I never thought that having more options would be a bad thing!

Okay, it's not a bad thing. I was simply very well set with my understanding of the game and strategies and my preferred lists and how those lists stood up to other lists in the first wave. Had plenty of time to mess with it, after all.

The second wave has changed many things, and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do in it all! I'm an Imperial player, and I've got a wide range of ships available to me, but I'm unsure what exactly I want to do with them. It feels like it's going to be much more difficult to build an all-arounder list like I had before. I've basically broken it down to several variables...

Variable One: Large Ships

How many do I want? Do I even want them? That huge Imperial is so tempting and seems like an obvious must-take. But, with a cost of 120 base, I realize there are other options in my arsenal that could be far more devastating. A pair of Raiders with Expanded Launchers, for instance, have 16 shields and 8 hull between them, whereas the Imperial has 11 shields and 11 hull (though the Imperial does have better Engineering and better defensive tokens with redirects) but they also will be putting out 2 Blues and 6 Blacks from their front arcs each. Give them both Ordnance Experts and they cost 122 points against the 120 points of the Imperial. Imperial has range on its side though. Sorta wish the Raiders had a redirect instead of one of the evades, but, oh well. I also feel the Imperial requires Gunnery Teams in order to be at maximum effectiveness, as its side-arcs are not going to make it worth its price tag if you're firing one front and one side.

And what about fighting against large ships? I'm hearing all sorts of stuff about Ackbar's dread fleet of red dice death, and trying to figure out how to combat those massive Mon Cals and their Assault Frigate buddies is making me worry. Speed would be the key, I'm fairly certain, but would one of my little Raiders even survive a barrage from an Ackbar Mon Cal's side arc?

Variable Two: Rogues and Villains

I ran squadrons in the Wave-One meta as Imperials. Usually four or five TIE-Fighters, purely to run interference while my ships moved into position. However, I'm definitely feeling that won't be enough to handle the addition of the Rogues that have been tossed into play. I definitely need to build more anti-fighter then. But, how should I do it? I could run in more TIEs, but then I'll need more squadron command to make them effective. What about adding in Dengar with the TIE-Fighter swarm, to make my opponents have to deal with counter on all of those cheap, expendable TIEs? He'd also get the benefit from Howlrunner too, so, that's nice.

Trying to figure out how I feel about Raider anti-squadron. I feel like if my opponent made the mistake of moving his squadrons forward too quickly, I could punish them between the crossfire of an Imperial's 2 blues and a pair of raiders' 2 blacks.

Variable Three: 400 Points

OMG! I've got 100 more points to spend! But, wait... it doesn't feel like I'm getting much more, when I've built my list, what with the Imperial eating so many of 'em. And then my opponent also has an extra 100, so I... I still haven't gotten a feel for the size of fleets with the 400 size. I feel like the number of ships isn't changing greatly, though the amount of fun toys people are putting on their ships is going up, so individual ships are becoming far more deadly.

All these things put together make me really trying to get a grip on how I view Wave 2, and how I want to combat the new threats that abound.

Yeah... Wave 2 has been awesome for me playing as Rebels. Not so easy as Imperial.

btw guys. I have a Imp list that can win a little vs Ackbar. (I still haven't killed off any of his important ships, but got a CR most of the objective tokens AND all of his fighters for 101 MOV.)

Edit: to avoid spam, go to pg6 of the Ackbar is crazy thread.

I think this article can help you out a lot.

On the large ship question, I've mostly settled on one ISD. You can get 3 ships plus squadrons easily with a single ISD, and four ships with squadrons is doable if you take advantage of cheap TIEs and stick with purely essential ship upgrades (Ordnance Experts, Demolisher, Gunnery Team, maybe Leading Shots on the ISD, maybe APTs/ACMs on Raiders/Glads). Demolisher is even more lethal than its ever been (and, with Montferrat, can actually be tougher to kill).

On the squadron issue, I feel that the inclusion of a Raider or two allows the Empire to do the Imperial thing, and skimp a little on squadron quality in favor of quantity. 60 points can buy you Rhymer, Dengar, and two TIE Advanced (a solid core of a lethal Rhymer ball that can hold its own against a dedicated anti-squadron force for 2-3 rounds), or it can buy you 7 TIEs which, paired with a couple of Raiders, should give a heavy anti-squadron force all it can handle over 2-3 rounds if you can keep the Raiders supporting the fighters that long. Add supporting anti-squadron fire from an ISD II that can afford to burn a front-arc shot on squadrons with Gunnery Teams, and the TIEs are basically just there to hold enemy squadrons in place and prevent them from shooting at your ships: any supporting fire from those 7 TIEs is more luxury than necessity.

