Darth Vader campaign "fix" based on LotA app?

By IanSolo_FFG, in Imperial Assault Campaign

Some Legend of the Alliance app spoilers regarding Darth Vader's abilities ...

Since the release of the skirmish fix for Vader, it was my way to go regarding a "campaign fix" for Vader as an open group. Now that we have seen what Vader is capable of in the LotA app, I was thinking that it might be interesting to use the Vader app features as a "fix" for campaign Vader.

Among them are the ability to discard every harmful conditions at the start of his activation, in exchange of suffering one damage per condition discarded. So no more stunned Vader that can't attack during a round. Force choke not requiring line of sight would be cool. Or how about double action that allows to move next to two or more rebel figures and attack them all (some sort of Super Brutality!). I also like the bonus ability that allows Vader to pull a rebel figure 2 spaces toward him at the start of his activation to help him set up for Brutality (or Super Brutality). I also juggle with the idea of giving him the attack action "move 4 and attack", which would basically gives him 3 actions a round. With any of these changes (or all of them mouhahaha), I wouldn't mind him still costing 18 threats.

What do you guys think?

I think that my Rebels would be pretty mad if I tried to soup up Vader, but those are some pretty good ideas!

3 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

I think that my Rebels would be pretty mad if I tried to soup up Vader, but those are some pretty good ideas!

Yeah sure I can understand that, but you'd still have to pay 18 threat that are not spent elsewhere. With such a powerful Vader, you could house rule even further by not allowing possibility of threat discount (can't reduce his cost with one of his agenda card or via the nemesis deck, ect.) And you'd still have to win his side mission to spawn him mission after mission. It might not be a viable strategy on the long run, but thematically, it be cool to throw such a Vader once or twice during a campaign.

Besides, you could argue with your rebel players that unlike the app, they CAN defeat him in your campaign

:P

In general I like the idea, but...

3 hours ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

Or how about double action that allows to move next to two or more rebel figures and attack them all (some sort of Super Brutality!).

Brutality is already one action. He can already spend 1 action to gain 4 MP and the second to use Brutality.

3 hours ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

I also like the bonus ability that allows Vader to pull a rebel figure 2 spaces toward him at the start of his activation to help him set up for Brutality

Maybe I'm misremembering how that works, but as I recall he pulls the nearest rebel two spaces towards him at the start of his turn, correct? I suppose using diagonal movement this will probably work more often than not, but you could have two rebels orthogonal to each other (one two spaces away and the other three spaces away) and have it work against you too.

28 minutes ago, Uninvited Guest said:

In general I like the idea, but...

Brutality is already one action. He can already spend 1 action to gain 4 MP and the second to use Brutality.

Maybe I'm misremembering how that works, but as I recall he pulls the nearest rebel two spaces towards him at the start of his turn, correct? I suppose using diagonal movement this will probably work more often than not, but you could have two rebels orthogonal to each other (one two spaces away and the other three spaces away) and have it work against you too.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I was referring to that one instruction that "cost" one attack action + one regular action symbols (hence 2 actions) allowing him to move 4 next to 2 or more rebel figures and then attack all of them (not just two in case he's adjacent to more than 2). That can be more powerful than brutality if you manage to move such that you are adjacent to, let's say 3 rebel figures. If there are 2 rebel figures only than it revert back to brutality as written on the deployment card but it still a 2 action instruction even if you did not move (from the app point of view). Maybe all that is needed is that brutality be extended to every adjacent rebel figures rather than 2. My guess would be that even though extremely powerful on paper, such situation will rarely happen on the board anyway.

That is correct (I think) that Vader would pull the nearest rebel. I guess you could do it if it helps you set up brutality, otherwise you could skip it (I think in the app you can't skip it, but I also forgot the exact wording). Or make it such that Vader can pull whoever he wants. He's the ultimate bad guy after all!

Edited by IanSolo_FFG

1 minute ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

I was referring to that one instruction that "cost" one attack action + one regular action symbols (hence 2 actions) allowing him to move 4 next to 2 or more rebel figures and then attack all of them (not just two in case he's adjacent to more than 2).

I think I missed that when I read the instruction. In that case, yes.

I think I would rather just have him cost less so that he could actually be deployed. 18 threat means you're waiting 3-4 turns to deploy him at threat level 5 and not putting any new bad guys into play in the mean time. By the time Vader shows up, the Rebels should have nearly completed the mission without having to face any reinforcements for 3 turns.

If I could give him one new ability, it would be "Dark Presence: Hostile figures treat each space within 2 spaces of you as difficult terrain." Then he could actually assert a similar sphere of board control around him as multiple figures would, and the Rebels wouldn't just be able to easily run past him to the objective, he could actually hold a hallway the way he would in the movies/comics.