As the title says. I'm interested in player's direct experience (please, no theory), in defeating 300 point Imperial lists featuring 2 or more Gladiators with Assault Concussion Missiles with Screed commanding.

What ships & upgrades did you take, how did you maneuver, and what objectives did you use? Was it in a tournament match or a friendly game? Did you fight 2 Glads and a Vic, or something else?

This is the Imperial list that's sent me back to the drawing board...any actual play experience you'd like to share will be appreciated.

shooting them, generally

for objectives, avoid anything and everything that requires you to position in specific areas (except maybe dangerous territory; obstacle immunity can be quite useful)

if Skreed even as an inkling of where you're going, he's going to greet you there with some lovely ACMs to the face

and, if at all possible, try to nab the initiative. Demolisher with initiative is just disgusting (in one round, fly into face and black dice. In the next round, activate first and double-arc poor victim into what is almost certain death)

Afmk2s do good work running around at speed 3, and the GSD isn't particularly durable enough to withstand fistfuls of red dice.

Yavaris B-wings probably have the most of my GSD kills to their name

3 Assault Frigates in a line. All with gunnery team and Advanced projectors. They are gonna loss at least 2 glads before you lose a frigate.

I think fickle has it pretty well outlined. Durability, mobility and focused fire can overcome a gladiator. Initiative is nice to have, definitely. One thing I can add from my successes is not to have a firm target going into the match. A super aggressive Demolisher flying at a supported AFmkII will go down quickly, so let your opponent clarify what your first target will be. I like Intel officers as they can further hamstring what becomes a two defense token ship at their ideal range. If you are worried about the other side of that coin, you can always consider Mon Mothma to keep your own evade relevant. I guess that depends on your local climate though.

I stubbornly cling to 2x AFmkII 1x Neb, and I fly very defensively against multiple gladiators. I do not like going up against gladiator heavy lists, and given their popularity I'm definitely excited to follow this thread for more ideas. I may concede to a 3x assault frigate list to protect myself until wave two, as my nebulous and corvettes always seem to be eaten alive. They just feel like donated points to multiple engine tech glads sometimes!

Had luck with setting my ass frig back and not deploying at full range. More toward the middle of the zone. Also keep them slow 1st turn. Then light the fire and jump to speed 3 with a token and dial. Also intell officer help with their brace dail, while x7 turbos reduce the redirect shield token. It a hard fight.

In specific, I have mostly been playing without assault frigates lately, bouncing between 6xCR90 and 4xCR90, 1 Neb B, and some A-Wings.

Some key points on taking out Gladiators in that situation:

1. If they have Demolisher, use your least valuable corvette as a blocker/bait. Keep in mind when it rolls in, it only gets one shot, which means you MUST have enough activations to then subsequently destroy it for getting close. If they insist on staying in tight formation, you are faster; fly away.
2. Objectives are key. Do not take a rebel fleet with "get in my face and mash me" objectives. Intel Sweep is kind of a trap in this regard.
3. Gladiators are medium-tough. Slightly tougher than a Neb B, but nowhere near an AFII or VSD. Thus, with rebels, if you run Salvation + A-wings + CR90s, you can often use a combination of red dice and A-Wing alpha strikes to cripple one on the way in, meaning that once they get close if you chose to engage, you are 4-5 ships vs. a single gladiator. If you are willing to accept the loss of one ship and counter, the Imperials will lose this trade.

Glads are very fast in a straight line, also, but suck at turning compared to rebel ships, especially the CR90. This means you often want to force them to move quickly to keep up, but then change vectors to come back around for an attack. The "gladiator boxing" strategy doesn't really work on Neb B's or CR90s, also, so they can't put you in the corner and keep you there, which will throw Imperials off their ideal tactic. A core issue is being willing to pick them apart at range while still concentrating fire, so you start thinking about moving CR90s like a Tie Swarm to make sure most will have arc in a single turn to tear up a gladiator (or, perhaps, 2 mini-swarms to preserve positional options...).

=D

Remember repliers: no theory. only real exp

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Being 1st. Helps a ton.

Assault frigates like someone stated. with that config.

Concentrating a single glad, will go down in 2 turns of damage.

I'm dying to see Ackbar's gunline added to this equation. With Slaved Turrets, you can (if Moff Zen is accurate) get XI7s on a AFII and have 6 red dice baseline from a broadside. Add concentrate fire to that equation, and you've got something that could conceivable one shot a gladiator. You'll almost certainly kill one with two volleys. I'm curious to see how Home One and 2 AFIIs would hold up against a glad rush like this when you've got Ackbar. I have a feeling it will be a brutally hard counter.

I face this set up semi regularly. For me it starts with obstacle set up. Try to divide the board in half at an angle. I will start my ships back and behind the los of obstacles, I also start my fleet at speed 3 or 4. Being that I have more drops than my opponent, which ever side the least amount of ships ends on I try to get numerical superiority on that side. Then it is flying fast and flanking attacks to frustrate the glads. I also find my Y wings do enough hits to weaken some shields that by turn 3 or 4 I can take 1 out. Good luck!

