It's not just the Imperials who suffer from a point ceiling. It is just a suggested limit for tournaments and as time passes I think we'll see higher point tournaments also.We just need to continue to give feedback to Fantasy Flight how we feel about this.

This VSD outfit takes place in nearly any of my imperial lists:

VSD I
- Corrupter
- Expanded Hangar Bay
- Assault Concussion Missiles

+ Major Rhymer

+ 3x TIE Bomber Squadrons

Tactic: Fly directly into the main combat zone and put some black dice damage out. Using a few Squadron commands to drop Rhymer were he belongs.

With ISDs on the table, dont forget the 8 hull zones, 6 dice front arc and the very low point cost (73) of a Victory.

Well, I haven't faced a proper fireball yet, so I can't comment on it in game specficifically. Theoretically though...

Again, I should re-state: it's not that I can't deal with Fireballs (or whatever balls), it's just annoying that I have to.

And I understand the notion of "you've paid for the squadron stat, you should use it", but that could arguably apply to just about everything on a ship, including the Rear-arc battery. It would be a mistake to engineer my tactics to take advantage of something that I don't need to, just because it's there.

Given that issuing the Squadron Command means that, by definition, I'm not performing any other kind of command that turn, including Navigate (the token for which is alone worth a great deal) and Repair, I need to know that by doing so, I'm getting the most out of it, which means taking a significant Squadron formation, which means fewer points on ships, which means fewer ships to play with, which means less fun for me.

It's not that I hate squadrons, it's not that I think they're an inferior strategy - they aren't. But commanding ships is what I enjoy, I love figuring out the best kind of manoeuvre to make, the difficult choice between which speed is most appropriate and at what time, careful positioning to get the most out of my arcs, and squadrons don't offer that same level of complexity - although I will admit that they have a complexity of execution all of their own.

Back to the discussion on the Victory, Armada is a game which elicits the same question from me every time I consider adding something to a list:

"But what could I have instead?"

In the case of the Victory, the consensus is that I need to take fighters with it to get the most out of it. Which means, if I'm going to spend, say, 120 points all-in on the ship, the upgrades, and the fighters, here's what I could be taking instead:

• Another Gladiator with an Ordnance upgrade, which is a great, fun ship, and a Raider with Instigator to deal with fighters.
• An ISD with an upgrade or two - a big, powerful, angry space triangle which is tremendous fun to fly and use.
• Two naked Gladiators - see above.

I'm not saying that any of those options are better tactical choices. But I will enjoy using them a lot more.

Boy, I'm loving my Vic I as a carrier first, area denial 2nd, and ship smacking last build. In the first half of the game it's about its ability to extend the fighter cover and then 2nd half just get into the muck throwing dice.

Basically against it, you have to decide if your primary goal is to hit the Vic or ISD in the list. Go for the VSD, and you'll suffer my Imp closing the gap. Go for the Imp, the Vic will punish your fighters and/or lay down support fire.

It's most definitely not dead yet.

VSD's are my best bet against Ackbar right now. I built a list just for fun (and maybe despair) with three of them, the Tarkin-liason combo and almost 130 points on squads. ****! Three games three wins. I am falling in love with it!

@jhox : I'm not arguing whether it's better to fly fun things or efficient things, I've quite clearly understood so far that the fun factor is more important to you and I have no intention of arguing against that

My points are for people who are interested into getting the most out of their Victory class Destroyers.

And to echo your point about the rear arc and my comment about "you paid for the stat then you should use it" : either I'm completely unable to carry my point in English, either you're not reading my posts properly I never said that "you paid for it then you have to use it", what I meant was "you paid for it, so if you have no way to take advantage of it when it's tactically sound to do so, you're doing it wrong". It's not because you paid for Squadron 3 that you have to have Squadron Commands every turn, but if you have no way to take advantage of it (aka no squadron dedicated to be activated by this ship) when the tactical analysis urges you to do so, then you've given a weakness for your opponent to exploit. The "you" in these sentences isn't specifically referring to you, it was more of a general you. Much like the rear arc actually : you're not planning on using the rear arc all the time but sometimes you should take advantage of being able to use it.

Bottom line : I think that each ship should have a CAP with as many squadrons as it can activate. If it does not, it's exposing a void in their strategic options which an opponent can take advantage of.

If you find it more fun to bring less squadrons and more ships, more power to you man But fun isn't what I'm talking about.

VSD's are my best bet against Ackbar right now. I built a list just for fun (and maybe despair) with three of them, the Tarkin-liason combo and almost 130 points on squads. ****! Three games three wins. I am falling in love with it!

Winning against Ackbar with VSDs ? You're braver than I thought !

I like how this post illustrates the advantages of having squadrons to activate. Ackbar without squadrons to defend means that it's begging to be gang banged by a swarm of TIEs of different flavours.

VSD's are my best bet against Ackbar right now. I built a list just for fun (and maybe despair) with three of them, the Tarkin-liason combo and almost 130 points on squads. ****! Three games three wins. I am falling in love with it!

