Really struggling to figure out my target priority on this one, so I'm looking for opinions.

In what order do I gun them down, and why?

Vader dies the easiest due to lack o thrusters, AND puts out more damage with ATC

Only other option is carnor in a very bad spot

I do take down Vader first usually. He is easist to kill and does more damage per shot.

Carnor usually ends up being a huge threat to me. So I tend to gun after him first.

EDIT: If he gets too close, it's over for most of my ships.

Ignore Soontir unless your opponent makes a mistake and hangs him out to dry.

Concentrate on either Vader or Jax. One of them will be more vulnerable at some point in the early game. Vader is not a survivable ship but he can punch really hard if left alive for too long.

Pray that you have enough of your own squadron left to deal with an end-game Soontir Fel...

Carnor - as he helps the other two.

2 for Vader, 2 for Carnor and 1 for either/both.

So Soontir is left until last, OK. Carnor or Vader depending on positioning? Anything in particular to watch for to help with a decision in-game? E.g. in the hypothetical but unlikely situation where I can shoot one or the other at the same range with the same modifiers available?

Carnor. Always Carnor.

It's normally a good idea to use your opponent's tageting priority against them - i.e. if a ship takes a hit, it tries to either turtle up and soak your fire or dodge off to the races, setting up the pursuers for a few rounds of flak from your other two ships. Carnor wants to be doing neither of these things - he wants to be in range one every single **** opportunity he gets. turtling and dodging work against his ability, so I advise him as your first target.

I play vader soontir carnor myself, it's a great list and is best suited to wide flaking maneuvers, probably with soonti in the middle, as he's the tankiest of the three. It's very hard to enter the end game without either or soontir on your tail, neither of which is a charming proposition...

Whomever's open.

Fel and Jax (or any interceptor) can choose to be invulnerable to most threats. Playing against them, especially with low pilot skill ships, is a question of getting inside their decision loop, finding their best and second best move, and nullifying it. The third best move you may not have the ability to stop, but that's usually a more passive, defensive move, that doesn't directly impact the board state (i.e., the ship ends up pointing in the wrong direction).

Vader has a terrible dial and far worse options, so he's the soft target. That doesn't mean that you should aim directly for him.

Playing against an aces list like this is all about cagey approaches, and attempting to find incremental advantages that can lead up to springing a trap. If you went all-in on Vader to begin with, then you're giving up board and decision space for the interceptors. Moving in a more deliberate and controlled fashion forces the aces to flee (potentially wasting their high points and limited board presence), or commit (risking destruction). Clearly that requires patience, and it frequently is not a question of killing one ship, then the next, then the last, since all three aces are more than capable of being passive and invulnerable, if they so choose.

Ideally I'd try to take soontir out first. However thats easier said then done and can play directly into their game plan. So I may be incorrect according to better players but when I face lists like this I try to keep options open to gun for the first ship that gets caught with its pants down by multiples of mine.

Sucks but it can be really difficult to execute a game plan against all aces like this. That said vader is the softest target and the hardest hitting.

All depends on how your opponent sets up. You have to take your list's strengths and their weakness, which at best is flying. If they setup the flank on the other two ships, you have to gun down that shuttle hopefully before they get the flankers in range. You won't get Fel before Palp dies unless you have Wampa and a Palp of your own or are an amazing blocker. If they both have stealth, get the shuttle first but cover arcs if you can because a bump is an opportunity you can't waste!

Oops, thought this was with Palp, misread!

Yes, you gotta get Vader. He's the easiest to take out unless you get a lucky bump on one of the other two!

'Your reliance on Aces is your weakness.'

'Your faith in your squadmates is yours.'

As I play almost exclusively palp aces currently I would try to kill carnor first unless something else is presented on a platter. Not only is he the easiest to pin down at ps8 he also crushes my aces if he's range 1 by invalidating my token stacks. Soontir and Vader alone should be easier for my soontir and Vader to kill because of palp riding shotgun and tipping my modification to be better.

You should immediately jump to hyperspace and apologize to Vader for even considering shooting at him.

In all seriousness though, Soontir is hard to Kill, Vader isn't as hard to kill, and Carnor is irritating.

The easiest targets to hit are:

Vader

Carnor

Soontir

Vader can add guaranteed crits while Carnor can neuter your chip stack.

If you're running aces, I'd shoot for vader or Carnor first, typically easiest to hit the one that is in arc of the most ships and just focus that one down. Unless you're afeared of Carnor... Then murder face him.

Non aces should kill vader first if they can imo he's squishier and will do more guaranteed damage over the course of a game than Carnor can.

