I recently made a homebrew Venator and threw it up on the forums.
I then played two games with a friend who is significantly better at armada then me (spoiler: lost both) to test it. Go to the linked thread to see what upgrades do what.
Game 1:
My list:
391/400
Marek
Jendon
Howl
Soontir
Mauler
4xTIE Squads
1x Tie bomber
Venator I
- Sloane
- Boosted comms
- Expanded hanger bays
- Flight controllers
- Grint
- Tenacious
Gozanti
- boosted comms
- Vector
- Isard
Glad
- Demolisher
- Ordnance Experts
- Exracks
- Intel officer
His list:
Luke Skywalker
Wedge Antilles
Dutch
Tyco
Keyan Farlander
3x X-Wings
HMC80 Command Cruiser
- Rieekan
- Defiance
- ECM
- Leading Shots
- H9 turbolasers
- Boosted comms
Neb-B Escort
- Yavaris
- Raymus Antilles
GR-75
-Bright Hope
- Toryn
- Bomber Command
I won the bid and elected to go first, in order to give my Demo the best chance at killing Yavaris. I chose Precision Strike as the objective. Lacking an actual Venator model, I opted to use ISDs to simulate them.
Setup: I had a slight deployment advantage and used that to deploy Demo in a position where it could pounce on either Yavaris or the HMC80.
Round 1: The VnSD-I advances slowly, it is not a combat ship and it's flack is very weak. The HMC80 turns to put its broadside more towards Demo and the VnSD. I seperate Jendon and Marrek to strike the HMC80 while positioning the rest to deal with his fighters.
Round 2: A squadron bloodbath. I activated the VnSD first and threw 7 squads around. The initial alpha from my ties wipe out Wedge, who gets rieekaned, and 2 generic XWings. I used Tenacious, dealing two damage to my tie bomber to deactivate Soontir and Mauler Mithel. Yavaris responds by tapping a generic x wing and wedge. This kills howlrunner and two generic ties. I activate the Gozanti to move Jendon and Marrek to strike the HMC80. The HMC activates and pushes squadrons, killing all my squad ball except Mauler and a generic TIE. It then fires into Demo for minimal effect. Demo activates, fires into the HMC doing about 4 damage. Demo then moves to block the HMC and throws its side arc into the front of the HMC. Mauler activates and kills Luke.
Round 3: Demo activates, throwing a large chunk of damage into the HMC80, putting it on half health. The GR-75 activates squads, killing a generic and hurling Tycho into Marrek and Jendon. It then slides in front of the VnSD inside its 3 dice arc. The VnSD activates next, and has Marrek attack Tycho twice with Jendon. Then taps the TIE bomber to deactivate them both. It then flacks the incoming bombers, rams the GR75 putting it on 2 health. The HMC activates, flacks Marrek and Jendon, putting them on low health and then fires its front arc into Demo, using defiance to add a black. This does decent damage and wipes out most of Demos shields as well as dealing a facedown. Then it rams demo. My Gozanti activates with a concentrate fire command and uses it to take a wild stab at bright hope that does a whopping no damage. Yavaris activates the two bombers which strike the VnSDs shields, removing them for the most part. It then shoots my Gozanti dealing one face up that happens to be structural damage. Yay. End of ship phase, Marrek kills himself trying to kill Tycho, with help from Jendon. He does succeed in putting Tycho on one health.
Round 4: Demo activates and kills the HMC, which gets rieekaned. Unfortunately Demo couldn't get around the HMC and takes another facedown. The HMC activates, and kills Jendon and Demo. I activate my VnSD and attempt to kill the incoming Yavaris double tap bombers. This fails and I ram the GR75. Yavaris activates and brings the pain with Dutch and Keyan, wiping out its shields and dealing one damage. Yavaris then kills the Gozanti with its front arc. End of the ship phase, Tycho zips over to start helping kill the VnSD.
Round 5: I activate the VnSD, again flack the squads for minimal effect and ram the GR75 again, killing it. Yavaris activates, has Tycho, Dutch, and Keyan all double tap. This burns through all of the VnSDs defense tokens and does 6 damage, leaving it on 2 health. Yavaris shoots the VnSD, killing it.
Hindsight, my squadron composition was not great. Mauler on his own isn't that effective. Also I should've kept Marrek and Jendon to help kill the squad ball. Performance wise, the VnSD-I is a larger quasar, less fragile but hits like a wet noodle and is entirely reliant on squads to do damage. Tenacious is good, and should have its point value up to 6.