it's a question of difficulty

it was really difficult without world-class skills to block a pre-errata phantom because it had to be treated as 3 separate ships that had to be blocked simultaneously or it'd just race round the swarm without consequence. Errata now forces whisper and the like to think ahead, reducing the ease with which she dance around most everything.

the other difficulty is luck and M.O.V against turrets. You can't fully outplay a turret, even blocking it produces slight benefits compared to normal ships (unless you block it atop a space peanut) and they're worth nothing unless they're 100% dead. If they get lucky and start dropping ties, your chances of winning decrease significantly.

A great swarm player might be able to bulldoze through those, but then you have to account for all the other players that the turrets just gobble M.O.V from. I've seen many many games go 200-0 where it looked like a complete rout, but in reality it was just one or two bad throws that left a decimator/falcon/phantom at incredibly low health, just not enough to count for jack ****.

Dual IG-88s. They have HLCs with a gunner ability to punch through a swarm's defense dice, high agility against 2-dice attacks and 8 HP to keep them alive even if you manage to pull off a range 1 assault. I won't bring a list to a tournament anymore unless each ship is capable of attacking with 4 red dice.

Dual IG-88s. They have HLCs with a gunner ability to punch through a swarm's defense dice, high agility against 2-dice attacks and 8 HP to keep them alive even if you manage to pull off a range 1 assault. I won't bring a list to a tournament anymore unless each ship is capable of attacking with 4 red dice.

I disagree. The problem with a two ship build is that they can only fire (at best) at two targets. A swarm can fire many, many more times than twice. Take a 7 Tie swarm. Sure they only roll two base red die, but 7 TIMES!. Ships only rolling 1 green die are seriously threatened by this. Even a ship rolling 2 or three green die fall to the cruelty of fate once that token(s) is gone. A swarm is much more likely to cause action denial and block flight paths as well.

All too often people believe that swarms are only flown in formation. This is not true. A good swarm will control the board, force action were they want it, and take advantage of their numbers.

A Tie swarm won the 64 player Campaign against Cancer tourney in South Bend this weekend, beating out a dual IG-88 list.

IMO 7 tie swarm is still very competitive in the current meta, especially in the nerfed-Phantom meta. In the 75 minute Regionals I think we'll see more of them because the bigger time limit is good for them.

I think we're not seeing a lot Tie swarms in Juggler right now because people are probably just bored of playing them. I know I am.

Dual IG-88s. They have HLCs with a gunner ability to punch through a swarm's defense dice, high agility against 2-dice attacks and 8 HP to keep them alive even if you manage to pull off a range 1 assault. I won't bring a list to a tournament anymore unless each ship is capable of attacking with 4 red dice.

I disagree. The problem with a two ship build is that they can only fire (at best) at two targets. A swarm can fire many, many more times than twice. Take a 7 Tie swarm. Sure they only roll two base red die, but 7 TIMES!. Ships only rolling 1 green die are seriously threatened by this. Even a ship rolling 2 or three green die fall to the cruelty of fate once that token(s) is gone. A swarm is much more likely to cause action denial and block flight paths as well.

All too often people believe that swarms are only flown in formation. This is not true. A good swarm will control the board, force action were they want it, and take advantage of their numbers.

At range 3, ties are not going to do much at all to 3 base agi with autothrusters. The odds of dealing even 1 damage are so heavily against it. Meanwhile, odds are high that a tie will be wiped from the board. The following turn, the ig-2000s can adv sen boost + 4 k-turn (with an evade, if C is involved). The distance traveled by this maneuver is 7 bases long (half a base shy of an entire range ruler). If you unexpectedly block that spot, the ig-88 can bank boost and land in another spot. If you block the ig-88's boost, he can leave his k-turn where it is. You'd have to then block both his boost and his k-turn to successfully trap him (he will still have his action this turn, thanks to adv sen), but the ties will then have at least 1 shot from them denied by the block, at least 1 shot outside range 1 or denied if he had to turn too hard. Then they have to survive another pair of HLC&gunner volleys. If first turn didn't yield a dead tie, this turn almost surely will. If it did, there is a significant possibility of a second one dying before a return volley. That leaves you with your first significant turn of damage dealing having already lost 1-2 ties, being denied a shot yourself to blocking, and 1 of your ships out of range 1. That leaves you *ideally* with 3-4 range 1 attacks and 1 range 2 attack. Odds are slim that you will destroy ig-88 in a single round of fire from that, and the following turn you cannot block him from high-tailing it out of there on a green + boost(+ evade). If you can't k-turn the next turn, you will not catch him. If you can k-turn, he will be at range 3 with an evade and autothrusters again except you have no focuses.

