Hello all...

I've been tinkering with a squadron-less Imperial list for a while now. I took a variation of this list to Gencon and came in 18th. I played in an OP kit event yesterday with 7 players and took 2nd, tabling a dual-Liberty list (400-0) and going 8-3 against a Liberty/MC30/CR90/Torpedo Frigate list. I lost 3-8 versus a BTVenger/Demo list. I took out BTVenger, a Raider and a Gozanti, but went down too quick to take out Demo and the other Raider... especially using side and rear arcs.

Every single time I've played the list, I've been given 2nd player. Usually, I get Solar Corona to play.

• 400 Points
• Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer w/Admiral Motti
  • Insidious Title
  • Minister Tua w/Reinforced Blast Doors
  • Projection Experts
  • External Racks
  • Ordnance Experts
• Victory II-class Star Destroyer
  • Engineering Captain
  • Disposable Capacitors
  • Dual Turbolaser Turrets
• Victory II-class Star Destroyer
  • Engineering Captain
  • Disposable Capacitors
  • Dual Turbolaser Turrets
• Victory II-class Star Destroyer
  • Engineering Captain
  • Disposable Capacitors
  • Dual Turbolaser Turrets
• Advanced Gunnery
• Contested Outpost
• Solar Corona

The Victories are pretty straightforward. Deployment is pretty important with this list, which is good because most people are going to look at Advanced Gunnery and Contested Outpost and almost immediately give you Solar Corona. Over the course of 7 tournament games with this list, I played Solar Corona as 2nd player 5 times. Solar Corona, of course, allows you to deploy your fleet after the 1st player has deployed theirs. I run the Vics in formation, occasionally intentionally ramming each other to maintain an effective speed 0 for a better shot next round. The intentional ram damage isn't really an issue since I have Engineering Captains and Motti. Plus, I have Insidious.

Insidious's job is to hang out behind the Vics and feed shields forward using Projection Experts and constant Engineering Commands. Glads are generally tough enough to take a single shot from one of those fast little ships that sneak around the back. Somewhat situational, but after they take their shot and run past, I use Insidious, External Racks and Ordnance Experts to roll 6 re-rollable black dice at medium range into their soft rear arc. I could probably spend those points elsewhere, but it's working for me. Insidious hurts them and then Vic rear/side arcs finish them off.

This list deals a ton of focused damage and is extremely durable. Even a perfectly positioned Boarding Troopers/Avenger ISD-I with a first activation/dual arc shot won't necessarily one shot a full health Motti Vic. First turn Nav tokens, second turn Engineering tokens, 3rd-6th Concentrated Fire (swappable to Engineering via the Engineering Captain if needed). Assuming I start taking real damage at turn 3, I have potentially 18 Engineering points per Vic to use plus a total of usually 4-6 shields I can feed forward with Insidious. I feed forward to whichever Vic needs it. I played one game where an ISD-I fired into a Vic's front arc and rolled and insane 12 damage. Solar Corona took away the only Accuracy. I braced to 6, redirected 1 to the side, lost my front three shields and took a hit and a crit. I then activated Insidious who fed two shields forward to the front arc. Another enemy ship activated and fired at a different Vic. I then activated the first Vic and used the Engineering Captain plus a token to heal the hit and crit. I took a 12 damage shot and by the end of the round, I had a shield damage each on the front and far side with no damage cards. Happens all the time with this list.

The major weakness that I've seen is massed bombers. The upside is that the bombers are only going to kill one Vic... and that Vic is going to get to fire off a couple of really good shots before going down. Having said that, I've won two games against Rebel bomber lists. They were close wins, but still wins. Two Vics is slightly less than half of my list. If I can kill 198 points of your stuff as second player and only lose two Vics, I win the game. With a Rebel bomber list, that generally feels like killing "the big ship" and one of the little ships.

I've also had people call the Engineering Captain a "training wheels" card and tell me that I should just learn to pick my dials right to recoup the 18 points. Well... I'll say that it's nice being able to pick between Concentrated Fire and Engineering from round 3 forward. It's also nice to know that I don't care about any of the crit effects or opponent effects that mess with my dials. You're giving me a squadron command? Awesome, I'll take Engineering and give myself an extra couple of shields for you to chew through.

Thoughts on how I can improve this?

