Update to Squadrons Encyclopedia 4 Large Fighter coverage Imperial segment

As I made my way through older articles, I found a lot of the information about Imperial squadron-building and carrier ships was outdated in our old LFC article and needed a pretty substantial overhaul due to Sloane-shaped changes in the meta and a Quasar-sized hole in the carrier ships section (what a difference one wave and a Rhymer errata makes!). With that said, the majority of the Imperial section of the article has been written anew. Here is the new section separated out:

I agree with pretty much everything John said above in terms of the basics. Your large fighter coverage groups should, at their core, be a means to deliver damage to enemy ships, as that allows their large points investment to go towards winning the full game rather than just winning the squadron mini-game. Bombers are quite adept at getting damage into ships due to the fact that they overheat defense tokens rapidly due to piling on damage in numerous small packets that defense tokens don't handle very well. Due to the increased focus on using squadrons to deliver damage to ships, more of your fleet will be based around commanding those squadrons and augmenting them in one form or another. Intel will be essential to keep your bombers doing their job.

I'm not invited into John's articles just to agree with him, though. I'm here to give you the Imperial perspective!

Upgrades
A quick side note regarding some of the ship upgrades John covered earlier: in general, Imperial carrier ships aren't great candidates for the Flight Commander+Fighter Coordination Team combination, as we lack support team slots on most of our ships, especially our more carrier-friendly ships. The good news compared to the Rebels is we have a lot of weapon team slots and getting access to Flight Controllers isn't as difficult, particularly on the Quasar. Similarly, we have offensive retrofit slots on all of our carrier-friendly ships and therefore getting some extra help from Boosted Comms and/or Expanded Hangar Bay isn't difficult if you want it. Boosted Comms in particular can be quite helpful on carriers to allow them to operate at a safer distance from serious combat and/or to ensure your odds of using all your Squadrons points remains high and you're not just barely out of range of a crucial squadron.

Ships
Imperials have a few good ship options for LFC fleets, and you're generally going to need a lot of squadron command muscle to get all your squadrons pushed around when you need them to do their thing. At the moment, I'd recommend considering any of the following for carrier duty in your fleet:

• Gozanti Cruisers
• Quasar Fire Cruiser-Carriers
• Victory-class Star Destroyers
• Imperial-class Star Destroyers (-Is and -IIs)

All of the above ships have access to offensive retrofits and some mixture of "good Squadrons value for their cost" and "can command a lot of squadrons at once," but the more important distinction is the Gozantis and Quasars are more dedicated carriers and the Star Destroyers are mixed-role carrier/battleships. How many and which type to use will largely depend on your fleet build and how much you're counting on the squadron mini-game as opposed to more conventional ship-on-ship attacks to carry the game for you. There are upsides and downsides to dedicated carriers versus mixed-role carriers, though, which I'll cover briefly below:

Dedicated carrier pros:

• Cheap, and therefore the best cost-to-Squadrons ratio available
• Often able to focus on issuing squadron commands most rounds to keep your squadron game a consistent threat
• Lower Command values so anticipating when squadron commands will be necessary is easier to do

Dedicated carrier cons:

• Undergunned for their cost and size
• Fragile when pinned down by legitimate combat ships
• Without squadrons to command, can struggle to meaningfully affect the game during their activation

Mixed-role carrier pros:

• Comes packing serious guns that discourage lesser enemy ships from getting too close
• Can contribute to combat alongside your anti-ship squadrons
• If squadrons aren't available can still bring the fight to the enemy

Mixed-role carrier cons:

• Can't function as 100% carrier and 100% battleship simultaneously - activations spent commanding squadrons are activations not issuing other commands that assist in keeping your best arcs on target and/or keeping the ship itself safe/healthy
• Higher Command values can make knowing when you can and can't afford to command squadrons difficult without some additional points invested into command control upgrades
• Higher points cost  makes fleet less activation-healthy and provides a mediocre Squadron value for the cost.

They're to some extent inverted forms of one another, with the pros of one flipping to the cons of the other. An LFC fleet with only dedicated carriers and no other combat ships is relying completely on winning the squadron mini-game and then using its bombers to crush the enemy fleet. If it loses the squadron mini-game, it doesn't have a prayer. Conversely, an LFC fleet with only mixed-role carriers will have a more well-rounded game plan that isn't overturned by setbacks in the squadron mini-game but it also won't have as consistent or powerful a squadron approach as its more dedicated cousin. How far you go in one direction or the other is up to you. The one "must" I can think of is if you're counting on Bomber squadrons (which most LFCs are), a Gozanti with Bomber Command Centers is nearly mandatory for the increased consistency in your bombing dice.

Once your squadron command needs are met, you can spend your remaining fleet points on combat vessels of whichever sort you think will best support the LFC element of your fleet. Raiders can be valuable additions, as they are cheap activations (which you'll want more of) and can accompany the bulk of your squadrons to provide flak coverage if enemy squadrons want to pick a fight with you, but they're not mandatory, especially if you've got a strong fighter presence.

Squadrons
Before I get to specific builds (of which I can categorize 4 major archetypes) for an Imperial LFC group, I want to reiterate what John said earlier about Intel and Escort. If you're running strong on bombers, you need Intel. This is especially true with Imperial squadrons due to the fact that bombing is pretty much all your bomber squadrons do. They do not handle getting stuck on enemy fighters well at all. Sure, Y-Wings and B-Wings would rather be bombing than dogfighting, but they can do all right against squadrons if they need to. Your TIE Bombers, conversely, are just miserable at dogfighting and anything that can get them on their way to maximize their bomber specialization is appreciated. With that said, Imperial fleets with Intel usually featurea Jumpmaster, either Dengar or a generic, or in some cases two generic Jumpmasters.

