Victories are amazing. Despite the lack of ECM their cost benift at Wave 2 improved significantly. Because it's cheap you have the potential to get massive synergy in upgrades.

The Doom Roller: VSDI, Dominator, Expanded Launcher, xi7, extras can include Intel Officer, Wulf. Use with Screed or Vader, 10 dice front arc, 5 from the side. 15 dice on a double tap! Don't forget Dominator can be used on squadron fire and out of any arc.

Wulf Carrier: Boosted Comms, Wulf, extras can include, Corruptor, Expanded Hanger (I prefer boosted), E-Armament.

Squdron Auto Damage: H9 Turbo, Warlord is auto damage for 1 blue dice. Extras include Quad Laser Turrets, Ruthless strategist for 2 auto damage

Ozzel is actually awsome with Vics. The best way to avoid damage is stay out of arc. If you can end a turn out of range I often stop at 0. So long as they don't move up close AND have first turn you will be fine.

You have two choices. Intercept or run.

Intercepting with a Victory involves knowing when a ship is going to turn. Knowing how to bait ships to turn into or away from you, where it will head, how to pick objectives either yours or theirs to direct their movement.

Running with a Victory involves hiding behind 3-4 bombers and rouges to punish pursuers.

I consider the most important aspect of flying a VSD is how to offset it. Never point it straight at an enemy, offset it so when you turn at spped 2 you will have a close range double arc AND you might even be able to fly past at speed two if you live.

Second is going first. Close range, slow, not survivable. I want to be able to shoot first in case the one shot of Doom Roller is all im going to get.

Dont want to be that guy, but your doom roller is 111 points already. The carnage of that close-range front arc is only existing on paper, as no rebell worth his salt will end up there, ever - let alone double-arcing anything, thats a wet dream never to materialize. And with wave 2 and the lack of ECM, you wont survive long enough to take any advantage from camping an objective.

Squadron auto-damage is 105, for 2 damage/turn at medium range. Plus, the second point of damage only applies if I have squadrons engaged with the targets, so that should be counted in as well. You could get two raider Is with a title and ordnance experts for 104..

The carrier is the only viable build in my opinion, though I would keep him even cheaper. Being points-effective is the only advantage of a VSD at the moment, and as upgrades are costed the same for each ship you are essentially losing that advantage the more upgrades you stack on it. Hangars or comms, finish.

The three main things I do for VSD. I) Asteroid deployments ii) deploy offset angle iii) Never rush in for no reason. I have been running VSD I Wulf Carrier, Glad, Raider, 134 points squad.

I) Asteroids: I pick asteroids and debris without fail. Forget the station. I deploy asteroids down the middle. Straight down. Range 3.5-4. Then 5.5-6. Then left over debris left or right 2 spaces and in between. That way they have to cross the debris. Or avoid it by pointing their nose towards your board.

ii) I never deploy with my rear arc parallel to the deployment edge. Let's call it 45-65 degree. Against-broad siders you cannot turn to evade without creeping foward into long range. Mind you that's because I'm doing squadron commands turn 2 onwards and using Wulf to adjust speed.

Against a conga line I point towards the way they are heading. There is a massive problem for the conga line. They cannot chase you AND shoot you if you are in front at long range. In order to get their side arcs they need to turn left or right to present it. This means they have a hard time catching up. Unless they go speed 3, which is not the best speed for them.

As they chase or turn in I generally do two things. Head for the corner of their board or start to rainbow back to my corner. That way you are either in the front arc running or if they turn to hit you rainbow turn back to the deployment zone. All the while Firsprays/Bossk/Bobba/Vader (all Bomber or double dice) are hitting the front ship. They can't point defense and Akbar at the same time.

III) Never fight a loosing battle. Why send in 3 red dice vs 5? I time my push. They have to move the first. Once it is settled you can swing in at speed 2 or fly to the front. You hopefully landed a double tap. Let's say you landed in side arc. Well that's why I bid for first. I activate first and fly away.

Not to mention other ships like Glads/Raiders for blocking. They can jump over at speed 3 but that separates them and ruins the line. A speed 2 Gup can't jump a well placed Glad.