One other thing I forgot to mention is that since I have no squadrons AND have no real intention of shooting at squadrons, every point an opponent spends on anti-squadron upgrades OR on aces that tie up part of their cost in durability (scatters/braces) is a wasted point. Makes my job of killing the big ships easier.

Interesting read - I'm doing similar things with an Interdictor list (love your Gladoctor btw, much cheaper than a Dictor!) How are you finding it vs bombers? Just ignore and go for the carriers? How do you play if the opponent doesn't come to you?

Interesting read - I'm doing similar things with an Interdictor list (love your Gladoctor btw, much cheaper than a Dictor!) How are you finding it vs bombers? Just ignore and go for the carriers? How do you play if the opponent doesn't come to you?

18 minutes ago, Kendraam said:

Interesting read - I'm doing similar things with an Interdictor list (love your Gladoctor btw, much cheaper than a Dictor!) How are you finding it vs bombers? Just ignore and go for the carriers? How do you play if the opponent doesn't come to you?

I'm going to be second player the majority of the time. If the opponent refuses to engage, I'll also refuse to engage and take the 6-5 win. That's really only an issue if they pick Advanced Gunnery. With Contested Outpost, feel free not to engage. I'll take 120 points from the station and enjoy my solid win. With Solar Corona, they have to deploy first, so I'll deploy slightly off from immediately across and angle in a bit so they're firing into the corona. Starting at Speed 2, I'll be in long range by round 3 at the latest. From there, we're fighting whether they like it or not.

Versus bombers, I mostly ignore them and go for the carriers. Realistically, I'm not going to kill any bombers with Vic anti-squadron shooting. I'll still take the odd pot shot just because I think it's what a good Imperial Captain would do, but I know there's no real point. What I can do is keep redirecting a single shield at a time to make them chew through shields and then focus on Engineering and refilling shields. I'm happy to burn redirect tokens or a brace to tie up those bombers and keep them away from the other two Vics. It effectively means that the bombers need to do a ton of damage to kill a Vic... 8 hull + 2 Motti hull + 4-6 native shields (1 + redirected 3 or 3 + redirected 3) + 2-4 projected shields + 2-3 healed damage cards. That's 18-23 damage to take out a Vic if you're pinging for one damage at a time. Generally speaking, that's all the bomber wing is going to do for the whole game. If they go for the Gladoctor instead (great name, I'm stealing it), they're leaving the Vics alone and the carriers go down that much quicker. Once the carriers are dead, the bombers aren't a threat.

Against something like Sloane/massed low hull TIEs, I'll position to use anti-squadron. The Vics get most of their punch from their front arc. Overlapping anti-squadron shots from multiple Vics will kill TIE Fighters/Interceptors pretty quickly. So... front arc vs. carriers and side arc vs. squadrons.

Nice - that's kind of my thinking too.

I'm running ISD, Interdoctor and two Raiders with no squads - again Motti but I'm sorely tempted to take Vader...

52 minutes ago, Kendraam said:

Nice - that's kind of my thinking too.

I'm running ISD, Interdoctor and two Raiders with no squads - again Motti but I'm sorely tempted to take Vader...

Motti isn't REALLY helping to keep those Raiders alive. Generally speaking, when someone kills a Raider, they've got enough spare damage to take out one extra hull. Give Vader a try. Your stuff will die slightly faster, but you'll also kill the opponent faster.

One of my two losses with the above list was against a Vader list. Without Vader, he wouldn't have been able to take me out nearly as quickly. I probably would have won or at least mitigated the loss from 3-8 to a 4 or 5 loss.

It's not the Raiders I'm worried about, it's the ISD. If I run Vader I need to drop RBDs which with no Motti is 6 hull less. A last/first Yavaris/Adar bomber wing will rain havoc - could probably survive it but with no defence tokens or shields and maybe 3 hull remaining which would be easy to take out with a few more squads and/or some long range ship fire. Motti is safer but not as useful as Vader.

4 hours ago, KrisWall said:

I'm going to be second player the majority of the time.

Question, why would anyone with a bomber fleet, which likely has Most Wanted, Fighter Ambush and Superior Positions as objectives, choose to go first against your fleet?

I mean I would not (filling in for the imaginary bomber commander for a sec here), am I overlooking a good reason why I should go first?

