Try putting wing commander on two different ships, then keep your opponent guessing as to which one is going to become a carrier that turn.

Maybe both?

Or maybe neither?

Imo, the isd1 is the best and most points effective carrier damage dealer battleship in the game. It hits really hard at the right ranges and have insanely good value for issuing squadron commands.

Building a ship around which orders you will give before the game begins is a great way to telegraph what you want to do and have the enemy build around that. When building a carrier, most people are excluding useful commands like Engineering from their cycle, and the carriers usually tend to go down very fast. It then leaves the squadrons in the open without anyong to boss them around. It doesn't make much sense to plan for a ship being a carrier pregame, and it makes the lists very unflexible if you don't plan to issue squadron commands with any other ship

I like Skilled First Officer to help with this problem. Plot engineering commands say turn 4, 6 (and don't forget turn 7 just in case). The officer can then be discarded to give you the option of using repairs or sticking with squadron commands alternatively stick with the repair and ignore the squadrons command scheduled.

For one point it's a bargain. Good slicer tools insurance too for a large carrier.

I still say someone needs to try out the 3 ISD list.

I still say someone needs to try out the 3 ISD list.

I've played it a lot with great success. Two ISD 1s and an ISD 2 flagship. I think I may have even described it earlier in this thread. Anything other than a serious bomber list gets eaten pretty quick (and even then it's just a race to the carriers, chewing through their squads on the way)

I still say someone needs to try out the 3 ISD list.

I've played against it and it's okay. It was a big deal in early wave 2 before people knew how to handle it. It suffers from low number of deployments and activations. It's good against poor to moderate players (who will dive in expecting a miracle only to find miracles don't happen in plastic spaceship games) but stronger players just exploit its problems, pick off one (maybe two) on the flank and then coast off to victory.

Just had great fun with a Vader led, 3 Raider, ISD I Needa-Avenger list. I didn't even trigger Avenger ( I forgot!). I do love the aggressive "All-in" way you have to fly it.

I personally think the ISD I is a good option if you want to put minimal or no upgrades on a star destroyer. It's fast enough to run up the side of board as a flanker too, unlike a victory. Besides, it looks awesome, so if the choice is between some other ship with a few upgrades or a star destroyer....

Completed a local tourney running 2x ISD I's with Intel Officers, XI7's and Tractor Beams. Supporting this was a Raider I with Motti, IG88, Fel, Dengar, and a TIE/adv. Caveat was that we couldn't use any of the new wave 3/4 items and that funnily all participant chose to play Imperials. Might have been a different story playing against a CR90 swarm with lots of TRC's!

The ISD I is a total brawler and needs to be in close where it can start to make use of those black dice. Using this combo I was able to go bow to bow against IDS II's and knock them both out. Targeting both tractor beams against the same target worked well to strip a token and then slow the ship up giving control of where it was going (safely contained a Demolisher this way). XI7's mean that you don't need to worry too much about redirects and intel officers lock down or strip the brace. Using Motti for the extra 3 hull goes along way with IDS I's. I can't wait to try out a repair crew on the assault carriers supporting the IDS's and making them even tanker.