If your ties get split up too much, ig-88s will eat them like its pac-man. I'd say a good ig-88 player should be able to predictibly beat a tie swarm most of the time.

having played against Aggressors, I have to say that evades and access to a very liberal dial (especially with the 5 straight) are going to give them far better chances versus the robotic bastards than Z-95s

Imo, the killing power of the Aggressors is a bit exaggerated. HLC is right terrifying, but you can control the trigger of IG-88B (whose gunner effect + FCS is the real reason they're so **** terrifying) with the Evade action, if your dice cooperate. The first exchange on the approach is going to be hell, but they have two shots to our guaranteed canceling out of one damage. I do not like a single Tie's chances if it gets double teamed, but auto-popping a tie per turn is an incredibly optimistic forecast. Generally, it should take two.

sure, one shots will happen (cause green dice), you just shouldn't count on it

the rest is up to your positioning. With 7-8 ties in hand, I'm pretty savy you won't have too much issue blocking. The question is whether or not your 2 reds are as awful at getting through naked green dice as mine.

Dual IG-88s. They have HLCs with a gunner ability to punch through a swarm's defense dice, high agility against 2-dice attacks and 8 HP to keep them alive even if you manage to pull off a range 1 assault. I won't bring a list to a tournament anymore unless each ship is capable of attacking with 4 red dice.

I disagree. The problem with a two ship build is that they can only fire (at best) at two targets. A swarm can fire many, many more times than twice. Take a 7 Tie swarm. Sure they only roll two base red die, but 7 TIMES!. Ships only rolling 1 green die are seriously threatened by this. Even a ship rolling 2 or three green die fall to the cruelty of fate once that token(s) is gone. A swarm is much more likely to cause action denial and block flight paths as well.

All too often people believe that swarms are only flown in formation. This is not true. A good swarm will control the board, force action were they want it, and take advantage of their numbers.

First off, you're assuming you'll still have all your ships when it's your turn to fire, which is unlikely when your opponent is shooting at you with 2 HLCs that can shoot again if they miss. Talking about green dice failing, that's a 2-way street.

Yeah, you get to roll 2 dice 7 times, which means they get to roll 3 dice (or more) 7 times. That's an average 1.5 hits against an average 1.125 evades on each attack. And because they have 8 HP, the average 1-3 damage you're going to put through (assuming you still have all your ships, which is unlikely) is not going to be enough before you start losing ships to their HLC double-taps. I don't know why you're talking about 1 and 2 defense dice, if people were only playing B-Wings I'd bring a swarm every day, but that's not the world we live in.

And if your ships are firing at more than 1 target in a turn, you're not playing optimally. You want to start killing ships as quickly as possible, and that means not splitting up your attacks across multiple enemies, it means focusing all your firepower on one ship until it's dead and stops shooting at you.

having played against Aggressors, I have to say that evades and access to a very liberal dial (especially with the 5 straight) are going to give them far better chances versus the robotic bastards than Z-95s

Imo, the killing power of the Aggressors is a bit exaggerated. HLC is right terrifying, but you can control the trigger of IG-88B (whose gunner effect + FCS is the real reason they're so **** terrifying) with the Evade action, if your dice cooperate. The first exchange on the approach is going to be hell, but they have two shots to our guaranteed canceling out of one damage. I do not like a single Tie's chances if it gets double teamed, but auto-popping a tie per turn is an incredibly optimistic forecast. Generally, it should take two.