23 minutes ago, Doppelganger said:

Question, why would anyone with a bomber fleet, which likely has Most Wanted, Fighter Ambush and Superior Positions as objectives, choose to go first against your fleet?

I mean I would not (filling in for the imaginary bomber commander for a sec here), am I overlooking a good reason why I should go first?

Excellent question. I have no idea. My experience is that people with squadron heavy lists try to take first most of the time. Maybe it has something to do with trying to alpha strike the opposing squadrons? ...which I don't have? I actively don't want to be first player, so I'll pick second if I win a bid tie. A savvy opponent who is familiar with my list should force me to be first player every game. Seven tournament games with this list (or a variation thereof) and I've played as second player seven times. Five of those were Solar Corona, which is actually my favorite of the lot. Advanced Gunnery also helps my opponent and Contested Outpost, while ripe with delicious objective tokens, dictates my movement a little too much.

I think maybe it's just that bomber lists are used to going for first and people tend to dismiss a fleet made from 'older' ships and no squadrons.

Maybe also some BT Avenger players that are locked into the mindset that they want to go first to get of their one kill shot.

Anyway that brigns me to one possible improvement: a small bid to ensure that you can play your objectives, granted this goes against your previous experience but as you said, savvy opponents might catch on and this might deny some of them a way to influence the game to their benefit.

2 hours ago, Kendraam said:

It's not the Raiders I'm worried about, it's the ISD. If I run Vader I need to drop RBDs which with no Motti is 6 hull less. A last/first Yavaris/Adar bomber wing will rain havoc - could probably survive it but with no defence tokens or shields and maybe 3 hull remaining which would be easy to take out with a few more squads and/or some long range ship fire. Motti is safer but not as useful as Vader.

Maybe try something like the ISD, 2x Arqs w/ProjExperts and a Raider? I'm not sure how the points work out, but having two smaller ships that can circle the battle, projecting their far side shields to the ISD and taking long range shots might be better than the points you're sinking into the 'Dicter and 1 Raider?

It's like they say... one is a target. Two is a threat. Not sure what that makes three! One of the things I like about having three identical ships is that players tend to keep attacking the ship that is hurt. I'm passively ok with that ship dying. That means I play it like it's my least important ship.

1 minute ago, Doppelganger said:

Maybe also some BT Avenger players that are locked into the mindset that they want to go first to get of their one kill shot.

Anyway that brigns me to one possible improvement: a small bid to ensure that you can play your objectives, granted this goes against your previous experience but as you said, savvy opponents might catch on and this might deny some of them a way to influence the game to their benefit.

I've considered dropping the Ordnance Experts, Insidious title and External Racks. They rarely see play. That's a 10 point bid and gives me the same options in the majority of my games. Probably a good idea. I'm probably a little locked into the mindset that 400 points and no squadrons means I'll get second player most of the time. A 10 point bid would capture some of those other instances.

My adjustments. Quad battery lets you shoot long range with leading shots for better damage output.

Triple Vics

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 399/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona

Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 104 total ship cost

Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 104 total ship cost

Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
- Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 97 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Arquitens-class Command Cruiser (59 points)
- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)
- Projection Experts ( 6 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
= 94 total ship cost

16 hours ago, KrisWall said:

One other thing I forgot to mention is that since I have no squadrons AND have no real intention of shooting at squadrons, every point an opponent spends on anti-squadron upgrades OR on aces that tie up part of their cost in durability (scatters/braces) is a wasted point. Makes my job of killing the big ships easier.

I show up with Sloane. Every TIE is now a token-stripping bomber.

Combine with Avenger to burn down your ships at an astounding rate.

Something to consider.

5 hours ago, Green Knight said:

I show up with Sloane. Every TIE is now a token-stripping bomber.

Combine with Avenger to burn down your ships at an astounding rate.

Something to consider.

I've played versus Sloane twice. Won pretty easily both times. Sloane is a little meh, in my opinion. The issue is that Sloane typically only has one ship that can do real damage. I have three. It takes me generally two turns to kill Avenger... potentially one if I have it dual arced from multiple Vics. It takes Sloane Avenger a heck of a lot longer than that to kill three Vics. In my experience, once I kill Avenger, the game is over and I've won because at least half of the TIE Fighters/Interceptors WILL go down to Vic flak and the other carriers can't hope to kill Vics (and are usually too far away to do so).

