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So I (very) recently invested in a Decimator and need a good loadout for it's debut!!

I was thinking:

Commander Kenkirk (No shield, 1 damage = +1 Agility)
Ysanne Isard
Tactical Jammer
Ion Torpedoes
And either Predator (Just added power) or Expert Handling (Simply for added maneuverability)

Feel free to alter, or completely change the set-up, it was simply a rushed loadout after months without playing the game!! Thanks for any help you can give!!

Might help to understand your rationale behind the choices you've made. What do you see it actually doing in the game?

I was going for a mix between survivability(Kenkirk/Ysanne) and ability to deal damage (Ion Torpedoes/Predator) with tactical jammer thrown in to be a pain.

Expose would work better than Predator, IMHO. While he has Shields, there's no risk in using it, and then once he absorbs his first Damage, you can pick between using it or not.

I would strongly consider a Gunner Crew member, to take as much advantage of the turret weapon as possible. Save the points on the Ion Torpedoes though. With Expose, I doubt you'll find yourself using that weapon very often.

 Rurouni Benshin wrote:
Expose would work better than Predator, IMHO. While he has Shields, there's no risk in using it, and then once he absorbs his first Damage, you can pick between using it or not.

I would strongly consider a Gunner Crew member, to take as much advantage of the turret weapon as possible. Save the points on the Ion Torpedoes though. With Expose, I doubt you'll find yourself using that weapon very often.

Great - thanks very much for the advice!!

The build that I really like is this:

Oicunn
Expose
Tactician
Gunner
Ysanne Isard
Dauntless

This gives you the ability to ram into the enemy without fear of not being able to use Expose. Also you can dish out stress tokens and the gunner will make sure you hit - really helpful against Fat Han. And of course, Isard gives you some staying power.

I posted this in another thread, but this is the one i'm going to try next week:

Oicunn
+ Mara Jade, Tactician, Rebel Captive
+ Anti Pursuit Lasers
+ Intimidation

Basically, because of it's hull points, you have to attack it, but the stress tokens you will get from going anywhere near it/shooting it, will reduce actions, making ships more vulnerable to whatever I partner it with (Maybe some Ties with Howlrunner as an obvious go to). Also, get too close to it, or if it gets too close to you, you are going to take automatic damage.

I like the Tactician/Rebel Captive combo, but Mara Jade may be redundant. Mara only adds tokens to ships that don't already have stress tokens. She probably won't get much use - your opponent will almost certainly make sure that a ship in range band 1 of the Decimator is the first to shoot it. Unless your opponent swarms your ship in range band 1 without adding any stress tokens to do it, she probably won't add anything. I'd use the three points on somthing else.

I agree with Azeroth about Mara, in this case. Plus the fact that you have Anti Pursuit Lasers would make the opposition more cautious about getting too close. You'd be better off with a Gunner, honestly. But if you don't have the points, a Navigator or Weapons Engineer would good.

I've had a lot of trouble not just going all out on mine points wise. Empire doesn't have a ton of options to fill the rest of the points that don't like support, so making the most out of the Decimator is essential.

That said I came up with this:

Kenkirk
Determination
Gunner
Ysanne
Rebel Captive
Engine

61 Points. I had originally played around with including Predator in place of Determination, but after you take your first damage card, it becomes about taking as little damage as possible, plus I really wanted to run a Doomshuttle with it and needed to shave a few points to get Vader on the Omicron. The other 15 points can go to a Tie Fighter (I used Night Beast for more free action shenanigans), but you can go with one of the cheaper ones to try to grab initiative.

I'm sorry, but please explain what a "Doomshuttle" is. Are you referring to the Lambda? What kind of load out do you use for that?

The generic doomshuttle is an omicron group pilot with darth vader as crew, since in order to make us of vader the shuttle is usually dead by the end of the game. So it is doomed even if gets to shoot or not.

24 points of doom.

Ah... So it's more of an "End Game" scenario when you need one or two hits to take out someone. Gotcha.

Well when i use it , i use the vader ability any time to i can put a crit on the hull. Works specially well on interceptors or phantom without shields.