Beyond the "super carrier" role, which has already been discussed, I'd like to add my voice to the "it's cheap" merits...

I'm still desperate to be able to run a 3-ISD-I list with Motti, as below:

My opinion nowadays is any fleet without a serious anti-bomber (Rhymberball/Fireball/Jan Ors Scurrgstravaganza/B-Wings+Yavaris/whatever) plan is going to get its lunch eaten. I kicked around a few 3 ISD plans prior to the tournament but even running completely-naked ISDs + Motti means you've only got 5 TIEs running interference for you and no reliable plan to get use out of your black dice.

I too was very sceptical of the ISD-1 and Vader, so wanted to try them out for a fun game. Not to repeat too many of the good points above, but I think it was awesome because:

1) ISD 1 requires less upgrades to be effective in its role, allowing me to take 4 ships (ISD, GSD, GSD, Raider) plus fighters for activation advantage.

2) The ISD is an absolute bullet magnet, and your enemy will focus on it allowing your GSDs with Vader rerolls to tear the enemy fleet to pieces (seriously, I used the reroll to get about 6-7 damage per GSD broadside). All the while, the ISD (with Wulfy) can just keep pulling shields back up and dealing the pain when in range.

3) I played plenty of games with the ISD-2, but found a decent opponent would just Intel Officer my brace straight away. Why waste all the points on defence when you can use them to kill the enemy?

Vader really sings with all those black and red dice.

Vader really sings with all those black and red dice.

I find the ISD-I is really the ideal ship for Vader in particular. You want to be able to reroll the blank red and black dice, you don't mind giving up the Contain token to proc the reroll, and you want to be able to reroll any of the blue dice that don't come up Accuracy (because no matter what they roll to they're helping you, although being able to lock down Brace while the blacks and reds do the heavy lifting is ideal). The main problem I have with Vader is fitting in other ships that he synergizes well with that wouldn't be better under someone else (generally Screed and/or just using Ordnance Experts due to the preponderance of black dice Imperial ships).

I don't intend for this to morph into a Vader thread, but I'm hoping in wave 3 they release a ship with some kind of red/black dice battery that really sings with Vader at the helm. The ISD-I is a great start, though.

This was my vader / ISD I fleet lits thread from awhile back. Notice all the ISDII ECM comments... ha

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/199928-you-dont-know-the-power-of-the-dark-side/

Anyways feel free to add your vader lists there

Disclaimer : I've been mainly playing on the Rebel side since Wave 1 and recently switched to the Empire so I may not cover most of the playstyles available

The ISD 1 isn't the centerpiece that the ISD 2 is, namely because of the lack of a defensive retrofit which doesn't allow it to charge recklessly within the center of the battlefield. Due to the lack of the Ion Cannons upgrade as well, the ISD 1 is less effective against bigger ships than the ISD 2, as it will have trouble getting rid of the defense tokens.

Counter intuitively enough, the ISD 1 is actually better at dealing with small ships and fast ships over the ISD 2... Wait, what ? Zen, you can't be serious ! Due to its short range, it's never going to score a shot against a Corvette at anything but red dice range ! Get out of here.

While this is true for the most part, from a Rebel perspective and playing extensively with small ships, medium range isn't that much harder to evade over close range, so the main colour of non red dice is less interesting when it comes to dealing with smaller ships. In addition, smaller ships with evade tokens want to stay away from medium range anyways due to losing a huge benefit of their evade : they can't cancel a dice, but rerolling which is a lot less effective.

What smaller ships hate however, is getting hit with squadrons : at range 1, they won't be able to get the benefits of Evade and Brace and Redirect have much less efficiency dealing with a high number of attacks. At long range, a standard ISD with a squadron command is capable of throwing 4 squadrons base with 2 red dice from its side (where the light ships are going to be). If we use TIE Fighters as a baseline, 4 of them will do an average of 2 damage to a ship, followed by 2 reds from the side dealing 1.5 damage on average, reduced to 0,75 due to the evade.

Considering a Corvette can only tank about 8 damage, it's a third of its health gone in a single activation from the ISD's weak arc with Fighters that aren't properly geared to fighting against ships. In terms of loadouts of fighters, I actually like to have VSD/ISDs command a wing of mixed specialities rather than a purely dedicated wing because it offers different gameplay opportunities (keep in mind that I do that to all my ships). With a 4 squadron ISD, I like to run 1 TIE A, 2 TIE T and 1 TIE B squadrons, sometimes with aces.

Due to the ability to throw 2 offensive retrofit, a ISD 1 can easily fit the Phylon Q7 as well as Expanded Hangars to completely annoy these smaller ships. Where the true bait is is that adversaries will feel more confident diving into medium range of an ISD's side arc and as such be more vulnerable.

