I played against three BTL Y wings with ICTs and one bomb armed Y wing (all scum ships at PS2) and tore them apart with five scyk interceptors (four cartel spacers , one stock the others had either a mangler, ion, or heavey laser cannon on and they were led by serissu)

So i mean my scyk list isnt strong, its just fun but the Y wing list struggled against it.

I dont think a 4 BTL with ICTs locked forwardss is a great allrounder as they just couldnt land a hit on evading scyks with serissue in close formation.

The "problem" with facing BBBBZ is the same as the problem with facing an 8-TIE swarm. That's because, for all intents and purposes, BBBBZ is a swarm, which means it has a couple of important properties.

(1) It's extremely efficient.

BBBBZ spends all its points improving its stat line, rather than on upgrades. This means, among other things, that's it's very dangerous in the current metagame. The size of the typical list has been shrinking steadily for a year now, and small lists are typically less efficient (sometimes much less efficient) than swarms.

(2) Its most viable counter is another swarm.

Swarms are sort of self-limiting in this way: they are their own counter, which holds down their prominence in the metagame to some degree. (The more swarms there are floating around, the more likely they are to meet each other.)

(3) You can outfly it.

Because swarms typically incorporate bare-bones ships, they don't have the PS to reposition themselves well. BBBBZ, like a TIE swarm, can barrel-roll but does so at the cost of offense, since a ship that uses a barrel roll can't focus.

Swarms also like to stay in at least a loose formation, since a lot of their strength comes from overlapping firing arcs and the ability to concentrate fire on a single target. If you are able to divide them or pull them through a set of obstacles--and rocks are better at this than debris--they'll arrive at the fight more slowly and less organized, which gives you a chance to take them apart before they do the same to you.

My experience with BBBBZ is limited, but I think as some others have said, tactically, you don't want to play 'their' game. They like jousts. They like short range in-close trading of shots. They LOVE a cluster of asteroids where ships circle around or k-turn in close to the asteroids trying to get as many shots on each other as possible.

So you need to not do that. Fly in range, take some shots (preferrably range 3 if you can manage it) and then hard turn or straight 5 out of their arc and get some distance, turn around and do it again. Makes for a somewhat slow paced match, but in a tourney, if you can get an early ship lead and then fly defensively, you will probably win.

The only way to face them head on and aggressively is to bring more ships. TIE swarm eats BBBBZ for breakfast.

I know you don't want list suggestions, OP, but given the fact that phantoms might be less common post-FAQ, the TIE fighter is likely to be coming back 'in vogue'.

Howlrunner + 4 academy TIEs

Soontir Fel w/ PtL & autothrusters

98 for a bit of an initiative bid. This is what I am looking forward to flying at Regionals, and I'm not too worried about BBBBZ

PS build for it. 4 Daggar B-wings with FCS chew through 4 blues and a Z.

That's 104 points.

Sorry, that should say Daggars with some FCS. I think you can do 3 daggars with fcs and 1 blue.

I took a surprising list against the BBBBZ swarm.

Soontir Fel

Push The Limit

Royal Guard TIE

Autothrusters

Targeting Computer

Delta Squadron Pilot X 2

Ion Cannon X 2

The B-Wings could never dodge the ion cannons which allowed the defenders to K-turn behind them. The game ended with one of my defenders having lost 2 shields and the entire BBBBZ swarm dead in 35 minutes.

Pair of named defenders with HLC will do it, shoot from range three then when they get close break off with a straight five followed by a four k and repeat.

I'd have thought the same thing would be better with ION cannons as you'll be locking down two B wings a turn, sure you wont be doing as much damage but they wont be firing back or even pointing the right way either!

Use Rexler to be really hurting them once you've got their shields down by making that one point of damage critical damage ever time?

5 Y's with locked down turrets. Nothing trashes high HP ships like 5 double taps at range 1.

5 Y's with locked down turrets. Nothing trashes high HP ships like 5 double taps at range 1.

But nothing gets trashed like 5 ships sporting 2 dice at Range 2-3.

I dont think the problem is coming up with a list that beats BBBBZ, it's coming up with a list that beats that list AND has a reasonably good chance against everything else thats out there. (Same as it used to be with Whisper, Fat Han etc).

Granted but i got the feeling the OP wanted something that tackles BBBBZ.

As in his regular opponents field it a lot.

Just the impression I got.

BBBBZ isn't a list my regular opponents play, but it's more that every time I'm matched against it in a tournament I'm unable to beat it. Sometimes that is due to the list I'm playing (ie. the goofy quad Y-Wing list) but more often than not it's the sheer strength of that build that just hammers me down. It's almost exclusively 60-minute tournaments here in South England, so quite a tough matchup regardless of my list.

I feel fairly confident tweaking a build to fare well against the modern meta and I'm a half-decent pilot, but this one matchup win has eluded me for so long.

