13 minutes ago, RobertK said:

Let's analyze the list you are fighting against and see what its weaknesses are.

One thing that stands out to me is that his fleet only has two activations. This means he is vulnerable to a last-first attack with something potent and maneuverable. So you probably want a list with 4-5 ships. If you are going first and have more ships to activate, you will be able to see that state of the table before you do your final positioning. MC30s and CR90s are made for this sort of thing. @Ginkapo's article is good at describing what you probably want to be doing. Here's a fleet list that might give you some ideas...

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 386/400
Commander: Mon Mothma

Assault Objective: Blockade Run
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- Admonition ( 8 points)
- Lando Calrissian ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 84 total ship cost

[ flagship ] CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Mon Mothma ( 30 points)
- Jainas Light ( 2 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 83 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 51 total ship cost

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- Foresight ( 8 points)
- Major Derlin ( 7 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 87 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 22 total ship cost

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
1 Shara Bey ( 17 points)
2 X-Wing Squadrons ( 26 points)

Try to position the MC30s to alternate going first when you want them to attack. Example...Round 2: Foresight is last to activate and dives into close range of the ISD. Admonition is just outside of long range of the ISD, to its front. Round 3: Foresight goes first with a crushing double attack and then zooms away at speed 3-4 to the rear arc of the ISD. Admonition waits to activate until after the ISD has moved. The ISD is probably forced to move into medium (or even short!) range of Admonition when the ISD activates. Admonition fires and then maneuvers to close range again. Round 4: Admonition activates first and pounds the ISD with another crushing double-arc, then zooms away. And where is Foresight? Is it coming around for another pass? All the while the CR90s are peppering the ISD from long range with TRCs.

Anyway, if you have the ships, this list is really fun and tough to get after. MC30s and CR90s really like Mon Mothma because of their evades.

ps Don't mind my objectives. There were mostly me just screwing around to play with friends. And with the 386 points, and wanting to go first, they rarely get played anyway. Cheers!

It's only one dice that Mon Mothma helps with and he usually roles enough target locks to avoid that. From my experience, which is of course very limited, Mon Monthma is dead points.
Admonition the same. 8 Points for dropping one dice and a one time use. I'm afraid I'm way to unexperince to make use of that.

Additionally: If foresight is in close range and he's first player.... Not a good idea. Ok, the return fire form the MC30 is massive, but I do have no luck with dice to (which was the initial frustration I had) and I managed to score 1 damage with 4 black dices

His fighter, even if they are no bombers, will harass my ships and do damage over time.

During the last use of my GR-75 he always scored a target lock and of course used that on my scatter.... The Imperials get at least Minister Tua, which can generate a quit tanky Gozanti.

...There's lots of great and amazing things in this thread. First, kudos for asking for help.

Hilariously, your friend actually has a great list against Rebel bombers.... that's pretty amazing. With the caveat that you guys are playing a weird 2 and 3 ship meta without BCC.

Drop Sato for Rieekan or Dodonna, and take BCC. And consider getting rid of his squadrons to be part of winning. Then take down ONE of his ships. Out activate him with 4 or 5 ships in your list, adding 1 or 2 transports.

Whoo. Good luck.

(Its good and its awful-meta-wise at the same time. Pretty hilarious.)

I'd like to present to the academy, Cadian's AA, a theoretical exercise in destroying the Rieekan menace -
(One caveat, I wish this had 2 more squadrons, but to do so youd have to give up the higher refits and their AA flak.

IVZZ Solane - s6AAstrat b0 - 2nd - Engage fighters only within your own flak, not in his!

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 400/400

Commander: Admiral Sloane

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Navigational Hazards

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Admiral Sloane ( 24 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 173 total ship cost

Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
- Agent Kallus ( 3 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
= 103 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
= 23 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
= 23 total ship cost

2 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 22 points)
1 Valen Rudor ( 13 points)
1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)
1 Lambda-class Shuttle ( 15 points)
1 Saber Squadron ( 12 points)

Card view link

Fleet created

10 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Tactical advice:

Don't give him QBT. Approach the VSD slowly, with a nav token banked so that you can match its speed. The only combat ship you have is Salvation, which is perfectly happy dueling a VSD at range. You also have Yavaris built as a hybrid combat/carrier, which is fine, but also quite happy slow rolling in at speed 1 against this fleet (FC/FCT gives you very strong threat range on Yav). If you had a combat ship like an MC30 or CR90B that needed to close the distance, your approach would be to enter long range at speed 2 (or 1, if necessary) with a nav token banked, and then jump to speed 4 to close the gap. He is winning the speed control game and being rewarded for it with QBT procs: you need to think about the conditions that are allowing him to get that proc, and find a way to either beat or match him in controlling those conditions. He is keeping his speed lower than yours by banking a nav token. You should do the same thing to be able to control your speed and deny him the QBT proc.

