What are people putting with Super Vader?

By Darth Seridur, in X-Wing

Trying to construct a Super Vader list, but finding it hard to come up with decent wingmen.

Feel the rest of the list needs to be jousty so that Vader can orbit around that "pivot".

Was wondering what other people had come up with.

Jonus and two Scimitars, all with Barrage.

5 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Jonus and two Scimitars, all with Barrage.

Then take out Vader for more Scimitars.

Tried Whisper and Seventh Sister the other day. PS killed one bomber, arc dodged most of the rest, got screwed up by ridiculously good greens on their parts, but still nearly pulled it off.

Just now, SOTL said:

Then take out Vader for more Scimitars.

Only if you bought two coversion kits, though. And something can be said for Supernatural Vader, as he is one of the best arc-dodgers left.

I definitely think 1 of the issues with Vader is the need to getting involved in a bidding war. So the amount of points you "put" into him is higher than 85/93.

Which really restricts what goes with him.

TBH Darth has one big problem - there's not a Force Power he really wants to take.

Sure he can get Supernatural Reflexes but he can only really access half of it (arguably the bad half) and it doesn't solve the problems he's got by losing Boost & Evade from 1st Edition. It's a fit, but not a good fit and he's certainly overpaying for it.

When the right Force Power lands I think he could be fearsome, but it's not in the game yet.

Edited by SOTL

Vader will not be SUPER until he flies a Defender.

18 minutes ago, SOTL said:

TBH Darth has one big problem - there's not a Force Power he really wants to take.

Sure he can get Supernatural Reflexes but he can only really access half of it (arguably the bad half) and it doesn't solve the problems he's got by losing Boost & Evade from 1st Edition. It's a fit, but not a good fit and he's certainly overpaying for it.

When the right Force Power lands I think he could be fearsome, but it's not in the game yet.

Taking a damage for boosting is a viable option. Far from MoV-friendly, but MoV conservation is so difficult now anyways that I'm not sure I care too much. Nothing to do every turn (duh), but that has the upside of making you less predictable with it. I'm willing to give it a try at the very least, nothing I'd reject outright.

3 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Taking a damage for boosting is a viable option. Far from MoV-friendly, but MoV conservation is so difficult now anyways that I'm not sure I care too much. Nothing to do every turn (duh), but that has the upside of making you less predictable with it. I'm willing to give it a try at the very least, nothing I'd reject outright.

I don't reject it outright, but you can't pretend Vader is getting full value from Supernatural.

When Luke or Inquisitor has Supernatural it's with damage-free access to both Boost and Barrel Roll AND the action that they take is an incremental action they wouldn't otherwise get to take - it's a combined PTL/Advanced Sensors. When Vader has Supernatural it's painful to Boost and Vader can spend a Force to take extra actions anyway.

If Supernatural costs 12 points then Vader's really only getting to use like 4-5pts value of what you're paying for.

Edited by SOTL
22 minutes ago, SOTL said:

TBH Darth has one big problem - there's not a Force Power he really wants to take.

Sure he can get Supernatural Reflexes but he can only really access half of it (arguably the bad half) and it doesn't solve the problems he's got by losing Boost & Evade from 1st Edition. It's a fit, but not a good fit and he's certainly overpaying for it.

When the right Force Power lands I think he could be fearsome, but it's not in the game yet.

Agree with this. Having played with and against him a few times now I don't think Supernatural Reflexes is worth it. It's expensive and he doesn't have enough health to use the Boost option more than once, maybe twice. At that point you're better off saving some point and taking Afterburners since there's no Mod Vader really needs. This highlights one of the major differences in 2nd edition compared to 1st: you don't necessarily have to fill every slot to have a good ship.

I'm also not convinced big bids are required either. With arc dodging much harder and more restrictive now, especially if you also want good dice mods, I'm starting to think the benefits of moving last aren't as big as they were. You're less likely to get out of arc and 2-dice attacks can hurt even the likes of Soontir. I'd much rather have more ships on the board, or use my bid points to spread some upgrades around the rest of my squad. Early days yet so my opinion may change.

@Jike the issue with the bid is the threat of other Vaders and especially Fenn Raus.

1 minute ago, SOTL said:

I don't reject it outright, but you can't pretend Vader is getting full value from Supernatural.

