I'm trying a new fleet to play with mechanics I haven't explored much. My last four fleets were: Dual VSD/Dual GSD; Interdictor/Quasar + Bombers; and two different Dual ISD builds. Additionally, I haven't flown my Arquitens Cruiser. I haven't flown dual Raiders. And I've never flown a fleet of solely small ships. I'm still not thinking deeply about upgrade interactions, so especially if there are better upgrade combos I should consider for these ships I always enjoy that advice. Those tips have gotten me to fly and learn new-to-me mechanics in the aforementioned fleets. But I don't want to swap out ships. For good or bad, I don't want to, say bring in a Quasar and Bombers to support the small ships. That's for the next game after I learn some lessons from this fleet.

20180128 - Small Ships with Critical Black Dice

Author: ShoutingMan
Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 399/400
Commander: Admiral Screed
Assault Objective: Opening Salvo
Defense Objective: Fleet Ambush
Navigation Objective: Dangerous Territory

[ flagship ] Arquitens-class Command Cruiser (59 points)
- Admiral Screed ( 26 points)
- Hand of Justice ( 4 points)
- Enhanced Armament ( 10 points)
= 99 total ship cost

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Instigator ( 4 points)
- Quad Laser Turrets ( 5 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)
= 60 total ship cost

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Impetuous ( 4 points)
- Quad Laser Turrets ( 5 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)
= 60 total ship cost

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Demolisher ( 10 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 79 total ship cost

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 69 total ship cost

4 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 32 points)

Card view link

@ShoutingMan : It looks great. Here are my thoughts:

• TRC on the Arquitens might be better than Enhanced Armament. If you do that, add Needa.
• The Raiders want Ordnance Experts. They are much better for you than Quad Laser Turrets.
• The Gladiators really want Ordnance Experts. With the nerf on Gladiator, I think it is less important to have Engine Techs on it now. Dropping both Engine Techs saves you 16 points.
• Personally, I prefer External Racks on my Raiders, because I never get more than one good shot off with them anyway — they are usually either dead or speeding away badly hurt. External Racks will save you points and have a higher burst damage potential than ACM. If you can manage a double arc, then ACM will be better, so I guess it comes down to how you fly them. Another consideration: ExRax can be used against squadrons as well.
• If you have Cienna Ree and Valen Rudor, they will probably work better for you as a small fighter screen than 4 TIE Fighters. Though, honestly, neither is much of a speed bump. The Raider titles will help. Alternatively, if you drop one of the titles (or Hand of Justice) and the changes above I think you can afford Cienna Ree, Valen Rudor, and 2 TIE Fighters squadrons. Or you could put those points and the points from Engine Techs into a Gozanti, to run your squadrons for you.

I think you will find dual Raider + dual GSD to be a lot of fun to fly.

Fleet Ambush is a trap; when bringing it, one must ask “can this backfire if they bring Yavaris and 134 points of bombers and hit me before I can do anything?” Hyperspace Assault should serve you well.

Even with dice mitigation through Screed, Slaved Turrets is generally more efficient than Enhanced Armament; you don’t want to be double arcing with the Arquitens’ maneuver chart, and you usually shouldn’t be double side arcing either. QLTs don’t often pay for themselves, and your opponent would probably rather target the weaker-AA Gladiators anyway. APTs and ACMs seldom mix well; APTs favor a “drill straight through” approach while ACMs hit all over and try to wreck shields in general.

Raider titles are sadly difficult to achieve results with when they lack squadron support (kinda ironic.) Dropping Impetuous and the QLTs and swapping out EA for Slaved Turrets and ACMs for APTs lets you add in a gozanti for a sixth activation. Dropping HoJ gives you a four point bid. You really don’t want to go second with small, close range ships. If you want a better fighter screen, dropping the engine techs will help, as they are something of a “luxury item.” I agree with most of Stonestoke’s points above (especially concerning External Racks,) but with Screed I feel it’s perfectly acceptable to not use any OE. Good luck, it looks like a fun fleet!

Also, unless you are really attached to Screed, I think Ozzel might be a better fit for this fleet. Here's what I came up with. There are 6 points you could put back in if you want to (which is exactly enough to go back to Screed).

