How have you found this squadron to be? It's a little pricey and you pay for added hull. Not added damage.

I only see them as being useful to be shields/fodder for a squadron of bombers.

How have you found this squadron to be? It's a little pricey and you pay for added hull. Not added damage.

I only see them as being useful to be shields/fodder for a squadron of bombers.

But isn't that what they're supposed to be?

In that bomber escort role, they're still imperfect, because they don't deal a lot more damage. In order to free your bombers to go and do their ship-attacking business, you still need to eliminate the interceptors (A-Wings, mostly) tying up your bombers. So, I see TIE Adv. for the escort and TIE Interceptors for the damage being a good value-added combination.

Tie Advanced + Soontir Fel is fun combo. They are forced to attack Advanced and Soontir deals free damage when they do not attack Soontir.

I also use them to defend Rhymer/Bombers.

Use it to protect your bombers - or my fav: keep your precious Howlrunner and INTs alive for one crucial extra round of dogfighting.

Advanced+ Fel= Superiority fighters

Advanced with Fel is great. I used Fel, advanced, bombers and rhymer in our tournament last month. Used Fel and advanced to tie up opposing fighters letting my bombers pick away at opposing ships to soften them up.

I only see them as being useful to be shields/fodder for a squadron of bombers.

They're escorts. Being shields/fodder for something else is what they are meant to do. That something else could be bombers for anti ship work or, as has been said, interceptors for anti squadron work.

The biggest advantage of Escort is NOT protecting bombers. It is breaking fights up. If one of the most important aspects of squadron fights is to focus your firepower. If you use your advanced to move in and engage a few squadrons on the edge of the swarm, you limit their ability to focus fire, instead making them attack the advanced that is engaging them. This allows you to slow the squadron battle down, and spread it out. This can then be combined with either bombers, or if you are trying to win the squadron fight Fel or Mauler.

Escort is great with them and they can even do some anti-ship damage with a black dice. Sure they don't have bomber but they still have a 75% chance of hitting ships with a black dice.

Ok so. The consensus is that they're highly relevant. How do you think on their cost? Is it better to take other fighters over them or are they seemingly cost effective in your real testing games?

Worth every point.

I think a few advanceds are well worth the points. Not crazy about vader though, TBH. Since he too has escort it just means that he gets focused on that much faster. Doesn't seem worth the points to me to upgrade a ship that is designed to draw lots of fire, even if he does have good stats and ability in isolation.

Some good thoughts have been mentioned, I've mostly used them as an escort for Howlrunner. It buys her maybe two rounds of fire or so if worse come to worse. Darrwood brought up a great point about dissecting (and thus breaking up) combats using TIE Advanced. Requires thinking ahead though (not my strong suit).

How the heck does dissecting work? Note, im an excellent reactive xwing player, but absolute garbage at chess. Can someone explain to me?

And how do you use squadrons well? You don't want to be moving into the engagement during squadron phase right? wait. UGH. too many rules of what goes when.

How the heck does dissecting work? Note, im an excellent reactive xwing player, but absolute garbage at chess. Can someone explain to me?

And how do you use squadrons well? You don't want to be moving into the engagement during squadron phase right? wait. UGH. too many rules of what goes when.

How have you found this squadron to be? It's a little pricey and you pay for added hull. Not added damage.

I only see them as being useful to be shields/fodder for a squadron of bombers.

A bit more so than the vanilla TA in X-Wing

I think a few advanceds are well worth the points. Not crazy about vader though, TBH. Since he too has escort it just means that he gets focused on that much faster. Doesn't seem worth the points to me to upgrade a ship that is designed to draw lots of fire, even if he does have good stats and ability in isolation.

I like Vader. With his two Braces he lasts even longer. But with 300 pts on the table he's just too costly compared to my squadron allotment.

To me the Armada TA feels a bit like a bf110, designed for a "destroyer" role, but found to be not manoeuvrable enough so transferred to escort and nightfighter roles.

Fly them like you would if you had multiple Biggs

To me the Armada TA feels a bit like a bf110, designed for a "destroyer" role, but found to be not manoeuvrable enough so transferred to escort and nightfighter roles.

Interesting comparison there. I've finally gotten 2 fighter packs for both sides. I've yet to try them out.

But if anyone is looking at replicating Operation Cerebus using Imperials, all the TAs have to do is just stick close to the 2 VSD and 1 GSD while the rest of Garland's planes chew up the attacking Rebels

That said, I got a question about Rhymer. It says "close-mid" range, is that refering to the point 1-5 squadron movement ruler or the capital ship firing ruler?

To me the Armada TA feels a bit like a bf110, designed for a "destroyer" role, but found to be not manoeuvrable enough so transferred to escort and nightfighter roles.

"...Bf 110..."

Interesting comparison there. I've finally gotten 2 fighter packs for both sides. I've yet to try them out.

But if anyone is looking at replicating Operation Cerebus using Imperials, all the TAs have to do is just stick close to the 2 VSD and 1 GSD while the rest of Garland's planes chew up the attacking Rebels

That said, I got a question about Rhymer. It says "close-mid" range, is that refering to the point 1-5 squadron movement ruler or the capital ship firing ruler?

No.You need to flip the range ruler over - mid range is the blue dice range.

Ah.

My initial guess was right. So technically, any SD escorted by Rhymer can potentially shoot the same target 3 times if the squadron command is played.

Yep. Distance 1 becomes RED/BLUE Range on the other side if the rule/measure.

(NEVER a RULER, that is a monarch or similar!)

I think a few advanceds are well worth the points. Not crazy about vader though, TBH. Since he too has escort it just means that he gets focused on that much faster. Doesn't seem worth the points to me to upgrade a ship that is designed to draw lots of fire, even if he does have good stats and ability in isolation.

I like Vader. With his two Braces he lasts even longer. But with 300 pts on the table he's just too costly compared to my squadron allotment.

The one time I used him, he soaked 3-4 rounds of fire before going down. Fire that would have gone on to other squadrons otherwise. Granted, some of his survival was luck, but that's still half the game he was drawing fire and murdering people.

He ate Wedge for breakfast. Which, in hindsight, is probably why my opponent was so determined to kill him.

But yeah, his price has me leaving him out more than including him. He really is a bullet magnet. He's not the sort you ignore and hope doesn't hurt you for it. That said, he makes an excellent psychological weapon for that very reason.

Darth can be quite powerful, and well worth the points, but you do have to be careful with him as concentrated fire will bring him down quick-smart.

Teamed up with a 2nd advanced, Mithel and Fel and you can tear apart rebel fighter groups so long as you can activate all 4 at once (Vic with command & token or command & exp hangars).

Normal advanced moves first, position it so that it covers almost all of the rebel fighter swarm, ideally leaving about 2 fighters on a flank un-engaged. Shoot something.

Drop Mithel in next, covering the entire fighter swarm but close to the advanced to be protected. Do damage to everything and then shoot something with swarm re-roll.

Next in goes Fel, place near Mithel covering the entire swarm and blast something.

Last goes Darth, out on the other flank just covering those two rebel fighters that the other advanced left exposed. Shoot one of them.

Wait for the rebels to activate and tear themselves apart with Fel's return fire.

Of course that is an expensive risk, and can fail horribly. For my money I'll stick with the Glad II Demolisher / Advanced / Fel / Mithel bomb...