Taking full advantage of the ISD 1 though also requires it to aim for the bigger ships that move slow with a predictible flightpath for easy interception, but it requires support. Support both in deployment and support both in target priority. The ISD 1 screams for a double arc on AFMK2s, other SDs, MC80s.

When I field Victories with the ISD, I like to deploy the Victories first and in the center of where I expect the fight to take place, as because of their low speed and good tankiness points for points, they're a good anchor for the battle line, while I deploy my faster ships (ISD, GSD, Raider) on the sides because their speed and maneuvrability are a good asset to catch up where the fight is actually moving towards, as well as decent threat to smaller ships to corral them back towards the Victory.

Due to the lack of the Ion Cannons upgrade as well, the ISD 1 is less effective against bigger ships...

Just a quick note that the ISD-I does actually have Ion Cannon as an upgrade...

Disclaimer : I've been mainly playing on the Rebel side since Wave 1 and recently switched to the Empire so I may not cover most of the playstyles available

The ISD 1 isn't the centerpiece that the ISD 2 is, namely because of the lack of a defensive retrofit which doesn't allow it to charge recklessly within the center of the battlefield. Due to the lack of the Ion Cannons upgrade as well, the ISD 1 is less effective against bigger ships than the ISD 2, as it will have trouble getting rid of the defense tokens.

Counter intuitively enough, the ISD 1 is actually better at dealing with small ships and fast ships over the ISD 2... Wait, what ? Zen, you can't be serious ! Due to its short range, it's never going to score a shot against a Corvette at anything but red dice range ! Get out of here.

While this is true for the most part, from a Rebel perspective and playing extensively with small ships, medium range isn't that much harder to evade over close range, so the main colour of non red dice is less interesting when it comes to dealing with smaller ships. In addition, smaller ships with evade tokens want to stay away from medium range anyways due to losing a huge benefit of their evade : they can't cancel a dice, but rerolling which is a lot less effective.

What smaller ships hate however, is getting hit with squadrons : at range 1, they won't be able to get the benefits of Evade and Brace and Redirect have much less efficiency dealing with a high number of attacks. At long range, a standard ISD with a squadron command is capable of throwing 4 squadrons base with 2 red dice from its side (where the light ships are going to be). If we use TIE Fighters as a baseline, 4 of them will do an average of 2 damage to a ship, followed by 2 reds from the side dealing 1.5 damage on average, reduced to 0,75 due to the evade.

Considering a Corvette can only tank about 8 damage, it's a third of its health gone in a single activation from the ISD's weak arc with Fighters that aren't properly geared to fighting against ships. In terms of loadouts of fighters, I actually like to have VSD/ISDs command a wing of mixed specialities rather than a purely dedicated wing because it offers different gameplay opportunities (keep in mind that I do that to all my ships). With a 4 squadron ISD, I like to run 1 TIE A, 2 TIE T and 1 TIE B squadrons, sometimes with aces.

Due to the ability to throw 2 offensive retrofit, a ISD 1 can easily fit the Phylon Q7 as well as Expanded Hangars to completely annoy these smaller ships. Where the true bait is is that adversaries will feel more confident diving into medium range of an ISD's side arc and as such be more vulnerable.

Taking full advantage of the ISD 1 though also requires it to aim for the bigger ships that move slow with a predictible flightpath for easy interception, but it requires support. Support both in deployment and support both in target priority. The ISD 1 screams for a double arc on AFMK2s, other SDs, MC80s.

When I field Victories with the ISD, I like to deploy the Victories first and in the center of where I expect the fight to take place, as because of their low speed and good tankiness points for points, they're a good anchor for the battle line, while I deploy my faster ships (ISD, GSD, Raider) on the sides because their speed and maneuvrability are a good asset to catch up where the fight is actually moving towards, as well as decent threat to smaller ships to corral them back towards the Victory.

Good post. Very good thoughts about the bombers. Sadly I find that the ISD1s red dice will do very little to corvettes at long range - they will evade the best dice so only one or two remaining will be pretty ineffectual. In return they will be Ackbaring out 4 red dice (CF command), with a guaranteed +2 damage from the TRLCs. The other problem you have is that if you charge them at speed 3 it makes it VERY easy for them to dodge around your sides where you will never catch them (while they keep happily broadsiding you).

Rhymer with a couple of bombers makes this equation much better for the Imperials.

Due to the lack of the Ion Cannons upgrade as well, the ISD 1 is less effective against bigger ships...

Just a quick note that the ISD-I does actually have Ion Cannon as an upgrade...

