I played it last night, though I didn't play a "standard" swarm. It was an "upgraded" swarm, not using Howlrunner, so the risk of being destroyed by assault missiles was less, since each ship had the ability to fly on it's own.

His list was:

4x Bandit

4x Tala

My list was:

3x Black Squad w/Predator

1x Black Squad x/Outmaneuver

Backstabber

Dark Curse

so 8 z-95's vs 6 TIEs.

It was pretty close for awhile but I was able to get the win. The TIE's better handling proved to be one of the biggest factors. Also the upgrades.

Honestly - Predator is probably the single most awesome card in the game.

Given the contention that some people threw against me when I first mentioned it, it feels really nice to see so many people doing so well with Predatory Black Squadrons. Glad you were able to take the Z-95s out, show those rebel scum who's boss.

Also, that's an excellent use of those tiles…

Also, congratulations on winning against superior numbers with nothing but TIEs… that's actually quite hard to do...

I cannot stress enough how awesome Predator is. Its absolutely brutal against spam weenie lists. Basically there are 2 ways of looking at it:

1) its like having Howlrunner but you dont have to fly in formation

2) its like have PTL and always taking a target lock + something else, you dont eat stress, and you can use it when you k turn.

Its hands down the best upgrade in the game. I want to go out and buy a fourth Defender just to get it.

On to the TIE/F Swarm vs Bandit Swarm: I honestly think that the TIE should always win that match up. The Zs have an extra shield on them, but the TIEs have evades, barrel rolls and a better dial.

Well if you do 12's vs 12's, the Z-95 could win due to pilot skill. However, going with a serious build I'm just not sure.

Next time I fly this build I hope to go up against a smaller Z-Swarm with missiles, etc.

And yes yes yes to Predator! I've come to hate green dice. They have been awful and you simply cannot ever COUNT on them. Range 3 obstructed shot? Sure I'll roll 5 dice - all blanks. Bleh, dice shaming inc.

But with Predator- even if you get denied an action, you STILL can manipulate your attack roll a little - and even more against PS 2 or lower.

Thanks for running this I was wondering how it would do.

The Zs really need to bring missiles into the fight to even it up a bit. 2 attack dice are going to have issues doing reliable damage against 3 and 4 evade dice. Do an evade action, which with Predator doesn't hurt your offense too much and you are pretty much killing your opponents chance of doing damage.

No you aren't. It's not like they are only going to shoot one z-95 at one TIE. You are supposed to focus fire - so even if the 1st Z-95 deals no damage the next one should

Crabbok, great report. That is an excellent Tie swarm squad, it really accents the Tie's maneuverabilities. It also shows the weakness of the Z95 (that without missiles - they are just blockers (not unlike the Academy Ties)).

Did you film this battle? It is interesting that you said this battle was somewhat close at the beginning, seeing the Empire had init, special skills and the higher PS. The rebel does have the higher number of ships, but not overwhelmly so - like one would encounter with Ties vs X-wings (2 to 1). I enjoy watching your X-wing battle reports.

A Z-only swarm is probably optimized at 6 or 7 Z-95s with a few missiles deployed among them.

Thanks

Good job Crabbie!

I'm very curios to see what would win in a straight fight, sans upgrades

Crabbok, great report. That is an excellent Tie swarm squad, it really accents the Tie's maneuverabilities. It also shows the weakness of the Z95 (that without missiles - they are just blockers (not unlike the Academy Ties)).

Did you film this battle? It is interesting that you said this battle was somewhat close at the beginning, seeing the Empire had init, special skills and the higher PS. The rebel does have the higher number of ships, but not overwhelmly so - like one would encounter with Ties vs X-wings (2 to 1). I enjoy watching your X-wing battle reports.

A Z-only swarm is probably optimized at 6 or 7 Z-95s with a few missiles deployed among them.

Thanks

I didn't film it. Maybe next weekend I'll try to film one of these, but against a more relevant Z-95 swarm... hopefully with some upgrades. I think that would have more value to the viewer. I expected that my TIE swarm would win this battle, due to the upgrades. Now if you see me take this same build up against a build of 5 or 6 z-95's with Blount and Assault Missiles.... then you've got a REALLY interesting fight, and a great representation of the new meta. That is a game I'd want to film.

The only problem with that is it may run long - so I'd probably time the game and announce where it ends for tournament purposes... but then let us play it out for fun.

I'm very curios to see what would win in a straight fight, sans upgrades

It would be interesting, but good luck getting 2 people to fly that - it generally takes forever with 16 ships on the board - and would be so boring!

I'm very curios to see what would win in a straight fight, sans upgrades

Tie's have an edge according to http://xwingdice.com/... (all xwingdice.com math includes crits)

2 red vs 3 Green (Z attacking Tie)

Expected damage per attack: 0.379626210739 (so 1 damage dealt for every 3 ships that fire)

Tie would take basically 9 attacks to be killed in short term.

2 red vs 2 Green (Tie attacking Z)

Expected damage per attack: 0.542787446127 (so 1 damage dealt for every 2 ships that fire)

Z would take basically 8 attacks to be killed in short term.

Now if you spread the expected damage % across ALL shots in the match...

