I have been playing scum and rebel builds too often and need to clean my palette a bit with an imperial build.

My current intuition tells me that a natural compliment would be a howlrunner lead obsidian swarm (to counter the rise of ps2 generic builds) but I feel that I have blinded myself to alternative options.

I was doing well with a doomshuttle (with added engine upgrade) and 6 academies. The TIEs ripped up fat turrets and vader on the shuttle dealt with arc dodgers.

I'm not certain how well it will hold up in the upcoming meta though. More ships but fewer low agility fatties has me a little concerned.

I played doom, fel, whisper at a recent competition - its a great high damage list. Best of all, fel tends to be lowest priority target... Ram the shuttle in their face and hope they focus fire on it. Don't be worried if it goes down quickly. You should be looking at an end game with either fel or whisper in good shape - either way, that's a great proposition! I'd guess that it would deal pretty nicely with a tlt list too, though I've yet to try it.

Oh, standard fel, standard doomshuttle, whisper with acd, vi, fcs & no crew, btw. 2 pt initiative bid.

Doom shuttle will match any outfit you ware

Gin.

And ships that are strong enough in attack that the enemy can't afford to ignore them. I like Banjo's Fel/ Whisper build, although I'll normally stuff an Intel Agent on Whisper.

But mostly gin.

Gin.

And ships that are strong enough in attack that the enemy can't afford to ignore them. I like Banjo's Fel/ Whisper build, although I'll normally stuff an Intel Agent on Whisper.

But mostly gin.

ugh, feels like I am setting my throat on fire

Chirps.

He goes well with everything.

I have been playing scum and rebel builds too often and need to clean my palette a bit with an imperial build.

My current intuition tells me that a natural compliment would be a howlrunner lead obsidian swarm (to counter the rise of ps2 generic builds) but I feel that I have blinded myself to alternative options.

I won a 57 man tournament on Reddit running that list except I subbed stealth for hull and had backstabber instead of the 4th obsidian. My idea in initially running it was the same as yours, trying to kill a y-wing or b-wing before they shoot but even with that much concentrated firepower it's hard to do it with just the ties. It's very hard to get to range 1 for those initial shots and at range 2 you're getting 9 hits on average from 5 attacks, usually a b or y with a focus can barely live from that.

That said the list was still pretty solid but I've found it struggles against brobots and arc dodgers. I've found facing 1 ace like Fel isn't hard cause I have enough blockers to usually line up a doomshuttle shot but having to face multiples is very difficult, they break up your swarm and your puny 2 dice attacks have a tough time getting through.

Obsideon swarm. Work the shields, vader kills hull

youre definitely blinded. roll no attack dice next attack.

--

Doomshuttle goes well in a lot of things: 3 ship lists based around aces. 4swarm. +5swarm

Here's a list I want to fly (fun):

https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v3!s!56:-1,22,94,-1:-1:-1:;56:-1,-1,45,-1:-1:-1:;143:-1,126,1,14,13,28,138:-1:17

I used to run

Nightbeast
Backstabber
Scimitar W seismics and protons
Doom shuttle
and Lt. Lorrir

It was pretty good - I think the above is right - most anything works well with a doomshuttle.

Two bounty hunters with tacticians and APLs.

I won both my store champs with 2 bounty hunters and a doom shuttle. I think I had gunner one one of the BH's and I forget what I had on the other one. Maybe a cannon? Anyways I sent the gunner equipped BH after the high agility targets and the other one after the heavier hp ships. The doom shuttle stalled in the back as long as possible waiting for enemy shields to be taken off and then attacked with vader handing crits out like candy.

Wilhelm Screams, appropriately enough.
Every time Vader hits the enemy ship...

... 4 x Scimitar Bombers w/ Prox.mine!

Try something like...

Doomshuttle (24)

OGP

Vader

Juno Eclipse (33)

PtL

Twin Ion MkII

X1 Title

Advanced Targeting Computer

Backstabber (16)

Night Beast (15)

Academy (12)

Comes out to 100. You can drop Backstabber or Night Beast to an Academy to throw Prockets on Juno, or you could drop both down to Academies for Prockets on Juno and Engine Upgrade on the OGP.