Hello everyone,

I'm brand new to the game, only had a demo game and bought some ships right after. What I'm wondering is that without having access to all the cards/unique pilots etc, what are some fluffy lists that are possible for the Empire?

What I already figured out and have bought is Vader's black squadron, so I have Vader, Mauler, Backstabber, and two other black squadron tie fighters, just to give you an idea of what I'm going for.

Thanks for all the help!

look up and proxy Tie/x1 title and Advanced Targeting Computer. They both make Vader great and fluffy ("I have you now!")

they're not released yet, but their stats are available to see online and they'll be hitting eventually with the release of the raider

now I know Black Squadrons are fluffy, but they're not really efficient (you're deriving very little or incredibly situational benefit, which imo isn't very fun) and they're generics so who cares, right?

Vader (Tie/x1, Advanced Targeting Computer)

Mauler (Veteran Instincts)

Backstabber

Academy Pilots x 3

could be a nice place to start

you'll probably see vader more used with more upgrades, but for starting out he should not be too bad

I appreciate your drive to want to make a 'fluffy' Imperial list.

Were you looking for it to be thematic for a specific event, like Battle of Yavin, or would you consider something like a Shuttle or Phantom in there with a little backstory or mission possibility?

I like fickle's list better, but here are some slight variations:

Vader + TIEx1 Title + Adv. Targeting Computer + Calculation/Adrenaline Rush/Determination - 31 Points

Mauler Mithel - 17

Backstabber - 16

----- 64 Points

Omnicron Group Pilot - 21

Black Squadron Pilot + Draw Their Fire - 15

----- 36 Points

Sigma Squadron Pilot + Stygium Particle Accelerator + Adv. Sensors + Recon Specialist - 33 Points

Predator on Mauler - 3

----- 36 Points

Just to get the ideas flowing. The shuttle would provide you a fluffy escort mission led by Vader and his wingmen. The Phantom gives you a fluffly scout mission where Vader and his wingmen were dispatched as a response to a rebel (or scum) threat.

You may not have some of these ships and or cards, but they are other thematic type options. As long as you can stick with Vader, Mauler and Backstabber you should be good to go. Also, I added a 1 point EPT on vader because I feel it is better than running without anything. Calculation is potent if you have it, Adrenaline rush can be clutch on vader when you need to K-Turn your formation and want to take your two actions afterwards, and determination is there as insurance to Vader's ability, though it may not come in to play much often. The point is that you have some options and flexibility.

Some other good options that may not be as fluffy, depending your parameters would be:

Soontir Fel + Push the Limit + Autothrusters + Hull Upgrade/Stealth Device - 35

Delta Squadron Pilot + Ion Cannon - 33, Predator on Mauler - 3

What ships do you have specifically? What ships do you plan to get next? Using Black Squadron as a base, you can fit some solid ships in there to compliment and try to keep it thematic.

Thanks for the responses. Yea I was thinking more event/movie based rather than specific missions. What I mentioned is all I have at the moment so the tie advanced and 4 tie fighters. I definitely plan on getting more but I wanted some ideas (and games) before running out and getting two of everything haha. I don't want to buy a bunch of ships and only use them once or never.

And I did find a squad builder on my phone so I'm aware of the Vader title thing but didn't realize it wasn't out yet, so thanks for the heads up. Reading through all the upgrades is going to take some time.

Another sample idea I had was a shuttle being escorted by royal guard interceptors...or other ships I guess because they have a title card as well.

Is your current collection one Advanced Expansion and two Core Sets? I guess Backstabber is from the expansion so core and two TIE Expansions. With that in mind I might suggest this:

Vader + Squad Leader

Howlrunner + Swarm Tactics

Mauler + Swarm Tactic

Backstabber

BSP

No problem herbie93.

The royal guard interceptor titles come with the imperial aces set, so you are good to go there. Since you just have a few TIEs and an advanced, I would look at that set next. Interceptors are a staple in many imperial lists.

