For the most part I agree with you. Though I feel Victory is more of a 3/5 for the 2. Disposable Capacitors and all the upgrades that are showered upon it make it more and more viable.

Quasars are in the same boat. They provide a quality large alpha squadron strike for cheap for half the cost of an ISD.

Edit- Oh and I think Arquitens need to be cheaper as red dice are too swingy.

I thought the same about quasars as you until i really got one to sing. The ability to pack boosted expanded and flight controllers in a 70pt package is huge.

Also I can't agree that the raider deserves a higher rating than a non titled Gladiator. They are really good ships, even if they get Demo pigdeonholed.

Gonna have to deeply disagree about the Victory. With Disposable capacitors, the VSD2 is the hardest-hitting long-range ship in the game. It can do a 90 degree turn with Jerjerrod and a nav command. It has the largest front arc of any ship : a whopping 105 degrees (largest besides the Quasar, but really?). It can pop two flotillas at long range in one turn. It is the senate. Other stuff I won't argue with as much (I agree with most of it,) but I predict placing the Victory below the Raider, Arquitens and Interdictor is gonna be pretty contentious... Spot on with the ISD and Gozanti, btw. Love the TIE escorts; I've got to try that now!

Victory is, second only to Demolisher in this game.

It does 3/4 of everything the ISD does for 2/3 of the cost.

Play objectives that you don't have to move and wait. It's the most attack dice+survivability for the cost.

It has a major flaw : Yes. So play accordingly to counter his own flaw and that's it. It the most cost efficient ship of the game.

Notice how, with the exception of the ISD, everything that isn't a small ship ranks in the 1-2 category? Yet bigger ships are nearly half the Imperial inventory right now?

I can't agree with the VSD presumption that it's better than 1-2 out of 5. D-Cap VSD-IIs are simply not going to compete with the likes of any ISD combination, Demolisher... or from my personal opinion, standoff-build ARQs. By design they have to close with their target, they won't close fast enough, and they'll get torn apart. Too pricey to be disposable, too defenseless to protect against massive alpha batteries out of ISDs and Liberties. In every situation I can think of, other ships in other configurations do the VSD's job better. Hopefully some combination will be out there that changes this (7th fleet ramming VSD-Is with Ordnance Pods?)

I also can't agree with the Raiders. I know people swear by them and insist they're good, but I have yet to see one flown exceptionally well. Perhaps one Raider, with a first-last advantage and tooled up to do something specific... could work, but far too often I see these things become prey for bombers or massive batteries- the two meta-dominating concepts in the game right now.

Real Imperial ships:

ISD - cornerstone of everything

Gozanti - because drops, activations and ISD support

Demolisher - because its still a very deadly cruise missile

18 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Real Imperial ships:

ISD - cornerstone of everything

Gozanti - because drops, activations and ISD support

Demolisher - because its still a very deadly cruise missile

So the regular gladiator is garbage?

44 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

I can't agree with the VSD presumption that it's better than 1-2 out of 5. D-Cap VSD-IIs are simply not going to compete with the likes of any ISD combination, Demolisher... or from my personal opinion, standoff-build ARQs. By design they have to close with their target, they won't close fast enough, and they'll get torn apart. Too pricey to be disposable, too defenseless to protect against massive alpha batteries out of ISDs and Liberties. In every situation I can think of, other ships in other configurations do the VSD's job better. Hopefully some combination will be out there that changes this (7th fleet ramming VSD-Is with Ordnance Pods?)

It’s not a presumption if it’s built on experience... VSDs start off pretty well vs small ships (you know that 3-4 red dice shot your ISD made, where 2 were blanks and 1 got evaded? VSDs don’t have to do that.) Also, it’s easier to fit 2-3. They become increasingly better against large ships the more you field, because their GT and DCaps are all about spreading around bruising shots. Field 3, and large ships start running into problems with defense tokens and attrition. Smaller ships and flotillas still aren’t spared because of GT, and that has real consequences too. I won’t claim they’re perfect (nothing is) but they absolutely work, I’ve had good results with them, and from the sound of it I’m not alone in that experience.

Just now, The Jabbawookie said:

It’s not a presumption if it’s built on experience... VSDs start off pretty well vs small ships (you know that 3-4 red dice shot your ISD made, where 2 were blanks and 1 got evaded? VSDs don’t have to do that.) Also, it’s easier to fit 2-3. They become increasingly better against large ships the more you field, because their GT and DCaps are all about spreading around bruising shots. Field 3, and large ships start running into problems with defense tokens and attrition. Smaller ships and flotillas still aren’t spared because of GT, and that has real consequences too. I won’t claim they’re perfect (nothing is) but they absolutely work, I’ve had good results with them, and from the sound of it I’m not alone in that experience.