[ Flagship ] Arquitens Light Cruiser (54)
* Admiral Ozzel (20)
* Captain Needa (2)
* TRC (7)
Ship Total = 83

Gladiator I (56)
* Ordnance Experts (4)
* APT (5)
Ship Total = 65

Gladiator I (56)
* Ordnance Experts (4)
* APT (5)
* Demolisher (10)
Ship Total = 75

Raider I (44)
* Ordnance Experts (4)
* External Racks (3)
Ship Total = 51

Raider I (44)
* Ordnance Experts (4)
* External Racks (3)
Ship Total = 51

Gozanti Cruiser (23)
Ship Total = 23

Squadrons
* Ciena Ree (17)
* Valen Rudor (13)
* 2x TIE Fighter (16)
Squadrons Total = 46

2 hours ago, stonestokes said:

@ShoutingMan : It looks great. Here are my thoughts:

• TRC on the Arquitens might be better than Enhanced Armament. If you do that, add Needa.
• The Raiders want Ordnance Experts. They are much better for you than Quad Laser Turrets.
• The Gladiators really want Ordnance Experts. With the nerf on Gladiator, I think it is less important to have Engine Techs on it now. Dropping both Engine Techs saves you 16 points.
• Personally, I prefer External Racks on my Raiders, because I never get more than one good shot off with them anyway — they are usually either dead or speeding away badly hurt. External Racks will save you points and have a higher burst damage potential than ACM. If you can manage a double arc, then ACM will be better, so I guess it comes down to how you fly them. Another consideration: ExRax can be used against squadrons as well.
• If you have Cienna Ree and Valen Rudor, they will probably work better for you as a small fighter screen than 4 TIE Fighters. Though, honestly, neither is much of a speed bump. The Raider titles will help. Alternatively, if you drop one of the titles (or Hand of Justice) and the changes above I think you can afford Cienna Ree, Valen Rudor, and 2 TIE Fighters squadrons. Or you could put those points and the points from Engine Techs into a Gozanti, to run your squadrons for you.

I think you will find dual Raider + dual GSD to be a lot of fun to fly.

• TRC + Need sounds good. Will try. I think i passed over that initially, just not paying attention and having not use it. Plus +1 Red Dice broadsides seemed to be good and fits with Screed
• Ordnance vs QLT: My thinking esp. on Instigator was to use him as anti-squadron, locking down possible squadron furball. QLT would help him do his job and maybe survive locking down bombers. And the other guy Impetuous honestly I was keeping ships similar to simplify my fleet to make life a bit easier. I have to think on this.
• Ordnance Experts on GSD: I normally use them. But I've got Screed, so I don't specifically need to fish for grits. And I've automatically put Engine Tech on GSD every time I fly them, even post-nerf. So I'll take off ET and put on OE. If I fish a crit I don't have to spend a dice to Screed a crit
• External Racks: I don't have that upgrade
• Big fan of Ciena+Valen since learning about the duo a few months ago. But they're a 30pt combo, and I had only 25 at initial build. I also found the if my opponent gets the jump on me, he can lock them down individually and they die much faster. If I end up freeing more points, I'll look again at the squadrons. I'd like to try something besides C+V to explore.

2 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Fleet Ambush is a trap; when bringing it, one must ask “can this backfire if they bring Yavaris and 134 points of bombers and hit me before I can do anything?” Hyperspace Assault should serve you well.

Even with dice mitigation through Screed, Slaved Turrets is generally more efficient than Enhanced Armament; you don’t want to be double arcing with the Arquitens’ maneuver chart, and you usually shouldn’t be double side arcing either. QLTs don’t often pay for themselves, and your opponent would probably rather target the weaker-AA Gladiators anyway. APTs and ACMs seldom mix well; APTs favor a “drill straight through” approach while ACMs hit all over and try to wreck shields in general.

Raider titles are sadly difficult to achieve results with when they lack squadron support (kinda ironic.) Dropping Impetuous and the QLTs and swapping out EA for Slaved Turrets and ACMs for APTs lets you add in a gozanti for a sixth activation. Dropping HoJ gives you a four point bid. You really don’t want to go second with small, close range ships. If you want a better fighter screen, dropping the engine techs will help, as they are something of a “luxury item.” I agree with most of Stonestoke’s points above (especially concerning External Racks,) but with Screed I feel it’s perfectly acceptable to not use any OE. Good luck, it looks like a fun fleet!

