Have played a good few games, so have the basics under my belt, and have always loaned, borrowed or stole a list, Have been playing Rebels which I do prefer, but thought I would try my hand at an Empire list.

Is this any good, or even just a little close to it? I can see it will have problems against squadrons, but need to start somewhere.

Is it a bad move to make a list without squadrons? How bad a loss would I take against a Sloane list?

What should I be looking for when making lists? I like the Corvettes, with TRC and Engine Techs, so thought the Arquitan might be good, but looks like it will take some getting used to moving them. The Gladiator, have I put too many points into it?

Also how would this do against the new shiney stuff that is a SSD?

Hope to get some feedback.

Name: TestII
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Grand Admiral Thrawn

Assault:
Defense:
Navigation:

Arquitens Light Cruiser (54)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
= 61 Points

Arquitens Light Cruiser (54)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
= 61 Points

Gladiator I (56)
• Captain Brunson (5)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• External Racks (3)
• Demolisher (10)
= 78 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Comms Net (2)
= 25 Points

ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Grand Admiral Thrawn (32)
• Intel Officer (7)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Spinal Armament (9)
= 173 Points

Squadrons:
= 0 Points

Total Points: 398

Keep in mind that I have very little actual game experience, but can crunch numbers quite well.

When it comes to dice modification, each additional upgrade provides diminishing returns. To explain, when the Arquitens roll 3 red dice, there is a decent chance at least 1 dice will be blank/accuracy (assuming accuracy is undesirable). Actual % probability is 75.5% chance of at least 1 miss or accuracy. Thus I.F's dice modification upgrade is useful in 75.5% of rolls.

If TRC has first changed a blank/acc to a double hit, you need a second blank/acc for the I.F to have anything to do. You have at least 2 blanks/acc in 31.6% or rolls. Now the efficiency is dropping off. You might argue I.F only costs 6 points, but in reality you are sinking another 25 points for the Gozanti, and being limited to a Cymoon over an ISD2.

I would actually keep the I.F as if goes well with red dice dependent ships, and would instead drop the TRCs, saving 14 points. The other problem with TRC is you are basically denying the Arquitens' their evade for defense, and without Brace, they need this for damage mitigation.

Objective wise I'm not very good at. Most wanted is a definite. Contested outpost might work ok with the ISD slow rolling on the station and the Arquitens flanking as the enemy are funneled towards the station. Solar Corona is always a good pick with low activation fleets, plus the fleet is vulnerable to accuracy so will help defensively.

Against the SSD, the Arquitens will need to stay at long range. Which is even more reason to save that evade for defense only. Assuming you can get the ISD out of the SSD front arc, your ships (besides the Gladiator) should be able to last many turns and deal out a ton of damage.

Depending upon how you like to fly Arquitens I would recommend either changing to Slaved Turrets, Duel Turbolaser Turrets(DTT), or Quad Battery Turrets (QBT).

Personally I like to keep my Arquitens slow, usually speed one or two so QBT is a better upgrade as it will add a blue the bulk of the time. However this is only really an option under Admiral Vader, so under other Admirals I tend to lean to DTT as I may roll cold, and I can add a red to maybe get something. Else I may roll 6 damage when I need one accuracy and 4 to delete that flotilla. DTT gives me the chance to roll that accuracy.

If you want to keep a turbolaser reroute Arquiten I would recommend swapping the contain for an evade with Needa, it will let you keep an evade green for defence and flip one for offence. Similarly Hand Of Justice can also mitagate some of that defence token spending.

One change I would make would be to replace Demo with a longer range ship. You have 3 red dice ships and a Gozanti. Demo is going to be without friends and possibly support when it makes it's attack run. However if you can keep Demo at red range and use the rest of your activations to wait out the your opponent before sliding into black range, getting a last first and running away before return fire it could work. IMO it's something you should do after getting some more experience with demo in a all black dice fleet first. Otherwise you will be down 80 points and an activation real quick.

As for objectives that comes down playstyle. IMO most wanted is a solid choice for red as you have a Gozanti, if you want to be different Station Assault could also work well. Yellow Planetary Ion Cannon is a fairly good objective, Contested Outpost I would swap spinals for QBT on the Cymoon. Blue Solar Carona is another default objective, Dangerous Territory would also work as you can ignore daming effects of obstacles helping to both protect you and get easier shots lined up.

