I call this the Avengisher, after an earlier draft included Demo plus three Raiders harrying the enemy while Avenger closed in. I know many have tried to make the Overload Pulse Interdictor combo with Avenger, and that strategy may be more viable this way: with two sources of Overload Pulse and with Screed to guarantee the crit. This way, we get five activations, a decent fighter wing, and some suppression of the enemy's squadrons as well. I haven't tried it out, but I'm intrigued by the possibility of a couple of Raiders setting up easy kills for Avenger by knocking out key defense tokens. Here are the key concepts:

• Hunting dogs plus executioner: The Raiders can exhaust defense tokens, and Screed makes sure they get a blue crit.
• Activation advantage: Five activations lets the Avenger strike only after the enemy has been served up by the Raiders.
• Rhymer ball: Easy damage to finish off stragglers.
• Ruthless Strategist: 5-6 hull squadrons can take a bit of self-inflicted damage if needed to let Raider AA or Zertik deal a finishing point of damage to interceptors.

Thoughts? The AA strategy is an area of improvement that I think could be made. If I could figure out a way to deal with enemy squadrons more economically, I could use a bigger number of piranha Raiders in the fleet.

You can probably swap out Ex Hangar for coms net. You don't have a very powerful fighter force so will start loosing squadrons and no longer need to activate 5 per turn. Just get the Gozantis to bank squadron tokens turn one so you get a turn 2&3 five squadron activations. When you have lost 3 squadrons or so the coms net can be used to give tokens to Avenger later in the game.

I'm not that keen on ruthless strategist and as I said before you may run out of fighters before the enemy does, particularly if you damage them yourself. But it could work. Kallus could be fun on one raider and/or a skilled first officer on Avenger.

It's an interesting build.

You do have 2 OP sources and sufficient activations that you can get it to work from time to time.

What doesn't work here is the lack of a bid. To set up raiders of OP you need 1st player; or at least it will be much easier/consistent.

Personally I'd also go XI7 on the ISD, since it makes you a bit less reliant on the OP trick, but that's not a huge deal.

Finally, while it's a good tactic to use bombers to wear down defense tokens in preparation for Avenger, I'm note sure you can do both the OP trick and bombers in one list. What you do have is about as good as it gets, I think, I'm just not sure you can reliably get it to work.

Without player one, it is virtually impossible to get a 2 ship combo doing what you want here.

Much simpler to have the Avenger trigger its on OLP, again you really want player one for it.

It would be interesting to see if you could do a build in the old Demolisher style, IE beef up Avenger to be its own OLP provider, and have nothing but flotillas with it to get it the activations you need to be able to last/first with it, plus with the flotillas being that cheap you can have a decent squadron presence.

I play Avenger a lot, and I never (almost) try to use OP. It's just too expensive and complex. Better to just take advantage of activation order and double arcing to get Avenger to trigger. Personally I also like to combine with XI7, as it ensures good coverage, even if all tokens aren't exhausted. Suppressor is also a nice, defensive little trick. Hardly essential, but against eager MC30s and Demos it can really be an asset.

Edit: Rhymer is also a good friend to Avenger. Esp. ISD-2 Avenger IMO, as Rhymer can allow you to get some real mileage out of those red dice.

Just messing about with a fleet builder,

ISD II : Admiral Screed : Wulff Yularen : Veteran Gunners : Phylon Q Tractor Beams : ECM : OLP : H9 Turbolasers : Avenger (192pts)

Gozanti Class Cruisers (X 8, 184pts)

Would be pretty fun for a 1 game try out, and pray your opponent took Advanced Gunnery

Hmm, well to increase the initiative bid, there's plenty of room to rejigger the squadrons. Having two sources of Ruthless Strategists isn't crucial to the build, and the Suppressor title synergizes well with Avenger but its expected value is questionable given the Gozanti's squishiness at distance 1-3 of the enemy.