The meta game is always changing, and probably geographically different.

At the local store championships we had no squadron with more than 4 ships. Many ran only 3 ships.

Now, I know that I ran 3 in part because I hadn't played much in awhile and fewer ships means fewer decisions and thus I could play faster. Plus it would be less cognitively challenging over the course of many games.

But why is the swarm so rare? There is still strength in numbers.

Is that they are too hard to fly well?

Maybe everyone was running anti-swarm.

Maybe people just don't own 7 tie fighters. 3 ship builds can be pretty common among new players solely because they own less ships.

and because swarms really really struggle against TIEints on PTL

I don't know where you are at, but at the store championships up here there was no 3 ship lists at all as far as I know.

at the one, someone even ran a 5 ywing list.

I think there are (at least) three things going on here:

(1) A swarm is one of the worst matchups for another swarm, which means they push back on themselves in the metagame: as the number of people running swarms increases, the less attractive swarms are overall. And swarms were really popular fairly recently, so this might be a fairly natural adjustment period.

(2) A lot of people who were doing innovative, high-level things with swarm play simply got bored and moved on to builds they found more interesting and/or challenging to play. (I'm thinking particularly of a couple of the Chicago guys, here.)

(3) A lot of the people running swarms, for better or worse, were doing so because they thought swarms were a good way to win--or even the best/only way to win. A lot of those players have now moved on to, e.g., XXBB lists because now that's the hot new "best" list archetype.

are you referring to all swarms in general or the standard 7 tie swarm with howlrunner? because my theory is that the list is just so boring and predictable (yet still potent) to fly

i still see plenty of variants (myself included) of tie swarms in my area that consist of shuttle and or interceptor play

one in particular is a friend that dominates all of us with a 5 academy tie and omicron shuttle w/ advanced sensors, heavy laser cannon, rebel captive and engine upgrade

the list is stupid potent because no matter what you choose to fight first, the swarm of ties or the shuttle, you're going to be in for a world of pain

i think the best i've come to defeating him was having his shuttle down to a few hp's and 2 or 3 ties remaining

are you referring to all swarms in general or the standard 7 tie swarm with howlrunner? because my theory is that the list is just so boring and predictable (yet still potent) to fly

i still see plenty of variants (myself included) of tie swarms in my area that consist of shuttle and or interceptor play

one in particular is a friend that dominates all of us with a 5 academy tie and omicron shuttle w/ advanced sensors, heavy laser cannon, rebel captive and engine upgrade

the list is stupid potent because no matter what you choose to fight first, the swarm of ties or the shuttle, you're going to be in for a world of pain

i think the best i've come to defeating him was having his shuttle down to a few hp's and 2 or 3 ties remaining

I'll tell you, here the Shuttle should be the first target you take out. Ignore rebel captive. Concentrate all firepower on the albino space llama. It's only got 10 HP and concentrated fire means it should die in the second round of shooting, unless it flees, in which case you turn to face the TIEs until it returns.

I think that as people learned to face swarms more time limits became a much bigger issue. Swarms struggle against high agility opponents and have trouble focusing on flanking ships. Beyond that this game isn't prone to the super-competitive mindset of many other games yet, so there is still some stigma to playing the best squads. I personally think that's dumb, but to each their own.

are you referring to all swarms in general or the standard 7 tie swarm with howlrunner? because my theory is that the list is just so boring and predictable (yet still potent) to fly

i still see plenty of variants (myself included) of tie swarms in my area that consist of shuttle and or interceptor play

one in particular is a friend that dominates all of us with a 5 academy tie and omicron shuttle w/ advanced sensors, heavy laser cannon, rebel captive and engine upgrade

the list is stupid potent because no matter what you choose to fight first, the swarm of ties or the shuttle, you're going to be in for a world of pain

i think the best i've come to defeating him was having his shuttle down to a few hp's and 2 or 3 ties remaining

