I really want to fly two ISD's. They're super fun to play, I just can't seem to find a build I like.

Opinions?

Christmas Trees (392/400)

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Imperial II-class Star Destroyer (120 + 46)

+ Admiral Motti (24)

+ Gunnery Team (7)

+ Reinforced Blast Doors (5)

+ Leading Shots (4)

+ XI7 Turbolasers (6)

Imperial I-class Star Destroyer (110 + 33)

+ Minister Tua (2)

+ Flight Controllers (6)

+ Expanded Hangar Bay (5)

+ Leading Shots (4)

+ XI7 Turbolasers (6)

+ Relentless (3)

+ Electronic Countermeasures (7)

Soontir Fel (18)

"Howlrunner" (16)

"Mauler" Mithel (15)

Valen Rudor (13)

Saber Squadron (12)

Black Squadron (9)

Advanced Gunnery

Capture the VIP

Solar Corona

Flew this squadron loadout last night and I really like it. A little on the expensive side for dedicated anti-squadron, but my meta is extremely squadron-heavy so I'm not too concerned that it will go to waste.

The ISDs, though... I dunno, I've played the dual ISD thing a few times and can't seem to find a build I'm happy with.

Without intel Mauler will only get used once before being locked down and runs the risk of A-wings locking him first. Drop him for Z-Storm giving you a cheap Tie-A with double brace as black squadron won't last long.

I would probably go H9 on the ISD2. I think one X17 is enough for "punch" and it opens the 2 up for auto-blasting dodgey small ships or changing a double hit (or hit + crit) with AA to a true hit against scatter aces.

Not much in there to make someone want to not kill Fel first, kinda nullifying his special hurt. I think Fel works best when they have to choose to take damage to kill Dengar before Mauler hurts them.

Eh, like I said I'm pretty happy with the squadron loadout. I know conventional wisdom is you have to have Intel and escorts, but I went with the just bring a bigger gun philosophy.

Like everything else in the squadron game, of course it's going to depend on positioning, but... Black is enough to force Soontir's proc at least once against whatever I'm aiming to kill, then counter three with swarm is enough to make you think twice about going for Soontir before Howl. Or do you want to hit Mauler who's throwing five with swarm at you, and who you really need to kill before he gets freed up again? Or maybe you want to jump out there to hit Saber, who's crapping all over you from outside the ball with snipe 5-6 + swarm. But then that frees up Mauler to do his thing again...

As for A-wings reaching out to pin Mauler--I am completely fine with A-wings jumping unsupported into the middle of the doom ball. Even an equivalent number of A-wings--8--will have a hard time here with the giant piles of retributive damage flying around. Shara will hurt, but in the face of Rieekan Shara and/or Tycho you just have to split your forces into to two forks, in range to support each other but not close enough to all get pinned at once.

As for H9... Yeah, I might have to do that. I left them out because I'm not terribly concerned about killing flotillas in this build--I'm built to kill everything else efficiently, while I'll still probably be able to pop flotillas when I need to. But I'll have to do more testing against more fleets before I can say that I'm safe "disregarding" them from a build standpoint.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

My thoughts:

I wouldn't put H9 on ISD2 as 4 red 4 blue with LS reroll gives a high enough chance to get that accuracy. There may be an argument about putting it on ISD1 though. Any chance to squeeze in Cooms Net Gozanti to the build?

Thought about the Gozanti, and in absolute terms it would probably be worth doing. I left it out of this particular build mostly just to make a point.

And yeah, the more I think about it, i really don't think I'd put an H9 on the ISD2. The best argument for it is for side arc flotilla shots. But I like building fleets that reward skillful flying to push myself to be better, so I think I'd rather gamble on my ability to catch dudes in the GT front arc on that one.

I ran Jerrjerr with an ISD last night and it was AWESOME! Rushed in at speed 3, engaging in turn 2, Yavaris destoyed by 3, near 90* turn (at 3), popped Bright Hope turn 4, then ALMOST got a Liberty before it ran away all whilst outrunning (mostly) a lot of Reb bomber aces. I did loose Demo though.

I love ENG CPT on my ISDs and I'll bank a repair token turn 1. Good for 2-3 shields in a pinch and allows you to focus on other more important commands (Nav/Sqd) … but of course you know this. :-)

So similar to my list last year for the Vassal World Cup:

399/400

Flagship

ISD 2 (Reverence) 120 points

-Motti (24)

-Gunnery Team (7)

-ECM (7)

-XI7 (6)

ISD 2 (Regulation) 120 points

-Gunnery Team (7)

-Expanded Hanger Bay (5)

-ECM (7)

-XI7 (6)

Squadrons (90)

-Howlrunner (16)

-Darth Vader (21)

-Dengar (20)

-"Mauler" Mithel (15)

-Soontir Fel (18)

I like that you have room for six squads for deployment. I loved having the bad@$$ aces. They never failed me. What I hated was the Command 3 and 2 activations. I swore I'd never do it again. I have since become a strong advocate for either skilled officer (Which would be awesome on Relentless) or one of the liaison titles, since you'll have a few tokens at first.

Yeah SFO on Relentless is ridiculous and I love it. I ran a very similar list to rid the other day, on had the II loaded up as the carrier, with Relentless and SFO on there.

I'm not a fan of SFO on Relentless (or Relentless title in general) as it seems like overinverstiong for me. SFO on 3-dial ISD works good enough as long as you put in "Just in case" dial that you're planning to throw away in a normal course of action.

Another possibility is to ditch XI7 on ISD2 and put Spinals instead. (And yes, catching the flotilla or two in GT arc usually is pretty doable, that was my strategy at Worlds and it did work)

So, XI7 are there for shrimp and kittens specifically. But let's be honest, who even uses those?

