I appolagise if this has been discussed before, i did a search and couldn't find a thread about the Avenger Carrier.

Recently whilst getting some friends into Armada i really started to notice the benefits of a large dedicated carrier spamming squadron to soften up shields before unleashing on a target.

The main reason this seems to work is;

1. evade is useless unless Mothra is around or you are Rhyming at medium range.
2. Brace is kind of a waste unless you're desperate as the carrier will soon follow up with a shot of its own.
3. No one wants to use up their redirects unless your carrier is sporting XI7s or your bomber just dropped a crit. Mainly because you're about to follow up with a barrage with your carrier with much more dice.

So obviously we're looking at the ISD. I'm not bothered which admiral you choose because the math is going to do the work for you.

Now the Avenger gets bad rep because some peeps keep saying; "your opponents know which order you're going to activate". Well going first with the carrier from hell is fine because every redirect your opponent uses to stop the bombing run is one you no longer have to negate. The key here isn't really any upgrades its the average damage your bombing run is going to do.

You can crunch the numbers on your own but; four Ties average 2 hits and max 4, four bombers average 4 hits and max 8(with crits).

What i'm saying is take a token and expanded hangers, you can fling 6 squadrons at them. Whatever you use if your opponent doesn't use his redirects you're going to knock those shields out nicely. Every redirect is one i don't have to accuracy. All i need from this point is to get a crit on your hull and i'm satisfied that was a great activation.

You can add whatever upgrades you feel are suitable but I think XX9 are going to shine here and I love SW7-Ion on a ISD2. If the target has no shields i reckon i can drop double crits on it with my front arc. Even with my flank I have a fair chance of getting a crit and if its shields are down a good chance of a double.

I'm going to admit that if your opponent has fantastic anti squadron cover to stop your bombers, getting the bombing run will be difficult. But you're a great admiral so i'm sure that doesn't phase you! The great thing about the Avenger is it becomes more potent the more that you've activated and fired on its target, but it's not dependent on this.

My experience is limited so i appreciate hearing your experiences with the Avenger Carrier.

I think the logic is fairly sound, but I haven't played Avenger as a carrier yet, myself. I'm interested in others' experiences, though.

I'd be curious about slapping an Overload Pulse on it should the points allow. Clearly the Overload Pulse won't work on the Avenger itself under most circumstances, but it allows for some shenanigans, such as...

• Increase incentive to activate early, and less reluctance to do so, while still enjoying activating later
• Double-arc shots get extremely mean, especially if you can proc the crit from the side arc first (via Screed)
• It makes the Advanced Gunnery objective suicide. The Avenger shoots you with 8 dice and crit-activates your defense tokens, and then fires again with 8 dice. Oof. No. I'm not letting you have that.

I didn't think about using Avenger as a carrier. I tend to link it up with a VSD-II with Gunnery Teams and OLP. Makes the activation order predictable, but it can put out a lot of hurt. The combination of VSD-II, Avenger and bombers makes for a lot of damage thrown all at once. I like it.

I also really like the idea of putting OLP on Avenger for that double-arc. But that would mean dropping SW-7s, which I find so very useful to guarantee four damage plus the red dice.