Anyone tried Vader with Expose? Would make his stats that of an x-wing and with 2 actions you can still get off a focus? Not tried it myself but might be worth a try...

Vader is an outstanding ship, his two actions and ability to take modifications and EPT's make him one of the best in the game, as he should be.

The Advanced in general has three major things stacked against it. The first being 2 attack dice the second being its dial, combine those 2 handicaps with the points cost and the Advanced starts to suffer as there is another ship that does what the Advanced can do more effectively and for less points. Tie Fighters, Interceptors and Bombers depending on roll.

Granted, the Advanced is good in defense, but will lose out in an attrition war as Attack>Defense in this game and before anyone asks, I have flown and tested the Advanced extensively.

I just get fed by people calling a ship useless without it being useless. You are absolutely right EltNot, the Tie advance isnt meant as an every situation versatile ship.

lets even out the points a little.

Tie advance+missle vs 2 academy pilots 25 vs 24 points.

The tie advance has ps advantage, and can barrel rollout of arcs when needed. so lets look at a scenario where the Tie advance vs the fighters fight each other dealing the absolute worst luck to each other. ties at range 3, tie advance blows up tie fighter. last tie fighter deals 2 crits to tie advance, but is absorbed by sheilds. ships get in range 1, pilot skill 2 vs pilot skill 1. tie advance has the first shot. You can drum up 100 different scenarios. One of the best games Ive witnessed was a newby flying 4 tie advances armed with concussion missiles destroy an experienced 8 tie fighter swarm.

When it comes down to missiles your building towards luck type builds. Its not like warhammers luck (the entire game based on a die roll) its allot more down to skill) Infact I call it luck, and we can argue at what % a ship is or isnt a good build. In business you have potential sales, and average sales. Advances have way more potential then a tie fighter, though the average will be on the tie fighters side.

Bottom line if your betting your house on a single game, you gotta realize you might lose your house betting against the advances.

Lackwit, if you keep your mind open to all ships youll get quite good. Theres tons of tips and tricks youll pick up as you play this game.

The odds are that your missiles won't blow up a tie at range three. And that both TIE fighters will close to range two or even worse range one. Basically in your scenario, if everything goes perfectly for the TIE\Adv it will win because it gets to shoot just before the Academy pilots. However if you played that situation using some average results, the result most of the time would be that your TIE\Adv would lose more often than not.

well i do have a good 100 points list with maarek stelee

maarek with cluster missiles and swarm tactics

storm squadron ( Ps 4) cluster missiles

storm squadron ( ps 4 ) cluster missiles

and obsidian pilot as a flanker or filler but he won me the fight against a luke biggs list

iam jsut sayin that iam on ure side captain lackwit

i do own 3 advances and i love to play em along my other emperial fighters

I have had quite a lot of luck with vader... I either run him with just homing missiles and then as a distraction for Krassis, or for 2 more pts I give him expose and a stealth device. At this point with such a great dial and the option of 2 actions, he can use his 2 actions at the start of the game to have an evade and focus to stay alive (4-5 evades) and then when in close can pop expose and shoot 4 attack dice into enemy ships. I find im very versatile like this and again, that dial REALLY shines.

just sayin give vader stealth device and there u go a agility 4 vader

Once I have my hands on the right upgrades I'm going to try using Vader with Expose and Engine upgrade. I prefer to use Vader if I am fielding Adv and with the low amount of imp ships I have he is practically a must against the rebel forces I have.

Maybe I'm late to the party but the 2 attack dice is where the Advanced suffers. The added agility may help it live longer but if you have a time limit on the game that doesn't help as much as laying out more damage.

We like saying that the X-Wing and Advanced are intended to mirror each other. Now what if the Advanced just took the X-Wing's stats and switched Agility and Hull instead of Agility and Attack? Oh, it would lower the Advance's survivability but it would then be stronger than a TIE Fighter in all areas except basic hull points.

Maybe I'm late to the party but the 2 attack dice is where the Advanced suffers. The added agility may help it live longer but if you have a time limit on the game that doesn't help as much as laying out more damage.

The Advanced should find itself outside of the opponent's firing arch and at range 1 often. This gives it 3 attack dice. The Advanced also benefits from having a higher PS. If other alleys have already shot at the target, and the target no longer has evade or focus tokens, the Advance can take full advantage of its R1 attack. Furthermore, I love putting Expose on Vader. With his extra action, he can focus AND get that extra attack die when he finds himself un-targeted. Then you're looking at Vadar with a 4 die range 1 attack with focus.

Give the Advanced a swarm to work with. Force the opponent to go after the Advanced (which is tough to hit) and get shot up by the swarm, or, deal with the swarm and get shot up by the Advanced.

