Imperial ship review: Interdictor cruiser

We've made it to wave 4! I mean to be fair, waves 3 and 4 are basically the exact same wave because they came out together, but... technically it's wave 4!

Oh hello there, I didn't notice you getting choke-slammed out of hyperspace!

So in Armada, the Interdictor is a cruiser that seems to be very similarly-sized to a Victory-class Star Destroyer. This is a bit different for those of you used to Immobilizers and Interdictors from the old EU days, but hey whatever. The important thing is it's a triangle and it has weird gravity balls.

Team America: World Police gets where I'm coming from.

Like most ships your two Interdictor variants have a large amount of overlap. Some highlights:

• A high points cost at 90-93 base points. The Interdictor starts off just slightly cheaper than a Liberty-style MC80 (large ship!) and is the most expensive medium ship in the game.
• A very high 9 hull points, more than many large ships and higher than any other medium.
• A competitive Command 2, which is the lowest Command value for a medium ship, making it much less cumbersome to command than a VSD.
• An extremely high (best in the game) Engineering 5, which makes it the champion of repair commands. A repair token even gives you 3 repair points, which is an awful lot. Spent together, a repair dial+token is an amazing 8 repair points!
• 4 defense tokens, although keep in mind 2 of those are contain, the weakest defense token.
• A low maximum speed of 2. The good news is it has one click of yaw on each movement joint at speed 2, making better at maneuvering than the VSD at the very least.
• Squadron 2, which is adequate but not great for its cost. It's not really a capable carrier all things considered but it can pitch in on a crucial turn or two more frequently than Squadron 2 Gladiators will.
• 9 total shields, which are just a smidgen on the low end for an Imperial vessel of its size but combined with its 9 hull it has the same total durability as a VSD with 18 combined shields+hull. The two contain tokens help keep this from being too much of a liability by making attacks that hit the hull unlikely to resolve the standard critical effect.
• Experimental retrofit slots, which we'll be covering below. Unique upgrades are always exciting!

Basic usage recommendations
First and foremost, it's clear that compared to ships in a similar points bracket that the Interdictor has some selling points but it's not wowing anyone with its raw combat power. With that established, always fill all of your Interdictor's experimental retrofit slots. Always. The Interdictor is counting on applying those unique upgrades to justify its cost increase over a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Effectively, a portion of each experimental retrofit's costs are subsidized into the base cost of the Interdictor. Please use them. Yes, we're getting to them! Be patient 😉.

Second, double-arcing is important. The front arc of an Interdictor is mediocre but the side arcs are better than usual for an Imperial ship of its size. A front arc+side arc is substantially better against most targets and brings your total offensive output up to a similar level as a double-arcing VSD or the same total number of dice as the front arc of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, and coming in two smaller more annoying packages. This is extra important given the Interdictor lacks a weapon team slot for using things like Gunnery Teams so getting both of your attacks whenever possible, and preferably against the same target, is important.

Immortan Joe is not impressed with only getting one attack!

Repair commands can be quite effective with an Interdictor and especially so when you have a reliable means of getting repair tokens (from Tarkin, Wulff Yularen, or a Comms Net Gozanti, for example) to use in addition to your repair dial for 8 repair points. The Interdictor is lacking in offensive power but it can definitely tank attacks better than many other ships, so repair commands are often more appealing for it than on other ships.

Because many of the Interdictor experimental retrofits affect enemy ship speed (during play or deployment) and/or alter obstacle placement, Interdictors can give you a leg up in objective play when equipped properly. It can be worth making a small bid for second player when using an Interdictor set up to strongly play the objective game and to consider those objectives carefully so they synergize with your experimental retrofit suite.

