Can't seem to find a good red objective vs msu... Too go through my thoughts on them really quickly:

Station assault: probably one of the better ones as a points offset, but doesn't help destroy my opponents ships, and gives enemy ships something to do after they've delivered their payloads and have passed through the fight.

Most wanted: likely the best available as it provides a strict second player bonus only and gives you more dices to help destroy ships. Problem with that is outs not THAT many points really, and since msu attack from beyond long range, it can be quite challenging to get ANY dice for that matter onto the target. Further more the objective wants you to be msu to get the most out of it limiting build choices.

Close range Intel scan: I don't even... Whaaaaaaaaaat?!?

Targeting beacons: makes your dice better, but averages out to about the same damage boost as most wanted without the points bonus. It also requires some setup and is vulnerable to strategic.

Opening salvo: interesting, but sketchy.. Msu and corvette swarm will probably be happy taking this as it provides them a very nice, very usable dice bonus and if they aren't able to quite finish off your big ship for some odd reason, quite a nice points bonus as well... The flip side is once you start shooting, your dice are heavily boosted. Again as in mw, os wants you to have lots of ships to gain bonus and this can be quite limiting of build choices.

Precision strike: little to no real advantage for second player and msu fleets are likely to carry multiple copies of APTs. Should you not want to take bombers, it can be hard to farm points.

Advanced gunnery: although an demmsu is going to have a harder time benefiting from AG, admomsu is probably going to be fine with it. Since msu entire strategy is to stay out of your large arcs , then last/first, then escape, it will be hard to reap any bonus from it at all and you've just made the thing in your fleet msu wants to kill double the points! Not being able to take gunnery teams on your ISD can be a major drawback as well.

Blockade run: possibly decent as the narrow playing field limits flanking options from your opponent. Getting to place all obstacles is nice as well. Again it wants you to have lots of ships to capitalize on bonus... But it's not bad, home one can hug one side of the map while loading the other with obstacles and hopefully getting a decent engagement out of that. Worth exploring.

So that's my thinking, I hope I've missed something because it seems to me that there are no horrible red objectives for msu to face. Thoughts??

Put a flotilla in your fleet and MW is perfect. You can pick the juiciest target of the enemy fleet and assign you flotilla Most Wanted.

I've haven't really thought of it this way. As I rarely know what I'm playing against ahead of time I tend to think in terms of what works best for me.

What kind of fleet will you be playing with?

No, if you have not considered your build there is no tough red objective for an MSU to face.

Station Assault: Run your two MC80's or ISD straight over this in a corner, good luck pushing through that.

Most Wanted: Demo really doesnt like this. Nither does Admo much. How many guns have you got? If you have lots then great. Maybe you are packing multiple vics, arqs or assault frigates!

Close Range Intel Scan: MSU cant get points from this, they dont have the dice for it. How does MSU generate two accs?

Targeting Beacons: Simply makes your dice better? What are we running? Victories that have no way of modifying dice? Being able to reroll is massive for these! And the MSU knows it, so they will have to dodge the beacons with their tiny hull. You get control of their movements this way.

Opening Salvo. Nope this is their objective. Dont bother. Only works if you can finish off a ship early in the first two turns with it. So you better have massive long range threat.

Precision Strike. Whilst I have long said this is a APT objective. Do you have Dodonna and bombers? Sure, wreck havoc.

Advanced Gunnery. Really do I need to explain why they cant handle this? Sure if you put it on an MC80 without engine techs you are screwed. But why did you pick it without the engine techs?

Blockade Run. They cant stop you getting to the other side, what are they going to do? Physically block you. Great. Ram them to death.

So yeah, exactly what Shmitty said, what are you running!

Hmmmm perhaps I should have framed the discussion differently, but I wanted to leave lists out of it at first, find the worst objective for msu and then build toward it.

So let's instead perhaps look at it this way. Say you are an msu of either demo or admo flavour, and for some reason blues and yellows are complete no goes for you. What red objective are you really unhappy with? Because it seems to me almost irrespective of the second players list that they are not going to get a strong enough advantage through the available reds to overcome the natural strengths of an msu ie. High deployments, activation advantage, last/first, attacking from beyond dice range, perfect information, best maneuverability.

My idea of an objective that hurts msu and plays directly against many of the strengths of an msu is the armed station base defense objective from cc.

We currently have some reds that do provide some bonuses to second player, but no slam dunks vs msu imo.

Advanced Gunnery on a sufficiently decked out HMC80 doom pickle is a tough one for me. It's not insurmountable and if the doom pickle is destroyed that's basically GG for my opponent, but being able to double-salvo into a hammer ship (Demolisher or the other Gladiator) that's going to require 2 total turns of attacks to finally kill the super pickle means the Gladiator will die before the doom pickle, even if the Gladiator is only in the front arc.

