Fleet Commander or in his TIE Advanced?

Commander.

The squadron is too expensive. He should be good at assassinations, but Escort kind of runs counter to his mission. He had a place in waves 1-4 in an Imperial Aces squadron group with Dengar, Mauler, Soontir, etc to keep the squishies alive, but now that Zertik Strom is out for 5 points less I don't see myself using him.

If Vader we 2 points cheaper and didn't have escort, he would be all over the squads.

As it is, I have to go with Commander Vader. He ends up my commander in probably 50% of my Imperial fleets

Commander Vader is better because of escort on his tie advanced. He's too expensive to have die first.

And yet Biggs, Wedge and Luke are regularly seen

4 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

And yet Biggs, Wedge and Luke are regularly seen

Imps are too used to the scatter token. Cant handle a brace-brace hell-expensive yet super-killer ace.

3 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

And yet Biggs, Wedge and Luke are regularly seen

I imagine that is either because Biggs adds survivability to the other escort aces, and/or because they synergise nicely with something else where the result is greater then the sum of its parts.

I don't think there are many Lukes and Wedges without Biggs, or without Dodonna/Yavaris for Luke, and Dutch for Wedge.

6 minutes ago, Divad said:

I don't think there are many Lukes and Wedges without Biggs, or without Dodonna/Yavaris for Luke, and Dutch for Wedge.

Plenty of Lukes and Wedges before Biggs...

Granted, mostly because of Yavaris (Dutch not included), but plenty more Lukes and Wedges than Vader, even before Biggs.

Definitely Darth Vader the Commander. I mean, who doesn't want a Dark Lord of the Sith leading their fleet?

I just wrapped up hosting my first Corellian Campaign here in Portland (thank you Red Castle Games for being a great place to play and very supportive of Armada ). As the Imperial Grand Admiral I couldn't imagine not taking Darth Vader. It gave me a chance to ham it up and bring some minor roleplaying to our campaign by showing up to the first round of battles in costume:

Inspiring fear in the Rebels, and perhaps my own teammates...

Plus, there are just too many fantastic quotes to use when playing Vader the Commander. I loaded up my phone with sound clips and would play them during some of my games:

"I'm altering the deal." when using my Interdictor's Grav Shift Reroute.

"You don't know the power of the dark side" when using Vader's ability to re-roll dice or "all too easy" if something gets destroyed in a single roll.

"I have you now" and "there is no escape" are fun for when my ISD finally corners a ship or gets to target 2 ships with Gunnery Team.

When my opponent does well, there's always "Obi-wan has taught you well" or "the force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet." And of course "Impressive. Most Impressive." for those times when my own ships and squadrons are destroyed.

I considered someone like Motti or Ozzel, but adventure stories are defined by their villains, and who wants to battle against some gray-haired guy with a mustache when you can rebel against the likes of Vader!

20 minutes ago, Yipe said:

I considered someone like Motti or Ozzel, but adventure stories are defined by their villains, and who wants to battle against some gray-haired guy with a mustache when you can rebel against the likes of Vader!

Besides that, the mustachioed fellow is as clumsy as he is stupid!

4 hours ago, RobertK said:

Besides that, the mustachioed fellow is as clumsy as he is stupid!

Well played, sir.

I know this thread was probably supposed to be about the mechanical reasons why people choose one version of Vader over the other, but I wanted to show that not all choices in Armada are about optimizing or winning. Sometimes I take stuff in Armada just because I like the way a particular model looks, or because I want to take only female TIE aces, or something reminds me of a favorite scene from one of the movies.

Don't get me wrong, I still like to win. But I also try to strike a balance between taking what works and taking what I like. That's why I feel the Corellian Conflict campaign is a perfect format for players like me. It's competitive yet has story elements that give each game a greater narrative structure.

Darth Vader squadron all the way. He's vastly better now that Col. Jendon can use him to trigger 2 attacks per turn instead of one.

As for Commander Vader, he's better now thanks almost exclusively to the Arquitens. But aside from that ship, nearly everything else has at least one source of cheap rerolls at its optimum range and benefits more from other Commander abilities.

Jake Lloyd

41 minutes ago, Daht said:

Jake Lloyd

That’s what Darth Vader does: ends the lives of younglings.

Neither.

If I want Escort for Imps... well I just don't take Escort. I consider Counter to be better.

And if I want rerolls on ships, I take LS or OE.