I've been trying a bunch of different 2 ISD variants. I would advocate that everyone try this and see what its really like. I've gotten a huge amount of table time playing 2 large ship, 3 large ship lists. Sadly, it just ends up being: has an inherent weakness to both 134 squads and MSU, strong meta contenders.

This has been my most successful variant. It has just enough to survive vs mass mass squadrons and still do some damage, however, I'd bet that it loses pretty hard to a lot of MSU lists with 6+ ships due to no bid.

IIZZ Sloane s6 b0

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 398/400

Commander: Moff Jerjerrod

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Fire Lanes
Navigation Objective: Salvage Run

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Moff Jerjerrod ( 23 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 144 total ship cost

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 121 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 25 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 25 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
= 23 total ship cost

4 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 44 points)
1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)

Card view link

Fleet

Here's a variant on what I was working on previously. Using Sloane to both bump AA defenses (Howl + 4 ints is bare minimum, I've found) .

IIZZ Sloane s6 b0

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 400/400

Commander: Admiral SLOANE

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Fire Lanes
Navigation Objective: Salvage Run

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Minister Tua ( 2 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 129 total ship cost

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 125 total ship cost

- Admiral SLOANE ( 24 points)

[ flagship ] Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)

- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 49 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 25 total ship cost

1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)
4 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 44 points)
1 JumpMaster 5000 ( 12 points)

Card view link

Fleet

I really think forum goers should really try the 2 ISD challenge, as I keep hearing crap like "large ships are fine" "large ships don't have weaknesses". There's really no good reason why 2ISD lists should be considered so janky to the point of no viability. Is it a skew list? I would say no.

Also that other 12 page of 2 ISD lists being attempted for viable really makes it feel like they're not.

6 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

I really think forum goers should really try the 2 ISD challenge, as I keep hearing crap like "large ships are fine" "large ships don't have weaknesses". There's really no good reason why 2ISD lists should be considered so janky to the point of no viability. Is it a skew list? I would say no.

Also that other 12 page of 2 ISD lists being attempted for viable really makes it feel like they're not.

In the manner of the old Wave 2 ISD/Demo builds, I'm personally trying to work out a Lambda driven rhymer + non-rogue version. The old build depended firesprays to do the lifting + speed 0: I'm trying to see if I can use Sloan/defenders or Sloan TIE/ln- I can see this being particularly effective at knocking out flotillas

1 minute ago, DUR said:

In the manner of the old Wave 2 ISD/Demo builds, I'm personally trying to work out a Lambda driven rhymer + non-rogue version. The old build depended firesprays to do the lifting + speed 0: I'm trying to see if I can use Sloan/defenders or Sloan TIE/ln- I can see this being particularly effective at knocking out flotillas

Sloane/Phantoms is the right answer I think.

12 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Sloane/Phantoms is the right answer I think.

Oh that might be a good list. Just... what else are you taking with this? Like, rest of the build.

2 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Oh that might be a good list. Just... what else are you taking with this? Like, rest of the build.

I don't know that yet. What I can see is that Phantoms are VERY good with Sloane and I wanted to run Phantomball for some time already.

14 minutes ago, pt106 said:

I don't know that yet. What I can see is that Phantoms are VERY good with Sloane and I wanted to run Phantomball for some time already.

Phantomballs are Phenomenal as is...

And they really Hurt Admonition.

3 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Phantomballs are Phenomenal as is...

And they really Hurt Admonition.

I suspected that as I wanted to run them even before Sloane. However Sloane makes them even more phenomenal

Indeed.

They've got a little bit of everything with them... They hit like X-Wings, they're harder to 1 Shot than Generic TIEs - they effectively have twice the Bombing power of a Regular TIE, they're VECTOR-useable.... And if you don't Jump on them and kill them, they duck out of Range and do what they want (assuming they have initiative) before you can do anything else to them.... Urgh.

Three Pronged Nightmares, they are, even before you get to Whisper.

30 minutes ago, pt106 said:

I don't know that yet. What I can see is that Phantoms are VERY good with Sloane and I wanted to run Phantomball for some time already.

Haven't played with Phantoms much, could you explain the logic there? They're less likely to trigger Sloane than a TIE Fighter, but I guess the option of doing a damage alongside getting an accuracy makes up for it?

2 minutes ago, Valca said:

Haven't played with Phantoms much, could you explain the logic there? They're less likely to trigger Sloane than a TIE Fighter, but I guess the option of doing a damage alongside getting an accuracy makes up for it?

Against Ships - They're exactly as likely to Trigger Sloane as a TIE Fighter (Two Reds with 1/8 each, vs 1 Blue with 2/8)....

The trick is, they're almost twice as much as a TIE Fighter, so you start comparing them to TWO TIE Fighters...

In which case, they hit squadrons *almost* as hard as 2 TIEs... Use half the maintenance (commands, good if you're utilising Relay) and their Spike potential is worrying... They're also harder for a Ship to Kill, comparatively speaking - requiring 4 hits vs 3 Hits (which is a comparison to make, when you're dealing with Multiple Squadrons in a single arc).

18 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Against Ships - They're exactly as likely to Trigger Sloane as a TIE Fighter (Two Reds with 1/8 each, vs 1 Blue with 2/8)....

The trick is, they're almost twice as much as a TIE Fighter, so you start comparing them to TWO TIE Fighters...

In which case, they hit squadrons *almost* as hard as 2 TIEs... Use half the maintenance (commands, good if you're utilising Relay) and their Spike potential is worrying... They're also harder for a Ship to Kill, comparatively speaking - requiring 4 hits vs 3 Hits (which is a comparison to make, when you're dealing with Multiple Squadrons in a single arc).

