The Tie Swarm has been my nemesis and to get over that, I finally have enough Ties to run a swarm myself! I'll run one long enough to either get good with it or learn how to defeat them with my favorite builds!

So my question is, how good are Tie Swarms in the current meta?

Thanks!

I haven't run that particular list. I usually run a Howlrunner 7. Howlrunner with Swarm Tactics, Backstabber, Dark Curse and 4 Academies. It does fine against the two-ship builds most of the time. In a competitive event, the time limit can work against you which is probably the biggest reason you don't see the swarms as much. That and the mental effort of running the swarm over multiple games.

In one local tourney one of my opponents, watching me work my dials and waiting, said "look how hard you're working." He killed 3 TIE fighters before I finished off his Dash/Corran list.

The TIE Swarm has Damage and Versatility on its side.

Sadly, the tournament rules give it an artificial handicap.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't try; you've just got to learn how to kill the things that most swarmists struggle against.

Fat Han
Super Dash

Brobots

The Bloody Baron

Whisper

For what I have seen and from what those who like to let others know the main problem for swarms ATM is bro bots since the phantom nerf.

Against other list its a fair game if you can plan well and read the flight paths of other ships. Bro bots are the latest fad and anyone who gets there head around how to fly them best can rip through a swam fairly quickly. Ties get about 1 opening pass to lay the hurt on and if you can't do enough damage or keep one blocked in it's an uphill battle as the can easy drop one tie a turn for little to no damage in return.

Fel can be a problem but if you can predict well and get the block in ( not too hard as fel lives by the greens) you can stop his actions and then pop.

The phat turrets have not changed they rely on the boost action to keep themselves out of arc, once you have enough practice against them and learn to read them well you can corner them and do some good damage.

I am saying all of this as someone who has done well with allof these builds agianst swarms and can say that this has been what leads to the down fall of any of these lists.

Coran horn is a real pric too but is about the same as the bro bots, you hoping they make a bad mistake or there green dice fail.

I do hope someone has a different take on the swarm than me for dealing with these too beasts as I too am currently wanting to give a swarm a run but know locally that some players are very good with those too and it's hard to justify taking a swarm to a tournament when I know I will have to deal with them.

Would Crack Shot be a useful upgrade for Howlrunner and 5 BSP's?

Would Crack Shot be a useful upgrade for Howlrunner and 5 BSP's?

I tried out Crackshot for the first time last night and it was pivotal to my N'Dru getting a killing blow on a Green Squadron Pilot. I think it's going to be a very useful card. Its biggest cost is the opportunity cost — taking Crackshot means you can't take any other EPT, and that'll be the biggest reason people won't take it, I think.

But getting back to your post, I think it would be worth a try putting Crackshot on Howlrunner and five Black Squadron Pilots. Helps a 2-attack ship's offense immensely, even if for just one turn.

I'm planning on testing:

Howlrunner w/ Predator, Hull

Black Sqn w/ Draw Their Fire

4x Black Sqn w/ Crack Shot

or further down the line:

Howlrunner w/ Crack Shot, Hull

Scourge w/ Crack Shot

3x Black Sqn w/ Crack Shot

1x Black Sqn w/ Draw Their Fire

I've done a lot of playtesting 6 TIE swarms with Howlrunner and black squadrons loading up on calculation, but it was unfortunately not too successful. It still beat everything a TIE swarm beats except that it suffered against the Decimator where all ships are necessary. The extra firepower offered by crack shot may come in handy. It also suffered against brobots so I moved to VI on the black squadrons, bringing us all to PS6 but again it did not work with normal formation flying at least. Crack shot gives them a really good chance at eliminating an IG that gets caught at range 2.

OK so the popular wisdom around here for quite awhile has been that the MOV scoring marginalizes the TIE swarm for tournament play. I just brought it up a couple weeks ago for confirmation.

The rationale was sound. It makes sense. Then Nick Jones made the top 16 (top 8?) at GenCon. Again. He was top 4 last year right?

Nick's a great player mind you (and is a great guy to play against too) but the conventional wisdom of MOV scoring issues start to ring hollow if he can consistently make cuts. Is there more to the story that I am missing?

OK so the popular wisdom around here for quite awhile has been that the MOV scoring marginalizes the TIE swarm for tournament play. I just brought it up a couple weeks ago for confirmation.

The rationale was sound. It makes sense. Then Nick Jones made the top 16 (top 8?) at GenCon. Again. He was top 4 last year right?

Nick's a great player mind you (and is a great guy to play against too) but the conventional wisdom of MOV scoring issues start to ring hollow if he can consistently make cuts. Is there more to the story that I am missing?

