In hindsight, I wonder if I should have focused on Rey first. What do you guys think? How would you fight this list without having a higher PS than 9?

A quick question for BM: why do you deploy Inquisitor directly opposite the enemy ships?

1 hour ago, Clodhopper86 said:

A quick question for BM: why do you deploy Inquisitor directly opposite the enemy ships?

That's the nature of a 3 flankers deployment. Someone has to go directly opposite, and Inquisitor is ideal thanks to the high mobility. It makes the choice of who to go after difficult for your opponent. The 'ideal' kill would be Vader, but he's farthest away. So does your opponent risk turning his back on your other two ships to go after Vader early? And if your opponent does go straight for Inquisitor, its easy for him to either flee or at least stall until you have your other ships in the best attacking positions.

As to your question about Norra + Rey: I think going after Norra is better simply because you can kill her faster. With your high Pilot Skill, you can minimize the effect of her mobility shenanigans. Unfortunately its still a tough matchup because it is too easy for Rey to keep lower PS enemy in arc, and at PS10, that means basically everyone. Its the biggest disadvantage for this list, because you pay points to get PS 8 and 9 ships, but its not enough against PS 10. If you face VI rey a lot, I don't think its the right list.

Lastly, I would not recommend the Bounty Hunter. With no upgrades it simply isn't worth it. Besides, a well built Rey will have inertial dampeners so you can't block her anyway (at least the first time). High firepower is your best bet (Quickdraw is great for this).

Makes sense to me! In the game I mentioned, I had Norra down to 1 hull but was playing Vader without engine and had Rey behind me. I didn't want to risk K-turning and being stressed against a Rey who could reposition to R1.

Would you recommend switching LW for VI in that matchup on Vader? He would be able to see where Rey goes first, but is the loss of LW too much for other matchups? As I have seen written in other threads on LW, it gives Vader much needed staying power against turrets.

3 hours ago, Clodhopper86 said:

Makes sense to me! In the game I mentioned, I had Norra down to 1 hull but was playing Vader without engine and had Rey behind me. I didn't want to risk K-turning and being stressed against a Rey who could reposition to R1.

Would you recommend switching LW for VI in that matchup on Vader? He would be able to see where Rey goes first, but is the loss of LW too much for other matchups? As I have seen written in other threads on LW, it gives Vader much needed staying power against turrets.

I'm probably the biggest proponent of LW on Vader. It absolutely helps Vader a ton in so many matchups. Just not so much against Rey. I'm not sure if VI would be worth it. It presents a bit of a catch22 in that if you stay in arc, you get tokens for defense, but Rey also gets her re-rolls; but if you dodge arc, you have no tokens for defense, and without autothrusters, Vader can't survive her shots for very long anyway. So for that reason, I'd personally stick with LW.