So, at the last minute I decided to head down to Regionals in Houston. It was a bit of a drive, so I drove down the previous day. I showed up bright and early. I decided to play it safe and run a list I had a lot of success with.

5x Gamma Squadron + Seismic Charges

First, a discussion on the list. The TIE Bomber is under appreciated (not to the extend of the Alabaster Orbital Caribou) and almost exclusively used as an ordnance platform. I think this thinking is a mistake and ignores the benefits of the dial and the hull advantages.

The craft has 2 attack dice. This isn't a lot, but it's nothing to scoff at either. It's the same main attack as a TIE Fighter. You can eat into 1 agility targets and you've got a decent enough chance to hit an agility 3 craft. The craft has 2 agility as well. Same as an X-Wing, which isn't bad, but you're going to be eating a lot of damage. Which is why the bomber has 6 hull. 1 more HP than an X-Wing, with 2 agility. This is a pretty beefy little ship.

Now, the Bomber has a very respectable dial. It does not turn well, given a 2 hard red and a 3 hard white, but it can turn. It's better as a jouster, since it can move 1-4 forward, 1-3 bank, and has a 5 K-turn. Further, they have an interesting cross of green maneuvers. 1-3 forward are green and 2 bank. Having a 1 forward is quite a boon for dogfighting (though lacking a 1-hard), yet the craft can move quite far. The 5-K is excellent because it means it can clear a large amount of obstruction and turn back on the fray.

Now, I coupled five of these craft, at PS4, with Seismic Charges. They are wondrous weapons. You drop them before you move, which doesn't cost you an action. At the end of activation, everything in their range takes 1 damage. Having one is alright. I can accept taking 1 damage most times. I can't justify taking 5. A formation of these bombers has DEATH written right behind it. X-Wing, A-Wing, Interceptor, TIE Fighter, HWK, TIE Advanced, Z-95, TIE Phantom, E-Wing, these can all be killed by a single bomb drop from this formation. Since I'm running PS4, I get to move after most low PS ships, so I can know whether you are there before the bombs drop. It's an area effect, so if you perfectly K-Turn an entire TIE swarm behind my ships, I can wipe the entire list out in one glorious moment.

And that touches on the brilliance of this list. You want to engage it, but you don't want to get behind it. As long as I have the bombs, my opponents tend to make terrible piloting errors to avoid it. They break off, break apart formations, or choose to be in my firing arc without a shot, anything to avoid risking the 5 bombs. That is why this list is so powerful. It's 30 hull of good jousting craft, that forces my opponent to avoid getting behind it.

So, I had one a store championship with the same list, so I had a 1st round By. Woo, I'm 1-0.

Second round, I faced off against Chewbacca with 2 Blue Squadron pilots. Chewy had Gunner, Expert Handling, and Nien Numb, while the Blues had Advanced Sensors. He setup his blues near the middle. I setup on the left, and chewy was with the blues. I advanced quickly, as chewy began to flank, but I largely ignored him to concentrate on the blues. One B-Wing went down quickly under concentrated fire. I lost a bomber in the same exchange. I then fired on the B-Wing and Chewy as appropriate, forcing the B-Wing into bad maneuvers. I lost a second bomber, but it was over all too soon. 2-0

Third Round, I was facing off against Blue Thunder. 2 Rookies and 2 Blues with HLC. He setup in a corner in standard box formation. I setup across from him. I moved confidently forward into contact. My first exchange took damaged a B-Wing. His return fire did 5 damage to a bomber, but did not kill it. Next round I moved the hurt bomber forward, alongside his formation, while the other four plowed right into him. This exchange took out a B-Wing. He was unwilling to risk a K-Turn into the teeth of 4 bombs, so he bumped. I K-Turned all my craft, getting a round of unanswered fire. Next round I moved forward, as he K-Turned. Here I took out the next B-Wing. From there it was a slaughter. I lost 1 Bomber in total. 3-0

Fourth Round, I faced off against a varied list. 2 B-Wings with Advanced Sensors, an ORS, and a gold squad pilot with Ion turret. He setup on my right and I setup across from him. He immediately turned away, unwilling to get in a head on collision with me. I chased him and caught him as he turned his B-Wings around and moved his ORS around an asteroid. His dice were incredible. He was rolling Hit-Crit-Crit naturally, multiple times. There was just nothing I could do against his dice. My opponent felt terrible, as it wasn't skill but luck that was beating me. Still, I took out the B-Wings and got the Y-Wing to one hull, but I couldn't survive with the sheer amount of damage he was putting out, most of which was crits. My first loss. 3-1

Fifth Round, I faced off against the following list:

Yorr + Darth Vader

Howlrunner

3x Black Squadron (one with DTF)

1x Academy Pilot

He had initiative. He setup on my left and I setup across from him. Moved into combat. He quickly dispatched a bomber in the first round of shooting. I did a bit of damage to his shuttle and missed a lot of shots. Next round was a mess of collisions. Lost another bomber. The following round a bomb dropped, doing 5 damage to the enemy (and one to me). I quickly took out several of his ties. Killed Howlrunner with another bomber. Got him down to the shuttle (with one hull), and two damaged TIEs, when he took out my last bomber. Simultaneous Fire meant I took the shuttle with me. I lost this game in the first couple rounds of shooting. 3-2

So, I expected to be cut from the tournament, but I managed to squeak into the Top 8 based on strength of schedule. I was surprised.

