Squadron activations and movement are my specialty with the Rebels because of my love of carrier-based WW2 air combat, and I decided to see what was different about the Imperial squadrons. One thing is certain, they allow you to throw many more dice at the price of fragility. This list is one I'm calling "It's not the plane, it's the pilot" based on the dogfighting concept of a better pilot being able to beat a lesser pilot even while flying an inferior plane.

Points: 400

Why a Victory II?

With a Victory I you can add Ordnance Experts, APT's and put Relentless on your ISD.

I have played the VSD-I and the VSD-II a great deal and the VSD-I is far superior.

You can even drop the Gunnery Teams and the Wing Commander and add an Intel Officer to really punch through a ship whilst maintaining squadron commands. That leaves you an extra 6 points.

With two ships, you want to be in close and dealing max damage with both ships. The VSD-I paired with an ISD-I can do this. Dead enemy ships are far better than wounded ones.

Also, Motti is better of on the ISD.

Just some thoughts.

Not completely convinced by the objectives. Opening Salvo seems like a bit risk, you could be giving your opponent far more dice than you're gaining with only two ships, and you could give away a lot of points if they just get a couple of hits with something like APTs, Dodonna's Pride, or Luke Skywalker. Meanwhile for Fire Lanes you're only putting out 6 red, so risk giving up a lot there.

Maybe think about Advanced Gunnery over Opening Salvo. Sure, it negates Gunnery Teams on one of your ships, but the ability to double-tap like that is still powerful. And with Motti keeping your ships alive longer you can hopefully protect the objective ship and avoid giving up those points.

For yellow, Contested Outpost could be an improvement. It forces the enemy to come in closer to steal the objective off of you than Fire Lanes does, and lets you make more use of the black dice you get for having an ISD1. It also keeps them in a certain area of the board for longer giving your squads an easier time catching them.

With all those squads Superior Positions looks good to me though!

Any reason the HTTs are on the Vic2 and not the Imp1? The one dice advantage the VSD gets at medium range is alright, but medium is very short so you'd probably soon be getting use out of HTTs + black dice on the ISD. HTTs can reduce the need to use accuracy as well, giving you more opportunities to use the ISD's Leading Shots to spend an un-needed accuracy to reroll the reds and blacks.

Apart from that, well, it's a list with loads of squads, and it makes use of Boosted Comms and Wing Commander; just what I like to see!

The red objective is definitely the hardest to pick with this list. I chose Opening Salvo primarily because it doesn't give objective points. Advanced Gunnery isn't a bad idea, but it gives Akbar lists that don't have Gunnery Teams a really nice benefit; there's too many of them to give them any opportunity to shoot twice from the same hull zone. Two extra red dice on their first shot seems the best option of the batch for me, and the two blacks at long range will make most people consider a different objective.

Fire Lanes is an objective waiting for errata - nothing prevents you from putting them touching each other. I think it's better than Contest Outpost in a list that has slow, meandering ships. Put the objective markers as close to your deployment zone as possible, collect 45 points per turn until your opponent gets a ship behind you. Until you pass the objectives with the Star Destroyers, you're going to have as much as 14 dice on them. As second player, I can place the station near the planned point for the objective tokens and get the repair benefits for an already hard to kill list.

I went with Victory II because the speed and maneuverability of the VSD make it very difficult to get and maintain black dice range. Dropping upgrades that boost squadron capabilities runs counter to my squadron philosophy - squadrons are attack dice on ships that whittle away shields at extended range (with non-bombers not being quite as good at it).

My thinking with the HTT's on the VSD is that it needs its dice to count as much as possible since it gets fewer than the ISD.

As a newish Imperial player, I put Motti on the VSD because the ISD is still going to have a nice hull value even if Motti is dead. The VSD is more likely to die when Motti dies on an accompanying ISD. Does it play out differently for most people?

I have found that with Motti on the VSD people go after it straight away as it will reduce your ISD by 3 hull as well.

With Motti on the ISD, people will either have to choose to try and burn down a 14 point ISD and pretty much ignore the VSD or kill the VSD and hope to kill the ISD in the remaining 2-3 turns. I run a list with an ISD-I, a VSD-I and a Raider. The VSD almost always dies, even with 10 hull, but the ISD containing Motti invariably survives (beaten to hell, but alive). I am yet to play a game where my VSD-I didn't make it's points back either through kills or objective capture.

Is Rhymer worth it if you only have two bombers?

Rhymer still makes sense as even the blue dice of the other squadrons can be fired at up to medium range....

(I'm an Imperial player and I hate Rhymer :-) )

Opening Salvo is a bad choice. The odds are that your ships will end the game with at least a little hull damage, and then your opponent is getting half points on both of them, and half points on those ships is a lot of points. Additionally, they are probably getting more dice out if it then you are. I would go with Advanced Gunnery, and find a way to put avenger on your isd. No one is giving Avenger advanced gunnery, and so you are effectively forcing the choice between your yellow and blue objectives.

Downgrade the vic. If you really, desperately want the blue, and just need to pay those 12 points for some reason, I'd honestly rather put Dominator on a vic-1 for the same cost and higher upside. But I wouldnt do that either. I would also take the Wing Commander off, because in practice running a very similar list, i found that after maybe turn one to bank a nav I was just always pushing squadrons anyway. I also prefer xi7's to HTT's here, but whatever floats your boat really. I might go with FC's over Gunnery Team, you probably arent getting enough 2 ships in the same arc with the vic for value, and the antisquadron value of fc's is imo better then one blue ackack as you might spout out from gunnery teams enabled shots.

