To help myself better understand all the fighters we're going to get our hands on soon I'm going to look into each Squadron and try and see how it would best be utilized in our fleets. To start I'm going to look at the most unappreciated ship (based on the limited feedback I've seen in the few hours since the article dropped), the TIE/A.

We start with the base, non-hero squad:

What immediately sticks out about the Advance Squad? It is expensive, 12 points makes it the highest base cost of any Imperial Squad. 5 Hull makes it the most resilient Imp squad, but 3 attack dice is decidedly average.

Why would we want it in our fleet? It adds durability to our weaker, higher attack-cost ratio TIE/Lns. Maybe in a 3:1 ratio they could be useful there.

What can't it do? Cover TIE/sa. The Bomber has the same hull value, but is much cheaper and provides better anti-ship (arguably the more important) batteries. Cover TIE/In. They want to be shot at, that's what Counter is for.

All-in-all it doesn't seem like a genuinely great ship, but there is an intriguing combo:

Soontir Fel + 2-3 Advances. The Baron of the Empire's ability doesn't specify the enemy has to actually have the capability of targeting him to suffer from his effect. The advances have great durability and Fel grants them a pseudo Counter, also greatly boosting his own endurance by making him untargetable(ish). Escorting other heroes is a viable use of Advances as well.

Next:

Darth Vader :

21 Points for a 4 Dice (1 is Black) attack that can also damage with Crits (the only squad in the game that can do this, Bomber only effects ships), giving him an average of 3.25 Damage per attack (3 blue attacks give 2.25 damage, 1 black gives 1 damage, average). He also has 2 Brace tokens (a distinct disadvantage compared to heroes with a Disperse token).

What is he good for?

Escorting Bombers. I know I said Advances shouldn't escort bombers, but Vader's extra attack and ability to gain pseudo crits makes him work well with Rhymer or even other Bombers as protection against enemy superiority fighters.

Pairing with Fel. Even better than a normal advance, he can brace to increase his longevity, allowing even more use out of Fel.

All in all I think the TIE/x1 has an important place in the Imperial Arsenal, but it definitely requires a bit more thought than other fighters as to its use.

We may be greatly underestimating the power of the Escort keyword. Both the X-Wing and the TIE Advanced seem to be a little bit overcosted by raw stats alone, but they also have the ability to take the pressure off of your more vulnerable (or valuable) squadrons. Escort lets you break one of the fundamental rules of the game, and those kind of abilities can be extremely powerful. The X-Wing and TIE/A will always have a role--if you need to break that rule, they are the only squadrons that can do it.

Yes I was thinking that the x-wing and TIE Advances are very similar. It will be hard to tell until we all have a few games under our belts how good or bad they really are.

I disagree that advances shouldn't be used as escorts. The ability to prevent an enemy from shooting what he wants to shoot is a tremendous advantage, and as bombers have an utterly sad anti fighter capability, you want them out of the fighting as much as you can. Any bomber caught by an enemy fighter is pretty much dead meat, five hull or no.

I posted a similar idea yesterday. Fel + Interceptors + TIEAdvs. Fel and TIEAdvs engage the enemy, Interceptors attack with Swarm re-roll. Ensuing turns enemy has to shoot at TIEAdv, earning counter fire from Fel. Once the TIEAdv are down, enemy is still being punished during their attack phase by the Interceptors' counter attacks. Should be able to grind down opposing squadrons quite nicely.

Regarding Vader, it is an interesting exercise to figure out whether he is better than two vanilla TIEAdv squadrons (which are only 3 points more).

I disagree that advances shouldn't be used as escorts. The ability to prevent an enemy from shooting what he wants to shoot is a tremendous advantage, and as bombers have an utterly sad anti fighter capability, you want them out of the fighting as much as you can. Any bomber caught by an enemy fighter is pretty much dead meat, five hull or no.

The problem is TIE/In want to be shot at, and TIE/Ln are actually better point per shot, so escorting Interceptors is a waste. Bombers could be escorted, but there are some problems:

1) Bombers are cheaper, and have the same hull. Simply adding another TIE/sa will do the same to increase the longevity of the bomber squad while being cheaper and adding the possibility for another crit against Caps.

