I played a game last night and I intentionally tried two things, Not take Vader, and Take more TIE Advanced.  So I took Maarek two Storm Squadron.

I thought the Storm Squadron performed pretty well, but Maarek, not so much.  Its not that Maarek was bad, but he is just two points less than Vader.  Spending those two points to upgrade Maarek to Vader seems to be the best two points you could spend.

Vader is sooo cool and Maarek's ability just doesn't come into play that much.  You have to get a shot, that shot has to hit, you have to score a crit and your opponent has to be be out of shields.

Vader on the other hand get's to take two actions every turn (as long as he get's actions that is) Not only is an extra action better (IMO) than Maarek's crit ability, he get's to use it just about every round, where Maarek's ability get's used about once a game.

I just cannot imagine a situation where you would take Maarek instead of Vader.  And I think if you were to take them both that would just be a very expensive 2 ships, especially for the Empire.

If you're going to play Maarek, you have to build to maximize his ability's effectiveness.

Give this a try sometime:

• Maarek Steele, Cluster Missiles, Marksmanship
• Howlrunner, Squad Leader
• Mauler Mithel (2 point Upgrade option)
• Backstabber
• Winged Gundark

Or you can drop Mauler, Backstabber, and Winger for 4 Academy/Obsidian pilots.  I like the named TIEs better in this case because Howlrunner makes them incredibly effective.

In this setup, you'll use Marksmanship and Howlrunner rerolls to get Marrek enough crits to make his ability really shine (especially off those Cluster Missiles).

 Nice squad, but it is 102 pts.

Hmm.  I need to stop trying to quote these things from memory.  I think I'm mashing up two of my squads.  Either way, you get the idea.  Howlrunner/Squad Leader and Maarek/Cluster Missiles/Marksmanship is the core of this squad.  The rest is filler.

 Maarek steele with marksmenship and cluster missles is the bane of ywings. He also performs above average against other ties

 There is only one Maarek Steele.  I don't even know how to take him without Cluster Missiles or Marksmanship.  Maarek can render a Y-Wing useless and it still have four hull points left.  

 Marksmanship costs 3 points, so Maarek plus Marksmanship cost one more point than Vader.  Is Maarek with Marksmanship (an upgrade I really haven't felt was worth it) really worth more than Darth Vader?  I don't think Maarek is bad so much as he is almost Vader and Vader is (IMO) the best pilot in the game.

 actually you could play without marksmanship, its just that marksmanship makes his ability much more likely to trigger, so you get more out of his ability.

otherwise you would probably be better off playing a tempest TIEadv

 I just don't see it that way, I feel like if there were only ship to have marksmanship, it should be Maarek.