Dont want to be that guy, but your doom roller is 111 points already. The carnage of that close-range front arc is only existing on paper, as no rebell worth his salt will end up there, ever - let alone double-arcing anything, thats a wet dream never to materialize. And with wave 2 and the lack of ECM, you wont survive long enough to take any advantage from camping an objective.

Squadron auto-damage is 105, for 2 damage/turn at medium range. Plus, the second point of damage only applies if I have squadrons engaged with the targets, so that should be counted in as well. You could get two raider Is with a title and ordnance experts for 104..

The carrier is the only viable build in my opinion, though I would keep him even cheaper. Being points-effective is the only advantage of a VSD at the moment, and as upgrades are costed the same for each ship you are essentially losing that advantage the more upgrades you stack on it. Hangars or comms, finish.

If a ship is max range of a VSD, moves at a minimum of speed 1 semi towards it you can do a speed 2 turn that puts front and side arc in close range.

A tourney winning stratergy needs to involve killing ships. They have to engage something. You can force that engagement. The 'no player worth his salt' is a fallacy in a two player game.

Warlord + H9 is perfectly fine. It has merit against ships too and very much helps the squadron killing. I am testing Ruthless/Quad in our squad heavey meta, def not something for ery day use!

Dont want to be that guy, but your doom roller is 111 points already. The carnage of that close-range front arc is only existing on paper, as no rebell worth his salt will end up there, ever - let alone double-arcing anything, thats a wet dream never to materialize. And with wave 2 and the lack of ECM, you wont survive long enough to take any advantage from camping an objective.

Squadron auto-damage is 105, for 2 damage/turn at medium range. Plus, the second point of damage only applies if I have squadrons engaged with the targets, so that should be counted in as well. You could get two raider Is with a title and ordnance experts for 104..

The carrier is the only viable build in my opinion, though I would keep him even cheaper. Being points-effective is the only advantage of a VSD at the moment, and as upgrades are costed the same for each ship you are essentially losing that advantage the more upgrades you stack on it. Hangars or comms, finish.

I love 'no player worth his salt' comments. As if only one player can effect the outcome of a game.

If a ship is max range of a VSD, moves at a minimum of speed 1 semi towards it you can do a speed 2 turn that puts front and side arc in close range.

A tourney winning stratergy needs to involve killing ships. They have to engage something. You can force that engagement. The 'no player worth his salt' is a fallacy in a two player game.

Warlord + H9 is perfectly fine. It has merit against ships too and very much helps the squadron killing. I am testing Ruthless/Quad in our squad heavey meta, def not something for ery day use!

Reminds me of the (probably made up) conversation between Sparta and Xerxes: "If I conquer your lands, I will enslave your families and raid your cities!" - Spartas reply: "If." The doom roller was already a thing when the GSD (and exp launchers) was first revealed, I have yet to see a player who has chosen this combination more than once. A naked VSD-Is front arc at close range is already a kill zone on its own, and a very cheap and efficient one. Adding upgrades means jeopardizing the efficiency.

Same goes for the Warlord, I simply do not see how this expense will pay off in an average game, especially if going hunting for squadrons.

The Warlord really seems to be made for ship to ship combat rather than hunting squadrons. It's a bit expensive of an upgrade but in essence it turns a red dice to a black dice in terms of pure damage potential (25% chances to double hit).

I feel it's also meant to aim for double arcs, because the card isn't limited to "once per activation" or "once per round". It's got more value on red dice, but I'm not sure that H9 on it is worth the points just to ensure that it procs. I'm going to test it soon without H9 though

You don't have to hunt squadrons. The point of H9 + Warlord is flexibility. The more squadrons somebody takes the better, if they don't have many you can plink, if they have none you can turn up an accuracy to push a lot of damage or vs ECM flip a double. This is not limited to arcs. Time spent flying will help you get two on more consistently.

Victories are amazing. Despite the lack of ECM their cost benift at Wave 2 improved significantly. Because it's cheap you have the potential to get massive synergy in upgrades.

The Doom Roller: VSDI, Dominator, Expanded Launcher, xi7, extras can include Intel Officer, Wulf. Use with Screed or Vader, 10 dice front arc, 5 from the side. 15 dice on a double tap! Don't forget Dominator can be used on squadron fire and out of any arc.

