With running a large group of tie advanced and Soontir Fel..... rebels must attack Tie Advanced(because of escort) and will then take a auto damage because of Fel..... does that work?

Yes. It does work, but it takes 30 points. It may work, but it also may not work.

I thought of that too, and it might be pretty cool (if expensive). Vader's tokens should be a big help with the combo since they prevent him from going down too fast, and with him chipping in damage from his own shots as well, you should deal consistent damage. A few more interceptors and another advanced or two would you give you a pretty effetcive starfighter meatgrinder with a built-in meatshield.

The real question is whether or not that meatgrinder can outperform a TIE swarm, or even better, a TIE Interceptor swarm, led by Howlrunner. Either variant should churn out a ton of firepower per point, and should be able to easily eat up X-Wings and the like. I haven't done all the math yet, but my money is on one of those two combos being the most efficient at slaughtering enemy fighters.

Careful wen running the numbers based solely on fighter v fighter. I suspect that rebel fighters will usually have a capital nearby providing AA fire, especially given their low speed.

I thought of that too, and it might be pretty cool (if expensive). Vader's tokens should be a big help with the combo since they prevent him from going down too fast, and with him chipping in damage from his own shots as well, you should deal consistent damage. A few more interceptors and another advanced or two would you give you a pretty effetcive starfighter meatgrinder with a built-in meatshield.

The real question is whether or not that meatgrinder can outperform a TIE swarm, or even better, a TIE Interceptor swarm, led by Howlrunner. Either variant should churn out a ton of firepower per point, and should be able to easily eat up X-Wings and the like. I haven't done all the math yet, but my money is on one of those two combos being the most efficient at slaughtering enemy fighters.

The swarm approach would probably be more effective against Rebels. The meatgrinder would be better against Imperials running the swarm.

Careful wen running the numbers based solely on fighter v fighter. I suspect that rebel fighters will usually have a capital nearby providing AA fire, especially given their low speed.

Yeah, as someone who intends to play Rebels, this was the strategy I was also thinking of using. Basically screen for your fighters with your caps, and blow the swarm to hell if it gets close enough. One the other hand, this will be awkward considering the Rebel capital ships' propensity for long-range combat and their need to stay away from the Destroyer's short-range firepower.

I'm not sure how it will work out doing this dance between close support and standing off from enemy heavies, but I am eager to get it on the table and monkey around!

I thought of that too, and it might be pretty cool (if expensive). Vader's tokens should be a big help with the combo since they prevent him from going down too fast, and with him chipping in damage from his own shots as well, you should deal consistent damage. A few more interceptors and another advanced or two would you give you a pretty effetcive starfighter meatgrinder with a built-in meatshield.

The real question is whether or not that meatgrinder can outperform a TIE swarm, or even better, a TIE Interceptor swarm, led by Howlrunner. Either variant should churn out a ton of firepower per point, and should be able to easily eat up X-Wings and the like. I haven't done all the math yet, but my money is on one of those two combos being the most efficient at slaughtering enemy fighters.

The swarm approach would probably be more effective against Rebels. The meatgrinder would be better against Imperials running the swarm.

Yeah, Soontir and Vader will be a devastating combo against anything with only three health...TIEs will conveniently blow themselves up due to Fel's ability as they chew through Vader and an advanced or two.

Between these synergistic elite powers and the Imperial unique swarm ability I worry the slower Rebel ships will have a hard time breaking through Imp swarms. It kind of makes me wish the Rebels had a unique ability of their own, like the ability to make attacks at range 2 to represent that they have access to ordinance and TIEs largely are restricted to lasers.

Having Rebel capital ship support seems awkward for all kinds of reasons. One, the Rebels were much more starfighter reliant since they didn't have capital ships in the same numbers the Imperials did. That's why their starfighters are more robust, have shields, and can go to lightspeed -- their pilots were not expendable. So a pacing Rebel capital ship feels unfluffy and tactically weird. It's not like carriers follow their fighter wings into battle. That defeats the whole point of fightercraft. Otherwise we'd still be using battleships. Anybody else hear me on this??

Well rebels have their own elites too. Wedge is no slouch with dutch, Luke is going to be target #1 and Tycho has a lot of interesting applications running around engaging everyone. I think that a lot of the hype is because everyone wants to run the giant space triangle with its swarm of doombots.

Plus the rebels have a lot of nifty upgrades to help the fighters, gallant heart (pride?) Let's you ignore soontir fel if I'm reading it right, as well as mauler mithel. (I could be wrong of course, but its still a huge durability boost) and the squadron dude who let's you shoot twice can allow dutch and wedge to just one shot a howlrunner or soontir fel

R22: Torpedoes and missiles were in extremely short supply with the Rebellion (fixing ordnance supply issues was the main reason the Rebels were courting Adumar, roughly a decade after Endor), so I imagine their pilots being under strict orders not to burn precious warheads in dogfights, instead saving them for larger targets or stockpiling them for major offensives. Aside from fighter-to-fighter missiles breaking the illusion of Space WWII, it makes in-universe sense to have Rebel dogfighting stats exclude ordnance.

Between these synergistic elite powers and the Imperial unique swarm ability I worry the slower Rebel ships will have a hard time breaking through Imp swarms. It kind of makes me wish the Rebels had a unique ability of their own, like the ability to make attacks at range 2 to represent that they have access to ordinance and TIEs largely are restricted to lasers.

