3 hours ago, SirCormac said:

So the other night, using some of the pre-built 200 point squads (we assume) from various videos of 2.0, I played two games last night (with a new damage deck, and all the rules we know). Both games were Vader and 4 TIEs vs. Boba Fett and 2 Fang Fighters. Besides the fact that I think generic Fangs are great (that boost or barrel into a red focus is nice), here are my thoughts on Vader.

To sum it up, before I go into detail, I believe Vader is best described as...balanced. He is better than his current incarnation in some ways, and worse in other ways. Here are the points.

Pros:

1. Force - With 3 Force on him (as pseudo-focuses), Vader kind of has three actions banked until he needs them. This is pretty nice, and means he can k-turn or T-roll without a huge loss to his action efficiency, which is very nice. The force power they gave him (sense) I don't think makes sense on him and doesn't really help him, but maybe there is another one which we don't know yet which will work well on him.

2. Dial - The 2-banks being blue, plus the white-1 forward are very nice (as well as the t-rolls), but I have been saying for years that he needed a 1-turn, which they didn't give him. The dial is unarguably better than what it was, but not quite what I was hoping for.

Cons:

1. Actions - I know it sounds weird on a Vader that can theoretically chain actions to say there's a problem here, but there really is (imho). New Vader only has reliable access to three actions: Focus, BR, TL. That's it, and natively, the BR is already chained to the Focus. So I found myself on many turns with Vader (since I already had the TL up), simply 'turning' the red BR white, essentially, as I would Focus and BR. And if you don't need to BR, on many turns, you'll find yourself with 'nothing to do' with Vader other than Focus. He reeeeeaaaallllyyy misses the Boost and the Evade, which leads us to the next point.

2. Squishier - Without Evade and only access to a very limited Boost, Vader is much more squishy than before, and can't really rely on new Palp either. This makes new Vader feel very squishy, as he has no way to deal with a bad roll. He just takes it. He never had autothrusters, but now without the evade...Ouch.

In Conclusion, this Vader build they gave us might not be optimal (I doubt it is), but my conclusion is Vader is balanced. He's not OP, from what I can tell. And to tell you the truth, since Advanced don't want to use their TL anyways, most other Advanced Pilots will have similar action economy to Vader (if you accept getting stressed). When all of this comes out, I may consider playing a lower PS Advanced, if they cost alot cheaper. Will be interesting to see it all play out.

Good write up. I did the same thing. I Agree with your point that vader is squishy if he rolls blanks. But so was luke and wedge and all the tie fighters. It made for a fast and intense game. I quite liked it.

In my opinion 1.0 suffered from hyper defense. (Which lead to hyper offence) It was very disheartening to send 4 hits to a ship and them take no damage. I very much like that Vader cant just token stack and shake off a big hit. The best way to avoid damage in 2.0...? STAY OUT OF ENEMY ARCHs

1 hour ago, TBot said:

Good write up. I did the same thing. I Agree with your point that vader is squishy if he rolls blanks. But so was luke and wedge and all the tie fighters. It made for a fast and intense game. I quite liked it.

In my opinion 1.0 suffered from hyper defense. (Which lead to hyper offence) It was very disheartening to send 4 hits to a ship and them take no damage. I very much like that Vader cant just token stack and shake off a big hit. The best way to avoid damage in 2.0...? STAY OUT OF ENEMY ARCHs

Thanks! Yes, I agree. Thing is, we don't quite know the new power levels, and this was my first time experiencing 2.0. To be fair, Vader was fun, although the Advanced has never been my favorite ship, not by a long shot, which could color my perspective, but I was slightly underwhelmed by his action economy. Still, sinc the designer's have tried to pull the power levels back down and make flying matter, Vader could still be a beast, but man he misses evade.

5 hours ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

Empire is all about mass production, right? It makes sense that the X-1 would be less awesome. The hard part for me to swallow is why would Vader be in one?

Because Vader doesn't need anything more, that would be overkill.

What if you used the Force points for dice modification or maneuvering? You don't really need to Focus, unless low on Force Points (I'll just say FP). You want one TL to hold on to someone. FCS will be there for dice mod on offense. I mean, you are only rolling 2 dice (unless R1) and hopefully only need 1 mod. It's a shame the Tie Advanced doesn't get an Evade, but perhaps it would make Vader just too defensive? I mean, he could roll 3 green dice with 3 FP and also have an Evade? That's pretty good against multiple shots.