Top 8: I faced off against my Round 3 player with Blue Thunder. He setup in the middle this time, screened by asteroids. I setup on my left. He moved forward, then hard turned towards me, while I banked to meet him. This time the shooting went entirely in his favor. He killed one bomber and did 3 hull to a second. I did 2 shields to one of his B-Wings. However, I outguessed him. He decided a risky K-Turn knowing from our previous game that I had generally done more aggressive moves. I simply slow banked to catch him. He was facing away from me. I knocked the B-Wing down to one hull and did a couple damage to the second. He then moved slowly to clear stress, but tried to use the hurt B-Wing to block his own movement to foul things up, but hit an asteroid and was destroyed. Shooting went terrible, however, and I only did a bit of damage to the B-Wing. I swarmed the B-Wing, destroying it but losing another Bomber in the process. I lost a 3rd killing an X-Wing. However, he quickly knocked out my hurt bomber and it came down to 1v1. He had 4 health left and I had 5. But he quickly landed a PS0 crit on me and there was no way for me to recover from that. He had 2 hull left when he killed my hopes of advancing.

So, I walked away with an alternate art Luke card, acrylic evade tokens, and translucent dice. Not bad, but I feel I could have done better. There's another Regionals next month, so I'm going to ponder what list to take.

Great write up and grats on a top 8 with your bomber list!

I thought of staying in Houston to attend in Pearland, as I was there on BT this past week but other commitments drew me homeward. How many showed up at the event, I heard 38 was the turn out in Monroeville, PA?

I want to say we had ~26. I don't have the exact count, but that's close.

There were 25 palyers. I'm working on my own report, but the top 16 are listed in the Regionals Results thread.

Great writeup! Bombers are a lot of fun. I haven't had too much luck with bombs - it never occurred to me that the mere threat of them might be more powerful than the bombs themselves.

Great writeup! Bombers are a lot of fun. I haven't had too much luck with bombs - it never occurred to me that the mere threat of them might be more powerful than the bombs themselves.

A bit of truism in war is that anything you can do to change how the enemy acts, reacts, or thinks is an advantage. A lot of people here focus on how to modify dice or other tangible effects. Those things are important, but what people often miss is the effect on others. Wedge is a brilliant example of this. Wedge has one of the best tangible effects in the game. With his high attack value and ability to reduce the enemy's agility, he can quickly return an enemy to stardust. But how does he change how the enemy plays? Players become hyper focused. Their minds sing with one song, to kill Wedge. They become more focused and less likely to be swayed by ploys, distractions, and feints. This tends to carry over and they eliminate your craft one by one.

This aggressive focus is often disastrous for lists in a game where you want the enemy to distribute fire as evenly as possible. So even though you took a character that is excellent in every tangible effect, it can often contain the seed of defeat because of how it changes how the enemy thinks.

5 bomber lists are a pain in the butt to deal with. If you aren't rolling crits against them, you'll have a hard time.

I like idea of the 5 bombs.

I thought the 5 TIE bombers was interesting. I've ran 4 but not 5. I was hoping we would get paired up at some point, I wanted to see how my swarm would fare against them.

I thought the 5 TIE bombers was interesting. I've ran 4 but not 5. I was hoping we would get paired up at some point, I wanted to see how my swarm would fare against them.

Swarms can do very well against them if you get crits through on the first round, but there's a huge risk. If you crash into the line of bombers, there are only a few ways to keep from going into the bomb zone, which can wipe out a huge number of ships in your formation when it goes off. Often turning away won't get you clear and if you don't turn but instead choose to bump, you can be in deep trouble for a couple rounds of shooting and risk the same situation again shortly.

Love my bombs. I run them as often as possible, and on Firesprays too. A great thing about them is that the enemy often forgets about them after the first couple rounds, and then you can surprise them. And then, if they don't forget about them, you have that control element you are speaking of where they alter their maneuvers to avoid them.

Seismic Charges are (IMHO) easily the best 2 points spent in the game.

One of the things I didn't mention as I didn't have pictures, is that one of the players there does a lot of custom painting for X-Wing. He had a beautiful Lambda plus a pair of TIE Fighters as an escort. I admired them greatly. He offered to sell them to me, so of course I said yes.