8 Tie with 3 HP = 24 HP = 64 shots to kill all Ties

8 Z with 4 HP = 32 HP = 59 shots to kill all Zs

So straight up attack vs def dice see the Tie being 5 shots more efficient which is basically half a round. Obviously this isn't taking actions, shields, crit damage cards, maneuvering into account.

yeah but if you figure the Z's are going to shoot first - so in a straight up fight if all Z;s focus fire, they will at LEAST kill one TIE, if not two. Then they immediatley have the advantage since those ships won't be able to return fire.

Oh yes, dice are fickle things.
What was that saying, "Dice are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get" or something like that.

My list was:

3x Black Squad w/Predator

1x Black Squad x/Outmaneuver

Backstabber

Dark Curse

Honestly - Predator is probably the single most awesome card in the game.

I ran a list almost exactly the same last thursday and agree that predator won the day. Black squadrons with predator do exceptionally well.

Tie's have an edge according to http://xwingdice.com/... (all xwingdice.com math includes crits)

2 red vs 3 Green (Z attacking Tie)

Expected damage per attack: 0.379626210739 (so 1 damage dealt for every 3 ships that fire)

Tie would take basically 9 attacks to be killed in short term.

2 red vs 2 Green (Tie attacking Z)

Expected damage per attack: 0.542787446127 (so 1 damage dealt for every 2 ships that fire)

Z would take basically 8 attacks to be killed in short term.[/size]

Now if you spread the expected damage % across ALL shots in the match...[/size]

8 Tie with 3 HP = 24 HP = 64 shots to kill all Ties[/size]

8 Z with 4 HP = 32 HP = 59 shots to kill all Zs[/size]

So straight up attack vs def dice see the Tie being 5 shots more efficient which is basically half a round. Obviously this isn't taking actions, shields, crit damage cards, maneuvering into account.

It's more appropriate to use the "simple damage" for the first two Z-95 HPs and "real damage" for the second two.

With a 5-shot difference between the two squads, I think it'll turn out that the small difference in the expected damage output will be significant.

With shields, expected damage for a Z-95 shot by a TIE fighter is 0.50781244.

Without shields, expected damage is, as stated, 0.542787446127.

The expected number of TIE fighter shots for a Z-95 to survive is therefore 7.6231 (versus 7.3694 if you don't count the difference between crits on shields versus crits on hull).

For a TIE fighter, where you don't have to consider shields, expected damage is, as before, 0.379626210739.

The expected number of Z-95 shots for a TIE fighter to survive is 7.9025.

So now, if we have 8 Z-95's versus 8 TIE fighters, disregarding focus/rerolls/evades as before, we expect:

63 (63.220) shots for the Z-95's to take out the TIEs.

61 (60.985) shots for the TIEs to take out the Z-95's.

Again, this does not take into account focus/evade/target lock.

My conclusion is a little different than the earlier conclusion: half a round's difference? Nah. The difference is a mere 2 shots more for the Z-95's, which is a far narrower margin than was previously claimed. Given the 1 PS difference, the Z-95's win, because they all get to shoot before the TIE's get their chance.

This is exactly why I'm reluctant to run 8 Headhunters. I'd rather do 6 or 7 and have room for upgrades or a named pilot.

So straight up attack vs def dice see the Tie being 5 shots more efficient which is basically half a round.

You seem to be looking at damage as a constant, which is not true.

In the first round the Z's which will fire first should kill 2 Ties, that reduces the damage output of the Ties by 4 dice.

I ran the numbers giving both sides a offensive focus, and the Z-95's come out ahead, because they fire first. That means they're always throwing more dice then the Ties are. This of course doesn't take into account maneuvers and the like, and assumes that all ships will have a target to shoot at each round.

So the Ties can and even likely may win in a 8v8 fight, but only if they can get into places where they can shoot at but not be shot back.

See, there's much more to this game than simple math. That's why I really wanna see a couple vids of 8v8.

In the first round the Z's which will fire first should kill 2 Ties, that reduces the damage output of the Ties by 4 dice.

And since when do the dice in this game ever do what they're supposed to?

8v8 tie vs 95' is close enough that it really is going to come down to pilot skill (not PS, YOUR piloting abilities) and the dice.. when you start getting into .5420584e092384 probabilities vs .503234255 chance of hits, the game is going to come down to who maneuvers better or who's hot on the ro sham bo's.

sure we can all agree both ships are slightly different. One has an extra HP and shields / the other has an extra agility and lower PS. The dials are slightly different. action bars are also slightly different. The real game changer is one or two turns of bad positioning or dice favouring one player over the other.

And since when do the dice in this game ever do what they're supposed to?

Very true I was looking at the expected avg, which is useful when comparing ships.

When looking at a naked 8 list, I think the Ties have an advantage, between 3 agl and barrel roll they're better that way then the Z's are.

I think the real powerhouse Z swarm is 6 ships with missiles.

I'd agree with black squadron pilots. That elite pilot talent slot on such a cheap fighter makes for a deadly little ship, and 'action-free' talents like Predator or Veteran Instincts makes them doubly deadly.

The named TIEs make for an especially deadly force, too - most of them have extremely good pilot talent as well as good pilot skill for a pittance of points.

Well flown!