The Story: Krennik gladly accepted the challenge of upgrading the baseline TIE Advanced Fighter, but he didn't realize that its first real flight test would be before the Emperor, with Vader himself at the controls. Bringing a pair of his favored Reaper transports to oversee the flight exercise, he's shocked when an enemy force drops out of hyperspace... exactly as Palpatine had foreseen and orchestrated.

The Squad: Darth Vader dusts off the old TIE/AD x1, with some help from Director Krennik. As his dice are usually junk anyway, and he saves dice for defense, he's usually plenty happy to spend results to eat shields in the early game:

• Darth Vader (total 32)
  • Veteran Instincts
  • TIE/x1
  • Advanced Targeting Computer
  • Multi-Spectral Camouflage
  • Optimized Prototype
• Major Vermeil (Reaper - total 36)
  • Veteran Instincts
  • ISB Slicer
  • Director Krennik
  • Advanced Ailerons
  • Lightweight Frame
• Scarif Base Pilot (Reaper - total 32)
  • Emperor Palpatine
  • Advanced Ailerons
  • Lightweight Frame

Vader is sooo good with engine upgrade, I would be dropping both LWF to give him engine upgrade.

Sure you lose a little survivability, but Vader will be so much better in the late game.

I LOVE this. Really solid, well-rounded. Bravo!

What I appreciate about this, is that nobody is a good first target. Go after Vader? Sure... he'll token up and use Palpatine to stay alive, while the Reapers chew you to pieces. Palpmobile? Yeah, it has the lowest initiative, so you'll be able to target it best... I hope you can kill it before Vader & Krennik close in. Maybe the Krennik shuttle, then? Hope you have enough red dice to drop it in one round, or you're unlikely to get more tokens for a while.

It's a little tough without engine upgrade to give Vader supreme positioning, but I think the points are better spent on doubling each Reaper's defense dice, and he still gets the chance to shrug off any target locks coming at him (which I think is a big key to his survival). I would also consider dropping VI to Adaptability, both for the point bid, and the option to drop to an 8 if flying against lower PS ships (making him an initiative match for Vermeil).

I’ve tried running this with Vader and also with Inky (PTL, AT, Prockets). I’m actually liking it a little more with Inky but I love it both ways.

On 6/30/2018 at 8:35 PM, emeraldbeacon said:

The Story: Krennik gladly accepted the challenge of upgrading the baseline TIE Advanced Fighter, but he didn't realize that its first real flight test would be before the Emperor, with Vader himself at the controls. Bringing a pair of his favored Reaper transports to oversee the flight exercise, he's shocked when an enemy force drops out of hyperspace... exactly as Palpatine had foreseen and orchestrated.

The Squad: Darth Vader dusts off the old TIE/AD x1, with some help from Director Krennik. As his dice are usually junk anyway, and he saves dice for defense, he's usually plenty happy to spend results to eat shields in the early game:

• Darth Vader (total 32)
  • Veteran Instincts
  • TIE/x1
  • Advanced Targeting Computer
  • Multi-Spectral Camouflage
  • Optimized Prototype
• Major Vermeil (Reaper - total 36)
  • Veteran Instincts
  • ISB Slicer
  • Director Krennik
  • Advanced Ailerons
  • Lightweight Frame
• Scarif Base Pilot (Reaper - total 32)
  • Emperor Palpatine
  • Advanced Ailerons
  • Lightweight Frame

Losing LWF on Palps, and making Vader adapt instead of VI gives you engines on Vader. Probably better in the long run. And against low PS, can adapt vader down to be same PS has vermeil.

I flew against a few lists like this. Vader is simply too squishy for my taste. The correct target is always the ps 6 reaper. He is so good and worth 34 to 38 pnts. Keeping vader alive and having him do the damage is hard. Try it though. Possible qd insteas of vader? Or inquisitor? She will survive anything including a harpoon missile unscathed.

I'm actually becoming more of a fan of Feroph over Vermeil. Since they want to jam everything anyway, you will have the same likelihood of getting use of both abilities. Vermeil's is limited to a small modification on stronger dice once per round while Feroph adds a significant modification to much worse dice and can be used as many times as he gets attacked. Having 2 reapers means he is able to token up on turns when he might be a target (or left as bait) and having 2 dice behind a token, palp and (mechanically) a reinforce, he can shrug off 3 and 4 hit attacks all turn long. Were he to also have the OP condition, I have a hard time seeing when Vermeil would have a more significant impact.

My problem with Feroph is that it is really hard to keep a ship jammed. It pretty much only works against one single ship which flew before you (and only with ISB). Everything else just takes an action and gets rid of the jam token. Having no tokens however is fair more easy to achieve. So Feroph overall might have one evade due to his ability, it is basically never a reinforce. Vermeil's offense however is really powerful with GC and Krennic-TL.

With his double reaper list, the PS 1 can strip target locks or sticky tokens from comm relay and optics. Feroph can jam again if necessary or just token up and dive on in. If any number of those ships are not repositioning and just accepting eating tokened and target locked attacks, while still having no tokens themselves, you've basically won the exchange before it even started. Add in when you can block with your PS 1 and you've set up kill boxes while having the tankiest small ship on the board. Sure Vermeil's ability is easier to get off, but I've spent the majority of a tournament not having enough dice for him to fix after spending his target lock, then a die for OP. It's very often unnecessary in that set up. With OP on Vader, he would certainly get more use out of it, but a change to Feroph would also dictate OP changes hands. I'm also not sure why you're including GC with Vermeil, that has 0 interaction with his capabilities. It doesn't affect his primary attack and he has no slots for secondaries.

7 hours ago, Jimbawa said:

. I'm also not sure why you're including GC with Vermeil, that has 0 interaction with his capabilities. It doesn't affect his primary attack and he has no slots for secondaries.

I think he means Vermeils ability, which is basically a kind of GC.

9 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

I think he means Vermeils ability, which is basically a kind of GC.

I think of it more like a mini-RAC.

I really think JAM is the key to Imperial domination this season.

I feel like most players won't know how to handle getting jammed into oblivion by a pair of ISB slicer Reapers.

On 7/7/2018 at 7:59 AM, emeraldbeacon said:

I think of it more like a mini-RAC.

But why? It has not much in common with RAC. No range restriction. No restriction on focus results. No crit result. It is pretty much conditional Guidance Chips on primary, which is insanely good.

1 hour ago, NABLA_OPERATOR said:

But why? It has not much in common with RAC. No range restriction. No restriction on focus results. No crit result. It is pretty much conditional Guidance Chips on primary, which is insanely good.

Ah, true... for some reason I thought it only triggered on focus results.