The reds are a bit dulled in these pictures, being a more vibrant dark red and the windows have a bronzed effect to them. They are awesome.

Those were very nice custom paints. I was very surprised to find out the symbols were hand painted and not decals.

Bombs are just plain fun. I just wish there would be more slots to equip more than one per ship.

I've seen those before. They tore up my experimental Garven/Kyle list pretty fiercely. And yeah they looked awesome. Kinda sorry you bought them because I won't see them any more around town...but I bet he will get more.

I've seen those before. They tore up my experimental Garven/Kyle list pretty fiercely. And yeah they looked awesome. Kinda sorry you bought them because I won't see them any more around town...but I bet he will get more.

I'm so happy with the way they look. Sorry to take them from you guys though.

I've seen those before. They tore up my experimental Garven/Kyle list pretty fiercely. And yeah they looked awesome. Kinda sorry you bought them because I won't see them any more around town...but I bet he will get more.

I'm so happy with the way they look. Sorry to take them from you guys though.

You are "the" shuttle guy, so it stands to reason you have tricked out shuttles...right?

So do you fly all 5 of these bombers in a single formation? How does that work? I am interested in trying this out. I have 3 bombers right now but I wouldn't care to pick up a couple more and I have yet to fly a single bomber.

So do you fly all 5 of these bombers in a single formation? How does that work? I am interested in trying this out. I have 3 bombers right now but I wouldn't care to pick up a couple more and I have yet to fly a single bomber.

Ok, so I start them off in a line, preferably right across from my opponent. Then, on the first move, I move into a checkerboard pattern. Looks something like this:

1 3 5

2 4

| | | | |

1 2 3 4 5

I'm not sure there's any practical benefit to that instead of just setting up in checkerboard, but it makes me feel clever and I like to think it has a psychological impact on my opponent.

I basically use the threat of the bomb void behind them to force the enemy into two bad choices. Does he risk the Gamma Strike or does he turn and let me get behind him. Either choice is bad.

Thanks for the write up. Would be interested in your (or others) thoughts on how you would approach and beat this squad if you were using a Biggs walks the Dogs list?

I ask as this is the exact squad that beat me in the first round top 8 match at our Regionals and I am still scratching my head about the best way to approach it when I face it again!

Thanks for the write up. Would be interested in your (or others) thoughts on how you would approach and beat this squad if you were using a Biggs walks the Dogs list?

I ask as this is the exact squad that beat me in the first round top 8 match at our Regionals and I am still scratching my head about the best way to approach it when I face it again!

Hrm... An interesting quandary. It's not a great matchup for you.

Note, if you have a choice of initiative, you want to move second, so give it to the Bomber Squad. Yeah, they'll shoot first, but you need to be able to see if they drop their bombs or not before you move with the B-Wings.

First, I want to make a thorough asteroid field, but I need to make sure there are a couple 'roids in the middle to disrupt formation. I would then setup my ships in the middle. Forget about Biggs' ability, it doesn't help you here. Indeed, it's a bit of a handicap as it means you are taking focused fire. Now, either the bombers setup across from me, which means they are going to try to rush, of they setup in a corner and plan to move at moderate pace while using barrel roll to form a rather effective line. Either way, the idea is to hit them at an angle. If they are across from you, when you move into contact bank. You will be exposing your flank, but you aren't escaping this without a few bruises. Try to pick off a Bomber before it can drop. Now, the bombers have difficulty turning hard, so I would K-Turn, expecting them to do a bank into where you started or a hard turn to anticipate trying to turn into contact. This should be an unanswered round of shooting, albeit without actions. Now, you have position on them but you have to move slow lest you catch a teeth full of bombs. From here, too many things can change, so it's too hard to predict.

Still, whatever you do, don't joust the TIE Bomber list. That way lies madness. You MUST hit it at an angle.

Good advice, thank you. I had not considered forcing an angle and giving up some shots by banking in front and trying a subsequent K-Turn for a better position. Seems risky and somewhat difficult to pull off but I will keep it in mind.

Your spot on with initiative - I lost the coin toss and was moving first. I think if I was moving second it would have been a different game as I could have mitigated his bomb threat/usage through Adv Sensors and his guessing where I would move.

Having said that, I played terribly and I think your comments about the psychological threat of the bombs in an earlier post is spot on. The bomb threat completely threw me and all but forced me to stay out of Range 1 of his formation.

It was the first game I have played in X-Wing that I didn't know what I had to do or how I was going to beat my opponent apart from improvise and hope he makes mistakes.

There was an XXXX player there who beat the Gamma list soundly - I had beaten him previously and he had no trouble against the bombers so I might have to send him an email to ask what he did differently!

Okay. It is decided. I need to get 2 more Bombers. This sounds like too much fun to fly.