I have been running the following lately:

Admiral Chiraneau, Engine Upgrade, Rebel Captive, Ysanne Isaard, Mara Jade
Whisper, Vet Instincts, Adv. Cloaking device, Fire Control

That list works well enough and is reasonably popular as well. That said, as a recent game showed, Whisper can be one-shotted due to evil green dice.

So, thinking about how to mitigate that, I ran across some tournament results where people had success with the three big ships. The lists varied a little bit in pilots/upgrades.

Oicunn, Determination, Rebel Captive
Bounty Hunter

Thoughts?

If you want people to concentrate fire on the Shuttle you need to make it a threat. A naked shuttle is soon going to be out of position and spending a couple of turns turning. Personally I'd ignore the shuttle and head towards the real targets. The easiest (and cheapest) way to make people take notice of the Shuttle is to add Vader to it. There's a few threads here recently (as well as a video if you check the battle reports section) that detail a solid build of Patrol leader with RC, Shuttle with Vader and a naked Bounty Hunter. I think this is the build I'd gravitate towards.

After reading some talk about 3 Big Ship imperial lists, I've given some thought to this as well. I think both Rebel Captive in Deci and Vader on Shuttle are necessary for the success of the list. Else, how do you beat Phantoms or turn your shuttle into a big threat for only 24 pts.

However, I'm thinking that the 33 pt Bounty Hunter could very easily be replaced by a 33 pt Soontir Fel. I know Soontir is prone to being 1 shot, like Whisper, but at least I personally could get more mileage out of him that the baked BH, and still keep true to having some sort of list with lots of HP.

Though, now that I think about the 1 game I played with it, I didn't like it as much as, say Soontir + 2 x BH. Maybe a Defender could work...

I do really like the Patrol Leader + Rebel Captive, though, as it actually has a chance of dealing with a Phantom, unlike most Low PS Firesprays, even Firesprays with Rebel Captive have a rough time.

I agree, if facing this list, I would blow by the shuttle and concentrate on something else first, probably the firespray. a shuttle without engine upgrade is going to spend at least 2 turns turning around, and I want your shuttle to be the last ship you have, because it's virtually an auto-win at that point. EU or something else on the shuttle. It's a great ship, but I think it's not so hot naked. (insert jokes here)