Many-a-time, I have seen folks in general Escalation threads say that 5x Bandit/Binayre/Academy is a great start.

And it's an interesting start, to be sure. It costs 60 points on the nose, and spits 5 pilots out there, and can be done by any faction.

Swarms lose to 4 things: AOE Damage, High-Mitigation Expectation, The Clock, and MoV.

Swarms enables opponents with High Pilot Skill shenanigans

Swarms tend to have very little in the way of upgrade potential, filling their point-curve with ships instead.

Analysis continues as follows: Why are these bad, and what can a swarm-start do to fight it?

AOE Damage hurts Swarms as it damages each ship in a given area, so it scales very heartily with the number of ships it faces. As a swarmist, you fly many many ships, so this is often used to counter-build you at the end-stages of the game.

Assault Missiles, Seismic Charges, Proton Bombs, Ruthlessness, and possibly Mara Jade go here.

• The obvious answer is "Don't fly in formation!" However, employing this tactic means your effectiveness vs the Clock is worsened, and your damage is worsened due to being unable to concentrate fire, possibly allowing for your opponent to divide and conquer with ease.
• The more complex answer is "Range Control!" That is to say, rather than reducing the density of your flight as the former answer, you're controlling where you are in relation to your opponent, so they cannot use their upgrades effectively. This is MUCH more difficult to attain, but will result in fewer losses.

For non-universal answers, Serriseu and Biggs are effective counterbuilds to Assault Missiles, and Ionization is effective against the Bombs.

As a rule, you'll want to close to Range 1 of these guys. However, without also blocking them, that's often impossible due to their near-universal role as arc-dodgers. Still, as arc-dodgers, blocking them often results in lowered defenses anyway, so that is also key.

Fortunately, against arc-dodgers with lower mitigation expectation (like Lord Vader), you've got too many arcs to dodge effectively, so you'll not have trouble universally.

The Clock eats away at you during Planning, Activation, and Attack, as all of these have larger minimum-times than your few-shipped foes.

Moreover, the Attack step requires some interaction with your slower opponent, so their defensive rolls and modifications are a large swath of time over which you have no control.

Activation and Attack should be otherwise automatic for you; it is simply an execution challenge for you to do them swiftly enough to not be an issue, but accurately enough that you didn't screw it up.

Having multiple options in your playbook that you are able to see give you advantages in this area, as you plan for the gestalt rather than the multitude of individual ships.

Advanced Swarm Tactics^{(which really ought to be a card)} allow for dirty tricks to swiftly be at your disposal, but often take many turns of set-up. Still, they take you beyond the rudimentary "My formation turns left!" world that many of us are relegated to at the moment.

Some notable mentions are the Deathblossom (in which all ships fan out, mimicing a Turreted ship), and the Starburst (somewhat of a reversal of the above, in which all ships fan out to target a kill-zone in the center of the formation, rather like an amoeba absorbing its prey).

Sadly, in Escalation, the Clock scales with the Points, so the 60 point round

The MoV system punishes you as your ships are individually likelier to die than your opponents', particularly after the change between Full and Partial wins became 12 rather than the previous 30. ^{...Yes, I'm old. Get off my lawn.}

Fortunately, Escalation has been uniquely set up to mitigate this: In the 60 point round, there must be a minimum of 2 ships!

That means that there is at least one ship that you can kill before time is up, forcing your opponent to need to kill two of yours to win, rather than the minimum of one in a 100 point game.

It also means that their Fatness can only be 48-points strong, though as stated earlier, we have larger issues against the Mitigation-Tanks rather than the HP-Tanks, and the Mitigation-Tanks usually cost less than 48 anyway.

Pilot Skill Shenanigans: You can fight these with fire, for as much as ships can profit from High PS shenanigans, you can profit from Low PS Shenanigans.

While a pilot with greater PS tends to get more use from their action economy, that comes at the cost of instability of that economy, vis a vis, blocking.

Moreover, Low PS pilots gain subtle advantages from certain actions.

• Focus.
  Low PS pilots have the potential to focus for defense, and if not attacked, spend the focus offensively.
  High PS pilots, contrariwise, must choose whether to spend their focus offensively or defensively, potentially dying from the incorrect decision.
• Barrel-Roll/Boost.
  Low PS pilots gain more from the availablility of these actions in the planning step, as they know for a certainty where enemies will be while activating.
  This means that you can more reliably use these actions for modified maneuvering, while the High PS pilot gets to arc-dodge with them only if they weren't blocked.
• Mines.
  Low PS pilots can drop mines directly on top of, or in front of, enemies of Higher Pilot Skill with impunity, while those more skilled pilots have greater accuracy with the AOE bombs.

The Upgrade Curve conundrum is the main reason I started with the counterbuild theorization, as that gives a greater idea of what is necessary in later installments.

The Z-95 swarms tend to be weaker than the TIE Fighter swarm, due to trading in Barrel Roll, a minor amount of damage mitigation, and ultimately Howlrunner, for +1 hp per ship... and a superior Upgrade bar.

See, the Z-95 swarms can evolve into Alpha-Strike fleets quite well, and the Scum ones can instead become Feedback swarms which are potentially more terrifying, and actively gain the advantage against what once countered the Swarm (High-Mitigation Expectation, remember?)

Moreover, the Z-95 swarms can fly alongside Biggs or Serisseu, further reducing the ill matchups vs AOE damage.

Imperial swarms, however, gain Howlrunner for a terrifyingly familiar and effective 90 point list, and rather wish the escalating stopped there.

Upon further reflection, the Empire does have some very specific tools at its disposal for dealing with AOE and/or High Mitigation Expectations.

We have Captain Kagi to stymie the Assault Missile barrage. He can also be given an Ion Cannon to stop the Bombs from getting dropped, as well as Gunner + FCS against the High Mitigation Expectation lists.

Unfortunately, the shuttle is the least mobile ship in the game, so even with an Engine Upgrade, he can still be easily dodged by the latter.

We have Scimitar Bombers with Proximity Mines, Cluster Mines, or Conner's Nets

Very specifically good vs the high-mitigation expectation lists, as these upgrades deal damage without regard to damage mitigation (excepting Emperor Palpatine), and as previously noted are another Low PS Shenanigan.
Problem here is that, after purchasing the mines, you're looking at 19-20 points per ship, and a very hefty Initiative bid in the 120 point round, unless you sacrifice an earlier Academy pilot, which starts to unravel the brain.

We have Sigma Squadron Pilots with Gunner

The Phantom's 4 attack dice, with the ability to attack again if the first attack missed, is an interesting way of shredding through High Mitigation. It's as survivable as a z-95 unless you get the cloak up, so you'll need to be very skilled with these to keep their sights on the higher skilled targets, and more importantly to stay out of their arcs as well.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this. I think this can even be utilized by people running mini swarms in their squads as well and was definitely worth the read.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this. I think this can even be utilized by people running mini swarms in their squads as well and was definitely worth the read.

I like swimming deep when I'm posting things at 2 in the morning