Have to say I also think Ackbar's a bit too good, he will be everywhere.

He might be costed about right, but +2 reds is a lot of extra bang.

We've been playing 400 since the game shipped. My first 300 games ever were Sullust.

I think you'll see everything and anything from 2 ships up to swarms.

Even though it's a much more deadly arena for the smaller ships, they have the maneuver and the initiative sinks to be competitive.

People relying on the raider for anti-squadron duty are going to be disappointed. It will surely get a few attacks in, but are you planning on zeroing speed with instigator to KEEP them engaged. Meanwhile how is the Raider staying alive vs a fleet of bombers. Aren't you just giving the Rhymer ball exactly what it wants, a ship to kill? I can also see the possible locations for a raider and launch my bombers accordingly. If I'm feeling particularly spiteful I can send my Rhymer ball to attack your Raider from medium range. On your turn you're out of range and then have the choice of slowing down to engage or keep going and fly by. If you slow down to engage my bombers will get a second attack in. If I have a 5 bomber ball, that's 10 black dice attacking your Raider before it gets a shot off.

Take Y-wings as an example. A double black raider will average 1.5 damage per turn meaning it will take you an average of 4 attacks to kill a Y.

I'm not saying Raiders are useless. In packs they can devastate squadrons, but so can GSD2s and Escort Nebs. I'm saying a single raider will not make me worry unless I took Imperial TIE fighters and interceptors. And I have yet to see the meta shift enough to take those in numbers.

What I am saying is that you either have to take lots of raiders, or run some squadrons with it as well. On its own, it's just another ship with slightly better anti-squadron than options we already have and use.

5 ship Akbar build:

Admiral Akbar

4xAFIIb each with advanced projectors

CR90a with slaved turrets

400 points

Objective suggestions welcome! As I still don't have many games under my belt yet!

I agree, the Raider seems a little meh to me, but I'm sure it will find its place.

I think the raider will be excellent, but not going out alone to battle fighters. It's an escort and should be within range 1 of the ship its escorting.

Prevent those bombers going after the target by engaging them, or shoot them when they do. Combine with a fighter screen for crippling anti-bomber capability.

I love and appreciate the diverse opinions and speculations. I can't wait to take part in Wave II.

the ISD1s capability to launch 7 squadrons at once with boosted comms and expanded hangars, add flight controllers and im all in on round bases. I already was but now Rhymer and his hit squad (usually interceptors and TIEs for me) can just go blink away shields, letting the ISD rip into the ship. I am very excited to play ISDs and Villains. I know people are excited for small/med ship spam, Ozzel in particular seems nasty.

I hope that once Wave 2 is unlocked the meta shakes out to more than 2-3 lists per faction being the most competitive. Locally this happened but I am also sure it was part of the number of releases.

With wave 2, damage avoidance and accelerated repair are going to become much more important.

1. ECM will become more important than Advanced Projectors - with accuracies almost guaranteed from large pools of red and blue dice - I think it's going to become essential to keep a BRACE available and halve large damage pools vs moving large damage pools to other shields with REDIRECT. It's a lot easier to restore three shields on one arc than six shields.
2. Minimizing your opponents possibe shots on you. If he doesn't have Gunnery Teams then keeping multiple ships in a single one of his firing arcs.
3. "Ship of the Line" - largeer ships intended to tank the damage from large dice pools (high hull, high shield), supported by projection experts on one or more ships that attempt to remain obstructed/out of arc/out of range and avoid direct fire from large dice pools.

This opens up opportunities for smaller ships to maneuver to engage support ships, makes some ships more predictable with their need for engineering commands - and too busy to issue squadron commands and restricted in maneuvering.

Hmm... well, Splitting your fleet feels to me like you're handing your opponent a divide-and-conquer victory. Every time someone's done this I feel I always have the advantage of ganging up more of my ships against the fewer that come to attack me. Flanking against me sometimes works, when that ends up happening is I peel off one ship to engage the flanker while the other two continue pounding on the ship(s) I've engaged.