sure, one shots will happen (cause green dice), you just shouldn't count on it

So you're going to give up 25% damage boost on all your ships so that they can all take an evade action that only one of them can use per turn? And your assumption that your opponent won't attack a single TIE with both of their Aggressors in the same turn is unrealistic, good players focus fire, and 2 Aggressors shooting Twin-Linked HLCs at a single naked TIE Fighter are very very likely to kill that ship before it can shoot back.

having played against Aggressors, I have to say that evades and access to a very liberal dial (especially with the 5 straight) are going to give them far better chances versus the robotic bastards than Z-95s

Imo, the killing power of the Aggressors is a bit exaggerated. HLC is right terrifying, but you can control the trigger of IG-88B (whose gunner effect + FCS is the real reason they're so **** terrifying) with the Evade action, if your dice cooperate. The first exchange on the approach is going to be hell, but they have two shots to our guaranteed canceling out of one damage. I do not like a single Tie's chances if it gets double teamed, but auto-popping a tie per turn is an incredibly optimistic forecast. Generally, it should take two.

sure, one shots will happen (cause green dice), you just shouldn't count on it

So you're going to give up 25% damage boost on all your ships so that they can all take an evade action that only one of them can use per turn? And your assumption that your opponent won't attack a single TIE with both of their Aggressors in the same turn is unrealistic, good players focus fire, and 2 Aggressors shooting Twin-Linked HLCs at a single naked TIE Fighter are very very likely to kill that ship before it can shoot back.

yes, at range 3 you're giving up a damage boost because you're not doing **** to four green dice + thrusters. Take evades. You have to survive that initial volley before you're close enough to stand a chance between ranges 1-2 and blocking, and then you can focus.

also yes, your opponent can double team a tie, but it is also true that obstructions make this far less likely than you would think. Good players focus fire, good players also do their best not to let that happen. I'm just going to leave it on that little dichotomy because the description of "good players" on the forum is some kind of magical perfect being that always does **** right. Their goal is to focus fire, your goal is to keep that from happening. What the results will be depend on the game, just know that it is very possible to force IGs into sub-optimal shots.

Remember, these guys aren't dumb turrets (thank christ) and it is actually difficult to orientate both to fire on the same target if there's a bunch of crap in the way. Between taking care of the arc and planning for future turns, you can actually heavily limit IGs (their fat arses are, in fact, their only real weakness).

I know we're all super accustomed to playing against that Wave 5 dreck, but Aggressors can't simply go wherever they want and expect to be rewarded with shots on anything they want. If they get blocked or have to reposition, they can very easily end up at an angle where they can't shoot diddly (unlike turrets, which can still shoot whatever the **** they want minus the blocker)

Having won a 77 person regional with TIE Swarm last year - my biggest reason for not playing them is MoV. There's two sub-reasons behind MoV being the culprit: 1) the obvious: TIE Swarms will have attrition and 2) the metagame has turned highly protectionist against losing points - which is a double whammy against TIE Swarms. I think they're still viable, but not as dominant as they once were because of tournament rules changes. If we were still using SoS - Swarms would still be a major player because other ships would be as defensive in the hope of gaming MoV.

That said: I'll probably still be running TIE Swarm this Regional season - if for no other reasons than I don't know what else to run and I'm good with the swarm

I disagree with the premise that the TIE swarm is the only swarm worth talking about. BBBBZ is the winning-est (most winnering? most frequently wonnered?) list of the 2015 store championship season, and continues that title post-scum. stmacker's site is great for doing this kind of research:

http://xwing.macker.co/

Right now, BBBBZ is the king of the swarm pillar, and I would bet a lot of TIE swarm pilots jumped ship to it. Ironically, it's biggest vulnerability is the TIE swarm.

