Having recently acquired my first two ISDs, I was immediately tempted to see if I could put three of them on the board at once. I've come up with the list below, but would very much appreciate any advice on how to improve it, and what objectives work best for this kind of list! This is just for a friendly seasonal kit tournament, so doesn't need to be top tier, but I'm also keen to avoid any obvious mistakes!

I was initially thinking Station Assault, Fire Lanes, and Solar Corona for objectives, but I'm genuinely not sure what are good options - although there are clearly some very bad ones!

Fleet 70 (0/399/400)
=====================
Cymoon 1 Refit (112 + 47: 159)
+ Darth Vader (36)
+ Strategic Adviser (4)
+ Gunnery Team (7)

Cymoon 1 Refit (112 + 8: 120)
+ Skilled First Officer (1)
+ Gunnery Team (7)

Cymoon 1 Refit (112 + 8: 120)
+ Skilled First Officer (1)
+ Gunnery Team (7)

Looks solid, as triple Cymoon goes. For objectives: Blockade Run, Contested Outpost/Planetary Ion Cannon, and, yeah, probably Solar Corona. Blockade Run makes you much harder to flank and forces them into overlapping fields of fire, while yielding a few points for disengaging. Fire Lanes sounds tempting for the payoff (Strategic aside,) but it’s actually pretty hard to control them for long with a front arc ship without overlapping, especially as your opponent has an initial move to throw you off. Keeping three larges in good positions is demanding enough. Contested Outpost stays where you want it, does less to force your positioning, is easier to control for longer and denies enemy squadrons any healing. Or PIC to make them dead faster. It’s too bad there aren’t really amazing blues, but SC is fine. I’d expect to play a lot of it. SAd doesn’t really boost this list to a good activation count. Brunson or Hondo for emergencies might serve you better. Good luck!

I would switch Strategic Adviser for Captain Brunson. SFO on the other two is great--especially if you hit Comm Noise or Slicer Tools.

Interesting points folks, I'd not even considered Captain Brunson! I'd got the Strategic Adviser mostly there in case it made a difference once I'd killed a ship, but it's probably a fair point that it won't really help a lot of the time.

I like Blockade Run as an objective, that does help force things into those forward arcs.

Good stuff, thanks!

For fun, I have played a triple Cymoon list a bit. I've either used JJ or Ozzel as the admiral to help with maneuvering as bringing all your front arcs to bear on the right targets can be difficult otherwise (plus it saves a lot of points). My current iteration of the list has JJ, Intensify Firepower! Wulff Yularen, and Gunnery Team on one, Pryce and Gunnery Team on another, and Gunnery Team on the last. I go with Solar Corona, Contested Outpost and Most Wanted. My list is 400 points exactly.

Paging @Admiral Theia

Thanks for the advice folks. The Gunnery Teams and Vader both proved invaluable for making the most of my firepower, although I can see how Intensify Firepower! might be a decent (and certainly cheaper!) alternative to Vader. The Skilled First Officers proved remarkably valuable, both helping against a Slicer Team and getting me an Engineering command exactly when I needed one. I was very pleasantly surprised by Captain Brunson - I only triggered the effect twice, but that saved my flagship three points of damage (including a crit), which feels very worthwhile.

I can definitely see the argument for JJ as your admiral - I went against a Liberty, double MC30s, CR90 and Rebel Transport list lead by Madine, and didn't get a front arc shot all game. I just pulled out a win thanks to some lucky side/rear double arcs, but it was an education in how to (not) fly three large ships! Having some additional manoeuvrer options would have helped a lot.

On ‎6‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 9:48 AM, Jarval said:

Having recently acquired my first two ISDs, I was immediately tempted to see if I could put three of them on the board at once. I've come up with the list below, but would very much appreciate any advice on how to improve it, and what objectives work best for this kind of list! This is just for a friendly seasonal kit tournament, so doesn't need to be top tier, but I'm also keen to avoid any obvious mistakes!

I was initially thinking Station Assault, Fire Lanes, and Solar Corona for objectives, but I'm genuinely not sure what are good options - although there are clearly some very bad ones!

Fleet 70 (0/399/400)
=====================
Cymoon 1 Refit (112 + 47: 159)
+ Darth Vader (36)
+ Strategic Adviser (4)
+ Gunnery Team (7)

Cymoon 1 Refit (112 + 8: 120)
+ Skilled First Officer (1)
+ Gunnery Team (7)

Cymoon 1 Refit (112 + 8: 120)
+ Skilled First Officer (1)
+ Gunnery Team (7)

I took this exact list to the UK Nationals last year (though with different objectives).

I think you may wish to read this entire thread....

It has lots of tactics and sample lists included. Also you will find my battle reports near the end pages.

I've run this list quite a lot. The Vader build works, but I think (and I've seen) it's too easy to outmaneuver without a TON of nav commands.

This is how I tend to run it:

Commander: Moff Jerjerrod
Assault: Blockade Run
Defense: Fleet Ambush
Navigation: Solar Corona
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Moff Jerjerrod (23)
• Gunnery Team (7)
= 142 Points
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Taskmaster Grint (5)
• Entrapment Formation! (5)
• Gunnery Team (7)
= 129 Points
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Veteran Captain (3)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
• Gunnery Team (7)
= 128 Points

Total Points: 399

23 hours ago, Admiral Theia said:

I've run this list quite a lot. The Vader build works, but I think (and I've seen) it's too easy to outmaneuver without a TON of nav commands.

