Wow, seeing how the top 8 was almost all tie swarms, I'm super glad I didn't go to the WI regionals now.

I've been flying Tie Swarms almost exclusively this competitive season. Having taken a Store Championship and multiple Top 4s, and seeing runner-up after runner-up fly Tie Swarms, it is still one of the best builds. They are absolutely exhausting to pilot, unforgiving in terms of maneuvering. Not really a build for a beginner. Also, I pray every tournament that I get a free round against dual falcons, the easiest build to beat and coincidentally to pilot.

Id be happy to play your swarm on vassel some time.

*yawn*

What area do you hail from? Top 4s in what?

If you fly swarms exclusively it would make for a great test.

Or are you afraid. I sense much fear in you.

Okay. I'll bite.

San Jose, CA. X Wing Miniatures Store Championship events.

I don't fly swarms, exclusively. Sometimes I like a Vader Bison on Recon Specialist BH sandwich.

If by afraid, you mean indifferent... Yes, very afraid bro.

I've been flying Tie Swarms almost exclusively this competitive season. Having taken a Store Championship and multiple Top 4s, and seeing runner-up after runner-up fly Tie Swarms, it is still one of the best builds. They are absolutely exhausting to pilot, unforgiving in terms of maneuvering. Not really a build for a beginner. Also, I pray every tournament that I get a free round against dual falcons, the easiest build to beat and coincidentally to pilot.

Id be happy to play your swarm on vassel some time.

*yawn*

What area do you hail from? Top 4s in what?

If you fly swarms exclusively it would make for a great test.

Or are you afraid. I sense much fear in you.

Okay. I'll bite.

San Jose, CA. X Wing Miniatures Store Championship events.

I don't fly swarms, exclusively. Sometimes I like a Vader Bison on Recon Specialist BH sandwich.

If by afraid, you mean indifferent... Yes, very afraid bro.

I really would like a tough challenge before all the new stuff comes out. In two months a lot of these builds could be old news. I've already seen some things with wingman that were very cool. And with predator you may see less low pilot swarms. If you don't vassel and you come to worlds we can throw down then. I'll buy the drinks.

I've been flying Tie Swarms almost exclusively this competitive season. Having taken a Store Championship and multiple Top 4s, and seeing runner-up after runner-up fly Tie Swarms, it is still one of the best builds. They are absolutely exhausting to pilot, unforgiving in terms of maneuvering. Not really a build for a beginner. Also, I pray every tournament that I get a free round against dual falcons, the easiest build to beat and coincidentally to pilot.

Id be happy to play your swarm on vassel some time.

*yawn*

What area do you hail from? Top 4s in what?

If you fly swarms exclusively it would make for a great test.

Or are you afraid. I sense much fear in you.

Okay. I'll bite.

San Jose, CA. X Wing Miniatures Store Championship events.

I don't fly swarms, exclusively. Sometimes I like a Vader Bison on Recon Specialist BH sandwich.

If by afraid, you mean indifferent... Yes, very afraid bro.

Can we get this on Twitch?

I think a the best dual Falcon build (with current cards) I have seen is this:

Cheiwe, Marksman, Gunner, Title

Lando, Gunner

Chewie and Lando fly single file (after setup/opening move) with Chewie in the Front. Slow advance and if people block Chewie then Lando gives him an action. Usually Mksman and if Chewie isn't blocked he uses title as well.

Now you can shoot at a close Chewie or the further away Lando with (mostly) bonus defence dice. Both have Gunner for consistency of hits. It's boring but effective.

I've been flying Tie Swarms almost exclusively this competitive season. Having taken a Store Championship and multiple Top 4s, and seeing runner-up after runner-up fly Tie Swarms, it is still one of the best builds. They are absolutely exhausting to pilot, unforgiving in terms of maneuvering. Not really a build for a beginner. Also, I pray every tournament that I get a free round against dual falcons, the easiest build to beat and coincidentally to pilot.

Id be happy to play your swarm on vassel some time.

*yawn*

What area do you hail from? Top 4s in what?

If you fly swarms exclusively it would make for a great test.

Or are you afraid. I sense much fear in you.

Okay. I'll bite.

San Jose, CA. X Wing Miniatures Store Championship events.

I don't fly swarms, exclusively. Sometimes I like a Vader Bison on Recon Specialist BH sandwich.

If by afraid, you mean indifferent... Yes, very afraid bro.