3 Assault Frigates in a line. All with gunnery team and Advanced projectors. They are gonna loss at least 2 glads before you lose a frigate.

Can confirm, this will eat a Gladiator for breakfast if he tries the usual Demolisher "Charge in missiles blazing" strategy.

I've defeated it by heading INTO the line head on. That formation is less effective if its forced to break up, and straight ahead all it has is a two die red shot, possibly obstructed thanks to the line formation.

Bear in mind also that this formation is very predictable. The first ship in the line HAS to activate first. Use this to your advantage when facing it.

Shoot and scoot!

The problem ive been having flying GSDs is primarily against guppies. I get shot to **** on the way in, let a double arc volley of black dice go, it survives and flies away next turn whilst pounding me again.

At the last tournament i was at half of the lists were some variation of 1 vsd 2 gsd and squadrons including me and all the rebel games beat or drew against those lists.

I will also point out something interesting, the winners of GenCon and Aus nationals all rolled gsd heavy lists. But looking at their match ups they never faced against Rebel guppy lists. I would hypothesise that its not as strong as it seems and quite easy to beat if you're a Rebel player anyway.

took 2 intell objectives to the Imps 1 and did not fight anything but fighters and made some long range pot shots really why close and fight if you don't have to. just make the Imps chase you around the table.

A lot of good stuff here. Let me add: I have found that the base is crucial for dealing with Gladiators. My luck against Glads is mixed. But my opponent has an uncanny knack for using the base to keep me from finishing the Glads off You want this thing where they will have trouble getting to it. Ideally, close to their deployment zone.

You can also use it to fake them out: set up like you are making a Repair Run on the base. Then veer off and go somewhere else.

Kind of wish I had more GSD's to try playing against a fleet with more than 1. But typically when I'm up against my one I try to protect the weaker ships and use them as bait. Sure my Neb isn't as tough, but come for it and rest assured you'll be meeting my fighters and/or my AFmkII.

Yavaris B-wings probably have the most of my GSD kills to their name

This. When people talk about my list they say "your B-wings."

To clarify this:

My particular list runs

Wedge

2x X-wing

Dutch

Keyan Farlander

B-wing

Naked Yavaris

Neb B with Adar Tallon

CR-90 (the cheap one) with Tantive 4 and Other Antilles.

I bid for initiaive very hard. My list is 290 points and I want to go first. I generally don't care about where my fleet is or where yours is. I just need to know where yours is going to be. So I don't mind the objectives that put all my stuff out first.

Although I'm sick to death of Advanced Gunnery, Imperial players. Seriously. You're boring. You are boring me right now.

Anyway, in general I'm more concerned about knowing where your stuff is going to be turn 2 than I am with where it is turn 0. My ships don't exist to deal damage - thats the job of my bomber wing. So I need to know where to position my bombers to get maximum effect out of Yavaris/Adar Talon/Keyan Farlander tripple attack shenanigans.

But mostly I just walk my frigates up the map in a line slowly, letting them come to me. Then I activate a bunch of B-wings and explode Screed in the face. I use the CR-90 to cover a flank and I always always fly through Asteroids and use them to protect my other flank.

I play with 3 Glads. You can find my build listed in detail in the fleet build board. (suggest you read it)

The only problems I have run into are builds with bomber swarms. I have kicked everyones butt to every list mentioned above. It seems that the swarms do what they are intended to do, take out my shields.

Like I said, read the thread and you'll formulate your answer..

Naboobo2000

Run 3 AF and pray that they aren't a better player than you. Even the tanky AF can be beaten by a good Imp player. If they built the list correctly they will ALWAYS be going first ALWAYS FOREVER until the the end of time.

Bomber swarms, don't care. That's less ships you have and then it makes it easier to kill said ships and gain an advantage in activations. Squadrons are useless without the commands.

Source: Underbid everyone in recent Vassal tourney, use same list in play at FLGS. Have not gone second in over 10 games now.

You need to play the game, it is kind of hard to describe in detail as everything is so different but some random thoughts.

If you are predictable you will be intercepted and take heavy damage. So nimble ships help also locking in a lot of Navigation commands e.g. I drew a couple of Glads in towards a Neb which had Engine techs then burst through them and escaped the trap.

It takes glads time to line up shots so if you give them a target and then get that target out it is difficult for them to recover.

Glads turn quite poorly - if you can get them coming in fast then accelerate to meet them you may be able to slip past while only taking a single round of shooting that you will hopefully live through, It will take them a long time coming back around. This doesn't work against Glads rocking engine techs - but against them you should have a firepower advantage as they are more pricey.

As has been said avoid any mission that you need to be in a certain position - you probably want to pick the red one.