I've got to pick up on this point, although Hesekial has already done a decent job of dismantling it.

A VSD1 with Dominator, EL, X17 comes to 104 points, and that gives you a Speed 2, Shield-3-3-1, 8-hull ship with a single click of yaw and 5 dice at medium range, going up to 10 dice at short range, but both of those figures require dropping 2 points of shields.

For a further 6 points, I can get an Imperial-class Star Destroyer with no upgrades. That gives me a Speed 3, Shield-4-3-2, 11-hull ship with two clicks of yaw, 3 dice at long range, going up to 8 dice at short range.

Let's get a bit of logic on this one:

• The ISD loses you 2 dice at Long and Short range, but with no difference at Medium range.
• At Medium range, the ISD matches the "Doomroller" in terms of firepower without the need to spend two shields to do so.
• The VSD outguns the ISD at Short and Long by 2 dice, but only if it spends its shields.
• Both ships' main defensive option is redirecting damage.
• Assuming the two ships are facing off head-to-head, the VSD will have to redirect damage onto either of its side arcs, at least one of which will have already been weakened by the 'Dominator' effect.
• The ISD cannot redirect more than 1 point of damage due to the VSD's X17 upgrade.
• The ISD is not spending any shields to fire.

• Assuming the VSD rolls maximum damage at close range, it inflicts a total of 18 (5x2 black + 3x2 red) points of damage from its front arc.
• Assuming the ISD rolls maximum damage at close range, it inflicts a total of 14 points of damage from its front arc, with an additional 2 points of damage self-inflicted by the 'Dominator' effect, presumably on one side zone and on the rear zone.
• That gives the VSD an advantage of 2 points of raw damage output from dice.

• Assuming all defensive tokens are available, the VSD Braces its incoming damage down to 7, plus a further 2 from Dominator.
• The VSD then redirects 3 damage onto its none-weakened side hull zone, leaving 4 damage to the front hull zone, which results in the elimination of its front shields and one Critical damage to its hull
• This leaves it with 7 hull remaining, a critical damage effect, 0 shields on its front, rear and one of its side zones, and 2 shields on the other side zone.

• Assuming all defensive tokens are available, the ISD Braces its incoming damage down to 9.
• The ISD then redirects one of that damage to its side arc (the max. due to X17), leaving 8 damage to the front hull zone, which results in the elimination of its front shields and four non-Critical damage due to the use of the Contain token.
• This leaves it with 7 hull remaining, no critical damage effects, 0 shields on its front, 2 shields on one side, 3 shields on the other side, and 2 shields on the rear.

At this point, the ISD is suffering. It won't take another hit like that. But, if the VSD wishes to inflict another hit like that, it will have to keep the 2 remaining shields on that one side arc to do so. And it would have to roll maximum damage over again.

Meanwhile, the VSD is somewhat worse for wear. It has a critical damage effect (which could be extra damage) and it can now only redirect up to 2 damage, meaning the ISD could still finish the VSD off, and have most of its shields remaining, whilst being a faster, more agile ship with a better Squadron rating and no critical effect. More importantly, the VSD can't Redirect if it still wants to finish off the ISD, meaning it has to take all damage coming.

Let's assume accuracies turn up. Specifically, exactly enough accuracies to cancel out both ships defense tokens (excluding Contain), coming from blue dice where possible and red where not:

• The VSD can now inflict a total of 14 (5x2 black, 2x2 red, 2 blue accuracies, 1 red accuracy) damage.
• The ISD can now inflict a total of 10 (3x2 black, 2x2 red, 2 blue accuracies, 1 red accuracy) damage.

The ISD takes 14 damage straight to the noggin, stripping its front zone and putting ten damage right on its hull, but with no critical effect (Contain - if you want to zap Contain, that'll reduce the VSD's damage output by another 2), leaving it with 1 hull remaining, 0 front shields, 3 shields on either side and 2 on the rear.

