My plan is to try running Vader on Avenger w/ Boarding Troopers. I am looking for advice on squadron builds to accompany this fleet, not rewriting the list.

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 309/400

Commander: Darth Vader

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Wing Commander ( 6 points)
- Boarding Troopers ( 3 points)
- XX-9 Turbolasers ( 5 points)
= 165 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Slaved Turrets ( 6 points)
= 72 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Slaved Turrets ( 6 points)
= 72 total ship cost

This leaves me with 91 points for squadrons, but I am not sure what I want. I've considered the Maarek & Jendon combo and/or Morna Kee & Rudor. My "generic" idea is to run Maarek and a bunch of Defenders. I think need a defensive anti-squadron ball more than an offensive one. With only the Avenger commanding squadrons I don't want to have more than I can command, and so I've also considered going Rogue heavy so the Avenger can focus on doing other things and occasionally tossing out a Squadron command when it's opportunistic. Alternatively, if going with a swarm of cheaper squadrons I could upgrade the Arquitens and have them doing some commanding.

Thoughts?

I find that, when running a screen of fighters, having them all be commanded every turn is not as vital as in more bomber oriented builds. Ultimately good placement of your screen and their gradual sacrifice to cause problems for their Intel is more important.

For raw screening, I've started running a pack of standard TIEs with an ace or two thrown in, Ciena is a personal favorite.

Dengar+howlrunner+10 tie fighters is good to just screen ships with counter 1 ties, as one i face quite regularly its a pain in the *** to fight through

I know you said you dont want to rewrite the fleet, but i feel like I would be remiss not to point out a major incongruence in the fleet- avenger needs red tokens, intel officers keep them green or gone. I think that yoi would be far bettwr off investing the 14 points for intel somewhere else on the arquitens, like going to EA over slaved and pocketing the change to contribute to the big bid avenger needs.

As far as squads go, look at aces. Jendon, maarek, valen, ciena is a solid bunch. Mental math has that coming to 71, enough space to fit mauler or zertic and still get a bid. If you take 6 points out of intel and adding ea, and add zertic to use 86 of the 91 available, that puts you at a 11 point bid. IMO that is perfect for this fleet.

If you dont like it Ciena can sub for morna as there is room and you will get more mileage out of her in low squad games, but ciena is going to be a necessity against the swarms.

Dark horse choice is add another arquitens and run 2/4x tie fighters. You'll die to dedicated bombers or sloane if you engage the arquitens too early, but if you dive avenger at the carrier and make them commit squads there it can work.

Okay, considering your advice...

I usually run bomber heavy lists, and I realize that makes me more focused on thinking I need to control all my squadrons, offensively, vs just making them get in the way, defensively. I don't fully agree with dropping the Intel Officers, as I first thought I'd be activating Avenger first and using the Arquitens for clean-up but I realize that means my opponent will have all green defense tokens. So best to let the Arquitens go first and my opponent either has to spend tokens or suck it up and eat the damage. That scenario makes me realize that my opponent will be moving ships away from Avenger so I can't count on being at close range...

*********************************************************************

Here's the first idea:

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 390/400

Commander: Darth Vader

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Wing Commander ( 6 points)
- Boarding Troopers ( 3 points)
- XX-9 Turbolasers ( 5 points)
= 165 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Enhanced Armament ( 10 points)
= 69 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Enhanced Armament ( 10 points)
= 69 total ship cost

1 Ciena Ree ( 17 points)
1 Dengar ( 20 points)
1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)
1 Soontir Fel ( 18 points)
2 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 16 points)

I could give up the bid to add another TIE, or swapped Ciena for a TIE-int and another TIE, but decided to keep the bid.

*********************************************************************

Alternatively I came up with this, which is my preferred list of these two. I upgraded to an ISD-II for the longer range firepower since most people will be trying to run from it and I can slot ECs to increase durability. The squadron build isn't anything super, it just needs to be a dangerous tar-pit. If I faced a dedicated bomber list I would plunge in with heedless brutality at the carriers.

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 391/400

Commander: Darth Vader

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Wing Commander ( 6 points)
- Boarding Troopers ( 3 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- XX-9 Turbolasers ( 5 points)
= 182 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Enhanced Armament ( 10 points)
= 69 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Enhanced Armament ( 10 points)
= 69 total ship cost

1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)
1 Maarek Steele ( 21 points)
1 Ciena Ree ( 17 points)
1 Valen Rudor ( 13 points)

I got to play test this idea earlier! I ran basically the 2nd list with the ISD II but the squadron build was Dengar, Ciena, Fel and Howlrunner. It ended up going against a Sloan list with an Avenger ISD, Quasar and Gozanti with an "all the Aces!" style squadron build. The mission was Fighter Ambush.

I did as I intended too against a heavy squadron build: rushing headlong at the carrier and devastated it in a single turn, but his squadrons were already in a good position to deal with mine. Still, the squadron balls stayed tied up together for a good 3-4 turns.

I never got into a good position to disgorge the Boarding Troopers as our ISDs didn't really tangle with each other and I took the Quasar down with good old overwhelming firepower and ramming. Taking the ISD II over the ISD I turned out to be a very good idea, for exactly why I thought it would be.