In short, the Interdictor is more of a support/denial ship with some combat and repair options and getting use from its support/denial upgrades will determine whether it was a useful inclusion for your fleet. Because it's a bit pillow-fisted offensively, I do not recommend using more than one in a standard 400 point game. It can be done but even experienced players can struggle with that kind of build and you generally need the rest of your fleet to get in the serious punches your Interdictor won't be. Plus the Interdictor title is really good and it can only go on one Interdictor, so every Interdictor past the first not only won't be as good (as they can't be the Interdictor) but also further degrades your offensive output.

As a quick side note, the Interdictor does prevent enemy fleets from jumping to hyperspace in campaign games, which is pretty neat but outside the scope of this article.

Title
It has only one, and the name is not imaginative.

"So did you mean the Interdictor Interdictor or an Interdictor Interdictor?"

As usual when discussing upgrade cards, let's discuss some particulars on how this works:

• The ability triggers upon the activation of any ship at all anywhere in the game (including the Interdictor itself). This means at the start of the activation, not during the activation.
• The Interdictor title itself is exhausted to ready one other (non-Interdictor) card equipped to the Interdictor ("this ship").

In short, the Interdictor title is swell when you've equipped an exhaust-to-use upgrade to the Interdictor that can be used during other ships' activations. That would normally include two of the experimental retrofits but can also include Electronic Countermeasures equipped to the ship through Minister Tua, for example. Because it only works at the start of an activation, it won't let you double-use cards that exhaust such as Intel Officer or Engine Techs or the like to gain a second use during your activation. I highly recommend using it if you have a card that exhausts during an opponent's activation (like Target Scramblers, G-8 Experimental Projector, or Captain Brunson) equipped to your Interdictor.

Experimental retrofits
Because the Interdictor's usefulness is based strongly around what experimental retrofit it's equipped with and it's the only ship in the game (...for now) that can use them, we should talk about them before going any further.

Just make sure to install that hobbit-proof fencing. They seem to keep showing up and throwing rings into it.

The G7-X Grav Well Projector messes with ship deployment speed. There are a lot of things to note about its effect:

• You place the token after deploying obstacles but before deploying fleets. This allows you to see what places are more favorable for opponent deployment and mess with them.
• In the case of Fleet Ambush it can be great fun to put the token in the ambush deployment zone. Nobody wants their threatened ships to start at speed 0.
• Similarly, Placing the token on the station in Surprise Attack is a delightfully evil move, forcing the opponent's flagship to start the game at speed 0 and then raiding them for navigation early on to make speeding up difficult.
•  The effect applies to any ship that deploys, even later in the game. Normally this won't matter but when a ship deploys due to Hyperspace Assault or Admiral Raddus or the Profundity title, the G7-X grav well token sets them to speed 0 if they deploy too close. Sneaky!
• Remember at distance 1-3 means any portion of the ship's base, even just a tiny bit.
• You can use G7-X on your own ships if for some reason you want to be able to deploy at speed 0, as normally the minimum is 1. I don't think that's a great use of the upgrade at all, but you can.

The important thing to note about its ability is that the token projects an extremely large circle of "you'll be sad if you deploy here."

For the strongest example, here is a deployment zone with two G7-X tokens in it (which would require two Interdictors, but bear with me), with the red circles representing the "speed 0 zone." Because the token measures distance 1-3 in a radius, the total circle is over one foot in diameter: it takes up a considerable amount of real estate and will tell the opposing player 1/3 of their deployment zone is rather unpleasant to put ships in. Many players will avoid the circle entirely, but if you don't have a way to really punish your opponent for starting at speed 0, clever opponents may be willing to accept starting at speed 0 in the bubble and deploy their entire fleet there (or most of it, with nearby ships starting at speed 1). This will delay when your fleets start fighting by 1-2 rounds; if you don't have a way of punishing your opponent for that, then the debuff isn't really meaningful. The easiest way to make it meaningful is to place it opposite a points-scoring objective zone (like Fire Lanes tokens or the Contested Outpost).

In short, the G7-X is helpful for a number of reasons but like many of the other experimental retrofits, it shines when used in objective play, so try to leverage that to the best of your ability by choosing objectives that synergize with it.