For those saying the Tie Adv isn't that good....I just don't think you guys see it. Yeah, the dial isn't as good as the V1, but the offensive firepower is there where it isn't with the Prototype. You get the TL on someone and add a Crit result! I mean, it's like getting a 3 die attack, but one is always turned to a Crit. If you have FCS, you get to modify one die. So....even if you blank out, you get to reroll a die. Chances of getting at least a Hit and a Crit are really high.....but you get to do it every turn! You don't spend your TL, so it keeps happening. It also makes a big difference where ships now tend to have a lot more Hull and less Shield. So, your chances of your Crits doing actual Critical Hits is higher.

The Tie Advanced is a brawler that can put out some hurt. I'm really looking forward to using it, especially the generics. I'm thinking a mid Init ship can be pretty good. A little bit of BRing if need be, but it can put a TL on a juicy large ship and follow it for a while. I'm thinking of all those Han with Luke Gunners. Save my Focus for defense and keep firing away at the sucker. It gets one green die and I get one auto hit. Whatever I roll is gravy, except I am probably going to crit it. The V1 is more agile, sure, but it hits a lot less harder.

Liked your write-up @SirCormac, hope it gets a little better somehow for the most iconic figure in the Star Wars universe. I Love TIE Advanced, had some real surprising success running 1.0 squads (back in the day) of:

Darth Vader (Unique TIE Advanced PS9 (36): Title (0), Juke (2), Adv. Targeting Computer (1) + Engine Upgrade (4)

Tempest Squadron Pilot -TIE Advanced PS2 (22): Title (0), Adv. Targeting Computer (1)

Tempest Squadron Pilot -TIE Advanced PS2 (21): Title (0), Accuracy Corrector (0) X2

So VI wasn't a loss because we eliminated that card on pint nights, so no foul. Hope the squad still works, it'll be cool to see. The one problem I see is that typically the AC Tempest took evade actions, which isn't a possibility now [sad panda?]

12 hours ago, SirCormac said:

Only problem is, according to the devs, if you are a Force user, you don't get access to Talent slots, only 'Force' slots, which is interesting. But still, there might be an awesome Force power for Vader to really shine. I have no doubts that Vader will be good, but he isn't as OP as he first seems.

Did he really seem OP?

No evade, no boost option, worse targeting computer. The Advanced all suffer from having to spend an action to get up to 3 dice attack. I’m sure this will be built into the cost but Vader is an I6 Force User so he will be expensive.

Most of the time I believe you should never use Vader’s ability. He has 3 force, you should never need to take Focus, which means with the exception of roll and lock you don’t need to double up on actions. Once you have a lock up you are free to focus, roll or focus -> roll. Just because you can use all actions with Vader doesn’t mean you should. Those 3 Force are 3 banked calculate. Why waste them on Focus? By all means take Focus if you have range 1 or no other useful action but spending a force to get a focus seems a little wasteful.

There is likely stuff we haven’t seen. Perhaps a config for the ship, force powers, and how many mods you can equip on him. Afterburners currently feels like a must. Is there still going to be a Cruise Missile?

But for the most part Vader seemed perfectly in line with 2.0 balance - definitely not OP and definitely not the ship the we have been flying in 1.0.

Now if they put Vader in a Defender then that will be something else.

There is also the fact that Advanced has a system slot in top of the built in Advanced Targeting Computer.

All we have seen is fire control systems, but there are bound to be a plethora of other options that may be more optimized on Vader.

3 minutes ago, DodgingArcs said:

Did he really seem OP?

No evade, no boost option, worse targeting computer. The Advanced all suffer from having to spend an action to get up to 3 dice attack.

How is his targeting computer worse? It's the same as it was in v1 and FCS got better for Vader and all X1's. You want to keep the TL and it allows you to reroll one die! How is that bad?

You talk about how it doesn't have Boost, but no ships have the ability to Boost and BR, except the Interceptor and A-wing. That's OK, though. That's the new power level. I don't think you need to have the Boost ability. If you really feel you need it, you can get Engine Upgrade.

An Evade would probably have made Vader broken.

Why would you Focus? In case you are getting shot at by more than 1 enemy and think you might roll more than 1 Eyeball when defending with 3 dice. If it takes one action and no other action will help you (such as BR out of way), then a Focus is better than just saving it for one dice mod. You can mod as many Eyeballs as you roll.

new ATC is objectively worse than old ATC. Add 1 crit result vs roll 1 extra attack die?

