So I played in my first tournament this Saturday just gone (29th Aug) and in each of my 3 matches I played an Imperial player who was utilising Fel and TIE Advanced squadrons in some way shape or form. I was Imperial also and went for a ship heavy build which didn't leave me much left for squadrons, I ended up taking Rhymer plus a second bomber and a handful of TIE Fighters in the hope that they would supplement my ship killing capabilities.

Needless to say with my opponent's TIE Advanced enforcing its Escort ability and acting as a tank while Sontir's ability whittled down my TIE's was incredibly frustrating and my fighters were never a threat in any of my matches. I did have some success with my ship killing Capitals but I'm more interested in neutering this combo for now.

Other than fighting fire with fire, and including My own Sontir/Advanced combo in my list, or waiting until the wave 2 Raider hits, is there another way to counter this combo?

Interestingly a Rebel player went onto win the tourney and I know for a fact that he went against 2 of the same opponents as me, so he must have neutralised this threat in some way. However I never saw his list or went against him myself. All I know is that he had Tycho Celchu in there somewhere.

Any comments or thoughts would be appreciated.

Options

- Just kill them - Flight controller boosted squadrons - Fighters, Interceptors or Advanced would work. How many Advanced do you need to chew through? I used 2 x tie advanced with flight controllers and beat soontir and 1 advanced fairly easily.... (had a little bit of good rolling). Once you get an accuracy soontir dies quickly. Remember if you are squadron commanding into the fight you can play with positioning to either avoid or attack soontir without his escorts.

- Ignore them - Use Chirenau! Tie bombers are tough enough to take a round of attacks from soontir and his mates. Let him charge and then squadron out of combat. If he hasn't brought command support he is now stranded.

Try to be creative with movements so that only one or the other (Soontir or Advanced) are engaged. Chiraneau can work for this too, but the TIE's inherent ability to move 4 should get you where you need to go. Flight Controllers work great too, as that extra dice could potentially be what you need to get an accuracy result and prevent scatter. Honestly, with flight controllers, even bombers can be anti-squadron in a pinch (especially Rhymer) if you absolutely have to have an enemy squadron dead who has 1-2 hit points left.

Just kill them?! My God why didn't I think of that! Yeah I tried, the dice rolls weren't quite with me when attacking with the fighters and of course the bombers only have that 1 black die. I just couldn't get the damage out quick enough.

I don't have the Flight Controllers card (yet) however it occurred to me that I could try including Howlrunner, the extra blue die she gives to other Swarm fighters would come in handy especially if I include my own Interceptors which would give them an extra blue for the counter too.

Chiraneau is also a good idea, he is a bit pricy though.

Yeah, Chiraneau can be a bit pricey and I don't necessarily recommend him unless you use Rhymer and some bombers too. Howlrunner is pretty great. Just remember that you have to move her in first (but don't have to necessarily attack if you don't want to suffer the 1 damage from not attacking soontir). Swarm also triggers on Counter rolls, so don't forget that either

Could always upgrade to interceptors, use them to tie up enemy fighters instead of reg TIE fighters. This will mean that when vader or soontir attack, you get a counter (which does not proc soontir's ability). Also with soontir only having 3 hull, counter can tear through him really quick, then you dont need to worry about his ability and can focus his other fighters as much as you want.

You can go Mauler + 3 TIEs + Flight Controllers + Chiraneau. Deal Passive damage too each time you activate with Chiraneau. If you don't have Flight Controllers, you could replace one of the TIEs with Howlrunner.

Now, that's 16 blue Dice +1 auto damage with 4 swarms reroll coming on Vader in one Turn. He will not survive when you factor in Mithel's auto damage. At the 2nd turn of the engagement, you'll deal one extra damage to Fel, and even if you lost your 2 TIEs in the fight, I'm pretty sure that the 12 extra blue dice will finish him.

Don't forget that accuracies work when fighting enemy Ace squadrons. It's only the critical hits that do nothing. So, aim for the Scatter or force him to spend it.

Now that is a mean TIE Fighter Swarm, but you'll have to keep activating it.

Thanks guys, some useful tips. I'll be ready for them next time... It looks like it's time to buy another fighter pack...

I saw this and was about to suggest Wedge and Horton but saw you were Imperial Mithel + Advanced + Fel. Mithel gets you 1 "free" damage so pushes you ahead.

My answer is usually a TIE fighter left all out on its lonesome on the other side of the Fleet...

Give it a Squadron Command, it goes distance 5 and slightly behind, Doing its damndest to Engage ONLY Fel, and not the Advanced... It gets its rolls, and Fell usually Dies. Then its just mopping up the Advanced without worrying about Fel Damage.

The other counter: ignore them. Fel is useless against ships, although the Advanced is a little better with the black dice. However, if your opponent is having to squadron command the TIEs then they aren't doing all the other commands - so punish them in capital ship combat. (Navigate is in my opinion the most important command for Imperials)

The ignore option comes down to completely ignore, in which case maybe a Gladiator II for 2 anti-squadron shots might be nice or perhaps point defence reroute on your Vics for the reroll. I prefer a modest screen of 3 TIE fighters - just enough to bog down an enemy bomber swarm for those few crucial turns, and/or get a few kills if you can pull off the right commands. Given your opponent will have a 'carrier' ship, you can normally predict where the squadrons will be (within range 1-3 of the mothership). Once your opponent wins the dogfight and his fighters are free to engage, you should have flown right past and they will be playing chase for the rest of the game.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I think I'm going to go with my own Fel/Advamced combination but with added Howlrunner to provide the extra blue dice to the attacks/counters. I think that ignoring them all is a mistake, it wouldn't take much for him to reposition the ball of fighters into the path of my Capital ships once he's mopped up my own squadrons. I agree Fel isn't exactly a ship killer but if he can do a couple of damage points to the shields it could make all the difference.

I like mauler+admiral chiradude. It's also helpful for anti tycho duties with a rhymer ball. Another basic combo is h9-turbolasers and warlord title. It gaurentees a damage in antisquadron fire against every fighter save elite tie fighters/interceptors and tycho. Makes cleaning up elites and tie swarms easy points if you don't have a second shot with the main cannons