Hi Guys,

I am loking for some feedback on the squadron below.

Lieutenant Blount - Z-95 Headhunter 17 points

Veteran Instincts 1 point

Shield Upgrade 4 points

XX-23 S-Thread Tracers 1 point

Ship Total: 23 points

4x Tala Squadron Pilot - Z-95 Headhunter 13 points

Assault Missiles 5 points

Munitions Failsafe 1 point

Ship Total: 19 points each

Squadron Total 99 points.

From reading Lieutenant Blount and his ability "When attacking, the defender is hit by your attack, even if he does not suffer any damage."

and combining that with XX-23 Tracers and it seems to me it is an auto hit and triggers the target lock for your squadron buddies.

Then here comes the Assault missiles, use the munitions failsafe just incase it misses (and we had points left over).

Cheers,

I was under the impression that the tracers were an auto-hit for anyone using them. So putting them on blount is redundant if that's the case. In any event, it will be a while before Wave 8...

Tracers are not auto-hit. "If this attack hits..."

Tracers are not auto-hit. "If this attack hits..."

They are when Blount fires them

I was under the impression that the tracers were an auto-hit for anyone using them. So putting them on blount is redundant if that's the case. In any event, it will be a while before Wave 8...

Nope, they are a 4 dice attack that requires a focus to fire but doesn't spend the token when you do.

The Homing Missiles might work better than the Assault Missiles for the same price unless you know you are going up against something swarmy. Maybe mix and match them so that you've always got 2 missiles that are good against whatever you run up against.

Tracers are not auto-hit. "If this attack hits..."

They are when Blount fires them

I know, I was addressing blade_mercurial.

Tracers are not auto-hit. "If this attack hits..."

I was under the impression that the tracers were an auto-hit for anyone using them. So putting them on blount is redundant if that's the case. In any event, it will be a while before Wave 8...

Nope, they are a 4 dice attack that requires a focus to fire but doesn't spend the token when you do.

Got it.

I can see the inherent alpha strike power in this, as you may get good initial damage in the first round of contact even against heavier, non swarm lists. If you pick a low evade target as the primary, best case scenario is that it takes enough damage to kill it and anything close to it is going to take 4 points as well.

However, if it works just like that, you have a pretty fragile group afterwards, and if it doesn't work, you may have spent 20 points on assault missiles for minimal return. Also, if your opponent looks at your build beforehand, he's not going to group up and give you free kills.

I can see the inherent alpha strike power in this, as you may get good initial damage in the first round of contact even against heavier, non swarm lists. If you pick a low evade target as the primary, best case scenario is that it takes enough damage to kill it and anything close to it is going to take 4 points as well.

However, if it works just like that, you have a pretty fragile group afterwards, and if it doesn't work, you may have spent 20 points on assault missiles for minimal return. Also, if your opponent looks at your build beforehand, he's not going to group up and give you free kills.

Couple of things here:

Alpha-Strike lists operate best against high-cost high-hp enemies. You're making a gamble that your post-Strike swarm is superior to the remnants of their post-strike fleet. Most of the math tends to support this, particularly since they'll be fighting uphill as far as MoV is concerned.

A player of Corran-Dash is going to be rather concerned when his Corran is going up against a 6 Z-95 swarm list, solo, with the command "Kill 4 of the bastards without dying, or lose."

Assault Missiles avert this, making you more effective vs a Swarm. HOWEVER, Swarms have a much harder time of "not grouping up" than you think, and if they do, they're fighting in waves (which is an easy way to die swiftly).

The plan with a higher success rate (though more difficulty in execution) is to control range, a skill that is rather difficult to ensure and leads to intense "Did I get this right?" moments that will either win or lose the game in a single round of activation.

This skill is also important to Fortressing, incidentally.

Thank you for your feedback. I will mix up the assault missiles with homing missiles to be a more rounded force.

Cheers,

So having tried a similar tie bomber list the main weakness to this list is that using tracers all of your TLs will be on the same ship. SO if you kill it without shooting all your missiles several of your ships will be firing primaries. This isn't an issue vs big ship lists, actually it's pretty ideal, but it's a downside vs swarms. 1 tie will be killed by 1-2 assault missiles most games, not the three needed to kill those around it. Again not too much of an issue, just a potential reason to only take 2 assault missiles.

Try running:

Blount, tracers

Bandit, tracers, mun failsafe

Bandit x 4 with choice of assault/homing missiles.

Set your swarm up with Blount and the Z with tracers in the middle and the other 4 around them. When Blount attacks, have 2 of the Z's get TLs. After they fire, if it dies, you can have the other Z with a tracer target something else, and then the remaining Z's get TLs on the second target, since they all fire at PS2. If it doesn't die, hope your second tracer lands, finish off with last 2 Z's