Meanwhile, the VSD takes 10 damage on its 'ead, lad. That's its front shields gone, it takes 7 damage to the hull, one of which is critical, leaving it with 1 hull remaining, 0 front shields, 2 shields on one side, 3 on another side, and 0 on the rear. Potentially, it may have been destroyed, if that critical damage came up right.

That is about as objective an analysis of your claim as I can manage at a time when I really should be working. Basically, in order to get the VSD even close to defeating an ISD, you have to crank it up to costing almost as much, and it's still just as slow and clumsy as ever. Meanwhile, you can spend another six points and get a naked ISD which will still come out on top (taking critical effects into account), be left with stack loads more shields for other fights elsewhere in the battle, and which can much more easily keep up with faster ships for coordinated strikes.

Or, look at it this way: the tactics you describe, regarding positioning and turns and double-arcing, can all be done more easily with an ISD due to its doubled turn rate. In essence, anything the VSD can do, the ISD can do better. The ISD can do anything better than the VSD. (with the exception of cheap carrier support if that's how you choose to live your life).

Basically:

• Qualitatively the VSD is worse due to its speed and its turns.
• Quantitatively the VSD is worse due to the actual maths involved.

You don't have to hunt squadrons. The point of H9 + Warlord is flexibility. The more squadrons somebody takes the better, if they don't have many you can plink, if they have none you can turn up an accuracy to push a lot of damage or vs ECM flip a double. This is not limited to arcs. Time spent flying will help you get two on more consistently.

To be fair, for anti-squadron duties, I'd rather have a GSD 2 or a dedicated fighter wing than having Warlord + H9. I understand your point about flexibility, but even against ships, 16 points to ensure a single extra damage isn't worth it in my opinion (at 300 points, that's 5% of your fleet and 4% of your fleet total at 400 points). That's a maximum of 10 extra damage over 5 turns assuming you manage to double arc each turn, which is decent but can be easily mitigated by Engineering Commands. Warlord already increases the average damage of Red Dice by 33% (0.75 vs 1) for 10% of the cost of the ship so I'd rather invest in Enhanced Armaments to maximize that, but that's just me. Obivously the analysis is a bit skewed because there's only a single accuracy result per red dice, but considering you only have 12.5% chance of rolling them, rolling at least 2 of them is a statistical improbability (1.56% chance roughly per throw).

I'm not saying this is bad by any means, but 8 points on top of Warlod is way too expensive for my taste. I'd rather invest these 8 points into Rhymer to triple the range of the Bombers which is likely to yield more than 10 damage over the course of the game, assuming I already have a Bomber Wing. That's a sounder investment against ships in my book !

You don't have to hunt squadrons. The point of H9 + Warlord is flexibility. The more squadrons somebody takes the better, if they don't have many you can plink, if they have none you can turn up an accuracy to push a lot of damage or vs ECM flip a double. This is not limited to arcs. Time spent flying will help you get two on more consistently.

To be fair, for anti-squadron duties, I'd rather have a GSD 2 or a dedicated fighter wing than having Warlord + H9. I understand your point about flexibility, but even against ships, 16 points to ensure a single extra damage isn't worth it in my opinion (at 300 points, that's 5% of your fleet and 4% of your fleet total at 400 points). That's a maximum of 10 extra damage over 5 turns assuming you manage to double arc each turn, which is decent but can be easily mitigated by Engineering Commands. Warlord already increases the average damage of Red Dice by 33% (0.75 vs 1) for 10% of the cost of the ship so I'd rather invest in Enhanced Armaments to maximize that, but that's just me. Obivously the analysis is a bit skewed because there's only a single accuracy result per red dice, but considering you only have 12.5% chance of rolling them, rolling at least 2 of them is a statistical improbability (1.56% chance roughly per throw).

I'm not saying this is bad by any means, but 8 points on top of Warlod is way too expensive for my taste. I'd rather invest these 8 points into Rhymer to triple the range of the Bombers which is likely to yield more than 10 damage over the course of the game, assuming I already have a Bomber Wing. That's a sounder investment against ships in my book !

Not to be pedantic, but your math is a little off there. On the VSD front arc you have 1-((1-12.5)^3) = 33% chance of rolling at least one red accuracy, 7.5% chance of rolling at least two.