2) Advances lack the fire power to 'clear' enemies while escorting. If Advances are escorting bombers then the enemy squads will win that engagement over time, unless they are intercepting you with Y-Wings. The purpose of an escort (for bombers) is to protect and clear enemy space superiority fighters, allowing the bombers to target the Caps, but Advances don't do this well enough.

So Advances work well as escorts, but for TIE Fighters. Especially with Swarm. Fire off the Advance, it 'engages' the enemy, fires its shots. Then a TIE/Ln comes and gets to benefit from its Swarm rule, because the Advance is engaging the enemy.

Now throwing in an injured TIE/In into a group containing an Advance is useful, but apart from that I don't see escorting Interceptors as ever being too useful. The extra 3 points that they cost really requires Counter to make worth its while.

The problem is TIE/In want to be shot at, and TIE/Ln are actually better point per shot, so escorting Interceptors is a waste. Bombers could be escorted, but there are some problems:

1) Bombers are cheaper, and have the same hull. Simply adding another TIE/sa will do the same to increase the longevity of the bomber squad while being cheaper and adding the possibility for another crit against Caps.

2) Advances lack the fire power to 'clear' enemies while escorting. If Advances are escorting bombers then the enemy squads will win that engagement over time, unless they are intercepting you with Y-Wings. The purpose of an escort (for bombers) is to protect and clear enemy space superiority fighters, allowing the bombers to target the Caps, but Advances don't do this well enough.

So Advances work well as escorts, but for TIE Fighters. Especially with Swarm. Fire off the Advance, it 'engages' the enemy, fires its shots. Then a TIE/Ln comes and gets to benefit from its Swarm rule, because the Advance is engaging the enemy.

Now throwing in an injured TIE/In into a group containing an Advance is useful, but apart from that I don't see escorting Interceptors as ever being too useful. The extra 3 points that they cost really requires Counter to make worth its while.

Don't forget that, once engaged, fighters cannot fire at capital ships until the engaged fighters are destroyed. So once a bomber is engaged by an enemy fighter, he has to destroy the enemy fighter before he can attack a capital ships. Something that, with their poor fighter attack value, is going to be next to impossible. Taking more bombers isn't a good answer in this case, since even if you bring twice the bombers they'll just be ground to dust two or three turns longer.

I agree that Advances don't quite stack up against X-wings when it comes to being bomber escorts, but they are still the best escorts we have for our bombers by virtue of being the only Imperial ship with the Escort keyword. Like you said yourself, Interceptors want to be shot at, so that's exactly what any sane player won't do. They'll kill the bombers first, then worry about the Interceptors, who themselves are far less of a threat to capital ships.

The problem is Escort doesn't prevent engaged. If an X-wing (or A) intercepts your 2 Bombers and 1 Advance then all three of your ships are tied up until the enemy is dead. All Escort does is prevent the enemy from attacking your bombers until the Advance is dead.

Imps don't really want to 'escort' bombers at all. They want to use their superior speed to TIE up the enemy in a forward position, allowing the bombers to just fly straight past and hit the Caps.

Rebels have much slower Bombers and they actually need to be escorted because Imps have an easy time intercepting Squads. (Also why Reb bombers have better anti-squad fire)

Iseewutyoudidthere.

*ahem* the problem with that tactic is that most TIE's.... aren't that durable. Most rebel fighters are slow, true, but that also means they'll be much closer to their ships when the intercepting squadrons tie them up. Which means it's also much easier for them to intercept the Bombers when they've dealt with the 3 hull TIE's. Assuming the 3 hull TIE's don't get blown to bit by capital ship anti-fighter fire. 3 hull can be surprisingly little when something along the lines of 3 Corvette's throw 6 dice at every fighter in their arcs. Before the rebel fighters take their shots.

It's a tactic, but one that stands and falls with the enemy fleet composition and manoeuvres. But a Bomber with an escort stands a much better chance of survival than a Bomber without one. Sure, they may be tied up a bit longer, but at least they'll survive. Any Bomber that encounters a rebel fighter without an escort? Dead.