I'll tell you, here the Shuttle should be the first target you take out. Ignore rebel captive. Concentrate all firepower on the albino space llama. It's only got 10 HP and concentrated fire means it should die in the second round of shooting, unless it flees, in which case you turn to face the TIEs until it returns.

are you referring to all swarms in general or the standard 7 tie swarm with howlrunner? because my theory is that the list is just so boring and predictable (yet still potent) to fly

i still see plenty of variants (myself included) of tie swarms in my area that consist of shuttle and or interceptor play

one in particular is a friend that dominates all of us with a 5 academy tie and omicron shuttle w/ advanced sensors, heavy laser cannon, rebel captive and engine upgrade

the list is stupid potent because no matter what you choose to fight first, the swarm of ties or the shuttle, you're going to be in for a world of pain

i think the best i've come to defeating him was having his shuttle down to a few hp's and 2 or 3 ties remaining

I'll tell you, here the Shuttle should be the first target you take out. Ignore rebel captive. Concentrate all firepower on the albino space llama. It's only got 10 HP and concentrated fire means it should die in the second round of shooting, unless it flees, in which case you turn to face the TIEs until it returns.

i've tried both tactics

he's a very cunning player and knows how to fly this list

he knows that the shuttle should be the prime target and if you choose to attack it first you will suffer anyways as he uses those ties to deny you all or at least most of your actions and usually making it an average of 3 rounds of shooting to take it out because of it, all while losing at least a ship each round in the process (not fun)

my best attempt was flanking from the sides and taking shots where i could

the games where going straight for the shuttle ended up in a blood bath at my expense

i found that taking out 2 of the ties before engaging the shuttle gave me my best strength as 3 academy ties aren't as likely to put big damage through on your ships where 5 focus firing can generally down a ship in one round or leave it with a single point of health remaining

If you want to see a resurgance of the Swarm, let's start talking about tactics.

No, not the upgrade.


The Tie Fighter is a very maneuverable craft, and learning how to use this maneuverability in a multi-turn ideal is how to get the most power out of it.

Most folks piloting a Tie Swarm simply treat it as one giant brick. The power of that particular tactic comes two-fold:

1. It maximizes Howlrunner
2. It makes concentrating fire very easy.

However, it turns your school of incredibly agile ships into a single, disasterously blockable unit. It ruins your ability to navigate the Asteroid thicket, and makes you hugely susceptible to bombs and assault missiles.

So: Learn how to break up your own swarm, while maintaining a concentrated-fire kill-zone. The loss of Howlrunner damage is greatly offset by the amount of survivability, unpredictability, and reaction options you gain.

My friend won a store tournament today. His was the only TIE swarm in the competition. The swarm lives.

I'd venture a guess that it's because we are now almost 4 waves into the game, we have at least 1 huge ship and one on the way. I have at least 3 of every ship and the number of upgrade cards and pilots is staggering.

That said, the swarm is still a force to reckon with. Those that fail to do so will fall under the sheer amount of dice.

I still fly the swarm and still enjoy it. A swarm player from OK won our store's championship a few months ago. I don't think the swarm will ever go away.

(I secretly hope for new TIE Fighter pilots)

I think black squadron and predator will make for a new kind of tie swarm - one that doesn't need to fly in a brick formation....

TIE Swarms won more Regional Championships this past weekend than any other type of squad. Rumors of the TIE Swarm's death have been greatly exaggerated. It's still a great squad in the right hand, there are just more viable contenders than perhaps earlier in the meta's evolution.

Considering my only two losses at my store championships were to tie swarms (and BAD losses at that), I feel no sympathy for any new ships, upgrades, etc that "weaken" the tie swarm.

FFG's decision to reduce the point total for the full/modified win threshold from 33 down to 12 instantly made TIE swarms stronger than what they had been for the previous tournament season.

Previously in tournament play if you came face to face with another swarm you had much higher odds of only getting a modified win against that opponent. Now it's the cost differential of 1 Academy pilot.

If anything TIE swarms are a stronger play now then they were 1 year ago.