Maybe I'm late to the party but the 2 attack dice is where the Advanced suffers. The added agility may help it live longer but if you have a time limit on the game that doesn't help as much as laying out more damage.

The Advanced should find itself outside of the opponent's firing arch and at range 1 often. This gives it 3 attack dice. The Advanced also benefits from having a higher PS. If other alleys have already shot at the target, and the target no longer has evade or focus tokens, the Advance can take full advantage of its R1 attack. Furthermore, I love putting Expose on Vader. With his extra action, he can focus AND get that extra attack die when he finds himself un-targeted. Then you're looking at Vadar with a 4 die range 1 attack with focus.

Give the Advanced a swarm to work with. Force the opponent to go after the Advanced (which is tough to hit) and get shot up by the swarm, or, deal with the swarm and get shot up by the Advanced.

Too bad Vader would do more damage (on average) with F+TL at R1 than F+Ex... At R2-3 the expected damage is the same, but now you've just wasted your action (which could have been a TL to save for the next turn) not to mention 4 points, and your EPT slot.

Maybe I'm late to the party but the 2 attack dice is where the Advanced suffers. The added agility may help it live longer but if you have a time limit on the game that doesn't help as much as laying out more damage.

The Advanced should find itself outside of the opponent's firing arch and at range 1 often. This gives it 3 attack dice. The Advanced also benefits from having a higher PS. If other alleys have already shot at the target, and the target no longer has evade or focus tokens, the Advance can take full advantage of its R1 attack. Furthermore, I love putting Expose on Vader. With his extra action, he can focus AND get that extra attack die when he finds himself un-targeted. Then you're looking at Vadar with a 4 die range 1 attack with focus.

Give the Advanced a swarm to work with. Force the opponent to go after the Advanced (which is tough to hit) and get shot up by the swarm, or, deal with the swarm and get shot up by the Advanced.

Too bad Vader would do more damage (on average) with F+TL at R1 than F+Ex... At R2-3 the expected damage is the same, but now you've just wasted your action (which could have been a TL to save for the next turn) not to mention 4 points, and your EPT slot.

You've made two assumptions. One isn't true, and the other should not be.

The first assumption is that this game follows a rule of averages (mathematically) when in reality there are variances that cause this not to be the case. Risk big, gain big is a part of this game. Second, Vader is a PS 9 and should be firing first. With four attack die AND focus this is mathematically better than 3 die and a re-roll. Furthermore, if Vader does not kill what he has shot at, the follow up shot from a wingman will not have to deal with focus or evade tokens (as Vader may have). To only calculate the worth of an attack without planning for or considering its effect on follow up attacks in this game is folly.

You are correct to say that the safer option is TL and Focus, but it does not have the damage potential of an extra attack die and Focus. My list idea centers around pure damage potential. With BOTH ideas, the dice must be in your favor to ultimately succeed.

Maybe I'm late to the party but the 2 attack dice is where the Advanced suffers. The added agility may help it live longer but if you have a time limit on the game that doesn't help as much as laying out more damage.

The Advanced should find itself outside of the opponent's firing arch and at range 1 often. This gives it 3 attack dice. The Advanced also benefits from having a higher PS. If other alleys have already shot at the target, and the target no longer has evade or focus tokens, the Advance can take full advantage of its R1 attack. Furthermore, I love putting Expose on Vader. With his extra action, he can focus AND get that extra attack die when he finds himself un-targeted. Then you're looking at Vadar with a 4 die range 1 attack with focus.

Give the Advanced a swarm to work with. Force the opponent to go after the Advanced (which is tough to hit) and get shot up by the swarm, or, deal with the swarm and get shot up by the Advanced.

Too bad Vader would do more damage (on average) with F+TL at R1 than F+Ex... At R2-3 the expected damage is the same, but now you've just wasted your action (which could have been a TL to save for the next turn) not to mention 4 points, and your EPT slot.

You've made two assumptions. One isn't true, and the other should not be.

The first assumption is that this game follows a rule of averages (mathematically) when in reality there are variances that cause this not to be the case. Risk big, gain big is a part of this game. Second, Vader is a PS 9 and should be firing first. With four attack die AND focus this is mathematically better than 3 die and a re-roll. Furthermore, if Vader does not kill what he has shot at, the follow up shot from a wingman will not have to deal with focus or evade tokens (as Vader may have). To only calculate the worth of an attack without planning for or considering its effect on follow up attacks in this game is folly.

You are correct to say that the safer option is TL and Focus, but it does not have the damage potential of an extra attack die and Focus. My list idea centers around pure damage potential. With BOTH ideas, the dice must be in your favor to ultimately succeed.

