I'm working on an imperial list for a tourney, but I'm having a hard time choosing my third-plus ships for the squad. Right now, I'm pretty much set on:

• 87 points - Rexler Brath (82) + Juke (5)
• 49 points - Maarek Stele (46) + Marksmanship (1) + Fire-Control System (2)
• 136 points total

The remaining 64 points are still eluding me, though, for what it should be. Some thoughts I've had, which all give me at least 5 points of initiative bid, include:

• 57 points - Duchess (42) + Outmaneuver (6) + Fifth Brother (9)... good flanker and distraction
• 57 points - Colonel Jendon (46) + Emperor Palpatine (11)... Great for early target locks, coordinating my two guns, and helping out with the force.
• 58 points - Soontir Fel (52) + Outmaneuver (6)... pretty self explanitory
• 59 points - Whisper (54) + Juke (5)... also rather self explanitory

Do you folks have any thoughts about those possibilities, or different options?

Whisper + Juke.

Whisper and Soontir are both known quantities at this point, self-explanatory as you say.

I like Duchess w/5th bro to round out the all-crits squad, which can be powerful by leveraging an unexpected game space. I think Duchess is an underrated analog of Whisper as both have i5, movement shenanigans, similar base stats (down one hit point), and the Gunner slot. With the lower price of Duchess you have a lot more load-out flexibility, which you've opted to put into that Gunner slot with the excellent 5thBro and Outmaneuver as a stand in for Juke.

I think the more competitive option though is probably Jendon+Palp. The floating Force charge is always useful by giving one of your ships the option to do something besides focus. Jendon's turn 1 locks can give you the opportunity to focus for full mods on the first engagement or give i6 aces something to think about when they want to approach since you can hot with full mods even with them moving after.

I'm on the side of Duchess too! Crits EVERYWHERE