Does anyone have any current tourney experiences playing and/or competing against a Motti ISDx3 list, and why it does or does not work in today's waves 3&4 meta? It seems that if it's flown properly it should do well in today's meta. Depending on the enemy build, you have the option of either flying as fast as possible to run over your enemy, or slow-rolling the 3 beasts into a late engagement on turns 5 and 6 where there's little chance of losing more than one ISD, where you can also harvest objective points.

Since their release I've always wanted to try 3xISD but never got around to it. I know most, if not all, of my current tourney lists would not want to face ISDx3. Destroying 2 seems risky and I don't know if you can do better than a 7-4 by destroying just one.

It's a cute fleet and it does very well against less experienced players (who tend to run head-on into things which is exactly what you shouldn't do against three fat Motti hull-beasts) but I don't think it's suitable to win a tournament. You've got low activation count and typically very sparse squadron coverage. Generally it seems like people can pick off one of the flank ISDs with some minor sacrifices and then it's time to decide if it's worth going for a second ISD or just bug out and content yourself with a decent but not overwhelming win. If anything, it's the kind of fleet that's unlikely to win tournaments but can potentially stop others from winning themselves due to the difficulty in tabling the fleet.

I haven't seen triple ISDs go well since the beginning of wave 2. Plain and simple, squadrons eat them alive.

It's kind of a fortress build: it's hard to kill more than one for most opponents, but I rarely see the damage output from it to kill much, either.

You're also horribly susceptible to bombers and some of the harder-hitting MSUs.

In my particular local meta, everybody knows if they bring this they're going to lose badly. It's happened a few times, and we have strong showings from Rhymerballs, Rieekan Yavaris Aces, and MC30 swarms against it.

That said, if you're facing a lot of the bigger rebel ships, Ackbar AF2's, or some of the more finesse imp builds like Int+VSDs... Yeah, you could probably do pretty well.

It's not viable, for a variety of reasons, but first and foremost because 3 large base ships are too difficult to focus with.

Just try it and you'll see why is inefficient.

One of my favorite tourney games ever was squaring off my Rieekan SW90B swarm against three Motti ISD2's. Tabled him in exchange for 2 corvettes.

Hm... 386 before upgrades. So no squads.

Against a light squadron list or a no squad list, this should be viable.

That one guy/gal rolling in with full points of Bombers is going to take this apart.

The typical Rebel meat spear is something like 4X,3B,2Y,Jan. So that is something like 11 damage per turn you eat from bombers that you can't brace or redirect effectively. Between that and one half decent ship, that is an ISD down per turn. Maybe every 2.

Typical Imperial Bomber screen puts out a little less. Usually around 8-9. But now it hits at medium range and is backed by more aggressive ships.

I dunno. It would probably do okay at a tourney. I would be floored to see it get 1st.

It's kind of a fortress build: it's hard to kill more than one for most opponents, but I rarely see the damage output from it to kill much, either.

To add to this correct argument, I would like to note that once you've spent the 330 points on 3 ISD-Is and the 24 points on Motti, you have a pretty stark choice to make that puts you in a very bad place: you have 46 points remaining for the rest of your fleet. Those can go in one of two directions, and they both have serious problems:

1) Fighter coverage

You can buy effectively one of the following options:

• 5 TIEs + 6 points
• 3 TIEs + an ace
• 4 Interceptors

for your fighter coverage and then that's it. That's not great fighter coverage by any means, but it is sufficient to make bombers actually work for it for maybe a turn or two. The downside is your ISDs are naked and they're going to have a hard time making their attacks count because defense tokens are going to cause you problems when you're only reliably getting (let's be generous) 3 front arc attacks with some possible side arcs thrown in maybe.

