I play almost exclusively 1st player and consistently take a 5-10 point initiative bid to be 1st player and consider myself to be a very good first player (my 3 tournament medals and ISD agree )

But I struggle as 2nd player and am looking for advice to improve my understanding.

Now I understand the list building aspects of 2nd player such as picking good objectives and trying to make sure you have enough activations to ensure you have the last activation of the turn etc. But how do you play 2nd successfully once the game starts?

What speed do you normally use? What commands? What goals do you make during games?

Now obviously these are all objective questions that rely heavily on your list but looking to expand my horizons

Btw I am an imperial player so mostly looking for advice for imps

Let them come to you. Given the fire-move mechanic when they activate approaching your Star Destroyers, if they intend on attacking head on, they will be in range for when you activate to fire. The ONLY ship to move into range and attack is the Demolisher, which is why it is so valued. There's a good chance the first shots fired will be yours... make them count.

Many of the objectives also allow the second player more control over the battlefield, which you can use to your advantage. Minefields is probably the most direct of the objectives in this way, though because of that it is the most avoided objective. As second player you can pick incredible objectives like Fire Lanes, Advanced Gunnery, and Minefields... which are my favoirte to run as the Empire because all of them are nasty in some way (fire lanes CAN be stacked on top of one another and dropped in your corridor of approach).

As you said yourself, the real importance for the second player is the control of the available objectives, and the benefit from them - which is why personally I feel it is important for Rebels to play second as they need the synergy with their objective to be most effective.

So there are two ways of looking at being second player as Imperials.

Firstly, is what will benefit you the most with you fleet - things like Advanced gunnery on a Victory SD are horrible for rebels to play against, and are as such a solid choice, but they also can be used to create a more psychologically difficult choice for the rebels.

By choosing AG as your red card, no sensible rebel commander would want to go up against a victory using it, so they are more likely to choose one of your other cards - which means you are suddently a lot more sure of what they might pick.

So this leaves you with only 2 missions to plan for, which allows you to think quite carefully, say for the popular imperial choices of Contested outpost and minefields - just now do you deploy a mine screen effectively to be the most difficult for an opposing player? Or where exactly is the most efficient place to put the station to control it using your selected forces.

(I normally put the station at distance 3 from my edge, drop a nav command turn 1 to make one Vic go speed 0 for the first 2 turns, whilst I move my other forces slowly over the station so get 2 turns worth of points, then fire up the back vic to control it for the last 3 turns) .

So by being a second player (as Imperial) you can do two things - one is select missions that might fit your fleet that you can prepare for to play really effectively, and the second is that you are denying the rebel or opposing player the opportunity to do the same - which can be just as devestating if they are a rebel player who say has bombers, salvation nebulon frigate and a cr90 in their forces and really wants to unleash precision strikes as their assault card, or drop salvation in your rear arc with hyperspace assault, or collect intel tokens with the cr90. By forcing them to go first you are then breaking the synergies they have set up in making those choices and making them think harder about how they can be successful on your terms.

I prefer a slightly different selection of objectives as imperials. Going against rebels I find superior positions to be incredibly important to beating assault frigates to a spot. I dislike the red objectives as imperials, since they don't dictate deployment as second player. Advanced gunnery is a trap card imo, especially coming into wave 2 where you really don't want to give a free gunnery teams for rebels. I actually like most wanted or opening salvo, which both add dice to your pool to manipulate with your superior dice modifiers. Opening salvo with gladiators and Vic's is a dead ship using ACM and screed.

Yellow cards cone down to mostly contested outpost and fire lanes. Both are deployment dictating and extremely effective, especially if you see you have a free turn or two to park on it with a spare raider/gladiator.

Blue is superior positions all the way, you lose some to rebel bombers, but you avoid every issue of the victory being slow, and can gaurentee your front arc gets some use.

Great points everyone!

Firstly, second player seems to be the "skirting" player. Usually not the one who attacks head-on. Second works extremely well when they attack you. Thus... for most imperial plans, it doesn't work as well. The only times I've had Imp 2nd player work is when my opponent threw caution to the wind and said: lets blow something up.

2nd player for the 3AF conga line works quite well.

I don't think Advanced Gunnery is that bad Maverick... remember, Second player allows the same arc to attack the same target. This is Significant if you have an Imperial, because that mallet of turbolaser fire can be brought down on the same spot. Sure, that MC80 gets a gunnery team but he can't bring that firepower to hit you twice.

It would be fantastic for one build I have, with the Avenger and a couple of Overload pulses on some VSDs. I don't think there's much that can protect a target from that amount of directed firepower twice except dud rolls on the part of the attacker.

Yes Norsehound but here we are talking about the Imperial being second player, so they can double strike the same target with the VSD, whilst the rebels would have to shoot at different targets. Thats a pretty scary thought for a rebel player to face.

This is of course all as of wave 1 (since no sullust stuff came downunder!) and my opinions will probably change once I have got some hands on with wave 2 - (and I hope so since the game really needs some more depth)

I don't think Advanced Gunnery is that bad Maverick... remember, Second player allows the same arc to attack the same target. This is Significant if you have an Imperial, because that mallet of turbolaser fire can be brought down on the same spot. Sure, that MC80 gets a gunnery team but he can't bring that firepower to hit you twice.

It would be fantastic for one build I have, with the Avenger and a couple of Overload pulses on some VSDs. I don't think there's much that can protect a target from that amount of directed firepower twice except dud rolls on the part of the attacker.

Norse, unless there's an FAQ I missed first player absolutely can attack the same ship twice. They just need to target two different hull zones.