I did, but then I'm not maneuverable enough he can easily outmaneuver me. And I'm not good at maneuvering at this point.

10 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

List building advice:

Sato is very hard to make work. If you're set on learning him, stick with it, but recognize that there's going to be a steep, painful learning curve in both the tactics and the list building in figuring him out.

Will drop Sato.

10 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

This list doesn't benefit a lot from Sato. Sato Salv is awesome, but neither the Pelta nor Yav leverages Sato particularly well. You usually see MC30 Scouts with Sato (after Salv), because they can threaten black critical effects like Assault Concussion Mission and Assault Proton Torpedoes at long range. The drawback to that approach is that a lot of the most popular ships have evades. Against a big slow Imp list like this with no evades, that approach would actually work remarkably well.

Alternatively, if you're not particularly committed to Sato, consider switching to Dodonna to make those bomber crits a much bigger threat; or, you could go with Rieekan and switch in a few aces like Luke, Dutch, or Ten Numb.

Tried Luke with Dodonna. Hit twice didn't to a critical, was then engaged with his fighters and didn't shoot at his ships anymore.

10 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

The Biggs ball is really good, but to maximize it you really want Jan in there passing out braces. Biggs doesn't actually decrease overall incoming damage unless the other guy is dumb enough to attack him first, which is why I personally deprioritize him against Jan, who does decrease overall damage. Putting the two of them together would help your survivability significantly against those defensive squadrons. edit: I don't know how I didn't see Jan in there before...

From a broader perspective, you're pretty upgrade-heavy overall here. You have a few upgrades that are undeniably nice to have, but ultimately not critical to the function of your list--so cut them for other stuff. If you're never seeing Slicer Tools, drop Leia. Flight Commander is significantly less important on the Pelta than it is on Yavaris--and dropping that lets you drop Phoenix Home, too, for extra savings. It's nice to follow up a Yavaris double-tap with TRC, but it's also expensive and you're spending an evade on the highest-priority target in your fleet.

Cut all that and you're pretty far along the way to getting yourself a BCC GR-75, which suddenly nearly-doubles the combat effectiveness of all those X-wings. That extra ship's worth of squadron activations also lets you drop the Expanded Hangar Bay to afford Toryn Farr, and now those X-wings also all have Swarm.

Tried Toryn Farr. Need to be with 1-3 range to make her work which brings me into med rage with the ISD... tried that and was punished harshly.

He keeps the ships and the fighters together. He is NOT separating them until I'm committed in some form or the other. If my fighters get into his attack range he just get's a 1st strike with at least 4 interceptors at them, doing 3 points on the average (he's really lucky with his dices) so I need to shift those 10-12 points around severely reducing the HPs my fighters have for nothing in return. It get's even worse when I shot back tbh.

10 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

On that point: yes, the X-wing has the Bomber keyword, but they're still not great primary bombers. Norra helps with that, certainly, but if you're having a hard time getting damage output, consider swapping in some Y's or B's. B-wings in particular pair well with Yavaris: double-tapping with blue-black is way more potent than double-tapping with red, and is the crux of the reason you get people complaining about the power of Yavaris and Rebel bombers in general.

B-Wing range is way to short. I don't know how to make them work besides FC, FCT with a good Squadron Value (hence the Pelta). Even with AFFM they can only go 3.

If I don't keep the B-Wings close ot my Ship he will charge and kill them in 2 turns, going for Ten Nub 1st. If I keep them close and going to slow he will charge me, if I'm going to fast he has the advantage of the QBTs.

Your problem, from what I can tell, is largely the fleet composition. If you choose to run a Pelta and 2 Nebs (these are really unforgiving ships even when not in a jousting match) you need a really airtight reason why they’ll perform well. I don’t see a victory condition here; even if you get Sato to work with this fleet exactly as you intended, would your boosted firepower beat his right now? Ask yourself what an ideal scenario looks like, and how realistic it is to get there. If you can’t find one or if it seems improbable, switching to better combat ships (like MC30s or Defiance w/ engine techs) and padding your activations with flotillas might work wonders. 4-5 activations can still fit maxed-out squads in many builds. I’d also try Toryn and A-wings. They’re fast and TIEs hate them, and most especially Shara, who just shreds light craft. Tycho is Sato’s best friend, too. Having been destroyed by them more than once, I can attest to their power firsthand. Good luck!