Going with just what you have, maybe something like:

Vader + Cluster Missiles + Swarm Tactics - 35

Mauler - 17

Backstabber - 16

Dark Curse - 16

Black Squadron Pilot + Swarm Tactics - 16

-----

100 Points

Pretty solid Black Squadron group. I would fly Vader, Mauler, Dark Curse and BSP together in formation while Backstabber can flank. I know he was one of Vader's Wingmen so you could fly him together, it is just hard for a whole formation to get out of arc on something. Vader passes his pilot skill 9 to the Black Squadron Pilot and he passes it again to either Mauler or Dark Curse, depending on who has the best shot. Vader is packing Cluster Missiles to tear up low agility targets like Decimators, Y-Wings, YT-1300s, and B-Wings.

I recommend looking up what each expansion has before you buy it. I hate buying expansions just for the cards so I try to use the ships when appropriate and change my lists around a lot. Some key buys you may want once you are starting to get serious are the TIE Interceptor Expansion, the Imperial Aces Expansion, the Firespray-31 Expansion, and the TIE Defender expansion. This will not only give you access to some awesome ships/pilots, but also some key upgrade cards that you may want to use in many squads starting out, such as Veteran Instincts, Stealth Device, Push the Limit, Hull Upgrade, Shield Upgrade, Predator, and various other upgrade options. The Lamda-Class Shuttle is also great for Advanced Sensors, Vader Crew, and Heavy Laser Cannon.

Cool thanks Deepspace5,

Although I'm not worried to much about fleshing out exact point costs and upgrades yet. What I'm more interested in is ideas for lists like Darth Vader's black squadron. So along the lines of a particular unique pilot that is usually accompanied by X.

Maybe there isn't much more of that though?

there's not much theme for Vader, since he was the only Imperial character with a "face" apart from Boba (who always flew alone, for what little screen time we saw Slave 1) and he only flew the advance over Yavin 4

If you expand to just "Original Trilogy Ships" you can do a lot with the Fighter, Interceptor, Bomber, Shuttle, Firespray, and the new Tie Advance with all their associated pilots.

Rebels also have quite a few (Han Solo being thus far the most competitive high profile character by a large margin, if you can stomach how absurdly boring he is to play with and against). The only problem is the X-wings not being really great (Luke's swanky though, because the X-wing is very brittle at this stage of the game and his ability makes up for that considerably)

fickle is on point. There are 'themes' you can do with Imperials but most of the pilots are Extended Universe/not shown in the movies.

If you are looking to do just generic Star Wars themes that make sense I would look at particular battles from the movies. For example, you could go with the Battle of Endor and run Baron Soontir Fel with a mini TIE swarm or another pair of loaded out interceptors. Your options open quite a bit when you consider rebels. In this example you could use Lando in the Millennium Falcon and Nien Nunb accompanied by Wedge and maybe Arvel if he fits. One of my favorite rebel themes would be Luke, Wedge and Biggs, all loaded out. You could even swap Wedge for Jek Porkins. With the right upgrades this particular list becomes pretty solid, but if you are looking for themed games anyway, the highest efficiency doesn't matter as much. You just want to have fun with something that makes sense. In that same mindset a YT-1300 without C-3PO and R2-D2 is more fun to play...not as tournament effective, but more fair if you are playing against or as a new player. It is also cheaper

One last theme I could think of inspiried by the movies (Empire Strikes Back) would be Boba Fett with Howlrunner and 3 Obsidian Squadron Pilots.

Ah ok, I was hoping there'd be more on the Imperial side, but I guess that's fair considering the rebels were always the focus.

I'm trying to stick to one faction because I know I'll get crazy if I dip into everything haha.

What are some good ship/upgrade combos then outside of what I have?

The lambda shuttle and/or imperial aces is what I will probably eye up next.

Black Squadron with Draw Their Fire is INCREDIBLE. Two of these is incredible. Raises the life of all your ships. Add Howlrunner and Academy Pilots to taste.

Ah ok, I was hoping there'd be more on the Imperial side, but I guess that's fair considering the rebels were always the focus.

I'm trying to stick to one faction because I know I'll get crazy if I dip into everything haha.

What are some good ship/upgrade combos then outside of what I have?

