Kallus H9 Warlord is a fearsome beast in the AA role. It is painful to have Kallus sit in Tua's seat while you strap so many points to the platform, but that is the drawback of having the ability to push 2 damage consistently on aces after brace, or 1 (acc the scatter) on scatter aces.

1 hour ago, PartyPotato said:

The Warlord combo is one of if not my favorite ship. Expensive as ****, with all the drawbacks of a Vicotry class star destroyer but its so gratifying to see a bomber make and attack and I casually respond... it takes a damage for attacking me.

Also double gratifying for blanketing an entire fighter ball and declaring they all take one damage.

Not only does Warlord help with your anti-fighter battery attacks, but it also on your QLT counter attacks.

I run double ISD lists, and this is only viable against weak squad lists. Scatter aces, and bomber lists, and even a weak squad list flown smartly will eat through an ISD's shields in no time. You MUST have flak or screening for an ISD, either other ships to pad activations, token TIEs, or a few mean Raiders hanging around.

29 minutes ago, ktflory said:

I run double ISD lists, and this is only viable against weak squad lists. Scatter aces, and bomber lists, and even a weak squad list flown smartly will eat through an ISD's shields in no time. You MUST have flak or screening for an ISD, either other ships to pad activations, token TIEs, or a few mean Raiders hanging around.

Well.. double ISD lists can have Raiders/other flak ships or some fighter support as well as QLTs, so I'm not sure what's your argument here.

Just now, PT106 said:

Well.. double ISD lists can have Raiders/other flak ships or some fighter support as well as QLTs, so I'm not sure what's your argument here.

I don't feel that 1 blue die roll against squads that have already attacked and done damage to you is going to do much, maybe anything especially against the stronger squadrons. TIEs and Z95s, maybe but it still takes minimum 3 turns to kill them assuming they aren't aces. If you have 5 points to spare in your bid, then yeah go ahead and use it if you are weak on squads but relying on it to be effective will be fatal in against a lot of lists.

When I run squadronless lists with ISDs I've found only one combo really works, 1 ISD and 3-4 Raiders. Anything that rolls just 1 Anti-squad die including Gozantis and QLT hasn't ever done anything to help me. You need active, or even better PROactive anti-squad capability in todays meta if you are going low activation or have a large point sink in your fleet. You could get away with squadronless fleets where you have a high number of activations, and mostly small ships but QLT only rolling one die isn't going to kill 3 health squads fast enough to save your shields, and isn't even going to concern 5 health bombers, or squads with scatter.

21 minutes ago, ktflory said:

I don't feel that 1 blue die roll against squads that have already attacked and done damage to you is going to do much, maybe anything especially against the stronger squadrons. TIEs and Z95s, maybe but it still takes minimum 3 turns to kill them assuming they aren't aces. If you have 5 points to spare in your bid, then yeah go ahead and use it if you are weak on squads but relying on it to be effective will be fatal in against a lot of lists.

When I run squadronless lists with ISDs I've found only one combo really works, 1 ISD and 3-4 Raiders. Anything that rolls just 1 Anti-squad die including Gozantis and QLT hasn't ever done anything to help me. You need active, or even better PROactive anti-squad capability in todays meta if you are going low activation or have a large point sink in your fleet. You could get away with squadronless fleets where you have a high number of activations, and mostly small ships but QLT only rolling one die isn't going to kill 3 health squads fast enough to save your shields, and isn't even going to concern 5 health bombers, or squads with scatter.

The thing is you do not use QLT in a vacuum. It is assumed that you will also be flaking, meaning that you are pouring not 1 but 3 (4 with Kallus against an ace) dice into each squadron that attacks you each turn. Note that the OP recommended ISD-IIs - you'll be flaking from medium range. That is decent. With luck, you can kill a TIE or Z-95 in one turn, and severely wound bombers. Over two turns, most squads will be limping if not dead. Couple that with flak from the other ISD, and you got yourself a killing ground.

If I had the ability to flak, that would be fine. Even with Gunnery teams on both ISDs there are always more dangerous, expensive targets to shoot at because smart players don't send unsupported squads into battle against targets that have nothing better to do then shoot at the squads. The current meta (at least in my area) seems to be see an ISD, gang up on the ISD because they know it can only shoot twice. THEN they fly in the squads where they know they will be safe. Even if I decided to QLT and waste an attack flakking my opponent instead of going for the easier, higher cost, more dangerous target, he will just fly the squads to safety JUST before I can kill them in order to save points.

QLTs do kind of work on the Raider title that engages squads assuming you also have Kallus, and same on the ISD with Kallus but ONLY against Aces. Unfortunately this is a one off combo and doesn't concern generic 4-5 health bombers.

