So - more than anything, this is playing to my own weaknesses - but there is a plan behind my seemingly random purchases.

Every game so far I've suffered from an unexpected amount of damage from enemy bombers. I've also struggled to bring my black dice into range.

To that mind - I've built squadrons specifically to kill other squadrons. Interceptors with their 4 blue dice and Advanced to soak up the damage and tie up enemy fighters until the interceptors have lasted until the end of turn 3.

The Gladiator is built to bring it's front arc onto the enemy as often as possible by using Demolisher to move then fire & Expanded Launchers to throw 4 black and two red dice when it does.

Victory II serves as the carrier, activating whoever has the best chance of a kill nearby and increasing the already useful 4 blue die on an interceptor to 5. The overload pulse is there specifically to deal with the frustrations of getting a great roll with high damage, only to see it chipped away to 1 glancing shield blow with defence tokens. With 3 blues on the front arc, I'm hoping togged 50/50 from there.

Flagship: (125 pts)

• Victory II-Class Star Destroyer(85 pts)
  
• Admiral Screed (26 pts)
  
• Flight Controllers (6 pts)
  
• Overload Pulse (8 pts)

Fleet Ship 1: (85 pts)

• Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer(62 pts)
  
• Expanded Launchers (13 pts)
  
• Demolisher (10 pts)

Squadrons (90 of 100 pts):

• 2x Tie Advanced Squadron (24 pts)
  
• 6x Tie Interceptor Squadron (66 pts)

Objectives:

• Most Wanted
  
• Fleet Ambush
  
• Superior Positions

Thoughts feedback and suggestions?

I was going to have XX-9 turbo lasers on the Victory as well as Dominator to really make it a ship killer, but wimped out and put the points into anti squadron as I was so badly pasted by bombers last game.

Huge thanks - Glory To The Emperor.

Screed needs his assault missiles to make gladiators, well, glad.

Expanded launchers work well with screed too. I have traded a blank red for a hitcrit black that was blank several times. I do agree he does work excellently with ACM, tough.

I would drop overload pulse, make one of the interceptors Fel, and try for engine techs on the glad...

Ive been considering something similar to this but Im not sure that the interceptors and advanced will synergise well. Mainly because of the escort rule. On the one hand you have the advanced there to soak damage and keep attacks off the intercetptor, but on the other, you are then denying all of your interceptors their counterattack dice. if you want to use advanced as shields, i would go with regular ties. You can get more of them and without counter attack their almost the same as an interceptor.

The advanceds work well with Fel, but yes, not with regular interceptors. Careful placement would mitigate this. Or yeah, bring a boatload of TIE fighters, hehe.

I do wonder where fighters fit in now that interceptors are out

interceptors are far killier with extra dice and counter, but fighters bring a 137.5% health in bodies

could get 11 fighters for those 8 more elite ships, see if that makes enemy squadrons easier to deal with (don't have to kill them if they're just mired in bodies)

I think everyone's handled the ship part fine

Overload plus is too expensive at this level, imo. (+8)

The benefits of the Glad - 2 are far too marginal if you're using squadrons to pull anti-squadron duty. (+14)

Engine techs are basically mandatory (+6)

ACM with skreed give you relatively the same punch as EL for less (+12)

You can slap Wulf on the demolisher to continuous spam the nav token, which will continuously enable engine techs (+5)

hangars on the VSD - 2?

then cull a tie squadron or two (you have plenty) for the all important bid, or drop to a VSD - 1

I seem to be the minority in this, but I actually like overload pulse from screed, paired with the demolisher.

run a vic 2 and a gladiator with screen, if you can maneuver into med range with the vic 2 from any angle, you can guarantee a crit on the overload pulse thanks to screed's ability which exhausts the defense tokens for the Demolisher to sweep in and batter with the assault concussion missiles.

Which can cause MASSIVE damage with screed's ability to flip the black dice to a hit/crit. You can easily do 3-4 direct damage and potentially force a perma burn of a defense token that way. Thats a pretty massive perk given you usually only get one good chance of a hit vs things like assault frigates.

I agree, I haven't had a chance to use the overload pulse yet but it looks like it's certainly worth it's points. If you use it in your first attack and coordinate you can bring down a ships defenses and then overload it with concentrated fire. Im definitely looking forward to giving it a try.

Hello all & first off thanks for all the replies.

