Unit Guides: Darth Vader

"If you only knew the power of the Dark Side."

Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, comes in the Legion Core Set as the first Commander available for the Empire and the single most expensive unit in the game.

Statistics

The Dark Lord of the Sith weighs in at a hefty 200 points. That's a full 25% of your army before adding upgrades or any other units! However, as the only commander for the Empire (until General Veers is released), you are required bring him so there's no point sweating too much over his cost.

With a wound threshold of 8, his health pool is second only to the AT-ST, while his null value for courage makes him immune to the effects of suppression and panic.

His red defense die has a 50% chance to block incoming hits; this can be further improved to 62.5% if you trigger his Deflect keyword. Given that he has Immune: Pierce, this makes him among the most difficult units to damage.

Speed 1 makes Vader one of the slowest units in the game.

His melee weapon, Vader's Lightsaber, has 6 red dice. This means Vader has the single most powerful attack in the game so far, averaging 4.5 hits. On average, 0.75 of these are crits.

Vader also has Master of the Force 1 and Relentless, both of which improve his action economy and can help mitigate his major weaknesses: slow speed and no ranged attack.

Total Hits vs. % Chance; Black = Melee, Red = Saber Throw Attack

The above graph illustrates the probability distribution of Vader's attacks (I will discuss Saber Throw in an upcoming section on upgrades.) As you can see, Vader's red attack dice help him to consistently hit hard. The Most Probable Result is 5 damage, at a 35.6% chance. The bulk of the distribution (~83%) lies in the range of 4-6 hits. In fact, he has better than a 95% chance of doing 3 or more damage and on average, Vader will whiff completely once in 4096 attacks. How's that for consistency? This doesn't mean that you will never miss with him, but it shouldn't happen very often. This attack also has Impact 3 and Pierce 3, so if Vader is swinging his lightsaber at one of your units, you can pretty much resign yourself to taking several wounds.

To go into greater detail on Vader's survivability, allow me to introducing Effective Health Points or EHP. This metric is equal to the average number of hits that need to be rolled against a unit in order to kill it outright. It is calculated by dividing the unit's wound threshold by it's defense die's probability of turning up blank. Normally this is a single value, but in the case of Darth Vader and other units with a conditional surge-to-block ability, I will use a range. It should also be noted that since this value is contingent on blocking hits with defense dice, EHP is irrelevant when facing weapons with Pierce, unless, like Vader, the defender is immune.

Vader has 16-24 EHP. This means that if Vader's Deflect keyword is never triggered, then on average a unit of 4 Rebel Troopers would have to attack Vader 8 times (without aiming) to kill him. In practice Vader could withstand a lot more Rebel Trooper attacks by using cover, dodge tokens, and Deflect. 

Upgrades

Vader is capable of taking up to 3 Force upgrades. So far, you can choose between 5 Force upgrades to fill these slots.

Force Reflexes (15 pts)

This card allows you to exhaust it in order to gain a dodge token as a free action. While currently the most expensive Force upgrade in the game, I think it is well worth the points. Dodge tokens are particularly valuable on Vader, as it allows him to mitigate 1 damage and activate his Deflect keyword, potentially blocking more damage and dealing your attacker unblockable wounds. Since it is a free action and Vader has Master of the Force 1, you can theoretically refresh and use this card every round that Vader is within an enemy's threat range-- while still leaving you free to use your standard actions to move and attack.

Saber Throw (10 pts)

This lets you make an attack with half of your lightsaber's dice at range 1-2. There's a case to be made that Saber Throw is almost essential for Vader. Speed 1 and only a melee weapon makes Vader's abysmal native threat range by far the worst in the game, and perhaps his most glaring weakness. Allowing him to attack units up to range 2 away, even with only half his normal dice, goes a long way to shoring up this weakness. Note that this combines nicely with Relentless which, unlike Charge, allows Vader to make melee or ranged attacks after moving.

As seen in the above Hit Percentage Curve, attacking in this way has a very good chance of turning up either 2 or 3 damage (each has a 42% chance) with an average of 2.25 hits. Since this attack retains Impact 3 and Pierce 3, those hits are going to stick unless the defender has some dodge tokens.

Battle Meditation (10 pts)

Giving orders to a unit outside your command range is a useful ability that can greatly improve your tactical flexibility. While similar to Long Range Comms in both cost and effect, it is better in that you can issue orders to any unit. This can be especially helpful if you like to separate your forces or want to aggressively move Vader into melee. However, it does compete with other powerful Force upgrades, and won't work when you are using a second Commander to issue orders.

Force Push (10 pts)

This looks to be an excellent utility upgrade. While limited to effecting trooper units at range 1, its uses are numerous: move enemy troopers away from objectives, move them out of cover, move them into melee range with Vader, move them into range of one of your other units, move them into difficult terrain, or use it as a means to safely disengage Vader or another friendly unit from melee. In a game where positioning is paramount, being able to manipulate your enemies in this way should not be overlooked. Finally, forcing a unit with a standby token to perform a move will cause it to lose its standby token. Using it is a free action, though it must be exhausted to use. Master of the Force 1 can help you to make the most of it.

Force Choke (5 pts, Dark Side only)
Like Force Push, this also only effects enemy troopers at range 1, and is slightly more limited since it doesn't work on commanders. Force Choke doesn't offer as much general utility as the other Force upgrades, but it does unblockable damage and only costs 5 points. As a free action, you can use it to help finish off badly damaged units before moving on to the next.
Since the wording simply says, "choose an enemy trooper mini" it should be possible to specifically kill an expensive Heavy Weapon trooper if there's one present in the unit.