A naked VSD-Is front arc at close range is already a kill zone on its own, and a very cheap and efficient one. Adding upgrades means jeopardizing the efficiency.

My thinking as well. My current line of thought would solely be to load the Vic with...my mind blanked, that officer that burns tokens to turn your commands to guns or squadrons. That way you can load your command stack with nav and fixy dials, the better to get to the proper firing position and survive the trip there, as well as stockpiling a token or two for when you need to let rip. Only other upgrade would be rapid reload, to bring the broadsides closer to the bow battery's level. After all, even with all the nav commands in the world, driving a Victory means that you're not always going to get your choice of arcs.

You can quickly spend 18 points on a Victory I to give the Victory I effectively 3-Front Arcs... Well, 90% of one, on each side, anyway...

Are you thinking of rapid Reload and Enhanced Armaments?

If so, aren't they both modifications and can't be used together as it's only one modification per ship?

Are you thinking of rapid Reload and Enhanced Armaments?

If so, aren't they both modifications and can't be used together as it's only one modification per ship?

That is an exceptionally good point, and shows that I get things wrong more often than not

Ha, I got all excited about that one as well until I realised the same thing :-)

Now Enhanced Armaments on the front, with Concentrate Fire = 6 Black Dice to the face..... along with the three reds.

Or Rapid reload on the side with Concentrated fire = 3 Black and 2 red :-)

Had a tournament this past Saturday where someone had in their list Enhanced Armaments, Redundant Shields, and Rapid Reload on a MC30, while their MC80 hand the first two as well. Thankfully it was the first game and I was willing to let them change their list. The TO was fine with that as well.

You don't have to hunt squadrons. The point of H9 + Warlord is flexibility. The more squadrons somebody takes the better, if they don't have many you can plink, if they have none you can turn up an accuracy to push a lot of damage or vs ECM flip a double. This is not limited to arcs. Time spent flying will help you get two on more consistently.

To be fair, for anti-squadron duties, I'd rather have a GSD 2 or a dedicated fighter wing than having Warlord + H9. I understand your point about flexibility, but even against ships, 16 points to ensure a single extra damage isn't worth it in my opinion (at 300 points, that's 5% of your fleet and 4% of your fleet total at 400 points). That's a maximum of 10 extra damage over 5 turns assuming you manage to double arc each turn, which is decent but can be easily mitigated by Engineering Commands. Warlord already increases the average damage of Red Dice by 33% (0.75 vs 1) for 10% of the cost of the ship so I'd rather invest in Enhanced Armaments to maximize that, but that's just me. Obivously the analysis is a bit skewed because there's only a single accuracy result per red dice, but considering you only have 12.5% chance of rolling them, rolling at least 2 of them is a statistical improbability (1.56% chance roughly per throw).

I'm not saying this is bad by any means, but 8 points on top of Warlod is way too expensive for my taste. I'd rather invest these 8 points into Rhymer to triple the range of the Bombers which is likely to yield more than 10 damage over the course of the game, assuming I already have a Bomber Wing. That's a sounder investment against ships in my book !

Victories and bombers aren't mutually exclusive. A Victory, ISD, Raider and Bombers can fit in the same list.

H9&Warlord + Generic Bombers is good anti-squadron fire because it's 1 auto + 1 consistent damage that can't be braced. They actually support each other quite well.

I have probably run H9 more than most and find the flexibility better in certain builds, namely Bomber builds. Yes it costs more than most Turbolaser but most do one thing. H9 can actually take pop shots evade ships, crush no ECM sips, auto damage squadron.

Upgrades fit a 3 ship + bomber fleet. You simply cannot make 4 ships + a decent bomber compliment (Imp). You can squeeze in upgrades though. Sure it's cost inefficient on paper but it's is utterly impossible to quantify 'efficiency' and what that even means in a game with innumerable variables.

You don't have to hunt squadrons. The point of H9 + Warlord is flexibility. The more squadrons somebody takes the better, if they don't have many you can plink, if they have none you can turn up an accuracy to push a lot of damage or vs ECM flip a double. This is not limited to arcs. Time spent flying will help you get two on more consistently.

