It is a little bit of theory crafting, since I don't play Imperials and recently I don't have time to play at all, but I thought about sth like this as an answer for Reeiken Aces. It doesn't work against generic squadrons at all, but is 100% times effective against aces (unless I've got some wording wrong).

Gladiator (either I or II) + Demolisher + Ordnance Experts + Agent Kallus + Flechette Torpedoes + Admiral Screed = flak at medium after movement, add black die, re-roll if needed, use Screed to deactivate that critical squadron if neccesary.

I wonder if anyone tried sth like that? Did it work? What more experienced players think? Worth it? Meeeh? It cost ~ 70-80 points and you have to give up on Ordnance Upgrade, but I guess you can still use Demolisher on anti-ship duty if you face sth without aces, just not so effectively. In exchange it gives you an edge against Reeikan Aces and a chance to alpa strike them and perhaps destroy lifeboat/Yavaris/Gallant Heaven before it can make impact.

As I said I don't play Imperials, so didn't think about fleet which would work well with it, but I guess would be great to have some crit effects to work with Screed. So perhaps MSU with 2nd Gladiator, Raiders, maybe Overload Pulse somewhere?

Please discuss!

So I'm all in favor of Demo AAA flak. The issue is opportunity cost. Demo is arguably the most effective anti-ship ship in the game.

From a competition standpoint, I see this as substandard. You have a 1/3 chance with Ordnance Experts and a 1/4 chance without of triggering FTs. Also, keep in mind that Kallus only works against unique squadrons. Which means you don't get any black dice at all when attacking common generic squadrons such as Defenders, A-wings, YT-2400s, Firesprays, etc.

I get a lot of flak with insinuations I've never tried to counter squadrons in my life. (Hell, a lot more flak than squadrons do lol).

But I've tried both this AA Demo and the Flechette Raider. They are good, don't get me wrong, but there's gradients to that statement. 1. It requires a relatively expensive squadron force to also make use of both these ships and avoid being alpha struck via FCT or simply in the squadron phase. At that point, you've bled off huge points for sheer AA, and you lose firepower for anti-ship combat to a SIGNIFICANT degree. 2. They can be outplayed and overwhelmed by simple changes in play from a squadron list that doesn't change its build whatsoever to accomodate your huge skew into AA.

People also say this all the time: Squadrons aren't unbeatable. Just take 90 pt miniumum screen and an extra 50 pts for these upgrades.... the issue is you begin to have the Edsel-Blerg triangle start to happen, and that's a poor meta. The issue is beating squadrons while remaining Tier1 competitive vs everything else.

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This has nothing to do with the topic and AA demo, but I'm absolutely sick and tired of people insinuating that our entire local meta of 20 or so hasn't tried to direct counter squadrons with everything we got. We live 3 months into the future, and for 3 months, no ones' really found a better build than squadrons.

I've been playing a Demo +instigator triple A fleet for about 18 months, I took demo glad two, glad two, glad one, Instigator, Raider +4 ties. If played right it worked.

Now I agree the opportunity cost of Demo glad two has always been an issue, you pay more for a less effective anti ship build.

But I've now started experimenting with Jonus and he changes the opportunity cost dynamic of a demo glad two considerably as Jonus and this build is actually nastier from an anti ship point of view than the a glad one build. That Acurracy is just murder on a glad.

i would not go down the kalus+ fletchet on Demo glad two, pumping out four AAA dice is plenty good and you are replacing a really good ordenance ( APT etc) with a high chance of firing off with a limited effect ordinance that will hardly ever get off. Although Kallus adds value I would suggest getting re-enforced blast doors on a demo glad two as you can remove the damage from a double ram or just keep it going longer against a bomber ball.

kalus plays well on raider title, again the opportunity cost is limited because raiders are blinding anti ship platforms as well as good AAA so you are only investing 6 points in AAA upgrades. I tend to run instigator with 4 fighters as you have a choice of tools depending on the fighter cover.

full bomber list send in Demo Instigator and fighters, if you play well you can farm the bomber list for the loss of fighters and insigator.

meduim fighter group (no bombers) insigator and fighters

light fighter group don't bother go for the ships with demo and raider

with the advent of the Gozanti I have replaced one of the standard glads with a Gozanti, this allows me to upgrade some of my fighters to steel and Jendon.

Why waste Demo's precious ability on AA when. A Raider can do thst job with its title efen better for a fraction of the cost?

4 hours ago, Norell said:

Why waste Demo's precious ability on AA when. A Raider can do thst job with its title efen better for a fraction of the cost?