Winning against Ackbar with VSDs ? You're braver than I thought !

I like how this post illustrates the advantages of having squadrons to activate. Ackbar without squadrons to defend means that it's begging to be gang banged by a swarm of TIEs of different flavours.

Two Ackbar's and one Mothma's. Of course three games are not enough but is the most encouraging scenario I had for weeks XD. The funny thing is that I won against heavy squadrons list too.

At this moment Tarkin 2-0 Ackbar. It explain why we lost on episode vi... Tarkin was already dead

Concerning the above comments. Just played in a 23 person tourney yesterday. First game went 9-1 vs Akbar (x2 Gup, Cr90, Mc80), objective DT. List was VSD I, Raider I, Glad I, 133 points Squads and Ozzel. Killed Cr90, Gup, Mc80. Lost nothing.

Akbar is easy with VSD carrier. They have to fly formation, it makes interception and avoidance simple. You put Rhymer, Bobba, x2 Firespray in the front arc of any ship wtf are they going to do. Shoot my Bombers and not Akbar. If they go three ship + squadrons (they won't have many) then Dengar, Advanced, Bossk Bobba and x2 Firesprays, Raider cut them down instantly.

Their mistake was no squadrons but even if they cut a something they would have had little. If they cut an Mc80 they have no significant tanking/firepower. Akbar didn't make the top 4. (Don't know what the highest placing was)

Great victories on the fishmen !

It really seems to show how much squadrons are important, and I feel how it is to have as much (or at least as close as you can get) squadrons as your ships can activate. Which means : going larger ships means taking more squadrons.

Sorry to be monomaniac about that aspect, but I'm starting to feel like this is mandatory for every ship (and not just the VSD which is arguably one of the strongest platform for squadrons).

Sorry to be monomaniac about that aspect, but I'm starting to feel like this is mandatory for every ship (and not just the VSD which is arguably one of the strongest platform for squadrons).

Agree.

I wrote in your "Squadron Maxing" but the results were as follows. 1st x3 Glad, ISD II Motti, no squad!, 2nd Vic/ISD Motti/134 Squads (no fireball), 3rd (me) Vic/Raider/Glad/Ozzel/133 Squads (fireball), 4th Yavaris/Guppy/MC30/122 points Squads (scurgg bombers).

Look out for the SpaceCon Report i'm doing! It was such an awesome event. The turnout (23) was bigger/as big as the nationals last year i'm told. This points to the expontional growth of the game in our area. Squadrons dominated the top spots and non squadron lists...with one exception...first place(1) which was the Gencon Spacecon Special. That list 10-0 a Squadron list.

3 even 2 ship lists with max squads are frequently top placing well above Akbar and 3 ship/squad mixed. I'll try find out what the highest Akbar was as there were at least 4 maybe 5 Akbar lists.

I'll check it out once you've published it, and I'll watch your report with great interest. I don't want to derail this thread any further, but as I said I'm primarily a Rebel player and even I used to not maximize the squadron activations. But then I wrote a 400 points list that had these squadrons maxing all activations of the ships I wanted to field and it actually looks much better on paper even if I'm one ship short.

Using this thread as a bit of a launching off point, I decided to try running some Imperials, specifically the VSD.

I tried this in a few different methods: First one I ran the following list for a casual game and then a League game that I played.

VSDII

- Dominator

- Heavy Turbolaser

- SW7 Ion

- Tractor Beam

VSDI

- Tractor Beam

with 2 Raider I's for support, one of which held Tarkin, and the other held just a Ordinance Expert, and 70-some points of anti-fighter squadron cover. Overall, it worked pretty well. First game was against a list similar to Clontroper's Raider swarm in the World Cup, and fought to a bloody stalemate - I think he won with a 13 point or so MOV. Second game was against an Reeikan / Home One list by splashing the MC80, MC30, and dodging an AFII.

Overall thoughts: I used Heavy Turbos maybe once with the VSDII - probably a better fit with the VSDI, but I was using that as a (relatively) cheap distraction / blocker. SW7s were used slightly more, but still only maybe 2 times in one game did they get considered. Tractor Beams were worth their weight in solid gold - they were directly responsible for multiple kills being ferried directly into the VSD's kill zones.

So I went to my local Winter Kit tournament with a different plan in mind:

Victory II

- Dominator

- Tractor Beam

Victory I

- Tractor Beam

Gladiator I

- Insideous

- Ordinance Expert

Raider I

- Grand Moff Tarkin

TIE Fighter x2

TIE Interceptor x2

Howlrunner

Soontir Fel

This was a good combination. I figured I'd be getting 2nd player a lot with 399 points worth of bid, so I stacked the deck with Opening Salvo (For hunting big game), Contested Outpost (Thank you for 60 points), and Intel Sweep (Thank you for the 75 points [and/or easy kill]).