Good catch ! I was very tired when I wrote that post and what I really wanted to say was that due to only 2 blue dice there wasn't really a good Ion Cannons upgrade for this ship.

We could argue that Screed could work with that though, but looking at a baseline there's isn't really a point in investing points into IOns for an ISD 1.

@Ophion : Yes, the Red dice are likely going to do very little to the Vettes at long range, but throwing fighters + red dice will be very annoying for them I was looking at the side arc, but it's easy to set up a front arc with 3 red dice + 4 x 1 dice with the fighters and be quite damaging (especially if you have a means to secure this red dice damage through things like Vader). Enhanced Armaments could be a good option as well : the Corvette will be able to defend regardless, but the ability to push damage through is quite interesting

Like you said, you'll never catch a Vette with an ISD, it'll just keep zipping around and be a nuisance. You catch Vettes with things that move then shoot, which are squadrons and Demolisher

... but looking at a baseline there's isn't really a point in investing points into IOns for an ISD 1.

I dunno, you could make a strong case for Leading Shots, if you weren't taking Darth Vader or Admiral Screed. For 4 points, I'd be comfortable with that.

Because you know you want to do this at least once in your life:

ISD-I

Flight Controllers

Exp Hangar

Boosted comms

Vader

Fel

Howlrunner

Mauler

Dengar

If the enemy has Gallant Haven, kill it first using your 1st player advantage/98 pt Demolisher

Because you know you want to do this at least once in your life:

ISD-I

Flight Controllers

Exp Hangar

Boosted comms

Vader

Fel

Howlrunner

Mauler

Dengar

If the enemy has Gallant Haven, kill it first using your 1st player advantage/98 pt Demolisher

Not including Counter and Auto damage from fel and mithel...

Right now my 'EZ' mode Imperial list is an ISD II, VSD I, and Demolisher Glad with Motti at the helm. But I can completely see going to an ISD I mix and throwing caution to the wind with no use of ECM. Yeah yeah yeah, there's a lot of dice being thrown, but eventually at speed 3, you'll get into the middle of the muck eventually for black dice. And if you run Motti you've got 14 hull to use during the shenanigans.

I would like to note again, motti makes isd 14 hull. You don't need ecm

Literally (and I mean it in the actual since of the word, not the way kids use it these days!) crash into their largest ship with all three isds blazing. It will die instantly. Then, if you haven't shocked your opponent into a fit of palsy and inaction, turn to face the rest of the fleet.

42 hull is disgusting. I am even leading to the dreaded "op" term. I'll continue some testing, but it is undefeated so far (and that is not a brag or speaking about skill) with little effort other than point and shoot.

Because you know you want to do this at least once in your life:

ISD-I

Flight Controllers

Exp Hangar

Boosted comms

Vader

Fel

Howlrunner

Mauler

Dengar

If the enemy has Gallant Haven, kill it first using your 1st player advantage/98 pt Demolisher

that's what? 25 AA dice a turn?

Not including Counter and Auto damage from fel and mithel...

Vader: 4 blue, 1 black (4 average)

Fel: 6 blue+swarm (3,5 average)

Mithel: 5 blue+swarm (3 average)

Dengar: 5 blue+swarm (3 average)

Howl: 4 blue+swarm (2,5 average)

That's 17 damage (on average*), plus whatever Mithel can do.

*assuming that swarm is more or less equal to an extra blue dice

If they shoot back, Vader will last a round (maybe more, maybe less) with his Counter 1, with Fel maybe doing damage in the process.

Then you get to hit again (Dengar should still be alive) with another (big) fistful of dice and another Mauler strike.

Dengar goes next of course (no counter), with Fel doing more damage in the process.

(add AS from the ISD to taste - and do fleet free to support with a Raider as well)

If there is anything left you can just mop it up...Fel, Mithel and Howl should still be around.

Won't kill no ships, but HUGELY fun

I have flown the ISD-II and ISD-I and I like the 1 far more. The ISD-II takes up a huge swathe of points to make it work well where as the ISD-I can be lightly kitted out to devastating effect.

Sure, it has no ECM slot, but Brace gets stopped a great deal anyway with Intel Officer around.

The points saved by using the ISD-I allow me a third ship in a 2 x ISD list and that is golden.

Tractor Beams are great on the ISD-I, allowing you to hold a slippery opponent in place to be hammered by that big forward arc.

Heavy Turbo Lasers come into play nicely on an ISD-I as well, especially if deployed with Leading Shots. (there is some debate in my mind as to whether Ordnance Experts would be better as I can re-roll Black dice in the side arcs)

Gunnery Teams are not important on an ISD-I as you will rarely have decent dice in range for the second shot, most likely you can use the side arc on the same or another ship.

