Sorry to be nitpicky, but ever since Super Whisper and 4 TIE Fighters became a thing, groups of 4-5 ships started to be called, "mini swarms". At a certain point BBBBZ came along with the 2 ship meta and now BBBBZ is considered a swarm because it doesn't have a fat turret and it has more than 2 ships in it. 5x Kirfghnbvxz is called a swarm too.

6 is the threshold for a swarm. 6 A-Wings, 6 Bombers, 6 HWKs (lol), 7 M-3A's, 4 Z-95's & 2 Starvipers, etc. are swarms. Your 4 B-Wing list with a z-95 tacked onto it isn't.

But it is.

(if I flew BBuBBaZ)

So... this is an argument in semantics, yes? You're essentially asking what is the arbitary number which turns a 'group' into a 'swarm'

If you have enough ships to target your enemy from each of the four sides - or quadrants - of its base, then it is considered to be "swarmed." Therefore, yes, 4 or more is a swarm.

Just kidding, its 3:03 am so why in the galaxy am I up reading this stuff???

Naturally you need 8 Academy TIEs. Nothing less will suffice.

they call it. a .. mini swarm.. isn't that cute.. hahah

If you keep bumping ships when you move you are fighting a swam

More than 3. 2 is two ship point fortress 3 tends to be elites. 4 is really the start of generics.

But it depends. : a list with 3 hwks and a Z I would not consider a swarm. 4 tlt though. Yeah. Same stuff.

Naturally you need 8 Academy TIEs. Nothing less will suffice.

What, 4 academies and 4 obsidians don't count?

A swarm is eight a mini swarm is four , bbbbz can't be a swarm because it's not pure.

If you are taking multiples of generics, and being pretty spartan with upgrades, then you are trying to beat them with volume of fire, right?

Y-wing with TLT and a 1 point droid is 25 points, people take 4 identical ones to put out 8 shots per turn.

Is 3 33 point Bounty Hunters a swarm? My gut is telling me that 4 is the magic number.

A swarm doesn't have to consist of identical ship types. BXXZZZ is a swarm, it has 6 ships. 6 TIE Fighters and a shuttle is a swarm.

Lists that match the firepower of a swarm like BBBBZ and 4x Phantom aren't swarms because they don't have 6 or more ships.

I would say a swarm starts at 5.3783734 ships. Yeah I totally made that up because it's arbitrary.

This is important? Why?

Rebel Swarm existed pre-Wave 4, and they originally had four ships. The A-wing wasn't a consideration back then, and naked HWKs and Y-wings might as well not exist. Spamming the cheapest decent ship meant spamming the X-wing.

While I'd agree that nowadays with all factions having a 12 point ship four fighters doesn't really fit the term, the borderline where Swarm is an appropriate term is murky and depends on the ships themselves. I'd never really consider six X-wings in Epic as an X-wing swarm. I certainly would never call four a mini-swarm. Mini-swarms tend to be a full swarm cut in half: circa 50 to 60 points with at least four ships, unlikely to average over 15 points each.

In that sense, the term Swarm is connected to cost: Swarms usually mean spamming generics, occasionally with a squad leader like Howlrunner who sticks with the pack and buffs them.

Is BBBBZ a B-wing swarm? If it is, it's borderline. Likewise, five K fighters I'm not sure I'd call a swarm.

One thing I can say with certainty though is that simply having over five ships is not an instant swarm.

"6 TIE Fighters and a shuttle is a swarm."

The six TIEs are. The shuttle isn't. It's not part of that TIE group and never can be, it's far too big.

"4 Z-95's & 2 Starvipers"
Not a swarm. The four Z-95s constitute a mini swarm, but the StarVipers are far too different in behaviour to be part of that group. I suppose you could try to fly them as part of a swarm if you really wanted to waste your Vipers, but even then they'd look out of place.

"A swarm is eight a mini swarm is four"

The named TIE swarm has six, and the Howlrunner TIE swarm has seven.

The One True Swarm is the TIE swarm, and the One True Mini-swarm is four TIEs (almost always with Howlrunner). Whether you can call something a swarm really depends on how well it approximates the cost and behaviour of those.

