Part 1 of a short series of articles I am writing about flying and listbuilding with Imperial squadrons! Part 2 (Carrier ships) to come soon!
Harnessing the Power of Imperial Squadrons
Good stuff 
Though I'd add that the tie advance's lack of performance relative to the X is owed to 1 less point and, more importantly, one more speed.
They're no interceptors or Awings, but speed 4 is a mighty fine asset for getting the alpha strike.
Speed is also great for forcing escort by engaging the enemy, whereas they could dodge it by being more than distance 1 from the advance.
For having such a defensive ability as escort, they sure can be aggressive 
Very nice article!
Keep in mind that Imperials also value escort more, as the shenanigans with soontir are pretty ridiculous, plus the fact that interceptor squads are high attack low health.
Thanks for the comments Yeah, TIE Advanceds are great as force multipliers for those fragile Interceptors and for keeping the heat off of precious bombers but not super great on their own (except, of course, Vader, who shreddicates just about everything)
If you are taking any real amount of Imperial Squadrons you should be raking Rhymer. His ability simply allows your Squadrons to nearly always find a way to be impactful turn to turn.
If you are taking any real amount of Imperial Squadrons you should be raking Rhymer. His ability simply allows your Squadrons to nearly always find a way to be impactful turn to turn.
Amen
Unless you're going pure anti squadron ofc.rhymer will turn even your tie fighters into antiship menaces but he also costs a howlie or a mauler
I'd always recomend the rhymer route, though, since he's basically your only option for ranged superiority over rebs (just as bwings are the only option for close range superiority for the rebs; till the mc 30)
Advances are great with rhymer; chuncky enough to laugh at antisquadron from ships, not utterly worthless against squadrons (like bombers), and hit at a very solid 75% per die (unlike interceptors)
Has anyone tried the Major Rhymer Katamari where you create a ten die blue gun emplacement by surrounding him with all the Ties you can fit?
Not yet, but that sounds like hilarious fun!
Nice write up. Most of the stuff is pretty obvious, but probably overseen by some. So far I play with almost no squadrons at all (Rebel player), since they suck (300 point games, I use fighters in 400+ games though). I've been up against imperial bomber heavy lists, so I know what they can do. I think that Mauler is a bad design for the game (personal opinion), since the Rebels are already in the backseat fighter-wise (yeah, I know, the X-Wing is such a good fighter... the range boost for the imp bombers is just so incredible good), bringing a fighter that deals autodamage against game elements that can't defend against it is not such a great way to inspire rebels to bring fighters and give us the thematic battles we want to see :-). And all the imp player has to do is move around to inflict the damage. While that would be kinda balanced by the engage rule (so only one move possible) there comes Chiraneau and ruins that. Almost nobrainer, at least Galant Heaven should protect against that auto damage crap (but it doesn't).
I started to ignore the little suckers completely (unless he plays stupid and comes forward fast so the fighters are the only target) and simply kill the carrier first and the other ship thereafter - no ships means he auto-loose. So far that tactics got me far more wins (4 wins out of 5 games).
Nice article! However, I think it is missing one critical suggestion --- how many bombers (aside from Rhymer) is recommended? Minimum number? Max number?
With Rhymer and two more bomber plus three Tie Advanced for defense, that goes to 70 points out of a maximum of 100. Maybe Mithel and Fel (and drop a Tie Advanced) to round out the squadrons?