I really would like a tough challenge before all the new stuff comes out. In two months a lot of these builds could be old news. I've already seen some things with wingman that were very cool. And with predator you may see less low pilot swarms. If you don't vassel and you come to worlds we can throw down then. I'll buy the drinks.

You are right, new stuff like Etahn w/ Z-95s will ruin tie swarms.

It will be good times.

I've been flying Tie Swarms almost exclusively this competitive season. Having taken a Store Championship and multiple Top 4s, and seeing runner-up after runner-up fly Tie Swarms, it is still one of the best builds. They are absolutely exhausting to pilot, unforgiving in terms of maneuvering. Not really a build for a beginner. Also, I pray every tournament that I get a free round against dual falcons, the easiest build to beat and coincidentally to pilot.

Id be happy to play your swarm on vassel some time.

*yawn*

What area do you hail from? Top 4s in what?

If you fly swarms exclusively it would make for a great test.

Or are you afraid. I sense much fear in you.

Okay. I'll bite.

San Jose, CA. X Wing Miniatures Store Championship events.

I don't fly swarms, exclusively. Sometimes I like a Vader Bison on Recon Specialist BH sandwich.

If by afraid, you mean indifferent... Yes, very afraid bro.

I really would like a tough challenge before all the new stuff comes out. In two months a lot of these builds could be old news. I've already seen some things with wingman that were very cool. And with predator you may see less low pilot swarms. If you don't vassel and you come to worlds we can throw down then. I'll buy the drinks.

Absolutely, second round will be on me.

You are right, new stuff like Etahn w/ Z-95s will ruin tie swarms.

It will be good times.

I have yet to do anything with twitch. I do record my games on vassel with microsoft encoder and post them on youtube.

I stopped reading once the OP said that swarms were easy to play, then plays dual falcons.

Grats on your top 8. Better lucky than good sometimes.

I didn't say swarms are OP. I said Howel Runner is OP. 3 months after playing X-Wing I flew my first swarm at a tourny and took first. It wasn't even a challenge. Swarms are easy to play. There are clear levels of play skill. I seen a few people in Vassel HiLo tourny just do some amazing moves. But if you want you can just keep all your ships in a block and just do forwards, k turns, and turns. A beginner can clearly handle that. When most your ships moves first not very hard to get an action. With a lot of ships with a lot of evades the build is very forgiving.

A beginner can clearly handle 2 turreted ships with the best movement dial in the game.

I stand by my original statement. (especially since you're not running Gunner and beat several swarms, the odds are clearly not in your favor in this match - so your on the hot side of variance)

I think a the best dual Falcon build (with current cards) I have seen is this:

Cheiwe, Marksman, Gunner, Title

Lando, Gunner

Chewie and Lando fly single file (after setup/opening move) with Chewie in the Front. Slow advance and if people block Chewie then Lando gives him an action. Usually Mksman and if Chewie isn't blocked he uses title as well.

Now you can shoot at a close Chewie or the further away Lando with (mostly) bonus defence dice. Both have Gunner for consistency of hits. It's boring but effective.

If you going to follow the leader ever time I think this is a better build. And would even be more effective on a tie swarm then mine. Mine is slightly tweaked to handle other builds. But I think this is great.

I have yet to do anything with twitch. I do record my games on vassel with microsoft encoder and post them on youtube.

Picasso, do you know what upgrades Tom had on Chewie? Chewie plus 2 blues with jammers is 94 points. Thanks

I flew Chewie with a gunner and the Falcon title and Two Blues with Jammers.

I stopped reading once the OP said that swarms were easy to play, then plays dual falcons.

Grats on your top 8. Better lucky than good sometimes.

I didn't say swarms are OP. I said Howel Runner is OP. 3 months after playing X-Wing I flew my first swarm at a tourny and took first. It wasn't even a challenge. Swarms are easy to play. There are clear levels of play skill. I seen a few people in Vassel HiLo tourny just do some amazing moves. But if you want you can just keep all your ships in a block and just do forwards, k turns, and turns. A beginner can clearly handle that. When most your ships moves first not very hard to get an action. With a lot of ships with a lot of evades the build is very forgiving.

A beginner can clearly handle 2 turreted ships with the best movement dial in the game.

