300pt Two-ship Imperial "Lots of dice" list

[Admiral Terghon 497]

Here's the list.  Ideas behind it and concerns beneath.

EMPIRE FLEET (300 points)
1 • Victory I-class Star Destroyer - Admiral Screed - Flight Controllers - Expanded Launchers - XX-9 Turbolasers (123)
2 • Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer - Expanded Launchers - Demolisher (85)
3 • TIE Interceptor Squadron (11)
4 • TIE Interceptor Squadron (11)
5 • TIE Interceptor Squadron (11)
6 • TIE Interceptor Squadron (11)
7 • "Howlrunner'' TIE Fighter Squadron (16)
8 • TIE Fighter Squadron (8)
9 • TIE Fighter Squadron (8)
10 • TIE Fighter Squadron (8)
11 • TIE Fighter Squadron (8)

 

The idea behind the ship build is lots of attack dice.  Screed gives me an extra hit or two from each activation.  Expanded Launchers on both ships adds the extra 2 Black dice, which experience has shown to be just as awesome as you'd think.  XX-9 giving two face-up damage cards for a crit effect is great for 5pts, provided you get through shields, which all those black dice should do.  The Demolisher title is a bit iffy, but I like the flexibility of shooting after I move with the Gladiator.

Flight Controllers and Howlrunner are there to make sure I can take out any incoming fighters and bombers.  All the squadrons are just a screen, but I want them to be a deadly screen, not just a speed bump.  Ideally, the game should end before I run out of screen fighters.  If I'm lucky, I might actually kill the Rebel fighters and have a handful of TIEs to menace his smaller ships but that's not expected, or worth much overall.  Their job is just to keep the capital ships from taking squadron damage.

What I'm concerned about is the lack of medium range armament.  If the rebel ships stay away and run around a lot, I'm stuck with just my long range dice.  My experience has been that avoiding the front arc of a star destroyer is difficult, and so long as I don't just idle along at speed 1 the whole game, close range will happen on Turn 2 or 3.

Fluff-wise, this is just a heavy patrol.  A Vic, his Gladiator escort, and their combined squadrons.  A lot of up-close damage, but not much else.

Thoughts?

Edit:  Not worried about Objectives yet.  A friend and I are playing through each one to see how each works, so this list is independent of what Objectives it might encounter.  Hopefully it can handle most, and eventually I'll pick what it would do best (suggestions welcome).

Edited May 23, 2015 by Admiral Terghon

[Takeda 257]

I love howl runner but too many accuracies fly with all the blue dice. She's the first one to get shot down. I went straight 8 interceptors with controls and hanger.

[coastcityo 324]

As for Howlrunner or even Fel's survivability. My last game saw Dutch tap Howl for a single hit and an Activation, followed by Wedge rolling six blue dice for six Hits, followed by Howl executing her Scatter defense token, followed by me launching into an expletive laced diatribe. As for helping the named guys survive, Escort.

[Ophion 932]

With only a V1, if you are facing assault frigates I think you run a very real risk of the rebels standing off and wiping you out. The AF is faster than you an better at the ranged fight.

 

Make it a victory II. It will give you a second threat as the gladiator closes in rather than letting them just kill it as it closes. Let the gladiator provide the black dice fireworks.

[Admiral Terghon 497]

Battle summary for this list:

 

I deployed the ships at speed 2 so I could hopefully get into close range quickly.  The TIEs were deployed as a screen.  Devastating fire from both ships combined killed one Assault Frigate over two turns (2 & 3).  Came around behind the 2nd Assault Frigate by turn 6.  Turns 4 &5 saw a lot of longer range fire, which whittled down its shields.  My TIEs lasted through turn 4, taking out very little.  The Gladiator's anti-squadron armament of 2 Blue helped a lot, but he had most of his original squadrons (x and y-wings) left, if damaged.

End of turn 6 had the Victory heavily damaged, the Gladiator untouched and all the TIEs gone.  On his side, he lost one of two Assault Frigates, the other was medium damaged and he had several squadrons of x & y-wings damaged but alive.  Was 172vp to 96vp in favor of the Imperials.

The TIEs arguably did their job, since the Rebel fighters couldn't do enough damage in two turns to affect the outcome.  On the flip side, if he'd had a heavier squadron presence, I could've taken a lot more damage.  Seems to me I'd be better off scraping up points to make them all Interceptors (that Counter 2 really helps, though with Gallant Haven around it's not as good for attrition).

The alpha-strike damage is intense.  Tossing 5 black and 3 red for the Vic, 4 & 2 for the gladiator, is bound to cause a lot of damage.  Screed helps that a lot too and of course good use of Concentrate Fire dials helps too.  The Demolisher title is excellent, as I almost always was able to sneak in a front-arc shot after moving.

[Zoccola 468]

If your opponent let you close into Black Dice range with both a VSD and a Glad on the 3rd turn, he wasnt very good. The Assaults are much faster than the VSD and should have moved away, keeping you in their flank.

This then presents you with a bad choice.

1) charge after him with the gladiator and try to keep up with the VSD. This will result in the gladiator being alphaed by both assault frigates which it cannot tank.

2) Stay grouped and engage at long range where you are at a disadvantage.

It either cases, you need to play with objectives. They change the game. Thinking what you have works because you played on a 3x3 table without objectives is bad.

[Admiral Terghon 497]

We have been using objectives, just not in our lists.  We're working through each objective until we've done them all.  The game above was the blue Intel one where you get victory tokens for rear hull zone damage shots.  And we're on a standard 3'x6' board.

[Bio9 1]

Was this our memorial day game?  If so I seem to remember my fighters being far more effective then you give them credit for....they did go through yours pretty handily and do some amazing damage....just not enough. AAAANNND it was the same squadron makeup that whipped you today.

 

That single shot that wreck the frigate was AMAZING!  

 

 

And yeah...I suck.  Just likes it was pure tactical genius to roll over 12 damage results in a single roll. Because we all know that rolling dice takes skill, and Screed is just wrong.  Wrong on so many levels I can't begin to describe.   

 

I will admit though that Admiral has a singular ability to never miss at medium-close range. 

Edited May 29, 2015 by Bio9

[Admiral Terghon 497]

It's difficult to miss when you're tossing 6+ dice.  The "tactical genius" is of course arranging things so you can roll 6+ dice.   The rebel squadrons did very well, as I mentioned at the end of turn 4 I had no TIEs left.  But the rebel squadrons did very little damage to the capital ships in the last two turns.

They were also effective again my zero squadrons list, although that may be due partly to keeping my anti-squadron gladiators too far away from the main battle.