Having Rebel capital ship support seems awkward for all kinds of reasons. One, the Rebels were much more starfighter reliant since they didn't have capital ships in the same numbers the Imperials did. That's why their starfighters are more robust, have shields, and can go to lightspeed -- their pilots were not expendable. So a pacing Rebel capital ship feels unfluffy and tactically weird. It's not like carriers follow their fighter wings into battle. That defeats the whole point of fightercraft. Otherwise we'd still be using battleships. Anybody else hear me on this??

In Star Wars the carriers are battleships as well. There are very few pure carriers. Star Destroyers and Mon Cal cruisers are both battleship and fleet carrier.

Ordinance is represented by Bomber being all over the rebel fighters. A Wings don't get bomber but still get black dice against ships, missiles just aren't powerful enough to justify Bomber like torps do.

I agree with the bomber advantage for Rebels. I'm more curious about the idea of pacing starfighters with cap ships. That just seems to defeat the whole point of having long arm reach. Especially for Rebels, fighters were force multipliers particular since they didn't have the cap ships in Imperial numbers.

Without capital ship support, I just don't see how Rebel bombers could be effective, Ties are just so bloody cost effective. In a vacuum 6 Ties (48 points) should manhandle 4 X-Wings (52). However, it is very likely that Imperial screens will have their capital ships right at hand (what would they be screening otherwise?). 6 Ties including Howlrunner (56 points) with squadron commands could possibly beat, or at least go even with 6 X-wings (78 points) that don't have support. With the cap of 100 points into squadrons, that means 98 points into 6 X-wings and 2 Y-wings would only really have the 2 Y-wings and maybe an X-wing get out of the fur ball alive after several turns vs 56 points of screen. Then they would have to get in position and shoot before the game ended. 98 points for maybe only a few points of damage against a capital ship.

You will have to run something in close both to AoE the 3HP ties and give squadron commands so your bombers will actually be able to get in range and fire at the enemy's moving ships. There is pretty much no other way to make B-wings work. This also means that by shooting at the tie squadrons, you won't be able to shoot at the Star Destroyers that would be in the same arc as their screens.

I can see how Tie bombers work, but I'm really not sure how the Rebel escorted bombing run will play out without seeing it on the table. The numbers are pretty wonky.

Well quite simply the board size will help. It won't probably be feasible to devote 100% of your fighters to one ship, so you won't see 6 ties vs 4 x wings. You'll more likely see 3 ties versus 2 x wings, as board control will be important. This game doesn't appear to be solely about killing the opponent, and if you deploy with everything together your giving the rebels 2/3 of the board given the lack of speed of your caps.

I think that there aren't going to really be a lot of pitched all in fights with the fighters, because if you have to control 3 objectives in each third of the board, I just send my fighters to your unprotected ship. Or let you spread yours out, diminishing the numbers advantage. There's a lot of small nuisances that should prevent the tie swarm from being too effective.

Well quite simply the board size will help. It won't probably be feasible to devote 100% of your fighters to one ship, so you won't see 6 ties vs 4 x wings. You'll more likely see 3 ties versus 2 x wings, as board control will be important. This game doesn't appear to be solely about killing the opponent, and if you deploy with everything together your giving the rebels 2/3 of the board given the lack of speed of your caps.

I think that there aren't going to really be a lot of pitched all in fights with the fighters, because if you have to control 3 objectives in each third of the board, I just send my fighters to your unprotected ship. Or let you spread yours out, diminishing the numbers advantage. There's a lot of small nuisances that should prevent the tie swarm from being too effective.

The 6 rounds seems really limiting, with the engineering repairs and defense tokens, where few big ships are going to die unless you throw everything at one turn after turn.

Well quite simply the board size will help. It won't probably be feasible to devote 100% of your fighters to one ship, so you won't see 6 ties vs 4 x wings. You'll more likely see 3 ties versus 2 x wings, as board control will be important. This game doesn't appear to be solely about killing the opponent, and if you deploy with everything together your giving the rebels 2/3 of the board given the lack of speed of your caps.

I think that there aren't going to really be a lot of pitched all in fights with the fighters, because if you have to control 3 objectives in each third of the board, I just send my fighters to your unprotected ship. Or let you spread yours out, diminishing the numbers advantage. There's a lot of small nuisances that should prevent the tie swarm from being too effective.

The 6 rounds seems really limiting, with the engineering repairs and defense tokens, where few big ships are going to die unless you throw everything at one turn after turn.

That's the point. This is an objective based game. If all you do is try and destroy your opponent you might kill more of them than they do of you, but they'll get the objective.

Personally I prefer games where the goal isn't to simply table the opposition, but instead to play towards a goal.

Well quite simply the board size will help. It won't probably be feasible to devote 100% of your fighters to one ship, so you won't see 6 ties vs 4 x wings. You'll more likely see 3 ties versus 2 x wings, as board control will be important. This game doesn't appear to be solely about killing the opponent, and if you deploy with everything together your giving the rebels 2/3 of the board given the lack of speed of your caps.

I think that there aren't going to really be a lot of pitched all in fights with the fighters, because if you have to control 3 objectives in each third of the board, I just send my fighters to your unprotected ship. Or let you spread yours out, diminishing the numbers advantage. There's a lot of small nuisances that should prevent the tie swarm from being too effective.

The 6 rounds seems really limiting, with the engineering repairs and defense tokens, where few big ships are going to die unless you throw everything at one turn after turn.

That's the point. This is an objective based game. If all you do is try and destroy your opponent you might kill more of them than they do of you, but they'll get the objective.

Personally I prefer games where the goal isn't to simply table the opposition, but instead to play towards a goal.