Versus Sloane, I use redirect tokens to redirect single points of squadron damage. I burn them before you can. If I'm going to lose them, I'm going to get at least a little benefit. Now, your Admiral is a points sink and every accuracy or crit you roll is a wasted roll. Might not happen every time, but that was my experience against Sloane in the hands of two good players. Sloane takes away your defense, but doesn't have enough punch to finish the job more than once.

7 hours ago, TallGiraffe said:

My adjustments. Quad battery lets you shoot long range with leading shots for better damage output.

Triple Vics

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 399/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona

Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 104 total ship cost

Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 104 total ship cost

Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
- Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 97 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Arquitens-class Command Cruiser (59 points)
- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)
- Projection Experts ( 6 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
= 94 total ship cost

I might have to try this out this weekend.

33 minutes ago, KrisWall said:

I've played versus Sloane twice. Won pretty easily both times. Sloane is a little meh, in my opinion. The issue is that Sloane typically only has one ship that can do real damage. I have three. It takes me generally two turns to kill Avenger... potentially one if I have it dual arced from multiple Vics. It takes Sloane Avenger a heck of a lot longer than that to kill three Vics. In my experience, once I kill Avenger, the game is over and I've won because at least half of the TIE Fighters/Interceptors WILL go down to Vic flak and the other carriers can't hope to kill Vics (and are usually too far away to do so).

Versus Sloane, I use redirect tokens to redirect single points of squadron damage. I burn them before you can. If I'm going to lose them, I'm going to get at least a little benefit. Now, your Admiral is a points sink and every accuracy or crit you roll is a wasted roll. Might not happen every time, but that was my experience against Sloane in the hands of two good players. Sloane takes away your defense, but doesn't have enough punch to finish the job more than once.

Interesting.

You have a plan. Like it.

In my experience it's the other way around.

I have 5 activation, you have 4. I go first and pick AG.

I kill one Vic each round, shooting at 2 different hull zones.

If my Avenger goes down (it does sometimes), the Squadrons (very much still alive due to high hull or scatter) burn down the rest with relayed commands.

Very cool to see different sides of the same story

1 minute ago, Green Knight said:

Interesting.

You have a plan. Like it.

In my experience it's the other way around.

I have 5 activation, you have 4. I go first and pick AG.

I kill one Vic each round, shooting at 2 different hull zones.

If my Avenger goes down (it does sometimes), the Squadrons (very much still alive due to high hull or scatter) burn down the rest with relayed commands.

Very cool to see different sides of the same story

With Advanced Gunnery, my goal is very much to only present one facing to your front arc at any given time. It works pretty well. Fly the same ship often enough and you get pretty good at not giving an opponent a dual arc. Vics aren't particularly maneuverable, but if you fly in formation and are willing to occasionally self bump, you have a ton of control over your facing. I'll happily self ram if it means I keep the shot I need and present only one facing to a nasty opponent. One important thing to remember about this list is that I'm not going for a 10-1. I know I'm going to lose one or two ships. When you've come to terms with the fact that losing ships is a likely inevitability, you have a lot of freedom in picking which ship goes down first (oops... I totally accidentally gave you a clean shot on Vic #2)... which tends to help dictate my opponents activations/shots/maneuvers. If the opponent takes the bait, I generally have clean shots for the rest of the game with little to no dual arcs coming back at me. If they don't take the bait, I have a Vic in close-medium range who isn't getting shot at. That's also good.

50 minutes ago, KrisWall said:

I've played versus Sloane twice. Won pretty easily both times. Sloane is a little meh, in my opinion. The issue is that Sloane typically only has one ship that can do real damage. I have three. It takes me generally two turns to kill Avenger... potentially one if I have it dual arced from multiple Vics. It takes Sloane Avenger a heck of a lot longer than that to kill three Vics. In my experience, once I kill Avenger, the game is over and I've won because at least half of the TIE Fighters/Interceptors WILL go down to Vic flak and the other carriers can't hope to kill Vics (and are usually too far away to do so).

Versus Sloane, I use redirect tokens to redirect single points of squadron damage. I burn them before you can. If I'm going to lose them, I'm going to get at least a little benefit. Now, your Admiral is a points sink and every accuracy or crit you roll is a wasted roll. Might not happen every time, but that was my experience against Sloane in the hands of two good players. Sloane takes away your defense, but doesn't have enough punch to finish the job more than once.

