I've had little time to play recently, but there is a store champ coming up in June, and this is a list I've been toying with taking along, any feedback, thoughts hel even a "dude this is never going to work because of X, Y & Z." is what I am looking for.

FLEET NAME: Kallus Strikes Back

FACTION: Imperial (382pts)

Gladiator II 62 • Agent Kallus 3 • Ruthless Strategists 4 • Engine Techs 8 • Assault Proton Torpedoes 5 • Demolisher 10 ( 92pts)
Raider I 44 • Ordnance Experts 4 • Assault Proton Torpedoes 5 (53pts)
Raider I 44 • Ordnance Experts 4 • Assault Proton Torpedoes 5 (53pts)
Raider I 44 • Admiral Screed 26 • Ordnance Experts 4 • Assault Proton Torpedoes 5 (79pts)
Gozanti Cruisers (23pts)
Gozanti Cruisers (23pts)

2 × TIE Defender Squadron (32pts)
1 X Mauler Mithel (15pts)
1 x JumpMaster 5000 (12pts)

Precision Strike / Fire Lanes / Superior Positions

All those points invested in anti-squadron kit on a ship that would rather be brawling, seems like a wasteful gimmick. I'm talking about Kallus and Ruthless Strategists. Let your Raiders do the flaking, dedicate your Gladiator to the violent ship killing as the Emperor intended. I would knock it down to a GSD-I and trade Ruthless Strategists for Ordnance Experts. Then drop Kallus and use the remaining points for fleet support or some better defense on your GSD.

I'm also not convinced Fire Lanes and Precision Strike are good objectives for you. Fire Lanes could easily backfire to a bad matchup or bad flying. Your ability to win Precision Strike is inhibited by your small squad force and the TIE Defender's feeble anti-ship battery, especially without support from BCC.

First of all, let me say thanks for the feedback....Thanks.

I'm not sure why you feel it is a gimmick, the major downfall of any MSU is dealing with a dedicated 134pts squadron build, Raiders are ok for anti squad but only if they are protected by squadrons, or they die real fast to enemy squadrons, they also do not put out enough damage to kill squadrons fast, and if they are aces with scatter, you can forget about it.

So that led me to testing out Demolisher as a dedicated squadron killer, with a last/first activation combined with Ruthless strats/kallus it can kill just about anything in its 3 shots before anything can be done about it, Scatter Aces even if they scatter the attack damage, still take the RS damage, and 3 attacks will give 3 damage from RS, which kills most Imperial Aces, Double brace Rebel Aces, should take 1 damage from the shot and then 1 damage from RS, again over 3 attacks that is 6 damage, 3 of which cannot be prevented or redirected (Biggs is the only way to reduce the 1 damage from the attack). no Biggs means 6 damage and no brace or Jan can stop it, and even Biggs by the 3rd attack is going to struggle to find something to move the damage to.

Which is why I picked Tie Defenders, at speed 5 and 6 hull, that is 24 damage I can dish out with RS, which should be more than sufficient to kill which ever Aces are the key components in my opponents build, plus the speed to get them into position easily.

Precision Strike is not only for Bombers, anytime a ship deals a face up damage card you score a VP token, APT deal face up damage cards direct, double arc shots are not hard with Raiders or Demolisher, allowing you to score 2 a turn without much difficulty.

As for FireLanes its not Ideal, but quite often you can place a token way on one edge of the area and force your opponent to either split their fleet, or ignore it and try for the other 2, if they ignore it a the Gozantis can farm that token for 6 rounds without any real reduction if my fleets offensive capability, and it gives me a specific area that my opponent is going to be aiming for for the other 2 tokens, which is what you need with black dice and second player.

But I don't want to be player two really at all, this fleet is all about being player one. (And I know I need a solid plan for if I get outbid, so I'm definitely open to picking stronger Objectives.)

Made a change from 4 Tie Defenders to 2, and added Mauler and a Jumpmaster to allow me to move Mauler/JM in with the Glad and hit everything for 1 damage, with the last activation, then hit everything again for 1 damage with the first activation.

