The Empire (332/400)
Empire - Author: fuzzywookie

Commander: Grand Moff Tarkin

Objectives: Opening Salvo, Fleet Ambush, Intel Sweep

[flagship] Victory II-class Star Destroyer (85)
- Grand Moff Tarkin (38)
- Dominator (12)
- Overload Pulse (8)
- Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
- Admiral Chiraneau (10)
- Enhanced Armament (10)
- Gunnery Team (7)
= 175 total points

Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer (62)
- Demolisher (10)
- Weapons Liaison (3)
- Expanded Launchers (13)
- Engine Techs (8)
- Sensor Team (5)
= 101 total points

Squadrons (56/134):
1x Howlrunner Tie Fighter Squadron (16)
5x Tie Fighter Squadron (40) Thinking about adding a raider to flank and help kill squadrons. ???

14 minutes ago, Fuzzywookie said:

The Empire (332/400)
Empire - Author: fuzzywookie

Commander: Grand Moff Tarkin

Objectives: Opening Salvo, Fleet Ambush, Intel Sweep

[flagship] Victory II-class Star Destroyer (85)
- Grand Moff Tarkin (38)
- Dominator (12)
- Overload Pulse (8)
- Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
- Admiral Chiraneau (10)
- Enhanced Armament (10)
- Gunnery Team (7)
= 175 total points

Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer (62)
- Demolisher (10)
- Weapons Liaison (3)
- Expanded Launchers (13)
- Engine Techs (8)
- Sensor Team (5)
= 101 total points

Squadrons (56/134):
1x Howlrunner Tie Fighter Squadron (16)
5x Tie Fighter Squadron (40) Thinking about adding a raider to flank and help kill squadrons. ???

What is your collection?

Starter and gladiator. :(

16 minutes ago, Fuzzywookie said:

Starter and gladiator.

Then you will like to play at 300 points.

Also some advices:

Expande Launchers are not the best ordnance upgrade. You will enjoy Assault Concussion Missiles much more.

Overload Pulse exhaust the tokens after the opponent had the chance to spend them so is not easy to use at the beginning.

Enhanced Armament: is good with Dominator but expensive. I don't remember what others turbo laser are available for you. Maybe h9.

Admiral Chirareau: I am not going to say he is useless in you list cause maybe you don't want to be engage by a screen preventing you from attacking the bombers. But you could save some points removing him.

Anything else is fine. I prefer to let you learn the value of all the stuff through practice. There are common opinions about some things but there is also a lot of room for experiment and see what setups match better with your style. I suppose you're a completely beginner so enjoy the game, learn the basic and improve your play little by little.

The Warlord title combined with H9s is something some players swear by. Personally I think it’s overpriced, but since you’re trying to fill a list it should serve you well. Basically guaranteed hits, including for flak. Ovino’s given good advice. Ordnance Experts on the Gladiator, every time (barring weird flak boat builds you can’t make yet.) A Chimaera is probably the best thing to buy next, as you can start fielding more streamlined lists. Hope this helps and good luck! ?

@FuzzywookieIf you only have two capitals, definitely play at 300 points. If you can get a Raider in there, as you suggets, definitely do! But really, what you need is some additional ships and at least one squadron pack. Do you plan to enlargen your collection in the near future? But assuming you have VSD2, Gladiator and Raider...

Name: Untitled Fleet
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation: Solar Corona

Gladiator I (56)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• Demolisher (10)
= 75 Points

Raider I (44)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• External Racks (3)
= 51 Points

Victory II (85)
• Admiral Motti (24)
• Skilled First Officer (1)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
• Leading Shots (4)
= 124 Points

Squadrons:
• 6 x TIE Fighter Squadron (48)
= 48 Points

Total Points: 298

And that's the conceivable maximum I'm getting out in a 400 point game:

Name: Untitled Fleet
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation: Solar Corona

Gladiator I (56)
• Intel Officer (7)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• Demolisher (10)
= 90 Points

Raider I (44)
• Admiral Montferrat (5)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
• External Racks (3)
• Impetuous (4)
= 63 Points

Victory II (85)
• Admiral Motti (24)
• Skilled First Officer (1)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
• Spinal Armament (9)
• Leading Shots (4)
• Dominator (12)
= 145 Points

Squadrons:
• 3 x TIE Fighter Squadron (24)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Valen Rudor (13)
= 68 Points

Total Points: 366

At this stage I’d recommend to proxy cards you don’t have. In casual play I’m sure most people are more than happy with that. Will give you a chance to see what you like without being overly constrained.

The Empire (385/400)
Empire - Author: fuzzywookie

Commander: Admiral Screed

Objectives: Advanced Gunnery, Contested Outpost, Dangerous Territory

[flagship] Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer (62)
- Admiral Screed (26)
- Demolisher (10)
- Weapons Liaison (3)
- Expanded Launchers (13)
- Nav Team (4)
- Sensor Team (5)
= 123 total points

Victory II-class Star Destroyer (85)
- Dominator (12)
- Overload Pulse (8)
- Disposable Capacitors (3)
- Weapons Liaison (3)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
- Gunnery Team (7)
= 125 total points

Quasar Fire II-class Cruiser-Carrier (61)
- Stronghold (5)
- Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
- Admiral Chiraneau (10)
= 81 total points

Squadrons (56/134):
1x Howlrunner Tie Fighter Squadron (16)
5x Tie Fighter Squadron (40)

I picked up a light carrier. They look cool and I really like squadrons. I was in the Navy and worked on airplanes. A little bias. Lol. Thinking about getting a squadron pack to get mauler mithel. He’s 15 points. And that’s the exact points I need for 400.