In these case the Sloane lists were not good.

The real damage (in a good Sloane list) is coming from the squadrons. If there are 8-10 damage hammering your ships (every turn), you would not say that their damage is to low. A good Sloane list is killing your first (and maybe even the second) VSD while you are not even in attack range to the enemy ships. Killing the ISD (Avenger) does not reduce the damage from the TIEs. And it will take a lot of flak to take down TIE aces with the scatter.
As i said, these lists must have been bad .

But i have as well a VSD list without squadrons. They are fun to play and fun to watch (4 VSD do look impressive) . In my case these are VSD I (they are so much cheaper )
A few suggestions that i have:
As @TallGiraffe already said, maybe the Quad Batteries are better than the Dual Turbolaser Turrets. You are able to get 2 blue on long range. And you don't even need to use the DC for this. The only problem is the speed. The DTT does always work, The QBT only if the target is faster.
I can see the intention behind the Engineering Tech. But these 18 points are quite a lot. If you kick out these 3, you are able to add a 4th VSD II to the fleet (and removing the GSD). This would be 396 points.
Another idea would be Vader or Leading Shots for the rerolls (remaining at 3 VSD in this case). The red Dice are a pain without a good reroll. They can be great, or deal no damage .

6 minutes ago, Tokra said:

In these case the Sloane lists were not good.

The real damage (in a good Sloane list) is coming from the squadrons. If there are 8-10 damage hammering your ships (every turn), you would not say that their damage is to low. A good Sloane list is killing your first (and maybe even the second) VSD while you are not even in attack range to the enemy ships. Killing the ISD (Avenger) does not reduce the damage from the TIEs. And it will take a lot of flak to take down TIE aces with the scatter.
As i said, these lists must have been bad .

But i have as well a VSD list without squadrons. They are fun to play and fun to watch (4 VSD do look impressive) . In my case these are VSD I (they are so much cheaper )
A few suggestions that i have:
As @TallGiraffe already said, maybe the Quad Batteries are better than the Dual Turbolaser Turrets. You are able to get 2 blue on long range. And you don't even need to use the DC for this. The only problem is the speed. The DTT does always work, The QBT only if the target is faster.
I can see the intention behind the Engineering Tech. But these 18 points are quite a lot. If you kick out these 3, you are able to add a 4th VSD II to the fleet (and removing the GSD). This would be 396 points.
Another idea would be Vader or Leading Shots for the rerolls (remaining at 3 VSD in this case). The red Dice are a pain without a good reroll. They can be great, or deal no damage .

I have yet to see a Sloane list that can consistently deal 8-10 damage per turn from the squadrons alone. Do you have a sample list? If you load up on Scatter Aces, I feel like you're not going to have enough squadrons to consistently deal 8-10 damage. If you take massed TIEs, they'll have 3 hull with no Scatter and will die over the course of a couple of turns. Assuming you direct all of your attacks against the rear of a Vic and roll the first 4 attacks as accuracies to burn my redirects, you'd need an additional 11 damage to kill the Vic. Realistically, you won't get 4 accuracies in a row and I'll be able to redirect a few points of damage to side shields, meaning you really need to do between 11 and 15 damage to kill a Vic. Add in Engineering Commands/Tokens and receiving shields from Projection Experts and you're looking at another 4-7 hull/shields to chew through. It can take more than 20 damage to kill a properly kitted out Vic. At your proposed 8-10 damage per turn, that's at least 2 turns to kill a Vic. At 8-10 damage per turn, it can take 3 turns to kill a properly played 'repair mode' Vic with squadrons alone.

I avoid QBTs because I find that against my key targets, we're both going Speed 2 or Speed 1 most of the time. It's just way too inconsistent. It's also less useful once I get into medium range. DTTs always work and usually do the trick to fix the three red dice. I don't need to fix blue dice. They're usually useful as rolled.

