Gentlemen and ladies: The state of the Meta is such that after such a long period of extended ship dominance that the meta will gravitate towards synergy between large ships and fighters. I predict every imp player will use the synergy of ISD 1 and 2 offensive retrofits to let 5 bombers attack from long range. It will be what is done in all cases. You will not see anything else from imps. I guarantee it.

I have tried this. The bane of your existence is going to be assault frigates. If you can't kill that glad, there's a strong chance he can wipe out enough of the nebulon b frigates to doom you. Remember, he can probably get away with killing your general and 1 other and he wins outright. If he kills just your general and the a wing he probably loses with a 5-5. I have tried a 4 neb b list and the results were substandard to say the least. Those side arcs are both garbage and vulnerable. Granted, its going to be a blast to play, you just won't win.

Force Screed to re-roll one of his recently converted hit-crits? I dunno. It's like a mini-evade token. No, force him to reroll ALL of his hits and/or crits. It's like a 1 use MEGA evade. Naw, make them reroll the accuracy dice. Since they have already passed the phase where they assign accuracy dice and fiddle with the dice to get more accuracy dice. You've got a 75% shot at freeing that critical brace token, redirect or evade. If their other rolls that have hit turn into accuracy dice, tough toboggins, they've missed the correct phase to assign accuracy dice to tokens.

I'd normally never say this but I don't like the design. It looks as others have said, like an unfinished ISD. It seemed alright when it had a curious curve up like a crocodile with an under bite with the first model. Defitintely not working those angular lines like the first star destroyer.

To the team: I enjoy your work and I am grateful you put this thing together. To my never met homies Dano and Drunk Tarkin, keep on keeping on. I too brought a 4 neb list to massing at Sullust and I have the 0-2 record to prove it. I feel satisfied that my defense of support officers was upheld. Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but a pm seems a little hostile. But it came off well, no harm, no fowl.

Instead of using your glads as the front line, imagine a souped-up vsd2 with redundant shielding, Vader and two or more gladiators feeding Vader shields all day. Once they are burnt out, let them taste the sherbert of martyrdom.

Oh my lord, Gladiators are going to be the support ships for the imps as absolutely nothing else has a support slot. Someone get this guy a Crystal ball, he needs the getup to go along with his clairvoyance. Now let's discuss the location of that rebel base.

The moral victories are always the best sort of victories.

I just played the most hilarious and fun if not necessarily competitive list for Massing At Sullust. Went 0-2, but here is the fleet. Nebulon B Support Refit, General Dodonna Nebulon B Support Refit, Salvation, XX-9 Turbolasers Nebulon B Support Refit Nebulon B Support Refit Corvette B, Dodonna's Pride. Tycho Objectives: Most Wanted Hyperspace Assault Minefields Highlights- Killed the opposing General Dodonna on a support refit and his other Salvation, lost everything but my Dodonna and Tycho after a violent and costly Nebulon B on Nebulon B Scrum in the middle of the map, involving 3 Nebulon B's per side in the line. I had hyperspaced in Salvation on the outside, and it promptly died to massed turbolaser fire. 3-7, General Dodonna throws away his entire fleet to kill his double and escapes into hyperspace. Melted the opposing General Dodonna's Whale in one turn of concentrated Neb-B fire after blocking his escape with Dodonna's pride. I didn't even get to finish him off with Salvation. 4-6, General Dodonna dies after killing his other double(triple?) in an MK2. Salvation (should have died) and Dodonna's pride limp away along with the fourth Nebulon B frigate. The theme of the tournament for me? THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE! Since we had no hope of winning a prize, myself and the rest of the double-losers scraped the remnants of our fleets together and hit the hyperspace lanes with complementary "you need better dice" consolation prizes. Great times were had, 10/10.