I stand by my original statement. (especially since you're not running Gunner and beat several swarms, the odds are clearly not in your favor in this match - so your on the hot side of variance)

I didn't say a beginner couldn't handle 2 turreted ships. Hell my 6 year can. Both Tie Swarm and 2 Falcons can be played by a beginner. I would agree 2 falcons are easier for a new player. If you don't do any banks with a swarm and fly them in a brick formation its not hard at all. Both builds are dumb builds. And based on the skill of the player they can become very deadly. If Firesprays had a 50% chance of beating a tie swarm I'd much rather play them. I would like to think I'm rather good at flying Firesprays. And I've yet to beat a Swarm with out a mini swarm. And if people have a build that can do well against a swarm I'd like to see it.

I have yet to do anything with twitch. I do record my games on vassel with microsoft encoder and post them on youtube.

Unrelated: did you ever play/put up videos of your games vs. Kelvan's shuttle lists?

Not yet. I did win. But the challenge was best 2 out of 3. We've yet arranged a second match. Also ESO side tracked me for 3 weeks. Then a ton of tournaments this month.

I stopped reading once the OP said that swarms were easy to play, then plays dual falcons.

Grats on your top 8. Better lucky than good sometimes.

I didn't say swarms are OP. I said Howel Runner is OP. 3 months after playing X-Wing I flew my first swarm at a tourny and took first. It wasn't even a challenge. Swarms are easy to play. There are clear levels of play skill. I seen a few people in Vassel HiLo tourny just do some amazing moves. But if you want you can just keep all your ships in a block and just do forwards, k turns, and turns. A beginner can clearly handle that. When most your ships moves first not very hard to get an action. With a lot of ships with a lot of evades the build is very forgiving.

If howlrunner had some magical ability to make fighters disappear without rolling combat dice I would agree with you, Howlrunner is OP. But Howlrunner's strength depends entirely on her wingmen. Her only advantage is being pilot skill 8 and holding an EPT slot for some flexibility. Otherwise to shine, she needs to be surrounded by other cheap fighters (which in effect marginally upgrades their two-dice attacks) or other heavier ships to make use of her ability.

She's no more resilient than a normal TIE Fighter, and she has a big target on her forehead that Blount would love nothing more to shoot at with an auto-hitting assault missile. If someone follows up blount with a successful assault missile that's a cloud of TIE Fighters reduced to 1 hitpoint and all because they got too close to Howlrunner.

Blount is also much simpler to fly than a TIE swarm is. Move forward into range, target lock, considered an automatic hit when attacking. Blount pretty much spells the end of a Howlrunner-yoked list being dominant pretty much single-handedly at 22 points. The only safe way around this strategy is to break up the fighters, meaning Holwrunner will no longer be surrounded by 3-5 buddies to use their absurd firepower as theyve done in the past. Then all the Rebel player needs to do is pick off the parts of the squadron at his leisure.

Before Blount is released, one could also fly smart and not fly head-on into a Swarm.

I see that all the time..all, the, time.

Now imagine that, using tactics.

i.e. I like to draw them into the rocks (I get to place 3-6 of them after all so I may as well use them).

A swarm which has been scattered is a swarm greatly diminished in power.

Picasso, do you know what upgrades Tom had on Chewie? Chewie plus 2 blues with jammers is 94 points. Thanks

I flew Chewie with a gunner and the Falcon title and Two Blues with Jammers.

Picasso had said:

"Hats of to my renegades we had four in the top 16.

Tom and Chris both flew like champs and played their asses off to make the cut."

Thanks Man! Glad to fly along side a great group! Just hated when I had to fight one of my own.....great match Caleb!

This killed us because Chris and I got paired together and only one of us could go on. If the event would have been 5 rounds like it was supposed to be, we might have had four in the top 8. Chris and I for sure with the byes. Which weren't calculated right all day. Regardless of the what ifs I think the Milwaukee crowd wasn't full of push overs like some people thought.

Picasso, do you know what upgrades Tom had on Chewie? Chewie plus 2 blues with jammers is 94 points. Thanks

I flew Chewie with a gunner and the Falcon title and Two Blues with Jammers.

Picasso had said:

"Hats of to my renegades we had four in the top 16.

Tom and Chris both flew like champs and played their asses off to make the cut."

Thanks Man! Glad to fly along side a great group! Just hated when I had to fight one of my own.....great match Caleb!

This killed us because Chris and I got paired together and only one of us could go on. If the event would have been 5 rounds like it was supposed to be, we might have had four in the top 8. Chris and I for sure with the byes. Which weren't calculated right all day. Regardless of the what ifs I think the Milwaukee crowd wasn't full of push overs like some people thought.

