What is the best action for a Tie Fighter, a Focus or an Evade?

Always Evade unless there is no return fire, then focus. Also, when in doubt, K-Turn!

Always Evade unless there is no return fire, then focus. Also, when in doubt, K-Turn!

This most of the time, however, taking focus might make your academies seem like more attractive targets possibly drawing fire from a more important target, like Howlrunner.

I find the opposite, always Focus if you have a shot, Evade if you don't. I agree about the K-turn, though the 1-hard in the right situation is great.

If they are all equal health, focus for all, otherwise if there is a damaged one that is likely to be the target that round, give it evade. Or if they have no shot at all do evade.

Always Focus. Always. You generally have more TIE fighters than the opponent has shots directed toward TIE Fighters. This means all the TIEs that Evaded and aren't shot at have a wasted action. Example: 4 Academies vs 50 points of an opponent's ship. The 50 shoots at a TIE. You use the token for defense. Everybody else now can use their Focus offensively. If the Target gets lucky, you might use its Focus offensively as well. If you had taken all Evades, at least 3 of those would be wasted, all for a vanishing small increase in survivability.

It took me only a single game of playing a tie swarm to realize one should always focus with them. Like the last 3 guys have said, only evade if you are certain that tie is going to be attacked.

Always Focus. Always. You generally have more TIE fighters than the opponent has shots directed toward TIE Fighters. This means all the TIEs that Evaded and aren't shot at have a wasted action. Example: 4 Academies vs 50 points of an opponent's ship. The 50 shoots at a TIE. You use the token for defense. Everybody else now can use their Focus offensively. If the Target gets lucky, you might use its Focus offensively as well. If you had taken all Evades, at least 3 of those would be wasted, all for a vanishing small increase in survivability.

Having all your TIEs evade actually decreases your squads survivability since it means your opponents ships will live longer and get more shots. 8 TFs no focus average 8 damage. 8 TFs with focus average 12 damage. Thats a 50% increase in damage landed. Compare that to the average .25 damage mitigation you get with taking an evade over a focus and there is no contest.

Now I agree with a lot of folks in that if you have a damaged TIE or you won't have a shot with that TIE, you should take the evade. The wasted action argument is a good one as well.

focus, all day every day

Answer as those in the thread note - nearly always focus UNLESS:

- You have no shot, and the enemy has a shot on you.

- You ABSOLUTELY KNOW that the enemy is going to pick that fighter to shoot at (Hi, Howlrunner!)

- The fighter is low in health, and has reasonably good odds of not surviving to its shooting opportunity (variant of the 1st, sort of)

- Your dice hate you as bad as mine hate me! ;-)

When Swarming, I usually mass-Focus.
It's good enough on defense for the few ships who will defend, and still leaves me the offense for the most-of-my-list that isn't defending.

Howlrunner herself will always Evade or barrel-roll out of the way.

Agreed. Most of the time I focus with everyone except Howlrunner, who evades - not so much that I know she'll be shot at as to discourage people from shooting at her.

That said, also bear in mind that if you've got 4 evade dice or more (i.e. you're at range 3) a focus token is on average just as good as an evade anyway.

Always Focus. Always. You generally have more TIE fighters than the opponent has shots directed toward TIE Fighters. This means all the TIEs that Evaded and aren't shot at have a wasted action. Example: 4 Academies vs 50 points of an opponent's ship. The 50 shoots at a TIE. You use the token for defense. Everybody else now can use their Focus offensively. If the Target gets lucky, you might use its Focus offensively as well. If you had taken all Evades, at least 3 of those would be wasted, all for a vanishing small increase in survivability.

This!

If they are all equal health, focus for all, otherwise if there is a damaged one that is likely to be the target that round, give it evade. Or if they have no shot at all do evade.

What he said... it works.

Focus all ties. Except Howlrunner, stealth device and dodge tokens

You have a shot then focus, you don't have a shot you evade.

It's that simple.

Always Focus. Always. You generally have more TIE fighters than the opponent has shots directed toward TIE Fighters. This means all the TIEs that Evaded and aren't shot at have a wasted action. Example: 4 Academies vs 50 points of an opponent's ship. The 50 shoots at a TIE. You use the token for defense. Everybody else now can use their Focus offensively. If the Target gets lucky, you might use its Focus offensively as well. If you had taken all Evades, at least 3 of those would be wasted, all for a vanishing small increase in survivability.