When Luke or Inquisitor has Supernatural it's with damage-free access to both Boost and Barrel Roll AND the action that they take is an incremental action they wouldn't otherwise get to take - it's a combined PTL/Advanced Sensors. When Vader has Supernatural it's painful to Boost and Vader can spend a Force to take extra actions anyway.

If Supernatural costs 12 points then Vader's really only getting to use like 4-5pts value of what you're paying for.

But then arguably he gets more value from it since he is at the highest possible initiative - I don't doubt that new force upgrades will obsolete SR eventually, especially dark side specific ones, but right now it seems like a viable option to make sure Vader gets to leverage ini6.

12pts. It just isn't worth it. Vader is plain not worth his cost and won't be until there's the right Force Power for him, or there's a solid price reduction on the TIE Advanced chassis.

6 minutes ago, Darth Seridur said:

@Jike the issue with the bid is the threat of other Vaders and especially Fenn Raus.

I get that, but my experience so far has been that these ships aren't nearly as slippery as they were. Maybe it's because bombs are more universally useful now, or maybe it's the threat that even 2-dice attacks pose, but with arc dodging less effective I just haven't seen Vader or Fenn cause the sort of havoc that would have been simplicity itself to manage in 1st edition. In short, I think there are now more counters to arc dodgers than previously. In 1st edition you either had to have a bigger bid for your own arc dodgers or you needed turrets.

26 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Vader will not be SUPER until he flies a Defender.

1 ship list, no doubt.

19 minutes ago, SOTL said:

I don't reject it outright, but you can't pretend Vader is getting full value from Supernatural.

When Luke or Inquisitor has Supernatural it's with damage-free access to both Boost and Barrel Roll AND the action that they take is an incremental action they wouldn't otherwise get to take - it's a combined PTL/Advanced Sensors. When Vader has Supernatural it's painful to Boost and Vader can spend a Force to take extra actions anyway.

If Supernatural costs 12 points then Vader's really only getting to use like 4-5pts value of what you're paying for.

But he can often use it to get focus for free from linked actions which is beneficial, and it's essentially spending a force to let him get his full action phase before moving thanks to his ability, which is situationally WELL worth the 12 points, because you can get him roll lock focus for your 3 force, and then happily run head on into your opponent's front line whilst shooting the back line, or even K turn past.

1 hour ago, SOTL said:

TBH Darth has one big problem - there's not a Force Power he really wants to take.

Sure he can get Supernatural Reflexes but he can only really access half of it (arguably the bad half) and it doesn't solve the problems he's got by losing Boost & Evade from 1st Edition. It's a fit, but not a good fit and he's certainly overpaying for it.

When the right Force Power lands I think he could be fearsome, but it's not in the game yet.

I haven't flown him yet but I was trying to get the murder droids and Vader in an Imperial list and didn't like any of the force powers for Vader.

I was looking at Vader, Grand Inquisitor and Seventh Sister. Flavor to taste, or depending on how the app feels at any given moment.

5 minutes ago, RuusMarev said:

I was looking at Vader, Grand Inquisitor and Seventh Sister. Flavor to taste, or depending on how the app feels at any given moment.

Definitly needs missiles on the v1s, else the damage output is hopeless.

35 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Definitly needs missiles on the v1s, else the damage output is hopeless.

TGI and 7Sis both have reasonable damage output with FCS. TGI gets 3 dice with rerolls and a force, 7Sis gets two with reroll and crack shot.

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

TGI and 7Sis both have reasonable damage output with FCS. TGI gets 3 dice with rerolls and a force, 7Sis gets two with reroll and crack shot.

I don't know, that seems like a bit too little when massed firepower is availiable cheaply to all factions in one way or another.

I run him with 3 Barrage Scimitars to keep a 5 point bid. As long as I keep Vader out of the fray he works fantastically as an endgame piece.

I put a couple of barrage rockets in his face

And then his player shows up with just fcs on him, which is imo the way to go

But to the point, Tie or bomber swarm are as jousty as you can get. Just make sure Vader isn't overloaded so your jousting block can do some work

Jonus and Deathrain.

Jonus has Barrage while Vader and Deathrain have Clusters. Jonus' ability still works on the bonus attack after all and both of them can get/want a lock very quick and easily.

Deathrain has bombletts of course. 2pt bid isnt much but kinda dont care about baffles on deathrain and thats all i could use the pts for