Fying 7 or 8 ships through 6 rounds of xwing (6 x 1.25 hours) = 8 or 9 hours of 8 ship list?

You gotta be really **** good and confident with your swarm.

That's why you see a couple of players going long with swarm. They're good players. Rest of us, dont have enough exp with swarm, can't play swarm for 8 hours, dont have 8 tie fighters, dont like losing a ship every turn, have bad green dice. etc. Are just bad. I mean. Lets not pandy words here. =D

MOV poses two challenges to a swarm player

1)Winning is harder: You only get points if you kill a ship. Unfortunately, Most fat ships are very good at running away and forcing bad shots when they're badly damaged, and just to make things worse, with predator they're fairly good at damaging a tie even at range 3! This means someone can win with a 1 hp Fat Han with half a dozen crits face up if they've killed at least 4 Academy pilots. This doesn't happen every time, but when it does, it's rather egregious. The solution here is to table your opponent as often as possible, which is easier said than done against someone who knows what they're doing with a fat ship

2) Tiebreakers favor higher MoV, and since fat ships are better at getting higher MoVs, they're more likely to make the cut if records are tied.

That's not to say a swarm player can't win by any means, but it is an uphill battle that usually requires a lot of familiarity with the list. Add to that the mental fatigue of trying to get as many shots as possible on a single target with all those tie fighters, and you can see why not a ton of swarms make it to top 8.

The whole MoV thing is a myth. Swarms do fine against everything, even bro nots, why? Because brobots are so action dependant that if you block them, which is easy to do with 5+ ships, they aren't near as scary. Thing about MoV is, yeah you will lose 2-5 ships a game, but if you blow up their 60+ point ship, you are either getting a mod win or tie. I got top 8 with a Fel mini swarm at this year's regionals, and 2nd was a 7 tie swarm. 2 other swarms were in the top 16. They are stronger then people let on. But that is the power of group think.

The swarm was/is/will continue to be a VERY viable list. Even with all the new cards... those cheap little TIEs continue to be a thorn in the side of high value ships.

The whole MoV thing is a myth.

This is specifically the thing I want to gain clarity on with regards to the TIE swarm.

The other issues are apparent. A big tournament can be grueling enough let alone trying to control so many moving parts. I get that aspect of it.

The whole MoV thing is a myth. Swarms do fine against everything, even bro nots, why? Because brobots are so action dependant that if you block them, which is easy to do with 5+ ships, they aren't near as scary. Thing about MoV is, yeah you will lose 2-5 ships a game, but if you blow up their 60+ point ship, you are either getting a mod win or tie. I got top 8 with a Fel mini swarm at this year's regionals, and 2nd was a 7 tie swarm. 2 other swarms were in the top 16. They are stronger then people let on. But that is the power of group think.

Please don't get me wrong as I really want swarms to have the upper hand against the bro bots. It's just all the games I've seen have been the bots still on a few hull or only one of them dropped and all the ties go down. I started a thread about a list with intimidation on some BSP in order to try and get some help beating them. So any ideas would help

I prefer 2 alpha interceptors with auto thrusters and 5 Academy ties

I was worried about MOV and just intended to win all my swiss rounds at regionals, which I did. Ended up with something like a 1107 MOV at the end of it.

Just intended to win all my swiss rounds at regionals,

What a quaint concept. .

I prefer 2 alpha interceptors with auto thrusters and 5 Academy ties

Before Wave 7 hits (those bomb are going to change everything) run this:

Howlrunner (upgrades of choice within 2 points)

4x Alpha w/ Autothrusters

It's one hell-of-'a alpha strike!

I played the 8 TIE swarm for quite some time. Problem is the one-shot kill. Against 2 Ships lists were the attacks are buffed to the point were they have almost 3+ hits every time they attack you will loose a ship every turn, in a bad turn it might be 2 losses. If something goes wrong with your attacks (bad dice, bad piloting=no arc with a couple, etc) you will loose, and you know it the moment it happens :-)

So I changed to the Rebel swarm (5 AWings + 2 Z) at the moment, which has 2 advantages: Almost no one-shot kills anymore (unless you park in R1 to phantom) and you are faster on your opponent (thanks to boost with the A-Wings) putting quite some pressure on the playstyle of the other player. That swarm is just as hard to fly (if not harder, at least for me as I used to have BR with the TIEs) and just as unforgiving to mistakes (blocking yourself and similar stupid things), but it takes the opponent more effort to kill a ship each turn, he will have to focus one down with both his ships to make that happen and even then it's not for sure.

The swarm is still a good concept, only the TIE swarm is not working for me at the moment (but I wait for the comeback :-) )