Concentrate Fire is your friend as it can provide that extra black or blue die when needed.

The ISD-I is also greatly enhanced by using Motti 14 Hull is nothing to be sniffed at, especially when using your shields wisely for redirects.

Finally, with 2 x ISD-I I can afford a Raider-I for Motti to scoot around in, making a wipe much less likely and very solid fighter support. (I prefer 5 Aggressors, but 10 Ties is very doable or combo's therein).

Objective wise, when flying dual ISD-I's, I like Advanced Gunnery, Contested Outpost and Minefields.

Advanced Gunnery is just brutal if applied to an ISD-I, but you must be prepared to evacuate the ISD nominated before it dies as that's 220 points plus upgrades if it dies.

Contested Outpost allows for slow roll shenanigans and a few free VP's in early turns.

Minefields help funnel my opponents onto my guns.

The ISD also has great maneuver capabilities and can be used to turn to react quite well.

This is the list I am currently experimenting with.

Strike Fleet Nemesis
Faction: Galactic Empire

Points: 400/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Minefields

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
- Heavy Turbolaser Turrets ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
- Heavy Turbolaser Turrets ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)

[ flagship ] Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)

5 Aggressor Assault Fighters ( 80 points)

Because you know you want to do this at least once in your life:

ISD-I

Flight Controllers

Exp Hangar

Boosted comms

Vader

Fel

Howlrunner

Mauler

Dengar

If the enemy has Gallant Haven, kill it first using your 1st player advantage/98 pt Demolisher

that's what? 25 AA dice a turn?

Not including Counter and Auto damage from fel and mithel...

Vader: 4 blue, 1 black (4 average)

Fel: 6 blue+swarm (3,5 average)

Mithel: 5 blue+swarm (3 average)

Dengar: 5 blue+swarm (3 average)

Howl: 4 blue+swarm (2,5 average)

That's 17 damage (on average*), plus whatever Mithel can do.

*assuming that swarm is more or less equal to an extra blue dice

If they shoot back, Vader will last a round (maybe more, maybe less) with his Counter 1, with Fel maybe doing damage in the process.

Then you get to hit again (Dengar should still be alive) with another (big) fistful of dice and another Mauler strike.

Dengar goes next of course (no counter), with Fel doing more damage in the process.

(add AS from the ISD to taste - and do fleet free to support with a Raider as well)

If there is anything left you can just mop it up...Fel, Mithel and Howl should still be around.

Won't kill no ships, but HUGELY fun

Haven't used it with Vader and flight controllers yet though...

But you must!

FC+Vader is disgusting. With Exp Hangars and Boosted Comms it gets laughable

Phylons are awesome when facing fast rebels, their use lessons during mirror matches. I stopped taking them because of this.

Phylons are awesome when facing fast rebels, their use lessons during mirror matches. I stopped taking them because of this.

You are probably right, but I think it could be useful in a blue on blue if your opponent is running Demolisher. A few timely tractor beams might stop him from getting an extra black dice attack which could be huge. In any case, I think they are best used in multiples - a single speed change from my lone ISD-1 is less effective.

Phylons are awesome when facing fast rebels, their use lessons during mirror matches. I stopped taking them because of this.

I respectfully disagree. They are useful for slowing down opposing ISD-IIs so they can't escape a pincer attack and are generally quite helpful for zapping Raiders and Gladiators on the approach as well as once they turn and want to accelerate up to catch you. They've got some niche use at slowing down VSDs that are trying to play catch up at speed 2 as well.

I will note that Tractor Beams are infuriatingly bad when you're up vs. an Ozzel fleet that is spamming Navigate, though. Oof, that was a bad experience for me, haha.

ISD-1: Leading Shots, Ord Exp, Vader.

What blanks?

Phylons are awesome when facing fast rebels, their use lessons during mirror matches. I stopped taking them because of this.

I respectfully disagree. They are useful for slowing down opposing ISD-IIs so they can't escape a pincer attack and are generally quite helpful for zapping Raiders and Gladiators on the approach as well as once they turn and want to accelerate up to catch you. They've got some niche use at slowing down VSDs that are trying to play catch up at speed 2 as well.

I will note that Tractor Beams are infuriatingly bad when you're up vs. an Ozzel fleet that is spamming Navigate, though. Oof, that was a bad experience for me, haha.

Of course they have their uses, i like them. I'd still be running them too if i didnt need to skimp on points somewhere. However, if we ever get to battle eachother i have one request:

please slow my ISDs down so i can keep you in my front arc, thanks!