A couple people have made some great suggestions, like any swarm, use rocks to try to disrupt thier attack angle, see if you can take off a ship before the rest of the squad can get shots. I haven't played with or against bbbbz yet, but I'd imagine I'd start with the z since its the quickest way to reduce thier firepower

It's almost exclusively 60-minute tournaments here in South England, so quite a tough matchup regardless of my list.

In that context, it's probably also worth noting that BBBBZ fares even better than a TIE swarm right now because it gives up MoV to its opponent more slowly.

Swarms in general are also (counterintuitively, for me) be very quick lists to plan and play--but playing against them (again, at least for me) can take slow, thoughtful, and careful management of movement in general and the initial approach especially. That can make them swarms even more fearsome in a timed format, because it changes the set of tactics you can realistically consider employing.

As far as dual IGs go, here are some tips:

- Use predator instead of push the limit (you'll have a much easier time k-turning and S-looping along with advanced sensor)

- Engage in the middle; do not fly along the edge of the board for a face off.

- Your first round of engagement should be at range 3 (should be easy to control that with their low PS). If the enemy is hugging the edge then do a straffing run along the center.

- Afterwards, disengage if need be (not S-looping or K-turning just yet). If the enemy follows you in the middle, you'll be golden. Disengaging should be easy since you have IG-88C in there for the free evade.

So overall, the more the fight reaches the middle, the better off you'll be.

I took a surprising list against the BBBBZ swarm.

Soontir Fel

Push The Limit

Royal Guard TIE

Autothrusters

Targeting Computer

Delta Squadron Pilot X 2

Ion Cannon X 2

The B-Wings could never dodge the ion cannons which allowed the defenders to K-turn behind them. The game ended with one of my defenders having lost 2 shields and the entire BBBBZ swarm dead in 35 minutes.

Are you focusing them down, or are you just taking shots of opportunity? The strength of BBBBZ is the high number of arcs and attacks they get each round combined with the high damage threshold of each ship. The key to beating them is to remove that strength by reducing their numbers as quickly as possible, and you have to focus your fire on the same ship every round to overcome that high damage threshold, or at least same 2 ships every other round if you have to dodge arcs.

2-ship builds are going to struggle against BBBBZ, they are a natural prey item for that list. A key is to not try to joust head-on with them, do hit-and-run attacks from the side of their formation instead where you attack at range 3 and then break off into an asteroid cluster where they might have to break up to follow you.

Mobility is key vs. the B swarm (try and swap Vader for Mara on the Decimator and you'll see) and:

Deployed asteroids as far apart as possible to give myself room to move.

Was a mistake imho, IGs hate when asteroids are clustered in the middle as it severely limits their superior manoeuvrability.

Haven't had much of a issue with 3-4 rocks in the middle of most games with my double IG squad. I usually just use the superior dial to my advantage and park behind rocks.

For hit and run tactics, I always setup rocks in my opponent's corners. When their squad inevitably chases one of my IG's, I fly behind the rock for a round and let my other IG tear into the squad from behind.

Dash works great against BBBBZ lists because of his ability to run right through asteroids that the swarm is forced to fly around.

I run Dash and Etan frequently and love their ability to disengage and then loop back to hit a long range.

I faced four shuttles all with duel Tactician in each

This is a good counter to the bbbbz in my opinion

They both want to joust.

The shuttles have 40 hp so they can withstand the bs firepower

First game I killed a shuttle, but at ps2 he shot back and double stressed a b

Next shuttle shot, but at another b giving him stress

Two b with two stress become very hard to fly

No kturn

No action.

And it's a slow ship

Made it very hard to get behind the shuttles

I faced four shuttles all with duel Tactician in each

This is a good counter to the bbbbz in my opinion

Albeit an extremely expensive one.

True but not hard to borrow some if you have friends who play

I think put in yorr and have 6 Tactician would be an interesting idea

Yorr taking their stress makes the shuttles faster to turn around

Standard 35 point Soontir, 5 Obsidian Squadron pilots. You win on PS if your opponent is flying Blue Squadrons (he must for BBBBZ), and you have enough ships to be considered a swarm. I imagine (post nerf) super Whisper with an Obsidian mini swarm instead of Howl and a perhaps a more defense oriented load out for Whisper might also do the trick.

These are builds that are just strong in general and should do a decent job against everything else.

What's a typical BBBBZ build? Thinking of trying that build myself.

What's a typical BBBBZ build?

Seriously?

EDIT: Assuming serious, it's 4 Blues and a Bandit. No variations are possible.

You could try to mirror it,

What's a typical BBBBZ build? Thinking of trying that build myself.

i might actually make this my signature. regardless of whether it is a fail or a troll, it is superb.

Another good list to go up against the BBBBZ is 5 M3a Interceptor's with mangler cannon's. Reall good againt low agility ships, like the B-wing and large ships.