"Wait, slow down just a moment - did the Imperials put a glowing brassiere on their ship?"

The G-8 Experimental Projector also gets some bullet points! Bullet points for everything!

• If you intend to use the G-8s you must do so before an opponent's ship's Determine Course step (also known as "when you flop your maneuver tool around and agonize over navigate commands). Your opponent then gets to decide if and how he wants to spend his navigate tokens/dials in response to the G-8s going off.
• Remember that the speed debuff is temporary. It's only in effect for that one maneuver then the speed reverts back to normal.
• The FAQ has clarified that because the speed reduction is temporary, you are effectively treated as being one speed below what is showing on your speed dial. This is important for G-8's interactions with speed-changing effects like navigate commands.
• For example, a ship at maximum speed is targeted by the G-8s. It can't use a speed buff to "get back" to maximum speed because it is already at maximum speed, it's just temporarily going slower.
• You can, of course, otherwise speed up to bring your effective speed more into line with how fast you wanted to go, but that speed increase is permanent (until changed later), unlike the G-8s effect, which is temporary.
• The FAQ also included that extra moves (such as Engine Techs or Quantum Storm) can be affected by G-8s, which in general will stop them from happening altogether (as those extra moves are speed 1, which is reduced to 0).
• The G-8s only affect one maneuver, so you would need to hold off on using G-8s against the regular maneuver and then use them on the extra maneuver for them to work this way.

The G-8s are primarily useful for speed-control and are usually seen in a fleet using Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams and/or Konstantine. The end goal is usually to focus-slow specific ships down so they're stuck going speed 1 or speed 0 rather than their desired speed. The strategy often works better with a Slicer Tools Gozanti around to stop the prey from queuing up a navigate command to speed up out of danger. It's a fair amount of setup in terms of both points spent and coordination, so there needs to be some kind of strong benefit you can derive from all the speed-screwage, which is usually lacking in speed control fleets (more on that in the Konstantine article if you're interested).

Because the G-8 Experimental Projector exhausts to use during an opponent's activation, it enjoys being paired with the Interdictor title so you can use it twice per round.

Unknown to most Imperial crew members, the Interdictor's systems are secretly powered by a droid rave happening deep within the ship.

The droid rave is fueled by bullet points!

• The timing windows on Grav Shift Reroute (hereafter GSR) are very important:
• The GSR token is placed after deploying obstacles and before deploying fleets. This means you can premeasure to get the most obstacles of interest in your GSR bubble and then put the token down.
• The actual movement of obstacles happens after deploying fleets. All your opponent knows during deployment is that there is a token on the table and which obstacles it can affect. This can be extremely nerve-wracking and gives you a lot of flexibility to mess with your opponent's plans once he's completely deployed.
• When moving obstacles, keep in mind that the obstacle itself can be moved to within distance 2. This means you need to be sure that despite any repositioning or turning of the obstacle, its end position doesn't have any protrusions that made any part of it move beyond distance 2. If you intend to reposition/turn the obstacle, I find it helps to measure from the current obstacle distance 2 in the direction you want it to go and then you can spin it around a bit but ensure it doesn't go past that distance 2 line.
• Another thing to note about moving obstacles is they can move in whatever direction you like so long as they're within the GSR token bubble. You can pull them together, push them apart, shove them wherever. Just make sure each obstacle stays within distance 2 of its original position is all.
• In instances where obstacles have tokens on top of them (like Dangerous Territory), the tokens come along for the ride. Just make sure not to move obstacles on top of tokens already on the table, as that's specifically disallowed.

