Geniuses of the forum:

I'm interested in your guidance and thoughts as we play the new Tarkin map in matchups with Vader.

I've been playing my wife (who is a pretty ferocious Vader player) on Tarkin and she destroys me. I play a variety of lists and have trouble cracking it.

She moves out and locks down the two consoles between the deployment zones (on the experimental research mission, she grabs extra dice for her weaker figs) and I can't contest because vader and palp are both in there.

So I end up booking it down to the far objectives, which wastes quite a bit of activation power just dedicated to moving.

I've read the nice map breakdown from Bkelly and the guide to taking down vader with rebels .

What strategies have you all found are effective vs vader on Tarkin?

I've playtested a few matches unshakeable vader vs han/rangers on the AI mission and I agree that it's a rough matchup. I lost both games I focused Vader due to the jets picking up so many objective points. I barely won the game I ignored vader and went after the rest of the list.

That's interesting, so she's opening the deployment zone door to the long 9 space hallway but you're still losing? Seems like you should be able to easily gun down whatever figures venture out into that no man's land to claim those consoles. Granted, you've basically only got 1 turn before they're on top of you with each. If she's charging straight at you from her deployment zone, you should be filling that hallway with as much firepower as you can while hanging back as far as you can, but your smugglers should be running away to the other side of the map and holding the red and blue consoles and grabbing weapons tokens so they can hit the opponent's flanks (aka damaged units hiding in the back lines) on round 3.

If she is consistently taking the beeline route past the yellow console, try to get the red zone when you can so they can't hide their figures easily behind the blocking terrain. From the red zone it's also easier to shoot into blue side deployment zone from the terminal intersection if you decide to go up there. Although if I were the Vader player, I'd actually want the Blue zone because I like to take the middle route by the terminals which is very hard to get line of sight to.

I think Drokatta is really going to shine on this map especially against swarm lists like Vader+Jets. The 2 choke points on the map by the red and yellow consoles make it easier to move a large force forward while only presenting a single target, but they also force the enemy to bunch up behind that target, creating ample opportunities for massive AoE damage via Shrapnel and Demolish. Against non-mobile figures her demolish tokens are also going to be great at slowing enemies down that are moving through those choke points. If you're running Han rangers, you could try dropping Han for Drokkata.

TBH tho, you might have to switch to Scum to get the amount of firepower you're looking for.

4 hours ago, Tvboy said:

I think Drokatta is really going to shine on this map especially against swarm lists like Vader+Jets. The 2 choke points on the map by the red and yellow consoles make it easier to move a large force forward while only presenting a single target, but they also force the enemy to bunch up behind that target, creating ample opportunities for massive AoE damage via Shrapnel and Demolish. Against non-mobile figures her demolish tokens are also going to be great at slowing enemies down that are moving through those choke points. If you're running Han rangers, you could try dropping Han for Drokkata.

I’ve got a handful of games on this map, and Drokkatta has been a monster.

Han/Drokkatta can chew through Vader pretty quickly if Vader gets isolated. They both can use 2 surges to add 3 damage. Adding damage instead of relying on pierce takes away some benefit from Zillo

On 7/13/2018 at 10:30 PM, Fightwookies said:

I’ve got a handful of games on this map, and Drokkatta has been a monster.

Han/Drokkatta can chew through Vader pretty quickly if Vader gets isolated. They both can use 2 surges to add 3 damage. Adding damage instead of relying on pierce takes away some benefit from Zillo

I basically followed your advice with a han rangers list and won.

I'll try some Drok shenanigans next!

I'd love to see Drok in more top tier lists.

How often do you pick up the weapons when you play? I always want to but end up skipping and move attacking instead.