The Vader crew card looks technically useful, but I may not ever play it unless I can figure out a rationale that isn't just completely goofy!

What exactly is Vader doing to achive this result?

Using his light saber to cut a hole through his own hull so he can leap out into space and personally attack the enemy ship in hand to hand combat as the artwork suggests?

Throwing a force tantrum, crushing crew members and destroying equipment on his own ship until some gunner manages to get a crit on the enemy?

By using his hatred and rage through the force to inflict damage on the enemy ship, he inadvertently summons a force-ghost of Tychu to crash into the bridge of his own ship?

Anyone have other explanations?

I agree, it doesnt make a lot of sense. Maybe…choking his own crew? He finds their lack of faith disturbing.

As for the artwork, its a recycle of this from the FFG card game

http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/uploads/sw/darth-vader-core-19-2.jpg

He just looks at the other ship and boom, crit.

The ability to destroy another ship is insignifigant next to the power of the force…

vyrago said:

That's how I see it. It's an abstraction of his willingness to sacrifice assets, especially personnel, in order to motivate his suboordinates to greater success. Heck, just think of Return of the Jedi:

Moff Jerjerrod: "I assure you, Lord Vader, my men are working as fast as they can."

Dark Vader: "Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them."

He could just be literally tearing chunks of armor plating off with his foce powers and chucking them at the enemy .

"Asteroids do not concern me Admiral, I want that ship. Not excuses"

I just imagine Vader exerting so much power through the force that it's damaging the ship he's riding while he's reaching out into space to hurt someone. The art is irrelevant since Wedge Antillies is not literally an X-Wing.

Not sure if this is a really great effect to attach to Lord Vader but there he is. I'd rather put him in his TIE Advanced with Marksmanship if I wanted to give out critical hits. He might be worth it if FFG rules that the crit goes under the shields, but I would rather avoid hurting my own ships too much for the special ability. Specially on large ships that are easily suceptible to torpedo attacks.

vyrago said:

Which makes sense in an LCG setting, where the things happening represent a wide range of activities both 'on board' and 'off board' and cover what amounts to a wide period of time…

But this is a space dogfighting game. Where does Vader's ability mesh with the instant-to-instant maneuvering around in space (particularly 'between shots', effectively)?

Similar issues with the saboteur (what, he sabotaged potentially EVERY enemy ship on the board…but can only do damage to them once they've already taken damage…and only in range 1…and only one ship at a time…and maybe the same ship over and over…and only if he's travelling along with the squadron and still alive) - it's, like, "WTF, exactly, is that action supposed to represent in the dogfight??"

Or, heck, even the intel agent. Snooping around bars planetside and spying on Stormtroopers does what, exactly, to help you predict how an opposing X-Wing is going to turn in a dogfight??

The mind boggles at some of these cards…IMHO, FFG rather blew it with the wave 3 crew abilities. These are not thematic ("space dogfight game") at all.

These can only go on larger ships, so I'd view it as:

the shuttle attacks a ship. It does not do as much damage as Vader would like. He is displeased. The weapons officer on the shuttle finds his larynx crushed. The surviving crew, "inspired," redouble their efforts and score a critical hit. Vader chalks up another example of effective middle-management.

Someone at BGG pointed out that the damage deck already deal with crew damage (the pilot crits), so I don't think this is too absurd.

I think that aArendsvark's explaination is fine. Other possibility is that Vader orders crew of his ship to shot at the target until result satisfies him, regardless of limitations of ship systems/weapons or overheating which can cause some damage on his own shuttle. Or it's some kind of "rage force attack" which indirectly devastating his own ship. Beside explaination I think that this effect excellently represents Vader's attitude - he wants to achieve his goal no matter of costs (even if it means loses on his own side).

I find those new upgrade cards pretty interesting and thematic. They are no pilots so they don't have some kind of "piloting" skill. They are additional CREW members on larger ships, sitting on decks and doing some other things. If think that it would be boring if crew members could only have been variations of gunner for example. It is good that, thanks to support ships, there are new kinds of effects focused on other elements of the game rather than only on buffing the ship on which they were placed by increasing his firepower etc.

About "how do they do it?" (dedicated to xanderf):

Intelligence agent - Maybe at close range he's able to recognize the ship (and it's pilot by markings on wings etc) and have previously gathered some informations about it's pilot skill's, style, strategies? Or maybe (far more convincing) he has some kind of spying device with limited radius that he can use to get into target's system and track his movement or his radio reports ("this is red five, i'm going to pursuit firespray" or "i can handle it" by Jenkins)?

Saboteur - He can also use some kind of device which somehow damage already damaged ships at short distances. Or he is controlling little flying droid that is able to get inside the damaged ship (like buzz-droids from the beginning of Episode III which were disassembling Obi-Wan's starfigher).

But, hey man, this is a game. There are many inaccuracies in games, in this particular game, not only with Wave 3 crew cards. I like those effects, because they are adding variety to the game, even if there is no realistic explaination how do they really work. But I think that somehow they can be explained (as above) and they are not absolutely detached from reality (or SW's reality at least).

PS: Sorry for my grammar mistakes. It's not my native language.

Vader is getting pretty detached from reality here. Well, real life as seen in the movies anyway ^,^

My willing suspension of disbelief is getting quite strained -- because he is willing to crush officers on board the Executor with a crew of some 280,000, does not make it plausible that he would do the same aboard a Shuttle with a crew of 6, and during the middle of a dogfight.

I'm not sure why people leap to the conclusion that Vader is killing or hurting people on his own ship. Yes, in movies, he's done things before but this card's mechanic is dealing damage to the ship itself- shields and/or hull. Nowhere is it referencing bodily harm to an individual. If you need to tie it to a thematic action, Raviael's discription of Vader forcing a ship to go above and beyond the capabilities at the cost of the ship's actual physical safety works very well. Some pilots are able to do things to their ship that stresses it or their pilot, Vader is able to do this to such an extent that it pushes the vessel beyond its working capabilities and starts to cause damage. This doesn't even need to be force power related, just straight up orders that a crew would not think to do on their own as they don't have the same tenacity as the sith lord.

spacemonkeymafia said:

Because the artwork shows him rampaging around with a lightsaber maybe?

With luck though, all the recycled artwork is just a place-holder in the mock-ups and there is relevant new art in the works.

I thought I'd hop on this thread and ask, "What is Jan Ors doing?" She can allow a friendly to roll one additional attack die if they're at range 1-3. So normally I'd think that she's giving support fire, and in most cases that's probably believable. But what if the opponent is also way out of her range? I guess this one is still easier to put together than Vader's card, but I wanted your input.

Parakitor said:

I see it as Jan Ors using the sensors and targeting equipment of her ship to improve the targeting solution of the ship she's assisting, similar to how US Navy ships can share targeting data via a data link.

The vader crew card will definitely not be used in my forces; suffer a critical to deal two damage to an opponent? No thanks!

I sure hope FFG comes out with a counter-card for this ramgaing Vader, like the Chuck Norris crew upgrade card!

DoubleNot7 said:

hahaha Chuck Norris crew: Chuck give a nasty look to the oponents fleet: the entire enemy fleet suffer a crit…

LOL