Most of my lists include gozantis for the activation padding. While I've nothing against this, it does get a little boring if they only ever have comms nets, despite this often being a very useful little addition.

In light of this I've been trying to come up with slightly out there gozanti builds that keep things interesting while still being useful. My two favourites are Reeva with slicer tools as a cheaper minister Tua+ECMs alternative, as I find, often, my gozanti either has shields, or is dead.

The other is chucking Palpatine on suppressor as this has the double effect of helping to keep the gozanti alive, because (especially with avenger in the same fleet) I find my opponents less likely to take opportunistic shots at me, while also helps strip those defense tokens away.

Does anyone else have any fun little flotilla tricks/any reason why my builds are flawed?

Assault Gozantis with Romodi? Add a CF dial for 3 red dice on an obstructed shot.

11 minutes ago, flatpackhamster said:

Assault Gozantis with Romodi? Add a CF dial for 3 red dice on an obstructed shot.

Yes! I've been really enjoying these in a Captain Jonus + Intensify firepower cymoon fleet

Also Gozantis are a great platform for officer Vader to give extra rerolls to your other ships.

1 hour ago, MunGo0600 said:

Yes! I've been really enjoying these in a Captain Jonus + Intensify firepower cymoon fleet

Now try all that with an Onager Testbed instead of the Cymoon. Or maybe alongside it!

Problem with any other kind of activation padding (say, the crew upgrades we had recently-ish seen added) is that you just need to take all of it alongside whatever you had before. So strategic adviser gets stapled to your 'large' ships, etc. The new padding doesn't change what you do, just requires you now bring something else in case the enemy did the same (and they did).

Something that might work is more competition at the ship level - IE., another flotilla variant entirely, maybe a strong flak/anti-squadron flotilla missing the Fleet Support slot entirely, as an example.

That way you'd actually get more variety as you have a build direction choice to make - still can take only 2 flotillas, but do you go with flotillas supporting your fleet via AoE commands/repair/etc? ...or flotillas adding defensive firepower to it?

I love the idea of Palpatine on Suppressor. Sounds fun!

Just now, Bertie Wooster said:

I love the idea of Palpatine on Suppressor. Sounds fun!

The best part is the idea of the emperor himself scooting around on a gozanti rather than the ISD or whatever.

ATN/Woldar with a cloud of decimators

5 minutes ago, MandalorianMoose said:

ATN/Woldar with a cloud of decimators

It's all fun and games until you face a double Onager.

22 minutes ago, Rimsen said:

It's all fun and games until you face a double Onager.

Scatter with all your ships while the Decimators start chewing on tasty Onager meat

1 hour ago, MandalorianMoose said:

Scatter with all your ships while the Decimators start chewing on tasty Onager meat

Scatter is probably gone by the end of turn one!

6 hours ago, xanderf said:

Something that might work is more competition at the ship level - IE., another flotilla variant entirely, maybe a strong flak/anti-squadron flotilla missing the Fleet Support slot entirely, as an example.

I went the other way. My idea for the ISV if you haven’t seen.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ktj9u5fog1b8q2/ISV.bmp?dl=0

Gets you the support upgrades but doesn’t pad.

30 minutes ago, ISD Avenger said:

I went the other way. My idea for the ISV if you haven’t seen.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ktj9u5fog1b8q2/ISV.bmp?dl=0

Gets you the support upgrades but doesn’t pad.

...but the thread is about activation padding, so...? Not sure I see the connection to the thread?

8 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Scatter is probably gone by the end of turn one!

Or negated by Sensor Team. It's a thing, I swear!

My favourite is Vector with Boosted Comms.

Speed 5 Mauler Mithel is very deadly.

Late in the game it can make Mona and Bobba into very effective MSU killers. Do a squadron command and put these (speed 4) rogues in front of small enemy ships attempting to disengage after an attack run, then leave them to it.