I disagree with the premise that the TIE swarm is the only swarm worth talking about. BBBBZ is the winning-est (most winnering? most frequently wonnered?) list of the 2015 store championship season, and continues that title post-scum. stmacker's site is great for doing this kind of research:

http://xwing.macker.co/

Right now, BBBBZ is the king of the swarm pillar, and I would bet a lot of TIE swarm pilots jumped ship to it. Ironically, it's biggest vulnerability is the TIE swarm.

You're right that 4BZ is a powerhouse, but it's not really a swarm in my opinion. As in the OP I consider a swarm to be 6-8 ships, where most or all have 2 red dice. A squad with 4 Bs presents a totally different tactical dynamic than a classical swarm.

On this note, however, it is interesting that 4BZ is doing so well these days. If you look at old tournament lists you can see the build has been around since Wave 4 first came out, but never really performed so well in the early days. I think you may be on to something - perhaps the rise of 4BZ could be related to the decline of TIE swarms.

Imo, the killing power of the Aggressors is a bit exaggerated. HLC is right terrifying, but you can control the trigger of IG-88B (whose gunner effect + FCS is the real reason they're so **** terrifying) with the Evade action, if your dice cooperate. The first exchange on the approach is going to be hell, but they have two shots to our guaranteed canceling out of one damage. I do not like a single Tie's chances if it gets double teamed, but auto-popping a tie per turn is an incredibly optimistic forecast. Generally, it should take two.

I have had a couple of VASSAL games with IG88BD HLC+FCS against VT-49 + 4 TIEs, and dropping a TIE per turn is very typical. I would go so far as to say that if I don't drop a TIE per turn then I consider it a bad turn. With 88B's gunner effect, the only way a 3HP TIE lives is if it takes exactly 1 damage from both IG88's. FCS and Outmaneuver (from the flanking 88) ensure that this almost never happens. One of them will almost always get 2 damage through. One fun trick here, is if you roll no hits and some focus, hang onto the focus. Then grab a TL and try again with TL+F. In fact, against 3 defense dice, if I roll one natural hit on the first roll, I will frequently save the focus anyway, because there is a 75% chance that the single hit will get naturally evaded, then I get a 2nd attack with TL+F.

A Tie swarm won the 64 player Campaign against Cancer tourney in South Bend this weekend, beating out a dual IG-88 list.

IMO 7 tie swarm is still very competitive in the current meta, especially in the nerfed-Phantom meta. In the 75 minute Regionals I think we'll see more of them because the bigger time limit is good for them.

I think we're not seeing a lot Tie swarms in Juggler right now because people are probably just bored of playing them. I know I am.

Looks like the IG player split his IGs up pretty severely. Not sure why he did that. That's the only way to kill the bots effectively is to concentrate on one at a time. Not good strategy to let your opponent do that.

A Tie swarm won the 64 player Campaign against Cancer tourney in South Bend this weekend, beating out a dual IG-88 list.

IMO 7 tie swarm is still very competitive in the current meta, especially in the nerfed-Phantom meta. In the 75 minute Regionals I think we'll see more of them because the bigger time limit is good for them.

I think we're not seeing a lot Tie swarms in Juggler right now because people are probably just bored of playing them. I know I am.

Looks like the IG player split his IGs up pretty severely. Not sure why he did that. That's the only way to kill the bots effectively is to concentrate on one at a time. Not good strategy to let your opponent do that.

It's because he has FCS not advanced sensors. You need room to maneuver and want to avoid bumping.

Imo, the killing power of the Aggressors is a bit exaggerated. HLC is right terrifying, but you can control the trigger of IG-88B (whose gunner effect + FCS is the real reason they're so **** terrifying) with the Evade action, if your dice cooperate. The first exchange on the approach is going to be hell, but they have two shots to our guaranteed canceling out of one damage. I do not like a single Tie's chances if it gets double teamed, but auto-popping a tie per turn is an incredibly optimistic forecast. Generally, it should take two.