Against ship Sloanne Phantom is less likely to get the accuracy (28% vs 37.5% once Sloane reroll is taken into account), however the average damage output is 1.22 (as opposed to 0.625) with 30% of doing no damage (16% chance of no damage and no accuracies) and 11.5% chance of doing 3 or more damage.

Indeed. I didn't factor Reroll in. Or do Math. Because I don't Math without Coffee.

But still. Overall, Good Times. Math is Good.

2 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Or do Math. Because I don't Math without Coffee.

Well.. I'm cheating and letting The Computer to do math for me

2 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Well.. I'm cheating and letting The Computer to do math for me

I don't Program without Coffee either. Or do anything other than type 65wpm on Automatic Pilot.

Everything I've said on the forums the past week has effectively been the typed version of verbal diarrhoea.

Reminder that people should try the 2ISD challenge to get a sense of what breaks these ship based builds.

31 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Reminder that people should try the 2ISD challenge to get a sense of what breaks these ship based builds.

Well.. my current personal challenge is to run something other than 2ISD build...

8 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Well.. my current personal challenge is to run something other than 2ISD build...

Do you have a high success rate build of 2 ISDs with a set up, deployment, movement plan to share? The other thread basically found only failures over 12 pages. It was really saddening.

5 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Do you have a high success rate build of 2 ISDs with a set up, deployment, movement plan to share? The other thread basically found only failures over 12 pages. It was really saddening.

Well.. I didn't play a lot of 2ISDs in this wave but I do see several variations of the build that can be successful and they revolve around 2 ISD1, 2 Gozanti and 50+ points of squadrons as initial building block.

EDIT: For example the last iteration that I tried to see what Konstantine can do was

Points: 391/400

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 127 total ship cost

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 127 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 30 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Admiral Konstantine ( 23 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 53 total ship cost

2 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 22 points)
2 TIE Defender Squadrons ( 32 points)

I think the point is to actually see if ANY of them can really compete favorably in the meta, and atm, the answer is 12 pages of trying and no.

36 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

I think the point is to actually see if ANY of them can really compete favorably in the meta, and atm, the answer is 12 pages of trying and no.

Erm. 2ISD build took second place in a Maryland Regional (44 players, was 1st after 4 swiss rounds, lost the elimination game), so using 2 ISDs in a current meta is clearly viable.

Just now, pt106 said:

Erm. 2ISD build took second place in a Maryland Regional (44 players, was 1st after 4 swiss rounds, lost the elimination game), so using 2 ISDs in a current meta is clearly viable.

Refute: nearly half the fleets that are FIRST place are 8+ squadrons of bombers. Plus a huge multiple of nearly copy cat Rieekan squadron lists filling the top4 and top2, including the RLB Parkdaddy variant.

To that end, ONE second place finish does not stack with 8 first place finishes.
Viable in your line means Tier2 competitive, and wholly uncompetitive at T1. This to me is not viable, it just means this one time some guy who as pretty good at armada got 2nd place in 1 out of 16 country-wide regionals, and no one else has taken a 2 large ship list (there might be one, ill have to check) to win a regional.
Please consider this line of thought also.

1 minute ago, Blail Blerg said:

Refute: nearly half the fleets that are FIRST place are 8+ squadrons of bombers. Plus a huge multiple of nearly copy cat Rieekan squadron lists filling the top4 and top2, including the RLB Parkdaddy variant.

To that end, ONE second place finish does not stack with 8 first place finishes.
Viable in your line means Tier2 competitive, and wholly uncompetitive at T1. This to me is not viable, it just means this one time some guy who as pretty good at armada got 2nd place in 1 out of 16 country-wide regionals, and no one else has taken a 2 large ship list (there might be one, ill have to check) to win a regional.
Please consider this line of thought also.

I did and in my mind what matters is that it was a big regional with a lot of high skill players and that second place finish is as good as first in my book (again, it was at the top after all swiss rounds including a win against eventual first place. He lost a rematch though). Given that skilled players that bring 2ISD fleets to the table are not a common sight, I think that it shows the viability of the concept. I'm pretty sure that if I would've brought a list like that to a regional I would be very likely to end up in top 4 at least. (That actually reminds me that I saw one 2ISD list in top 8 in one of the regionals I was in).

However based on my experience I do consider 2ISD list to be a high-skill list, especially at a building stage as I see a lot of 2ISD lists on the forums that I personally consider suboptimal.

1 hour ago, pt106 said:

I did and in my mind what matters is that it was a big regional with a lot of high skill players and that second place finish is as good as first in my book (again, it was at the top after all swiss rounds including a win against eventual first place. He lost a rematch though). Given that skilled players that bring 2ISD fleets to the table are not a common sight, I think that it shows the viability of the concept. I'm pretty sure that if I would've brought a list like that to a regional I would be very likely to end up in top 4 at least. (That actually reminds me that I saw one 2ISD list in top 8 in one of the regionals I was in).

However based on my experience I do consider 2ISD list to be a high-skill list, especially at a building stage as I see a lot of 2ISD lists on the forums that I personally consider suboptimal.

while cool, I don't think it stacks up to how much easier it is to take something else (demonstrably by the results) and win with those.

Just now, Blail Blerg said:

while cool, I don't think it stacks up to how much easier it is to take something else (demonstrably by the results) and win with those.

Well.. we were talking about viability not easiness or hotness. Are other builds stronger? No. Quicker, easier, more seductive.

And the benefit of taking non-mainstream build is that people usually don't know what to expect from it or how to react to it.