The above strategy though, won't work if you go for positional objectives. If you can squeeze out more points through board control then splitting the list has an advantage... just as long as the points you made out of the objective can make up for the points you lose in delaying the massed strike force hammering half your list to death.

Here are my wave 2 builds this far:

http://warhammertruthiness.blogspot.com/2015/10/wave-2-tidal-wave.html?m=1

http://warhammertruthiness.blogspot.com/2015/10/swarm-of-beeeeees.html?m=1

Bigger ball of Rhymer.

witnessing the amount of firepower akbar can put out has reversed my initial impression on the unfortunately (or very fortunately) named Blissex, provided you don't run into Home One

bracing and/or evading without concern for a round could be a huge boon,

for the imps, we of course have Mr. Montferrat. He comes with the raider, but honestly I'd be incredibly thrown if he didn't start showing up on Demolishers everywhere (or perhaps even Insidious to make it a less appealing target as it snakes around behind the enemy)

he looks so bored, though

A more fun option is to take the big ships, as well as some medium/small ones. Mon Cala cruisers and Imperial Star Destroyers are iconic, gorgeous, and fun to use. But BOY do they suck up a lot of points. If you're running the big ships, then you're going to really struggle to fit four capital ships into 400 points. Or at least, four decent ships. You might get an MC80 and three naked CR90s or an ISD and three raiders. Or more, I guess, if you don't take any squadron support.

If anything, I think we'll see LESS ships on the table at 400 points because the big ships are just so attractive, and squadrons have gained more relevance with wave 2.

I think it's definitely possible to get in four decent ships + squadron support that could work. Maybe something like this:

MC80 Command Cruiser w/ Dodonna, Advanced projectors

MC30c w/ Advanced projectors, Assault concussion missiles

MC30c w/ Advanced projectors, Assault concussion missiles

Nebulon-B Support Frigate w/ Intel Officer, XI7 turbolasers, Salvation

A-wing squadron

A-wing squadron

A-wing squadron

A-wing squadron

399 points

1. ECM will become more important than Advanced Projectors - with accuracies almost guaranteed from large pools of red and blue dice - I think it's going to become essential to keep a BRACE available and halve large damage pools vs moving large damage pools to other shields with REDIRECT. It's a lot easier to restore three shields on one arc than six shields.

I've been eye balling Intel Officers for this reason. Either on an ISD or even just a Dominator VSD, still has a ton of fire power. Force your opponent into some really sub-par "damned if I do, damned if I don't" decision making. Which was my favorite thing of the rhymer ball. "do i really redirect one damage, knowing your ship shoots after these 5 fighter stands, or do I let you drop my shield on that arc to 0, knowing your ship is going to shoot it....." The more decisions your opponent is forced to make, the higher the chances are they will make the wrong one.

@BergerFett - yes, give your opponent more tough decisions so they have more chances to make a fatal mistake

for the imps, we of course have Mr. Montferrat. He comes with the raider, but honestly I'd be incredibly thrown if he didn't start showing up on Demolishers everywhere (or perhaps even Insidious to make it a less appealing target as it snakes around behind the enemy)

Oh gosh. The horror...

With wave 2, damage avoidance and accelerated repair are going to become much more important.

• ECM will become more important than Advanced Projectors - with accuracies almost guaranteed from large pools of red and blue dice - I think it's going to become essential to keep a BRACE available and halve large damage pools vs moving large damage pools to other shields with REDIRECT. It's a lot easier to restore three shields on one arc than six shields.
• Minimizing your opponents possibe shots on you. If he doesn't have Gunnery Teams then keeping multiple ships in a single one of his firing arcs.
• "Ship of the Line" - largeer ships intended to tank the damage from large dice pools (high hull, high shield), supported by projection experts on one or more ships that attempt to remain obstructed/out of arc/out of range and avoid direct fire from large dice pools.

