So the last 3 games I've played against 7 tie swarms I've lost all 3, and in all 3 I only killed one academy tie each time. And they were all played with my best rebel squad!

I hate the swarm sooooo much. You get almost perfect attack rolls thanks to howl, great defense since they are all 3 agility, then later lots of action denial from all the academies getting in your way.

I know some squads are better equipped to take on the swarm than others, and sadly I've come to the conclusion that my squad, as good as it is, is clearly not meant to take on the swarm. Especially when flown well like all my opponents did. I could make a squad that's better for swarms, but then it would likely be weaker for some other squad types, so there's always a trade off.

There's clearly a reason why it's still one of the toughest if not toughest squads to beat still.

I'm starting to feel like ties should have been two hull for how cheap they are. Considering how easy they were to kill in the pc games, they can be stubbornly hard to take down in the miniature game sometimes. Yes you can get lucky and one shot them if you roll all hits and they roll all blanks, but often it's a struggle just to land 1 hit on them.

"They're coming in too fast!" LOL

Are you using target lock or focus? Yes, Tie swarm can be a pain but, only 1 academy destroyed sound very wrong. Are you concentrating fire? What is your squad?

Yes, what are you flying as your best rebel squad?

Yes it's very odd I only killed 1 ship all 3 times, considering I had 4 rebel ships, all with 3 dice attack, and most of them shooting first each time. I do focus fire as best I can, I think I've always had at least 3 if not all 4 ships shooting at a target.

I tried a different strategy each time and none worked.

First time I took mostly target locks instead of focus, and that didn't work. So second time I did mostly focus thinking I'd have it for defense if nothing else, didn't' work either. So the 3rd time I think I did half and half. That did the best, but still not as good as it should have.

Wedge with swarm

Roark with blaster & recon

Blue

Rookie

Try using some assault missiles. The splash damage will do damage to most of the swarm if your opponent keeps them in close formation.

Yea as I said some squads are better suited for swarms. Assault missiles are definitely in that mold. That would mean taking an a-wing, when I really like having all 3 dice attack ships.

I suppose it's worth consideration though.

If you were really focusing fire and it was 4 against 7, I can't see why you didn't kill more. Lose maybe, but not more kill while attacking first and with target lock or focus, that's some very cold dice, especially when Wedge is in the squad! Attack dice have more odds to hit than defense dice, so if you concentrate fire, you should be able to kill at least one Tie per turn. He can't use his focus or evade action more than once per turn so, first or second shot will make him use it, and then the 2 other ships have free reign over him. And you should always focus. If you don't use your token, it will be useful in defense.

Always focus on Howlrunner first. As an imperial player who occasionally (not often) runs swarms, I am shocked at how often I tend to lose her on the first or second round of firing (even at range 3). Once she's out of the way (and her swarm tactics, if she has that) then the remaining ties should be fairly easy pickings.

Once Howl is dead, ties struggle to land hits with two attack dice unless they are in range 1

Another good tactic is to use a Y-wing with Ion Turret. Ion TIEs to break up the formation and pounce on them with your other ships.

This is the order of target priority with named TIEs that I have noticed:

1. Howlrunner

2. Mauler Mithril

3. Backstabber

4. Dark Curse (because people don't want to waste focus and target lock)

Whenever I run all 4 and I lose they almost always die in that order

I was going to say swarms are tough but a couple of things to keep in mind, (don't give up)

First - Assault missiles

Attack (target lock): Spend your target lock and discard this card to perform this attack.

If this attack hits, each other ship at Range 1 of the defender suffers 1 damage.

Second - xxbb is the way to counter attack the swarm. The last world torney I believe was a swarm list vs this list. The rebel player had

2 Daggers with adv sen

1 rookie

1 Biggs

Third - focus fire, focus fire, focus fire.

Fourth - watch some of the video from team convent for worlds they have helped me understand a lot on how to play and counter the swarm lists.

Fifth - second quarter this year 12 point Z95s are coming and it's going to get very crazy very fast when rebel and empire swarms meet,

Sixth - Most important Don't Give Up.

I played Warhammer a ton and lost many games that I should have won and visa versa just keep practicing. Also next time you play make a turn by turn battle report so we can see what your doing and give some pointers.

Your squad has a pretty specific weakness to swarms, and to have a chance you need to play very defensively. In the first 3 rounds of shooting you're going to lose a ship each round. Best case scenario is that you avoid fire, don't 'joust' with a swarm, and try to get them to split their fire. Now that you know what a swarm tries to do (block and just throw dice at you), you should be able to adapt a bit more and try to defend Wedge (who probably dies very quickly) and keep your blue alive to the end game.

Quite frankly - TIE Swarms (or miniswarms with a shuttle or Firespray) are the only squads winning for the empire right now anyhow, and they're hard to pilot well (and still keep actions, etc).

Run double falcons against a 4-interceptor squad and see how much the match is in the favor of the falcons... some squads just have advantages over others.

Given the limited number of ships you're listing on your profile signature, maybe this would work:

Biggs w/R2F2

Red w/R2 Astromech

Green w/Assault Missiles

Blue w/FCS

Drag Biggs behind your other ships so he ends up at range 3 to the front line of TIEs. His action will be R2F2 to up his Agility to 3 (or 4 even at R3). Or drop the droid and take focus every turn instead. The R2F2 move though will give you the bonus AGI on every roll. The Red can take a pot-shot at Howl to start out, then have the Green pump the Assault missile at range 2 right into the heart of the swarm. The Blue can then fire at whoever is a good target of opportunity. You could also drop the R2 'mech and change the FCS to AS on the Blue depending on your play style.