Perhaps... but I can easily imagine one VSD getting trashed at a time by an up-gunned heavy. I've lost a couple of VSDs fighting off a gunnery team Liberty long ago, and that's one event that shook my faith in VSDs being able to handle fights against large ships.

1 minute ago, Norsehound said:

Perhaps... but I can easily imagine one VSD getting trashed at a time by an up-gunned heavy. I've lost a couple of VSDs fighting off a gunnery team Liberty long ago, and that's one event that shook my faith in VSDs being able to handle fights against large ships.

If you haven’t already, I recommend trying a game or two with multiple GT capacitor Vics (and maybe JJ.) Just as an experiment. You might find the results surprising. They used to live in this weird halfway world of ISD wannabe, but the ability to reliably get a strong alpha shot on bigger craft has been a major change. Properly used Vics certainly don’t belong below the Interdictor.

34 minutes ago, TallGiraffe said:

So the regular gladiator is garbage?

It's not bad. But Demo is still awesome, so that's always the first pick.

And after that, can you find room for a second glad?

16 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

If you haven’t already, I recommend trying a game or two with multiple GT capacitor Vics (and maybe JJ.) Just as an experiment. You might find the results surprising. They used to live in this weird halfway world of ISD wannabe, but the ability to reliably get a strong alpha shot on bigger craft has been a major change. Properly used Vics certainly don’t belong below the Interdictor.

At least I can agree that VSDs fight where Interdictors can't. Problem is, to prevent the VSD from being completely outclassed, every future medium is going to have to be worse than the VSD. Going down this route feels like trying to make excuses for a poorly performing platform simply because it's the best of a mediocre lineup.

Just today I took a couple of up-kitted VSD-Is (Expanded Launchers, Ordnance Experts, XI7s, Skilled First Officer / Support officer) with motti in a 225 point game. I killed what I could catch, but lost because Motti's VSD couldn't outrun fighters and got bombed to death, and I couldn't land the killing blow on the faster Quasar Fire. Maybe Jerjerrod could have turned it around I'll grant, but it's going to take a lot for me to overcome the disappointment that the VSD isn't as ubiquitous as I feel it should be.

29 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Just today I took a couple of up-kitted VSD-Is

Well... Okay, yeah, I’ll admit VSD-Is kinda suck. The 1 is in many ways the 2 minus DCaps, and that equals a bad ship. I want the 1 to be viable, but it just doesn’t have the kind of niche enjoyed by the slow-rolling sniper VSD-II. And it is, indeed, a niche (but a good one.) That said, it doesn’t seem out of the question for FFG to release the Venator as a side arc focused medium...

#TeamVenator

6 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Well... Okay, yeah, I’ll admit VSD-Is kinda suck. The 1 is in many ways the 2 minus DCaps, and that equals a bad ship. I want the 1 to be viable, but it just doesn’t have the kind of niche enjoyed by the slow-rolling sniper VSD-II.

For the amount of absurd damage they can deliver on target when they catch something, they shouldn't (I think motti's VSD pushed around 11ish damage on Demolisher when I opened fire... with XI7s). The problem keeps circling back to two issues:

1. The VSD doesn't have the speed necessary to catch/flee from enemy ships. D-caps gets around this by pushing the range bracket on the already extended II out to long range, making it the only ship to "naturally" fire that many dice that far. Still, VSD-Is can't commit their batteries soon enough. Imagine if VSD-Is could reach speed 3s with Jerjerrod... then we'd have a scary huge battery ship for a lot cheaper than the ISDs with the ability to make hairpin turns. That's an awesome potential I'd want out of these cruisers, but we don't have because they're the only speed 2 ship that can never go faster!

2. The VSD doesn't have the protection necessary to be worth the points. You can knock out light ships via D-Cap gunnery teams all you like, but what if you're out deployed by (or raddus gives you) an upgunned heavy? VSDs are now a liability in points and how easily that christmas tree will destroy you. It's not like you can slap Reinfroced Blast doors on your paired VSDs... you'll have to surrender the officer's slot to take RBDs on one VSD of your choice. Since you can't mirror this across several ships, it feels too restrictive.

D-Cap snipers with gunnery teams kind of feels like a one-trick pony... about as noteworthy as Warlord H9s auto-damaging all squads. Yeah it's nice, but there are other things that are more effective. In that same evening I took the crushing VSD-Is... I faced a VSD-II with GTs and D-Caps paired with a couple of Raiders with a mini-ARQ battery list. After I finished the Raiders, sure a lucky D-Cap shot maimed Vader's ARQ, but my three Firesprays and two upgunned Vader ARQs managed to finish off the VSD on turn 5 after about two rounds of shooting. It would be a different story if that VSD could cross space faster or could tank the abuse I was giving it to survive another turn. *shrug*

I mean, comparing the ARQ to D-Cap VSD-IIs... my ARQ CLs at full power throw 5 dice downrange with intel officer support for 60ish points in one attack from Slaved Turrets. Vader's control ensures I do enough satisfying damage to be threatening and maintain that long range by keeping distance and getting nice turns to maintain it (satisfactorily without JJ). D-Cap VSDs start at 88 and will close with and eventually pass their targets. Objectively I have more advantages with cheaper ships putting out nearly as much firepower, so why would I invest in a large, nearly immobile sitting duck?

