I believe this game was untimed, so slow playing doesn't really affect things here (they're taking their time, but they have the time to take).

The pre-measuring is right out though, and I'm surprised it's been allowed.

I'm not sure it's "swift" - in my local area, I'm the only person who uses a TIE swarm. In fact, at the last Game Night Kit, we had 24 players and the only two swarms were me (the TIE Fighter All-Stars) and the event organiser (a Z-95 Feedback Mob).

I can't say time has ever been the issue so much, but I can see people's views about turtling big ships. I lost two of my games because I get no credit for an Aggressor and a Falcon, both mostly dead. On the other hand, a lot of people seem to love 1 agility heavy fighters - Scum and Rebel Y-wings were much in evidence, as were B-wings, and the TIEs chainsaw through them with disconcerting ease.

I think the advice above about range 3 shots is good, and something I should probably consider myself - if you're at range 3 from an agility 3, autothruster equipped ship, your popguns are essentially useless, so you might as well take an evade in the hopes of having your full complement of fighters still shooting next turn.

I believe this game was untimed, so slow playing doesn't really affect things here (they're taking their time, but they have the time to take).

The pre-measuring is right out though, and I'm surprised it's been allowed.

You're right, it was untimed, my bad. But the pre-measuring was really jarring. Lots of the matches for that store championship were filmed, and Dallas Parker was doing this in each game. I was a little disappointed.

I've played tie swarm twice at tournaments in the past few months just to take a break from the phantom lists. First time I ran 4x academies and 4x obsidians. I came in 2nd out of 8 people and this past weekend I ran one of the 2014 worlds list, Howlrunner, 2x Blacks with Draw Their Fire, 4x academies and took 2nd out of 10.

Swarms are really strong lists as far as straight up win or lose. Anyone capable of target priority and formation flying should be able to do pretty well with a swarm list. Whats killed me the times I've played them is MOV. Bunch of cheap paper mache tie fighters flying around, you're are guaranteed to take casualties, which hurts your standings when it comes time to decide top 2 or top 4.

75 minute rounds aren't too bad for time as long as you have a plan and know what your doing. 60 minute (or less) rounds can easily run to time if your not careful.

I'd say they're has been a resurgence if the mini swarm at least, now that the 2 ship meta has subsided. And even during Wave 5, our first Atlanta store championship was won by a 5 ship rebel list.

I'd say the reason is the rock paper scissors in the meta, AKA the three jouster, dodger, turret archetypes. Each one is good against another and weak against another. Therefore, if you only choose one, you are allowing yourself to play weaker match ups than you could otherwise. Most competitive lists now include two of the three archetypes, such as a turret component along with a dodger or jousting component.

Mixed ship lists have become stronger than single ship swarms, but mini swarms are prevalent and powerful.

I played a psuedo tie swarm at the campaign against cancer. Had mixed results.

Soontir + PTL + Autothrusters

Howrunner + Swarm Tactics

4x Academy

My 2 losses were against some B-Wings that got me clogged up pretty good. Simply ran out of time on that one. Soontir was picking off the bees a little too slowly. Ten more minutes and it would have been a win. Oh well.

Second loss was against some brobots. I saw the boost-4k coming and planned perfect for it. Then he didn't do it. This was a huge mistake for me. He had Inertial Dampeners so it wouldn't have worked out for me anyways. Stupid mistake. It was over from that point. I got a lot of damage on IGB but was never able to get him off the board and that ruined me. Had I got that kill it would have been much easier chasing one IG.

Out of my wins, I did take down Howard Thomas who was playing dual IG-88. I was maneuvering like a champ at that point and I had him right where I wanted him every turn. People who say "you can't beat a good player" are insane. I beat a good player, and Dom (an amazing player himself) took down a very good player with dual IG-88s. There's a couple strategies in the swarm vs brobots matchup and it's all a coinflip if you guess which your opponent is going for and simply outfly your opponent. Then dice always come into it

IMO

For me MOV is a huge one. I have several times shot down Chewy and Dash to 1 hull and lose only 1 tie fighter, but lose the game. Before I used to sacrifice ships to gain better firing positions for other ships, but now doing that is almost pointless, because unless I kill the other ship. I lose on points. This is why the 2 large ship build is so popular. Load'em up, with defense and stay at range 3, keep them alive and no matter how poorly you fly. Run away and dodge just to stay alive and you can win. It makes not as skilled flying players instantly better, because they removed one of the main issues they had. With a non large ship, if you make a mistake, it can kill you, with a large ship, you may take some damage. Thus making it easier to fly without that worry.

