Dmgcontrol: I'm pretty sure right now every forum user falls into n00b category.
I doubt the objectives would screw your biuld. It's main weakness IMHO is lack of squadrons:

When playing against decent rebel starfighter force you'll spend at least 124 points of your fleet to fight off enemy squadrons. For the same damage you could use 66 points of Interceptors plus engaged squadrons could not attack your ships. Alternatively you could use 48 points of TIEs to keep Rebels busy.

Mward: IMHO Defense Liaison would be better for the Dominator. If I were you I would squeeze in another Gladiator. Otherwise it looks solid.

Honestly, I tried Defence Liaison, and if you plan properly you don't really need it. What you can't plan for however is when your opponent screws up enough to put himself in range of your front guns, at which point you need to burn that token you were saving and offload 7 dice of unpleasantness into him.

With Screed.

If you remember to have a Navigation order on turn 3, and again on turn 5, that SHOULD work out for you, although that's with games with Tarkin. Without being able to fine tune your speed by getting Navigation tokens out of sequence you may need to tinker that to 2 and 4. As for repair, you need to plan ahead a bit, but she's a tough old ship, she'll survive some knocks if you mistime it a little.

like in X-wing and all forms of war gaming i've always favored the aggressive style of play, and this is one i'd like to give a go once i either pick up a secondary Core set or after wave 1 releases to get my hands on another VSD

this is a pre wave 1 list that includes just what comes in the 2 cores but i think it has some potential

VSD I (73)
Assault Concussion Missles (7)

Enhanced Armament (10)

Defense Liaison (3)

VSD II (85)
Dominator (12)

Grand Moff Tarkin (38)

Overload Pulse (8)

Tie Fighter Squadron x7 (56)

300pts total,

i'd have to test it to be sure but i have a few options to tweak the list a bit. i can drop Overload Pulse and exchange a tie squadron for howlrunner, or i can discard 2 tie fighter squadrons for howlrunner

i'm thinking the secondary option is the better of the 2, as the overload pulse can essentially allow me to shut down an opposing ship, cripple it and finish it off with the heavy firepower of the VSD I

thoughts?

I like your list Executor for using just 2 cores. I would take Howlrunner for sure. She is well worth the points.

I have made a goal to be Squadron oriented for Wave-I. Most of my games have been fairly good when I tie up the Rebel fighters, and that doesn't take too much. As of late my opponents are finally starting to divide up their fighter groups to prevent being held up by just a few fighters. This works for me just as well because I can use fewer of my own fighters per group to stall them in response.

Both Victory class with expanded hangers and Tarkin can dominate the Squadron Order, combining to control up to 10 flights between the 2 ships activation. Mauler Mithel tries to ensure the cooperation of the rebel player not bunching up for free damage on their flights. His group includes 3 regular tie squadrons responsible for engaging the main enemy fighter body on order. The 2 Tie Interceptor squadrons are on close stand by to engage additional Rebel fighters if they break off from their numbers, using their speed to dominate a large area.

The Bomber group engages the typical flanking Corvette or Nebulan B using the Corrupter to get the jump on them early. So far my enemies always manage to outrun their own fighter cover on the flanking vessel.

So in Proxy on the table, this build has managed to dominate rebel starfighters when their build is capital ship heavy. And the threat of the Bombers has more then once caused a Rebel frigate or Corvette to make a bad decision pushing them away from their intended flank on the Victory Class. The end result of the fighter method however is to allow my Victorys some freedom of movement to get stuck on objectives when Navigating is in order, or required space to keep Rebel caps in front arcs. Playing well, have to wait and see if some of the points or final card texts change.

Victory-I (73 pts)

Expanded Hangers (5 pts)

Tarkin (38 pts)

Victory-I (73 pts)

Expanded Hangers (5 pts)

Corrupter (5 pts)

"Mauler" Mithel (15 pts)

3 Tie Squadrons (24 pts)

2 Tie Interceptor Squadrons (22 pts)

4 Tie Bomber Squadrons (36 pts)

295 pts

I like it but I think it may be too much starfighter-focused. I would change the Admiral and downgrade Mauler in order to upgrade Victories.

