I've never kept a Quasar Fire alive an entire game, and I'm a contrarian who likes using unusual stuff, so here's my attempt. Keep in mind I'm looking for feedback on what I've chosen and how to improve the concept, not explanations of why Kuats are terrible. I'm playing for fun.

Name: Untitled Fleet
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault: Advanced Gunnery
Defense: Contested Outpost
Navigation: Superior Positions

ISD Kuat Refit (112)
• Admiral Motti (24)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Fire-Control Team (2)
• Reinforced Blast Doors (5)
• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
• Assault Concussion Missiles (7)
= 163 Points

Quasar Fire II (61)
• Minister Tua (2)
• Flight Controllers (6)
• Ruthless Strategists (4)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Pursuant (2)
• Early Warning System (7)
= 86 Points

Arquitens Light Cruiser (54)
• Captain Needa (2)
• Early Warning System (7)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
• Hand of Justice (4)
= 74 Points

Squadrons:
• Maarek Stele (21)
• 3 x TIE Defender Squadron (48)
= 69 Points

Total Points: 392

Looks like a solid way to keep the Quasar alive. Only other options I can think of is Brunson instead of Tua or ECMs instead of EWS (if you are worried about the big shot).

Kuats are good. Really though you want to concentrate on getting one kind of crit damage and ensuring you can get the crits you need to do it. I would take off Heavy Ion Emplacements and put in Leading Shots. Then you can drop Fire Control Team. Depending on your opponents I would say that ECM is more valuable, so that you can be sure you get to use your brace, because that'll be the first thing that gets accuracied.

I think you are trying to over-protect the Quasar and with this fleet my feeling is that you probably don't have enough fighters to make a Quasar worth bringing. You could handle the fleet commands with something else. You could run a Gozanti with boosted comms.

I am not sure you are best served with Advanced Gunnery as an objective.

I'm aware the HIE/ACM/ FCT combo isn't optimal, but I think it is hilarious if it goes off. The Arquitens could easily become more squadrons, but since I had points for a ship I went with it. I play Admiral Calkins regularly so I'll give this list, or a variant thereof, a go someday soon.

1 hour ago, Commodore Gardner said:

I'm aware the HIE/ACM/ FCT combo isn't optimal, but I think it is hilarious if it goes off. The Arquitens could easily become more squadrons, but since I had points for a ship I went with it. I play Admiral Calkins regularly so I'll give this list, or a variant thereof, a go someday soon.

I agree that it's brilliant if it works but you've got no way of re-rolling. It's down to a personal play style preference, I think, and I prefer consistent damage over 'might be amazing' damage. If you were running Vader I'd say go for it. Kuat's throwing, at best, three blue dice on a double arc but more likely 2. So your odds of it going off, on a front attack, are 50/50, because the dice have a 25% chance of a crit and you're rolling 2 of them. Black dice, you get 5 on a double arc, 3 on a single arc . So on the same front attack with the blue dice you've got 3 black, each with a 25% chance of a crit.

My maths sucks but I make that roughly a 1 in 3 chance that you'll definitely get both of your crits activating in a single turn. People are very welcome to fix my maths if it's wrong, because it probably is. But with a likely 3 turns of black dice combat the odds are that you'll make it work once, and it's cost you 18 pts to set up. If you had Leading Shots and ACM you've got a much better chance of making it work. You can still use Sensor Team to activate the standard crit AND the ACM crit if you want to.

Thumbs up for the Arquitens, it isn't a cheap build but it will deliver the damage.

I love your philosophy- the Steel Strategy Podcast this week has a song by Biggs, “I don’t care what you say anymore this is my list...” (sung to an old Billy Joel song). “I can have my fun but not on Table 1...” I laughed out loud while listening to it.

I would strongly consider using ECM as your defensive retrofit- I get way more mileage out of it than I do EWS- unless you’re trying to stop fighters from hitting you (I can never get the Chaff placed properly to stop them from hitting me).

Looks like a fun list...

5 minutes ago, sarumanthewhite said:

I love your philosophy- the Steel Strategy Podcast this week has a song by Biggs, “I don’t care what you say anymore this is my list...” (sung to an old Billy Joel song). “I can have my fun but not on Table 1...” I laughed out loud while listening to it.

I would strongly consider using ECM as your defensive retrofit- I get way more mileage out of it than I do EWS- unless you’re trying to stop fighters from hitting you (I can never get the Chaff placed properly to stop them from hitting me).

Looks like a fun list...

Thanks. I went with EWS over ECMs because of the huge front arc and only having the two tokens. I also see lots of MSU fleets so the obstruction pays off better in the long run.

And I'm as old as that old song!

Thanks for your input, I appreciate the positivity!

For sure, before the Onager and SSD, I saw the trade off between ECM and EWS. Now, I just feel that ECM is the better choice. You raise a really good point though in that with the large front arc, you can also get some mileage out of it from multiple ships and fighters... 😀

The list looks perfectly workable. But there’s no question you’d be better served by dropping a few upgrades and adding some fighters; there’s little advantage to keeping the Quasar alive if it can’t do the job it was designed to do because you didn’t pack enough fighters for it to command. It would be very easy to peel 1-3 upgrades off each ship and make room for about two more squadrons (Valen Rudor & Ciena Ree would be my picks) to support those Defenders.

Off the top of my head: Hand of Justice, Ruthless Strategists (you haven’t got enough fighters to make damaging your own a good idea), Strategic Advisor, Fire Control Team, and Heavy Ion Emplacements can all go.

You’re sort of playing “Protect the Queen” with this Quasar, but with only four squadrons, it’s more like “Protect the Pawn,” which is not really worth doing. Give the carrier more fighters to play with, and all those points spent on defense will be worth it.

Also, the others are right: ECM is just better than EWS on most ships.