Love the podcast, big fan, commendations to my never met homies Dano and Drunk Tarkin. However, I am not here to just commend you. You said something I took extreme exception to in regards to the support officer. Well I didn't take exception to it so much as I was surprised that your initial reactions were so unfavorable. Now, I understand that any reb-blooded admiral has a passion for his(or her, but statistically his) own certitude and I respect that. But gentlemen, you have to understand that when you're running a carrier ship like a VSDI or an ISDI, you're going to be taking whooping, giving it out and sending out the hounds. You'll need navigate commands, squadron and engineering commands in an order that is a doozy to foresee. This is doubly so if you've got a phalanx of vsd's and ISD's backed up by a fighter escort. Perhaps your ISD in the middle ate the worst crit it could at an inconvenient time and instead of mauling your vsds, the foe releases them from their hands, while delivering Avenger into the violence of their fleet. It would seem to me that if you don't have your eye on any other officer upgrade you'd take the sucker no questions asked. You'd pay 3 to lose out on Avenger and Devastator that you cut the command stack by 1, why not another point to ensure a timely correction to account for a stray crit or perhaps any other situation which could not be predetermined? That being said, I enjoyed the podcast and I'd like to thank you for putting this together. I hope I have not caused you gentlemen any offense. If I have, I can only hope for some grace.

Power level over 9k. Fab fleet 2stronk.

Gladiators, now with a cheaper and better upgrade for stuffing ordnance techs in your list.

The real loser of this reveal is the GSD-II. If I want to maul ships I choose GSD-I, if I want to attack fighters, I choose a raider. You've got less black dice to reroll with ordnance experts. I may be missing something, but is there any build that makes sense with it? I'm thinking perhaps ruthless strategists and ACM with Screed for medium range anti-squadron but is it 73 points worthwhile?

Honestly. I think that ordnance experts on a raider 1 is 48 points well spent. Buffs the anti-squadron and anti-ship. I'd call it a great deal and cheap as can be. Ordnance expert is the mvp and winner of the raider reveal.

The most apt comparison we have is against a CR90B. We only have the most complete stats for the Raider-I Corvette, the base shown is an Raider-I. Known vs. CR-90 B It has two black dice in front rather than 1 blue. It replaces a blue dice on the sides with a black dice. It two extra black dice against squadrons rather than 1 blue. It has an extra shield on the rear and a Brace instead of a redirect. It adds an ordnance slot Conjecture: -It loses a defensive retrofit slot, possibly gaining a weapons team in return This is a perfectly reasonable conjecture as all (3) Imperial ships have weapons teams. Also the Mc30 has a weapons team which, though we cannot read in its entirety, relates to black dice and ordnance. It is not without merit to imagine that the Imperial raider has this upgrade as well and the capacity to use it. -It loses a support slot for balance and some to a great deal of maneuverability to keep its cost down. This is the most questionable conjecture, but it is a possibility that we have to entertain. I would be very surprised to see both. Point cost: To calculate this, I looked at our best comparison for exchanging blue dice for black, the victories and the best comparison for losing a blue dice, the AFMkII. I believe that the bulk of that upgrade cost from a VSD-I to VSD-II of 12 points is roughly 3 points per blue dice to black dice on the front, the two on the sides contributes to only 1 point each and the ordnance vs ion cannon upgrade slot is a point, which would be moot in our comparison. This is corroborated by the fact that rapid reload costs 8 points and gives 2 black dice on the sides, whereas expanded launchers is 13 for two extra black dice on the front. My belief regarding the 8 point upgrade cost from an AFMkII B to an AFMkII A is the following breakdown guesstimate, 5 points for the extra blue dice in front, 1 point for the extra blue dice in the rear, 4 for the extra Anti Squadron blue dice and another 1 for the blue in the rear with a discount of 3 for losing a squadron to bring it back down to 8. Using these values we can arrive at what I believe to be the Raider-I’s cost. 39(CR90B) +13(Expanded Launchers) –2(Blue to Black on the sides)-5(Loss of a blue dice in the front) = 46. I believe that the tangential points such as losing medium range anti-squadron but gaining two black dice, redirect into a brace, losing the defensive retrofit, gaining an ordnance slot, etc., will balance out on the whole. There’s only 7 points between a CR90A and a Nebulon-B Support Refit. The variance in my calculations probably has a deeper valley. 45 is just as likely, 44 or even 43 points is possible as well. This may be a function of the Raider I lacking an ordnance or an ion cannon upgrade slot, or the raider I has an ordnance slot whereas the raider-II has an ion cannon slot, or I may have grossly overestimating its potential. My counter argument for the last point is that the Gladiator is probably a bargain for its abilities and possible upgrades and is made so to gloss over some Imperial weaknesses in Wave I. I could not see this vessel being costed more than 47 points. At that point you have a vessel that is orders of magnitude less survivable than a gladiator that needs to get in close to do its work, has only 1 good arc and it needs expensive upgrades to be effective. It wouldn’t last a moment against Dodonna’s pride, or Luke Skywalker, or really anything else at medium range with blue dice. It will be incredibly vulnerable to focused fire at one arc due to its absence of redirects. Given the ease at which shielding may be avoided or stripped away from these vessels, low health and subsequent vulnerability to crits, we may need a title called General Dodonna's Brunch. Well that’s the end of my treatise on the possible point cost of the Raider-I. Even if it is 48 points, I could see myself running one with ruthless strategists for anti-squadron and activation stalling purposes. Given how much thought I put into this, the preview will come out tomorrow at 6AM. And yes, you’re welcome if that happens. Edit: Blatant grammar and spelling mistake that I only just noticed, "we may need ta title called for this General Dodonna's Brunch...".

