Hey everybody. Just recently got into Armada, and after playing a few games with the wife and some friends, I'm looking to start playing at my FLGS and maybe some tournaments. I've spent a lot of time lurking, and think I've come up with a pretty competitive build, but would love to get some feedback before I take this show on the road.

Faction: Galactic Empire

Points: 400/400

Commander: Admiral Screed

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Minefields

Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Admiral Screed ( 26 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Demolisher ( 10 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)

4 TIE Advanced Squadrons ( 48 points)

My primary goal with this build is to have something that's flexible, aggressive, and fun to play with. I know that no one build is good against everything, but ideally I'd like to be competitive against all comers, so I can stick with one lineup and work on improving my play.

I figured 4 squadrons of TIE Advanced was the bare minimum I could go with to slow down fighter-heavy lists while still retaining some usefulness against an all-ship opponent. The Raiders also feel like they want Assault Proton Torpedoes to really take advantage of Screed, but I don't see where I can spare the points for them, since everything else feels pretty essential.

Any feedback would be great. Thanks!

On the gladiator I would drop Ordnance Experts, imo they are redundant with Screed to proc APT's when you roll. Granted it's only on one attack per ship, it's also one face up damage card you can deal. By dropping the Ordnance Experts on the raiders gives you the points to give them APT's. This also puts you two points under 400 for a bit of a bid. They would lose a bit of effectiveness against squadrons without Ordnance Experts. Depending on how you roll with the Black dice it's also possible to use Screed on your second attack if you have one. So the New list would look like this:

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 398/400

Commander: Admiral Screed

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Minefields

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Admiral Screed ( 26 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Demolisher ( 10 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)

4 TIE Advanced Squadrons ( 48 points)

If you still want Ordnance Experts you can remove Intel Officer from the ISD and give the Raiders back that upgrade. That would then bring you 399 Points.

Very nice build! I can definitely see this being competitive.

I agree with Spaceman on the removal of Ordnance Experts. On a raider, you only have two black dice. Screed will be more than enough to guarantee plenty of damage. with a gladiator, you'll have to be insanely unlucky to roll 4 blanks. With screed you'll average 4+ damage (plus a face up).

Your main weakness is the lack of squadrons. 4 TIE Advanced is a good token shield and should be able to hold up a fireball for a turn or two, it'll all come down to precise positioning and eliminating enemy ships as fast as possible.

Would love to see how this fleet pans out.

You take Ordnance Experts on Raiders for the Anti-Squadron dice.

You take Ordnance Experts on Raiders for the Anti-Squadron dice.

That's cool, never thought about that before. I'd still take APT over Ord Exp though. Black dice have a 75% chance of damaging a squadron. Those odds are good enough in my books.

You take Ordnance Experts on Raiders for the Anti-Squadron dice.

Then you drop intel officer on the ISD and take Ordnance experts on the Raiders with APTs problem solved.

With that much potential damage on the board, I'd also recommend shifting around to fit Avenger on the ISD, if possible, or maybe swap the XI7's for SW-7's. If you roll a fistful of blue accuracies, you can lock out whatever tokens the opponent has left, then convert the remainder into damage. If you activate the ISD last, your opponent has to choose between sucking eight black dice to the face and save the tokens for the ISD, or use up their tokens and take a guaranteed five damage from Avenger.

Thanks for the feedback everybody!

On the gladiator I would drop Ordnance Experts, imo they are redundant with Screed to proc APT's when you roll. Granted it's only on one attack per ship, it's also one face up damage card you can deal.

I agree with Spaceman on the removal of Ordnance Experts. On a raider, you only have two black dice. Screed will be more than enough to guarantee plenty of damage. with a gladiator, you'll have to be insanely unlucky to roll 4 blanks. With screed you'll average 4+ damage (plus a face up).

Did a little bit of experimenting this weekend, and I definitely agree with the removal of ordinance experts. Not to say that they aren't useful, but especially on the Raiders, more often than not they just aren't improving damage output when I also have Screed to get that hit/crit. Since Screed makes you burn a die to get the result, a marginal improvement on the worst die doesn't matter when you're discarding it anyway. I was really surprised that even the Gladiator's side arc doesn't usually see a big improvement with ordinance experts when I already have Screed.

You take Ordnance Experts on Raiders for the Anti-Squadron dice.

This was where I felt the absence of ordinance experts a bit. Not having it really felt like it knocked me down from getting 2 anti-squadron hits pretty consistently to 1 hit. Don't think it's worth the points for that alone, but I did notice.

Do you find the advanceds do better than say 6 regular tie squadrons?

With that much potential damage on the board, I'd also recommend shifting around to fit Avenger on the ISD, if possible, or maybe swap the XI7's for SW-7's. If you roll a fistful of blue accuracies, you can lock out whatever tokens the opponent has left, then convert the remainder into damage. If you activate the ISD last, your opponent has to choose between sucking eight black dice to the face and save the tokens for the ISD, or use up their tokens and take a guaranteed five damage from Avenger.

I could see the combination of Avenger/SW-7's being really good especially if I swapped the Raiders to Raider-II's with overload pulse. The only problem I have with Avenger shenanigans is that I don't like being tied to a specific activation order, since my opponent is often really motivated to get whatever is square in the sights of my ISD out of the way, which is easier for them if I'm moving it last.

Do you find the advanceds do better than say 6 regular tie squadrons?

I haven't gone up against any really heavy squadron lists yet, so it may be too early to tell. But I do like the extra bulk the advanceds give, since regular TIEs just feel sooo fragile. Can't tell you how many times I've had one get vaped in a single turn by an X-wing rolling 3 hits (which out of 4 die, isn't all that unlikely). I also like being able to activate all my fighters with just a single command from my ISD, and let the rest of the fleet do its thing. Since I'm not doing a lot with only 48 points of squadrons either way, my theory is I'd rather have something with the bulk to hold enemy fighters in place until I can get a raider in position to hose down the swarm.

But I'd definitely welcome any ideas about squadron composition. Anyone have any reliable generalist squadron lists they like to run ~50 points?