17 hours ago, Mcpolle said:

Is it a bad move to make a list without squadrons? How bad a loss would I take against a Sloane list?

What should I be looking for when making lists? I like the Corvettes, with TRC and Engine Techs, so thought the Arquitan might be good, but looks like it will take some getting used to moving them. The Gladiator, have I put too many points into it?

Also how would this do against the new shiney stuff that is a SSD?

So to more directly answer your questions.

Squadronless Empire isn't bad if you have a plan to deal with 134 points of angry B-wings. Looking at what you have I'd definitely find room for some TIE fighters, even 4 or 6 of them do wonders.

Sloane will make your TRCs go away fast. Two accuracy results and no more evade, no more evade means no TRC. Again adding some 8 point TIEs will help.

Cr90s are nothing like Arquitens. The Cr90 skirmishes where as the Arquitens is more of an escort vessel. With double redirect and an extra hull the Arquitens will last a bit longer in Blue range than a Cr90 which is important, because of its abysmal maneuverability you will end in Blue range more often than you want. My recommendation is take the Atlanta Gospel to heart: Always be Navigating. It will save your Arquitens more times than you would expect.

As I mentioned in my previous post I'd shelve the Glad for now. Get another Arquittens or something. Anything really a VSDI with gunnery teams and QBT/DTT, the Tie fighters I recommend earlier, defense retrofits for the Arquittens, Intel Officers for the Arquittens.

As for how well this list will do against the SSD it's not good news. Assuming that the SSD has officer The Senate on board you will have to spend a defense token to attack the SSD. If it has overload pulse and hits one of your ships you loose a defense token to attack it. Likewise your TRC becomes a use than loose affiar. If QBT for long range blue that's only a 1/4 chance of getting the crit needed for overload pulse but to cancel it you'd need to evade mening you're screwed either way. The Cymoon could flip the contain to shoot but again you run into Overload Pulse + The Senate issues. All in all you may have the damage to hurt the SSD but I don't think you have the defenses to survive the encounter.

Thx for the feedback guys, will look into reiewing the list 🙂

Not sure I would risk squadronless with the light flak defences you have but it depends on what the people you're playing like to bring. If they are (like I am) a fan of big squadrons with Sloane then I think you would be in trouble.

2 hours ago, Mcpolle said:

Thx for the feedback guys, will look into reiewing the list 🙂

Post it here, I'm interested in seeing what you're going to come up with.

Well, to echo some of what's been said above... and to add my own thoughts:

Trc's are a little too intensive on the lone evade token to justify themselves. Especially since you also have intensify firepower!. Dual turbolaser turrets is a nice (and slightly cheaper) way to augment your firepower that won't hurt you defensively.

Gladiator build looks absolutely fine to me. Could maybe use engine techs over captain brunson. But I actually like the glad in this list.

I'm actually a bit worried about the lack of rerolls on the cymoon (but I'm not 100% sure how to fix that)

(Might be the cymoon is better off as a slightly less loaded ISD2, might be something to experiment with.)

(Or there might be a bit of a commander/fleet mismatch: this would be a nasty Vader fleet).

You might struggle a little against heavy squadron presence, but just remember that those squadrons are only as good as the ships commanding them. Your goal vs squadron lists should be to punch past the squadrons and eliminate the command ships. (Should be quite do-able since they've put ~100pts into squadrons which you haven't).

Ssd vs this list looks a little problematic for you: you're going to have to be very careful with those arquitens. Even at long range an SSD stands a chance of popping one in a single shot. The gladiator might be your MVP here; if you can get it in close outside of the frontal arcs it'll be able to lay some serious hurt on, and might give your other ships enough of a helping hand that they can kill it.

I see you have no chosen objectives yet; if I might suggest....

Red: most wanted is always good; not too much downside to this one. (But there is a little - since you have no gozantis you'll have to put it on one of your arquitens, which will hurt a bit.) Station assault is also quite nice for you as it's going to force the enemy to come to you (perfect for broadside arquitens).

Yellow: planetary ion cannon is nice & safe, but I might actually go with hyper space assault for you; if they're fool enough to pick it you'll be able to drop the gladiator right behind them.

Blue: Solar Corona is probably the best available. No real reason to deviate from this unless you can't put your hands on the objective card... at which point dangerous territory is probably your best bet.