You are correct that there is more potential damage with Expose. Which is something that a few months ago I tried to put to use as a "stealth stripper" type weapon. Maximizing repeatiability should be everyone's goal. That's the point of taking a focus or target lock in the first place... rolling 4 dice without any modifier will have the following distribution:

0 - 6.25%

1 - 25%

2 - 37.5%

3 - 25%

4 - 6.25%

You have a 6.25% chance of doing more damage than possible without expose. However, if we look at a 3 dice attack with Focus, the distribution is as follows:

0 - 1.5%

1 - 14%

2 - 42%

3 - 42%

If we exclude 0 and 1 hit results as practically useless, Expose is left with a 68.25% chance of actually rolling useful... Focus puts you at 84%. In any game, when you're making a list that you want to consistently win, you have to minimize the risk, by maximizing the repeatability of the squad.

And FYI, the game does indeed follow "a rule of averages" ... Part of the point of averages is that there are variances... otherwise, it wouldn't be an average, it would be the result. And while a single attack could end up better with Expose, throughout the entire match, and especially over multiple matches (say in a tourney setting) that outlier will be balanced out and you will trend back towards average, which means lots of bad rolls.

4 dice w/ a Focus is better than 3 dice with a TL. But that's not what you should be comparing to... you should be comparing 4F vs. 3F+TL, since you're taking 2 actions to get F+Ex... And the 3F+TL wins 93.75% of the time. And this isn't taking into account those 4 points.

And having Vader shoot first has nothing to do with how well he rolls. You always want him to roll optimally. As you want everyone to always roll optimally.

Why the TIE advanced is crap:

2x TIE\ln Academy pilots costs 24 points

1x TIE\Adv Tempest Squadron Pilot costs 21 points

The two Tie fighters, have twice the amount of attack dice between them, a larger HP pool to absorb damage and are more maneuverable. Even if you count on one of them being destroyed, they still have the same attack, more remaining HP and are more maneuverable than the TIE\Adv.

Apart from Darth Vader, points spent on TIE\ln return a far greater investment than points spent on a TIE\Adv. The only reason to field them is if you want to bring some missiles which the new wave four ships will likely invalidate anyhow.

The only use i see for the Advanced is to carry missiles. But since missiles are also expensive, can fail, and their effectiveness is written on another page.

It could also be that FFG has undercosted the Tie Fighters a bit because they underestimated them before realease, and that makes other ships like the Advanced suffer until now. Funny enough, should this be the case it's not even the rebels suffering most from the too cheap Ties. It creates a situation where until now nobody has even built a real imperial alternative to the Tie Swarm. It's too efficient to be really replaced as the number one tournament choice up to this day.

Also rebels have now got with the A-Wing and the upcoming Z-95 much better and cheaper missile carriers. The Tie bomber is also a good choice and cheaper for that purpose.

Vader is a good choice and a real tank, but he suffers from the main setback of the Advanced. Its 2 attack. If you can delay him a bit, Vader can win it for you at the end of the game since he is able to outlast most enemies. With an engine upgrade and his 2 actions he basically is supremely manoeuvrable too.

I just get fed by people calling a ship useless without it being useless. You are absolutely right EltNot, the Tie advance isnt meant as an every situation versatile ship.

lets even out the points a little.

Tie advance+missle vs 2 academy pilots 25 vs 24 points.

The tie advance has ps advantage,

Debatable. High PS does not automatically equal advantage. One of the crowning features of the Academy Pilot is their ability to move first and destroy your opponent's action economy.

and can barrel rollout of arcs when needed.

So can the TIE/lns.

so lets look at a scenario where the Tie advance vs the fighters fight each other dealing the absolute worst luck to each other. ties at range 3, tie advance blows up tie fighter. last tie fighter deals 2 crits to tie advance, but is absorbed by sheilds. ships get in range 1, pilot skill 2 vs pilot skill 1. tie advance has the first shot. You can drum up 100 different scenarios.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. You can't look at a "worst-case scenario" to the exclusion of all other potential outcomes and then draw a conclusion. Also, all you're really proving here is that a missile has the potential to one-shot a TIE/ln. Which isn't really a proof that needs stating; we're all aware it's possible. Unlikely, but possible. Either way, it has nothing to do with the TIE Advanced.

One of the best games Ive witnessed was a newby flying 4 tie advances armed with concussion missiles destroy an experienced 8 tie fighter swarm.

One outcome does not indicate a trend.

There have been hundreds of games that people have analyzed and compared their data. No amount of hyperbole, supposition, or speculation can overturn the overwhelming amount of playtest data supporting the conclusion that the TIE Advanced falls short as a ship, with the potential exception of Darth Vader due to the extraordinary nature of his built-in.

The biggest place it falls short, admittedly, is the 2 attack

It is a balanced ship, but the worst part of it is not the 2 attack, its the dial.

