OK, after my first tournament yesterday with Rebels I learned a few things and decide to try out this Imperium list.

What do you think?

It looks pretty allergic to stress, and only has 10hp - might be hard to win with in a tournement. Also, ptl on rex without mk2 ion engine is a very bad idea - how will you shed stress? Presator would be a much better choice, if you insist on EU.

Yeah, push the limit on Rex is cool in the sense that it gives you the best possible chance of using his ability (because with any luck, the TL makes sure the shot hits, and then you still have the focus left over to flip the damage cards face up). However, it is still situational, and has a very considerable downside: taking that stress puts you in a tough situation----do you take a predictable green straight to clear the stress (and leave Rex in a really bad position because your opponent will totally exploit it) or do you take a white move and have no actions at all? Not only does losing your action waste your upgrades, but even worse, all of your dice rolls are unmodified and at the mercy of cruel chance. Overall, I find predator much more ideal, because it still gives you that much needed dice modification with no downside (and even if you are denied an action, or need to spend your focus defensively, you've always got that re-roll, no matter what).

Also, I don't find engine upgrade all that useful on a defender. Between the 1 bank, white k-turn and having a barrel roll for those few times you find yourself out of position, the Defender does quite well against most enemy ship types. I much prefer a shield or hull upgrade, because the Defender is not the greatest arc-dodger, and you will take shots. backed by 3 green dice, you always get good value out of additional durability.

I've had good success with the following:

Rexler w/ predator, HLC, ion pulse missile & shield upgrade = 54

Whisper w/ veteran instincts, gunner, FCS & ACD = 44

98

The nice thing about the list is both ships pack a lot of punch and can operate completely independent of each other. You can deploy them together or a part and pull all kinds of tricks on your opponent (use one as a decoy, pull the enemy through the rocks, even joust with one and flank with the other, etc). Interestingly enough, I find Rexler dies more often, so I tend to use Whisper as the decoy or jouster, and have Rexler flank or approach a little bit behind (he doesn't care because he's got an HLC, so likes Range 3 just fine). The ion pulse missile is there just as insurance against an annoying large base ship. When you have a chance, Rexler can pick up a target lock at some point (ideally when he's not in arc or when your opponent is likely concentrating fire on Whisper) and then whenever that big ship flies too close to an asteroid or approaches the board edge, you can let it fly and ruin their day.

I've also tried a number of variations on both, such as proton rockets instead of the ion missile, Vessery instead of Rexler, lone wolf instead of predator (and stealth device instead of shield). But after all the fiddling, this is the version I feel works best. The only change I would consider at this point is on Whisper: rebel captive is a pretty useful card, and you don't always get good value out of Gunner (depending on what she shoots at). I have recently been using rebel captive and find it gives her extra survivability because there are times when your opponent absolutely does not want to take a stress token...

I like rebel captive too. Whisper is typically going to use focus on a 4 dice attack and will hit more often than not so I'm not sure about 5 points for gunner. Rebel captive is great because it typically happens on your enemy's high PS pilot shooting first, someone they are likely to not want to be stressed. This also reinforces the way to fly this to make rexler kind of take a back seat because your opponent probably won't want to shoot whisper first with rebel captive. Kinda puts them in a tough spot.

I like rebel captive too. Whisper is typically going to use focus on a 4 dice attack and will hit more often than not so I'm not sure about 5 points for gunner. Rebel captive is great because it typically happens on your enemy's high PS pilot shooting first, someone they are likely to not want to be stressed. This also reinforces the way to fly this to make rexler kind of take a back seat because your opponent probably won't want to shoot whisper first with rebel captive. Kinda puts them in a tough spot.

The reason that Gunner is great on Whisper is because of autothrusters and stealth device. IG88s and interceptors with push the limit can be annoying to score hits on. Whisper with Gunner + FCS doesn't have that problem.

However, the interesting thing I am finding is that those same hard to hit ships HATE getting stressed. So rebel captive seems to work just as well as Gunner, but in a different way. The only 'bad matchup' I have found for rebel captive so far is Darth Vader. It means that if he is flying alongside soontir fel, he can take the stress from rebel captive so that Fel does not have to (assuming they can both shoot at your whisper). And while Vader is not a big fan of stress, he is certainly less screwed over by it than Soontir would be...

Thanks for the great advice! I will try out all of your setups.