So how do you respond when Luke comes in to take out Vader? Or in other words what command card do you use? I think I prefer Master of Evil.

Well, when it’s Son of Skywalker time and Vader is in range of Luke but not the other way around, your best bet is to play ambush and try to steal priority if you have a trooper unit that can tie up Luke.

1 hour ago, NukeMaster said:

So how do you respond when Luke comes in to take out Vader? Or in other words what command card do you use? I think I prefer Master of Evil.

How are you getting triple attacks? Son of Skywalker is one plus his charge attack, and that's it. 2 Attacks, not 3. And yes, Master of Evil the turn you think Son of Skywalker will be used to attack Vader.

My vader completely evaded the first attack and then received 3 wounds from the 2nd attack.

The only way I can see a triple attack is if Luke ends the previous turn and immediately goes again..

7 minutes ago, Kalandros said:

How are you getting triple attacks? Son of Skywalker is one plus his charge attack, and that's it. 2 Attacks, not 3. And yes, Master of Evil the turn you think Son of Skywalker will be used to attack Vader.

My vader completely evaded the first attack and then received 3 wounds from the 2nd attack.

The only way I can see a triple attack is if Luke ends the previous turn and immediately goes again..

Yes that is how I got 3 attacks. Isn't that how most people play it?

Just now, NukeMaster said:

Yes that is how I got 3 attacks. Isn't that how most people play it?

But its misleading to claim it as 3 attacks, its 2 different turns.
And honestly, then its just poor planning on your part (as the Vader player) to let Luke do this.

12 minutes ago, Kalandros said:

But its misleading to claim it as 3 attacks, its 2 different turns.
And honestly, then its just poor planning on your part (as the Vader player) to let Luke do this.

Ahhh...get gud. Thanks!

In reality, it is not beyond the realm to see how a person can get their M1 Vader caught by M2/Jump Luke on one turn and then SoS the next.

Hopefully Luke is dead before this happens.

47 minutes ago, ryanabt said:

Ahhh...get gud. Thanks!

In reality, it is not beyond the realm to see how a person can get their M1 Vader caught by M2/Jump Luke on one turn and then SoS the next.

I believe that the response was to plan around the obvious play.

Tie Luke up with a trooper unit before he’s within two move range of Vader, or play Vader’s double turn card to get the drop on Luke the turn that you expect Luke to close on Vader. Or Vader if equipped with force push, could maneuver Luke away and then lock him down with some troopers.

Sorry to mislead with the title. I thought it was a fairly common thing.

Regardless of how it happens if Vader and Luke end a round engaged there is a high probability that Luke will Son of Skywalker the next round. The question remains what card would you play to deal with it.

Master of Evil without a doubt, it's the best counter to SoS you can get. You improve your defenses without activating and without the risk of loosing the roll-off. If you played smart, you saw Luke coming and saved the Dodge token for his attack, so you should get like 1 damage last turn from him. Now, again, with Dodge the chances are that you will get 3 to 4 damage total, leaving you pretty safe and ready to retaliate. And after you attack, I you feel up to the task, Push Luke away and blast him to pieces with what's currently available.

11 hours ago, Derrault said:

I believe that the response was to plan around the obvious play.

Tie Luke up with a trooper unit before he’s within two move range of Vader, or play Vader’s double turn card to get the drop on Luke the turn that you expect Luke to close on Vader. Or Vader if equipped with force push, could maneuver Luke away and then lock him down with some troopers.

If it was advice to plan around the play, then give the advice. Instead of saying, essentially, "don't let it happen."

Your answer gives advice and is helpful. Different than the answer to which I was responding.

Keeping Luke suppressed is also a pretty good idea in general. Vader's strengths are largely his highly variable action economy where Luke generally has to play fair. He can't double move and shoot and he needs to pay actions for his dodge tokens more. Couple that with the ability to suppress him and its not terribly difficult to limit his options and threat range. Jump can definitely be a pain to work around though, but with a static threat of 12" on the triple attack its definitely something Vader can avoid.

12 hours ago, Derrault said:

I believe that the response was to plan around the obvious play.

Tie Luke up with a trooper unit before he’s within two move range of Vader, or play Vader’s double turn card to get the drop on Luke the turn that you expect Luke to close on Vader. Or Vader if equipped with force push, could maneuver Luke away and then lock him down with some troopers.

I'm not sure if locking Luke down with troopers is the best idea. Personally I've found that once Luke gets into melee with my trooper lines I'm in a lot of trouble. Often that is why I have to bring in Vader is to deal with Luke murdering my cores.

Moving in Vader opens him up to an end of round attack plus Son of Skywalker double attack. Using Implacable on Vader to get the jump on Luke sounds like a terrible idea. Now Luke is freed up to aim attack at the end of the round then Son of Skywalker.

everyone seems to think Vader is stronger than Luke as a whole - he's not. Technically vader is weaker (for the cost) because he pays for other things such as the courage - and master of the force. Lack of an offensive surge makes him dead equal with Luke on offense in a 1on1 fight, but Luke can doublestrike before Vader gets a swing let alone his 2nd swing via 2nd activation. And due to Vader's speed/lack of Jump, hes never full hp by the time the duel happens.

So far ive seen that in practically every game. Vader slugs forward deflecting those foolish enough to shoot him when he has a dodge token and throwing his lightsaber, and usually is down to 4hp by the time he's in danger range of Luke whos hiding behind a wall. Luke pops Son of Skywalker and jumps on him, killing him before he gets to activate to retaliate.

