Just a bit of question my local group has been throwing around.

What is the absolute minimum number of fighters you should bring to cover your bases (let's say in tournament setting)?

My two cents:

3 A-Wings for Rebels if you take a 2 Anti-fighter Capital

-There are only 6 turns in a game so if you can engage the majority of enemy fighters for 3 turns (lose the first turn for movement, lose a turn for moving after being engaged, last turn to try and do some lasting damage but could be difficult with quick rebel ships moving farther away), by sending the A-Wings out one at a time. The A-wings speed and health are key here and ultimately you want to catch the fighters at the correct time an at least the A-Wing generally won't die from 1 starfighter attack.

-Counter 2 and capital support means you can give a decent fight if you think you won't get swamped and may prolong the A-Wings just long enough.

4-6 Tie Fighters for Imps

-Just drown them in bodies, one smoldering 8 point Tie wreck at a time. I'd push for 6 Ties just because Imp ships tend to be less maneuverable/slower than the rebel equivalent which means they still might be in a danger area after a furball ends, keeping an extra Tie or two glued to your capital ship is good insurance against this. Simpler and easier to pull off than the rebel equivalent since Ties are so cheap.

Note: I may do a write up on starfighter combat later (was originally just going to provide it to some of the beginners in our group) if people are interested.

I was thinking about this last night. Hard to say until I get my hands on the new fighters.

I was playing around with the Empire at 300 points needs a minimum of 6 tie fighters. 3 to cover each VSD. X-wings are too much of threat without fighter cover.

The Rebels I think could get away with none (with just the core) if they have a escort Neb or 2. Although I haven't tried it yet.

And it might not even be a bad strategy. Some of the games we've played have been so close the rebels only lost on Xwings destroyed and never even got to the VSD's because they were engaged the whole time (I HATE HOWELRUNNER!)

This will be much tougher to calculate when both sides have bombers. Wave 2 will distort this even more once both sides have good anti-fighter ships.

Fleet building is going to be as interesting as the game itself.

It's all up in the air until Wave 1 hits, as currently IMHO fighters aren't relevant the outcome of the game. It's looking like you'll need a good balance of antiship fighters (TIE Bombers, Bwings/Ywings) and escorts for said ships (TIE Interceptors, Awings/Xwings).

I recently took four TIE stands to my local tourney at 180pts, solely to kill off Xwings (TIEs with their 50% chance of damage wasn't a concern) It worked out fine for me.

Do you have initiative? Can the rebel player use activation order to kill your tie Before they use a squadron command and kill the rest of your ties?

Too early to tell given we are missing critical ships for each side.

Do you have initiative? Can the rebel player use activation order to kill your tie Before they use a squadron command and kill the rest of your ties?

Too early to tell given we are missing critical ships for each side.

The general idea was just use fighters in a fashion to slow down the opposing fighters since its a six turn game. Even if they kill the fighter in one turn it just requires the ability to engage them where you need to engage them so they lose a turn of doing damage to your capitals. the engagement rules throw a real nice wrinkle into most starfighter plan just because 1 A-Wing can stall a fighter advance for multiple opposing fighters, or at the very least prevent them from attacking capital ships.

Faster ships could possibly pull off a capital-only fleet since they can outdistance squadrons that aren't activated by Squadron commands. I wouldn't want to take slower ships without a screen though, as their fighters could latch on and ride your ships using the rules for overlapping while the enemy's ships would be free to use their orders to stay alive.

What's really important is how well your opponent is prepared to use his squadron advantage to make up for his ship disadvantage. If he gets sloppy with his squadron deployment, you could certainly tie up his bombers long enough to bypass them. However, if he stays dispersed and maximizes the effect of his squadron commands, he can overwhlem your weaker screen very quickly and then move on to your ships with impunity.