I had a thought.

By Geressen, in Star Wars: Armada Fleet Builds

I thought this might be fun to try.

398 points

Admiral Motti

Imperial II star destroyer

  • weapons liason
  • veteran gunners
  • rapid launch bays
    • 4 tie fighter squdrons
  • reinforced blast doors
  • NK-7 ion cannons
  • heavy turbolaser turrets

Imperial II star destroyer

  • weapons liason
  • veteran gunners
  • rapid launch bays
    • 4 tie fighter squdrons
  • reinforced blast doors
  • NK-7 ion cannons
  • heavy turbolaser turrets

not a lot of activations though, have to bank a couple of tokens the first turns to use later to change engineering commands to concentrate fire or squadron command if possible in the later turns, otherwise try to tank the dammage, deploy or keep ties inside as required.

star destroyers have 11 hitpoints + 3 from Motti, and with reinforced blast doors you can discard 3 facedown if they manage to get dented.

Edited by Geressen

I'm not saying it won't be fun, but I question how effective it will be. 2 activations, basically no bid, 2 deployments. There are so many ways to outplay this. You are going into this knowing full well that your opponent is going to get to pick initiative, and if he picks first, you are handing him a last/first activation order and objective choice. On top of that, with only 2 activations, he can likely string you along with lower threat moves only to have you waste your move while he gets to move most of his forces after your action. Think of someone commanding 3 B-wings into one of your ISDs. That's 3 solid bomber attacks. He then uses Yavaris to double tap with them first thing next round. You've now taken 9 B-wing attacks (9 blue, 9 black dice with bomber) in small sets that is hard to ward off with tokens...and he could be throwing ship damage on top of that or other squads could be involved. You're best response to that is drop the TIEs, shoot the Bs, and run away.

Veteran gunners force you to reroll all the dice, not just dice you don't like. With the dice pools you are using, you aren't likely to be in a position where you want to reroll EVERYTHING. This leads to situations where a total reroll might be worse, or effectively the same.

NK-7+HTT+weapons liaison = 19. I find X17+intel officer+leading shots = 17 is a better combo. Intel+x17 is deadly, and leading shots will handle the reroll of your veteran gunners. Now you can drop Vet gunners for Gunnery team and not worry about the enemy bunching up in a single arc.

RBD plus Motti should give you a lot of survivability.

Not sure what your RLB/TIE combo really gets you here. The Weapons Liaison is a better fit as you can decide when to launch and use them, so I get that inclusion in your build. Basically you are using nav commands and then, when you get swarmed with squadrons, you use the WL to swap to squadron command and drop the TIEs to swarm them. Combines with an anti-squadron attack, it's not bad...but they are just unsupported TIEs. You're likely to take out a few points of squadrons, but you pretty much have to allow enemy ships to get an attack against your ship, drop the TIEs, and move away. Chances are the enemy is going to have more than 32 points of fighters on hand, so your ties are likely to die the very next round providing nothing more than a speed bump to your enemy. Your opponent is going to focus on one ISD, likely trying to get into a flank, so you're not likely to be in a position to launch both ship's TIE compliments against the enemy swarm. Worse yet, if you go against a no squad fleet, you have 76 points of totally ineffective points (RLB and TIEs aren't much good against ships). 4 aggressors might be a better bet for you. You only lose 4 health in squadrons, but you don't need swarm for 4 blues, and the counter 1 will make them give back a little on defense, plus, they are better against ships. With rogue, they offer basically the same effect. You get attacked, but then engage later with the squads. The difference is you don't need commands to do it, and you save 12 points on RLB offering you more potential upgrades. (I can't believe I just suggested bare Aggressors).

All in all, I'd suggest trimming your ISD upgrades a tad so you can buff up the rest of the fleet. Intel, X17, rbd. Raider 1 w/ instigator, kallus. Now a gozanti assault and 2 ties for a 5 point bid. Gozanti adds to the activations and flaking. The TIEs are there as sacrificial units to tie things up. Or drop to the other gozanti and bring another tie. Or bring in 2 aggressors instead of the gozanti and ties. You still have nearly indestructible ISDs, but have a better way of dealing with squads. The increase in deployments and activations will give you more control over the game also. Either way, you are highly dependent on getting the front arc of both ISDs onto the same target to put anything down.