Because winning doesn't mean destroying all your opponents ships, it means getting the most points, and often killing all enemy squads is the best path for that. Plus, a AA demolisher is still very deadly to ships.

Also, Demolisher is infinitely easier to attack enemy squds and likely survive. The raider as AA is very over-rated. It requires all or some of: high bid for 1st player, higher activations, and a opponent that doesnt know how to avoid a last activation / first activation combo. All but impossible to consistently pull off.

Rogues, and opponents that dont toss their squads into your raider, annihilate AA raiders.

I've been using Glad2s as AA ships since they were released (when eveyone laughed at the G2) and they are devastating to enemy squads if used properly, even without Kallus and/or Demolisher.

If you wanted demo as an anti fighter unit (probably not a great investment but could be done) your best bet is to chuck ruthless strategist on it, have a couple of bombers jump in with it and then do 1 non scatter damage to each of those nasty aces for as long as you have bomber hull points left.

Chuck in mauler and that could bring a lot of pain.

6 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

It requires a relatively expensive squadron force to also make use of both these ships.

It is not true.

It could be helpful.

It could be the only way you made then work.

But it is not true.

I mean, I understand you and always looked carefully about what you said and the problem you warned about. But adding expensive squadron force is not a requirement for make a flechette raider works and make it works fine.

Eh, Relying on kallus for your black die and Screed's one per activation ability doesn't make this combination worth it. If you want to stun lots of things, you take a Raider, but by taking a raider you need to ensure the fighters you are trying to stun do not activate first and destroy the Raider.

If Demo is going to pull AA duty, it's a GSD-II, with no other change from the GSD-I configuration.

22 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Eh, Relying on kallus for your black die and Screed's one per activation ability doesn't make this combination worth it. If you want to stun lots of things, you take a Raider, but by taking a raider you need to ensure the fighters you are trying to stun do not activate first and destroy the Raider.

If Demo is going to pull AA duty, it's a GSD-II, with no other change from the GSD-I configuration.

Spot on, if you also add Jonus to your fleet mix, that red dice suddenly adds even more to the Demo, it allows you to drop Intel officer, so you can use the officer slot to add something nice to the mix, personally I like getting re-enforced blast doors, for added tank.

It can tear the guts from a large ship, vaporise a small ship or hammer a ball of Fighters depending what your opponents list looks like. It's the utimate general purpose hunter.

2 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

It is not true.

It could be helpful.

It could be the only way you made then work.

But it is not true.

I mean, I understand you and always looked carefully about what you said and the problem you warned about. But adding expensive squadron force is not a requirement for make a flechette raider works and make it works fine.

Have you tried it vs 134 rebel squadrons and rieekan and toryn?

I have, a few times.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

Have you tried it vs 134 rebel squadrons and rieekan and toryn?

I have, a few times.

I did against 134 Rhymer ball.

21 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

I did against 134 Rhymer ball.

Slightly different/. Case in point, no imperials in the top8. Also the Rebel fighters are multipurpose and high health for their multipurpose platforms.

27 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

I did against 134 Rhymer ball.

B-Wings hit a lot harder than TIE Bombers do, and their aces are better at their thing than the TIE Bomber pilots.

5 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Slightly different/. Case in point, no imperials in the top8. Also the Rebel fighters are multipurpose and high health for their multipurpose platforms.

I am pretty sure we were talking about good AA ship, Demo and raiders. I didn't know we were talking about beating a really concrete fighter build.

Even with that, 4 interceptors are not an expensive fighter screen or you should explain me what is expensive for you.

And maybe you want to explain what you exactly ask for to the raider. To kill the whole 134 alone?

Well, a counter question to ask is if Yavaris is in the area. Can't make a fair judgement about Rebel fighters without taking that into account- the difference is about as stark as if a Gladiator has the Demolisher title or not.

Because whatever you send against those fighters, you need to take into account if those fighters will output six attacks in one activation, and what bonuses go into them.

A lone Raider, no matter what it has on it, will not survive that. It may if you sacrifice all those fighters you send to tie up the rebel fighters.

53 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

I am pretty sure we were talking about good AA ship, Demo and raiders. I didn't know we were talking about beating a really concrete fighter build.

Even with that, 4 interceptors are not an expensive fighter screen or you should explain me what is expensive for you.

And maybe you want to explain what you exactly ask for to the raider. To kill the whole 134 alone?

Well, let's talk about competitive AA builds but without any testing to the most competitive copycat variation of the top8. Cool.

Also, you just said you haven't played against this build.