To be fair, for anti-squadron duties, I'd rather have a GSD 2 or a dedicated fighter wing than having Warlord + H9. I understand your point about flexibility, but even against ships, 16 points to ensure a single extra damage isn't worth it in my opinion (at 300 points, that's 5% of your fleet and 4% of your fleet total at 400 points). That's a maximum of 10 extra damage over 5 turns assuming you manage to double arc each turn, which is decent but can be easily mitigated by Engineering Commands. Warlord already increases the average damage of Red Dice by 33% (0.75 vs 1) for 10% of the cost of the ship so I'd rather invest in Enhanced Armaments to maximize that, but that's just me. Obivously the analysis is a bit skewed because there's only a single accuracy result per red dice, but considering you only have 12.5% chance of rolling them, rolling at least 2 of them is a statistical improbability (1.56% chance roughly per throw).

I'm not saying this is bad by any means, but 8 points on top of Warlod is way too expensive for my taste. I'd rather invest these 8 points into Rhymer to triple the range of the Bombers which is likely to yield more than 10 damage over the course of the game, assuming I already have a Bomber Wing. That's a sounder investment against ships in my book !

Victories and bombers aren't mutually exclusive. A Victory, ISD, Raider and Bombers can fit in the same list.

H9&Warlord + Generic Bombers is good anti-squadron fire because it's 1 auto + 1 consistent damage that can't be braced. They actually support each other quite well.

I have probably run H9 more than most and find the flexibility better in certain builds, namely Bomber builds. Yes it costs more than most Turbolaser but most do one thing. H9 can actually take pop shots evade ships, crush no ECM sips, auto damage squadron.

Upgrades fit a 3 ship + bomber fleet. You simply cannot make 4 ships + a decent bomber compliment (Imp). You can squeeze in upgrades though. Sure it's cost inefficient on paper but it's is utterly impossible to quantify 'efficiency' and what that even means in a game with innumerable variables.

I never argued that on an absolute way it was cost inefficient I was saying that, subjectively, I found it very expensive for the poor performance increase this combo brings. 1 auto damage against squadrons work only if you put Point Defense Reroute (and I really hope you didn't if you already spent 16 points on H9 with Warlord), and then again it's more a 90% chance. (75% chance of either getting a hit or accuracy + 25% reroll into 75% chance which is actually about 93.75%).

No argument about running the VSDs with the Bombers, it's a pretty good combo. But yes, you simply can make a decent bomber compliment with 4 ships (2 Vics, 1 Raider, 1 Gladiator fit major Rhymer and 4 Bombers no problemo, and I'm not talking about naked ships).

And, even though you can't qualify objective inefficiency, you can measure any combo relatively to other stuff :

- For anti-ship : 18 points gets you 2 TIE Bombers for 2 black dice or 2 damage on average

- For anti-squadron : 16 points brings you 4 TIE Fighters, for 6 blue dice or 3 damage on average (with no swarm counted)

But let's be more precise here. I'm not criticizing Warlord at all nor am I criticizing the H9 Turbolasers at all (I use them often of my CR90As and even though it may sound like a bad investment, it pays off when you roll 3 dice and activate last with Concentrate Fire). I'm just unsure about the combo with H9.

For 8 points, it's once again 1 Bomber and 1 TIE Fighter, with the Bomber still averaging the same damage output as the H9 and the TIE Fighter doing 60% more average damage on a single squadron. I'll grant you that Warlord + H9 Turbos have the ability to target multiple squadrons in one volley so there is a multiplier effect here.

Also, your point about flexibility is interesting and I can get behind that. Except I found in Armada that putting upgrades that affect dice in different manners makes for a less efficient ship. Warlord wants to do damage and throw accuracies out of the window, and Warlord gets its accuracies from being in blue range. Warlord also mitigates rolling low damage and high accuracies on a key roll. I'd rather have my ships have an edge in something (without being too specialized) than be half efficient generalists

I never argued that on an absolute way it was cost inefficient I was saying that, subjectively, I found it very expensive for the poor performance increase this combo brings. 1 auto damage against squadrons work only if you put Point Defense Reroute (and I really hope you didn't if you already spent 16 points on H9 with Warlord), and then again it's more a 90% chance. (75% chance of either getting a hit or accuracy + 25% reroll into 75% chance which is actually about 93.75%).

