Hey guys,

I'm happy with my bare bones Rebel squad list (1x Jan, 3x X-Wing) for when I want to go capital ship heavy. I don't know what to do with my Imps as I love going ship heavy! I want a list that can handle/ TIE up anything that comes my way (Rhymerballs, B-wings, X-Wing/Jan combos etc)

What are your thoughts and suggestions?

Obviously want most bang for buck whilst having enough to check squadron heavy builds.

Cheers!

3 x TIE/Int, Howlrunner, Dengar. Not super cheap, but five blue dice on the attack and Counter 4. The only problem with light Imperial builds are the three damage capacity on fighters and interceptors.

You could also take some Bombers or Advanceds and Ruthless Strategists, and the Bombers can pack a mean punch when going on offense.

You will hardly ever get counter 4 as the enemy will just attack Howlrunner or Dengar first.

4 Tie-Int is my preference. You don't really need intel. Once engaged they are happy chewing on fighters and using counter 2 with a reroll to get more kills. Adding Howlrunner or Dengar gets expensive and unless you take 2 Tie Advanced to get the escort rule they get picked on.

I have used Darth Vader on his own in the nuisance role. He can kill a fighter or two so making his points back as long as you don't pile into a massed swarm. He is reasonably tough with the braces. IG-88 can do a similar thing and is better at picking on a choice target like killing Rymer from the middle of a fireball, ignoring escort. It is just a shame he only has one defence token.

Has anyone tried 2-4 agressors? Useful in a list without a carrier such as a mix of GSDs and Raiders. The rogue rule lets them move around without squadron command support but they are pricy. With 5 hull and counter 1 they may stick around a while.

The only problem with IG-88 is that he doesn't have enough damage output to kill that essential target in one shot. He only has four blues, five with Flight Controllers (which is investing more points into the escort). So he can get a reliable two, but that means round after round of fire into any named squadron, because they'll just Brace that down to one. He's a cool concept, and looks like an awesome assassin, but he just won't play out that way. Now, you could combine him with Ruthless Strategists, Mauler Mithel and Boba Fett (though Boba would have to be at range one when he activates), but you're talking 62 points for just the squadrons, plus RS AND having the RS ship in range. Assassinating the one target in a Rhymerball just isn't possible if your opponent has Escorts (which they should have). He can definitely help in taking out that target, but he's not going to do it without a lot of assistance. He's better to sneak in and do that last point of damage on Jan Ors or Rhymer after several AS salvos from ships (or softening the target up before said AS salvos).

And if your opponent does not have an Intel ship, those TIE/Ints can lock down the enemy squadrons while you keep Howlrunner and Dengar either unengaged or only engaged with a few fighters. Or they can spend significantly more shots taking down those two, while leaving your more damaging fighters (that are far easier to kill) alive to wreck them next turn. It's not that you're GOING to get Counter 4, it's that the THREAT of Counter 4 forces your opponent to target the two fighters with defense tokens, leaving your Interceptors to continue doing their high damage next turn. And Howlrunner gives the Ints 5 blue dice for their alpha strike with a Swarm re-roll, so you should average about three damage, or five damage per pair. So you can trash the two Escorts that most Intel blobs will have. Your opponent puts all of their fire into Howlrunner and Dengar, then next turn you destroy the Intel ship and your opponent's fighters are completely locked down, their numbers reduced, and still against Counter 2.

Four Aggressors could be useful. It's a slightly slower version of the four YT-2400 blob I hear a lot of Rebel admirals discussing. One speed slower and one fewer hull per ship, but Counter 1.

Yep the Aggressor's counter 1 doesn't really equate point wise to +1 hull and +1 speed.

Perhaps upgrading one Tie-Int to Sontir Fel in your suggestion of 3 x TIE/Int, Howlrunner, Dengar would be a good way to get counter 4 (with a reroll) as the enemy might prefer to take out Fel first rather than suffer auto hits from attacking other targets. Fel also has 2 defence tokens and inflicting 5 dice + reroll on your activation plus several volleys of 4 dice + reroll counter attacks before he dies could easily tip the dogfight.

Has anyone tried 2-4 agressors? Useful in a list without a carrier such as a mix of GSDs and Raiders. The rogue rule lets them move around without squadron command support but they are pricy. With 5 hull and counter 1 they may stick around a while.

I've run 3 or 4 Aggressors and it works out fine. Particularly so if you've got some flak available from Raiders and the like. The main question you should be asking when you're just stuffing Aggressors into lists is "is this a better idea than twice as many TIE Fighters?" The answer largely comes down to what your ship build is and if it can afford to spend a turn or two going nuts with Squadron commands to get the alpha strike with TIEs, which makes them much better.

My default "minimum" squadron coverage is 48 points pushed into 6 TIEs or 3 Aggressors, though. Preferably more. My ISDs go down to bomber blobs persistent chipping away much more frequently than they do to other capital ships and insufficient fighter coverage causes big problems.

Mauler

Vader

Soontir

Reliably ties down almost anything, is pretty killy, has a good amount of auto damage and only 54pts. You can make it 44pts by swapping Vader for an advanced but then loses the durability and hard hitting nature of Vader(especially as he's a threat against ships as well).

I have been using 4 tie interceptors recently (44pts). Just taking tie fighters works too. 5 or 6 can actually pack a punch en masse, can even strip sheilds from a ship. I've actually rolled four hits on a ship with four tie fighters in one squadron command before, albeit i had luck on my side.

Mauler, Inty, Dengar, Advanced. With Boosted Comms somewhere (and FC if you can spare the pts) surprisingly resilient and only 58 pts in sqds.

3 Tie Fighter squadrons and 2 Tie Interceptor squadrons for 46 points, they can do a fair amount of damage and will hold for 2-3 turns.

If you really want, you can then run 3 x naked ISD-I's with Motti...