It requires some competent playing from the second player, though. It can be win big or lose big. It's also not really an option for Imperial fleets, really.

Otherwise, Most Wanted and choosing Demo for me (boo) and a flotilla for you (predictable, if the best choice) can add up. I won't be getting attacked from best arcs but those extra dice add up and can help compensate for not getting your best arcs by making your "okay" arcs a bit better.

9 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

Advanced Gunnery on a sufficiently decked out HMC80 doom pickle is a tough one for me. It's not insurmountable and if the doom pickle is destroyed that's basically GG for my opponent, but being able to double-salvo into a hammer ship (Demolisher or the other Gladiator) that's going to require 2 total turns of attacks to finally kill the super pickle means the Gladiator will die before the doom pickle, even if the Gladiator is only in the front arc.

It requires some competent playing from the second player, though. It can be win big or lose big. It's also not really an option for Imperial fleets, really.

Otherwise, Most Wanted and choosing Demo for me (boo) and a flotilla for you (predictable, if the best choice) can add up. I won't be getting attacked from best arcs but those extra dice add up and can help compensate for not getting your best arcs by making your "okay" arcs a bit better.

I agree fully. To be clear though, doom pickle is

Mc80assault, Dco, ecm, rbd, ls, xi7, and maybe defiance maybe engine techs?

Sure there are no slam dunk reds vs MSU.

Pretty much EVERY yellow and blue is a slam dunk vs MSU....

19 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Sure there are no slam dunk reds vs MSU.

Pretty much EVERY yellow and blue is a slam dunk vs MSU....

Indeed. OP confused me. Pretty much all reds are decent against MSU. Except for 'Opening Salvo' (NEVER take vs MSU - it's a massive buff for them) or (arguably) 'Precision Strike' (if they are torpedo ships going crazy for APT...but we are getting fuzzy on a true MSU list, here)

I'd probably say Advanced Gunnery is the best (although it conflicts with your own gunnery teams, so you need a list with a good reason not to be already running gunnery teams). But if you have a flotilla, and are commonly seeing Demo/Admo MSU lists, then 'Most Wanted' is, indeed, a super obvious choice.

The real problem is that all the blues are so good for an MSU list, you're going to be hard pressed to find an MSU player that doesn't just automatically pick your blue. I ultimately had to go pure-carrier and take the Holy Trinity of Squadron Objectives (Precision Strike, Fighter Ambush, Superior Positions) to finally get a combination of objectives that was "always better" for my fleet than my opponents.

4 hours ago, SkyCake said:

So let's instead perhaps look at it this way. Say you are an msu of either demo or admo flavour, and for some reason blues and yellows are complete no goes for you. What red objective are you really unhappy with?

Then let me quote @shmitty and fix him.

5 hours ago, shmitty said:

What kind of fleet will you be playing against ?

Objectives are first and foremost about using your fleet well. Although MSUs obviously have to include one Red objective in their own list and a couple of other objectives may greatly benefit them, there's no one objective that singularly handicaps them, only a sequence of objectives that Ginkapo lined up earlier that can be exploited depending upon what kind of fleet you are bringing.

One good question is whether they are currently always taking your red objective because they've found that the yellow/blue work better for your fleet than theirs. In my experience, they can be all across the board in what objectives they pick from your list. I know I certainly am.

Advanced gunnery all the time every time

I don't think I have ever won a game 1st or 2nd player when Advanced Gunnery was the objective...

4 hours ago, SkyCake said:

I agree fully. To be clear though, doom pickle is

Mc80assault, Dco, ecm, rbd, ls, xi7, and maybe defiance maybe engine techs?

It varies, but I generally assume it is:

MC80 Assault
+Walex
+ECMs
+RBDs (typing out words is for suckers!)
+XI7s
+Leading Shots
+Defiance
+Engine Techs

Defiance and Engine Techs are mandatory in my opinion. Both help significantly against sneaky torpedo boats that get into your front arc.

13 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

Defiance and Engine Techs are mandatory in my opinion. Both help significantly against sneaky torpedo boats that get into your front arc.

Or Fighter Coordination Teams and a bucketload of Bwings

Just now, Ginkapo said:

Or Fighter Coordination Teams and a bucketload of Bwings

If you're running the Command MC80, yup. That helps too.

My Mothma APT MSU loves playing Precision Strike. I would agree that Most Wanted and a properly applied Adv Gunnery are probably the best.

3 minutes ago, Matt Antilles said:

My Mothma APT MSU loves playing Precision Strike. I would agree that Most Wanted and a properly applied Adv Gunnery are probably the best.

Completely agreed that if you're trying to build objectives to punish MSU, Precision Strike is a trap. APTs are very common in MSU fleets (mine uses 2) as an easy out against Precision Strike as well as for their inherent goodness. Even without APTs, most MSU fleets lack the durability to take too many hits to the hull before being destroyed, so they're short-lived points pinatas. Larger ships you can knock Precision Strike points out of all day long.

