I am thinking of throwing back to something close to the first style of lists I played, running an ISD as a Battlecarrier and with swarms of my favorite Tie Defenders.

Vader’s Defenders
Author: Dameon

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 398/400

Commander: Darth Vader

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Fighter Ambush
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Darth Vader ( 36 points)
- Relentless ( 3 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 182 total ship cost

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Demolisher ( 10 points)
- Minister Tua ( 2 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 80 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 31 total ship cost

1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)
1 Maarek Steele ( 21 points)
4 TIE Defender Squadrons ( 64 points)
= 105 total squadron cost

I know that many players favor Early Warning System over Electronic Counter Measures but I feel that ECMs are a better fit here. I am seeing more "Monster Truck" style lists with multiple big ships and I've done some die-crunching and my experiments found that ECMs are more effective than EWS when defending against attacks that throw large numbers of dice. Conversely, EWS is better when facing MSU or squadron heavy lists where you're taking a greater number of attacks but that roll less dice per attack, but I have my own Squadrons providing an aggressive defense vs that.

Totally agree on ECMs; it’s a meta call. The activation count and bid are low, but that’s the price of a Defender ball. The question is: why Vader? You could easily add 8 points of reroll upgrades and gain the benefits of Motti, Jerjerrod or even Sloane for the same cost. It’s also physically painful to see an ISD-2 giving the weapons slot to Flight Controllers. Compare +2 average damage to squads (0.5x4) vs being able to flak out the front effectively with Gunnery Team for +1 average damage per target. And that’s just the AA component of GT. There’s also the obvious potential for two front arc shots and the ability to deter them from piling multiple targets into one arc.

Alright, so I dropped Vader for Motti.

On the ISD, I Swapped Flight Controllers out for Gunnery Teams, added Leading Shots and Strategic Advisor

Added Ordinance Experts to Demloisher.

That comes to 399 points.

The low # of activation s is just something I've learned to deal. If you have an ISD in your list you won't be out activating an MSU anyways.

Much like with the ECM, local meta affects my bid. Bids have gotten crazy. If you want to go first you're needing an 18-24+ point bid and then still might not get first player. The other option is as I did and simply not play that game. I don't want to drop a Defender of Gozanti just to have a hope I win the bid against someone. I have my angry swarm and if they want to move closer to the ISD and Demo before they activate, I am fine with that.