You don't need Point-D-Reroute. If you get a Crit you H9 it into an Accuracy. You then Warlord that into a Hit. Two cards only. Expensive yes. But it is one of a few guaranteed damages that you can dish out so I would expect to pay for it.

I'm not disagreeing it's expensive or inefficient and nor is my next argument an exercise in polemics but your extra bombers/ties can't be compared in a vacuum.

Adding two Ties/Bomber for the 16 points sounds great. I have a cheaper ship and more squadrons. But now you've add a whole layer of complexity that isn't immediately apparent when you just compare Card vs Card, Dice vs Dice.

* How am i going to command those Ties? If i have 1 Rhymer and X Bombers I probably need that Squadron X Value for my Bombers. Can i active them all off one command? Probably not if I'm doing a bomber list

* If i don't command the extra Ties they are less effective. If i do my Tie Bombers are less effective.

* 3 Hull squadrons will definitely be killed. They might serve their purpose just by pinning, hopefully trading but I've lost 16 points. Am i more likely to loose my VSD compared to 2 Ties? Depends on how you plan on flying i guess!

* My Ties don't interact well with ships, by my H9 does.

* An extra Tie bomber suffers from the same issue of Command inefficiency if the numbers aren't matched. Will you be able to fight with it? Absolutely. But it will suffer from move or shoot issues.

I'm not saying it's not valid to run more Ties, i think that is perfectly reasonable. Extra deployment, extra dice, extra squadron options. But it's not as if they don't come with their own issues.

And i think this has to be the single most lengthy discussion on H9 ever

I think the VSD loosing dominance is a good thing - that's not the real Star Destroyer! ISDs are the point of the game (well, for the Empire)!

I think the VSD loosing dominance is a good thing - that's not the real Star Destroyer! ISDs are the point of the game (well, for the Empire)!

While I do love my ISD / GSD combos, a speed 3 medium would round things out nicely.

I think the VSD loosing dominance is a good thing - that's not the real Star Destroyer! ISDs are the point of the game (well, for the Empire)!

While I do love my ISD / GSD combos, a speed 3 medium would round things out nicely.

Quite - one of my big hopes for Wave 3 is that we get at least one more Medium ship for each side - as an Imperial player, I feel I've already got all the small ships I need, and nothing matches the ISD for cool-factor, but I'd love something a bit more "cruisery".

Given how popular Fractalsponge's art is, a Procursator class might work as a "maximum size Medium ship"

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Procursator-class_Star_Destroyer

though it might be a bit cramped on a Medium base.

I think the VSD loosing dominance is a good thing - that's not the real Star Destroyer! ISDs are the point of the game (well, for the Empire)!

While I do love my ISD / GSD combos, a speed 3 medium would round things out nicely.

Quite - one of my big hopes for Wave 3 is that we get at least one more Medium ship for each side - as an Imperial player, I feel I've already got all the small ships I need, and nothing matches the ISD for cool-factor, but I'd love something a bit more "cruisery".

I think this is what you want more:

Considering it breaks with imperial doctrine of having it's primary armament on the sides, and has fewer guns forward, it could potentially go toe to toe with the mon cal's and assault frigates that are more brawlers. Not to mention it's fast and would have a very nice fighter ability.

Plus it's mega canon.

Given how popular Fractalsponge's art is, a Procursator class might work as a "maximum size Medium ship"

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Procursator-class_Star_Destroyer

though it might be a bit cramped on a Medium base.

Bit too similar to an ISD, no?

Tell you what should be on a medium base - Home One. Looks silly on the large base. Of course, my preferred solution is to make the ship bigger (much bigger), but that's LFL's prerogative.

I think this is what you want more:

Considering it breaks with imperial doctrine of having it's primary armament on the sides, and has fewer guns forward, it could potentially go toe to toe with the mon cal's and assault frigates that are more brawlers. Not to mention it's fast and would have a very nice fighter ability.

Plus it's mega canon.

Nah, this is a mega cannon!

Oh, you said canon...