To your point about Ackbar: as a fellow Imperial player, I think Ackbar is the specter hanging over Wave II right now, because he takes an already-powerful Wave I list (2-3 AFIIs) and increases its offensive capabilities significantly. This isn't to say that there weren't other important changes in Wave II (successive rerolls for the Empire through Leading Shots/Ordnance Experts + Vader being one, Rieekan being another, Boosted-Comms for the fighter game, the speed and firepower of an ISD, the flexibility of the Raider, etc.). But Ackbar's pretty plug-and-play: there's not much Wave I rebel fleets have to do to adapt to him, since they were generally already broadsiding Imps at speed 2-3 in wave 1. Their ships are just more proficient at it now, and they have an extra 100 points to put into doing it more often, with more ships, or with more lethality.

I do think the Imps got some nice trade-offs, though. Boosted Comms coupled with cheap 5-health bombers can allow an Imp to out-range Ackbar, especially if Rhymer is involved. The Firespray is the only generic Rogue bomber, which means spamming it is possible (if you don't mind shelling out cash for models) if you're worried about getting into long range. With proper planning and anticipation, an ISD can close the gap from outside-long-range to inside-medium range in a single turn, which minimizes the time you have to stay in the Ackbar kill-zone.

Another potential avenue for attack is to use APTs from Glads or Raiders to stack crits on Ackbar ships as quickly as possible. In addition to "Structural Damage" (x8), which equates to 1/3 of an AFII's health, there are lots of other crit effects that severely gimp Ackbar-led fleets:

• "Depowered Armament" ("you cannot attack at long range")
• "Coolant Discharge" (x2) neuters Gunnery Teams ("Only one attack you perform each round can target a ship")
• "Damaged Munitions" (x2) halves Ackbar's effect ("When attacking a ship before you roll your attck pool, remove 1 die of your choice")
• "Blinded Gunners" (x2) ("You cannot spend accuracy icons") neuters Home One
• "Targeter Disruption" (x2) ("While attacking, you cannot resolve critical effects") limits Ackbar damage somewhat

Beyond these, Ackbar-fleets tend to rely on speed and careful maneuvering, so upgrades like Tractor Beams (which skew maneuvering) and using APTs to stack crit effects that make maneuvering more difficult are another plus:

• "Thrust Control Malfunction" (x2) ("The yaw value for the last adjustable joint at your current speed is reduced by 1.") Telegraph, telegraph, telegraph...
• "Ruptured Engine" (x2) ("after you execute a manuever, if your speed on your speed dial is >1, suffer 1 damage"). Slows them down right quick.
• "Thruster Fissure" (x2) ("when you change your speed by one or more, suffer one damage"). If you can manage to stack this on a speed 3 ship with "Ruptured Engine," you could be looking at 3-4 free damage before the ship finally slows down...
• "Comm Noise" (x2) ("Your opponent may either reduce speed by 1 or choose a new command on your command dial, then flip face down"). Chaos in the ranks!
• "Damaged Controls" (x2) ("When you overlap a ship or obstacle, deal a face down damage card to your ship (in addition to all other obstacle effects)"). Self-inflicted damage from friendly ships is a wonderful thing.

And then there's the wonderful survivability crits that take out shields (Shield Failure, Projector Misalligned), defense tokens (Compartment Fire, Injured Crew, Faulty Countermeasures, ), command dials (Crew Panic) and tokens (Life Support Failure), and engineering (Power Failure). While unfortunately the Empire can't pick-and-choose which of these crits to put on an Ackbar ship, the dirty little secret is that only four aren't universally useful against Ackbar-led fleets: "Point-Defense Failure" (x2) ("when attacking a squadron, before you roll your attack pool, remove one die of your choice"), though if you have a Rhymer ball against an AFIIB, this basically guarantees immunity from ship fire, and "Disengaged Fire Control" (x2) ("When declaring the target of an attack, you cannot choose a target against whom the attack would be obstructed"), although if you are using obstacle placement to screen your ships from Ackbar strafes, this could be incredible (as an obstruction now completely cancels an attack).

Precision Strike is a hidden gem here, especially in tandem with APTs, which get hull damage early and often. If you can land a black crit, that's 15 victory points in the bank, plus nasty stuff on an Ackbar ship, plus additional damage you're doing/flipping from other ships and bombers. Any ship that has 3-4 active crit effects on it is going to be barely limping along. Ordnance Experts + Vader just gives the Empire a decided advantage in landing them (plus increasing overall damage significantly and reliably).