This opens up opportunities for smaller ships to maneuver to engage support ships, makes some ships more predictable with their need for engineering commands - and too busy to issue squadron commands and restricted in maneuvering.

Oh my lord, Gladiators are going to be the support ships for the imps as absolutely nothing else has a support slot. Someone get this guy a Crystal ball, he needs the getup to go along with his clairvoyance.

Now let's discuss the location of that rebel base.

I'm not envious of the top two during the 400 point games last weekend. I'm sitting with Fab's generator and I can't make anything that great. Everything feels so... Underwhelming or just like I'm missing something necessary.

I'm not envious of the top two during the 400 point games last weekend. I'm sitting with Fab's generator and I can't make anything that great. Everything feels so... Underwhelming or just like I'm missing something necessary.

Instead of using your glads as the front line, imagine a souped-up vsd2 with redundant shielding, Vader and two or more gladiators feeding Vader shields all day. Once they are burnt out, let them taste the sherbert of martyrdom.

I'm not envious of the top two during the 400 point games last weekend. I'm sitting with Fab's generator and I can't make anything that great. Everything feels so... Underwhelming or just like I'm missing something necessary.

I'm not feeling the big ships yet either. The small fry I'm having no trouble with.

My new ISD kept getting put in lists and then being removed. I couldn't quite see the point of the thing over the Victory. After I put it on the table and tried several examples of movement at its scary speed 3, I was far more under the impression that I could be in my opponent's face quicker then they might like.

It depends. Smart money is on running more ships with capable stats. MC30s, CR90s, etc. You get more activations, more orders, spread your damage output over multiple attacks (to minimise the effect of defence tokens) and incoming damage is spread over multiple ships meaning your fleet remains effective and capable for longer.

Makes me wonder if larger ships will find a use for those cards that convert "something" to an accuracy? No brace for you Mr Sienfield.

I think that's an interesting point, and made me realise something that probably should have been obvious: FFG must have had at least as far as this wave planned out since before the release of the main game. I wonder what else will start to make more sense now that we're playing the game as intended (I'm inclined to say fighters, but they've always made sense to me).

I'm kinda liking the decked out no large ships fleets I'm building. It's hard to put something in that's sinking 1/4 of my points that's not much more durable than my medium base ships. I'm also trying to avoid the absolute need to go with Ackbar (ITS A TRAP!).

I may need to buy another Whale... It may be more fun to run kitted out triple whales.

from what I say, the only proper way to kit out triple whales is home one akbar

...or Garm and 12 y-wings

from what I say, the only proper way to kit out triple whales is home one akbar

...or Garm and 12 y-wings

I went that route (on the 300 pt scale) and unsupported Y-Wings don't do much of opposed. If your ships are going speed 2 then just a turn or two of the Y-Wings being engaged may see your ships float out of range. After that you need a turn to get them back and say you lose 1-2 turns in the start of the game you get only a small opportunity to make them count. I would be inclined to put 6 X-Wings and 6 Y-Wings as a basic test point then adjust to ensure that the X-Wings can support and minimise the disruption to the Y-Wings.

from what I say, the only proper way to kit out triple whales is home one akbar

...or Garm and 12 y-wings

I went that route (on the 300 pt scale) and unsupported Y-Wings don't do much of opposed. If your ships are going speed 2 then just a turn or two of the Y-Wings being engaged may see your ships float out of range. After that you need a turn to get them back and say you lose 1-2 turns in the start of the game you get only a small opportunity to make them count. I would be inclined to put 6 X-Wings and 6 Y-Wings as a basic test point then adjust to ensure that the X-Wings can support and minimise the disruption to the Y-Wings.

But Boosted Comms are going to be awesome for that. Chuck an intel ship or admiral Chiraneau in the mix and you have a nice consistent bomber carrier. it will be hard for non roque ships to keep up with your bombers who have high health generally so can take the initial engagement.