Where QLTs do work is on 3-4 activation fleets where you can overlap fire but you must have a few token squads to lock the enemy in place, and overlapping fire of ships with 2 flak dice. Unfortunately it all falls apart once the enemy gets ships inside your formation and you can lo longer afford to flak, and your ship to squad shots are obstructed. I've seen it kind of work with x2 YT-1300s, 3 ships with QLT, and Ruthless strategists., but you have to use a few squads to engage.

18 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

The thing is you do not use QLT in a vacuum. It is assumed that you will also be flaking, meaning that you are pouring not 1 but 3 (4 with Kallus against an ace) dice into each squadron that attacks you each turn.

Bingo! And with 2 ISDs in a flakking range its going to be 5 rerollable dice (leading shots/OE) and even more if any other ships are in range.Those dice ARE going to add up very quickly.

10 minutes ago, ktflory said:

If I had the ability to flak, that would be fine. Even with Gunnery teams on both ISDs there are always more dangerous, expensive targets to shoot at

Well.. sometimes you have to prioritize shooting squadrons over shooting ships. It's unlikely that your opponent would give you full 8-dice front arc shot on multiple ships, so the opportunity for flak shot is usually there. However it's a perception thing - AS flak is unlikely to get you any points from killing squadrons, however it can remove squadrons as a threat by forcing them to disengage and this is your real goal here given that once squadron threat is removed you should be able to win ship-to-ship fight.

As far as Raiders are concerned, I'm not a fan of using QLTs on them, as they don't have enough health for QLT to pay for itself, IMO.

Just now, PT106 said:

Bingo! And with 2 ISDs in a flakking range its going to be 5 rerollable dice (leading shots/OE) and even more if any other ships are in range.Those dice ARE going to add up very quickly.

Well.. sometimes you have to prioritize shooting squadrons over shooting ships. It's unlikely that your opponent would give you full 8-dice front arc shot on multiple ships, so the opportunity for flak shot is usually there. However it's a perception thing - AS flak is unlikely to get you any points from killing squadrons, however it can remove squadrons as a threat by forcing them to disengage and this is your real goal here given that once squadron threat is removed you should be able to win ship-to-ship fight.

As far as Raiders are concerned, I'm not a fan of using QLTs on them, as they don't have enough health for QLT to pay for itself, IMO.

You guys must live in a nice meta, where ISDs have time to relax and take pot shots at squads. I'm telling you that does not happen where I play, nor on Vassal. I have at least two targets 90% of the time when in shooting range. Smart players don't attack ships like ISDs single file, don't send squads in until their ships are also in range, and make sure that their ships are threatening enough to force you to shoot at them.

10 minutes ago, ktflory said:

I have at least two targets 90% of the time when in shooting range.

As I was saying, its about perception and priorities. I'm often sacrificing 4 dice long range shot (and sometimes can sacrifice 5 dice medium range shot from ISD1) to get that flak shot. It seems that you always prefer to shoot ships over squadrons if you have a shot. Thats also a valid strategy choice, but as I was saying it's more about overall strategy and priorities than about meta. I do play on Vassal and see different fleets there, so I do realize (or at least I think I do) what they're capable of.

13 minutes ago, ktflory said:

You guys must live in a nice meta, where ISDs have time to relax and take pot shots at squads. I'm telling you that does not happen where I play, nor on Vassal. I have at least two targets 90% of the time when in shooting range. Smart players don't attack ships like ISDs single file, don't send squads in until their ships are also in range, and make sure that their ships are threatening enough to force you to shoot at them.

Well I don't have a meta, so anything goes, but look at it this way:

The squads that are most threatening to your ships are bombers. The ships that support bombers are largely dedicated to doing so. Therefore, taking out the bombers removes the primary threat of the enemy fleet. Thing of the bombers as a 70+ point ship that has a lot of hit points but few tokens. Killing the carriers isn't too helpful (though if you can, go for it), as they only provided support to get the bombers on target. You'll want to take out the squads. I therefore don't see it as a waste to target the squads, especially with the overlapping fields of fire two QLTISD-2s provide, rather than focusing on the ships. In two turns of that 5 dice fire, most of the bombers will be dead or pulled back, which simultaneously removes the main offensive power of the enemy fleet, and allows you to overpower their carriers in peace - after all, you have GT, it's not like you completely gave up all shots on the carriers. And of course, if you can kill, say, Yavaris, in your activation, you'll prioritize it, naturally. But you shouldn't relegate the squads to sub-optimal targets, when the fleet is built around them.

Remember, taking out a large fighter wing is about equivalent to taking out an ISD. ISDs double AA dice are great when attacking lots of fighters because the you get to take the shot many times. And it can take basically the same about of time to kill a whole swarm of fighters as it can to take out a squadron or two. So if you are fighting a whole ton of fighters It is a great idea to spend you gunnery activations on fighters. Honestly if you two large ships in your arc with a giant swarm of fighters all at the same time, you're in trouble no matter. what. But that isn't very likely. It is hard to fit two large base ships in a list if you are also maxing out your fighters.