Been running the following fleet recently.

Flagship.

Imperial Star Destroyer class 1

Admiral Motti

Gunnery Team

SW-7 Ion Batteries

Expanded Hanger Bay

Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams

Wing Commander

Total 163pts

Fleet Ship

Imperial Star Destroyer class 1

Gunnery Team

SW-7 Ion Batteries

Expanded Hanger Bay

Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams

Wing Commander

Total 139pts

Squadrons.

8 TIE Fighter Squadrons.

2 Tie Advanced Squadrons.

Total 88pts

Grand Total 390pts.

Missions Contested Outpost, Most Wanted, and Superior Positions.

A large bid, so far the fleet has lost, but both games have been very close. Also in each game there was one action that I did that was wrong, and led to the fleet losing, so that is more an error on my behalf and not the tools the fleet has access to.

That being said I am tempted to modify the fleet to the following.

The missions will be the same, I feel that the addition of two extra TIE Advanced is a fair trade for Gunnery Team and SW-7 Ion Batteries. Sure the ability to fire from the front of an Imperial Star Destroyer twice is a wonderful thing to experience. But, the extra TIE Advanced can help keep the TIE Fighter Squadrons alive a lot longer, all the while helping their swarm ability to trigger. It does mean that there will be two Squadrons over my command of ten.

Any thoughts.

Any thought to a 1 as a carrier and a 2 as a fighter?

If not my only comment is that ISDs scream gunnery teams. In fact I would say when you field an ISD the basic build is ISD x Gunnery Teams ECM then add to customize.

Also have you played with tractor beams before? I thought they would be much better than they are. Without playing vics you dont really need them to catch up to anything. i would dump them in favor of boosted comms or something, on 1 of your ISDs.

Currently I am too much in love with them as a carrier, once this love has worn off I will indeed try them out as a fighter.

I find Tractor Beams are useful for the Class 1 as it has a good number of Black Die it is useful to slow enemy ships down where they won't be able to avoid being hit by all three colours of dice. It also aids my Squadrons in their ship hunting capabilities.

Gunnery Team is great, however in the games I have played with the fleet I tend to fire out of the front arc once, and then fire anti squadron at what ever swarm my squadrons have tied down. The more I help out the squadrons the better, as this allows them to maximise on their effectiveness. Once they have got to within Black dice anti Squadron range it really pays off.

I agree make one of them an ISD-II with gunnery, ECM and maybe XI7. The defensive slot makes it a good place to protect Motti.

Your second ship could be an ISD-I with expanded hangar, boosted coms and either gunnery team or flight controllers. Vet captain or Wulf could get it up to an effective squadron rating of 6!

Those Wing Commanders can be dropped. Just plot Nav turn one to bank a token then the ISD-I plots squadron commands for most of the game and the ISD-II for turn 2 and maybe 3. You will soon loose a few fighters so no need to squadron command for more than 5-6 of them later in the game so the ISD-II can do other things. If worried about squadron capacity then upgrade some fighters to interceptors and maybe put Vader in one of the tie advanced. Howlrunner is a good way to get even more bang for your buck. 4 Tie Interceptors + Howlrunner + Darth will sweep away most fighter builds especially with flight controllers.

Honestly if you wanted to play this as a true carrier Fleet, I would:

-drop wing commanders for flight controllers.

-drop tractor beams for boosted Comms

-drop the TIES and advance and run Rhymer with a compliment of bombers, jumpstar 500, and an escort or some interceptors.

This way your squads have real threat against ships, aren't bad against squads, and your ISDs are still terrifying on the hits.

Definitely drop the SW-7's and swap them for Leading Shots. You're talking a max gain of two damage if you roll two accuracies. And if you roll two with Leading Shots, you can sac one to re-roll the other and any other blank dice you've rolled. Plus, LS means you can aggressively re-roll any black dice that don't roll Hit/Crit the first time, which will give you a better damage increase than SW-7's. Now SW-7's on an ISD-II is a different story.

And if you're going to take a squadron swarm, I'd recommend trying to squeeze in some Bombers and maybe Rhymer. Advanceds synergize with Rhymer very well, because they take any squadron fire intended for him, and they throw a black die so they still have a decent damage threat against ships.

Honestly if you wanted to play this as a true carrier Fleet, I would:

-drop wing commanders for flight controllers.

-drop tractor beams for boosted Comms

-drop the TIES and advance and run Rhymer with a compliment of bombers, jumpstar 500, and an escort or some interceptors.

This way your squads have real threat against ships, aren't bad against squads, and your ISDs are still terrifying on the hits.

Wing Commander and Flight Controllers go in two different spots. You can have both.

You really don't need that many ties for an effective anti-fighter force. You can use one ISD as your main hitter and the other that hangs slightly behind as your main carrier. You only need wing commander on your first ISD so you can use other commands and only take a squadron command in an emergency. Your carrier ISD should always be running squadron commands for the most part and flight controllers gives you another blue die. You have 4 anit-squad fighters that can be used to hit hard against enemy fighters. If they have week fighter force then you activate the 4 bombers for bombing runs. With 8 squads you could activate all 8 if needed. I think this gives you better flexibility. You really don't need a high initiative bid if you are always working for 2nd player. Most higher bids will be looking for 1st player anyway. Think a little more on your objectives. Most wanted is not good for you. Most of your opponents will have more ships than you that benefit from attacking your objective ship and you only get to place it on one of your SD's. With Minefields you can almost split the map in 2 forcing them to come to you or go through mines.

Example

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 396/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Precision Strike
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Minefields

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Wing Commander ( 6 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)
- Admiral Chiraneau ( 10 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)

1 TIE Advanced Squadron ( 12 points)
1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)
3 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 27 points)
1 Soontir Fel ( 18 points)
1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)
1 Darth Vader ( 21 points)

Fleet created with Armada Warlords