• I was staring at Hyperspace Assault, and then flipped back to Fleet Ambush for some reason...synaptic misfire... Exactly what you say happened to my opponent recently: He bid low, named me first player, I picked FA from him, then put a Quasar and Bombers out there and got some good initial clobbering on his AF. HA lets me float a GSD and squads until opportunity arises.
• I considered 4x APT. But I've only got two cards. I could ask my friend to borrow two more, but I thought I'd just go with a pair of ACM on Raiders. It's interesting that you find they don't mix. I guess I want to learn that lesson for myself.
• Ozzel: I flew him a couple times before I got Jerjerrod. I didn't find his speed jumping as useful as I expected. With a fleet of fast flyers, I can imagine some benefits. I know I need guaranteed Criticals to make use of my small armaments and APT / ACM upgrades. I can load out Ordnance Experts, and trade in Ozzel over Screed as a hopeful balance. I need to think on this
• You're giving some good advice I'm probably going to ignore. For game logistics I'm not really wanting to find ways to increase my fighter screens or add Gozantis at the moment. I'm a slow player and am trying to speed up my game playing. Having a simpler, smaller fleet I think helps right me work on game play. Adding more squadrons and more activation works against that. The next fleet I want to play after this is probably a Quasar + 2xGoz + Rhymer type affair.

I added OE to the GSD and Raiders, and switched Screed to Ozzel hoping to get both Criticals and Speed Flexibility with this choice.

I removed Enhanced Armament and put in Turbo Reroute Circuits and added Needa. I could have saved 3 pts with Slaved Turrets. But I've not played much with "spend defense tokens for firepower" mechanics so I chose TRC.

I stripped titles from the Raiders.

I kept Hand of Justice because I've never used it.

I need to get External Racks to try those, but for now I go without (we're not flying what we don't have).

Instead of Ciena and Valen (a fantastic pairing) I'm trying Ciena and Howlrunner, who should be simpatico. Boosting to 4 TIE's.

I could shave off the points to add in a 23pt Gozanti. I see the value to winning the activation game. But I'm not going to. Push that further in a future fleet.

This is interesting for me. Very different from what i've flown recently. And it uses pretty minimal ships, something I've been playing with recently (vs the instinct to load up an ISD for bear). Cool. Should be an interesting game tomorrow.

20180128 - Small Ships with Critical Black Dice
Author: ShoutingMan

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 397/400

Commander: Admiral Ozzel

Assault Objective: Opening Salvo
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Dangerous Territory

[ flagship ] Arquitens-class Command Cruiser (59 points)
- Admiral Ozzel ( 20 points)
- Hand of Justice ( 4 points)
- Captain Needa ( 2 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 92 total ship cost

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 65 total ship cost

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 65 total ship cost

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)
= 55 total ship cost

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)
= 55 total ship cost

4 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 32 points)

1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)
1 Ciena Ree ( 17 points)

Card view link

It is harder to get a double arc with the raider than the GSD. For that reason, I would suggest putting the ACMs on the GSDs and the APTs on the Raiders.

I think I need to play multiple games with this fleet to understand that. From an engineering points perspective, ACM does more damage (4pts to heal two shields vs 3pts to remove a card). But double-arc promises two face up cards and the hope for major card effects to slow down the ship and make ACM damage even more potent.

This makes me want to revisit and play an ACM-based fleet, as suggested earlier.

That was a disaster

My opponent brought an MC80 Madine fleet with five activations. During deployment he got his MC80 on the side where I put my Raiders and they were immediately threatened, which threw off my entire game. I also two profound tactical errors, not reading the boards, and lost my Raiders in the first two rounds. I conceded after Round 4.

I found that playing a small units fleet is different enough from my mixed-units fleets (esp Dual ISD or ISD + 2GSD) that I don't know how to fly it yet. I'll make some tweaks and try again in the next game. Very likely against a very similar MC80 Madine fleet.

I appreciate the feedback here. It was informative and helpful, and I've got some thoughts on small revisions to explore "MSU" fleets.