First wag at trying to implement the last/first Sloane alpha strike. It's surprisingly difficult to get that 7-point officer in there and a sizable bid for first.

Minor updates (add SFO to Avenger, Interceptor -> JM5k):

sed s/hunter/hunted/ v7.0b2 (394/400)
====================================
Imperial II-class Star Destroyer (120 + 46)
+ Admiral Sloane (24)
+ Skilled First Officer (1)
+ Gunnery Team (7)
+ Reinforced Blast Doors (5)
+ Leading Shots (4)
+ Avenger (5)
Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 + 25)
+ Governor Pryce (7)
+ Flight Controllers (6)
+ Boosted Comms (4)
+ Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
+ Squall (3)
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 2)
+ Hondo Ohnaka (2)
Ciena Ree (17)
"Howlrunner" (16)
"Mauler" Mithel (15)
Valen Rudor (13)
Saber Squadron (12)
Jumpmaster 5000 (12)
2 x Tie Interceptor Squadron (11)
Black Squadron (9)
Tie Fighter Squadron (8)

Superior Positions
Blockade Run
Fighter Ambush

sed s/hunter/hunted/ v7.0b1 (392/400)
====================================
Imperial II-class Star Destroyer (120 + 45)
+ Admiral Sloane (24)
+ Gunnery Team (7)
+ Reinforced Blast Doors (5)
+ Leading Shots (4)
+ Avenger (5)
Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 + 25)
+ Governor Pryce (7)
+ Flight Controllers (6)
+ Boosted Comms (4)
+ Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
+ Squall (3)
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 2)
+ Hondo Ohnaka (2)
Ciena Ree (17)
"Howlrunner" (16)
"Mauler" Mithel (15)
Valen Rudor (13)
Saber Squadron (12)
3 x Tie Interceptor Squadron (11)
Black Squadron (9)
Tie Fighter Squadron (8)

Is there really much advantage to using Pryce to activate your fighters last? Your opponent could have 4 activations between your 2nd and last activation. I guess you would have be careful on approach, but this has huge backfire potential.

Everyone is wondering how this will work with Sloane, and I’m over here wondering how it would work with tie bombers... that’s 12 bomber dice you can put into a target with no actions by the enemy

6 bombers and 6 interceptors is 120 points... fiddle some to get whatever Aces you want in there and you could take your pick of double bombing ships OR double Alpha-ing enemy squads

Why the ISD? Rather than triple Raider and Goz?

Where is double tapping Jendon?

5 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Where is double tapping Jendon?

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

Because you have Relay which makes squad 4 6 somewhat redundant. And Jendon does not benefit from flight controllers.

Overall this is highly inefficient.

Oh, thank you for answering for me while I was away.

5 hours ago, Kristjan said:

Is there really much advantage to using Pryce to activate your fighters last? Your opponent could have 4 activations between your 2nd and last activation. I guess you would have be careful on approach, but this has huge backfire potential.

It's dangerous, for sure, but if you're not stupid with your timing, I think you can set up a pretty good no-win with the ISD covering Squall against anything that wants to take advantage of that long delay. Few squadrons will be fast enough to threaten to intercept all those speed 5's; and for those that can, there's Squall.

5 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Why the ISD? Rather than triple Raider and Goz?

The ISD can take it on the chin while threatening multiple ships in a wide swath of the table.

The basic strategy here--throw a crapload of squadrons twice--is super obvious, so people are going to try to counter it. Generally speaking, I see one of two things happening. Opponents will either try to back their squadrons off on the Pryce turn so Squall can't reach them for the squadron alpha strike, or they'll take advantage of that long lull in which they know I'm defenseless against squadrons to attack whatever I put out there. The ISD works for either scenario.

1) If they back their squadrons off and expose their ships to my squadron strike instead, I'm perfectly happy to push 6 Sloane squadrons to hit the ship, then open the following turn with Avenger pushing 5 of them again with an immediate Avenger front arc follow-up shot, while their squadrons hang back and hide.

2) If they try to get in a sneaky quick shot on the rest of my fleet while Squall delays, no ship in the fleet is better-equipped to weather it than an ISD. In this scenario, Squall double-taps the squadrons and summarily wins the whole squadron game against almost any squadron wing you're likely to encounter.

... that's the idea, at least. It probably won't work perfectly on the first iteration, but at least it's a decent starting point I think.

5 hours ago, MandalorianMoose said:

Everyone is wondering how this will work with Sloane, and I’m over here wondering how it would work with tie bombers... that’s 12 bomber dice you can put into a target with no actions by the enemy

Yes, I think that's a solid option too. I just like Sloane. Pretty much the only reason I ever play Imperials is to put a crapload of TIEs and 1 or more ISDs on the table. Otherwise I might as well be playing Rebels and winning.

So, question. Why is the enemy activating all his squads instead of hammering you in the squad phase? Sure, no Yavaris nonsense, but Wedge and Ten and plenty others will still do work.

1 hour ago, GiledPallaeon said:

So, question. Why is the enemy activating all his squads instead of hammering you in the squad phase? Sure, no Yavaris nonsense, but Wedge and Ten and plenty others will still do work.