>.>

<.<

35 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

So, XI7 are there for shrimp and kittens specifically. But let's be honest, who even uses those?

Well. Shrimps is one of the reasons I would keep XI7 on ISD1 (As a side note XI7 allowed me to one-shot a full health Demo that ended up in ISD1 front arc), however you're unlikely to kill either MC30 or a Kitten from one medium range shot (both will require 8 damage to kill with XI7 and will evade to reroll one of the hits, so it'll be hard to achieve with ISD2 (maybe doable with agressive ramming but still far from being guaranteed)) and Spinals are useful in every situation.

1 hour ago, pt106 said:

Well. Shrimps is one of the reasons I would keep XI7 on ISD1 (As a side note XI7 allowed me to one-shot a full health Demo that ended up in ISD1 front arc), however you're unlikely to kill either MC30 or a Kitten from one medium range shot (both will require 8 damage to kill with XI7 and will evade to reroll one of the hits, so it'll be hard to achieve with ISD2 (maybe doable with agressive ramming but still far from being guaranteed)) and Spinals are useful in every situation.

Well, I usually do the math assuming the aggressive ramming and the structural if it's a crit, but that's also because I'm usually on the other end of it and figuring worst-case. So, you're right, but XI7 is still worth it in most cases.

What I really want to put on there is a blue version of Spinal, though...

On 1/25/2017 at 1:33 PM, CaribbeanNinja said:

So similar to my list last year for the Vassal World Cup:

399/400

Flagship

ISD 2 (Reverence) 120 points

-Motti (24)

-Gunnery Team (7)

-ECM (7)

-XI7 (6)

ISD 2 (Regulation) 120 points

-Gunnery Team (7)

-Expanded Hanger Bay (5)

-ECM (7)

-XI7 (6)

Squadrons (90)

-Howlrunner (16)

-Darth Vader (21)

-Dengar (20)

-"Mauler" Mithel (15)

-Soontir Fel (18)

I like that you have room for six squads for deployment. I loved having the bad@$$ aces. They never failed me. What I hated was the Command 3 and 2 activations. I swore I'd never do it again. I have since become a strong advocate for either skilled officer (Which would be awesome on Relentless) or one of the liaison titles, since you'll have a few tokens at first.

I can remember a time when they failed you

Boo to you Mads! Boo to you!

They didn't fail me. If you remember ramming my own ISD to death in the @$$ failed me!

Yeah but thats just because you were so intimidated by my squadrons.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I feel Intel officer is extremely helpful on an ISD in helping it take down big ships quicker and on their own by knocking out the brace early. This also limits return fire (cause the other fatty is dead) so you can move on to smaller prey that can be one shotted with an accuracy

What about using HTTs on one instead of double XI7s? Brings a bit of flexibility should you run into countermeasure bearing AFs or MC80s.

I've been flying a double isd list and it is awesome. With jerjerrod, I can can maintain higher speeds and get the engagements that I choose, all the while one-shotting most everything I shoot at. The rapid launch bays were initially a thematic addition (who doesn't love the concept of isds spitting out tie fighters mid engagement...), however they work really well with the tie swarm. It allows the tie fighters to truly escort the isds and can't be picked off by superior antisquadron until they have done their business with bombers. I usually set squadron activation as my third command and have veteran officer just in case I rush too hard and need them early.

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 387/400

Commander: Moff Jerjerrod

Assault Objective: Station Assault
Defense Objective: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation Objective: Navigational Hazards

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer(120 points)
- Moff Jerjerrod ( 23 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Rapid Launch Bays ( 6 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Dual Turbolaser Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 173 total ship cost

Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Rapid Launch Bays ( 6 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Dual Turbolaser Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 150 total ship cost

8 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 64 points)

On 1/28/2017 at 6:35 AM, Jambo75 said:

What about using HTTs on one instead of double XI7s? Brings a bit of flexibility should you run into countermeasure bearing AFs or MC80s.

A bad idea. Dual XI7 are better than XI7/HTT when shooting the same hull zone on a ship. (And HTTs are just not good in the current meta - as they do nothing for MC30s)

16 hours ago, pt106 said:

A bad idea. Dual XI7 are better than XI7/HTT when shooting the same hull zone on a ship. (And HTTs are just not good in the current meta - as they do nothing for MC30s)

Fair point regarding the MC30s. I guess this could be different if you're playing the CC campaign and you know your opponent doesn't have MC30s in either of their lists.

At first, I was all about using ISD-II's and fancy squadron set ups and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Then I started thinking about how do I just plain murder my enemies ships and then get the hell out of Dodge (or Mos Eisley) whilst keeping my opponents oh so clever squadron build off of me.

I decided in my Sith Lord hatred to try this.

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 398/400

Commander: Darth Vader

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation Objective: Minefields

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Relentless ( 3 points)
- Damage Control Officer ( 5 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- High-Capacity Ion Turbines ( 8 points)
= 132 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Devastator ( 10 points)
- Damage Control Officer ( 5 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- High-Capacity Ion Turbines ( 8 points)
= 175 total ship cost

1 VT-49 Decimator ( 22 points)
1 TIE Defender Squadron ( 16 points)
4 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 32 points)
1 Maarek Steele ( 21 points)

Now, you may think it's mad, but it isn't designed for the protracted fight. You charge in, you unload everything you have and you get the hell out. Ramming is a viable tactic with this fleet and I would willingly use it.

It's almost certain the opponent will choose Minefields so set them to make your escape behind them.

I am testing this for real this week. However, solo play shows it to be rather surprisingly effective.

I absolutely LOVE the idea of deploying the minefields as a cover to your planned withdrawal.