Vader isnt a god, people need to stop using him as a front-liner and sending him alone like that. He. Will. Die.

5 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Vader isnt a god, people need to stop using him as a front-liner and sending him alone like that. He. Will. Die.

This is the one line I 100% agree with. The rest I vary on.

(Vader's attack is still technically better than Luke's; just not by all that much 6:8 > 5:8)

Vader really needs an Aim to be effective. With no surge for crit, he can blank out or not roll enough hits to make him effective quite frequently.

24 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Vader really needs an Aim to be effective. With no surge for crit, he can blank out or not roll enough hits to make him effective quite frequently.

Against Luke, I agree. Against things that aren’t immune to pierce, you’re still doing some pretty consistent damage even if you get poor rolls.

45 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

everyone seems to think Vader is stronger than Luke as a whole - he's not. Technically vader is weaker (for the cost) because he pays for other things such as the courage - and master of the force. Lack of an offensive surge makes him dead equal with Luke on offense in a 1on1 fight, but Luke can doublestrike before Vader gets a swing let alone his 2nd swing via 2nd activation. And due to Vader's speed/lack of Jump, hes never full hp by the time the duel happens.

So far ive seen that in practically every game. Vader slugs forward deflecting those foolish enough to shoot him when he has a dodge token and throwing his lightsaber, and usually is down to 4hp by the time he's in danger range of Luke whos hiding behind a wall. Luke pops Son of Skywalker and jumps on him, killing him before he gets to activate to retaliate.

Vader isnt a god, people need to stop using him as a front-liner and sending him alone like that. He. Will. Die.

Yea, first game we played ever, yesterday, Luke used Son of Skywalker while I was at full health (he didnt want to shoot at Vader at all because of my Dodge token) and I knew he was gonna SoS so I used Master of Evil to get a Dodge pre-activation, giving me defensive surges against one of his attacks - first attack did 0 damage, second attack got 3 wounds through... Then I activate, cause 3 wounds on Luke, force push him out of the way (he now has 3 suppression from Master of Evil) and kept shooting at him with other units that turn, he died to the missile launcher unit but would've had his 6th suppression token by then otherwise.

42 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Vader really needs an Aim to be effective. With no surge for crit, he can blank out or not roll enough hits to make him effective quite frequently.

Red dice without surge are better than black dice with surge, fwiw.

22 minutes ago, Kalandros said:

Yea, first game we played ever, yesterday, Luke used Son of Skywalker while I was at full health (he didnt want to shoot at Vader at all because of my Dodge token) and I knew he was gonna SoS so I used Master of Evil to get a Dodge pre-activation, giving me defensive surges against one of his attacks - first attack did 0 damage, second attack got 3 wounds through... Then I activate, cause 3 wounds on Luke, force push him out of the way (he now has 3 suppression from Master of Evil) and kept shooting at him with other units that turn, he died to the missile launcher unit but would've had his 6th suppression token by then otherwise.

Literally the first time ive seen that done right on Vader's end.
Well done lol.

1 hour ago, NukeMaster said:

I'm not sure if locking Luke down with troopers is the best idea. Personally I've found that once Luke gets into melee with my trooper lines I'm in a lot of trouble. Often that is why I have to bring in Vader is to deal with Luke murdering my cores.

Moving in Vader opens him up to an end of round attack plus Son of Skywalker double attack. Using Implacable on Vader to get the jump on Luke sounds like a terrible idea. Now Luke is freed up to aim attack at the end of the round then Son of Skywalker.

Throwing all your troops at Luke like chaff is probably a bad idea. But a single unit that catches Luke off guard can actually do some damage since a stormtrooper's melee attack is better than their Wal-Mart gun, and won't get deflected back at them. And if both Vader and the Stormtroopers are trying to get to the same place anyway, it might let Vader get the jump on Luke instead of the other way around, since even with pierce 2 and Aim, Luke isn't garunteed to wipe out a full squad of Stormtroopers in a single attack. He can, certainly, but it's not a certainty.

Edit: I should point out this only applies to a full squad of 5-6. With 4 or fewer troopers, the odds of survival are too slim in my opinion. Even with 5 troopers Luke still has decent odds of wiping out the unit (<50%, but I was using some really lazy assumptions* so I can't guess the exact odds)

*Specifically, I used 8d8 instead of 6d8 with two re-rolls, which gives a slightly higher number than the actual probability since Luke won't always use all the re-rolls. Not scientific, but it does let us say that Luke's average number of hits with an aim token is at least slightly less than 5.

40 minutes ago, Kalandros said:

Yea, first game we played ever, yesterday, Luke used Son of Skywalker while I was at full health (he didnt want to shoot at Vader at all because of my Dodge token) and I knew he was gonna SoS so I used Master of Evil to get a Dodge pre-activation, giving me defensive surges against one of his attacks - first attack did 0 damage, second attack got 3 wounds through... Then I activate, cause 3 wounds on Luke, force push him out of the way (he now has 3 suppression from Master of Evil) and kept shooting at him with other units that turn, he died to the missile launcher unit but would've had his 6th suppression token by then otherwise.

Good job!

The push away is probably dependent on Vader's overall health after the encounter. If you've got the guys to shoot Luke and defenced up Vader during his activation push him away. If Vader is sitting on just a few health with plenty of rebels around it might be best to stay engaged with Luke.

It further adds to the idea that Master of Evil is the best choice which is funny because in scenarios like this the conventional thinking is you really want to go first.

It was the split quadrant deployment so my vader quadrant was dominating his luke quadrant, might've gone differently in different deployment/missions.