Okay, so Grav Shift Reroute is amazing. So amazing that they made it unique so you couldn't use it twice. It's extremely cheap and its effect is surprisingly powerful. You can use it to throw obstacles into inconvenient places for your opponent after he's done with deployment, you can also/instead use it to clear obstacles out of your own fleet's way (allowing you to deploy in places your opponent may not have expected), and you can use it to pull objective obstacles (like the Contested Outpost station or Dangerous Territory obstacles) into more advantageous positions for you, which can be very strong. Don't neglect to deploy obstacles within distance 3 of a central point to get the most mileage from GSR - it's not uncommon for it to affect 3 or 4 obstacles in a given game if you keep your obstacles roughly within that large bubble along with 1 or more opponent obstacles. For example:

In the above example, four obstacles are covered in the distance 3 bubble of the GSR effect. You and your opponent would both deploy your fleets like usual and then afterward, you would get to mess with the final positioning of four different obstacles. In general I'd be looking to move the debris field and asteroids near the opponent's deployment zone into the paths of his deployed ships (by moving them up and/or sideways). The asteroids closer to my deployment zone would either be added to the mess of those other two obstacles or shoved out of my way to the side, depending. The station would get moved to a more convenient location for me. And that all happens after deploying fleets. It can be pretty impactful.

Man, EPCOT got weird.

Targeting Scrambler is a bit more straightforward but... bullet points regardless:

• The Interdictor is a friendly ship to itself, you can use it on your own Interdictor
• It's important to distinguish that the friendly ship needs to be at distance 1-3 of the Interdictor and the attack against it needs to be at close range. You need both of these elements to be true to use the Targeting Scrambler.
• Because it triggers during the Spend Defense Tokens step, I recommend using the Targeting Scrambler first and then deciding what other tokens to spend once you see how the rerolled dice turn out.

As usual with any effects that allow you to reroll opponent's dice: be careful. You may reroll into something worse if you get too reckless. Priority targets are dice that cannot get any worse (black or red dice inflicting two damage) and secondary targets are blue dice in general (as there's a 25% chance they'll turn out to be a useless accuracy result). Rerolling dice that could get worse is always a gamble (so red or black dice with one hit), so be careful.

With all that said, Targeting Scrambler is a solid upgrade in the right kind of fleet where you expect to be taking fire at short range and it can really do a number against ships like MC30s or Gladiators that were planning on doing some serious crit-enabled burst damage at close range, reducing their damage significantly by (hopefully) rerolling crits into non-crits and turning off their black crit upgrades. Worst case, it's helpful for preventing some damage from enemy bombers by forcing B-Wings and the like to reroll particularly strong attacks.

Targeting Scrambler enjoys being used with the Interdictor title for the same reason as the G-8 Experimental Projector - being able to use it twice in a round (in two separate enemy activations, mind you) can be quite powerful for reducing incoming damage to your fleet.

The Interdictor is really into ultimate space Frisbee

Interdictor Suppression Refit
We're going to talk about the Combat Refit later but the simple fact is the Suppression Refit is the "real" Interdictor and the Combat Refit is terrible. The Suppression Refit is cheaper (by 3 points), comes with two experimental retrofit slots (compared to 1), and has more blue dice, which can be lobbed at long range once per game with the nearly-mandatory Disposable Capacitors (we're getting there soon) and has a higher chance of triggering blue crit effects. It's so much better than the Combat Refit. Use this one, fill both experimental retrofit slots, enjoy. Ignore the Combat Refit entirely.

Upgrades
Offensive Retrofits
You need a good argument not to fill this slot with Disposable Capacitors. For a very affordable 3 points, your Interdictor can once per game use its blue dice against ships at long range. This allows your Interdictor to start seriously contributing to combat one turn earlier, to some extent improving its otherwise-mediocre combat performance.

The secondary option is Proximity Mines to place two mine tokens. If you really want to double down on an objectives-focused Interdictor, that's how to do it. There's an argument to be made for Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams but not being able to use them on large ships tends to make me feel like I'm overpaying for them here.