11 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

...There's lots of great and amazing things in this thread. First, kudos for asking for help.

Hilariously, your friend actually has a great list against Rebel bombers.... that's pretty amazing. With the caveat that you guys are playing a weird 2 and 3 ship meta without BCC.

Drop Sato for Rieekan or Dodonna, and take BCC. And consider getting rid of his squadrons to be part of winning. Then take down ONE of his ships. Out activate him with 4 or 5 ships in your list, adding 1 or 2 transports.

Whoo. Good luck.

(Its good and its awful-meta-wise at the same time. Pretty hilarious.)

Why shouldn't I ask for help? I'm old enough to have understood, that there are people way better in everything I do and that I should not turn down good advice.

The list I used this time was especially designed to deal with his fighters, negating his 1st strike capability and being able to soak up a nice amount of damage. While I was busy killing his fighters (or at least surviving his attack) he went after my ships and killed them.

The Nebs were going 1, the Pelta 2.

Making Rebels work is quite hard and having the dices against oneself is pretty bad in it self.

Right now I'm thinking of taking Ackbar and just shoot him to pieces long range so he needs to change his list. Right now he just crushes both of the rebel players with his setup.

2 minutes ago, Gordon Freemann said:

Why shouldn't I ask for help? I'm old enough to have understood, that there are people way better in everything I do and that I should not turn down good advice.

The list I used this time was especially designed to deal with his fighters, negating his 1st strike capability and being able to soak up a nice amount of damage. While I was busy killing his fighters (or at least surviving his attack) he went after my ships and killed them.

The Nebs were going 1, the Pelta 2.

Making Rebels work is quite hard and having the dices against oneself is pretty bad in it self.

Right now I'm thinking of taking Ackbar and just shoot him to pieces long range so he needs to change his list. Right now he just crushes both of the rebel players with his setup.

What I meant is praise for you. You're doing good.

Generally your problem is not enough transports. and you really need BOMBER COMMAND CENTER! Look it up if you don't have it. Toryn too would help here.

One very important thing: I'm not a good player (more like really bad) and extremely new to the game. So trying something elaborate on my part will lead to failure and more frustration.

So I'm not saying that the game is unbalanced, but for me it is, because getting Rebel stuff to work seems to much harder than Empire.

2 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

What I meant is praise for you. You're doing good.

Generally your problem is not enough transports. and you really need BOMBER COMMAND CENTER! Look it up if you don't have it. Toryn too would help here.

I have GR-75s and BCC. Didn't work out as intended. Tory needs to be close, which brings me back to the med range of the ISD... something I think I should avoid.

Just now, Gordon Freemann said:

I have GR-75s and BCC. Didn't work out as intended. Tory needs to be close, which brings me back to the med range of the ISD... something I think I should avoid.

BCC then. With your AA flak you should still be able to wipe out his squadrons.

You also need the activation advantage of the transport. You'll find this is universally wisdom being given to you here.

12 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

I'd like to present to the academy, Cadian's AA, a theoretical exercise in destroying the Rieekan menace -
(One caveat, I wish this had 2 more squadrons, but to do so youd have to give up the higher refits and their AA flak.

IVZZ Solane - s6AAstrat b0 - 2nd - Engage fighters only within your own flak, not in his!

Not in this thread though. Incidentally this one of the many suggestions given in THAT thread.

2 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Not in this thread though. Incidentally this one of the many suggestions given in THAT thread.

Lazy, i just copy pasted. Frankly though, I'd be a lot more confident if it had 8 squads, not 6.

There's a lot to go into, so I'll try to keep it short but sweet:

It seems like your friend is aware that you intend to go squadron-heavy so he's bringing a decent investment in Imperial anti-squadron squadrons to at least tie you in the squadron mini-game and then it's his 2 front arc brawlers against your relatively fragile fleet, which is going to usually result in a win for him, especially given that all the ships involved want to be firing out the front most of the time and so in games with newer players will be heading towards one another.

From here I see two basic paths, which are either:

1) Go lighter on squadrons and invest the extra points into another combat ship and consider changing up your other ships to lean harder on combat vessels (like an MC30, for example, or a Home One MC80 or the like). This has the advantage of your opponent is spending a good chunk of points on anti-squadron overkill that ends up being pretty miserable against ships once he's done winning the squadron mini-game whereas you have more invested into anti-ship resources than he does.

