Hey guys,

A bit of a long time lurker here, first time poster. My buddy and I regularly play against each other to work the kinks out of a few lists and he came up with this, and I just have a tough time dealing with it using Empire.

Here's his list:

Tarn Mison

R7 Astromech

B-wing Blue Squadron

Advanced Sensors

B-wing Blue Squadron

Advanced Sensors

B-Wing Blue Squadron

Advanced Sensors

Here's what I was using:

Echo

Recon, Fire Control, VI, Advanced Cloaking

Backstabber

Howlrunner

2x Obsidian pilots.

I'm not too sure what I'm doing wrong. I feel like I'm flying the list right, but my Tie fighters just go down like flies early on. Any help is appreciated

Hes super tanky and youre not which is not a slight against you. theres a reason why BBBBZ is super effective.

Either go whole hog with a swarm ( i like 4X academy, 2X BSP + swarm, Howl+ swarm) or get something that will dish out some damage and take a few rounds of hits...buzzsaw? 3 bounty hunters?

Or a bomber swarm:

3x scimitars: 1 with proton and sesimic, 1 with concussion seismic, 1 assault and seismic

Captain Jonus +assault+VI++seismic+ shield

I think you're almost guaranteed to lose the mini-swarm in this matchup if your opponent goes after it. Strangely enough, though, that is actually what you should want. If you can trade the mini-swarm for 2 B-wings (and ideally some damage on a third), you should be able to have Echo run rings around the surviving ships and mop them up at your leisure. With the PS advantage across the board, 8 dice and Howlrunner rerolls from the TIE swarm, and Echo chipping in with another 4 dice from the flanks it should be possible.

One change that might help is dropping Backstabber to another Obsidian and giving Howlrunner a Stealth Device or Hull Upgrade, or upgrading an Obsidian to a Black Squadron and giving it Draw Their Fire. Something to help keep Howlrunner and her lovely rerolls around that little bit longer.

I agree with above that your list should be able to deal with that. However, I think Backstabber is a bit odd here. If you flank with Echo & Backstabber, your opponent might turn into them and gun for Echo (you need him to survive to end game if you want to win, so that's bad for you). If you keep Echo with the rest of your TIEs, you run the risk of getting Echo too close to the furball and have decloak options taken away from you due to all the ships getting close around her. I think Draco's advice about dropping backstabber makes a lot of sense. Then use Echo as a flanker.

Don't forget to keep your asteroids in the extreme corners. And under the new FAQ you will definitely want the smallest 3 asteroids as your choice since your list hates them. Also, try to take the fight to the open spaces of the board where you can keep up the joust and just trade all your TIE fighters for as many b-wings as possible. Echo can handily beat 1 B + Tarn in the endgame (although the new FAQ means you will have to be a little more careful how you use Echo...)