X-wing: Tie Advanced expansion pack

The final Imperial fighter currently available (the Tie Bomber will be released later this year) is the Tie Advanced - the fighter which Darth Vader uses. The model itself is pretty cool but perhaps the main reason to buy it is to add additional flexibility and tactical options to your Imperial force. The Tie Advanced is so far the only Imperial ship with the ability to fire missiles and which comes with a shield generator.

Sadly this blister doesn't follow the generous amount of Pilot cards of the Tie Fighter/Tie Interceptor blister but comes instead with 4 pilots which is standard for the Rebel Alliance expansion packs. Fortunately though the spread of pilot skill is pretty good and allows you to both run it as a low level pilot as well as one of the two high level pilots who also happen to be named characters; Marek Steele and Darth Vader himself. And really, why would you run the Tie Advances if not for the ability to field Vader himself!

Both Vader and Steele have ridiculously good pilot abilities to begin with, and will become even better when upgraded with an elite pilot skill card. Hopefully these two rather expensive pilots with added gear will be interesting and tempting enough for the Imperial player to make them abandon the "Tie Swarm" and go for a more "elite strike force" theme on the list.

The blister also comes with two missile variants which you can upgrade your Tie Advanced with, and three Elite pilot cards of which "Squad leader" is unique to the Tie Advanced blister.

I really look forward to seeing how Vader impacts the game and list building, and overall it's nice to add a third ship option to the Imperial roster.

As for the paintjob it is quite OK, it seems a bit "sloppy" in places if you look at it close up, as if it suffered from the opposite problem that my Y-wings had - too much paint instead of too little. I must also say that the paintjob and paint on the Tie Advanced and the Tie Fighter which I bought in separate blisters seem to be slightly different (brighter with less ink perhaps?).

Below you can see the new Tie Fighter from last review and the Tie Advanced side by side for a size comparison between the fighters.