I‘m thinking around an imperial list with Kylo, but without bringing RAC. So why not Whisper to carry the Emolord?

Empire‘s Elite (100)

•Darth Vader (36) - TIE Advanced
Intensity (2), TIE/x1 (0), Engine Upgrade (4), Advanced Targeting Computer (5)

•"Whisper" (40) - TIE Phantom
Veteran Instincts (1), Collision Detector (0), •Kylo Ren (3), Advanced Cloaking Device (4)

•"Pure Sabacc" (24) - TIE Striker
•A Score To Settle (0), Adaptive Ailerons (0), Lightweight Frame (2)

This gives me two crit-deliverers. All three ships are annoying and hurt. And any PS above 9 is irrelevant after the first round of shots. Whisper could even remain cloaked if necessary.

I‘m missing FCS on Whisper, but I see LWF or Intensity to be more important. An alternative would be Harpoon+GC on Vader, maybe with an Adaptability for the alphastrike?

So what are the weaknesses that I‘m missing?

Firstly, I'm not sure if Intensity is worth it on Vader unless he were somehow to get a free focus. It doesn't otherwise improve his action economy.

Sabacc is nice, but with ASTS and a low PS his fragility is particularly notable.

Honestly, Whisper is a reasonable carrier, but she's just such a glass cannon. If she dies, and in the current meta, she probably will, you lose your key piece. That being said, she can dodge bombs respectably, so give it a try. But PS10 Nym is still probably gonna be able to pin her with a bomb.

1 hour ago, Greebwahn said:

Firstly, I'm not sure if Intensity is worth it on Vader unless he were somehow to get a free focus. It doesn't otherwise improve his action economy.

Don‘t worry, that works very well. You don‘t use all tokens every turn, so eventually you can flip it back because you consistently get 2.

1 hour ago, Greebwahn said:

But PS10 Nym is still probably gonna be able to pin her with a bomb.

The idea is that Nym is PS0 after the first round of shots, so that shouldn‘t be too much of a problem

I think? I don‘t know

I mean, I'm pretty sure that I have a huge blind spot somewhere, but those are not the problems.

Does Whisper die too fast anyway, even if kept at range until PS0 opponents?

A alternative to Pure Sabacc could be an A Score To Settle Omega Leader (which might even be able to skip Comm Relay). Seems like old OL with ASTS would be a fairly reasonable crit-generator, and mostly immune to the drawback. If you skip Comm Relay (maybe take Primed Thrusters?), you'd gain back points to put FCS on Whisper.

Additionally, while I believe Intensity Vader would generally be worth it, in this specific list getting VI might be important. Getting to PS 11 to activate Kylo as soon as possible seems useful. As to Whisper vs Bombers, I'm not super worried. Decloaking to fly away can work out rather well. The bigger threat will be TLT shots against a 2 agility, 4 HP ship. Getting re-cloaked before your opponent can shoot you is vital against TLTs. To that end, being able to zap PS down to 0 or hit someone with Blinded as early in the round as you can is probably going to be big. Again, VI on Vader seems wise when specifically pairing with Kylo. If it's just Vader as an ace, I trust folks who say Intensity would be solid.

@theBitterFig

those are good points, especially the need of an early (PS11) crit.

One intended role of PureSabacc is to draw fire. He should be too juicy as a target to be ignored, which definitely helps Whisper and Vader! In that sense, maybe skipping LWF for FCS would not be too bad of an idea? I'd have to expect many games to lose these 22pts in though...

I'm shying away from OL because she has never worked out for me. I guess I fly her too aggressively, but anyway, the two of us don't fit well together somehow, and probably even less without commrelay+juke+focus+evade

Oh! Okay, throwing PS0 on a target would definitely fix that vulnerability.

I agree, VI would be better on Vader.

Whisper will have to be flown very conservatively considering a big part of your strategy is on board.

3 minutes ago, Greebwahn said:

Whisper will have to be flown very conservatively considering a big part of your strategy is on board.

Yes, I agree. Maybe that's a huge flaw right there?

Also, another blind spot might have been that any Whisper + X list needs to be better than Whisper + RAClo. In my example Vader does the same as RAC (trigger Kylo), but probably worse:

• dies faster
• is arc-dependent
• is action dependent (TL!)
• can't bring additional crew (Intelligence Agent, or Rebel captive, or Palp, or Gunner, or anything really)

Vader has the advantage of 1 more pilotskill. And Vader + Sabacc should initially deal more damage than RAC. But is it better? Looks like a higher skill floor for not much gain, at the minimum. But it also looks like more fun to me.

So how much worse is it?

Wow, I totally missed this post and just asked basically the same question. Do you sacrifice a point somewhere to have Kylo instead of Kallus?

11 hours ago, DXCrazytrain said:

Wow, I totally missed this post and just asked basically the same question. Do you sacrifice a point somewhere to have Kylo instead of Kallus?

Yes, FCS on Whisper.

With VI Vader it sums up to 99, with Intensity to 100

By the way I‘m not sure whether this list has any merit or not. I guess it doesn‘t and I‘m curious about the reasons

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Yes, FCS on Whisper.

With VI Vader it sums up to 99, with Intensity to 100

By the way I‘m not sure whether this list has any merit or not. I guess it doesn‘t and I‘m curious about the reasons

I have tried similar things.

Its fun and can completely destroy 2 ship low green dice lists below PS9 since Whisper can roll up kylo still roll 4 dice unmodified on off and def with a focus if you hit. Vader then sort of auto blinds the target. And Sabacc puts dmg in.

But then....

You run into anything thats not that or above PS9 and they proceed to pick the list apart since PS0 doesnt apply until following round. That means you have to stay cloaked the turn before you Kylo and pray 4 unmodified dice gets the job done against focus fire while Vader/Sabacc do stuff.

Variation I have used before: