So as silly as this sounds I am not as interested in the fighters as I am the rebel cruisers and frigates.
If I want fighters I would just play xwing lol.
Dont get me wrong I love the Ywing (though not xwings sadly)
So anyways how important are the smallers ships or can i buy just the medium and larger ships and be just fine.
It has been repeatedly proven that it is possible to win tournaments of all sizes using just capital ships.
That shouldn't be taken to mean that Squadrons aren't useful or powerful, but it is extremely easy to argue that, with the cards and rules released so far, Squadrons are not obligatory or required.
I agree with the above point but want to say that I think fighters/bombers will have a much bigger impact on the game in wave 2
I ran an all capital ship list and had a hell of a time with Luke. So fighters aren't obsolete by any means, in fact I expect with 400 point builds I expect fighters to be even more useful.
If an all capital list come up against a Bomber heavy list that is played well, it could easily come up bust. But if the Bombers face of against a prepared fighter list they are in trouble. Those fighters are in trouble though if they face off against Capital heavy builds... Rock / Paper / Siscors
Depending on your area, it sounds like squadrons are undervalued and underplayed. Have you ever faced off against a Rhymer Ball? Or gone into battle with no fighter screen only to be slowly chipped away by a handful of X-wings.
The thing is, when you use squadrons against capital ships you're not going to be using your defense tokens to stop 1 - 2 damage, but when you have 6 of those hitting you, and then 2 - 3 capital ships pummeling you, those little 1 - 2 damage hits start to hurt.
If you question how viable or necessary squadrons are, it doesn't sound like you've played anyone who has used them well.
Well...most (not) all competition results are in fact showing that people that use them quite well still come up short against Capital heavy lists, so i dont agree there.
Definitely not required at present. They are fun, useful and indeed viable when used well, but 100% not required.
No, not required at all, I just think that a lot of people probably are not seeing some of the creative uses that squadrons can provide, and when you come out with a Capital Heavy, no squadron fleet, and your opponent has Bombers, you're not going to be having a good time.
If I match off against someone with no fighters and I have Rhymer+Bomber+Tie Advanced+Tie Advanced that's 4 black dice at medium range each turn. They won't be spending defense tokens to soak up that damage because they're saving them for the attacks from my VSD(s) and/or Gladiator so all of that 1-2 damage going right onto the shields eating them away.
From my experience people ignore it until they realize I've slowly been destroying their ability to move their shields around or now they're spamming engineering commands to bring shields online while I'm dishing out concentrate fire commands and ripping apart their tattered ships.
It's not a guaranteed win, but it's even better when people don't bother putting out squadrons.
So as silly as this sounds I am not as interested in the fighters as I am the rebel cruisers and frigates.
If I want fighters I would just play xwing lol.
Dont get me wrong I love the Ywing (though not xwings sadly)
So anyways how important are the smallers ships or can i buy just the medium and larger ships and be just fine.
Think of fighter squadrons as just weapon upgrades you equip to a ship.
When you rig a ship up with titles that support squadrons, such as Gallant Haven, and crewed with Flight Controllers, you are basically replacing one big shot with the ability to do many small shots.
If you ever played Starcraft, the Protoss could build these carrier ships that shot out many little fighters that did the attacks, while the carriers just moved them into range.
I play imperials and I don't run fighters at all and I play in a fighter heavy meta they can't put out enough Damage in a single turn to really make them super dangerous and they really only get 2 or 3 turns to make a impact. Now hey can still be dangerous but more Capital ships means you have a greater chance of victory.
I play imperials and I don't run fighters at all and I play in a fighter heavy meta they can't put out enough Damage in a single turn to really make them super dangerous and they really only get 2 or 3 turns to make a impact. Now hey can still be dangerous but more Capital ships means you have a greater chance of victory.
I don't want to be rude, but I'm not sure your opponents play their fighters optimally then. 
Fighters work, but if they don't have Bombers, then obviously they're setting themselves up at a disadvantage. On top of that, if they don't use squadron commands efficiently, from ships that are designed to support the fighters (Neb B Escort, AFMK2B, Victory), then they are missing out on a lot of damage potential.
Against ships, squadrons are there to soften up the defenses or hit weak points. Throwing 4 Black Dice with Bombers on Y-Wings and named X-Wings is very nasty against any ship because of a large damage potential. Obviously if they throw only TIE Fighters at you and their ships aren't capable of dealing much damage, then they should review their lists 
Right now I think a bomber-heavy (90-100pnts) can be devastating to no-squadrons lists, providing the player knows what they're doing.
But as long as few (and inexperienced) players run those lists, squadrons will be underrated.
As I see it, it comes down to player skill. If you have two players of equal skill, the one with all ships has the advantage. If the one with all ships has greater skill, then he is going to almost certainly win. And if the one with bombers has greater skill then his chances to do well improve dramatically.
With that said, I do believe that all this is going to drastically change with wave two. I myself am already planning a good fighter screen....
Yeah, I think Wave 2 is going to make fighter lists work. Between the larger carrier ships that still perform well at range and the possible ability to activate outside of range 1 you're going to see an uptick in fighters. That said right now it doesn't feel like they are needed.
Yeah, I think Wave 2 is going to make fighter lists work. Between the larger carrier ships that still perform well at range and the possible ability to activate outside of range 1 you're going to see an uptick in fighters. That said right now it doesn't feel like they are needed.
You can already activate outside of range 1, you can activate up to medium range
Well then....Points to me for being able to read 
Long Range then! I stand by the fighters will be more prevalent with wave2!
It's a game about capital ships. Fighters are one of many tools you can use to create your strategy or play style.
If you get a starter and some ships, you will still have a few fighters you can toss in for defence if you're in a bomber heavy area. If you put in a strong bid, you can force objectives that aren't fighter friendly. You can do well with little or no fighter support. And, given that 2 packs of fighters come to $40ish plus tax, you can always add some later.
Me, I enjoy blowing things up. Winning is good, but it's more important something went BOOM!
Now, what is going to make you happy?
They're very important - they give it a nice Star Warsy feel!
I think that the match-up between heavy Bomber lists and All-Ship lists are being heavily overstated in regards to the advantage the Bomber list has.
The Bomber list is trading activations and staying power for possibly higher damage output and some deployment advantage. It is very much a trade off.
The "if you just played better players" fallacy is coming through at bit strong on this thread.
For me they are important as it does not feel like Star Wars without them, I keep thinking that I should fly a list without any to see how if flies but when I come to plan it out I just can't stop myself dropping in the fighters. They're too much fun not to.
I think it's foolish to run a fleet without any. Mostly because of Rhymer balls. That's basically a semi mobile turret of death by a 1000 cuts. Even one or two can delay an opposing fighter wave for a turn or two. That's a few 1-2 hits your ships won't have to deal with.
Are they necessary, no, but they're an effective insurance policy or can be used as a force multiplier.
And yet, people are still winning that match-up despite having to suffer through Rhymer without any Squadron cover.
And yet, people are still winning that match-up despite having to suffer through Rhymer without any Squadron cover.
And people are still losing to it, too.
Anybody can overcome anything in any facet of life. It's called an underdog.
And all of this is opinion. They're similar to a part of human anatomy...