Hi guys, just started playing this game and could use some advice for a 400 point shindig going on at my FLGS.

I've managed to obtain 1 of every core and expansion with the exception of the Victory class and MC30 expansions.

I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the upgrades I've gotten, but have created a fleet separated into a Hammer, Anvil, and Flyswatter element.

Anvil:

Imperial II class SD (120)

Admiral Screed (26)

Admiral Chiraneau (10)

Gunnery Team (7)

Expanded Hangar Bay (5)

Advanced Projectors (6)

Leading Shots (4)

XI7 Turbolasers (6)

Relentless (3)

Total (187)

Hammer:

Gladiator 1 Class SD (56)

Wulf Yularen (7)

Ordnance Experts (4)

Engineering Team (5)

Expanded Launchers (13)

Demolisher (10)

Total (95)

Flyswatter:

Raider II class FS (48)

Quad Laser Turrets (5)

Instigator (4)

Total (57)

TIE Fighter Squadron X2 (16)

TIE Interceptor Squadron (11)

Howlrunner (16)

Soontir Fel (18)

Grand Total: 100

Objectives: Most Wanted, Hyperspace Assault, and Minefields.

I realize that this totally throws away any initiative bid, but this also gives me an opportunity to pick objectives that I think are useful to a fat fleet. The ISD will act as carrier and mid-range dakka thrower spamming squadron commands to allow the fighter ball to attack then disengage from engagement. Bonus points if the Raider keeps the fighters locked down in the process. The Gladiator will attempt to Boom Zoom Boom since the unlikely chance of having initiative would preclude a triple tap. I suppose I could take out a TIE Fighter squadron or 2 to make an initiative bid if that would be a smart move.

For people that have played more than the 2 games that I have, how would you improve on this?

Hi! First of all, welcome to the game! It is always great to see new faces and I applaud your courage in putting together a list and submitting it for critique.

I'll aim to give you a bit of feedback on how to construct some of the list elements, but I'll leave room for others.

1. Let's start with the Gladiator: If you can put Engine Techs on it instead of Engineering Team, you'll be fine here. This is a pretty good build for a Demolisher. Engineering team won't see as much use because you'll be torn between wanting Nav/Concentrate Fire commands, whereas you need to have a ship that wants to keep spamming Engineering commands to get the most out of Engineering team. Wulf helps a bit, but my sense is that it won't ever be enough. You might like Wulf better for getting and keeping Nav tokens to trigger Engine techs so that you can use CF to increase your damage. The Gladiator really wants to be able to do massive amounts of damage and trade itself for more than what it is worth.

2. The ISD: Chiranaeu is pretty expensive without having more squadrons that can take advantage of him. That's some points that you can put into getting at least one other squadron. You might be surprised as you play a few more games at how quickly squadrons can end up destroyed. Most people will like ECM on an ISD. It doesn't have the shields of the Rebel ships, which means less overall use out of Advanced Projectors, whereas protecting the Brace against accuracy is very useful.

3. The Raider: You mention it as a fly-swatter,but I wonder if you want to use it to swat squads or to help more against ships. You've probably got the squads to handle squads, which means you could put more points into anti-ship upgrades on your Raider, or you could spend those points on yet more squadrons. I think the question is whether you want some light squads that the Raider could support, or whether you want to go with much heavier squads and let the Raider run freer against ships. Soontir himself leaves you points for other squads and I'm not sure he synergizes with the current set-up. A bigger squadron ball, including Rhymer might help your overall fleet synergy.

It is probably more important to get some experience and just play the game. So much of the game comes down to learning to maneuver what you did bring pretty well. It will become apparent pretty quickly when you didn't use an upgrade very much in a particular game and what you need to do to revise the fleet.

Good luck and welcome to the game!

I made a few changes based off your suggestions.

-Took out both Soontir (don't know why I thought that Instigator counted as Escort) and the TIE Interceptor and replaced them with Mauler Mithel and another vanilla TIE.

-Downgraded the Raider II to a Raider I (better results from double black dice).

-Used extra points to upgrade to Engine Techs and ECM per your recommendations.

I'm somewhat wanting to stick with my Chiraneau concept as that would allow my 5 fragile squadrons to escape counterattack by their beefier Rebel counterparts. If I position correctly, that should leave them stuck to the Instigator getting double black dice and Counter-1 rolls for their efforts on top of Screed's ability. They could move in again next turn allowing Mithel's ability to go off again causing multiple damage as Howlrunner buffs the swarmy hurt.

Using Bombers would require me to either sacrifice more of my upgrades of weaken my fighter screen. Even though they have much better damage potential against ships than TIE Fighters, I think that keeping B-Wings from firing their shots at my main fighters would be a more efficient use of points since Rhymer's ability would only allow them to stay out of range of 1 die of the MC80 Command Cruiser.

Should I sacrifice some upgrades or squadrons to bring in something with more punch towards capital ships? Maybe a bounty hunter ship?

Drop Expanded launchers for ACMs or APTs. Put APTs on the raider-I and remove all other upgrades. You have Screed and might as well get the benefit of those guaranteed crits.

Your expanded hangar can go as the fighters are fragile and you will loose several soon. Just get the raider to bank a squadron token turn one. Chiraneau will also run out of fighters to effect rather quickly and once fighters are in combat why do you want to move them out? OK Mithel but he wont get a third strike.