Makes me wonder how the Rebels will deal with some of these especially double gladiators builds

Makes me wonder how the Rebels will deal with some of these especially double gladiators builds

Makes me wonder how the Rebels will deal with some of these especially double gladiators builds

Could you expand on what you mean by that? 200 points spent on upgrading 2 gladiators or is the list assumed to contain a Victory (or two?)

I think he probably is just referring to any list with 2 gladiator since they have the 2 anti squadron armament (at least the gladiator 2 anyway) to lay out a lot of fire on the fighters

Yeah Clone has it right, 2 Gladiators clovering each other with 2 squadron dice and a bunch of ties buzzing areound = Rebels not getting much in the sense of squadron (The same way 2 nebulon b escorts and a bunch of xwings can be difficult to remove with fighters.)

Problems are Empire seems to put tie's in to tie up the xwings ... while rebels put xwings in hopes to actually get some work out of them.

IMHO Imperial anti-starfighter fire will be less impactful because rebel starfighters are much more durable than eyeballs.

IMHO Imperial anti-starfighter fire will be less impactful because rebel starfighters are much more durable than eyeballs.

This is what gives me reservations about running squadrons as imperials. If I run bombers, they are as durable as x-wings, but they can't fight for themselves and need a fighter escort. The fighter escort needs to be substantial to defeat x-wings let alone a-wings... a-wings will shred a ridiculous amount of TIEs and even TIE interceptors. Then by the time you have your bombers and fighters, you realize that those 4-8 squadrons you just took get blapped out of the sky like nobody's business by anti-fighter armament, swathes at a time. If I just run fighters to deal with their bombers and fighters, the same thing happens.

IMHO Imperial anti-starfighter fire will be less impactful because rebel starfighters are much more durable than eyeballs.

This is what gives me reservations about running squadrons as imperials. If I run bombers, they are as durable as x-wings, but they can't fight for themselves and need a fighter escort. The fighter escort needs to be substantial to defeat x-wings let alone a-wings... a-wings will shred a ridiculous amount of TIEs and even TIE interceptors. Then by the time you have your bombers and fighters, you realize that those 4-8 squadrons you just took get blapped out of the sky like nobody's business by anti-fighter armament, swathes at a time. If I just run fighters to deal with their bombers and fighters, the same thing happens.

ca

My point exactly ... if I was playing imperials I'd use Tie Interceptors to tie up the rebel squadrons ... as my star destroyers can rock all the rebel ships Where Rebels really want to get their ywings and xwings and bwings in on the star destroyers... either way I'm holding out to see what wave 1 does as I hope it will equal things out.

I think if you are going to run squadrons with the Imperials you have to plan to maximize your ability to effectively control them, and dominate the early game. Every game the rebel fighters have been stuck to my ties by turn 2 has seen my capital ships near untouched and unflinching in their advance to objective Victory. Ties are cheap to buy and of little consequence to lose in the greater picture.

Since fabs squadron builder updated (yaay!) I decided I'd try to revise my earlier list.

1 • Victory II-class Star Destroyer - Victory-class Star Destroyer (85) - Admiral Screed (26) - Weapons Liaison (3) - Expanded Hangar Bay (5) - Enhanced Armament (10) - Dominator (12) - Advanced Gunnery (0) - Hyperspace Assault (0) - Minefields (0)
• Total : 141 • Code : -
2 • 'Howlrunner'' TIE Fighter Squadron - TIE Fighter (16)
• Total : 16 • Code : e3
3 • TIE Fighter Squadron - TIE Fighter (8)
• Total : 8 • Code : e4
4 • TIE Fighter Squadron - TIE Fighter (8)
• Total : 8 • Code : e4
5 • TIE Fighter Squadron - TIE Fighter (8)
• Total : 8 • Code : e4
6 • TIE Fighter Squadron - TIE Fighter (8)
• Total : 8 • Code : e4
7 • TIE Fighter Squadron - TIE Fighter (8)
• Total : 8 • Code : e4
8 • Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer - Gladiator-class Star Destroyer (62) - Gunnery Team (7) - Engine Techs (8) - Expanded Launchers (13) - Demolisher (10)
• Total : 100 • Code : -

