I'm fairly inexperienced with Armada, so please go easy on me. On the whole, I prefer builds that don't use tons of upgrades. I'd rather focus on good movement and target selection than trying to stack up mutually supporting combos.

So I tried to pull this together as a relatively minimalist list for casual play.

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 397/400

Commander: Darth Vader

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Fleet Ambush
Navigation Objective: Dangerous Territory

[ flagship ] Interdictor-class Suppression Refit (90 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Wulff Yularen ( 7 points)
- Overload Pulse ( 8 points)
- Targeting Scrambler ( 5 points)
= 146 total ship cost

Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer (62 points)
- Demolisher ( 10 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 77 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Spinal Armament ( 9 points)
= 63 total ship cost

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

1 Dengar ( 20 points)
2 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 22 points)
2 VT-49 Decimators ( 44 points)

The idea is simply to outgun the opponent and make it very hard for them to take out the flagship with its huge engineering value. Vulnerability to squadrons is taken care of with the high Counter value of my own squadron selections.

Is it awful? When suggesting improvements, please be aware that I only have "one of everything" to throw in - no duplicates. And no ISD either.

If you're going to use the Interdictor I tend to think that you need to equip both of the experimental retrofit slots and you then need to also run the Interdictor title card.

I'd also go with Morna and more fighters over the two Decimators. They may have Counter but they are also Heavy so...

You might want to go more on these lines for your squadrons

1 Dengar ( 20 points)
1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)
1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)
1 Valen Rudor ( 13 points)
1 Soontir Fel ( 18 points)
1 Ciena Ree ( 17 points)

That's 99 points so you'll want to tweak it a bit but that's six swarm scatter aces. With good positioning you'll be looking at Counter 4 on Soontir and Ciena.

But even at that for a casual game your list is fine.

Thanks for the feedback. Useful to know it's not going to be a car-crash (spaceship-crash)

4 minutes ago, mattDP said:

Thanks for the feedback. Useful to know it's not going to be a car-crash (spaceship-crash)

Well as long as your opponent has the same concept of "casual" as you do it won't be a car crash.

Just now, Frimmel said:

Well as long as your opponent has the same concept of "casual" as you do it won't be a car crash.

He hasn't. But I'm used to being used as a floor wipe by now.

In general, sounds like a good list. If you can squeeze it in, Ordnance Experts on Demolisher would be really helpful to avoid that fun moment where you roll 4 black dice and get 1 hit been there, done that, got OE, problem solved.

21 hours ago, ImperialCaptain2017 said:

If you can squeeze it in, Ordnance Experts on Demolisher would be really helpful to avoid that fun moment where you roll 4 black dice and get 1 hit been there, done that, got OE, problem solved.

With Vader you might be able to do without, but I haven't tried it myself. Extra rerolls are always nice to have though.

I might look at Enhanced Armament instead of Spinal on the Arquitens to maximise its strongest arcs rather than mitigate the weaker ones. With EA, Vader and a concentrate fire command it can chuck a really mean five reds out the side. Depends on how you want to fly it, of course.