This is why I fly A-Wings. Sure they have 2 attack, but their dial and choices of actions are AMAZING. If I were to do a side by side, you could easily compare Tycho Celchu with Push the Limit to Darth Vader without upgrades. Even with Vader's extra hull point and Push the Limit making Tycho Stressed, I still pick the A-Wing over the Advanced any day for their sheer pleasure of how many movement options they possess.

Tycho is the best pilot to put PtL on. Except for not being able to do k-turns, he can just get as much stress as he wants and ignore it.

IMO Darth Vader is the worst ship in the game. It doesn't help that the TIE Advanced is so terrible but when you couple his higher cost with the need to constantly push slower along the battle field (and hope to heck you don't have to make a k-turn) to get any significant use from his 2-action option, it's just not worth playing more than once just to say you tried it out.

rasp... "I find your lack of faith disturbing"... rasp

I think the crux of the matter is, the Advanced has its good points and its bad points, but doesn't every ship? That's part of the balance. It's clear some here think it's rubbish while others want to explore its potential further. I've just bought my first one (took forever to arrive in NZ) and can't wait to have a game with it. You will probably find every ship in that game can be highly effective if played with certain techniques, and it's up to each player to find and develop their own technique. I don't believe FFG would intentionally release a ship that doesn't play well - their world wide community would crucify them and sales would plummet.

I don't believe FFG would intentionally release a ship that doesn't play well - their world wide community would crucify them and sales would plummet.

I'm sure it wasn't intentional. The TIE\Adv was released in wave one where it's only competitors were the TIE\ln, X-Wing and Y-Wing. Amongst those ships it probably wouldn't seem like a bad choice, allowing a TIE\ln swarm to add in some missiles for a harder hit. But with each successful wave that is released, it's niche within Imperial lists is reduced. The TIE\ln provides a better swarm, the TIE\Int is a better dogfighter due to its stronger dial, boost and better attack, and the TIE\sa is a better missile carrier. If you want to look for a silver lining, it is possible that the new ships may bring forth some list options where playing a small elite well shielded force is a good option and the TIE\Adv just happens to fit into the remaining points. But until then, it is just less effective at performing a single given role than other available choices.

You can fly one, win with it, and have fun... Bu the second you look to was it worth it's points the answer is no. Was it better than other ships at similar points? No. Did you wish you had other ships in that slot during the game? Yes.

I can win with a 5 awing list. It can be fun. It can surprise. Do I almost always wish it was something else? Yes.

I don't believe FFG would intentionally release a ship that doesn't play well - their world wide community would crucify them and sales would plummet.

I'm sure it wasn't intentional. The TIE\Adv was released in wave one where it's only competitors were the TIE\ln, X-Wing and Y-Wing. Amongst those ships it probably wouldn't seem like a bad choice, allowing a TIE\ln swarm to add in some missiles for a harder hit.

It may have been released with Wave 1, but I'd be pretty sure it was being playtested with ships being developed for later releases. As a game designer, you've got to make sure it's going to work with stuff that's already available as well as what's planned for further down the line. I think FFG have created an excellent game mechanic that is going to have future releases easily added in, unlike other designers (a certain UK based company springs to mind) that love to release a new model with a bunch of new rules and exceptions to existing rules, that and a whole new rulebook every few years!

FFG has created a very balanced and fun game. Yes, it makes for fantastic tournament play as well because of this. It's just not the only way to play. Nor is breaking everything down to the math necessarily the most fun way to play, even in a tournament.

I'm a grown man reliving his childhood by playing with Star Wars toys dangit! If I (or anyone else for that matter) am not having fun, then I'm doing it wrong... If I want to be Darth Vader, and attempt to squash the Rebel scum today (even in a tournament setting) then that's what I'm doing. (And so should you...)

I don't believe FFG would intentionally release a ship that doesn't play well - their world wide community would crucify them and sales would plummet.

I'm sure it wasn't intentional. The TIE\Adv was released in wave one where it's only competitors were the TIE\ln, X-Wing and Y-Wing. Amongst those ships it probably wouldn't seem like a bad choice, allowing a TIE\ln swarm to add in some missiles for a harder hit...

With the exception of Vader it still wasn't a great choice even in Wave 1--but it looked comparatively better then than it does now.

This is kinda' why I think that maybe, just maybe, some ships should get different expansions.

And by that I mean the TIE Interceptor's had two releases. The TIE Fighter has. The X-Wing has had THREE if you count the rebel transport and with the eventual and all but guaranteed Rebel Aces, it's bound to get a FOURTH.

I mean I know it's X-Wing Miniatures Game but... Kriff...

C'mon, FFG. Even it out will ya'? And why not release different expansions for the same ship? It's already proven to give us more incentive to buy them. We will very very clearly shell out the cash for the extra cards because they offer something different.

Aye Cap'n, I think you're right there. More options in expansions would be a great boost to the game.