Playing against Vader's Fist x2

By MacRauri, in Star Wars: The Card Game - Strategy

I played a couple games today that pitted me against double Vader's Fist openings. I was playing a Speeder's deck:

Afflilation: S&S

Defense of Yavin x2

Hoth Operations x2

Attack Pattern Delta x2

Prep for Battle x2

Prep for Evac. x2

One game in particular had me thinking long and hard about which 2 of my 6 cards I wanted to discard and then what I would do on my first turn. I thought I'd post the situation up here to get other people's thoughts. So here's the board situation:

I start with Hoth Ops x2, Prepare for Battle (tucking Defense of Yavin 4)

He starts with Vader's Fist x2 and Recon. Mission. (I think he was running Navy)

In my hand: Rogue 3, Bulk Transport, Astromech Droid, Rebel Assault, Battle of Hoth, Speeder Launch Bay

I'm feeling pretty good

His first turn: He plays Sith Library (23) and then 501st Legion and commits it to the force.

...

How do you play your first turn?

If you are confident your opponent doesn't have a ToF :

Drop Bulk and Droid

Play speeder launch bay (for extra ressource on following turns)

Play Rogue Three

Attack one Vader's Fist with Rogue Three

Edge Battle of Hoth

If you're lucky, he doesn't edge his entire hand to surpass your edge 5.

You résolve the edge Battle by damaging the other Vader's fist.

Then you Strike and damage the Vader's fist you engaged.

therefore, your reserve is back to 6.

You loose rogue Three to get back 2 cards per turn.

Seems good to me.

If you loose the edge Battle, you still got your Rebel Assault to damage the engaged Vader's Fist on your next turn.

If you fear your opponent has a ToF, you won't risk losing your Battle of Hoth.

Therefore, either you play Speeder Launch bay, Rogue Three and comit it to the Force to slow down your opponent

Or Rogue Three + Astromech to put pressure on him

Or you Rebel Assault one Vader's Fist, and play Speeder Launch Bay to ramp ressources.

You can play Rebel Assault during opponent turn. Drop Bulk Transport to draw one card, and play your new card(Y-wing or something) or Launch Bay if you draw nothing.

he wouldn't get to draw. his reserve would be 4, and he starts with 6 cards. so if he plays rebel assault and discards the transport he is at 4 and doesn't get to draw any cards.

Except that the Rebel Assault would damage one of the Vader's Fists, turning it off so that his reserve value would be 5.

for some reason I was thinking he was suggesting using the rebel assault on the 501st.

I think the first answer is probably the best case answer to that situation. Losing Rogue 3 will hurt but you can recover from it.

I don't think it would be wise to sit back and try to take the force back. Then you are looking at another turn with -2 to your reserve. That's going to be hard to come back from when they have a +3 card advantage for 2 or more turns.

Except that the Rebel Assault would damage one of the Vader's Fists, turning it off so that his reserve value would be 5.

This is what I would do. And drop the transport to draw one. Only bummer is you can't play rogue three. Can always play launch bay, though, to get a better setup for next turn. Depends on what you draw though.