Yep.

Pros:

All the same PS and ship. Easy to maneuver.

PS above double Predator.

PS above/equal to all other swarms or filler units besides for ndru. And if your opponent has sunk 20+ points into a gimped X wing you've already won. If someone is flying Green Squadron A Wings with VI, then they:

A.) Deserve to win, so if they do then good on them.

B.) Are going probably going to lose because they put too many points into A Wings and you'll have numbers on them.

No special abilities to worry about, no Target Lock conundrums. This allows for lean, fast play in order to not lose to MOV BS when time is called where your opponent has killed 42 points and you've only killed 36 or something dumb because you've wasted half the game unintentionally slow playing yourself because you took too long on each turn.

You also only have maneuvering and basic tactics to worry about. This allows you to make better decisions.

Dat 7x alt art.

Cons:

Not 8 ships.

Not 7x Feedback Array

Not Howlrunner boosted.

Hell, not even 7x Targeting Computer, although all those TL's would just work against you and rob you of time.

Against 2 ship power builds you've wasted 7-14 points on the PS boost over Obsidians/Academies. You mitigate double Predator so it's arguable that you're only wasting 7 points over Obsidians, but then if you don't run into Predator...

......benefits do not opportunity cost.

It's a nice swarm. As noted, being able to move in whatever order you like is nice. I'm trying to master the TIE all-stars at the moment and you run into problems from time to time being limited to a strict order of movement.

At the same time, I'm not sure that trying to fly seven fighters would be much faster - plus you do end up with a problem with pilot skill - you're not moving early enough to avoid being blocked and having a massive action-denying pile-up, but not shooting early enough to get hits in on PS5-7 fighters before you start taking casualties.

I'd like to see it, certainly.

You do have 2 points spare - flying more than 6 in a box is difficult (you start to have trouble fitting through asteroid gaps if the extra fighter is on a flank, or else you have the extra fighter either out of range, or a range band ahead of the main group if he's in front or behind).

I'd consider upgrading one to either Backstabber or Dark Curse and flying him solo.

This

you get your 7 ties. BUT you for the same price you also get your howlrunner AND you get 4 ships firing at PS 8. if (when howlrunner dies) you can still swarm tactics the blacks at PS4 to avoid double predator.

I once saw a guy bring 5 Blacks with Predator and HU to a tournament. Did well against low agility ships, but suffered against higher agility arc dodgers.

I've had fun with variations of the Black builds, this ones' quite good,

Dark Curse w/stealth

3 x blk w/Pred

1 x blk w/DTF

1 x blk w/Calc

100 pts

Dark Curse is a terror....but the list, like Stone37 said, is weak against high agi ships. (ints,awings are really tough!!)

Lots of fun tho!

Cheers Mates!

Half of the reason I'm flying this build is to get back into the groove of flying swarms. Last few games I've played with swarms I've flown them abysmally. Another reason is because I have 7 Black Squadron Promos, which is the most beautiful card in the game.

My general piloting skills are falling off, so flying this squad allows me to focus entirely on the basics of this game.

That Howlrunner swarm tactics chain is definitely exciting, and it's tempting to convert one to Backstabber or Dark Curse, but that 2 point initiative bid seems nice. Allows me to forfeit initiative so my opponent will have to setup his ps 4's first. Lately I've been having a problem where I have to setup everything of mine first, then they can setup their squad to take advantage of my placement. This seems like a huge deal a lot of the time.

It's a fair comment with swarms - having your opponent set up so your approach passes through asteroid clusters that make you break formation is nasty, and setting up after generics - and having control over where the big rocks go - helps counter that.