8 minutes ago, KrisWall said:

I have yet to see a Sloane list that can consistently deal 8-10 damage per turn from the squadrons alone. Do you have a sample list? If you load up on Scatter Aces, I feel like you're not going to have enough squadrons to consistently deal 8-10 damage. If you take massed TIEs, they'll have 3 hull with no Scatter and will die over the course of a couple of turns. Assuming you direct all of your attacks against the rear of a Vic and roll the first 4 attacks as accuracies to burn my redirects, you'd need an additional 11 damage to kill the Vic. Realistically, you won't get 4 accuracies in a row and I'll be able to redirect a few points of damage to side shields, meaning you really need to do between 11 and 15 damage to kill a Vic. Add in Engineering Commands/Tokens and receiving shields from Projection Experts and you're looking at another 4-7 hull/shields to chew through. It can take more than 20 damage to kill a properly kitted out Vic. At your proposed 8-10 damage per turn, that's at least 2 turns to kill a Vic. At 8-10 damage per turn, it can take 3 turns to kill a properly played 'repair mode' Vic with squadrons alone.

I avoid QBTs because I find that against my key targets, we're both going Speed 2 or Speed 1 most of the time. It's just way too inconsistent. It's also less useful once I get into medium range. DTTs always work and usually do the trick to fix the three red dice. I don't need to fix blue dice. They're usually useful as rolled.

4 TIE Fighter, Valen, Howlrunner, Mauler, Ciena, Stele, Jendon. Thats a solid 8-10 damage (12 blue dice, reroll of crits, Stele with Bomber and Effect to turn a die to crit). Your first VSD might go down without the chance for a repair command when i am player 1.
Will be even easier when i have the chance to kill the GSD with Motti first. He will die in one turn for sure. But i don't count on being able to attack him with the squadrons. No one would be stupid enough to fly him into a fighter screen.

I understand the reason for the DTT. They are better, when you need the speed 2 on the ships. I was using my VSD with Konstantine, to speed up the opponent. In this case the QBT were better and far more dangerous.

2 hours ago, Tokra said:

4 TIE Fighter, Valen, Howlrunner, Mauler, Ciena, Stele, Jendon. Thats a solid 8-10 damage (12 blue dice, reroll of crits, Stele with Bomber and Effect to turn a die to crit). Your first VSD might go down without the chance for a repair command when i am player 1.
Will be even easier when i have the chance to kill the GSD with Motti first. He will die in one turn for sure. But i don't count on being able to attack him with the squadrons. No one would be stupid enough to fly him into a fighter screen.

I understand the reason for the DTT. They are better, when you need the speed 2 on the ships. I was using my VSD with Konstantine, to speed up the opponent. In this case the QBT were better and far more dangerous.

What @Tokra says. As it's player with an ISD-1 you can burn down anything with last-first. Anything.

Recently I've been doing some good work with the ISD-2, which leaves me with 2 less blue squadron attacks, but a ship-based pool that seems to make up for it.

Not sure it's better, but it's working fine for me.

I'm not trying to say Sloane trumps everything, because that isn't true, but it's a fallacy to assume a Sloane fleet can't generate a high damage output from squads. Maarek-Jendon alone practically guarantees 4 damage.

3 hours ago, Tokra said:

4 TIE Fighter, Valen, Howlrunner, Mauler, Ciena, Stele, Jendon. Thats a solid 8-10 damage (12 blue dice, reroll of crits, Stele with Bomber and Effect to turn a die to crit). Your first VSD might go down without the chance for a repair command when i am player 1.
Will be even easier when i have the chance to kill the GSD with Motti first. He will die in one turn for sure. But i don't count on being able to attack him with the squadrons. No one would be stupid enough to fly him into a fighter screen.

I understand the reason for the DTT. They are better, when you need the speed 2 on the ships. I was using my VSD with Konstantine, to speed up the opponent. In this case the QBT were better and far more dangerous.

Look, my first Vic is going to die. That's a given. I'm OK with that. I'm planning for that. It's also almost certainly going to be able to fire off it's Disposable Capacitors shot and MAYBE a second medium or long range shot before that happens, depending on how many shields I can project and how much damage I can discard. Ultimately, if it takes you 2 turns to kill a full health Vic and we don't engage until turn 2 or 3... you're only going to kill 2 Vics. If I can kill the ISD and anything else, it'll be a close fight.

One thing to point out that I think a lot of players miss about this list is that I'm banking on redundancy. Losing your only ISD hurts bad. Losing a space pickle hurts bad. Losing a Vic in this list hurts, but not bad. I have more where that one came from and I went into the fight expecting to lose 1-2 Vics. I expect to lose them, but I also expect that I'll get 1-2 good shots with them before they go down.