After my last store championship, where I was literally the only Imperial player (sigh), I have been thinking about lists that might do well against U-boats. Obviously Carnor Jax comes to mind. But what else? Omega Leader because also stops the focus/mech shenanigans. Academy Pilot for blocking. And The Inquisitor because it's new?

Carnor Jax (26)

I don't think Omega Leader is actually a good call vs 'u-boats' specifically. His ability does not stop one ship from firing a torp (althoughh he does stop mods on it), but does nothing for the other 2 ships. He's not the greatest arc-dodger, but if you fly him carefully he might do okay, but his damage output is not stellar (although Juke is good against u-boats, since they don't like spending their focus on defense).

Inquisitor is not ideal niether, since he likes R3 but that's suicide vs u-boats (he'd have to get in close). On the other hand, PTL and those green 1 moves will be golden once in close (you want to stay R1 as much as possible), but be careful about getting blocked and losing actions.

Carnor is a good idea though and should draw a lot of aggro. You have to be super careful not to eat a torp though---he might survive one, but not two. Using him as bait can allow your other ships to get into decent flanking positions to avoid eating torps. I would pick ships that can do solid damage vs 2 agility, therefore, 3 attack dice is ideal (or 4 even).

I'm biased (I REALLY like Vader), but I think the dark lord himself is the empire's greatest u-boat hunter. Crits from ATC are really good against 5 hull ships and with his long moves + boost, he has an easy time avoiding blocks and getting out of arcs.

I prefer him with lone wolf, ATC (x-1) & engine = 36. If you have spare points, a proton rocket is not a bad idea (you want to kill a u-boat as quick as you can afterall). Lone wolf is so great on him: gives you extra mitigation against the 2 die turret (3 dice sometimes) and that one red re-roll means you usually don't need a token for offense, allowing you to keep your focus/evade to stop any damage coming his way. Also, with 2 shields, if you do end up eating a torp, Vader might be able to shrug it off with full hull left (but don't take a 2nd one!)

Ah, I had not considered how Omega Leader only gets to affect one of the Scouts torpedoes. The local meta picked up TLT heavily, so I figure Scouts with torpedoes will pick up steam quickly as well.

How is Whisper doing against them? The emperor shuttle just seems like such an target against them, so but perhaps not.