UNIT GUIDE - List Building Around Vader

We welcome back Milos to the blog for the second installment of his guide to using Vader. In this article Milos takes a look at list building around Vader, things to look out for and the best units to use with him.

You can read the first article in the series which looked at the key differences between Commander and Operative Vader.

Commander Vader has the Compel: Corps keyword, meaning any Corps unit pairs well with him. Stormtroopers are the most popular however, being the most efficient for their points. They don’t need an order like the Shore Troopers for them to be at their best. Snowtroopers are lacking a reliable Heavy Weapon and so Stormtroopers are the way to go. Equipping them with a gear upgrade such as Portable scanner, helps to make Vader even more of a tank. They can also provide health restoration if you equip them with the FX-9 Medical Droid in their Personnel slot.

Dewbacks and Vader is probably one of the most infamous combo in Legion; together they are an almost unstoppable melee force.

When you build a list with Vader, you usually take 3, making an extremely tough group of units to shoot off the board. Equip the Dewbacks with at least a T-21 Blaster Rifle and you are good to go. Vader usually has a hard time against units like B1 battle droids because of the number of B1s in the squad, taking a Comms Jammer on a Dewback usually renders B1 units useless when at Range 1 of the Jammer unit.

Another unit that works well with Vader and his forces are the Imperial Royal guard.

IRG ensure that all of your other units are contributing to your force and are healthy, they can also function as a fierce melee unit, if you take the Electrostaff. They can deal with enemy force users while Vader is minding his own business. You want to take Environmental Gear on the Royal Guards to make them more mobile, allowing them to keep up with other units.

When looking at other units to put in a Vader list we look at Imperial Officers being able to support the forces around Vader or Sniper Strike teams, as they are cheap, timing neutral units. In a Vader list it is good to have around 10 Activations; allowing Vader to go last when needs to. If you are at 8 or 9 activations you may struggle to keep Vader safe. When looking at what units to take with Operative Vader the biggest and most obvious difference is that you must take a commander with him. There are a couple Commanders in the empire that work well with Operative Vader: Imperial Officer, Krennic and Kallus. Imperial Officer: A very cheap commander option, able to give an aim to a unit. Very useful and cheap activation. Krennic: Has an amazing 1 and 2 pip that work well with Vader. Krennic also has the Cunning Keyword, meaning you can get priority on a turn when you want to if you tie on command card pips (against other non-cunning Commanders). This can be very important in so many different situations. This works especially well if you have Seize the Initiative on Operative Vader. Krennic is often a bit more popular than Kallus due to 2 main reasons, the first being he is a bit cheaper, and the second one is his Compel Keyword, which works so well with Vader and the units we have discussed before, because you want to be able to keep moving forwards.

Kallus however is an interesting choice, he also has the Cunning Keyword, 3 amazing command Cards, complementing Vader very well (and his Contingencies helps to mitigate against command card competition).

Now to a couple of list ideas; the first one will be without upgrades, because most of them are preference-based choices. We will not look at the set-up deck yet! This will be discussed in the next article of the Vader Series.

In this list you have a very aggressive melee force, the royal guards to protect your Dewbacks and Commander Vader and a little bit of a gunline. While your Dewbacks are in the enemy lines, your stormtroopers can do the objective and shoot any stray units walking around. With the Dewbacks being so fast you want BoS speed on Vader, for Vader to keep up with them.

In the next list we have an amazing gunline, we will look at the command cards as well as we will be taking Krennic with us.

This list has a very clear goal, being effective in the last couple of rounds of the game. This is a very good strategy, this way you can aim to win the objective. The playstyle is very different from something like a Vader Triple Dewback list. You have Operative Vader, with Krennic enabling you to have some awesome command cards and giving you access to Cunning and Compel. A very meaty gunline; 5 squads of stormtroopers with a T-21 and a specialist, giving you the aim when you need it. These squads fire out 9 white dice with critical 2, when you have an aim, you can expect to shoot out 3 or 4 crits each time.

Furthermore, we have some scout strike teams, amazing timing neutral and cheap filler units. They are also able to deal with some problems Vader faces like big units, or units with Immune pierce: melee. At long range these guys can whittle them down for either the stormtroopers or Vader to finish off. And finally, a support stormtrooper unit with a portable scanner, helping to keep Vader alive for longer. We also swapped out some of Vader’s cards with Voracious Ambition, Deploy the Garrison and Coordinated Fire. These are some great swap outs; Voracious Ambition allows you to get priority against anyone other than other cunning commanders using their 1 pips. This is crucial in many situations, being able to strike first can decide if a certain unit lives or dies. Next, we have Deploy the Garrison, this card gives a standby token to 2 trooper units, one of these will always be Vader, this gives him an opportunity to do 2 attacks this round or move in closer. This is only possible however if the standby is not able to be stripped. The best way to do this is to be in melee and not in range of a force user. Finally, we have Coordinated fire which replaces Master of Evil. We have such a big gunline this card can lead to a devastating round from range. Adding in your specialists' aims you can get a ton of aims this round by sharing them with the other stormtrooper units.

In conclusion, this list is all about staying power. You want to have as much as possible left in the late game, allowing you to turn the tables in the last few rounds. Very much the opposite of a hyper aggressive list like Vader triple Dewbacks.