This is how I tend to run it:

Commander: Moff Jerjerrod
Assault: Blockade Run
Defense: Fleet Ambush
Navigation: Solar Corona
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Moff Jerjerrod (23)
• Gunnery Team (7)
= 142 Points
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Taskmaster Grint (5)
• Entrapment Formation! (5)
• Gunnery Team (7)
= 129 Points
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Veteran Captain (3)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
• Gunnery Team (7)
= 128 Points

Total Points: 399

I like it. I haven't played triple Cymoons in a while, but I would like to try something similar. I've played a lot of Vader.

Why Vet Captain over Hondo? I think Fleet Ambush would be more appealing to me with Hondo because I could use IF! on Turn 1 without discarding the card.

14 hours ago, Bertie Wooster said:

I like it. I haven't played triple Cymoons in a while, but I would like to try something similar. I've played a lot of Vader.

Why Vet Captain over Hondo? I think Fleet Ambush would be more appealing to me with Hondo because I could use IF! on Turn 1 without discarding the card.

That ... is an excellent point. Hondo it is.

What I really like is how ridiculously nimble AND punchy this version is. Rare is the game that I lose two ISDs, and it's pretty much always through my own screw ups.

I'm not sure that there's a situation where anyone should take Fleet Ambush as one of their own objectives. 😮

5 hours ago, eris359 said:

I'm not sure that there's a situation where anyone should take Fleet Ambush as one of their own objectives. 😮

In this case, it cancels out deployment advantage from squadrons, if you place obstacles well it can force them into your range turn 1 (unless they way out-activate you or deploy them in such a way to move them way out of position), and it's unexpected, which helps more often than it hurts.

That's not to say there aren't dangers in it, but I like it better than the other choices. Contested Outpost means they know where you are and that you can't take full advantage of JJ and EF. PIC is avoidable or movable with intel, same for Fire Lanes re intel. HA and FA are useless to this fleet. VIP just encourages them to target one ISD over the others, and you want them to spread their fire out. Jamming Barrier helps them as much as you, if not more.

That leaves Fleet Ambush, which does leave you vulnerable to a Demo or Raddus drop, but there are deployment strategies to mitigate that heavily. If they throw in their bombers early you can just target the fighters first, or plow through at high speed to hit the carriers (which is my usual choice, take the hits from bombers but drop the vulnerable carriers quickly); I find I'm more likely to table a fighter fleet than a brawler fleet.

On 6/28/2019 at 6:35 PM, Admiral Theia said:

In this case, it cancels out deployment advantage from squadrons, if you place obstacles well it can force them into your rang  e turn 1 (unless they way out-activate you or deploy them in such a way to move them way out of position), and it's unexpec  ted, which helps more often than it hurts.

That's not to say there aren't dangers in it, but I like it bette  r than the other choices. Contested Outpost means they know where you are and that you can't take full advantage of JJ an  d EF. PIC is avoidable or movable with intel, same for Fire Lanes re intel. HA and FA are useless to this fleet. VIP just encourages them to target one ISD over the others, and you want them to spread their fire out. Jamming Barrier helps them as much as you, if not more.

That leaves Fleet Ambush, which does leave you vulnerable to a Demo or Raddus drop, but there are deployment strategies to mitigate that heavily. If they throw in their bombers early you can just target the fighters first, or plow through at high speed to hit the carriers (which is my usual choice, take the hits from bombers but drop the vulnerable carriers quickly); I find I'm more likely to table a fighter fleet than a brawler fleet.

Demo is still pretty popular and he'll thank you for offering him 1st activation, in range to hit you turn 1.
Raddus putting something big in your side arc is a possibility too.
Similarly, a quasar which is pricing turn 1 just outside your range, will have a grand old time.
The current meta has things which could really hurt the fleet and see fleet ambush as an advantage to doing so.
It helps all these fleets win, and probably plenty of others too.

I'd have thought that contested outpost and JJ was a great combination, as his turning ability means you can always be facing the incoming threat.

12 hours ago, eris359 said:

Demo is still pretty popular and he'll thank you for offering him 1st activation, in range to hit you turn 1.
Raddus putting something big in your side arc is a possibility too.
Similarly, a quasar which is pricing turn 1 just outside your range, will have a grand old time.
The current meta has things which could really hurt the fleet and see fleet ambush as an advantage to doing so.
It helps all these fleets win, and probably plenty of others too.

I'd have thought that contested outpost and JJ was a great combination, as his turning ability means you can always be facing the incoming threat.

That turning advantage is nice, but it still is too easy to avoid front ISD arcs if you know what area they are sticking to (I'm also a big fan of Rebel MSU).

Again, most of those problems can be mitigated with deployment, particularly the Demo and Raddus (Turn 1 Demo has too few options on where to scoot to to avoid damage bottom of one and top of two, and raddus you just deploy overlapping hard (I usually put one ISD pointing forward, the other two offset facing inward to the middle ISD, then they form a sort of "I" formation with nowhere for Raddus to drop and avoid the front arc of one of the ships). Quasar with Price is meh. It can quite easily be boxed in and destroyed in one or two shots.
Fleet Ambush makes the users of those lists cocky, thinking you've made a mistake. This game is as much about your opponent as about their fleet.

The key is knowing what this fleet can and can't do, and how it needs to move against different fleets:

MSU: focus on overlapping two-four ships for quick activation elimination.
Carrier: Hit the main carriers to the exclusion of all else, then speed away from the fighters to clean up (and ignore the transports)
Brawlers (Ackbar, Vader, etc): Double up on the biggest hitter first, with your third ISD taking on the second biggest hitter and/or ready to keep the biggest from slipping away, adjust after that.