Recent tournament trends are showing a huge prevalence of large base ships in almost every list.

These lists often have a common theme- if you can kill the Large Base before they kill you, you win.

The problem is, Large Base ships have the most hull, the most shields, and the best defence tokens- they are not easy targets.

These lists are often complemented by 3+ flotillas it activation tech such as Strategic Advisor, or Pryce. This means the usual swarm lists that use activation advantage to stay out of the big arcs, mitigate defence tokens and burn down targets with lots of small attacks are suffering. Long range isn’t even a safe haven with Vader around.

Conditions for victory:
* You need something that can survive to engage.
* You need something that can kill a large base ship before it kills you.
* You need to be able to compete with activations to get your damage on target.

Things that would help:
* Your own survivable ship.
* High speed to engage quickly or escape when needed.
* High damage per round, through defence token mitigation, or sheer volume of dice.

Potential Solution:

Note this is a skeleton, a baseline to build on.

201803 Screed FCT Kuat - Skeleton (347/400)
Empire - Author: Callum

Commander: Admiral Screed

[flagship] Imperial Star Destroyer Kuat Refit (112)
- Admiral Screed (26)
- Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
- Governor Pryce (7)
- Assault Concussion Missiles (7)
- Fire Control Team (2)
= 163 total points

Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer (56)
- Demolisher (10)
- Assault Concussion Missiles (7)
- Engine Techs (8)
- Ordnance Experts (4)
= 85 total points

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23)
= 23 total points

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23)
= 23 total points

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23)
= 23 total points

Squadrons (30/134):
1x Ciena Ree TIE Interceptor Squadron (17)
1x Valen Rudor TIE Fighter Squadron (13)

Theories :

This list uses a Screed to activate critical effects to force a lot of auto-damage onto an enemy ship, damage which defence tokens can not stop.

Pryce allows the ship to line up a power double arc on the target, and a large bid will let you hit them before they can move. You have a 7/8 chance of at list one crit effect firing naturally out of the front arc, so you are almost guaranteed to have both fire. With a double arc, that could be 7 extra damage, which more than makes up for the lack of the usual Leading Shots or Ordinance Experts on this ISD.

The Demolisher allows for a strong follow up, throwing out both high consistent damage, around 8, and 4 extra auto damage.

If you happen to hit the target the previous round with a medium range shot from the ISD, or a shot from Demolisher, it only gets worse for the target.

Both ships are fast, the ISD can take an ISD close range shot, and Demo can survive long range from a Cymoon. With high activations, you can out manoeuvre an opponent with multiple damage threats.

The main weakness to this approach is forced close range re-rolls by your opponent and Damage Control Officer. Fortunately, DCO and MM are extremely rare. Targeting Scramblers and Lando are far more prevalent, but can only be used once.

Heavy bomber lists are a threat too, but the sheer damage output should melt through the generally more fragile carriers.

Potential List Additions

At 347, this list has everything it needs to work, and everything else just makes it better. With at least 30 points to play with and still get first 99% of the time, here are a few things you can add:

1. Add another Gozanti, drop Pryce, and get a Strategic Advisor for 7 activations.
2. Add defensive retrofits. ECM will let the ISD shrug off a large hit, and even Tua on Demolisher will let it take much more punishment
3. Add Avenger to further limit the use of defence tokens. This might be overkill.
4. Add more fighter coverage to protect against bomber heavy lists whilst you take out the carriers. Potentially evening a Lambda would help in certain objectives, and allow you to keep your Gozantis safe.
5. Fleet Support upgrades on the Gozantis to provide more utility. Comms Nets and Slicers will help your combat vessels do their job.

I’m inclined to lean towards option 1, with a defensive retrofit on the ISD, and a Comms Net.

Let me know your thoughts!

I've seen loads of that Kuat/Screed/HIEs/ACM combo locally. It's really good against shield-reliant ships, makes brace/redirect tokens pretty pointless, and it hits way harder at medium range (and out of side/rear arcs) than a more typical Kuat/ISD-I build.

Damage Control Officer reduces your front arc damage to, like, 5, though. (And that's been my go-to officer on Ordnance Cruisers lately.) And I don't think I'd like its odds against an Intel Officer Vader Cymoon or Ackbar MC75/80 (or even a BTVenger). Once you've stripped shields, FCT&HIEs start doing nothing, whereas Leading Shots/Gunnery Team/Ordnance Experts would still be helping substantially.

My MC75 with Damage control officer calls your bluff

Anyway...hie and acm requires different color crits, which is an added complication.

7 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Anyway...hie and acm requires different color crits, which is an added complication.

It's not a big deal with Screed - between the five dice, you're usually gonna get at least one, and then can Screed the other color.

8 minutes ago, svelok said:

Once you've stripped shields, FCT&HIEs start doing nothing, whereas Leading Shots/Gunnery Team/Ordnance Experts would still be helping substantially.

Certainly it a weakness!

I’d like to think once that has happened the ship is in a very bad way anyway.

You gain the damage in the earlier shots, and the key here is to be killing the enemy in one round (or first activation of the second).

1 hour ago, svelok said:

Once you've stripped shields, FCT&HIEs start doing nothing,

Actually, only HIE. you can use FCT to trigger a standard crit along your ACMs

1 hour ago, svelok said:

It's not a big deal with Screed - between the five dice, you're usually gonna get at least one, and then can Screed the other color.

It's a good chance, yes, but still not guaranteed.

Also, without any rerolls, average damage won't be very impressive.

And damage control officers

27 minutes ago, Visovics said:

Actually, only HIE. you can use FCT to trigger a standard crit along your ACMs

If this is about eating large ships, most have contain and can kill the default crit.

If your solution to beating high-activation asymmetric 1+X lists is your own high-activation asymmetric 1+X, are you really doing something new? Or are you just iterating on the form? Not that this is a bad list, by any means, it's just not much different from the thing you set out to beat, so limited interest for me.

3 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

If your solution to beating high-activation asymmetric 1+X lists is your own high-activation asymmetric 1+X, are you really doing something new? Or are you just iterating on the form? Not that this is a bad list, by any means, it's just not much different from the thing you set out to beat, so limited interest for me.

Can't beat em join em?