@TheEasternKing I was about to suggest this change to Mauler in order to double down on the auto damage theme. APTs on all the Raiders may be better spent on Ext. Wracks, I am sure you considered this and took APT to pair with Screed and I get that, but would suggest using Moff JJ or Ozzel, comboed with Ext. Racks to get a bigger bid for 1st. That many Black Dice will usually give you the crits you want any way.

They are slow so they may not pair well with your fleet idea, but if you want a bullet spung squadron, a Lambda is just as good as a Defender and may allow you some better mission play in the event of going 2nd. Most ppl would not want to pick 1st player against 2 Lambdas and 6 ships to pick up Fire Lane/ Sensor Net Tokens.

3 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

@TheEasternKing I was about to suggest this change to Mauler in order to double down on the auto damage theme. APTs on all the Raiders may be better spent on Ext. Wracks, I am sure you considered this and took APT to pair with Screed and I get that, but would suggest using Moff JJ or Ozzel, comboed with Ext. Racks to get a bigger bid for 1st. That many Black Dice will usually give you the crits you want any way.

Yes mate, dunno why I didn't think of it initially! And yes, it is a real hard choice on the APT/Ext Racks, I forgot to remove 5 pts from the total when I switched squads about, I could ditch OE/APT from Screeds Raider, or even APT from Demo, choices choices lol.

I guess my big fear is I'm going to struggle to win big with this fleet, (large MoV) and I need to have a real hard think about Bail / Price (they could mess me up real good) and Raddus/Prof, not faced him yet.

@TheEasternKing You make some great counterpoints about squadron counterplay I'll have to consider in my own fleet building.

The only other thing I'll say about your Demolisher build is points related. Building a ship to do two things is expensive. I still wonder if those points would be better spread throughout your fleet.

I wonder how many times I read Precision Strike and didn't notice the "ship" inclusion. Again, considering that for my own lists. Thanks. That being said, you still took a squadron-friendly objective and yet you expressed concernes about facing large fighter complements. I understand you made an investment in being First Player, but I still wouldn't risk picking less than ideal objectives. I would still take objectives I either know I can win, or at least won't help my opponent.

I took a "Flak Demo," to a regionals recently and it can be good and does surprise a lot of people when it goes off. However, I am going to move away from it because I could not figure out how to fly it in order to be both a ship and squad killer in the same game, and in a lot of situations getting in position to attack squads caused me to miss out on a better angle to attack ships, or end up getting shot at more than I would have wanted to normally by long range fire.

I am now working on a way to do similar things with a Red flak Quasar and RS. A Quasar with RS, first player, and Pryce can autokill a 3 HP ace.

Quasar goes Last with Pryce and launches Mauler and some RS fodder in to attack, Mauler does 1 auto dmg. Then you flak and RS. Activate first, and move Mauler by having intel mixed in there somewhere, to proc your 3rd auto dmg.

With no rolls involved, you can force down 3 HP scatter aces with this approach.

Lots of people are looking to do this Last/First Alpha with Sloane, and it is devastating, but you don't actually need her in order to really hurt ppl with auto dmg.

Now... where the points come from to fit in a quasar... not sure about that one.

If it were me trying to run Imp. MSU my money would be on a quasar like I just described and several D.Cap, Heavy Ion Emplacement, Raiders under Screed.

Interesting stuff, and definitely a lot to mull over.

As you said, raiders are good while escorted by your own squadrons. Ruthless strategist blows up your best card.

Demo-II is good enough. And with those raiders the job could be done. What you need is as much durability as possible. Scatter aces are the best I think.

Also: objectives.

I understand Precision Strike. But MW is still better. Congratulations for choosing the fun option.

I don't get fire lanes. You are close-range mostly. A single whale will laugh at you. If you want harvesting objectives conteste outpost could be done with one flotilla. VIP is easy too.

Solar Corona. If you want points try something else: salvage run or dangerous territory. Even sensor net.

Those are my thoughts.