Another option with your ship list is this:

Kyle w/Blaster, RecSpec, Moldy Crow & Squad Leader

Grey w/Ion Turret

2x Rookie

Drag the squad as slow as possible until the engagement, building up as many Focus tokens on Kyle as you can - at least 6 and better for 8. Once the shooting starts, use Squad Leader to feed one of the Rookies the extra action to use TL&F every turn. The Grey can Ion pot-shot Howl and cause her to drag behind while the rest of the Swarm zips away or breaks formation with their lack of a "1 straight" move. Pick off the stragglers with the Blaster turret.

Good luck

Wedge with swarm

Roark with blaster & recon

Blue

Rookie

This explains a lot why you would fall against the swarm. Your list has no protection whatsoever.

There are many tricks to fighting the swarm. 1 of them is to NEVER ENGAGE HEAD ON, always deploy diagonally across the asteroid field and wait for them to come to you, using your slower speeds. As the TIEs are much faster, they will have to move through the asteroids and get to you, and that will seriously mess up their formation even if they didnt hit a single rock. This has an effect of funnelling themselves into a line formation, where you could take out the point TIE 1 by 1 with all 4 ships.

Next, the other way to fight TIE swarms is with increased agility. I have lost count of the number of times a TIE swarm was demolished by Soontir PTL Stealth, simply because even with all 7 TIEs firing at him with 3 of them at range 1 + howlrunner support, they simply couldnt touch Soontir due to the fact that they are dealing out a maximum of 2 hit strings every time (3 hit at range 1 but that is very rare). Even something like Biggs + R2F2 + range 3 would easily withstand 1 round of them firing with maybe 1-2 damage at most.

Lastly, consider R2D2. When entering the late game, R2D2 has been mathematically proven to be impossible to defeat with a single TIE, even better if its on Luke Xwing.

Sorry should really read more, you auto sign has your ships in it. Try this

1- Biggs (R2D2, Stealth Dev) 32

1- Rookie Pilot (Stealth Dev) 24

1- Prototype (assault) 22

1- Dagger 22

100

Someone's feeling bhutthurt.

1 - Wedge (marksmanship, r5) 33

1 - Luke (r2d2) 32

1 - Prototype 17

1 - Gold 18

100 points

This could also work against a swarm with what you have. Wedge could put some hurt down before they even get a shot off and Luke will stay alive. With gold there simply to soak up damage and the A wing as a distraction. Also setup is important to place asteroids in the tie swarm path. It's much easier for your XXY to head up the center and have your A on the side of the map. Also something that has worked for me is to ride the edge of the board and remove the movement of the Enemy, if a swarm can't move around to one side you can make that work out for you.

If your thinking about a buy to help out B-wing for Rebs or a Shuttle for empire.

Again the 2- X-wings and 2 B-Wings are a solid list.

If empire run 1 Shuttle, 1 Black Tie, 2 Ob Ties and 1 Turr Pher Intercepter. (This was the last torny list I ran and it did great)

If I read this right... You faced one of the best (if not the best) Imperial Squad... And lost.

Have you ever faced a swarm before?

Were the people you faced skilled with their swarms?

Were you running the best possible squad that you could have against them?

I'm as much of a fan of losing as the next guy, but I don't thing that "_______ Rebel Squad" should be "outlawed" just because I haven't won against it.

Figure out whatcha did wrong, learn from your mistakes, and take some advise from these guys. Then get back out there and fight, soldier!

Though... You Rebels will never win.

We will rebuild another Death Star...

I've had some luck with Salm and a Proton Torpedo for Range 3 Sniping. Trick is to strip evades or focuses from the target before the shot and/or give Salm a second action so he can F/TL in a single turn for an Alpha-Strike.

How well do you do against non-Swarm lists? If you're 0-3 against non-swarms, maybe the swarms aren't the issue here!

Honestly, the biggest problem with your squad is that, between Roark and Swarm Tactics, you've got 21 points tied up in a PS bid that buys you absolutely nothing again a TIE swarm.

And I see what you're trying to do, chaining Roark into Wedge's Swarm Tactics. But Wedge is already PS 9; bumping him up to 12 has marginal value at best, even against non-swarm squads.

As has been suggested, try dropping Roark (along with his upgrades) and Swarm Tactics and tossing in Biggs, or even another Rookie or Blue. Sometimes, the best answer is more guns.

Ok I should mention again that I'm probably not changing this squad at all. As I said it's my best rebel squad, meaning I've won more than I've lost with it. I even went 5-2 with it between two store championships, finishing 5th and 2nd(before final rounds). Both of my losses were to 7 tie swarms.

My squad is meant to hit you hard before you can fire back, ideally killing a ship before it even fires. It's not the strongest defensively since I have no 3 evade ships, but most non a-wing rebel squads aren't any better.

I also never fly straight at the swarm, I try to get them to break up by going through the asteroid field at an angle to get to me, but hasn't worked usually as I've played very good players who fly well.

As for attacking Howl. I've heard many of the better players say not to attack her first, since often she has stealth, or a shield upgrade, etc, plus usually in the back so possibly a range 3 bonus, meaning you'll have to spend a lot of attack dice trying to take her down, which you could use to take down a ship or two easier (and before they shoot at you). I obviously had bad luck in that I could only kill 1 ship each game.

I don't use roark on wedge, I use it on one of my other two ships and wedge swarms the other so I shoot 12, 9, 9, 4, not 12, 12, 4, 2. Having 3 ships pretty much guaranteed to shoot first is HUGE against most squads.

Also exchanging roark for another Xwing or Bwing would give me the same number of guns still (basically). I have blaster on Roark so he has 3 attack dice as well.

Though... You Rebels will never win.

We will rebuild another Death Star...

Thermal exhaust port..