The list that won Worlds (hi, jj!) has five activations, a huge bomber swarm, and Admonition. It's not a case of either/or. Demolisher and 4+ activations are a not-uncommon sight alongside Rhymer balls.

I'm not trying to be petty, I'm just pointing out that it's not as hard a counter as you think it is. If you want to design a competitive fleet with 1 or more large ships, it needs to be something that's all-around competitive against a variety of fleets and considers that most good fleets aren't just overloading on one particular element of the game - they're flexible, multi-faceted, and present a number of problems that need solutions.

Is the interdictor part of the answer?

Targetting scramblers reduce the threat of demo/admo massively, and if it runs nothing but ENG commands it tanks massive amounts of damage....

Is the interdictor part of the answer?

Targetting scramblers reduce the threat of demo/admo massively, and if it runs nothing but ENG commands it tanks massive amounts of damage....

Yea but you are dropping over 1/4 of your points that is not effective at killing. And will likely be ignored until it is the last ship. If there wasn't a turn limit, the Interdictor would be amazing. But you have 6 turns to deal as much damage as possible, and the Interdictor just can't do that.

I'm not trying to be petty, I'm just pointing out that it's not as hard a counter as you think it is. If you want to design a competitive fleet with 1 or more large ships, it needs to be something that's all-around competitive against a variety of fleets and considers that most good fleets aren't just overloading on one particular element of the game - they're flexible, multi-faceted, and present a number of problems that need solutions.

That's all true enough, but when I start my post with a "this is for playing large ships and not dying from bombers quickly" statement, qualifying it as a specific thing, not a well rounded list, then you post what you did... it's kind of hard to re-state my original point.

I quite happily took 2 large Ships (Mc80 Liberty, MC80 Command) with Garm to a local tournament in Edmonton today.

1) I got to the Top Table final Round.

2) I lost to a list that included an MC80 Liberty (They had a Battle, vs my Star), and an MC80 (They had an Assault, vs my Command)...

And I lost on Fire Lanes tokens, because of that dang 2 red die advantage he could leverage....

So to clarify, you won at least two games with red dice.....

So to clarify, you won at least two games with red dice.....

I played the crap out of the Objectives.

I "lost" the first game, if you calculate it on damage... By a good 100-120 points... But gained 11 Superior Positions points.

Second game, well, my opponent was forced to fly a Most Wanted Gallant Haven through the middle of a bomber swarm, pushing his own X-Wings through with it...

... I just made sure the bomber swarm was partially obscuring 2 asteroids and a debris field... And the terrain did half the damage for me.

...

I only lost the Liberty in the Last Game - and I traded it for the enemy Assault Cruiser. This game ended basically tied on damage points, but I lost on teh fire lanes... Even die rolling by me would have dropped the MC80 two turns earlier (it was a Regen Tank, and I'd dropped it to 0 shields and 2 hull left twice)... And evened everything up...

So, if anything,lesson learned was this:

Screw Red Dice.

Screw Blue Dice.

Screw Black Dice.

Just have more than your opponent by putting them in the right position.

This has been on my mind for a long time. My personal feeling is that Large Ships need an additional bonus for the risk of concentrating so many points and reducing activations. Either Large Ships are not powerful enough or they need an additional defense upgrade.

I feel that while there is something close to a linear progression concerning the increase in power of dice, shields, and hull, there is not a linear progression concerning the increase in the power of deployments, activations, and defense dice. But most of all I think there is a distinct advantage in the ability to spread out squadron activation. Activation advantage is really, really powerful both in terms of controlling the order, having extra, and having flexibility to activate squadrons. Having several small ship activations w/ squadrons > one large ship activation w/ squadrons appears to be strictly better. You can definitely argue against this as their are few if no absolutes in the game (which is great!). But to me it feels true. As a player who has focused on Imperial ships (Demo builds especially) for the last year I feel that the evidence is clear.

Perhaps the best way to summarize this is to say: Its easier to double arc and eliminate an ISD in 1 activation w/ Demo or an MC30, than it is for an ISD to eliminate any Medium/Large ship in 1 activation. And even if I am incorrect, there is something wrong about there being an equal chance for a small ship to eliminate a large ship as for a large ship to eliminate a small. If there is equal chance, smart risk management tells you to risk less on any given ship.

If I had one recommendation to fix this? Least broken way would be to increase the dice of ISDs (also VSDs), especially the side arcs. I think getting close to an ISD should be murder for anything. For instance:

ISDII

FA: 4 Red, 4 Blue, 2 Black,

SA: 2 Red, 2 Blue, 2 Black

ISDI

FA: 4 Red, 2 Blue, 4 Black

SA: 3 Red, 3 Black

I think adding black ups the damage while limiting the impact too far from the ship. I guess I feel that small ship are too safe in the flanks of the ISD and that an ISD should have the best chance of one-shotting other large ships. Now, feel free to apply this to other Large Ships. The MC80 MonCal should have + 1 red and +1 blue on each type (command and assault). If you don't agree with my assessment, I could be persuaded in just saying the front arc of the ISD should be nearly 160 degrees, or nearly flat. Or just disagree altogether, it's all good.

For upping the damage on ships, why not just add the modifications? Enhanced armaments or high capacity ion turbines?

For upping the damage on ships, why not just add the modifications? Enhanced armaments or high capacity ion turbines?

I Think his point is that their base cost needs to have those extra dice already included.....

(I don't nesecarily agree, the ammount of games I've played are from too small a pool sample size to really say one way or the other.)

For upping the damage on ships, why not just add the modifications? Enhanced armaments or high capacity ion turbines?

Those take the crucial turbolaser and ion cannon slots respectively, and are costly. Leading shots for rerolls is an amazing piece to have on VSDs, ISDs, and both flavors of MC80. Turbolasers now are either XI7 or H9, since the MC80 Liberty is the only ship with two turbolaser slots.