Ion Cannons
Because the Suppressor Refit is packing a decent number of blue dice, would like some extra oomph in the aggro department, and should preferably be double-arcing, it's recommended to treat it as an oversized CR90B and equip it with SW-7 Ion Batteries or Heavy Ion Emplacements. The SW-7s have the benefit of being cheaper and more reliable if you just want the Interdictor contributing regular amounts of moderate damage that's awkward to use defense tokens against. The Heavy Ion Emplacements are more expensive and rely on a blue crit to trigger but can add up to 3 total damage, substantially buffing the Interdictor's total damage dealt. I tend to prefer HIEs, but either works just fine.

If you want to up your tankiness, Point Defense Ion Cannons are a good option here for adding another layer of dice-rerolling (usually in addition to Targeting Scrambler). My only qualms with PDICs on the Interdictor are it can leave your offensive output pretty poor - the Ion Cannon slot is really the only way to up your damage game and you've got plenty of other slots to help your durability.

Support Teams
It's rare for Imperial ships to get access to this slot at all and the Interdictor has a lot more meaningful options with it than you'd first think:

• Engine Techs are pretty much the default option for most more expensive ships with a support team slot and that holds true for the Interdictor as well. Being able to fake speed 3 can open up a lot of options and is appealing on a Targeting Scrambler Interdictor especially, as it can allow you to rush into close range of an enemy ship to get the Scramblers working when they would've preferred to keep you further away.
• Projection Experts are useful for the team player Interdoctor build we'll get to shortly.
• Auxiliary Shield Teams are a good and inexpensive choice for a tanky selfish Interdictor, bringing you up to 3/3/2 shields, making you a little tankier.
  

Officer slot
More good options here as well. Brunson's cost going up substantially in 1.5 calls her "default" status into question, though.

• Your two 9-point options are the tanky ones but it makes your expensive ship even more expensive. your choice between:
  
• Captain Brunson is very strong when paired with the Interdictor title and Targeting Scrambler. Makes your very tanky ship even more difficult to kill than a Lando Admonition between the dice reroll and the die removal. Just make sure you stay at distance 1-2 of obstacles.
  
• Minister Tua with Electronic Countermeasures is also 9 points and with the Interdictor title, you can ready your ECMs without needing to feed them a repair token during the Status Phase. This option is superior to Brunson against larger dice pools, especially from outside of close range where your Targeting Srambler won't work.
• If you're going with the Interdictor title (you should), Reactive Gunnery with Tua is also an option for using both of your contains as salvos every round, as Interdictor allows you to ready the Reactive Gunnery. This is a more aggro less tanky Interdictor build but throwing 2 blue one red back with salvo on your Disposable Capacitors round is pretty fun. I just wish the salvo had more dice control but the Interdictor upgrade slots really don't offer you much.
  
• Imperial token officers (like Wulff Yularen or Commander Vanto) are useful for keeping the repair or navigate tokens coming, which can be useful for triggering Engine Techs, combining with repair dials for large repair commands, or just doing some damage control while doing whatever else your Interdictor wants to do.
• Needa does okay for replacing a contain with an evade, adding a bit of durability at a discount rate compared to the two more premium defense-oriented officers.
• Don't forget the Interdictor is medium-sized, which means you can do the super-evade spend against large and huge enemy ships for a bit of a surprise juke.
  
• Otherwise, you can always use every Command 2 ship's favorite "might as well" officer, the Skilled First Officer.

Experimental Retrofits
We covered them earlier, but I have a very tough time not using Targeting Scrambler on most Interdictor builds. It's a helpful all-around upgrade and it helps keep your expensive medium ship on the table longer in most games, making up for your lack of a defensive retrofit. I fall short of considering it mandatory, but it tends to be the first experimental retrofit I choose in most cases.

Builds
As usual, these are the bare minimum elements required. Please feel free to add upgrades in other slots to your heart's content but be careful - the Interdictor, like a lot of medium combat ships, can get very points bloated if you go all-out.