I have had a couple of VASSAL games with IG88BD HLC+FCS against VT-49 + 4 TIEs, and dropping a TIE per turn is very typical. I would go so far as to say that if I don't drop a TIE per turn then I consider it a bad turn. With 88B's gunner effect, the only way a 3HP TIE lives is if it takes exactly 1 damage from both IG88's. FCS and Outmaneuver (from the flanking 88) ensure that this almost never happens. One of them will almost always get 2 damage through. One fun trick here, is if you roll no hits and some focus, hang onto the focus. Then grab a TL and try again with TL+F. In fact, against 3 defense dice, if I roll one natural hit on the first roll, I will frequently save the focus anyway, because there is a 75% chance that the single hit will get naturally evaded, then I get a 2nd attack with TL+F.

Agreed, I just wanted to specify that "a Tie per turn" is not "a Tie per shot" pending horrible rolls

you're pretty boned if a little tie takes two HLCs to the face, so it's your job not to let that happen

Agreed. Advanced sensors is awesome on the IGs. It really does make them as unpredictable as any arc-dodger. I'd probably only run FCS on IG-B when I'm running him solo in a list.

Wow, three pages and not a soul has brought up Howlrunner. There were other factors, certainly, but the TIE swarm fell out of favor right about the same time the Phantom was released. The Phantom absolutely killed formation flying, and the TIE swarm wasn't the only victim. Swarms can be ran without Howl, of course, but her obvious potency was the major reason to run TIEs in the first place. Take formation flying, and thus Howl, out of the equation, and what you get is a several month dearth of swarms showing up at the final tables.

When browsing list juggler it becomes pretty clear that swarms have fallen far out of favor in the last several months. Even in the rare cases when you see them in tournaments, they rarely take top spots. This change has happened very quickly, because even in 2014 Worlds, which was crawling with Phantoms, a lot of TIE swarms and mini-swarms made it to the top brackets. I mean, dang, even Dallas Parker is running a two-ship build these days...

Former swarm players, why don't you run swarms anymore?

1. Too many high AGI ships out there these days.

2. MoV rules hurt swarm players in timed matches (especially vs. large ships).

3. 60 minute rounds don't give enough time to play carefully (i.e. playing strategically, placing lots of dials, etc.)

4. Arc dodgers like Phantoms and Autoceptors make swarms too difficult to pull off these days.

5. I'm bored of swarms.

6. Other reasons...?

EDIT: For the sake of this discussion I consider a swarm to be 6+ ships. Many of you have made the good point that 5 ship rebel builds are very popular, which is definitely true, but a squad with 3 or 4 Bs plays very differently than a swarm of 6 or 7 Zs or TIEs IMO, so that's kind of a different discussion.

Because the Phantom autowon against them, that's the main reason. Second reason is MoV and 60 minute rounds.

Autothrusters doesn't bother me that much, at range 3 generally I'm not doing much damage to something with 4 agility anyways. Even against defense oriented 35 point Soontir he only gets one attack of 3 dice without a TL, he's much easier to handle than a super phantom.

I disagree with the premise that the TIE swarm is the only swarm worth talking about. BBBBZ is the winning-est (most winnering? most frequently wonnered?) list of the 2015 store championship season, and continues that title post-scum. stmacker's site is great for doing this kind of research:

http://xwing.macker.co/

Right now, BBBBZ is the king of the swarm pillar, and I would bet a lot of TIE swarm pilots jumped ship to it. Ironically, it's biggest vulnerability is the TIE swarm.

I view BBBBZ as a 4 B Wing build with a Z-95 as its upgrades instead of Advanced Sensors or E2 & Tactician. I think you need 6 ships minimum to be considered a swarm, not what is essentially a 4 ship build.

I disagree with the premise that the TIE swarm is the only swarm worth talking about. BBBBZ is the winning-est (most winnering? most frequently wonnered?) list of the 2015 store championship season, and continues that title post-scum. stmacker's site is great for doing this kind of research:

http://xwing.macker.co/

Right now, BBBBZ is the king of the swarm pillar, and I would bet a lot of TIE swarm pilots jumped ship to it. Ironically, it's biggest vulnerability is the TIE swarm.