The lambda shuttle and/or imperial aces is what I will probably eye up next.

This is really an open ended question. It comes down to a number of factors. First, I would, if you can, try to fly other people's ships to see what you like to fly. If you are sticking with imperial faction you cannot go wrong getting at least one of everything. You'll end up with 3 interceptors, a bomber, a shuttle, a Firespray, a Decimator, a phantom and a defender. I would start there because it opens up your ship and upgrade card options quite a bit. Once you find what you like I would expand from there. I have been playing for just over a year, I play all factions, and I am just now starting to get duplicates of stuff. Up until then I was able to do just fine with squad building.

Some staples you can use in various builds(but feel free to branch out and come up with your own ideas, that is the fun!) :

Mini Swarm -- Howlrunner + 3x Academy Pilots - 54 points

Named Phantom --Whisper/Echo + VI/Lone Wolf + Adv. Sensors/FCS + Gunner/Recon Specialist/Rebel Captive + Advanced Cloaking Device - 40-46

Doom Shuttle -- Omnicron Group Pilot + Darth Vader Crew - 24

Buzzsaw Shuttle -- Omnicron Group Pilot + Fire Control System + Heavy Laser Cannon

Interceptor Ace -- Soontir Fel/Carnor Jax/Turr Phennir + Push the Limit + Autothrusters + Royal Guard Title + Hull Upgrade/Stealth Device - 33-35 points

Fettigator -- Boba Fett + Navigator - 42 (add upgrades to flavor)

Jonus Brothers -- Captain Jonus, Delta Squadron Pilot + HLC, Delta Squadron Pilot + HLC

Ramrod -- Captain Oicunn + Dauntless Title + Daredevil + Engine Upgrade - 51 (Add upgrades to flavor)

There are numerous more staples out there (The gals and gents here can attest to this and post their favorites) but this gives you just an idea of what you can have. After you find out what ships you like (or decide if you want to dedicate yourself to a specific faction) I would use that ship as a starting point for a squad and build around its strengths and weaknesses.

For example, if you find that you love interceptors, build a squad around Soontir Fel. All loaded out he is about 35 points these days (if you got a hold of autothrusters from the Starviper Scum Expansion), so you have 65 points to work with for the rest of your squad. Fel is great at arc dodging and getting around things, but if he is the least slippery thing there he may get targeted first. I like to run him with a few blockers like academy pilots. So lets throw in 3 APs for 36 points and that leaves us with 29 points. This is a perfect fit for Maarek Steele, TIEx1 Title (not released yet, but will be soon hopefully), Adv. Targeting Computer, and Calculation. The strategy here would be for Fel to flank and the 3 APs and Maarek face the enemy head on and a few of your APs position to block as needed while Maarek unloads some crits. Something to start with. Maybe you find that you didn't use Maarek's ability at all and you want to go for Vader or a generic instead. You could start modifying your squadron to taste based off of your experiences or ideas you get while you play.

Do not be afraid to try new ideas. When the shuttle came out people dismissed it because it was so slow, no K-Turn...kind of worthless except for the upgrade of Advanced Sensors for Rebel B-Wings at the time... Well someone figured out the shuttle secret and used like 4 of them in a tournament...anything out there is viable, you just have to find out how to use it.

Awesome, thanks everyone for the advice and tips. Hopefully I get some games in soon to test some things out.

If you want to stick to what you have. Tie-A and 4 ties. I like what StevenO has. Or Just run down the list of Ties and add cluster missiles to Vader. They end up tougher then you'd think, but not a serious contender. As a thematic fun squad I like it as the diverse abilities can be frustrating and distracting to play against.

The opponent must keep backstabber from getting behind them. don't let Mauler close, focus on Dark curse to take him out, Kill Howler to keep rerolls down, then worry about how to take out vader when he can focus evade each turn.

Darth Vader [Cluster Missiles] (33) “Howlrunner” (18) Mauler Mithel (17) Dark Curse (16) Backstabber (16)

win or lose, just have fun. Lookup how to fly a swarm. It's harder then you would think. I'd start as a w formation with vader in the middle and howler and mithel in the back.