If you have any aces or anything with more than 1 agility it has to be Carnor first. After that it depends on your list. If you have an ace and some TLT's then Vader is an easy second target. If you don't have TLT then maybe Fel. I usually just try to out-point Fel though.

It really just depends on lists, set-up and if you get an opening as others have mentioned.

In Ideal set ups:

A swarm should want to target Carnor first. (to big of a loss losing all those actions, you burst down enemies and need the actions)

YT-1300 tanks want to focus down Vader. (get rid of the most damage the fastest so you get to the endgame)

TLT based lists want to leave Jax for last. (they are the least action orientated and do not want to leave the other 2 aces in the endgame)

Other aces have it less clear as this list looks for openings. (probably Jax as he is the weakest link... but not as clear as the other lists.)

Well thinking about my upcoming SC, I am planning to use the standard 48 point Corran, Stresshog and two Z95s. I've had success with it against most of the lists I've faced except for the Imp aces list.

My worry is about getting outmanoeuvred, so I need to take one target down quickly before I end up with all 3 behind me. The question was which to gun for. I think it's a dice-off between Vader and Carnor which looks like it will come down to how deployment goes?

I think I've been making the mistake of trying to engage too early in practice games.

Stomp Soontir first if you can stress him (he then is relative easy to bring down), or keep him out of the game by zoning him out with the stresshog, and go for Vader.

Personally, I'd ignore Jax. Corran is one of the aces less affected by Jax and your other ships are not that focus dependent.

Depends on flying. Ive taken down carnor first and lost, i thought could take him out in one turn and failed. Their list had omega instead of Vader. I wish i took our omega first, he is my fist target now.

Ok, so I played two games tonight against this list:

Vader, Determination, X1, ATC, EU

Carnor, PtL, AT

Soontir, PtL, AT, Royal Guard, Stealth Device

I used

Corran, PtL, EU, R2D2, FCS

Gold, TLT, BTL-A4, R3-A2

2 Bandit

Both games I got my butt handed to me on a plate. The three Imps just scattered across the board, I slow-rolled at first then sped up and tried to focus down whichever of Carnor or Vader seemed easiest to get. The Zs went down for basically no trade off in both games. I made a few mistakes that I picked up on but I found it so hard to even get any shots against the TIEs. The times when I did, his greens were horrifically good which was annoying but can't be helped. Also my greens were awful. (In the second game Vader shot at Corran at R1 by a cat's whisker after the boost+BR. Vader scored three hits and a crit with ATC, I triple-blanked the greens so the focus was no good, and the crit was a direct hit. Corran one-shotted by a stupidly unlikely outcome - but hey, it's partly a dice game so I guess I just have to roll with that).

I guess my question now is: was starting with a slow-roll my big mistake? Should I have gone with 2 or 3 speed maneouvres? What sort of strategy is best to take here?

Action denial is key here. The only thing that's really a threat is the Gold. The key for you here is somehow getting at least one or two good stress shots on the aces. If you can double-stress any of them, you can put them into a position where they can't take actions. If you find yourself in a situation where both Carnor and Soontir somehow end up with a single stress token in front of your Y-Wing, you'd be better off splitting shots to double-stress both of them than focusing on a single one.

Otherwise, you probably want to be using your Z95s to anticipate blocks on the aces, so try to fly them where you think the aces are going to go and hope that you can set up a solid shot for Corran. If you think you're going to enter combat in R1 of Carnor, then use your Target Lock actions because nothing else will help you.

Not that this is a super critical / helpful but that list is over by 1 point. There is no way Vader could have determination in a 100 point game.

If you're okay with changing your squad list, I'd swap out the PTL on Corran for VI. That way he'd be the last one to position and with a roll or a boost he'd still get the best chance to clear out or line up a shot.

This would give you enough points trade out the Z-95's and run 2 Gold Squads: one w/ TLT, Stressbot, BTL-A4 and the other with an Ion and R5-P9 to help with board control.

Good spot. As it happens Determination never came into play as I didn't manage to shoot Vader enough to inflict any damage.

VI Corran is certainly the way I think I'm going to go. I found that so much of the time I was wanting to move last/shoot first. I'd prefer to stick with 4 ships though, I was wondering about using the points to swap a Z for a Prototype A with Chardaan.

you'd be better off splitting shots to double-stress both of them than focusing on a single one.

I think what happened with the Zs is that I was setting up blocks but not managing to capitalise on them. Or a lot of the time the blocks were falling just short - so he was avoiding them by tiny distances. That got frustrating.

Playing low ps against arc dodgers the board edges and especially the corners are your friends. They make one of your flanks unaccesable and leave the opponent with two options; fly straight into your guns or try to hit you in the other flank. Turn in at the right time and blast them out of the sky!