What do you mean weren't being calculated right?

It's a real bummer to have these exclusive Regional events not run correctly.

I don't want to dwell on it. The top eight deserved to be there. I was going to sell my dice anyway.

I think the Milwaukee crowd wasn't full of push overs like some people thought.

Anyone who thinks the Milwaukee crowd are pushovers hasn't been playing this game for very long. Great event. Was good see familiar faces and meet new ones. Hope to see you all again soon.

Man if only I could have swapped opponents with the OP, I didn't see an empire player, let alone a swarm, all day. Would loved to have faced all of the big swarms instead of 3 straight matches of Chewie BB, Chewie BB, Chewie XX.

Hope to see most of you in two months at Chicago regional!

Just as a Biggs build has been powerful since launch a s well.

Your math is a bit off to how you came to 75% 2 hit with a tie is a mystery...

Odds of getting 2 hits with a tie, howl,focus is about 50% against a 1 Def without focus.

Let's not forget a Biggs build defeated swarm in the championships...

Didn't someone win with XXBB all non-named pilots? In the words last year? Paul I think it was?

I flew the Bloody Daggers mix at Wisconsin. 1) Siri, our only female player I believe, handed me my rump. Very politely but she kicked it. She had Two Squints, soontir and shoot and scoot, A Lambda, and an academy. I killed the academy (yeah me) and the Lambda but the squints did me in. 2) Next was an unbelievable game where my dice did no wrong. 2 Firesprays and a Lambda. I torched Kassis leaving one hull left on the first pass. The next two passes I dispatched a Bounty hunter and the Lambda and then Kassis left the field. Quick game and very very very few misses. 3) I'm not clear here.. Soontir, Tie Bomber, and maybe Howler and Mauler? Very close game that ran almost to time with a victory for me.

At that point I was 2-1 and I got to return to the big kids table. 4) Met a Chewie, Biggs, Luke combo. Another tight game that turned out to be a dual at high noon. A battered red and a battered Luke with two shields.. thanks R2-D2. I lost the gunslinger match on that one. .. Great game.. two in a row. (Did I just hear the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly theme in the background?) 5) I once again got my rump handed to me from a Wedge, Biggs, and someone else. Just trashed me as the dice escaped me. 6) My first Tie swarm of the day. And all PS 6s to boot. I got very lucky. I had two range three, through the asteriod, Kill of named tie pilots. I'm thinking Backstabber and Dark Cures. It came down to two Bs and Howler. She died.

Ok, I dislike tie swarms and I shout it from the tower from time to time. I have trouble killing them. It's just me. I don't do the math to the last chance to hit to kill. I play for the love of the game and the competition. I'll leave the numbers to my son, Starslinger72, I'll play with the cool looking ships.

Wisconsin did a hell of a job and not finishing in the top 8 got me home at 4ish. Long drive. But had a great time. It was good to see Hothie, and some other local area guys, as well as some guys from the Challenge against Cancer event.

Hope to catch up with you all at Chicago Regional in July. I should be playing and who knows the 4 Y-Wings may reappear for the heck of it.

Paul ran biggs walks the doggs:

Biggs

Rookies

2x Dagger + Adv sensors.

Wow, the OP kinda made my eyes bleed. And I'm not sure who this Howel guy is. But in all seriousness, the swarm is pretty deadly, but like people say, it does have its counters. Theorist had a really good blog that makes it seem like they'll be less popular soon, http://teamcovenant.com/theorist/2014/05/15/how-good-is-the-new-e-wing/,%C2' > not just because of Blount. Personally, I rarely run into other Tie players and have taken it in part to keep the Empire represented. It's also a lot of fun once the formation scatters. If you run into someone who doesn't force you to break formation and let's you keep everyone together, they're doing something wrong. I kind of don't like the Falcon just because I don't feel like I'm doing very much, just sort of lazing about with a turret, but that's just me.

The other reason Howlrunner is necessary is that 2-dice attacks can be fickle. Can't count the number of games where I've had a few well-positioned ties unable to hit turn after turn after turn. So yeah, they're tough, but they can fall apart really quickly. Same can be said of a lot of lists. And until wave 4 comes out, if you want to fly fighters, there aren't a lot of options for the Imperials that aren't liable to be crippled by a single bad roll one-shot.

It might have been Thurston Howel the III. Maybe? Just saying.

Am I showing my age here?