1 minute ago, lj1983 said:

new ATC is objectively worse than old ATC. Add 1 crit result vs roll 1 extra attack die?

but you can spend the lock

FFG has been trying to move away from adding guaranteed results (apart from norra apparently). ****, they nerfed fearlessness because of that

yeah, but that's not "It's the same as it was in v1"

@heychadwick Take a look, the new ATC is quite a bit different than the old ATC. It does not add a crit, you roll 1 extra die and can change 1 hit to a crit.

3 minutes ago, Incard said:

@heychadwick Take a look, the new ATC is quite a bit different than the old ATC. It does not add a crit, you roll 1 extra die and can change 1 hit to a crit.

Ah, I read it wrong. Still, I like it. Throw on FCS (allows a reroll if you have a TL) and I'm happy.

remember, no "cannot spend target locks" clause

makes Vader real happy, especially at range 1

other Advance probably want FCS since they can't really stack up on mods easily

9 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

remember, no "cannot spend target locks" clause

makes Vader real happy, especially at range 1

other Advance probably want FCS since they can't really stack up on mods easily

all i know is i played against a Rey with Finn combo last night after many months of not playing X-wing and i'm glad to see that there will be a lot less of these add a result crap, seeing Rey roll 3 Red then add a blank dice only to reroll it and score 4 hits at R3 against my poor Tie Aggressor was disheartening, and then the R1 5 dice was even worst.

Good write up.

Maybe the system slot will provide a means of additionally needed defense for Vader.

14 hours ago, HammerGibbens said:

Don't forget he can also get womp rats in his T-15's Bullseye arc, and they're not much bigger than a meter.

Woah there. you give Luke way too much credit. First off, he had the technologically superior T-16 Skyhopper. and his targets were fully grown Womp Rats which are a bit bigger than Two meters.......

Just saying

16 hours ago, Rodrigo Istalindir said:

It's a ship we saw once flying in a straight line shooting fish in a barrel.

It's also a ship we saw flying in reverse, single-handedly destroying a squad of A-Wings and a CR-90 without effort.

That said, until we know all the upgrades it has access to, I'm reserving judgement.

Technically, a pelta-class assault frigate.

Guess you don’t play Armada

Also does anyone know what Vader started flying after he lost his x1 at Vrogas Vas? Please let it be a Defender...

lol no

2.0 Vader in a 2.0 defender is grounds for a 1-ship list

Has anyone considered placing advanced sensors on him in their proxy games? Alex Davy said during the unboxing stream that he can still force chain for actions with them sensors, plus, it leaves the baked-in ATC in use. Like it was aforementioned, there are many unknowns about the force or dark side slots, so thankfully, the builds they demo'd for him are probably the worst we will see (of course excluding those by the typical people at the game store always causing head-scratching with A Score to Settle Soontir, Lone-Wolf post-nerfed Manaroo, or Saturation Salvo Tycho Celchu).

yeah, the dev's also said Dash had 2-dice at range 1

mistakes happen

there is no way Vader gets more than one action after sensors, since his ability kicks in during his activation because that's generally when you perform actions (unless he was coordinated)

or is action chaining/nested triggers a thing?

after you reveal your dial, you may perform 1 action,

(after you perform an action, you may spend 1 FORCE to perform an action)

if you do, you cannot perform another action during your activation

idk, doesn't seem right to me

58 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

yeah, the dev's also said Dash had 2-dice at range 1

mistakes happen

there is no way Vader gets more than one action after sensors, since his ability kicks in during his activation because that's generally when you perform actions (unless he was coordinated)

or is action chaining/nested triggers a thing?

after you reveal your dial, you may perform 1 action,

(after you perform an action, you may spend 1 FORCE to perform an action)

if you do, you cannot perform another action during your activation

idk, doesn't seem right to me

If Vader can have actions with the force, despite other limitations, that would be keeping in with the theme of Luke gunner, or even the new force sensitive deadeye.

Maybe the theme of the force is just that. Allowing you to do something disregarding limits.

4 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

If Vader can have actions with the force, despite other limitations, that would be keeping in with the theme of Luke gunner, or even the new force sensitive deadeye.

Maybe the theme of the force is just that. Allowing you to do something disregarding limits.

Kinda ironic considering force is sharply limited by tokens

But I doubt it. There'd have to be a clause in the rulebook that reads, and I quote, "disregard all gameplay limitations because forcelulz". Granted gunner Luke does that, but not because of the force (it's because hes poorly designed)

Anyway, current RAW says "no", unless nested actions are a thing

And I had kinda hoped we had sorted that out with pre-bluecore dauntless

Now bless the devs, but they had also said that dash had 2 dice at range 1. He gets 3. People make mistakes