Gunnery Teams vs XI7s. If you can't afford both which do you prefer? Is one better on smaller ships? Which works best on the ISDs? Thanks for any advice.

Make both fit?

I will drop a tie fighter if it allows me to take both.

I seriously see an ISD II as requiring ECM, XI7, and GT. If I had to choose from the 3, I guess I'd drop XI7 though.

Well just for clarity I'm thinking about running the following:

Screed

ISD II

XI7

Needa

ECM

ISD II

XI7

ECM

Gladiator 1

Demolisher

ACM

4x Ties

I drop Needa and the XI7s to neatly fit in the gunnery teams. I'm a bit loathe to drop the Tie Fighters because that's the bare minimum I've found necessary to slow down the fighter game. Should I just drop the Ties and just take the beating from fighters?

Well just for clarity I'm thinking about running the following:

Screed

ISD II

XI7

Needa

ECM

ISD II

XI7

ECM

Gladiator 1

Demolisher

ACM

4x Ties

I drop Needa and the XI7s to neatly fit in the gunnery teams. I'm a bit loathe to drop the Tie Fighters because that's the bare minimum I've found necessary to slow down the fighter game. Should I just drop the Ties and just take the beating from fighters?

+++ Insert name here (400pts) +++

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (71pts) [Assault Proton Torpedoes (5pts), •Demolisher (10pts)]

Kitted out Imp deuce - Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (140pts) [Electronic Countermeasures (7pts), Gunnery Team (7pts), XI7 Turbolasers (6pts)]

Kitted out Imp deuce - Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (166pts) [Electronic Countermeasures (7pts), Gunnery Team (7pts), XI7 Turbolasers (6pts), •Admiral Screed (26pts)]

+ Squadrons (23pts) +

•Bossk (23pts)

+++ Insert name here (400pts) +++

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (71pts) [Assault Proton Torpedoes (5pts), •Demolisher (10pts)]

Kitted out Imp deuce - Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (140pts) [Electronic Countermeasures (7pts), Gunnery Team (7pts), XI7 Turbolasers (6pts)]

Kitted out Imp deuce - Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (166pts) [Electronic Countermeasures (7pts), Gunnery Team (7pts), XI7 Turbolasers (6pts), •Admiral Screed (26pts)]

+ Squadrons (23pts) +

•Bossk (23pts)

Well that is interesting...

Have you tried that out? Bossk is dangerous but is he decent enough at cap?

+++ Insert name here (400pts) +++

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (71pts) [Assault Proton Torpedoes (5pts), •Demolisher (10pts)]

Kitted out Imp deuce - Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (140pts) [Electronic Countermeasures (7pts), Gunnery Team (7pts), XI7 Turbolasers (6pts)]

Kitted out Imp deuce - Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (166pts) [Electronic Countermeasures (7pts), Gunnery Team (7pts), XI7 Turbolasers (6pts), •Admiral Screed (26pts)]

+ Squadrons (23pts) +

•Bossk (23pts)

Well that is interesting...

Have you tried that out? Bossk is dangerous but is he decent enough at cap?

I have found that in Armada, list building is only a tiny portion of the game. Players ability with the ships he uses is FAR more important to a degree.

You still need to plan your deployment and such which is also a huge part of things

Wait, ISDs don't come stock with Gunnery Teams? Mine do.

Wait, ISDs don't come stock with Gunnery Teams? Mine do.

I seriously see an ISD II as requiring ECM, XI7, and GT. If I had to choose from the 3, I guess I'd drop XI7 though.

I agree. If we're talking in the abstract, I'd take them in that order (GT > Xi7).

Of the three, probably GT > ECM > Xi7... unless you held a gun (or Ackbar) to my head... then ECM > GT > Xi7.

Not really contributing, but... both. Always both.

G teams.

All day.

My thought process was that firing out of the front twice may not always be possible and sometimes its just better to concentrate all firepower on one target anyway with multiple arcs. XI7s are generally useful every single shot since redirects are so plentiful.

Then again the ISD front arc is massive...

Man Wave 2 is giving me a headache. It's an awesome headache.

BTW: play tested a little last night going with one or the other (didn't get a chance to try both at the same time). Still undecided because sometimes I wished I had the gunnery team, sometime the XI7. Although he game against an opponent which tended to spread out so I felt like I missed XI7s more.

Slightly off topic, 4 tie fighters buy you at least two turns of delays against Fireball. Dengar can't be everywhere at once so you just take a tie fighter and tie a firespray up one side of the fireball and use another to tie up another on the other side. Dengar all of a sudden has a tough choice on who to turn heavy. This is just slightly off topic because for me it's making the choice of somehow squeezing in both the Gunnery teams and XI7s really tough.

Gunnery Teams are autoinclude on ISD. Must be there. XI7 is on pretty much every one I field also, but they MUST have Gunnery Teams.

If there's any way to squeeze an extra 2 points out of your list you could drop Screed to Motti, and throw Ordnance Experts on the GSD.

You're very likely to get a crit on those black dice, and you get much more out of Motti for those ISDs.

Be careful. While the ISD has a huge arc, its arc lines are more aggressive than an ISD. What I mean is that they form a traditional V where as the VSD's arc lines are wider in where they point.

Switch to Motti, and have both! Screed is nice an all, but you will have almost. As many free hull points as are on your opponents flagship. Or go with "Surprise is wiser" Ozzel, and hit him hard before they expect it!

Be careful. While the ISD has a huge arc, its arc lines are more aggressive than an ISD. What I mean is that they form a traditional V where as the VSD's arc lines are wider in where they point.

Yep, this is a significant advantage on the rear arc, but a noticeable potential disadvantage in the front arc (at least partially offset by increased maneuverability - perhaps that was the intent in narrowing the front arcs so much.)

I view Gunnery Teams as (hopefully) a dice multiplier. If I use it to shoot from my front arc at optimal range, it's adding 4 dice over a double-arc shot (8+8 vs 8+4), and 8 dice if I only have a shot from that front arc (8+8 vs. 8+0). Xi7s are nice because they prevent more than 1 damage from being redirected, but over the course of the game, if I'm getting 4-8 extra dice out of 2-3 ISD activations, that's going to be doing more overall damage. Even if the opponent gets to reshuffle more of that damage with redirects than he would with Xi7s, that extra damage is still eating shields across his fleet that wouldn't otherwise be taking fire.

Of course, this requires maneuvering the ISD to keep 2 targets in its primary firing arc. If that's not happening, then GT is wasted points... but on the flip side, you no longer have to pass up taking a massive pot-shot at squadrons in your primary firing arc.

.

The choice here is actually quite simple: Do you want more damage on target or to spread out that damage onto the enemy fleet?