Has anyone seen a lot of these match ups? Does one side seem to counter the other without fail?

Wait, are you saying three VSD's and a GSD?

Can you explain the builds more?

3 victory 1's, 1 gladiator 1and Motti

3 victory 1's, 1 gladiator 1and Motti

Hopefully this isn't the common trend and if it is it would not last long. It is very short range list relying on its tanking ability to win. Not very creative to say the least, but it is a Push and Forget list that looks good on paper. After they meet the fast Bomber heavy list (think anything in a Rebel's squadrons besides the A-Wing) and they will rethink their lists.

The VSD's will need more support if they take the VSD I's. They are not too much of a threat to the faster Rebel Ships and if they fly the outside flanks avoiding close range they will outgun the VSD's.

They would need to start in the middle and split off towards to two flanks hoping to keep the Faster ships from out flanking them, but getting them in close range is very hard so the Rebels will only really be dealing with their red dice. Again, the Rebels have the advantage.

I could be proven wrong but I don't see lists like that lasting long.

As for the Bomber Heavy list I am not sure. An Imperial Bomber heavy list will have issues against the Rebels with Squadrons. They need Fighter support. Rebel Bomber lists are more flexible and I think most Bomber Heavy lists will have a mix of X and Y's instead of Y heavy.

So I will need to see and hear more battle reports.

I can say from experience running 3 bomber Rhymer, 3 TIE Advanced, Fel load-out over the weekend that rebels REALLY can put the hurt on this squadron composition.

I ran into a 100 point squadron list that featured B-wings, X wings, with Wedge and the unique B wing pilot over the weekend, and it DECIMATED my TIE advanced and Fel while still being absolutely BRUTAL with anti ship attacks with their special perks.

The versatility of the rebel fighters makes it very tough to do anything more then act as a speed bump for a few turns while the bombers try to dismantle the opposition.

I didn't think fitting 3 VSDs and 1 Gladiator in 300pts was even doable. I'm interested to hear peoples experiences with/against that build.

3 victory 1's, 1 gladiator 1and Motti

So no squadrons?

I am starting to wonder if squadrons with their lack of hit point recovery will become like missiles and torpedoes in X-wing.

I think 3 VSD's and a Gladiator die as soon as you come up against a Rebel fighter list Played an event today where a VSDI x2 GladiatorII x2 list got crushed by Rhymer because he couldn't kill the bombers.

You CANNOT rely on your ships to do your AA work for you, you'll lose as soon as you play any Rebel fighter list (which WILL happen) or run into Rhymer's flying circus.

You also have NO long range option. Your CR-90 x4-5 matchup (also a thing, and it's terrifying) will be super fun.

ran into a sort of variation which was VVG with some squadrons

Fatties just ran away and let their X-wings gobble up the limited fighter presence

despite being severely specialized, imperial squadrons actually add a huge deal of flexibility to imperial fleets. The gladiator is all but worthless at any range but short, the VSD is terribly unimpressive at the same unless it's a VSD-II, but corrupter bombers...

See my thread on the current meta wave 1.

Current archetypes:

No Fighters:

Heavy ( 3 VSD or 3 AF + support) and Light (4 Glad or 5 Corvette)

Full Squadron

Bombers (Rhymer or 10 Y-Wings) and Space Superiority ( Rebel Aces + Gallant Haven and Yavaris, Vader+Soontir+Howlrunner )

Balanced

3+ Ships and weak fighter complement and 2 Ships and strong fighter complement

No fighter lists in general are strong against Balanced Lists but weak against Bomber and Space Superiority.

Balanced lists are good against Full Squadron lists but weak against Heavy and Light No Fighter lists.

No matchup is unwinnable, however.

I think those kinds of lists will work well against Imp players, who's only option for bombers come in the form of something that is only really a huge threat if spammed with a special character, But rebels have nothing but bombers on their end.

Unless you are thinking they are going to run A-wing spam, its a safe beat that the Reb players are going to be ALWAYS running bomber heavy due to nearly all of their squadrons having the bomber ability.

So really, if you run into a squadron heavy reb-list, expect almost or all of its ships to be bombers in some way that really increases the likelihood that if you run a ship heavy list, especially as an Imp player who either has to choose between SLOOOOWWW and Short ranges to really do ship spam, I see this as being a dice roll against Imp mirror matches, and immediately putting yourself on the back foot for rebel matches.