For large ship defence, would it help if contain worked against all critical effects, not just the standard crit, as I have only seen large ships with it so far, or would that be that be too powerful?

For large ship defence, would it help if contain worked against all critical effects, not just the standard crit, as I have only seen large ships with it so far, or would that be that be too powerful?

Damage Control Officer in Wave 5 seems to be a Crew Upgrade to do just that

DCOs will at least make those ships a little more resilient to those critical effects (stopping Overload pulse for instance), but they won't stop APT swarms... and they do nothing to help non-contain mediums and heavies (VSDs, any Lib other than Endeavour, A/F). In the end DCO just makes the contain a relevant token, but not for stopping damage. It's one more token that can be blasted away with multiple small-ship attacks.

I'm aware this Paradim of multiple attack craft overwhelming and destroying big ships is so workable that we no longer manufacture battleships in real life. But this is space fantasy where the Imperial Star Destroyer is the poster-child spaceship of the game. If we wanted starfighters and small ships to really have more relevance over big ships, we should go play X-Wing. I invested in Armada to have capital ships trade turbolaser blows in space. More Battle of Coruscant and less Battle of Yavin.

After the Melbourne regionals, I have to agree...large ships are now at a disadvantage. A fairly large one. Hmm.

After the Melbourne regionals, I have to agree...large ships are now at a disadvantage. A fairly large one. Hmm.

I think they're still workable, at a price. Namely as fire support platforms rather than the tip of the spear. Rolling in behind a cloud of fighters and smaller ships that can screen it from having bomber wings get into distance 1 (or medium-close for Rhymer) without having to take losses. An ISD is more akin to a Paladin than an Abrams in the new meta, Lupine.

An ISD is more akin to a fat, juicy bag of points ripe for the taking, while not so able to chase down scattering, dodging flotillas, Destraa. In my opinion, of course, and this just absolutely annoys me. I love my ISD, and seeing it relegated in favor of a bunch of small ships is infuriating. But alas, tis' the way the dice are rolling. One must adapt and overcome, or die.

An ISD is more akin to a fat, juicy bag of points ripe for the taking, while not so able to chase down scattering, dodging flotillas, Destraa. In my opinion, of course, and this just absolutely annoys me. I love my ISD, and seeing it relegated in favor of a bunch of small ships is infuriating. But alas, tis' the way the dice are rolling. One must adapt and overcome, or die.

Are you using H9s and/or Intel Officer with it? If not, then I'm afraid that's on you for not adapting to the regular inclusion of flotillas nowadays.

I think you're all starting to see this game developing into what it should be.

Smaller ships are able to evade/get away from Imperial ban-hammers whilst the big ships can and do slug it out with each other.

I myself have found myself sitting back and thinking of how to tackle the problem....and I think Wave 5 might be a big help for the Empire if the light cruisers are decently costed.

Is the interdictor part of the answer?

Targetting scramblers reduce the threat of demo/admo massively, and if it runs nothing but ENG commands it tanks massive amounts of damage....

Yea but you are dropping over 1/4 of your points that is not effective at killing. And will likely be ignored until it is the last ship. If there wasn't a turn limit, the Interdictor would be amazing. But you have 6 turns to deal as much damage as possible, and the Interdictor just can't do that.

True, but to keep the discussion rolling....

I find my games are won or lost in maybe two or three activations across the whole 6 turns. The interdictor can have a big impact on those critical turns, blocking a big dose of damage and/or setting up a kill shot for your ISD.

IF msu's are the meta, shouldn't large ships with gunnery teams be having their hay day? never before has it been more likely to have two targets in your best arc of your ISD/LIB that can be one shotted... instead of lamenting the inclusion of large ships in our fleets, shouldn't we be looking to them as solutions to the msu meta?

i think its also worth examining just how large ships are dying these days... if large ships are dying to bombers, particularly for the imperials, perhaps better antisquadron screens need to become part of the cost of taking large ships, trading the bomber keyword off for heavy firepower alongside sub optimal anti ship fighters

I think that's a really important point Skycake, it's not like a bunch of corvettes or transports is what's taking down your ISD. It's the rhymerball that you can't defend against because along with that ISD you wanted to bring Demo etc etc.

SkyCake makes an excellent point, and exactly one of the things I learned at Melbourne.

As far as what the game is supposed to be....that's a matter of opinion. I tought it was supposed to be about large capital ships engaging in fleet actions. Turns out it's about a bunch of small fry darting about avoiding engagement while bombers snipe at you. Ah well. Lol, back to the drawing board.

Skycake is exactly right. You need both the large ship gunnery team and the right outfit. Then you need a couple of good supporting ships and/or flotillas that can help you set up your activations.

An ISD is more akin to a fat, juicy bag of points ripe for the taking, while not so able to chase down scattering, dodging flotillas, Destraa. In my opinion, of course, and this just absolutely annoys me. I love my ISD, and seeing it relegated in favor of a bunch of small ships is infuriating. But alas, tis' the way the dice are rolling. One must adapt and overcome, or die.

Are you using H9s and/or Intel Officer with it? If not, then I'm afraid that's on you for not adapting to the regular inclusion of flotillas nowadays.

I think Vader is a worthwhile consideration in flotilla hunting as well. It's not a guarantee, but he makes the odds pretty damned good. A naked Arquitens concentrating fire is actually going to be a legitimate threat to flotillas with Vader. If you don't believe me, go pick up 4 red dice. If you don't get an accuracy the first time, pick up anything that isn't a double damage and roll them again. You'll be amazed how often that accuracy shows up. The same goes for Raiders and the ISD. Those accuracies aren't guaranteed, but they're pretty likely.