On a related note, putting together an LFC with Imperials can be a tricky balancing act and can be meta-dependent. This is due to how specialized most Imperial squadrons are: over-invest on fighters and support elements (Jumpmasters, TIE Advanced, regular fighter assistance) and you'll find they're not much good at helping you bomb things later on like the more mixed-role Rebel squadrons are. Under-invest in fighters and support elements and you'll find your big investment in bombers is getting held up with almost comically little effort. Feel free to toggle with any of the basic archetypes until you find the right mix that works for you. With that said, let's cover the three archetypes:

Note: these archetype builds were updated in wave 6 to have a bit more emphasis on fighter squadrons. With Sloane lurking about, you need some kind of a plan for handling tenacious enemy fighters should you encounter them, and counting on Escort shields to last for long against a determine Sloane fleet offensive without doing some serious fighting back is a recipe for failure.

1) TIE Defender spam
7 TIE Defenders and Maarek Stele (133 points)

This is the most straightforward and "hedge your bets" style of LFC group I can imagine Imperials running. Simply put, this is the Imperial version of the Rebel YT-2400 spam bomber wing. It needs little additional support beyond ships to issue squadron commands and one Gozanti with Bomber Command Center. The Defenders will prioritize destroying enemy squadrons and then putting damage into ships in the later game once that's been accomplished. Feel free to replace a Defender with Major Rhymer or Captain Jonus for no change in cost - Rhymer assists the Defender blob at focusing down one hull zone's shields by his range extender and Jonus is more useful in a fleet with the Defender swarm plus some serious combat vessels. Or use both, if you think you'll be okay with a bit less muscle!

The main downside to this approach is your bombing windows are uncertain as it brings no Intel. It won't have the same damage ceiling as a more dedicated bombing fleet because TIE Defenders (not including Maarek) are mediocre bombers, but it's not nearly so prone to getting stuck at times as the Defenders will happily dogfight until they can create an opening, unlike stuck TIE Bombers.

2) TIE Bomber wing
Major Rhymer, 3 TIE Bombers, Tempest Squadron, Maarek Stele, Jumpmaster, Mauler Mithel, Valen Rudor, Zertik Strom (132 points)

This is a more conventional "go big or go home" TIE Bomber group, weighing in at a substantial 10 squadrons, 6 of which are bombers (Maarek pulls double duty as a fighter ace and Tempest Squadron does the same as an Escort Bomber hybrid). With two sources of Escort and a Jumpmaster, you should be able to focus on either getting your bombers to their targets while your Escort and fighter squadrons handle the enemy or you can assign your Escort and Intel resources to keeping Mauler Mithel and his buddies in the fight to blow out fighter opposition and then move on to bombing a little bit later, depending on how serious your opposition is.

The main problem with this approach is you need to be able to command a good portion of those 10 squadrons. That requires a lot of squadron command muscle and it makes a big part of your fleet committed to the Rhymer ball of doom.

3) Imperial ace superfriends
Colonel Jendon, Maarek Stele, Boba Fett, Morna Kee, Zertik Strom, Bossk (132 points).

This combination is light on the total number of squadrons (just 6 of them) and only has 4 non-Rogues who need squadron commands. Only 2 of the actual squadrons are bombers (Boba Fett and Maarek Stele), so you may not even need a Bomber Command Center around. The idea is similar to the TIE Defender spam plan in that you're looking to wipe out enemy squadrons early and then bomb hard in the later game. With Colonel Jendon around, any of your potent aces gets an extra attack every turn, which allows you to focus on tearing up squadrons earlier on with powerhouses like Bossk and Maarek and then transitioning over to double-bombing with your stronger bombers like Boba Fett, Maarek, or Morna. Zertik provides some Escort coverage for the group, particularly Jendon, and can ping Bossk to activate his auto-accuracy ability. This group also operates well at range given Jendon is also packing Relay, just be sure to keep Jendon alive for as long as possible if you're relying on Relay.

You can produce an alternate version of this group by dropping Bossk and Zertik to pick up Darth Vader and Major Rhymer. The alternate version is better at bombing but doesn't have the same anti-squadron muscle.

The main downside of this build is it has few deployments and it won't produce the same laser-focused all-game-long bomber pain a more committed bomber group can. It doesn't benefit much from bomber support options like Bomber Command center, which keeps it cheap, but also keeps it from excelling in the same way. It's combo-oriented and it can suffer when crucial combo components are picked off earlier than you were expecting.

Experimentation is key
These are just the basic archetypes and there's a lot of room for experimentation by fusing elements of each together or by incorporating elements of the medium or small fighter coverage groups together with anti-ship squadrons. Beyond that, there are lots of tweaks that can be made here and there. Here are some examples:

• Sub in a Lambda Shuttle (or two!) and bid for second player to milk an objective token-based objective (like Intel Sweep or Sensor Net) you can exploit with the Strategic keyword, particularly if you're using a source of extra squadron movement like Fighter Coordination Team or the Quasar Squall title
• Replace TIE Bombers or some Defenders with Firesprays and/or Decimators to make a more compact Rogue bomber group
• Create an alternative mixed-role fighter group by using a combination of TIE Phantoms and TIE Advanced instead of/in addition to TIE Defenders

So with all that said, hopefully you patient Imperials who made it to the bottom of this article have been rewarded with some food for thought. I encourage you to give John's advice careful consideration as he's on point regarding a lot of the basics of how to prioritize your commands and how to coordinate your bombers, even if he is Rebel scum who is about to show us a horrifying and banned picture of cartoon Screed in a stupid hat.