First game was kind of a 'meh' fight against a kitted out ISDII with Motti, kitted out Warlord VSDII and a VSDI and no fighters. Still managed to fight it to a stalemate with the other player's opening salvo, 8 pt MOV for them (5-5) after my VSD, GSD, and Raider went to flank their VSDII and knocked it out of the fight - only to find the ISD had turned away from my decoy VSDI and was bearing down on the group. Ended up with the enemy Warlord dead, my Raider and GSD dead, and damage cards on everything else for 50% point value of the ship.

Second game went more my way - again I was second player (but not by choice) and picked Minefields, confident that my VSDs could crash through and not take any significant damage. I was up against an ISDI w/ Screed (and lots of upgrades), a VSDI with ACMs, and a Demolisher, as well as all 3 non-Dengar named Villain fighters. Game ended with me anihilating his Demolisher with Dominator, then trading the VSDII for his ISD. 8-2 win with 199 MOV.

Final fight can be seen here. No audio at the start though. I was up with 13 points against the tournament leader with 15 points. This was against a B-Wing swarm Garm lead MC80 / AFII. We went Gunnery Teams of all things as I was interested in seeing how it would work with Dominator. Answer - pretty well. Squadrons held up well, but more importantly for this thread, both VSDs were able to do considerable damage to the AFII and then to the MC80 that was trying its best to hide in the back. Not sure it was the best fight to observe for maneuvering - it was basically a carrier list that was trying to fight with guns. Wound up winning that one and taking the tournament.

Final thoughts for the Tournament:

I really, really missed SW7s on Dominator. I want to get those back on somehow. Either way though, it makes for a 106 point death machine - I am pretty sure everything that I have pointed one at has died in one way or another. Tractor Beams were not used very often in the tournament, but when they were they were well worth their points. 12 points I did not mind investing in. VSDI continued to feel a bit naked when it did get into the thick of battle, but it was usually a flaming wreck (while coaxing important shots away from Dominator), so I don't feel too bad there.

Non-VSD thoughts were that squadrons were very good for what they are there to do (thanks Doobleg for the composition that I shamelessly stole from your World Cup list). Tarkin is hilariously fun as a weird turbo Garm - the right free tokens at the right time saved my bacon in a few places. I didn't use Insideous once - wasted points there.

Final fight can be seen here.

I missed the stream last night, but that was... painful. Ouch. The way he drove that AF2 right into the danger zone, it was like he was tired of living.

Did you not miss Gunnery Teams in any of your matches?

Final fight can be seen here.

I missed the stream last night, but that was... painful. Ouch. The way he drove that AF2 right into the danger zone, it was like he was tired of living.

Did you not miss Gunnery Teams in any of your matches?

Same question from me. Appreciate your sharing!

Hehe, yeah, "Tired of Living" is about the whole of it Both the AFII and MC80 were going way to slow to stop what I was setting up for them. On the other hand, the AFII was just camping out on the station like it was contested outpost, which made it slightly harder to kill.. My best guess for his plans were that he was expecting to tank whatever I threw at him while his bombers ripped apart my ships. Not the best and brightest of plans, in retrospect.

I was expecting this MC80 to set up behind the AFII, and was posting Insideous to run behind where I thought it would pop up, instead Insideous got to pop up directly into his MC80 front arc, and things went down hill for him from there.

Did you not miss Gunnery Teams in any of your matches?

I actually didn't miss Gunnery Team at all - I was going for concentrated fire on specific targets and was maneuvering my VSDs to try and get multiple shots on the same target from multiple arcs. The only time I really wanted Gunnery was when I had Advanced Gunnery in the streamed game - and took good advantage of my ability to shoot different arcs of the same ship, and that's not quite the same thing.

I have to say that I'm still enjoying using my VSD. I don't get a lot of game time so my Wave 2 fleet is essentially my Wave 1 fleet with a few extras.

So Demolisher with APT and Ord Exp, a kitted out ISD 2, and my go to carrier VSD 1 with Expanded Hangers and Flight Controllers.

What does the VSD fly? ....Howlrunner, Dengar and 3 Interceptors. (6 blues on attack and 4 blue on counter is just priceless)

It's cheap, has 10 hull (I use Motti) and is always my first activation. It's my sacrificial flanker to the ISD, It takes the hits from activating first (to get the fighter alpha strike off) and moving into range allowing the ISD and Demolisher to do their work. It also deploys first to allow my squadrons to take the next few deployments.

I just played in a Store Championships yesterday and came second. On the way I faced a 133 pt Rhymer ball with a few friends (first time he lost them all) and a six rebel ace list (with Haven, Yavaris etc). I also managed a 9-1 against a no squadron ISD plus 3 GSD list. (the fighters got three hits in on his Demolisher flying close to my ships to avoid anti squadron fire).

In the run up to the tourney I considered swapping the flight controllers over to the ISD and changing out the VSD but I needed a tough ship to activate first and allow the ISD to go last. Can't beat a VSD1 as a first activation carrier.

Tarkin 3-0 Ackbar

XD