If the answer was "because with Expanded Launchers / E-Racks I can deal 11 damage to something with XI7s", then we'd be talking.

While i am firmly in the vsds are just a big fat target camp at present i must say i am thinking about them again in regards to the new w7 cards. I think ord pods on vsd1 for example is interesting.

I think for the first two paragraphs, at least, we’re in complete agreement. You continue to make make some excellent points afterwards, and seem to have a good understanding of the ship’s drawbacks. Here’s how I try to mitigate them.

Yes, like most ships barring (sometimes) the hmc80, sustained fire from a heavy will destroy VSD-IIs. Due to a terrible speed chart, you’ll have a hard time escaping. There are three things you can do about this. Firstly, you can admit you will likely lose a Vic. Secondly, you can run them in groups, to ensure you trade. If you lose only one VSD, you win that trade and often the game. Thirdly, because VSDs are medium, you can trap them and force the trade. This is particularly effective against joust-inclined ISDs, even when at speed three. When running 3 VSD-IIs, I’ve found Motti’s +2 hull boost to be a great help to their survivability. Add in Tua/ECMs, and your flagship, at least, is ISD-grade tanky.

VSD-IIs aren’t quite a one-trick pony; they have two. They love killing smalls in 1-2 shots, and they love wearing down larges in teams of often two (running three is great, but they won’t usually all be on target.) With combined firepower, it usually takes around 3 shots each to get the kill on an ISD or Pickle through sheer attrition, ideally with the aforementioned entrapment and ramming. This is one reason why I’d be seriously reluctant to run a single Vic; they’re team players, giving each other area denial and overlapping fields of fire with their massive front arcs. The VSD is a trade off from the Arq in that it offers a persistent threat to avoid or brawl, whereas the Arq focuses on evasion, leading to a different objective suite. Anything small and maneuverable enough to pass a pair of Vics trying to trap it is usually dead by then (except the dreaded Admonition.) Perhaps more importantly, the Arq can’t take Gunnery Team or generate accuracies as well. Nailing 2 targets on at least your capacitors turn (which I’ve found usually quite manageable) is what makes the VSD-II worth the 31 points more in some scenarios. (Obviously the Arq is amazing and totally has a place, though.) All in all, I think what seems so counter-intuitive about the Vic-II is the two styles it combines; it’s a slow, run-you-over navigation method coupled with a heavy “plinking” form of attack. It’s not about burst damage; Imps already have ships to do that. The VSD hits with teamwork and attrition, like an overgrown, slow-rolling CR90. It’s not an obvious or even easy playstyle, but it’s rewarding and fun to cast and maintain a wide net for MSU while playing Blockade Run, or to lure a Heavy into a trap via 2v1 joisting.

The thing with vics is they are too expensive to lose but they arent mobile enough to be a striking ship. And they dont have much to offer in a one big one plus 5 floater meta. Hopefully wave 7 will upset that a bit!

They are pretty rare here now, but back in wave 2 and 3 they were fairly popular in pairs. But a gunnery team isd2 will quite happily take two of them on at once and win.

Cymoon with Vader, spinal and GT is the new hotness for me. I could never get a Vic to work because they are too slow and decaps only work for one turn

4 hours ago, Green Knight said:

It's not bad. But Demo is still awesome, so that's always the first pick.

And after that, can you find room for a second glad?

I would respectfully disagree here, especially with the Sevens fleet title. It's going to have a different role, but its a valid one.

5 hours ago, Norsehound said:

I also can't agree with the Raiders. I know people swear by them and insist they're good, but I have yet to see one flown exceptionally well. Perhaps one Raider, with a first-last advantage and tooled up to do something specific... could work, but far too often I see these things become prey for bombers or massive batteries- the two meta-dominating concepts in the game right now.

They're good ships, Bront.

7 minutes ago, PT106 said:

I would respectfully disagree here, especially with the Sevens fleet title. It's going to have a different role, but its a valid one.

...haven't tried it on Vassal... yes... might change my mind...

@beefcake4000, what I want to know, is where did you get the ATATs hanging on the Gozantis...

7 minutes ago, Darth Lupine said:

@beefcake4000, what I want to know, is where did you get the ATATs hanging on the Gozantis...

Mels Miniatures on Shapeways. It's a complete model. Ship with AT-ATs. Mel also has a Comms version as well

9 minutes ago, Darth Lupine said:

@beefcake4000, what I want to know, is where did you get the ATATs hanging on the Gozantis...

Mels miniatures sells the gozantis with at-at