Objectives lock-down
Grav Shift Reroute, G7 Grav Well Projector, Proximity Mines
These two experimental retrofits go well together for making objectives relying on obstacles quite strong for you, both bringing them closer to your fleet and putting up hurdles in front of the enemy fleet. The mines further complicate matters and I'd find ways to get even more into the overall fleet. Make sure to deploy them on/behind obstacles whenever possible. You can include Admiral Titus on another ship (I'd use a different officer for the Interdictor) to further mess with enemy speed early on while you lock down your objective points.

Interdoctor
Wulff Yularen, Projection Experts, Targeting Scrambler, Interdictor title
The "Interdoctor" is all about making life easier for your nearby ships and increasing your tankiness. With Wulff Yularen able to provide an infinite repair token + a repair dial, you can use Projection Experts to send 2 shields out to help other ships and still have 6 repair points left to regenerate 3 shields of your own. If you can get your tokens from elsewhere (like Tarkin, for example, or a Comms Net Gozanti), you can use a different officer.

Tanky Tech Triangle
Interdictor title, Grav Shift Reroute, Targeting Scrambler, Captain Brunson (or Tua + Electronic Countermeasures), Heavy Ion Emplacements, Engine Techs, Disposable Capacitors
This build is not cheap at 129 points, but you get a surprisingly tanky ship that can do fine even when accuracy icons are flying around everywhere. Simply put, you're looking to arrange obstacles in such a fashion that you can benefit from Brunson all game while throwing a hurdle or two in front of enemy ships. With Engine Techs, you can line up double-arcs (to get those Heavy Ion Emplacement crits in pretty reliably, starting at long range due to Disposable Capacitors) and rush into close range when it benefits you to use Targeting Scramblers (this trick is great against ships that were going to be unloading at you with full dice at medium range anyways - you might as well get a reroll in there, right?). With the Interdictor title you can refresh Targeting Scrambler or Brunson (depending on which one you need most) between activations.

Back Atcha, Buddy
Interdictor title, Minister Tua, Reactive Gunnery, SW7 Ion Batteries, Flak Guns
There's a lot of room to further customize the Back Atcha, Buddy build (the support team and both experimental retrofits are up to you) but the core of it is this: Minister Tua gives you the defensive retrofit slot to equip Reactive Gunnery. Reactive Gunnery exhausts and spends a readied/green defense token (usually a contain) to act as a salvo token. The Interdictor title allows you to ready Reactive Gunnery for a second use during the round, if desired. Flak Guns launch your blue dice reach out to long range for salvoing. With SW7 Ion Batteries, your blue dice will always do 1 damage if you need them to, making your 3-dice salvo pretty reliable. Back Atcha, Buddy doesn't do huge damage but it does many packets of small to moderate damage that defense tokens don't work well against. Just be sure to keep it healthy with lots of repair commands as it's going to draw fire - it wants to draw fire but too much will burn you down before you can really milk your annoying salvo shenanigans for all they're worth.

It's cute that you think you could take an MC30, Combat Refit

Interdictor Combat Refit 
For +3 points, the Combat Refit differs from the Suppressor Refit in a few ways:

• Replaces 1 anti-ship blue die in the front and side arcs with a red die
• Gains a black die for its flak
• Loses one experimental retrofit slot

I can't recommend this Interdictor chassis, I'm afraid. With Disposable Capacitors offering a cheap method for the standard Suppressor Interdictor to lob its blue dice at long range once a game, the Combat Refit's "upgraded" red die in its front and side arcs isn't terribly impressive. Even worse, it is no longer reliable at triggering blue critical effects or worth using SW-7 Ion Batteries on either, so ion cannon upgrades are worse on it than the cheaper Suppressor variant - there's a better argument for Point Defense Ion Cannons (because every other ion cannon is worse), but it's still not exactly a trade up. You're also giving up an experimental retrofit slot in exchange for no replacement upgrade slot, which is awful. That's not worth the black flak die.

In short, I honestly believe the Combat Refit Interdictor is the worst ship in the game. I generally try to see the good in most ship variants, even if they have a relatively narrow niche, but it's garbage. Use the Suppression Refit instead.