The objectives I picked. Ehh. Just for show. I’ve got to read all of them closely to see which ones I like.

I own a starter set. Gladiator. Light carrier. Picked up 3 cards (promos) which was super awesome. Thank you @Wedge1126. X17 turbo lasers. Turbo laser reroute circuits. Rapid reload. This is what i have to work with. So far.

Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (TRCs) are powerful, but require an evade token to use. Until you have a ship that can benefit from them (the Arquitens and/or Captain Needa) you’re better off including any other turbolaser, probably XI7s. With the Quasar in hand, a squadrons pack is definitely a great priority to get use from the carrier.

10 hours ago, Fuzzywookie said:

I picked up a light carrier. They look cool and I really like squadrons. I was in the Navy and worked on airplanes. A little bias. Lol. Thinking about getting a squadron pack to get mauler mithel. He’s 15 points. And that’s the exact points I need for 400.

If you want to use the Quasar, you should probably go hard into squadrons. Grab Imp Fighters 1 and Imp Fighters 2. A common core of a squadron ball is:

Then fill to taste with others. Vader is nice, Mauler is always welcome for insta-damage. Whisper if you're feeling fancy, but try to fill squads to 134 points. I highly recommend Admiral Sloane, put her on the Victory and use the Quasar to throw the squads around. Quad Battery Turrets is a good buy on the naturally slow VSD.

Using just the ships/squadrons you have, I would go with this:

VSD-II
Minister Tua
Gunnery Teams
Disposable Capacitors
Heavy Ion Emplacements
Quad Battery Turrets
Dominator
Electronic Countermeasures

GSD-I
Intel Officer
Ordnance Experts
Engine Techs
Assault Concussion Missiles
Demolisher

Quasar-I
Admiral Sloane
Taskmaster Grint (fleet)
Flight Controllers
Boosted Comms
Expanded Hangar Bay
Squall

Howlrunner
TIE x5

Station Assault
Contested Outpost
Solar Corona

379/400 Points

Really you don't need a bid that high, but I don't really know what else to put in it without adding squadrons or ships. It's also a bit on the bulky side of things, but you're going to get that if you only have 3 (non-ISD) ships and 56 points of squads max.

In general, the VSD isn't that maneuverable, and the Quasar isn't much better. I picked objectives that would allow you to stay on defense and have the enemy come to you. As player 1, Demo is great. He's a bit neutered because you won't be able to last-first with 3 activations that well, but he's still pretty darn good. The VSD-II build is pretty darn effective, I wouldn't normally suggest Dominator, but again, we're trying to maximize points spent here. Plus without anyway to reroll dice, adding two blues will help trigger HIE, which is a great upgrade card. Dcaps will allow you to trigger it at long range the first turn of engagement, and then Dominator the second engagement, negating the need for any XI7s. Your TIEs should be pretty good with the alpha strike - they'll be throwing 5 blues plus a reroll, and you can activate all 6 of them at once. Against aces you'll want to fish for accuracies to lock down the scatter and/or the brace tokens... and blue dice are the best way to find those. Against generics, you should be hoping that you can one shot the 3 health TIEs, or 2 shot the 5 health X Wings. You can't survive a lot of attacks though, you'll likely get popped one at a time. Whenever you can, spend scatter with Howl, even if it's to just get rid of 1 damage. You'll want to use Demo to setup a bit of a flanking force - try to time it so he's attacking on the second turn the VSD attacks - you want the VSD with its HIEs to take out the shields so the ACMs on demo can do damage directly to the hull. Keep in mind that ACMs equate to 3 damage from that single crit (two from the crit effect, plus the crit counts as a damage itself... and actually since you can only get a black crit on a face with a hit as well, that single die is worth 4 damage). This damage can't be braced or redirected or anything, it just is. And it's not an "exhaust" card, so you can trigger it with both attacks. Which means if you don't have any black crits, you'll want to reroll the black hits as well as the blanks. You'll probably also want to time it with a CF dial to use out of the front arc to add in a 3rd black. Intel Officer their brace unless they have Damage Control Officer - then IO their contain.

Picked up imperial fighter squadrons pack. How’s this look?

The Empire (396/400)
Empire - Author: fuzzywookie

Commander: Admiral Screed

Objectives: Most Wanted, Hyperspace Assault, Minefields

[flagship] Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer (62)
- Admiral Screed (26)
- Demolisher (10)
- Weapons Liaison (3)
- Expanded Launchers (13)
- Engine Techs (8)
- Sensor Team (5)
= 127 total points

Victory II-class Star Destroyer (85)
- Dominator (12)
- Overload Pulse (8)
- Disposable Capacitors (3)
- Weapons Liaison (3)
- XI7 Turbolasers (6)
- Gunnery Team (7)
= 124 total points

Quasar Fire II-class Cruiser-Carrier (61)
- Stronghold (5)
- Boarding Troopers (3)
- Admiral Chiraneau (10)
= 79 total points

Squadrons (66/134):
1x Darth Vader Tie Advanced Squadron (21)
1x Tie Advanced Squadron (12)
1x Sontir Fel Tie Interceptor Squadron (18)
1x Mauler Mithel Tie Fighter Squadron (15)