I'm hoping for a FFG change which will state "Only gain +1 attack for range 1 in your primary or auxiliary arcs." that will help bring it more into balance with other ships.

I played a psuedo tie swarm at the campaign against cancer. Had mixed results.

Soontir + PTL + Autothrusters

Howrunner + Swarm Tactics

4x Academy

My 2 losses were against some B-Wings that got me clogged up pretty good. Simply ran out of time on that one. Soontir was picking off the bees a little too slowly. Ten more minutes and it would have been a win. Oh well.

Since Whisper was nerfed I've been playing around with Soontir min-swarm lists really similar to this and I've had the exact same problem. If you play Soontir cautiously he is amazing, but slow. I've been losing timed games that I almost certainly would have won if given one or two more turns. The combination of Soontir's slowness and MoV loss due to expected TIE attrition is just really hard to overcome. It's a shame because I really enjoy the challenge of playing Soontir.

For me MOV is a huge one. I have several times shot down Chewy and Dash to 1 hull and lose only 1 tie fighter, but lose the game. Before I used to sacrifice ships to gain better firing positions for other ships, but now doing that is almost pointless, because unless I kill the other ship. I lose on points.

Swarm all the way for casual play, but mental fatigue kicks in playing many ships for many matches =/

IMO I think swarms augmented with some 4 dice ships are better than swarms of all 2 attack dice. Generic Phantom, 4x Binarye Pilot + 2x Cartel Spacer with HLCs and stealth devices, etc. Even something simple like throwing a B Wing with a gunner in with 6 bandits. 4 academies, 2x sigma phantoms each with Intel agents.

Howl seems like a liability considering that all these two ship lists are based around dragging your opponent's non-turrets through asteroids that you can just ignore while you opponent cannot. Formation flying is dead pretty much. If you do that your opponent will just do large turret boost shenanigans and dodge all but one of your arcs.

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.

Howlrunner can be a tipping factor, especially if the meta is heavily jousting and hinging on maximizing your joust efficiency, but I seriously doubt taking howlrunner out alone is responsible for tie swarms losing in our current meta that has lots of arc dodgers, BBBBZ, turrets, and miniswarms.

Howlrunner or not, I am confident that an 8 tie swarm will beat anything a howlrunner + 6 ties will beat except maybe howlrunner + 6 ties.

I gotta say that I am not certain why folks think Brobots is an easy match-up versus a TIE or Rebel swarm. That's one of the worst matchups they have (BBBBZ in particular; that is a sickening amount of hit points you have to chew through with your 2 guns). All the different ways you can get blocked and shot full of holes, all those ships clogging up your movement options... it's a mess. TIEs are a winnable matchup, but it's far from an auto-win in the hands of a competent player. BBBBZ is one I am still working on beating consistently with dual IG. Advanced Sensors helps ensure you are getting your actions, but holding the range open against that many opposing ships is a real challenge and the green dice are always trying to kill you.

The problem wasn't necessarily how much the phantom dominated, it was that swarms autolost to the phantom but did not autowin against the thing they counter, turretwing ships. I wouldn't say it's a coin flip with a fat turret against a swarm, but it's not an autoloss if you arc dodge with boost well.

So scissors completely dominated paper, while paper only soft countered 'well flown' rock. So this is why 4 B Wing builds/BBBBZ are good because they are about as good as the swarm as at killing turrets, they at least have a tiny modicum of a chance to kill a phantom, their ships can't be one shot every time a range one turret predator shot goes off, and they don't lose as much to BS MOV crap where you have 4 TIE Fighters and your opponent has a 49 point turret left with one health when time is called.

As much as I complain about the 2 ship no skill turretwing large ship boost shenanigans, to be fair they do kind of need to do that to be able to compete against swarms. Just irritating that that's what this game turned into to counter phantoms. When I go to an SC and the last 4 people are all playing rebel turret builds, two of which also have super corran in them, and the other two have both falcons and 2400's in them, the game is no longer fun or skill intensive or engaging to watch.