Ever tried to put together the maximum number of primary attack dice in a list? Find anything interesting? I did...
The Hard limit is the same for both factions... (As of wave 4)
Imperials - 16 dice.
Rebels - 16 dice.
I've been unable to fit more attack dice in either. This by itself may not be incredibly interesting - but the number of ways to reach the maximum attack dice IS interesting - and here we find that the rebels actually have a 14 die soft limit, with a 12-14 die range, and the imperials quickly hit a 15 die soft limit...
(The soft limit is where you'll find far more builds can end up. Just play around with rebel builds to see how many attack dice you can squeeze into them (ignoring ordnance for now to see what I mean.))
Consider the following Imperial Builds...
Phantom x4 (16 attack dice)
Tie Fighter x8 (16 attack dice)
The existence of the phantom allows for several mixed builds that push up to 16 dice. Since the Rebels can only field 4 attack through a secondary (HLC), which costs at a minimum 29 points. Given that 2 bandit squadron z-95s cost 24 points - you cannot substitute one HLC b-wing for 2 bandits freely, as you can nearly freely substitute one phantom for 2 tie fighters.
I haven't worked out the individual number of imperial combinations of primary dice at 16 dice, but it's fairly trivial to notice that the only way for a 100 point rebel list to reach 16 dice is through 8 bandit squadron pilots. (Rebel aces will allow for 7 bandits and a prototype a-wing with chaardan refit.)
This means, it may be time to look at the spread of hitpoints to attack dice and remainder damage. Noting that the phantom has 4 hit points, (shields are not equivalent to hull, but...) and 4 attack dice. Losing a single phantom in the 4 phantom list will drop your available attack dice and HP by 1/4th, but 4 hp would only drop 1/8th of your tie swarm (assuming discreet drops as each ship actually dies)
We see some interesting things with the phantoms damage resolution, namely that if a phantom rolls 4 hits against a tie fighter with 2 HP remaining (Which miraculously rolls all blanks), 2 hits are completely wasted. In this case, a second tie fighter would be able to fire at an altogether different target. So, we can extrapolate that we gain some useful tactical advantage from having more resolution in our attacks, so that we can more effectively spread our damage across multiple targets, and waste fewer attack dice where they aren't needed. (This is part of the power of the tie swarm that is less often talked about.)
Simultaneously, large attack values (such as the 4 attack of the phantom) have the ability to punch through higher agility, breaching defenses that a lower attack value would be unable to touch. (e.g. c3p0 + falcon title chewie is pretty much immune to a single tie fighter outside of range 1).
Given these two concepts, is there a way to maximize our available damage resolution and attack power? Consider the following 97 point list...
Sigma Phantom (4)
Alpha Squadron X2 (6)
Academy Pilot X3 (6)
Here - we manage 16 attack dice, over 6 ships, with 3 points to spare - we can actually trade an alpha squadron for an omicron group shuttle, and increase our total HP to 26 (more than in an 8 tie swarm, and with shields!) We have the ability to punch through varying agility, and assign dice where we need them, with a similar primary attack profile to the 8 tie swarm.)
I haven't taken the time to work out the differential equations - cause i'm lazy and i'm going with my gut, but I'd be willing to bet that a swarmish list (5-7 ships) with different attack powers, maximizing the number of attack dice and HP ought to be able to do fairly well if you can find a way to usefully fly it. Of course will still have all of our other list building concerns (pilot skill, upgrades, deployment etc...).
I think it's fairly interesting that the phantom has given us a large number of ways to reach the 16 die value, (yet we still cant break this "intrinsic" core game limit (without ordnance)). The imperials are currently better suited to building lists at 16 dice, but you could apply this logic to rebel builds, provided you're willing to settle for a lower maximum number of attack dice.
p.s. I've not looked at "one time" alpha strikes, which can get quite large given cluster missiles.
p.p.s. Howlrunner is an interesting beast, as in some ways her reroll is equivalent to an extra attack die - giving 6 tie fighters and howlrunner a pseudo 20 attack dice. I'm going with the idea that wherever we would have points for howlrunner and multiple ships, she would offer a simmilar boost to other lists. (Just plug her into the list above - Phantom + omg + howl + 3 academies....) Theres enough here to mathwing about before we decide to plug in howlrunner, so i've just left her out in the cold....
p.p.p.s. There's another bonus to the fewer ships vs more ships - which is that fewer ships, while increasing the amount your list lost when you lose a ship, also consist of less surface area, which is good for being targeted less - but also have fewer total attacks for our attack distributions, which comes with its own trade off of increased / decreased number of defense rolls which also varies with agi...
Edited by Ravncat