I'm in agreement with the OP. And the guy who just posted. The idea of 6 ships being a swarm was agreed upon by the community after much discussion in the early days of the game. I think nowadays "swarm" is used for "that squad had more ships than mine, and it was hard."

You mush respect the purity of the hive, to be a swarm it must be a mono ship build you can't just take five ships of any old type and call it a swarm.

I'd agree that you probably need six (K fighter spam might be the exception because it's completely homogenous) but simply having six doesn't make it a swarm. An Alpha TIE interceptor could be part of a TIE swarm as could a Scimitar or Tempest, but a Doomshuttle? Just doesn't feel right calling six TIEs and a Doomshuttle a swarm. It contains a swarm, but the Lambda's too big.

You mush respect the purity of the hive, to be a swarm it must be a mono ship build you can't just take five ships of any old type and call it a swarm.

Any old ship, certainly not. But some ships I'd say are miscible into swarms. Most generic TIEs, A-wings and Z-95s maybe, Etahn and Z-95s... Any ship that behaves in a similar fashion or provides a commander effect I think can be part of a swarm.

I always thought that "Swarm" is refereeing to the way you move the ships in formation rather than the numbers?

Like the group swarm together, so a mini tie swarm is 4 ties in formation and maybe a Lambda or whatever elsewhere.

or when you flank with Backstabber he's not part of "the swarm"

The term "swarm" suggests homogeneity of ship type. Thus 8 generics, or 6 generics plus a named swarm leader, down to as few as 5 with a mix of named and generic. All of the same type.

The concept of "swarm" suggests the ability to surround, entrap and harass with low ATT values and lots of action denial. Without regard to ship type. But requiring more than 4 ships.

So for non-homogeneous lists of 5 or more ships that can surround larger prey and nibble them to death with mostly 2-dice attacks, they behave like a swarm, but defy a key element of the connotation of the term swarm.

Thus, "swarmy".

Like my Scummy Bears.

(Honestly, this is all arbitrary, but a gaming community does have unwritten dictionaries of agreed upon terminology. When I was just getting into the game earlier this year, I was really nervous about using terms like "swarm" and "joust" because I didn't want to embarrass myself by referring to something out of synch with the way all the cool kids refer to it. I still feel that way about terms like "power creep" and "action economy".)

Sorry to be nitpicky, but ever since Super Whisper and 4 TIE Fighters became a thing, groups of 4-5 ships started to be called, "mini swarms". At a certain point BBBBZ came along with the 2 ship meta and now BBBBZ is considered a swarm because it doesn't have a fat turret and it has more than 2 ships in it. 5x Kirfghnbvxz is called a swarm too.

6 is the threshold for a swarm. 6 A-Wings, 6 Bombers, 6 HWKs (lol), 7 M-3A's, 4 Z-95's & 2 Starvipers, etc. are swarms. Your 4 B-Wing list with a z-95 tacked onto it isn't.

So what happens if you fly a 6-ship swarm and one ship dies? What is your list then since it's no longer a swarm?

A mini-swarm is quite alright: 4-5 ships.

A swarm has always been a minimum of 5 ships for the Rebellion, as they didn't have access to better than that until Wave 3.5 (Rebel Aces gave them their first 15 point ship).

5 y-wings is a herd, not a swarm. Kind of like 4 albino space cows for the imps.

It's all subjective really. You can fly 8 ties in 2 lumps of 4 (basically 2 largish base ships with 4 attacks each) and it's not much of a 'swarm' until it breaks formation. Swarms for me are more about how you fly, not what. But I guess it's important for what you fly too, because MOV.

If you wanna call 3 or 4 TIEs/Zs a miniswarm then go ahead. I'm pretty sure most people will try to fly that in some kind of formation instead of coming at ya from all over.

A mini-swarm is quite alright: 4-5 ships.

A swarm has always been a minimum of 5 ships for the Rebellion, as they didn't have access to better than that until Wave 3.5 (Rebel Aces gave them their first 15 point ship).

To embrace my own asininity, Z's were out before Rebel Aces.

I consider BBBBZ a swarm (mini-swarm, whatever) because you forgo upgrades for more ships and blocking potential.