I'm curious. Why does everybody hate him?

Why do I think he's great? It's simple: He's the one pilot that has a very good chance of one-shoting a X-Wing. Yes, I mean it. One-shoting a 5 HP Modell with 4 attack dice. His ability is HUGE. If you're not dealing 2 damage with one crit you can choose one devastating crit for one opponent, making him mainly useless.

Give him Marksmanship (imho the one pilot that can actually make use of it), a concussion missle and a free action from Howlrunner with Squad Leader and he will be a nightmare for every opponent. In my eyes far more dangerous that Wedge.

Let us all know how your strategy works out. I've not played with or against him. Thanks.

I like Maarek, though I prefer Cluster Missiles on him, as the Marksmanship applies to both rolls.

Geliron said:

I can only speak for myself, but the principal problem with him is that the extra 2 points for Vader are pretty easy to find, and running both of them is prohibitively expensive.

And, not incidentally, his odds of one-shotting an X-wing are very low. Crits don't matter unless you clear the shields first, and two hits and one crit can't kill an X-wing. So you need a minimum of three hits and one crit to take down a ship, and the odds of doing that (assuming my math is right) are about 4 to 1 against. If the X-wing has Focus--and early in the match, it probably will--your odds go to 20 to 1 against.

Haven't used him yet, but his special ability doesn't seem all that impressive to me.

Well, nothing is going to seem impressive to you compared to your amazing TIE defender, Mako13. LOL.

Maarek Stele is great. Maarek Stele makes Y-Wings(and potential YT-1300s) wish they'd never left the hangar. Just don't waste his missiles on anything with more than 1-shield token left on it. Proton Torpedoes are Alpha-Strike weapons, Missiles are not. Sure, for 2 more points you get Vader and now get to use the Force to push the target lock button while you barrel roll. That's awesome, don't get me wrong, but Maarek actually works well and the hatred for him is misplaced by the same people who have hatred for anything because of their inability to master any list that wasn't already posted on here without proof of success.

Geliron said:

I have been summoned.

Maarek Stele sucks. His ability doesn't come up often enough to be good by itself. With Marksmanship, his odds of landing a crit are much improved but then his total cost is 30 and he still isn't as good as Vader. Yes, he does have an improved chance of one-shotting an X-Wing will a concussion missile but the improvement isn't that great.

Here is a set of charts to illustrate what I'm talking about:

(Interestingly, in the process of making these charts, I've dicovered that the data table most people have been using to determine damage has an error but that is outside the scope of this post.)

Here we are looking at a Concussion Missile fired with Marksmanship. I've treated and crits as the same for the top sections of the chart because figuring out the total number of crits that will happen is overly tedious. For the sake of argument, some of the calculations at the bottom assume that 2 crits get through which is the best result anyway.

In the sections labled "MarksConc vs. 2" and "MarksConc vs. 2f", I show the odds (in the right columns) of getting a certain number of hits (in the left columns) when shooting a concussion missile with marksmanship against 2 defensive dice and 2 defensive dice with a focus respectively. Remember that this section is treating hits and crits as being the same.

In order to one-shot an X-Wing, Stele will need to land 4 hits because the first 2 damage will be absorbed by the shields which leaves only 2 hits with a chance to crit on the hull. As you can see, Stele only has a 28.8% chance of landing 4 hits on an unfocused X-Wing and a 10.4% chance of landing 4 hits on a focused X-Wing. This is before taking into account the chances of landing a direct hit.

The sections labeled "Direct Hit Chance" just show the chance of drawing at least one direct hit card when landing 1 or 2 crits with Stele's ability. For reference, the chance of having a crit be a Direct Hit for a normal pilot is 21.21%

The sections labeled "Chance of 1 Shot" show the overall chances of one-shotting an X-Wing when 2 crits or 1 crit show up. The left section shows the odds against 2 defense dice and the right section shows the odds against 2 focused dice.

Let's say that whenever Stele gets 4 hits to land 2 of them will be crits (in reality, there won't always be 2 crits); if that were the case, he'd have a 21.9% chance to one-shot an unfocused X-Wing because he only lands 4 hits 28.8% of the time and he won't always be able to get a Direct Hit card. When attacking a focused X-Wing, his odds drop to 7.9%.

Even at 21.9% (which is a higher chance than possible in reality), the investment in points is too great. If it doesn't work, you are stuck with a super expensive TIE/ad that doesn't have any extra defensive ability. The Marksman ability will help him land crits, but using it means he can't focus or evade. You want to use Howlrunner with Squad Leader to give him an extra action? Then Howlrunner isn't focusing or evading and that is an investment of even more points.

Stele costs almost as Vader but his ability only works when he crits and even then there is no guarantee he will get a Direct Hit card. A crit is worth about 1.2 points of damage for normal pilots; for Stele, crits are worth about 1.5 damage. When vader uses his ability to increase his attacks, the damage increase is generally between 0.1 and 0.2 per attack regardless of how many crits land.

Vader is a much better pilot for the cost. Even when Stele is using Marksmanship, Vader still does comparable damage and Vader's ability has much more utility.

Geliron said:

Because in order to make him look attractive people have to resort to gross hyperbole. You do not have a good, let alone a very good, chance of one shotting an X-Wing with him. Even without the above posters breakdown that is simply very plain to see. So please lets tone down the exageration.

I took him today because I wanted to ensure some decent crits against Wedge and a Y-wing. I ended up landing the Y-wing with the reduce your agility by 1, which spelt certain doom for it in the following turns.

CaptainRook said:

I don't think anyone's disputing that, but that's a very situational benefit for the relatively large marginal expense of bringing Maarek over a Tempest Squadron pilot. Meanwhile, the marginal expense of bringing Vader over Maarek is very low, and you lose the crit benefit but gain a lot of tactical flexibility.

I don't hate Maarek, and I don't think he's a bad pilot, but I think the relatively low priority of pilot ability in the emerging metagame means he's moderately overcosted.

Maarek is the second most expensive Imperial pilot.

I don't hate him, but Vader is 2 points more. Taking both is really expensive so I don't think it is a good idea. So if I have to choose one of the two I think Vader is the man.

People talk about upgrading Maarek with Marksmanship and Cluster Missils (or concussion missiles), but that increases his cost by 7 points (half a TIE fighter!!!!!!)

When I fight Rebels, I almost always fight a Wedge, which means that Vaders skill 9 is way better than Maarek's 8.

Vader's ability to take 2 actions comes into play almost every turn, where Maarek's ability comes into play relativily infrequently.

I don't really think Maarek is bad, But any list with him in it could be made better by switching him out for Vader for only 2 points.

Maarek to Vader 2 point upgrade is IMO the best 2 point upgrade in the game.

For fewer points than Maarek with with marksmanship and cluster missiles I can get Vader with swarm tactics, ot squad leader. Over the course of the game.

I don't think he is worth the points in a 100pt game. 200pt, worth the points because you have more ships and more of a chance to make use of his ability.

Picasso said:

I think you might be right. Though, it would be interesting to see someone play with 16 TIEs

CaptainRook said:

You need moon math to back that up.

The threat of Maarek can be as effective as Maarek himself.

CaptainRook said:

You really want to make inflammatory statements like that? With no real way to back up your claims about Maarek or other players you feel so comfortable bashing without ever playing against them? No reason to bring that to these forums for whatever reason.

qwertyuiop said:

Which one? Endor or Yavin? Cause the math was against the Rebels on both accounts.