297pts

So as you can see it's basically the same, except I've gone back to the Coreset for my fighters, and I've ditched the Overload Pulse in favour of Enhanced Armament on the VSD as someone else suggested it and I actually found myself really liking the idea.

The other noticeable addition is a Gunnery team on the Gladiator. Which I think might (if you can get your maneouvers and yaw ticks just right) really pay dividends on this build.

One thing to mention is with wave one stuff, the rebels gain a lot more bullying power with the assault frigate. Right now rebels can't really force damage through like the imperials but the assault frigate can put 4-6 die broadsides into your ships, while still playing the starfighter game. That's really gonna be the wildcard ship is how much tougher does a rebel fleet get including one or two of them.

I'd also say I don't like howlrunner leading tie fighters, I actually prefer her with interceptors since they still get her bonus. Throw in a tie advanced to keep her alive longer or soontir fel to make the opponent choose and you have a winning combination.

Right now using only two core sets...

Victory I Star Destroyer

-Tarkin

-Defense Liaison

-Enhanced Armament

Victory I Star Destroyer

-Defense Liaison

-Enhanced Armament

Howlrunner

TIE Squadron x9

Objectives: Most Wanted, Hyperspace Assault and Minefield IIRC

Simple list trying to be as cost efficient as possible. I really like the Defense Liaison because starting with the 3rd command dial, I just pick concentrate fire and roll with the punches. Only pitfall is not being able to capitalize on squadron dial commands but with Tarkin's tokens I've managed to get by so far. We'll see what happens when the new wave shows up. Nastier starfighters are my primary concern, but Interceptors might be a better choice for my CAP squadrons than regular TIEs.

I like the list but you really should use more squadron commands. You'll face max 7 squadrons (assuming your opponent will play with 2 core set rebels too). You have more starfighters, a howlrunner, and more efficient squadrons command thanks to high squadrons stat and Tarkin. If I were you I would drop one enhanced armament in order to equip both VSD with expanded hangars.

I had played something very similar, but i stopped using howlrunner, and got 2 expanded hangars, allowing the VSDs to activate 5 Tie fighters in one go.

Use the squadron order instead of focusing fire, from focusing fire at tops you would get 1 black/red dice, with the squadron order, you get 4 blue dice just by itself (5 with token).

There will be better combos to come for sure. But currently I find the Imperial player already has an upper hand in the capital ship fight, so I tend to make sure my fighters are getting taken care of. Moving 5 with each ship is really devastating when you catch even a Corvette on the back foot. Did I mentioned I murdered Corvette with 2 Victories moving 5 ties a piece? Poor bugger sustained 7 hits from Ties lol. I rolled really well.

i overlooked expanded hangars. i wasn't sure i could justify the 5 points for the 1 additional squadron movement, but seeing as how weak ties are i think it will be a pretty sound investment

I was debating it as well. After I tried it I feel it is a more sound investment then the Enhanced armament.

I was debating it as well. After I tried it I feel it is a more sound investment then the Enhanced armament.

i think it's all going to boil down to where the meta ends up. If people maximize squadron play regularly, expanded hangars will be the go to choice. but if people invest more in capital ship play with minimal squadron use the enhanced armament will be the way to go

I think we are going to see wildly lopsided lists until there comes a few staple ships and upgrades that take root. Naturally.

That aside, I will probably be fighter heavy in all of my builds based on my own love of Star Wars fighter combat.

i overlooked expanded hangars. i wasn't sure i could justify the 5 points for the 1 additional squadron movement, but seeing as how weak ties are i think it will be a pretty sound investment