2) Upgrade ISDs

You can spend those points upgrading ISD-Is to ISD-IIs and/or adding upgrades like Intel Officers, Ordnance Experts, Gunnery Teams, and XI7 Turbolasers (or Heavy Turbolaser Turrets) to make your lower quantity of attacks connect better. The downside to this approach is you then get no squadron coverage whatsoever and bombers will eat you alive. Furthermore, you'll get a paltry 3 deployments. It's extremely easy to wait out your fleet's deployments and then set up in an inconvenient place.

In short, you run into big problems against capable opponents.

I was wondering if 3xISD would do BETTER now against the current bomber builds that have lots of escorts and weak carriers, due to their extremely low hull count and lack of any anti-ship upgrades. I would think the 3 ISDs may be able to over-run the other ships before the bombers take their toll. One ISD should be able to survive even the most extreme massive bomber strike, and can probably survive 1 to 3 turns against what we're seeing now, an average Rhymer ball with lots of anti-squads to protect it. Sounds like a meta-game call.

I guess if you're seeing mostly very antisquadron-heavy Rhymerballs, then yes, 3x ISD-1 might do well. That hasn't really been my experience, but if it's yours, then give it a shot.

Though an assload of MC30's does the same thing better.

If you take 2 ISD II and 1 ISD I, you can fit Motti and a Gunnery Team on all 3. Comes at 395 points and allows you to burn down 2 ships in your front arc or 1 ship and 5 blue AA coming at all the squads. You might win just because they have to kill 1 of your ships to score points and you can rack em up off of squad kills.

I have flown 3 x ISD numerous times and you are better off with 3 x ISD-I and Vader than 3 x ISD-II and Motti as you will want to plough straight through any fighters and into the enemy ships inflicting as much damage as possible on them before the bombers get you.

Versus squadron light it is devastating, if 8 YT-2400's turn up with 5 TLRC CR's, go home.

The list looks awesome on the table, but isn't really competitive and as mentioned is very hard to fly in a formation. I have actually found 3 x VSD-I with Vader and a fighter screen far more effective.

I prefer Ozzel to Motti for the triple ISD list, as he helps tremendously with determining where the engagement will happen, arc dodging, and perhaps most importantly, keeping from running into my own ships. As previously stated they struggle against bomber heavy lists, and with BCC around now you can't bank on a few squads missing to keep you alive

It works.

I had:

ISD 2, Gunnery Team Darth Vader,

ISD 1, Gunnery Team

ISD 1, Gunnery Team

That's all! I had our local tournament without defeat. They eat any type of fleets. Sometimes I lost one of them, but the build has a tons of "HP" and a brutal firepower.... And yes, there aren't any fighter. If enemy has? No problem jut concentrate on the carriers and Boom! It's a brutal Rush build, mostly I've finished my matches on the 4th turn. So, it works.

I would say that anything a triple ISD list can do, a double ISD list can do better.

They eat any type of fleets.

Lol. No.

Yeah, epicneo, that may be your experience, but we saw a tricked out triple ISD build with LS, GT, and Motti come to a local tournament, and he lost every game pretty bad. I played him first with a MC30/CR90 build and killed two of his ISDs. The other two players were Ackbar and Rieekan and they kited the ISDs into oblivion.

I have tried and tried to get this idea to work, but it just dose not want to work this is the problem with triple ISD by the time you fit 3 ISD's and a admiral in a list you have at most 50 points lest (3x ISD-I and Ozzel) so you have a choice to make fighter screen or upgrades? you cant pick both and the problem is bombers eat up ISD's a lot faster then you think so you need a screen of some short and you can fit 4 ties max a bit of a pathetic screen, and your ships have no upgrades so no re-rolls on defense token mitigation turbolasers etc. so even with eight dice out the front your going to have a hard time taking out ships. you can go the other way and go for the upgrades and forgo the screen but 50 points for 3 ships worth of upgrades is not that much as you will come to find you could get some basic upgrades and your ships would be better at taking down ships but squadrons eat you up to fast. Its a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario.

With all that said I did come in second place with a triple ISD list and its the best triple ISD list that I have run back in wave two.