I would keep the wing commander on the ISD. If you do downgrade the vic, you can spend the points upgrading her to and ISD-2. It'll cost you an offensive retrofit, but honestly, meh. I would rather have ecms on an isd-2 for this list.

I have found that with Motti on the VSD people go after it straight away as it will reduce your ISD by 3 hull as well.

With Motti on the ISD, people will either have to choose to try and burn down a 14 point ISD and pretty much ignore the VSD or kill the VSD and hope to kill the ISD in the remaining 2-3 turns. I run a list with an ISD-I, a VSD-I and a Raider. The VSD almost always dies, even with 10 hull, but the ISD containing Motti invariably survives (beaten to hell, but alive). I am yet to play a game where my VSD-I didn't make it's points back either through kills or objective capture.

This is actually a strength. Let them come after the VSD with boosted comms. To get there they should have to go through the ISD and his squadrons. May want to put a little more bomber omph out there, but as it is theres enough black dice to cause problems.

I have found that with Motti on the VSD people go after it straight away as it will reduce your ISD by 3 hull as well.

With Motti on the ISD, people will either have to choose to try and burn down a 14 point ISD and pretty much ignore the VSD or kill the VSD and hope to kill the ISD in the remaining 2-3 turns. I run a list with an ISD-I, a VSD-I and a Raider. The VSD almost always dies, even with 10 hull, but the ISD containing Motti invariably survives (beaten to hell, but alive). I am yet to play a game where my VSD-I didn't make it's points back either through kills or objective capture.

This is actually a strength. Let them come after the VSD with boosted comms. To get there they should have to go through the ISD and his squadrons. May want to put a little more bomber omph out there, but as it is theres enough black dice to cause problems.

My other concern with Motti on the ISD is that it becomes a HUGE set of points if it dies. Thanks for the reminder on Opening Salvo, I forgot about the partial points. Rhymer is really useful against the tactic I sometimes see to counter massive squadrons: hold your own squadrons back until they engage you. With Rhymer, even my TIE Fighters are taking shots from a safe distance. They won't always do a damage, but they could plink a few shields off.

I've made some tweaks based on suggestions. I really want to avoid Advanced Gunnery because I think an Akbar list, especially one that I'm giving activation advantage to, is getting a significant benefit from it. Most Wanted lets me choose ships appropriately. I switched to an ISD 2 and a VSD 1. I added Flight Controllers to the VSD to enhance its squadron killing abilities.

[ EMPIRE FLEET (400 points)

1 • Imperial II-class Star Destroyer - Wing Commander - Gunnery Team - Boosted Comms - Electronic Countermeasures - Leading Shots (148)

2 • Victory I-class Star Destroyer - Admiral Motti - Flight Controllers - Boosted Comms - Expanded Launchers (120)

3 • ''Howlrunner'' TIE Fighter Squadron (16)

4 • TIE Fighter Squadron (8)

5 • TIE Fighter Squadron (8)

6 • Dengar Punishing One (20)

7 • IG-88 IG-2000 (21)

8 • Major Rhymer TIE Bomber Squadron (16)

9 • TIE Bomber Squadron (9)

10 • TIE Interceptor Squadron (11)

11 • TIE Advanced Squadron (12)

12 • TIE Interceptor Squadron (11)

13 • Objectives - Most Wanted - Fire Lanes - Superior Positions (0)

Putting advanced gunnery in an ackbar list or a list with an ISD is forcing your opponent to choose one of the other two missions. You should plan in them never choosing that card. No smart player will ever choose that mission. There is absolutely zero advantage for player one to choose advance gunnery.

Maybe I am crazy, but I'm quite happy to take Advanced Gunnery facing Imperials with my own Imperial fleet, Rebels not so much.

I had ISD II, Gladiator, 3 raiders, opponent had 2 tricked out ISD II's with some squadrons, so I picked Advanced Gunnery, player one gets to fire from the same arc twice, but cannot target the same hull zone, so my opponent had overlooked this, with initiative and ship activations, I was able to position my ISD at the end of a round with one of his ISD II's so that I had front -> front, then front->side shots, man he got a surprise lol.

Against Rebels, getting an MC80 in a position where you can do something similar is a lot more problematic, so It'd be a much larger risk, I'd consider selecting Gladiator (Demolisher) as the objective ship, allowing you to get a double side arc into the MC80, or if you have expanded launchers, a triple front arc, end of round, start of round, you'd be able to front->rear, front->rear, front->side.

But it's big risk for big rewards, and most people will not chance it.

That's a good point about Major Rhymer - I keep thinking he affects only bombers.

I can't stand the VSD 1 myself. Flying full speed, I can count on one hand the times I've actually been able to fire all those black dice, and I'll hold up a choice finger for the times that it anything other than roll lots of blanks on said black dice when it did.

VSD II all the way, in my opinion.

I can't stand the VSD 1 myself. Flying full speed, I can count on one hand the times I've actually been able to fire all those black dice, and I'll hold up a choice finger for the times that it anything other than roll lots of blanks on said black dice when it did.

VSD II all the way, in my opinion.

Do you get to use the blues all that often? But either way, in this list the VSD is there as a carrier.