I was casually thinking about running 6 ship with interceptors and a tie advanced - I was thinking it would be cool to run all of the imperial fighters together in a 3-2-1 style list (3 fighters, 2 interceptors, 1 advanced). Then I started doing the math, and its substantially harder than I thought it would be. You're starting at 93 points by going with 3 academy pilots, 2 alpha squadron, and 1 tempest squadron which doesn't leave much room to improve pilot skill in this list. To top it off, the tempest squadron doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're not packing a missile of some form IMO.

The options as I see it are

1) Drop a missile on the tempest squadron and add 3 points of upgrades to one of the fighters (Night Beast Maybe?)

2) Compromise the 3-2-1 split and downgrade one interceptor to Mauler Mithel and upgrade the advanced to Vader? Still can't fit in a missile, but Vader is solid all on his own.

3) Compromise the 3-2-1 split and drop a fighter for upgrades on everything else? In the age of wave 2, is a 5 ship imperial list viable if it doesn't include a firespray? I've run 5 ships before, but they've all been really tight games and I'm not sure its enough to win reliably.

Our local tournament was won by a 3 ship build of, Vader, Fel, and Turr! I was the first victim, and I had a Firespray (BH), Vader, and Tempest. I believe Pete, only took 4 hits in 3 games!!!!!

Jetsetter is correct, I took zero hits game 1, 1 in game two and lost 1 ship (3 hits) in Game 3.

I took a 79 pt win, a 100 pt win and a 25 pt win. The 25 pt win was against the Wedge, Garven and 2 Rookie list> I just kept moving, focus and evade in all three games, my opponents just couldn't get fire arcs and when they did, they faced 4 defence dice, a focus and an Evade on all three ships.

My opponents were and are good players as well. The list I ran is just plain brutal.

Englishpete said:

PTL and stealth on both Ints I assume?

You are correct :-)

Stealth and Concussion Missiles on Vader.

Englishpete said:

Missile for the big ship? I also thought maybe expose on vader… If you don't have inititive, it could be useful to boost power. But I can see a good hit with missile being pretty beneficial…

Expose drops your defense, something you do not want in this list.

The missile did very nicely in messing up a ship, I tried to open up with it at range 3 so my lost Evade was made up for somewhat by another def die.

I had Homing missiles on my Vader…totally whiffed…usually, I have a TL and Focus to launch them….but I had to do a barrel roll to get his ship in my arc…so I didn't have the Focus buff….that part hurt. It was a rough but fun game and the dice were definitely not in my favor :-)

OK, so it sounds like very few imperial ships can be competitive. So how does 3 fighters, 2 interceptors, and 1 advanced look as a list itself? Say I go with this:

2x Academy Pilots
2x Alpha Squadron
Tempest Squadron w/ Cluster Misisle
Night beast

Am I looking at something playable, or should I focus on swapping the list around some?

It's a viable list and should be fun, most importantly it's what you want to fly. Give it a go, tweak as you test it.

You will need to manuvere well, but you have the ships to achieve that.

Endgame124 said:

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I would not run that list. I think you're right that 7 points is too little for upgrades, and if you're set on including the Advanced, I would honestly drop Night Beast and use those 15 points for upgrades.

I would start by upgrading the Tempest to Maarek + Push the Limit + Concussion Missiles or Vader + Homing Missiles. The remaining 6 points could buy two Stealth Devices, or buy one of the Interceptors up to a Saber + Push the Limit, or practically anything else. (c:

Pete's build was stupid good. That was the only game I felt I lost. We were both rolling decent, so it came down to builds and his was better, the only reason I killed the one ship was because you ran into a ship and list you action.

yep, I always have to have my 'special moment' either bump my own ship or turn the wrong way :-)

It is a stupid good build though :-)

Yes, looking at the builds in that tourney, I don't see a build thy could have beat yours, mine was the only one that did enough to kill a ship, but that was just you hitting your own ship. This may have over taken a 4 x list as the strongest.

I expect you to play that list, so we can try to find a weakness!!!

Vorpal Sword said:

My 5 ship list has been:

Vader, concussion missile, expose, stealth
Howlrunner
2x Academy
1x Alpha

This has been me testing expose as much as anything, but as long as you can line it up so vader only has one ship shooting at him (that you might destroy) it has been working out alright. Alternatively, I have swapped out the Alpha for Mauler w/ Vet Instincts and it works alright too, but this list had me really wanting to squeeze in another interceptor.