2) Go heavier on squadrons but diversify. X-Wings aren't great for their cost against ships. Ideally, you should be hoping to deliver Y-Wings or B-Wings (or similar squadrons) to his ships and gang up on them, while the X-Wings screen them from trouble. If you want something that's going to cause TIEs big headaches, I'd recommend Shara Bey and optionally Tycho as great options there. Jump them at long range and buy a turn or so of your other squadrons having a lot more breathing room. I'd also recommend getting a Bomber Command Center GR75 in there too to help your bombers be more consistent.

In new player games Imperials often have the advantage because new players' natural inclinations are to send the ships at one another, which is a strategy that the Imperials do better at than the Rebels. You're going to be taking your lumps for a little while as you learn the importance of maneuvering and activation order and arc-dodging away from threats. Once you clear that hurdle, your Imperial friend is going to be the one on the hot seat as he realizes that "point ships at problem, kill problem" is no longer a sufficient strategy and he will be the one who needs to grow and adapt.

I'd also recommend the blog that my buddy @geek19 and I co-write, Cannot Get Your Ship Out. We try to cover a range of topics with an eye towards helping newer players. We have an article specifically about dealing with larger ships that you might find helpful.

11 minutes ago, Gordon Freemann said:

One very important thing: I'm not a good player (more like really bad) and extremely new to the game. So trying something elaborate on my part will lead to failure and more frustration.

So I'm not saying that the game is unbalanced, but for me it is, because getting Rebel stuff to work seems to much harder than Empire.

The name of the game is placement and positioning. Rebels, more so than Imperials in my opinion, live and die by positioning well. If you are concerned about being new and dealing with the maneuvering, then I'd suggest doing a complete work over of your list for now. Ackbar with an MC80 is tanky while still throwing out some serious damage. If you have access to an MC80, I'd definitely give this a go as the foundation for your fleet. Ackbar acted a bit like training wheels for me while I was learning. He allowed me to still punch really hard even if I didn't have great positioning. This let me focus more on other aspects of the match.

If he is consistently choosing first, then use that to your advantage. Pick some objectives that give you lots of points for just sitting around, and make him come to you. When he goes first and has to choose from your objectives, don't give him an easy choice. His VSD is slow and will stay out of the fight for a while, and you get to go slow killing his QBT. Heck... you could even take some QBT's yourself. Either they rush in and you get to use them, and if they don't, then you get to mine a bunch of victory tokens.

With QBTs, Ackbar, Leading Shots and an Assualt MC80 with Defiance, you could potentially throw 6 red, a blue, and another dice of your choice at long range with the option of throwing away one of your blues to reroll those fickle red dice. At medium, you get to add another 2 blue. With a Concentrate Fire you get to add another of whatever you want (given it's already there). This means that at medium range in this scenario, you could throw 6 reds, 3 blues, and 2 blacks. That's 11 dice with an option to throw a blue away to reroll!

Also, if you're wanting to get better, I'd suggest jumping online and getting some games in or watching some videos of gameplay. You can learn a lot from others.

3 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

I'd also recommend the blog that my buddy @geek19 and I co-write, Cannot Get Your Ship Out. We try to cover a range of topics with an eye towards helping newer players. We have an article specifically about dealing with larger ships that you might find helpful.

You spoke to Gordon on Discord the other night....

Oh, I meant to mention: CR90A's with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits are very strong counters to the heavier star destroyers like the ISD and VSD which lack evades. It's very realistic to expect to take down an ISD with only 2-3 CR90s over the course of a game, depending on the rolls and the circumstances. Avoid close engagement, rely heavily on navigate commands to stay at range, and learn how to line up double arcs at range. A hint on double arcing with the CR90:

the CR90's arc lines are at a 45* angle to the cardboard,
a maneuver tool with 2 ticks of yaw is set a 45*, and
the CR90 has 2 ticks of yaw on the last joint at every speed.

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

You spoke to Gordon on Discord the other night....

and I'm already reading... But there is a lot to take in and without understanding the game mechanics some things are hard to understand and are way from obvious, at least for me.

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

Oh, I meant to mention: CR90A's with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits are very strong counters to the heavier star destroyers like the ISD and VSD which lack evades. It's very realistic to expect to take down an ISD with only 2-3 CR90s over the course of a game, depending on the rolls and the circumstances. Avoid close engagement, rely heavily on navigate commands to stay at range, and learn how to line up double arcs at range. A hint on double arcing with the CR90:

the CR90's arc lines are at a 45* angle to the cardboard,
a maneuver tool with 2 ticks of yaw is set a 45*, and
the CR90 has 2 ticks of yaw on the last joint at every speed.