I view BBBBZ as a 4 B Wing build with a Z-95 as its upgrades instead of Advanced Sensors or E2 & Tactician. I think you need 6 ships minimum to be considered a swarm, not what is essentially a 4 ship build.

That is one way to look at it.

The other way to look at it, as a more general case scenario, is to define the "swarm" archetype more broadly as squads that consist of minimally upgraded ships that have very high jousting efficiency. B-wings' statline cost efficiency is not quite as high as a TIE Fighter, but it is still respectable. The total brute force squad power of BBBBZ is somewhere between 7 TIES and 8 TIES (ignoring Howlrunner's effect). So BBBBZ is pretty close to counting as a "swarmy" build, the individual ships just happen to be beefier. 7 or 8 Z-95's would certainly be a swarm though.

I disagree with the premise that the TIE swarm is the only swarm worth talking about. BBBBZ is the winning-est (most winnering? most frequently wonnered?) list of the 2015 store championship season, and continues that title post-scum. stmacker's site is great for doing this kind of research:

http://xwing.macker.co/

Right now, BBBBZ is the king of the swarm pillar, and I would bet a lot of TIE swarm pilots jumped ship to it. Ironically, it's biggest vulnerability is the TIE swarm.

I view BBBBZ as a 4 B Wing build with a Z-95 as its upgrades instead of Advanced Sensors or E2 & Tactician. I think you need 6 ships minimum to be considered a swarm, not what is essentially a 4 ship build.

That is one way to look at it.

The other way to look at it, as a more general case scenario, is to define the "swarm" archetype more broadly as squads that consist of minimally upgraded ships that have very high jousting efficiency. B-wings' statline cost efficiency is not quite as high as a TIE Fighter, but it is still respectable. The total brute force squad power of BBBBZ is somewhere between 7 TIES and 8 TIES (ignoring Howlrunner's effect). So BBBBZ is pretty close to counting as a "swarmy" build, the individual ships just happen to be beefier. 7 or 8 Z-95's would certainly be a swarm though.

I just always wonder what the poor pilot of the Z is thinking...

I just always wonder what the poor pilot of the Z is thinking...

He thinks he is special because his K-turn is 3 speed not 2, so he can actually K-turn behind a large base ship...

I disagree with the premise that the TIE swarm is the only swarm worth talking about. BBBBZ is the winning-est (most winnering? most frequently wonnered?) list of the 2015 store championship season, and continues that title post-scum. stmacker's site is great for doing this kind of research:

http://xwing.macker.co/

Right now, BBBBZ is the king of the swarm pillar, and I would bet a lot of TIE swarm pilots jumped ship to it. Ironically, it's biggest vulnerability is the TIE swarm.

I view BBBBZ as a 4 B Wing build with a Z-95 as its upgrades instead of Advanced Sensors or E2 & Tactician. I think you need 6 ships minimum to be considered a swarm, not what is essentially a 4 ship build.

That is one way to look at it.

The other way to look at it, as a more general case scenario, is to define the "swarm" archetype more broadly as squads that consist of minimally upgraded ships that have very high jousting efficiency. B-wings' statline cost efficiency is not quite as high as a TIE Fighter, but it is still respectable. The total brute force squad power of BBBBZ is somewhere between 7 TIES and 8 TIES (ignoring Howlrunner's effect). So BBBBZ is pretty close to counting as a "swarmy" build, the individual ships just happen to be beefier. 7 or 8 Z-95's would certainly be a swarm though.

I just always wonder what the poor pilot of the Z is thinking...

I mean, dang, even Dallas Parker is running a two-ship build these days...

I would suggest that in this game, Dallas Parker is slow-playing. Not only that, but pre-measuring. Look at the 11:00 minute mark for examples. Bad example.