Yup, I think that's the ideal response in many cases, but you know it's coming by the time you're starting the alpha strike. In that case it's a matter of dictating favorable terms of combat by ending the round with many-on-one engagements to minimize the incoming damage--it's much like joining combat in Wave 1, before Intel. Mass your strength on few to maximize your killing power while minimizing the adversary response.

It's why I've said elsewhere that I think Rogues will see a resurgence if this sort of thing becomes popular.

I was thinking of this with just the ISD, no quasar last night and a big weak spot is slicer tools. If they slice your pryce you're screwed...so yeah I think ISD plus quasar is best to have redundancy...

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 390/400

Commander: Darth Vader

Assault Objective: Blockade Run
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] Imperial Star Destroyer Cymoon 1 Refit (112 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Devastator ( 10 points)
- Minister Tua ( 2 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- All Fighters, Follow Me! ( 5 points)
= 177 total ship cost

Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 points)
- Pursuant ( 2 points)
- Governor Pryce ( 7 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 72 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Hondo Ohnaka ( 2 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 33 total ship cost

1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)
1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)
1 Maarek Steele ( 21 points)
3 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 27 points)
2 JumpMaster 5000s ( 24 points)

Could drop Tua for more bid...

Theoretically, if you can get to yvaris side, you could blow it up in one turn making rieekan useless. Speed five everything plus rhymer should get it done.

Thoughts? We could go with another ISD and Chimera for affm, change commander

4 hours ago, SkyCake said:

I was thinking of this with just the ISD, no quasar last night and a big weak spot is slicer tools. If they slice your pryce you're screwed...so yeah I think ISD plus quasar is best to have redundancy...

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 390/400

Commander: Darth Vader

Assault Objective: Blockade Run
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] Imperial Star Destroyer Cymoon 1 Refit (112 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Devastator ( 10 points)
- Minister Tua ( 2 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- All Fighters, Follow Me! ( 5 points)
= 177 total ship cost

Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 points)
- Pursuant ( 2 points)
- Governor Pryce ( 7 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 72 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Hondo Ohnaka ( 2 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 33 total ship cost

1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)
1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)
1 Maarek Steele ( 21 points)
3 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 27 points)
2 JumpMaster 5000s ( 24 points)

Could drop Tua for more bid...

Theoretically, if you can get to yvaris side, you could blow it up in one turn making rieekan useless. Speed five everything plus rhymer should get it done.

Thoughts? We could go with another ISD and Chimera for affm, change commander

I like it.

Yeah, Slicers is a definite vulnerability. I waffled on Squall vs Pursuant, and it ultimately came down to a meta call for me: am I more likely to run into Slicers or speed-5 squadrons? I'm much more likely to hit speed-5 squadrons, and I think I'm less able to tactically mitigate the squadrons than Slicers: not getting the jump hurts turbo-interceptors quite a lot. On the other hand, if I see Slicer Tools positioned to reach Squall by the end of round 2, I'll probably have to call Pryce on round 1. Which isn't ideal, but it's also not bad being able to position after everybody else does on round 1.

Plus, if neither fast squadrons nor Slicers are present, I think Squall is better for positioning in tough squadron matchups. In particular, I want to be able to put Black precisely where I need it if I'm facing Ten Numb in order to keep that splash damage off the majority of my fighters in the squadron phase. Squall will help a lot with that.

I like the Vader/Cymoon version you've got going here too. I toyed with the idea of dropping Avenger on an ISDC in mine, but I think it's not a strong enough threat without Vader's rerolls. The activation redundancy is a pretty big deal for me too: once the QF runs as it will inevitably have to do at some point, the ISD is the one still pushing squadrons in the combat area. The way you're built, it's not too terrible as long as you don't lose Jendon.

Man, speed 5 TIE Bombers. How delightful. Do you think you're going to be taking enough fire on the ISD to make Dev worth it? I guess it's your chin just as mine is mine, huh? How interesting.

Yea I think we can switch to squall depending on meta for sure.

Devastator might not be best here.. Vader does combo with it though, and we're talking 8 dice long range with rerolls if his squads decide to start bombing Devastator.... I just don't like having Cymoon without rerolls for red... Chimera title on ISD 2,1,K would all be fine, with Motti or JJ I guess, would be a fair substitute.

might want Titus in the list somewhere... he can help make your opponents ship come into range.

and I think escort for the squads would be prudent so we can keep them forward a bit while protecting our intel from an alpha.

15 minutes ago, SkyCake said:

might want Titus in the list somewhere... he can help make your opponents ship come into range.

and I think escort for the squads would be prudent so we can keep them forward a bit while protecting our intel from an alpha.

Titus is a cool idea. I don't have the open officer slot in my build, but may be worth it if you do.

I think overinvesting in defensive measures like escort risks watering down the all-in offensive approach that you're trying to leverage with the last/first. That said, I do have Black in my own list, for three specific scenarios: to redirect Ten Numb shots in the squadron phase, to cover against a single Adar nose punch with something really nasty like Dutch while I'm delaying, and to save an ace's scatter when it's been exhausted early.