I'm afraid this might be a threadjack, but I'll say it anyway: this is why people who bemoan the lack of evade on thDrfender (and now the TIE Prototype) are barking up the wrong tree. For a ship rolling 3 defense dice, the marginal improvement in defense provided by an evade token is small, but the loss in offense when you can't modify your red dice is big.

Basically, those wasted actions hurt you far more than a little bit of extra defense helps you.

Focus all ties. Except Howlrunner, stealth device and dodge tokens

Stealth Device definitely likes Focus better than Evade.

ALWAYS FOCUS

(Thought I'd join in for the free post)

3 dice for evade 2 attack dice take focus 99% of the time.

Always Focus. Always. You generally have more TIE fighters than the opponent has shots directed toward TIE Fighters. This means all the TIEs that Evaded and aren't shot at have a wasted action. Example: 4 Academies vs 50 points of an opponent's ship. The 50 shoots at a TIE. You use the token for defense. Everybody else now can use their Focus offensively. If the Target gets lucky, you might use its Focus offensively as well. If you had taken all Evades, at least 3 of those would be wasted, all for a vanishing small increase in survivability.

I'm afraid this might be a threadjack, but I'll say it anyway: this is why people who bemoan the lack of evade on thDrfender (and now the TIE Prototype) are barking up the wrong tree. For a ship rolling 3 defense dice, the marginal improvement in defense provided by an evade token is small, but the loss in offense when you can't modify your red dice is big.

Basically, those wasted actions hurt you far more than a little bit of extra defense helps you.

VS, this is a threadjack.... tsk tsk. Besides, you know the argument is primarily for the named pilots. Having evade for Rex (who usually packs Predator) would be amazing!

Back to the REAL topic : If you are flying a swarm and most or all of those TIEs are alive and have a shot... Focus. The best Defense is a good O-fense... Know who said that? Mel, the cook on Alice!

Generally focus.

If you're at range 3 of an IG with broken game ruining cannon gunner you evade because your 2 dice attacks aren't getting through 4 defense dice with Autothrusters anyways, and evade better allows you to control incoming damage so you can try to intentionally take a mere one damage to deny a second probably better cannon gunner shot.

Always Focus. Always. You generally have more TIE fighters than the opponent has shots directed toward TIE Fighters. This means all the TIEs that Evaded and aren't shot at have a wasted action. Example: 4 Academies vs 50 points of an opponent's ship. The 50 shoots at a TIE. You use the token for defense. Everybody else now can use their Focus offensively. If the Target gets lucky, you might use its Focus offensively as well. If you had taken all Evades, at least 3 of those would be wasted, all for a vanishing small increase in survivability.

I'm afraid this might be a threadjack, but I'll say it anyway: this is why people who bemoan the lack of evade on thDrfender (and now the TIE Prototype) are barking up the wrong tree. For a ship rolling 3 defense dice, the marginal improvement in defense provided by an evade token is small, but the loss in offense when you can't modify your red dice is big.

Basically, those wasted actions hurt you far more than a little bit of extra defense helps you.

Completely agree, but those wanting evade on the defender want it so they can focus and evade as apposed to one or the other now ptl becomes an option with the new tie only mod

Seems like an appropriate enough place to also ask (I'm sure it has been covered but whatever we're all here anyway) any major advantage to 8 tie vs Howlrunner 7? Also is focusing the best tactic on both styles of the tie swarm?

Seems like an appropriate enough place to also ask (I'm sure it has been covered but whatever we're all here anyway) any major advantage to 8 tie vs Howlrunner 7? Also is focusing the best tactic on both styles of the tie swarm?

I'm assuming that you mean Howlrunner with 7 Academy Pilots by "Howlrunner 7" and that both swarms have a total 8 ships.

Howlrunner+7APs will be able to throw out more consistent damage while Howlrunner is still alive. The 8 TIE swarm without Howlrunner is going to usually be 4 APs and 4 Obsidians so gives you a little bit of a PS advantage against other lists full of generics.

You'll tend to want to focus on everything, except maybe take the evade token on Howlrunner. Taking the focus on your scrubs is extra important while Howl is alive since you need to make the most of having her reroll while she's still on the board.