I don't think Advanced Gunnery is that bad Maverick... remember, Second player allows the same arc to attack the same target. This is Significant if you have an Imperial, because that mallet of turbolaser fire can be brought down on the same spot. Sure, that MC80 gets a gunnery team but he can't bring that firepower to hit you twice.

It would be fantastic for one build I have, with the Avenger and a couple of Overload pulses on some VSDs. I don't think there's much that can protect a target from that amount of directed firepower twice except dud rolls on the part of the attacker.

Norse, unless there's an FAQ I missed first player absolutely can attack the same ship twice. They just need to target two different hull zones.

I think the previous posters have it covered. But just take a step back and look at it from a high level.

You get the home-town advantage with objective selection, so make sure you have the right objectives for your list - another approach could be to pick objectives that people find difficult to deal with and then build a list to suit them.

Ship activations being equal you also get to see where the enemy is going and react with some knowledge of where they are moving. This makes lining up shots for next turn easier as you have the last say on ship positions. To pull off good shots you will need to be putting forks onto the enemy fleet or flying in a formation with some depth to prevent the target enemy ship activating away first to escape your clutches.

I usually pick second player now for both the challenge and the fact that I like to see my opponent start deploying first. Helps me get a better idea of where he is going.

I don't think Advanced Gunnery is that bad Maverick... remember, Second player allows the same arc to attack the same target. This is Significant if you have an Imperial, because that mallet of turbolaser fire can be brought down on the same spot. Sure, that MC80 gets a gunnery team but he can't bring that firepower to hit you twice.

It would be fantastic for one build I have, with the Avenger and a couple of Overload pulses on some VSDs. I don't think there's much that can protect a target from that amount of directed firepower twice except dud rolls on the part of the attacker.

The MC80 does not get a Gunnery Team

I don't think Advanced Gunnery is that bad Maverick... remember, Second player allows the same arc to attack the same target. This is Significant if you have an Imperial, because that mallet of turbolaser fire can be brought down on the same spot. Sure, that MC80 gets a gunnery team but he can't bring that firepower to hit you twice.

It would be fantastic for one build I have, with the Avenger and a couple of Overload pulses on some VSDs. I don't think there's much that can protect a target from that amount of directed firepower twice except dud rolls on the part of the attacker.

The MC80 does not get a Gunnery Team

I don't think Advanced Gunnery is that bad Maverick... remember, Second player allows the same arc to attack the same target. This is Significant if you have an Imperial, because that mallet of turbolaser fire can be brought down on the same spot. Sure, that MC80 gets a gunnery team but he can't bring that firepower to hit you twice.

It would be fantastic for one build I have, with the Avenger and a couple of Overload pulses on some VSDs. I don't think there's much that can protect a target from that amount of directed firepower twice except dud rolls on the part of the attacker.

The MC80 does not get a Gunnery Team

Taking Advanced Gunnery gives your opponent with an MC80 a free Gunnery a team equivalent.

Actually, the second player can shoot the same ship so long as its a different hull zone, whereas a gunnery team is not able to shot the same ship regardless of targeted hull zone. Although that is definitely the way Norse meant it in his post.

I'm planning to go to a 300pt wave 1 tournament as an Imperial. And right now, I'm hoping to go 2nd. Why?

Because right now I'm thinking I'm running two Vic II's and I want to force the opponent to play my objectives and I'm expecting to run against 3 ship lists. I want to limit the amount of unanswered activations (and I like to react to my opponent).

All of this is subject to play testing. I have a nice Rebel build I'll throw at this list. Haha!

You're an Imperial player going second, Advanced Gunnery team is the objective, and you're about to T-Bone an MC80 with an Imperial. While he can shoot again, chances are he can't draw line of sight from his side arc to a different hull zone if you're facing him head on. Meanwhile when you activate, your forward arc will have a generous shot into his broadside and you can do that twice.

Now, he probably could use that hull zone against my next-door VSD with overload pulse. But if that Overload pulse hits the MC80 first, Avenger is targeting the same arc with two 8-dice shots on the same arc that he cannot defend against because the Avenger is attacking.

The key is positioning such that his AdvGunnery arc can't hit more than two of your arcs on the same ship. As long as Imperial ships are facing that target it isn't easy for an AdvGunnery ship to do this.

Thats how I saw it at least...

Welp i just had a tournament where I was second and the first player chose Hyperspace assault and sat in the corner spd 0 guns facing outwards with nav tokens banked waiting for me to come to him.

I just pretty much flew around until there was an opening which never happened so the game ended in a 5-5 draw....with a technical win for me because Second Player wins if it is equal score. Something i don't think he knew lol.

I have this golden rule: with only 2 ships I definitely do not want to go second, especially vs. a 3+ ship. Doing so is.... lets just say it's going to be a challenge to come out ahead.

I have this golden rule: with only 2 ships I definitely do not want to go second, especially vs. a 3+ ship. Doing so is.... lets just say it's going to be a challenge to come out ahead.

That while I want the objective more when I have less ships, if the enemy has an extra ship they Will exploit that first and last activation to wreak your face so it leaves me in a conundrum

I think the only time I'd feel comfortable taking two ships is if they are Imperial Star Destroyers, I have a generous amount of fighters and upgrades, and I'm reliably sure I can one or two-shot any ship on the board with that combination. Because ISDs can almost certainly tank whatever is shooting at you, and their response can be terrible to witness.

Especially if you don't care about defense tokens and happily burn them mid-game so Devastator fires even more dice out the front arc against the most hated enemy ship.

I think my reasoning for 2 ship right now is that I don't feel wave 1 that the Empire has enough oomph to overcome the brick like maneuvers of the VSD. But that's not really relevant to the topic.

Even with my Rebel build, I still don't mind 2nd player. Maybe I don't mind taking what the opponent gives me.