the future of tie swarms?

By Blail Blerg, in X-Wing

going into wave 5, with the Phantom with 4 dice and the the Outrider with 4 dice, it seems that there are going to be a lot more ways of getting one shot quickly as a tie fighter. Also, the Decimator alows for various other Imperial builds which could increase the chance of Phantoms.

How do you think the Tie Swarm specifically will do going forward?

I feel like the chance of getting 1 shot goes up quite a bit when you're talking about 4 guns instead.

The shark. The Shark. THE SHARK!!!!!!

The way I am testing is the TIE ORK HORDE.

It's basically TIE's with ruthlessness. It's anti biggs fort, anti y-wing fort, anti swarm. and depending on hans escorts - anti fat han.

Even with a 4 dice attack, the odds of a tie fighter (assuming it has a focus) getting 1-shotted are kind of low. You would have to get 4/4 hits and the tie would have to get at least 2 blanks.

Poor, poor Fel...

http://xwingdice.com/diceresults.php

^so that site isnt updated enough to turn off the crits from HLC, but its good enought to show approx damage. A focused and target locked HLC against a unfocused TIE fighter does have a decent chance of one shotting it (4 red vs 3 green)

Ive seen a few good decimator/phantom builds that have a lot of potential, but I think swarms and mini swarms will remain viable.

Decimator should be pretty easy to outmaneuver with Ties. its shooting you every turn, but just stay behind it at range 1 to 2. Outrider is the exact opposite. If your running 6-8 TIES, do anything you can to block him in and be at range 1. (obviously this is much easier said than done)

Yes, the chance of killing a TIE in one shot goes up, but dumping a ton of points into that one ship means a lot less to support it. So the volume of fire from an Outrider list is lower than a list that just spams 2-3 dice attacks at you, and it's very likely that its average TIE kills per turn is lower. These high-PS big guns are great for dealing with elite lists that only have a few ships on the table, but the swarm can still overwhelm them with tons of dice and HP.

Just a thought, what about taking the Evade action instead? The problem is that he will shoot whichever TIE takes Focus instead, so you're stuck making everybody take Evade, which could amount to a lot of wasted actions.

The shark. The Shark. THE SHARK!!!!!!

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Yes, the chance of killing a TIE in one shot goes up, but dumping a ton of points into that one ship means a lot less to support it. [...]

But with the new game... the rebels have a decent filler too, the Z-95.

Maybe the mini-swarm works when paired with a high attack, but their fragility's starting to become a real liability in my games, one that numbers don't quite make up for when they're only rolling 2 attack. If the rumors about an upgrade to help against turrets are true it'll definitely help the Tie Interceptor, but since you just need lots of Tie Fighters out there, I imagine that they'll go into decline. The staying power was what made up for the low and often unreliable attack, but without that, and ships that are invulnerable once they get you down to 1 or 2 Ties, it's just not the same.

Edited by PenguinBonaparte

Yes, the chance of killing a TIE in one shot goes up, but dumping a ton of points into that one ship means a lot less to support it. [...]

But with the new game... the rebels have a decent filler too, the Z-95.

yes, but the imperials don't have a Jan/HWK equivalent for letting their new turret throw 4-5 red dice at ranges 2 and 3. Z-95s also have that extra hit point which makes them more durable when facing Dash with an HLC. TIEs can be pretty fragile when the dice gods focus their wrath on you

going into wave 5, with the Phantom with 4 dice and the the Outrider with 4 dice, it seems that there are going to be a lot more ways of getting one shot quickly as a tie fighter. Also, the Decimator alows for various other Imperial builds which could increase the chance of Phantoms.

How do you think the Tie Swarm specifically will do going forward?

I feel like the chance of getting 1 shot goes up quite a bit when you're talking about 4 guns instead.

I would think that the Decimator would be uniquely vulnerable to large numbers of red dice being thrown its way.

Thinking about Paul Heaver's list and what makes Corran so deadly, I wonder if we'll get some way to regenerate on the Imperial side soon. The Decimator's great, but I wonder if they'll go down hard when put up against those really resilient Rebels.

As long as Academies can cause you to bump and lose your action the swarm will be strong.

Aways.

Edited by All Shields Forward

Yeah, I'm with All Shields Forward on this. The Academy Pilot always wins at the Musical Chairs of placement.

Has anyone tried a ton of TIEs with Stealth Devices? While TIEs can be one-shot, they still roll a ton of green dice for their cost.

You could just run the beefy swarm

Howl + upgrade

x5 Scimitar

scimitars won't get one shot

I've seen it run. Its a solid playable list, but gets chewed up by anything maneuverable.

http://xwingdice.com/diceresults.php

^so that site isnt updated enough to turn off the crits from HLC, but its good enought to show approx damage. A focused and target locked HLC against a unfocused TIE fighter does have a decent chance of one shotting it (4 red vs 3 green)

Ive seen a few good decimator/phantom builds that have a lot of potential, but I think swarms and mini swarms will remain viable.

It's 31% with four and a focus agains three without vs. 10% on three attack dice in the same situation. It's a significant increase.

I haven't played against Dash yet, but I've had no issues with blocking a Phantom's decloaking positions so that it can't decloak (and often bumps as well once it does move) and then blatting it with the other TIE's. I suspect I'll handle Dash in the same manner by blocking to prevent actions, ideally with him stuck on an asteroid so that he can't shoot either and then blat him.

TIE Swarms are yesterday.

Yeah, I'm with All Shields Forward on this. The Academy Pilot always wins at the Musical Chairs of placement.

Has anyone tried a ton of TIEs with Stealth Devices? While TIEs can be one-shot, they still roll a ton of green dice for their cost.

I occasionally put one on Howlrunner and almost always put one on Dark Curse when I run him