23 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

Completely agreed that if you're trying to build objectives to punish MSU, Precision Strike is a trap. APTs are very common in MSU fleets (mine uses 2) as an easy out against Precision Strike as well as for their inherent goodness. Even without APTs, most MSU fleets lack the durability to take too many hits to the hull before being destroyed, so they're short-lived points pinatas. Larger ships you can knock Precision Strike points out of all day long.

But MSUs also often love to run Rieekan. And when you look up "points piñata" in the dictionary, you know whose picture is there?

2 minutes ago, xanderf said:

But MSUs also often love to run Rieekan. And when you look up "points piñata" in the dictionary, you know whose picture is there?

True but it's more of a side benefit there. Ideally once you've dropped one Rieekan ship you should be focusing fire on the next. Being able to knock another token or two out of a zombie is helpful but you really have bigger fish to fry in most cases. It also does nothing against Imperial MSU and you're even more likely to suffer for it there with increased amounts of APTs and access to Screed.

A double-arcing Gladiator can generate 4 Precision Strike tokens (60 points) with APTs. It will usually get 2-3, but it can get 4 under ideal circumstances and easier with Screed. That's a huge problem if you brought Precision Strike at least partially to debuff MSUs and it's an extremely easy out if your blue and yellow objectives were unappealing to the MSUs otherwise.

Somehow i must have missed something.

You should never pick the missions in your fleet against lists. You should pick them so they fit to your fleet.

Everything else would be not so smart.

So you have to see what your list is, and choose the best fit for this. And it should not depend on any other list the opponent might have.

1 minute ago, Tokra said:

Somehow i must have missed something.

You should never pick the missions in your fleet against lists. You should pick them so they fit to your fleet.

Everything else would be not so smart.

So you have to see what your list is, and choose the best fit for this. And it should not depend on any other list the opponent might have.

Disagreed. Your objective choices need to both consider what is good for your fleet and what types of fleets give you trouble. If your fleet can happily use objectives X or Y in a given category but X is good against a fleet archetype that gives you trouble and Y isn't, then you use X. If you're not choosing objectives this way, that would be not so smart.

2 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

Disagreed. Your objective choices need to both consider what is good for your fleet and what types of fleets give you trouble. If your fleet can happily use objectives X or Y in a given category but X is good against a fleet archetype that gives you trouble and Y isn't, then you use X. If you're not choosing objectives this way, that would be not so smart.

If there are more than one mission that help you, i would still choose the one that is helping me more over a pick against a specific list that you might face.
But FIRST of all the missions have to fit your list and be usefull to you.

So there is no need for a discussion what mission is good against MSU when you are not checking what fleet your a flying yourself.
Advanced Gunnery is great against MSU when you have the right ship for it. And the right Upgrades on these ships. If your big hitter ISD has gunnery teams it would be really stupid to choose Adv. Gunnery, no matter how good it might be against MSU.

2 minutes ago, Tokra said:

If there are more than one mission that help you, i would still choose the one that is helping me more over a pick against a specific list that you might face.
But FIRST of all the missions have to fit your list and be usefull to you.

So there is no need for a discussion what mission is good against MSU when you are not checking what fleet your a flying yourself.
Advanced Gunnery is great against MSU when you have the right ship for it. And the right Upgrades on these ships. If your big hitter ISD has gunnery teams it would be really stupid to choose Adv. Gunnery, no matter how good it might be against MSU.

...which is effectively what I said. Nobody here is saying "only pick objectives that harm MSU," most of the advice has been "this is good when your fleet has certain elements" like I said earlier:

5 hours ago, Snipafist said:

Advanced Gunnery on a sufficiently decked out HMC80 doom pickle is a tough one for me. It's not insurmountable and if the doom pickle is destroyed that's basically GG for my opponent, but being able to double-salvo into a hammer ship (Demolisher or the other Gladiator) that's going to require 2 total turns of attacks to finally kill the super pickle means the Gladiator will die before the doom pickle, even if the Gladiator is only in the front arc.

It requires some competent playing from the second player, though. It can be win big or lose big. It's also not really an option for Imperial fleets, really.

Otherwise, Most Wanted and choosing Demo for me (boo) and a flotilla for you (predictable, if the best choice) can add up . I won't be getting attacked from best arcs but those extra dice add up and can help compensate for not getting your best arcs by making your "okay" arcs a bit better.

It feels like you're fighting against an argument in this thread that isn't even there. Nobody is proposing to use objectives that are otherwise bad for your fleet. That's silly.

31 minutes ago, xanderf said:

But MSUs also often love to run Rieekan. And when you look up "points piñata" in the dictionary, you know whose picture is there?

People who forgot that Rieekan's effect is optional?