Made a squadronless list. Flies really well, super flexible, durable with Motti. But the meta around me is very squad heavy. The best defense against this for me in this list's previous iteration was to just rush the carrier. But I'm finding that there just aren't enough answers in my list to squads. I added slicer tools, which is big, but if the tendency in my meta is to take the full squad amount, I'm wondering if Flechettes are worth it on my 2 raiders. What do you guys think?

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 391/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Salvage Run

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Demolisher ( 10 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 83 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Imperial Star Destroyer Kuat Refit (112 points)
- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Strategic Adviser ( 4 points)
- Boarding Troopers ( 3 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 155 total ship cost

Raider I-Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
= 48 total ship cost

Raider I-Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
= 48 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Hondo Ohnaka ( 2 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 27 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 30 total ship cost

= 0 total squadron cost

My activation advantage is great, my 9 point bid is modest, but against some of these lists that want to go first REALLY bad, there really isn't much of a difference between 3 pts and 18. I almost want to go second so that my objectives are chosen and I can control the field with clever placement of my gozantis and raiders, block people and whatnot.

With Strategic Advisor, maybe drop a Gozanti to tool up your Raiders with Instigator/Kallus/ FT’s on one and Ex Racks on the other? Then add Suppressor on the Gozanti if you keep the Slicer Variant???? Maybe swap the Kuat for an ISD 1 to make max use of Boarding Troopers (Sqn 4 vs 2), then add X-17’s? You do lose Ex Racks though by having an ISD 1

FT is a very good upgrade, the trick is forcing the issue. I know @Snipafist is a, if not the Raider expert, and his experiments concluded without squads to grab the enemy’s units to hold them down for FT, three was the magic number to not have a gap in the fleet. Kallus and the titles can be traps; they paint big targets on those ships and Raiders aren’t that hard to bring down. If you bring that, I would bring a sizeable screen to both set up and exploit that capability, but points get tight quick.

Looks like a solid fleet otherwise.

One note - ord experts are great, but for one less point you can just rely on the already-pretty-good-chance to roll a hit on them and take exracks instead. Remember, if squads are a threat, you can dump racks on a squad too. Overall I find with raiders given the choice between Ord Experts and External Racks racks is the better choice overall.

Flechette Raider can work given Motti, however bringing even minimal (15-30 pts) squads to hold opponent in place would help a lot. Worst case scenario, you're forcing opponent to attack and kill flechette raider as opposed to your other ships.

1 hour ago, GiledPallaeon said:

FT is a very good upgrade, the trick is forcing the issue. I know @Snipafist is a, if not the Raider expert, and his experiments concluded without squads to grab the enemy’s units to hold them down for FT, three was the magic number to not have a gap in the fleet. Kallus and the titles can be traps; they paint big targets on those ships and Raiders aren’t that hard to bring down. If you bring that, I would bring a sizeable screen to both set up and exploit that capability, but points get tight quick.

Looks like a solid fleet otherwise.

Flechette Torps are one of those upgrades that's great in the right circumstances but is worthless otherwise and so I generally feel like I either over or underpaid for it, depending. The fact that it's the same cost as External Racks, which are useful against both ships and squads (but usually not as good against squads as Flechettes) makes me rarely take them nowadays.

And yeah, I've generally found that covering an entire fleet in Raider flak zones usually requires 3-4 of the things, but 2 is much better for that purpose than 1. Without squads of your own to add extra damage or hold enemy squads in place, though, you're unlikely to flak kill much beyond flimsier generic squadrons. You can force squads to retreat or risk destruction, which is nice, but it's not destroyed squads so much as "running to and hiding on the station for a turn or two, but they'll be back" squads. You can use that time to try to wipe out carriers or outright table the other fleet, but for that kind of thing you'll want External Racks for the damage potential against ships.

I'll generally agree with @BrobaFett that if someone held a gun to my head, I'd probably go for External Racks over Ordnance Experts on Raider-Is, but I'll do everything I can to get both of them on there if possible.

7 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

it's not destroyed squads so much as "running to and hiding on the station for a turn or two, but they'll be back" squads.

Side point - the placement of station is very important for squadless fleet, as it makes all the difference between "gone for a round and back with vengeance" and "went for an indefinite lunch break" (so usually it should be placed first if possible)

On 10/24/2018 at 11:59 AM, PT106 said:

Side point - the placement of station is very important for squadless fleet, as it makes all the difference between "gone for a round and back with vengeance" and "went for an indefinite lunch break" (so usually it should be placed first if possible)

Could you Elaborate on this a bit?

16 minutes ago, carthwolf said:

Could you Elaborate on this a bit?

Once squadron is reduced to 1-2hp and is likely to die from the next round of flak it can either die, disengage till the end of the game or heal on the station and come back (in fact if the station is in the vicinity, you should expect squads to attack-move to a station to heal/move to attack next round all the time and that tactic makes flaking them a futile activity)

2 hours ago, PT106 said:

Once squadron is reduced to 1-2hp and is likely to die from the next round of flak it can either die, disengage till the end of the game or heal on the station and come back (in fact if the station is in the vicinity, you should expect squads to attack-move to a station to heal/move to attack next round all the time and that tactic makes flaking them a futile activity)

in terms of placing obsicatals where would you want to position the station if you are second player in a lower squadron fleet then? you mentioned placing it first. i generally see it placed last so thats my main question.

4 minutes ago, carthwolf said:

in terms of placing obsicatals where would you want to position the station if you are second player in a lower squadron fleet then? you mentioned placing it first. i generally see it placed last so thats my main question.

One corner of the board (usually close to opponent, depends on the fleet composition and strategy), while deploying fleet and obstacles to shift action to the opposite side of the board. It is pretty important to get it out of the picture, so yeah, it'll be my first placement if I have a chance to.