New player with a handful of games played. Wanted to try my hand at building a fleet and came up with the following. The idea is to brawl with the glads, snipe with the arq, and have the raider and my squads lock down any enemy squads. My questions are what objectives would fit well and should I be bidding for first or second here.

My biggest weakness yet is objectives, so I'm going to stay way away from that topic.

But as far as first or second player, that choice is easy in your case. You want 1st so bad I'd consider trimming some points somewhere to get it. This depends a lot on your local meta though. If you find that you aren't getting to pick often enough due to other low bids, keep track of how many points you need to shed to get there.

You have 5 activations, so you have a pretty fair chance at a last/first scenario where you can position 1 of your ships to be in an ideal position to go first in the next round. The Demolisher is amazing at this (Round X = move into attack range and attack; Round X+1 = double arc attack and move to safety). The other Gladiator, or heck even the raider or Arquitens can set up some nice moves this way. The last/first combo is even more powerful if you can continually setup good attacks this way.

Its not a bad list by any means, but it is VERY black die dependent which means you need to get in close to really do anything. An extremely agile opponent, or someone built around a lot of reds (ackbar lists for instance) might give you issues. The other issue you are going to have is bomber fleets. You have a very small fighter support group, but it's not a bad group and you have some flak support. But a truly bomber heavy enemy is going to be able to overwhelm your ability to respond, and all of your ships are pretty soft, especially to multiple bombing attacks. An Interdictor built properly is going to be a thorn in your side also. I'm not saying that you have a build issue here, just pointing out the biggest threats to your build.

I would consider moving Screed to your other Gladiator though. The enemy already has a LOT of incentive to kill off demolisher since it's your biggest threat. Sticking your commander on the same ship only makes the ship that much bigger of a target. Swapping him to your other less threatening gladiator forces the enemy to make a choice. Take out the commander and drop the effectiveness of your blacks but leave the demo alive to throw crazy black dice everywhere, or take out demolisher and let your commander continue to influence the battle for a longer period of time. I'd maybe even think of putting him on a non-gladiator as those two ships are the highest priority targets in your list.

First Player usually, but keep an eye out for strategic in your opponents list.

Most Wanted, Capture the VIP, Solar Corona,

Captain Needa on the Arquitens and move Screed here.

Swap out Wulff for a vet captain to save points. You shouldn't have many fighters surviving that long.

OK,

it's a nice start to a solid list. I agree with Ginkapo on his choices for objectives, solid in all three areas.

Let's look at some choices in the fleet. Let's start with the admiral. Screed is not optimal here. Your Gladiators and Raider have Ordnance Experts, which will give you a very high probability of a crit, much more optimal would be Ozzel to help control your movement options. Navigate commands are your friend in this list and Ozzel makes for a much wider set of options.

Let's go ship by ship now.

Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer (56 + 54) =110
+ Admiral Ozzel (20)

+ Intel Officer (7)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ Engine Techs (8)
+ Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
+ Demolisher (10)

The changes made here make your ship much more dangerous. APT's are much better here, forcing through damage rather than stripping shields, you want damage into the hull as much as possible, with good positioning you have a very high chance of 2 face up cards that bypass shields. The Intel Officer further weakens the opponent by making them choose between negating damage once and losing that defense token (target the Brace) or not using the targeted token and taking the full brunt of your attack.

Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer (56 + 22) =78

+ Intel Officer (7)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ Engine Techs (8)
+ Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)

Solid ship, APT's for the same reason as above. Intel Officer for the same reason as above.

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 + 6) =60
+ Slaved Turrets (6)

You want to keep that Evade token to keep this baby in the fight at long range. Slaved Turrets gives you an extra die attack and will serve to draw tokens almost as well as TRC without compromising your defense.

Raider I-class Corvette (44 + 14) = 58

+ Agent Kallus (3)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ Flechette Torpedoes (3)
+ Instigator (4)

Great set up already, adding Kallus for 3 points makes for a highly nasty anti-aces ship

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 0) = 23

We want this ship as naked as possible. It will serve two purposes, to act as our ship for 'Most Wanted' or to support our new squadron set up. (see below)

Right now we are at 329 points for 5 ship activations and that is solid. Now we need some support squadrons and we need a bid. We want first and last here. As it stands, your squadrons are a bit Jack of all Trades and what we really want is a set of squadrons that can hold up our enemies so our ships can go to work.

Bearing in mind we have our Raider, I recommend the following

1 x Lambda Class Shuttle (15)

2 x Defender (32)

1 x Saber Squadron (12)

The Lambda gives us the ability for our Gozanti to command 2 squadrons from anywhere on the board. The other three, when combined with our Raider, allow us to chew on enemy squads. The Lambda also gives us the important option of Relay.

This set up also gives us a healthy 12 point bid as we really want first and last with this list to set up our Gladiator(s) to shoot last in one round, then first in the next round for some serious hit and run damage.

That was rather a lot of text, but that is what I would recommend whilst still keeping your original intent.