For those that play the Feedback Swarm...do you fly in one block formation? Or do you fly in two block formations? I'm thinking that it might be better to split it at times. Possibly.

I tried a feedback swarm in a single block versus 4 Blues+Accuracy Corrector and got beaten down pretty bad. They just focused down on Z after Z, with firing order giving them a huge advantage. The block makes movement too predictable. I concluded I needed to break my Howlrunner habit of tight formation flying. I thought a block joust would be in my favor against 1 AGI Bs, but it didn't really work out that way.

I tried a 6x hotshot blaster+munitions failsafe swarm last night in two tight pinwheel blocks (a jouster block and flank block) versus a 5x Bandit + Etahn and won, but it was a long tough furball battle. I would have lost in a tournament because Etahn was still kicking at the 75 minute mark. I definitely started doing better when I broke formation and started hotshot blasting from all sides.

I was slaughtered twice in an SC by an 8x Z-swarm where the player spread his ships out into two long lines and advanced very slowly, forming a sweeping net-like crescent. No formation per se, but a two-deep spread with easy shifting of overlapping arcs - like a net overlapping arcs and blockers. Amazing to watch in action. (I was playing RAC + Whisper)

Based on my experiences I think tight formation flying is probably not the way to go with Z-swarms. Especially if you have 360 attacks thanks to FA or hotshot blaster. I think next time I'll try a scattered broad line advance to prevent focused fire while trying to make opening-game unanswered 360 attacks from the side or behind.

Another thought... The first intuition is to wait to use FA array for kill shots, but now I am thinking one might as well pile the zaps on at the beginning before attrition really begins to set in for your squad. In my feedback swarm game I barely got to use FA because I was being too conservative, and the ships dropped off early.

-Serissu can give the opposite side of that coin, and the z-95s can personally take and hold onto TLs to bolster their own attacks--especially at opportune moments where a howlrunner might not have lasted. Ties are chained to howlrunner to get better attacks. Z-95s are chained to serissu to get better defense.

Agree with nearly all of your observations. Serissu is unfortunately no Howlrunner:

A TIE drifts out of Howl's bubble; no biggie. A Z-95 out of Serissu's; Zed's dead baby.

Admittedly you're getting 1 extra agility over the Z's if your opponent wants to target the leader but just like Howl, Serissu cannot help herself which, as above, is more of an issue defensively than offensively.

Serissu is also 2 points more than Ms Runner and has a dial that isn't 100% compatible with Z-95s (your swarm loses the 1 forward).