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 400/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Dangerous Territory

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
= 119 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)
- Relentless ( 3 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 154 total ship cost

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 127 total ship cost

A brief report of what happened in the tourney first game was against rhymerball closed fast fouced all fire on motti took him out turn three took out other ISD turn 4 and he was tabled thanks to bringing in one ISD on the flank and some bad rolls on his bombers no ISDs died would not be so lucky with BCC nowadays. second round two ISD twos and demo, demo went down fast the problem was he got medium rang shots before I got in short rang so that hurt lost one ISD he lost ISD and Demo dont know the split my third game was a bye and got second place out of 6 people like I said smaller tournament.

As mentioned above

I would say that anything a triple ISD list can do, a double ISD list can do better.

Double ISDs have the points for more upgrades and have points for better fighter screen and you can fit in another ship or two, I just dont quite see a triple ISD list working you just need more points to make it work.

I would say that anything a triple ISD list can do, a double ISD list can do better.

Double ISDs have the points for more upgrades and have points for better fighter screen and you can fit in another ship or two, I just dont quite see a triple ISD list working you just need more points to make it work.

Paul flies about as well as I have seen, and I would also throw this out:

I think he would point out that fitting 2x ISD into a physical space is much easier than 3. At 3, you can't concentrate your fire because they bigly obstruct movement. This is a problem the CR90 swarm does not have.

The times i have faced a triple ISD list I have found that it is just way easier to isolate 1 and take the other 2 out of the fight than the ISD driver might think. if you have 4 stands of fighters and a small ship and you will pretty much know exactly where the enemy is going to start and formulate a plan to isolate and cull.

One time I was running a fireball/demo/ISD list and I isolated and burned down an ISD and almost got a second with no losses, the other time i was flying my crazy billion bomber, 3 BC and Interdictor list and it was even easier. tie bombers dont even need to be controlled to stay in front of an ISD that has G8's on it and with deployment advantage you can choose the battlefield.

I do recall from running PTs 2 ISD 3 Raider list that I did well vs bomber swarms because of the ability to threaten and pincer with the raiders and it would still often be a blood bath, without the maneuverability and threat of the raiders forget about it, also this was before bomber command. As a veteran and expert roller of "tie bomber blanks" I can attest to the tremendous impact a TB rhymerball derives from even 1 re-roll and after having an ISDs face pushed right in by a scurg swarm backed by bomber command and pushed by Yavaris It sure does work well for the rebels too.

If you go with Ozzel and ISD1 you have enough room for 6 TIE Fighter squadrons. But a gain these are un upgraded ISDs.

Thing is volley wise ISD1 are great jousters. They want that front and side volley at close range but remaining fast so their rear arc can take a long range shot without being inside black range.As for 6 TIE Fighters it might hold of some squadrons but will inevitability get overtaken by escorts.

I would say that anything a triple ISD list can do, a double ISD list can do better.

Exactly what I was going to say.

I've been wanting to run a 3 ISD list but the two times I put it on the table my opponents refused to play against it saying a 2 ISD list is OP and they didn't even want to waste their time against 3. I guess it really depends on your local meta.

I went 3-0 at a store championship with them, BUT

1.) one of the 3 games was against an inexperienced player

2.) it was fairly early on in wave 2

3.) I was one of the most, if not the most, experienced player at the event

4.) one opponent was not too squadron heavy

5.) I had a little bit of anti-squadron game plan with ordinance experts on an ISD-1

It was fun for sure, but probably not super competitive, especially in the era of bomber command and flotillas etc.

Hm... 386 before upgrades. So no squads.

If you go with Ozzel and ISD1 you have enough room for 6 TIE Fighter squadrons. But a gain these are un upgraded ISDs.

I don't know how you guys do your math but well I can do the following list:

Motti

3 ISD I

3 tie fighter squadron

Howlrunner

1 tie interceptor

I have 3 ISDs, a very good anti squadron force and a good admiral. If I remove the tie interceptor I can even put ordonance expert on every ISDs