I've only played for a couple of months, maybe have 10 games under my belt, no wins. All my games have been rebel aside from 2 scum. The 2 scum games came down to a ship each with 1 hip, so I really enjoyed it.

I have lots of Rebel lists I wanna try, but I really want to give Imp's a go and I'm still having trouble at arc-dodging, but I'm getting better at learning the measurements of the movement templates and anticipating where I will end up. Being a collector mostly I have a very strong collection but the bug of playing bit me real hard! Therefore I got pretty close to all imperial ships available not including the Raider or Punnisher.

I was gonna take out Phantoms for my first Imp game, but I think I'll get eaten alive very quickly flying them. I don't want to fly swarms either.

So... how about...

Soontir Fel & Tetran Cowall / Autothrusters/Stealth/title/PTL

2x Zeta Tie/FO pilots

I really like the idea of a Deci

Kenkrik - Predator/Ysanne/Rebel Captive/Gunner

Vessery - Predator/Hull Upgrade

or....

Soontir Fel - Autothrusters/Stealth/title/PTL

Vessery - Predator/Hull Upgrade

Omicron - Vader

Take your Phantoms, toss a bunch of asteroids on your playmat and a few satellite tokens, do a few speed runs around the table shooting all tokens, cloaking and decloaking all the time.

Now do the same for the other ships. It doesn't hurt to get a few practice runs in to familiarize yourself with the dials anyway.

Then take your favourite list and solo play against your desired Imp list.

How about this as your Decimator list?

A few pointers regarding arc dodging:

1) In general, with arc dodgers it's better to have no shots at anyone while no enemy ships have shots at you, than it is to have a shot but receive a lot of return fire in exchange. One of the hardest parts about learning how to fly arc dodgers is learning when to engage and when to run while setting up for future engagement. Never joust with an arc dodger unless you're setting up a kill-shot on a lower pilot skill ship and will receive no return fire from other ships.

2) In order to facilitate the above, your initial placement of arc-dodging ships is important. Given that good arc dodgers are usually high pilot skill, you will usually be able to place them after most of your opponent's ships are placed, which allows you to choose better how to engage them. There are a few methods of placing your arc dodgers that can help with this:

- You can set up your arc dodger away from the opponent, rather than directly across from their ships. This fits with the "no jousting" rule. Of course, you still have to be careful about how you approach, as the asteroid placement may make it easy for the enemy to avoid your other ships and attempt to joust your arc dodger. In this case, it's better to overshoot and come around to attack later while you engage with the rest of your squad than it is to try to get in a side attack only to find yourself in multiple enemy arcs.

- You can set up your ship pointed at an angle, rather than directly at the opponent's side. It's easy to make the mistake of looking at the space between asteroids to find the most direct routes to opponents. Instead, try seeing the board from one corner on your side to the opposite corner on your opponents side. There may be better approaches that go at an angle away from or towards the enemy that your arc dodger can exploit with their speed and movement modifiers (barrel roll, boost, decloak), and which are more dangerous for enemies to intercept in groups due to asteroid placement. Look for these routes, and try to come at the enemy from an angle that is difficult for them to intercept, or if they are less cautious, lead them on a chase and trick them into flying through asteroid fields, throwing off their arcs and formations.

- You can set up your ship facing directly along your board edge, rather than directly towards your opponent. The benefit of this, is that it gives you more time to choose when and where to turn towards the enemy formation. If you fly directly at them, you have far less time to maneuver into a safe position to flank enemy formations, and may find yourself either jousting them, or being forced to overshoot to avoid a joust. If you fly along your edge of the board, you can take advantage of your arc dodger's speed and movement modifiers (barrel roll, boost, decloak) to quickly turn in and engage from outside of enemy arcs.

3) A more difficult but important aspect of flying arc dodgers is using them as bait to trick your opponent into flying their ships into a bad position. Ships like Interceptors or Jake Farrel with Push the Limit have access to boost, barrel roll, and the important 1-hard turn. For example, with these movement options, you can start with your ship pointing in one direction, giving the appearance of moving to engage enemies in that direction. Then instead, pull a hard turn to reverse direction, and modify with boost and barrel roll to surprise anyone foolish enough to think they could catch you from behind.

I'm new as well, and I've learned a lot by examining the meta lists and seeing why and how they work, then using this to try building my own lists. Your ships and upgrades should support the "theme" of your list and build toward creating specific advantages and/or eliminating weaknesses in your list. So your Soontir/Tetran/2xZeta has two semi-thematic pilots, but then the Zetas just seem be there to use up the last of your points. In this respect, your Aces will have more pressure on them given they're the obvious high-value targets, while the Zetas are likely to just be fodder with their low PS and lack of extra abilities. That's what I see, anyway.

The Zetas can be used to good effect by using them as blockers. Though you might want to use Epsilons for those and use the points to upgrade to Carnor.

Soontir Fel & Tetran Cowall / Autothrusters/Stealth/title/PTL

2x Zeta Tie/FO pilots

The fun part is if you are at range 1 in front of a lower PS ship with a fixed arc and after firing boost and barrel roll so they get no shot.

Take your Phantoms, toss a bunch of asteroids on your playmat and a few satellite tokens, do a few speed runs around the table shooting all tokens, cloaking and decloaking all the time.

Now do the same for the other ships. It doesn't hurt to get a few practice runs in to familiarize yourself with the dials anyway.

Then take your favourite list and solo play against your desired Imp list.

How about this as your Decimator list?

Rear Admiral Chiraneau (46)

Predator (3)

Ysanne Isard (4)

Rebel Captive (3)

Gunner (5)

Engine Upgrade (4)

Soontir Fel (27)

Push the Limit (3)

Stealth Device (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I really like this list as an Imperial player's perspective. I do own the VT-49 Decimator its a fantastic looking gun boat. The rear Admiral is an awesome pilot. He is tanky as **** and deals a decent amount of dmg with his 360° shooting.

I'll give that Deci list a roll. and the advice to practice shooting down satalites on a table sounds like a great idea. thank you