Focus fire. Glads live and die by their tokens and they can deflect a huge amount at med-long ranges with the brace+evade combo. You need either a large quantity of shots or to invest in Sensor Team/Intel Officer - Also I think now Heavy Turbolaser is a great counter especially on Salvation.

Don't be afraid to make a sacrifice. Redemption walking in at speed 1 is acceptable because the first glad heading his way probably won't make it - while it will make the glads predictable so you can set up a counter.

Put up fighter screens - they are a great answer to the Gladiator's token oriented defenses. If you focus on maneuvering your ships defensively the squadrons will take their toll.

Take at least one ship (Neb or Corv.) with Engine techs - they become so slippery that it will help prevent you getting tabled and keep your squadrons in the game until the bitter end.

Lock in more Navigate commands

I will also point out something interesting, the winners of GenCon and Aus nationals all rolled gsd heavy lists. But looking at their match ups they never faced against Rebel guppy lists. I would hypothesise that its not as strong as it seems and quite easy to beat if you're a Rebel player anyway.

I am observing the same thing as a rebel player. My two main fleet archetypes are 2xAFs + some variation of 1 more AF / 1 Neb B + A-wings / 1 CR90 + A-wings and 4xCR90 + some variation of 1 Neb B + A-wings / 2x CR90s. The former is led by Garm, the latter is led by MM.

I don't have major problems with Glads.

In the first case, they tend to suffer very badly on the way in, and as exactly described above, the usual behavior I see is either they don't live to get close enough to deliver a broadside if they come individually (or, in the case of Demolisher, they get one shot, which is not enough to kill an AF; it shoots you once, you fly past and continue blasting the crap out of it), and if they come in a group, I'm fast enough that I don't have to stick around and wait, and then I'm behind/on the side and taking broadside shots at them. The Glad is very fragile compared to an AF unless you let them box you in, and with Garm, the ability to take a Nav token immediately and sit on it so that you can cruise around at speed 2 and crank it up if you need to escape a box and/or cruise at speed 3 and be able to jam down to speed 1 in a single turn to totally throw off a glad charge by burning a nav command + token is great.

In terms of the exact motion, Gladiators like to get in close and fire from both arcs at the same time. A speed 2 AFII with the ability to either drop to speed 1 or increase to speed 3 with a single token provides such a broad array of movement options that a single gladiator cannot possibly line up a double-arc shot. With two of them, you cannot box in the ship (block its movement) given the array of commands (as if you are close enough to hit it regardless of speed 1/2, then speed 3 and turning takes it way past you, and vice versa), so now to do the "gladiator boxing" thing you need 2+ glads to stop a single AF, which is unworkable when you have 2+ AFs (requiring, now, 4 glads to stop them all) or, if you are just trying to stop 1 AF, having to suffer full broadsides from two AFs with gunnery teams to make it in. This is ignoring the case of a speed 3 AF with a properly timed nav command to drop to speed 1 in a single turn with the token, so that the glads rush forward to "box" you and, instead, end up with you in park as they zoom directly into your forward/side arc combo and get annihilated.

In terms of the second list, I think it should be self-evident how a CR90 can outmaneuver a gladiator, but my core point there is that patience matters and often it's not about killing the other ship, but rather about putting them in a position where they cannot kill you without dying themselves. Trading 1 CR90 for 1 glad is a winning trade every time, and what you want to do is allow them to have one ship as "bait", so when they roll in and try to double-arc you, they are eating return fire from 4+ CR90s and possibly squadrons or whatever else you are running. A gladiator has a plethora of defense tokens, but the value of those tokens goes down dramatically when they are being hit with many small amounts of dice rather than one large shot, which is an advantage the CR90 list has over the AF list in this context.

@Ecgtheow In a word, Kiting. The GSDs WANT to close and get black dice on you. If that's a known, then you should maneuver to be able to shoot and move AWAY. They will be out of range during their turn (minus Demolisher, of course) and then close to be IN range for you next turn. Assault Frigates do this best because their side arc is widest, has the most batteries and has wonderful speed.

All this is irrelevant on a poorly selected/included and played Objective.

Avoid the VSD like a plague.

Split your fleet if half can deal with one glad and the other can deal with another one. Chances are you can make a trade or two and come out on top.

Otherwise focus on one. Hard flank their positions so they are stuck in a traffic jam/ in suboptimal attacking positions. Dont be afraid to show your rear if this is the case, since ACM basically gives them flank anyway.

I'm dying to see Ackbar's gunline added to this equation. With Slaved Turrets, you can (if Moff Zen is accurate) get XI7s on a AFII and have 6 red dice baseline from a broadside. Add concentrate fire to that equation, and you've got something that could conceivable one shot a gladiator. You'll almost certainly kill one with two volleys. I'm curious to see how Home One and 2 AFIIs would hold up against a glad rush like this when you've got Ackbar. I have a feeling it will be a brutally hard counter.

Actually from what I've heard, Slaved Turrets is a Turbolaser slot upgrade, rather than an offensive retrofit. So no XI7 on that ship