1 hour ago, kmanweiss said:

I'm not saying it won't be fun, but I question how effective it will be.

ARE YOU QUESTIONING THE MIGHT AND EFFICIANCY OF THE EMPIRE!?

1 hour ago, kmanweiss said:

You're best response to that is drop the TIEs, shoot the Bs, and run away.

your* and also who told you the plan?

1 hour ago, kmanweiss said:

All in all, I'd suggest trimming your ISD upgrades a tad so you can buff up the rest of the fleet. Intel, X17, rbd. Raider 1 w/ instigator, kallus. Now a gozanti assault and 2 ties for a 5 point bid. Gozanti adds to the activations and flaking. The TIEs are there as sacrificial units to tie things up. Or drop to the other gozanti and bring another tie. Or bring in 2 aggressors instead of the gozanti and ties. You still have nearly indestructible ISDs, but have a better way of dealing with squads. The increase in deployments and activations will give you more control over the game also. Either way, you are highly dependent on getting the front arc of both ISDs onto the same target to put anything down.

Good advice on the guns and control, it would be more efficient to switch the guns up, but perhaps less fun. mainly I picked ties and RLB because I want to launch ties from them. nd also I really like large groups of ties I just really like WL, I played a game where I used a imp I SD with upgrades much like you suggest tarkin and 2 VS I with WL, tarking gives tokens and WL can mash it up.

Im going to look into the guns to see if I can make the star destroyers more destroyery. though I think I might keep the rest as is for sherts and giggles.

Edited by Geressen

NK-7's discard after the tokens are used... I have always found that to be the problem with them that takes from an interesting option to an overpriced underperforming option. You need an acc to lock the brace, and a crit to strip it, and if you don't get those two things together then you will have been better off just taking intel officer for less and keeping your turbolaser open.

2 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

NK-7's discard after the tokens are used...

I knew I was missing something, because the critical effects take place after the defense token step of course, thanks.

Yep! Otherwise, dual ISD's and a buncha ties are a lot of fun to play :)

And sure, they might not be optimized, but they still are ISD's, and the game is balanced in such a way that if you get them on target they can dish out a ton of pain.

MMMMMMmmmmmmm dual ISDs always fun.


Give it a try, what's the worst that can happen?

The problem that I was talking about with the 9 hit B attack is pretty serious, and dropping the TIEs to run away isn't gonna help much. 9 Bwing attacks is going to do an average of 15/16 damage. Possibly more if the first 3 activations were from something with a BCC. Follow that up with another 2 damage from Yavaris and you could see your ISD pop before you get a chance to use RBD or deploy the TIEs. You're facing off against over 30 potential damage before you can respond. At that is only from 130 points of their fleet.

I really don't like RLB as Imps. It just doesn't seem like a good way to spend points as an Imperial player. But....if you really want to use it, how about something like this:

2x ISD w/RLB, RBD, and 4 TIEs each. Gozanti and 2x TIE advanced. Activations and deployments helped. On top of that, your TIEs will live longer. Drop the TIEs, then the Gozanti pushes the TIE-As into position to cover them. Or use the Gozanti and TIE-As to keep the enemy from being able to last/first a squadron ball of bombers in the first place. Gozanti can also activate TIEs to keep the damage up and move in to flak squads. Cuts into the ISD offense, but keeps the rabble off you better.

2 ISDs is fun, but you have to be efficient for it to really work. And 76 points of RLB TIEs isn't very efficient.

I think the point of RLB TIEs isn’t to be “effective” per se... It’s more about being thematically awesome.

Thematics aside, I’d ditch the NKs. They have almost no value. If you want them to feel like accurate ISD-IIs, QTC is the way to go.(No pun intended:P) If you want them to work outside a completely casual game that’s a different story. I have a Motti Dual ISD-II list; just ping me if you’re interested.

how are these B-wings sneaking up on you?

Edited by Geressen

what happens if you put a rebel squad inside a big ship that is called in by raddus who is inside a small ship inside the profundity and would you be able to unpack them all in a single turn?

Edited by Geressen

Your opponent's head explodes from confusion. Insta-win.

Yes

1 minute ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Your opponent's head explodes from confusion. Insta-win.