I've just gotten into Armada, and am about as green as it gets - only one 300 point game under my belt. Nevertheless, I'm fine with all game play mechanics, due to a large amount of experience with similar games like X-wing. My FLGS is just getting into Armada, with two 3-month players and another three greenies like me. We're planning on starting a Corellian Conflict campaign (as of this evening, actually), and I'm looking for some tips to help out us Imperials. The teams are evenly split between experienced and inexperienced players, and between us we've got surplus of all ships, and we're happy to proxy cards all the time.

First up, some setup questions:
I'm thinking that attrition is going to be really brutal, so I think going exclusively for high resource point shipyards for our Imperial bases is a good call, but are other locations more valuable at the start of the campaign?
Us Imperials have two heavy lists - ISD and 2 Vics is the current thinking, with Motti and Thrawn as commanders. I'm running Sloane and focusing on squadrons after the first game - are we as a group vulnerable to any Rebel builds out there?

Secondly, my list:

Points: 399/400

Commander: Admiral Sloane

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Admiral Sloane ( 24 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
= 151 total ship cost

Interdictor-class Suppression Refit (90 points)
- Heavy Ion Emplcements ( 9 points)
= 99 total ship cost

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser (54 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
= 59 total ship cost

1 Dengar ( 20 points)
1 Soontir Fel ( 18 points)
2 TIE Phantom Squadrons ( 28 points)
2 TIE Advanced Squadrons ( 24 points)
= 90 total squadron cost

My general thinking is that both the ISD and Interdictor are more or less immune to death at the start of the campaign, if flown a little conservatively, while they're still very capable of dishing out extreme damage. The Arquitens just sits at long range throwing a 4-die attack or two each round, generally supporting the bigger guys.

The squadrons are a true pain to deal with - Soontir, Dengar and the TIE Advanced squadrons combine to do some truly cruel counter damage to enemy squadrons, while the Phantoms threaten ships and defy being engaged.

Now, I'm set on using Sloane (Thrawn was my first choice and I won't compromise any further there), but I am concerned about my low initial squadron count. Is it worth dropping either the Arquitens to a Gozanti/Raider, or the Interdictor to a VSD in order to free up some more points for squadrons?

Hey and welcome! First a few general suggestions:

Yes, if you are playing Sloane you want max squads, out the gate.

If you are playing Sloane, intel officer will frequently be hitting red tokens and not really be useful for you.

You want sufficient activations out the gate for 100% of your squads and flight controllers since Sloane revolves around quickly eliminating squadrons. Typically this means a quasar. Sometimes an ISD devoted to the carrier role.

For CC (And in general) you want tie aces. The scatter helps mitigate flak against ships which you need to benefit with sloane. Additionally, generics cant get vet, and those rerolls make a huge difference in the campaign.

I probably have more ideas, but for now those would be my best hints for the future of your campaign.

Being partway through a CC myself, here are a few of my thoughts:

It's more important to get the ships (especially the big ones) bought first. It's far easier to add on upgrades later than it is to "save up" big chunks of points for high cost ships.

The campaign really makes me want to focus on having ships more than squadrons. In one-off or tournament games I like going squadron heavy but having lots of squadrons which often end up getting destroyed means you basically bleed out Refit/Resource points to keep replacing or un-scaring them. In addition, having to share unique titles with all the other players on your side can mean you aren't going to get the combo of Aceholes you want to make your squadron build really potent.

An ISD and an Interdictor is a strong starting force. With Sloane, I'd opt for a Gozanti (for squadron pushing). Take as many squadrons as you can push, but for the first game I'd play more defensively with your squadrons, letting your ISD push it's weight around. You may want to consider an ISD-I with the Avenger title, as that does pair well with Sloane's abilities.

Take lots of aces that can become veteran.

Ships can have more upgrades (xmas trees) since more ships with less upgrades means more refit to repair them.

Isds or bwings in round 1 are mean. Campaign endingly so. Disengage those in round 1 if you didnt deploy really well.

Once you have veteran ships take into consideration token eaters like engine techs or liaisons or liberty title. They shine with 2 free tokes from veterans. Pelta veteran fleet commands are fun. Different builds become possible.

Intel officer is not bad with sloane. Her effect is only really strong against aces, which is great in CC. Against ships I saw it strip maybe 1 orr 2 tokens, often from a corvette or something useless. If you're lucky it's from a big ship then go all in with intel amd strip another. In short, there will still be enough tokens to strip in my experience.

I'd drop the Interdictor at the very least, andreplace it with a Qasar and a Gozanti. Three activations is way too few for CC.

3 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

Hey and welcome! First a few general suggestions:

Yes, if you are playing Sloane you want max squads, out the gate.

If you are playing Sloane, intel officer will frequently be hitting red tokens and not really be useful for you.

You want sufficient activations out the gate for 100% of your squads and flight controllers since Sloane revolves around quickly eliminating squadrons. Typically this means a quasar. Sometimes an ISD devoted to the carrier role.

For CC (And in general) you want tie aces. The scatter helps mitigate flak against ships which you need to benefit with sloane. Additionally, generics cant get vet, and those rerolls make a huge difference in the campaign.

I probably have more ideas, but for now those would be my best hints for the future of your campaign.

This is all very good advice--listen to this man!

Additionally: don't be afraid of the hyperspace escape rule. If you have a ship that's definitely about to die (and isn't going to get anything for it), consider jumping it out. The points are counted against you for victory in that game, but if you're going to lose it anyway then the only thing you're missing out on is the repair costs.

Also, this may be just my experience, but I've noticed fighters (as opposed to bombers) tend to be disproportionately stronger in CC. The reason for this is the lack of MoV play: in most cases, MoV is irrelevant, and you're playing to win by 1 point. Killing squadrons and minimizing ship engagement is a great way to pull out a win in a bad situation.

Repair yards are very important early on. Depending how the campaign goes, their importance may decrease later in favor of Spy Nets if you're not seeing high-attrition games, but they're almost always useful for getting your fleets built up.

Plan ahead. Large ships and Fleet Commands are very strong in the All Out Offensive. Fleet Commands because they apply to all three of your team's fleets. Large ships because each fleet must set aside either one large or two small/mediums at the start of the game, but can only jump in one ship per round regardless of size. Which means you're jumping in an ISD on Round 2 while the guy with the CR90 swarm is jumping one of those in and still has one set aside.

And above everything else, balance your teams the best you possibly can, skill-wise. This is really important, as CC can quickly devolve into a **** snowballing experience for everybody if one team is much better than the other. If you know going into it that you're going to have a skill imbalance, I recommend you try handicaps of +/-20-40 fleet points to balance the imbalanced players (e.g., a very good player might start with 360 points and be capped at 460).