So I played with this fleet as is last night Vs a Nebulon & frigate and a handful of 6 fighters, 4 named (can’t remember which).

Final score, 127 vs 125 to the rebels - however in my rush to run away from two Bwings with my 1 remaining hull point VSD, I forgot to shoot him with a blue - I realised after and threw the dice for laughs, which was a hit, which would have taken him out. Dammit.

Points of note - a Bwing can one shot a healthy Gladiator with no shields. And he did.

Two Tie Advanced will not keep 6 strong rebel fighters tied up until the end of turn 3, well, they will but 3/6 interceptors were down to 1/3.

Demolisher on it’s own is enough to manoeuvre the Gladiator to wherever I need the black dice (this game anyway).

I only used Screeds ability once.

I didn’t use the Overload Pulse once. Mainly because I forgot I had it.

——

To reply to the various points.

No, I didn’t realise Overload Pulse didn’t work there and then, my mistake with reading the rules. Good to know and probably means I should cut it! I do *want* to use it though - it seems like a great way to work as a team?

Lack of imperial bombers - this is true. This list goes well against high numbers of rebel fighters, but if they don’t bring any, or not many, I have points sitting doing nothing. That said, if I’m already finding it hard to deal with the rebel bombers with this many ties - what do I do? Is it a strategy failing not a list failing?

One thing this last game taught me - bombers are better than they first seem.

The gladiator seems to work well as it is, could consider engine techs? Moving down to Gladiator 1 seems feasible and not a big hit.

VSD2 also seemed to work well, but was rather beaten up by the end because I let the killer rebel bombers, especially the Bwings get to me.

Ties VS Interceptors - for the tiny points difference I can’t see why you’d ever go Tie? 25% more dice and counter 2? Sell it to me? They are fighter killers and good at it, Tie’s are just, annoyingly numerous?

Tie Advanced - if anything I needed three of these, not two, and to hold my interceptors further back.

I think I need to tweak this list by about 25% and see what comes out - any more advice?

Problem with OLP which might not be too bad is that it seems to NEED initiative (the dream = side arc pulse + front arc pewpew)

All the glads need it too and squadrons love it so it's not a bad thing to have. Wonder if it skews the list though

As for fighters vs ints:

Ints kill better (more dice and counter and speed)

Fighters mire better (same health for less, giving you about 137℅ health over the same points of ints and more bodies to have to go through) and are better anti-ship (same crap die, but more squadrons to shoot with)

I like the ship direction of the list. OLP with a Vic-2 is interesting...though as people say it's harder to use and limits your choices in a game: IE you have to use the VicStar first to shoot, then you have to land a crit through their defense tokens...the first is an issue for me (I love flexibility, i'll expand on that in a minute), and your opponent can exploit it in order to limit the effectiveness of your spent points. The latter isn't as big an issue as 3/4 red with 3/4 blue and screed is going to be very hard to stop a crit coming through in the end.

As for the fighters and ship flexibility: I don't particularly like too much homogeneity. I feel that squadrons are important, so I deem ~100 points for them in 300 point games as almost a requirement unless i'm doing something fancy or silly. With that many points, I like to diversify: this is actually where I think FFG got the squadron packs down pretty well in that I prefer to take 2 of each special TIE, and 3-6 Fighters. This, as i've said a few times already, gives me flexibility. Large(ish) amounts of throw-away-able TIEs lets me block stuff I don't want to invest in fighting. A few interceptors allows me to surgical strike enemy fighters/bombers, an Advanced or two allows me to drop Escort where needed, and a pair of bombers gives me more threat range...especially with Superior Positions objective.

The other issue, I see, is the very heavy focus on anti-fighter in your squadrons AND a Glad-2...to me that is a waste, and the extra TIE you could get for the price difference would give you more options. Not to mention Glad-2's are weaker on the flank arcs if you're going for those heavy broadsides.

For me, I use a Vic-1 and Glad-1 with 4TIEs, 2 Interceptors, 2 Bombers (1 is Rhymer, that range is invaluable), and 1 Advanced. I see the Victory as a zone-of-control ship that manages my squadrons. I've played 3 games with it where it never fired it's black dice, rarely fired its red, and it was still invaluable on the board. I also find the medium range zone to be small and spotty...so i'd rather save the points and play the Vic-1 to deny board space, and force the opponent into certain potion that my Glad-1 can punish him for as a wave of fighters bomb him and shred his fighters