Darth Vader's Role in Your Army

As a ommander, Darth Vader is instrumental in coordinating your forces. In order to do this, you will need to keep him within command range of the majority of your units. This may be difficult to do if you favor mobile units and an aggressive playstyle, so keep this in mind while deploying your army.

Not only do you want to keep Vader near your units so he can issue them commands, but his null value for courage will prevent these units from panicking no matter how many suppression tokens they may receive; after all, no amount of bombardment is worse than the wrath of the Sith.

While not a weakness per se, the fact that Vader is a valuable Commander unit means your opponent may try to focus fire on him. As I alluded to in the Statistics section, Vader is quite resilient. Even so, once he is within the threat range of enemy units you will want to have a dodge token on hand to both cancel a hit and activate his Deflect ability.

Since Deflect only triggers once you've spent a dodge token, you may want to save your dodge tokens for big attacks where you face several hits and are more likely to roll one or more defensive surges. Because it is a potential source of unblockable damage, it may also be desirable to activate Deflect when defending against armored or other difficult to wound units. Keep in mind the possibility of stacking multiple dodge tokens, for instance by playing Master of Evil, taking the dodge action, and using Force Reflexes.

You don't want to end up like this.

To get the most value out of Vader's 200 points, you need to leverage his powerful melee attack. Obviously, this can be difficult given his slow speed, but the mere threat of it means Vader is useful for "zoning" or "area denial". As you move him to an important area of the map, like an objective or choke point, your opponent will have to either avoid the area entirely or risk Vader's blade.

To sum up, there are three things that matter when using Vader: location, location, location. Vader is an important and powerful unit who can define the battle, provided he is in the right place at the right time. This begins at deployment, but during the initial rounds you may want to try to activate him later on to see how your opponent is moving his forces and take some of the guesswork out of moving him efficiently.

Command Cards

As a Commander, Darth Vader comes with 3 unique Command Cards that can only be used with him in your army. All of them look to be very powerful under the right circumstances, though Implacable and New Ways to Motivate Them do have some unpleasant side effects. Compared to Luke's Command Cards, Vader's offer more flexibility and power as long as you're willing to embrace some pain yourself.

Implacable

1 pip, Darth Vader only

At the end of Darth Vader's first activation he may suffer 1 wound to shuffle his order token into the order pool. During Darth Vader's second activation he performs 1 fewer actions.

With 1 pip, you have a good chance to win the initiative with this card. You will only get to issue an order to Vader though, so its best to use if Vader himself is in a critical position. Perhaps you want to engage and/or destroy a key enemy before it has a chance to activate; maybe Vader himself is threatened by a powerful unit and you want to move into cover and/or gain a dodge token. 

As long as Vader is healthy, taking a wound for a second activation can be quite useful too. A chance for two powerful lightsaber attacks in one round can badly cripple your opponent's forces. Unfortunately, since you have to shuffle your order token into the order pool you are unlikely to have much control over when this second activation takes place, and of course during it you are limited to 1 less action than normal.

New Ways to Motivate Them

2 pips, 2 trooper units

When a friendly non-Darth Vader trooper unit with a faceup order token activates, it may suffer 1 wound to perform 1 free action.

Provided you have 1 or 2 trooper units in a good position, this card can help them make a big play. You could conceivably move twice to get into range and then shoot; or move into range, aim, and shoot at a vulnerable enemy; or move twice and then use the Claim action while playing Recover the Supplies to grab an objective token that your opponent expected to take. Wounding your own soldiers is painful, but padding your Stormtroopers with an extra trooper and/or specialist can help take some of the sting out of using this card. 

Master of Evil

3 pips, Darth Vader and 2 units

When Darth Vader is issued an order he gains 1 dodge token. When Darth Vader activates each enemy trooper unit at range 1-2 of him gains 3 suppression tokens.

A free dodge token is always good, especially since it is gained before any enemy units have a chance to activate; even though you are unlikely to win the initiative, Vader will still have his defenses up. An ideal time to use this card is when 1) Darth Vader is surrounded by multiple enemy trooper units, 2) you have 1 or 2 other units in a good position that you want to grant orders, and 3) you are not concerned about winning initiative for the round.
As long as Vader does have enemy troopers in his proximity, playing this card can put your opponent in a tough spot; 3 suppression tokens is enough to suppress even Luke Skywalker, and can cause corps units that are unsupported by a commander to panic and route if they fail to remove any tokens while rallying. If your opponent does win initiative they may feel pressure to either move their trooper units away from Vader, or move a commander unit close enough to keep those troopers from panicking. Such a reaction by your opponent may in turn allow you take control of the entire round.
In short this card has a powerful effect with no real downside, though there is the restriction of including Darth Vader as one of your 3 units to receive orders. Even the threat of playing Master of Evil adds to Vader's ability to zone enemies out of key areas.

With a devasting attack, the ability to prevent friendly units from fleeing, and powerful command cards, Darth Vader is truly an imposing presence on the battlefield. But is Vader powerful enough to justify his points? Is he too slow to be effective? Feel free to share you thoughts on Darth Vader below. Thanks for reading!

A look at the Darth Vader mini

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Change Log
1/2/2018: updated to discuss some effects of courage, suppression, and panic

1/29/2018: added Upgrades and Command Cards sections, a few other minor wording changes
2/12/2018: updated the description of Force Push to include its interaction with standby tokens
3/25/2018: added a photo of the Darth Vader mini