First, let me respond to ficklegreendice, the Nebulon B's "Keep it real", like tie fighters and corvettes. They die and you send the next wave. That isn't necessarily the case for my list, but I have to speak out for them. Secondly to Drasnighta, I believe their braces will hold them in good stead. I may have to deploy one of the assault frigates(is not Garm a little bit forwards and constantly maneuver to keep 2 arcs in. If those vics get shots on the side arcs, the Nebulons are dead meat, if not I think they can maul the Vic's down. People overestimate the strength of Vic 1's under sustained fire. Granted I can throw it another way, but I'm just "Keeping it real".

As in the title, I believe I may have stumbled upon a near invincible rebel fleet which attacks head on. 2 AFB's with Advanced Projectors, one has Garm. 2 supports, one has Redemption, the other has Salvation. The Assault frigates deploy near the flanks and the two support refits are snug in the center. With Garm handing out tokens like candy, redemption should see a great deal of play to the benefits of all parties. It comes out to 298 points. Objectives are Opening Salvo, Hyperspace Assault (questionable, but gotta live dangerously) and dangerous territory. A great disturbance indeed.

If the raider I is equal to or less than 40 points, I will have a mass production-ready new best friend. 43 is my disa-point cost. If it is 44 and above, the only way I'd play it is if one of the titles was "Thug Life" and it had a "bling" upgrade spot for rims and hydraulics. Edit: Perhaps 45 is my disa-point cost and 48 is the refuse to run.

I believe that now we have a bunch of low cost raiders and an extra hundred points to tack on, people are going to take notice. I've used her in battles and I find it invaluable to figure out what harmony a whale will sing. If they are running corvettes and no nebulons, wasted point for sure. But who doesn't bring whales? Never happens anymore.

I'm interested to hear how that happened. Generally, I have gotten tabled running a similar imperial list but there was Luke and Keyan and a B wing or two. Did he slow down??? Curiously enough, I find that adding in a Tie Advanced will give a suicide screen a much longer life. The question is, what if he had another glad?

I have no idea what anyone else posted in this topic, but I'm on my third run through of the parody song. It is strong in the dark side of the force. Does anyone have a link to it?

I've got some alternate advice here. I read your list, and I would recommend switching out the assault concussion missiles on the VSD with flight controllers with an expanded hangar bay. I actually like enhanced armaments on VSD 1's, so I would vote that you keep them. Maybe get rid of the assault concussion missiles on the flagship and the veteran captain on the carrier as well and put enhanced armaments on the carrier VSD. My general opinion is that things that get into your front arc are dying anyway, take potshots with the side arcs. There's a huge difference between 2 and 3 red dice at long range.

The real problem of the wave 1 is that imp fighters are too easily countered by Tycho and an A-wing or two, so they get pushed into ship heavy builds. I have personally performed the best at 2 vsd's and Demolisher with a barebones fighter escort or the 4 ship builds. Rebel fighters are better, but they still get outclassed by a pod of whales. To the OP's point, I would argue against it. Rebels can easily put together a list that will wreck an imp 4 ship build, it just has 4+ ships and no Nebulon B's. Nazgul have you ever played against 3 whales or 2 whales and two corvettes? That would mess up a four ship list easy.

ECM's all the way, no more brace cancelling aims. I am quite excited for the ISD I. It is probably only 105 points if its squadron 4.

To those of you who have seen the Venture Bros., "gentle cuttlefish".