Tried the CR90s idea already. Going fast, trying to flank and stay out of range. I got one of them into long range and died... Without doing much in return.
If I'm going to fast or to slow or he changes speed to deny me the double angle I can maneuver as good as I want but won't get that because he saw what I was doing and counter the maneuver.

Because he has a lot of dices in one go he naturally scores some target locks therefor negating my defense tokens... Very effective so say the least. And with Vader he can reroll enough dives if he hasn't scored any...

And yes, maneuvering is the way to go, but I find it hard to achieve.

I know that's all about learing, but right now it's play a game get devasted. Not sure what to do better next time, as the positons are different.

With martial arts it was easier. I didn't rely on just one thing (like the perfect position) to land blows or kicks. Even the most basic trick can work. Rebels need finesse, but I'm feeling like I'm trying to beat a broadsword with a dagger or rapier. I need to hit him several times, but he needs to hit me only once.

Maybe it's a good idea if I play his list for a while and see how people beat me. So I'll be on vassal tomorrow 21:30 CET if anybody wants to teach me a lesson (and I mean teach and learn).

But spare me lists especially designed to counter this list, because that would undermine the idea.

If I'm no good at this game I'll drop it and still say it's a great game, because it is.

Are you able to outdeploy him?

Presumably he deploys the VSD first. Instead of deploying opposite, deploy to the side. He is then faced with a choice of engaging with only his ISD or engaged later in the game giving you more time to line up your approach. Win win for you.

Just to echo what a lot of people have said, your fleet is incoherent, as in it has almost no synergy.

Sato is an upgrade to ship offence, but you are spending a huge amount of points on fighters and have very little ship offence. He’s the wrong admiral for this fleet.

you are playing against someone who has an anti-fighter alpha strike and isn’t going to change them r fleet, that should be a god send for beating them: his over confidence shall be his undoing.

You need to decide on a strategy for your fleet and then build it around the strategy. If you want long range fire to take him down you need ackbarring CR90’s and MC80’s, if you want a bomber Wing you need to take a long hard look at yourself as he is taking the counter to a bomber Wing. If you want to get up close and brawl him to death you want admonition with ordinance experts and ACMs (or APTs and dodonna)

You should aim to put activate and out punch him. That means 4 activations so you can lose one and ships which are good at killing stuff, not the three support ships you are using.

Go for minimal fighter cover as he is going to blow any fighters you have off the table, it’s what his fleet does. As @Ginkapo pointed out if you are squadronless his fleet doesn’t work.

basically any of the rebel admirals will help you here providing you build a fleet to their strengths, even Sato can work if you use disposable A wings to fly in, mark up the target and then get TIE’d to death in the squad phase. 2 flotillas will let you stall out his two activations and then you can do something nasty back to him. Sato is not easy though.

Start over, smash him, then watch him rebuild to counter your fleet and counter that...

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

Are you able to outdeploy him?

Presumably he deploys the VSD first. Instead of deploying opposite, deploy to the side. He is then faced with a choice of engaging with only his ISD or engaged later in the game giving you more time to line up your approach. Win win for you.

So he goes only 2 with both ships, speeding up to 3 again when he closed the distance. Same situation like if I deploy on the opposite side.

1 minute ago, Gordon Freemann said:

So he goes only 2 with both ships, speeding up to 3 again when he closed the distance. Same situation like if I deploy on the opposite side.

If you are to one side though, you can be at long range of the ISD without being long range of the VSD. With the bonus that VSDs cant turn very well so it will never join the fight.... and it cant go speed 3 to go faster on the outside of the turn.

3 minutes ago, Dr alex said:

Just to echo what a lot of people have said, your fleet is incoherent, as in it has almost no synergy.

Sato is an upgrade to ship offence, but you are spending a huge amount of points on fighters and have very little ship offence. He’s the wrong admiral for this fleet.

I designed the fleet to have the fighter alpha over his. I thought that the X-Wings would perform way better than they did.

With FC and FCT I got my fighters into range really quick and had the first strike. killed two of his squads. The rest didn't went that well...

And yes, I totally overestimated the effect Sato would have on my firepower.

Just now, Ginkapo said:

If you are to one side though, you can be at long range of the ISD without being long range of the VSD. With the bonus that VSDs cant turn very well so it will never join the fight.... and it cant go speed 3 to go faster on the outside of the turn.

Not sure I understand. If he goes 2 with both ships until he is at a good distance, then jumps to 3 with the ISD I'm at the same position I was before. His ISD will soften me up and the VSD will sweep up the bits. I can go slow, then I can't really run from them, if I go fast QBT.