I did get to double arc with the Arquitens a few times, which I would not have been able to do with Slaved Turrets. One met the same fate as my opponent's Quasar and the other, despite having all of it's Defense Tokens stripped, only took 1 damage all game, so I never had to use the RBD but these have really made a difference in other games.

VS a committed Sloan build you can't expect to do much against those squadrons unless have a strong anti-squadron build, which I did not, so I don't feel to bad about losing all my own squadrons. They were an effective tar pit while they lasted. I was just not able to close and get a coup-de-grace on his ISD so the game ended as a marginal loss for me.

I figured I'll play this better as I get used to the list. Early on I never made effective use of Vader, which I attribute to still being new to the game. Now though Vader is really growing on me as I made a lot of use of his abilities, frequently re-rolling the blanks on my red dice to get more blanks!

38 minutes ago, Dameon13 said:

made a lot of use of his abilities, frequently re-rolling the blanks on my red dice to get more blanks!

Haha! Thus is life!

Sounds like you fared very well, Sloane has a habi of destroying ship heavy builds like yours, so the fact you were able yo make it only a marginal loss against that you werent particularly hoping to face is great!

On 2017. 10. 26. at 4:36 AM, Dameon13 said:

My plan is to try running Vader on Avenger w/ Boarding Troopers. I am looking for advice on squadron builds to accompany this fleet, not rewriting the list.

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 309/400

Commander: Darth Vader

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Wing Commander ( 6 points)
- Boarding Troopers ( 3 points)
- XX-9 Turbolasers ( 5 points)
= 165 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Slaved Turrets ( 6 points)
= 72 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Slaved Turrets ( 6 points)
= 72 total ship cost

This leaves me with 91 points for squadrons, but I am not sure what I want. I've considered the Maarek & Jendon combo and/or Morna Kee & Rudor. My "generic" idea is to run Maarek and a bunch of Defenders. I think need a defensive anti-squadron ball more than an offensive one. With only the Avenger commanding squadrons I don't want to have more than I can command, and so I've also considered going Rogue heavy so the Avenger can focus on doing other things and occasionally tossing out a Squadron command when it's opportunistic. Alternatively, if going with a swarm of cheaper squadrons I could upgrade the Arquitens and have them doing some commanding.

Thoughts?

What about Veteran Captain instead of WIng Commander? That's 2 points, and a solid way to generate the squadron token needed for BT.

8 hours ago, Dameon13 said:

I got to play test this idea earlier! I ran basically the 2nd list with the ISD II but the squadron build was Dengar, Ciena, Fel and Howlrunner. It ended up going against a Sloan list with an Avenger ISD, Quasar and Gozanti with an "all the Aces!" style squadron build. The mission was Fighter Ambush.

I did as I intended too against a heavy squadron build: rushing headlong at the carrier and devastated it in a single turn, but his squadrons were already in a good position to deal with mine. Still, the squadron balls stayed tied up together for a good 3-4 turns.

I never got into a good position to disgorge the Boarding Troopers as our ISDs didn't really tangle with each other and I took the Quasar down with good old overwhelming firepower and ramming. Taking the ISD II over the ISD I turned out to be a very good idea, for exactly why I thought it would be.

I did get to double arc with the Arquitens a few times, which I would not have been able to do with Slaved Turrets. One met the same fate as my opponent's Quasar and the other, despite having all of it's Defense Tokens stripped, only took 1 damage all game, so I never had to use the RBD but these have really made a difference in other games.

VS a committed Sloan build you can't expect to do much against those squadrons unless have a strong anti-squadron build, which I did not, so I don't feel to bad about losing all my own squadrons. They were an effective tar pit while they lasted. I was just not able to close and get a coup-de-grace on his ISD so the game ended as a marginal loss for me.

I figured I'll play this better as I get used to the list. Early on I never made effective use of Vader, which I attribute to still being new to the game. Now though Vader is really growing on me as I made a lot of use of his abilities, frequently re-rolling the blanks on my red dice to get more blanks!

It was a good game. I thought you had me when you wrecked my Quasar. I'm glad I managed to come back from it.

15 hours ago, Rimsen said:

What about Veteran Captain instead of WIng Commander? That's 2 points, and a solid way to generate the squadron token needed for BT.

Opportunistic tactical flexibility. Vet Captain is a one shot for a token, but with Wing Commander I can stack my Commands with everything else I think my ISD may need EXCEPT Squadron commands and yet I can still have a Squadron command at the precise moment I need it and do this repeatedly.

On 10/27/2017 at 7:25 PM, Dameon13 said:

Opportunistic tactical flexibility. Vet Captain is a one shot for a token, but with Wing Commander I can stack my Commands with everything else I think my ISD may need EXCEPT Squadron commands and yet I can still have a Squadron command at the precise moment I need it and do this repeatedly.

I think you made good use of and got your points worth out of Vet Captain. It's an upgrade that really suits your play style.

Maybe use weapons liaison instead, it saves 3 points?

SFO is another choice. It also saves points.

Support Officer also works.