Hello, all. I'm an Imperial in a campaign right now, and the Rebels are about to assault our base for the first time. We've been getting pretty trounced so far. The Rebels are using a 500ish hammerhead Antilles Crackenswarm. I've got a 430ish Vader Cymoon fleet that is well out-activated.

I don't want to take the Ion Cannon defense because the enemy fleet has some good Strategic support. Any recommendation on the others? Fighter Wing to get some bombers? Armed Station help with the pinging?

Ion Cannon is easily the most powerful base defense objective for the defender. Unless the attacker has probably 3+ strategic squadrons, I'd still heavily consider taking it. What does your own squad component look like?

Do you have the capacity to push 40 more points of squads around? Do you need them? How out-activated are you? A single extra activation from the station might not do all that much if the rebels already have a major activation advantage.

He's got a pair of vcxes, and a few awings and Lancers. I've got bossk, zertik and an advanced. I was considering some rogues to help out.

I've only got 4 activations right now so one more won't help much. However, one more target isn't a bad thing and it does do damage....

Ion Cannon.

Then if you don't think that one is good....

pick Ion Cannon anway.

But seriously, pick Ion Cannon.

Remember in a base defense he HAS to attack you to take the planet. So you don't have to fight AT ALL to win. He literally must come to you. So lay out your mat and practice your defensive deployment WITHOUT placing your Ion Cannon tokens.

For the deployment - you don't CARE what he does because the onus is on him to engage you. You know what is really really hard to approach if you deploy tightly in a corner? A vader Cymoon. I would set the ISD in the far far back corner so you can show front arc to the majority of the board while your other ships block the flanks. Lock nav first 2 turns with the ISD. Don't hesitate to use both commands and take the extra yaw to make sure that front arc is where it needs to be.

Looking at your mock set up, I moved the ISD spd 1 with 1 yaw lefthand on the first move, and 2 yaw on the right on my second, putting the center of my front arc at dis 3 from my edge and 5 from the board edge at about a 25 degree angle. Once you get the ISD where you would like it to be, place the Ion tokens defensively right at the edge of blue range of the ISD. This gives you an idea where they need to go when you deploy them in crunch time. The big mistake I see people make is putting them super aggressively where they can be out of the game with one move. Putting them here, if they pull them back, they will only pull them INTO their ships. There is no where they can move them with one strategic where it will shut the token down all game.

I place one token at blue range to the left to guard the board edge flank, one center, and one a little bit farther out to the right to protect the right flank.

Wow, you guys are amazing. Thanks! I'll try it out and let you know how it works out.

Well, it was good advice. That ion cannon defense is brutal. Close game, but those ion hits put me over the top. He swung in from the right but still ran over the tokens. Got 5 rounds of shooting with them.