Lyraeus that is cool.

The game I just played I had Tycho, 3 A-Wings, Wedge, 1 X-Wing, Dutch, Keyan and 1 BWing

Opponent had Rhymer, 3 Tie Bomber, 2 Advanced, Soontir Fel, Mauler Mithel and Howlrunner.

Everything got locked down in a massive furball and my anti-shipping got nerfed. Rhymer and bombers were the only squads to reliably get off anti-ship fire. Anyways someones gonna lose their mind over my thread drift....

I'll get over it

2 Bs, Wedge and Dutch actually. They did well in what turned out to be a massive dogfight but Chiraneau kept pulling Rhymer out of engagement to get off potshots at my carrier. Combine that with Demolisher walking past all my engaged Bs and some bad red dice on my part and my ships went down leaving close to 100 points in squadrons stranded.

Needless to say I'm not feeling squadron friendly right now.

On a side note I was really impressed with Mauler Mithel. He jumped right into the middle of the furball and did 1 damage to no less than 6 of my squadrons.

I know this is the awesome combo thread but 100+ points in rebel squadrons and still unable to lock down Rhymer and his bombers...... bad combo!

When you're facing that many enemy squadrons you're not going to be getting shots on ships - that's the downside of squadrons. But neither should he (very much) even with Chiraneau. And consider what he would have done to your ships had you NOT had squadrons along.

What you need to do at this point is cut your squadrons loose and depend on your ships to take out his.

Back on topic: be sure to include Flight Controllers somewhere in your list in case you run into enemy squadrons.

A-Wings + Flight Controllers + Boosted Comms= yes!

A-Wings + Flight Controllers + Boosted Comms= yes!

Don't forget that in a furball situation, A-wings pair VERY nicely with x-wings, contrary to some opinions. The trick is to send the X's in once the A's are about to die. If you spread out the A-wings right, the probability of all of them dying in one round of fire is prohibitively low (you need on average to toss about 8 blue dice per fighter). Once those A's are down to 1-2 hull (and have counter'd a few HP off your opponents) the X's sweep in and deliver the finishing blows, all the while the escort allows those A's to live another round while delivering their non-trivial AS fire into the melee.

This is entirely theorycraft, but hear me out on this one:

General Rieekan + Luke X-Wing + Moldy Crow + bombers (Y Wings or Scurgg prefered)

This combination is not cheap, but it means you have an extremely durable and evasive (thanks, Intel) bomber wing that is guarded by Luke, an Escort character ace who has 2 of his own Brace tokens and 2 from the Moldy Crow. Luke runs interference for most of the blob as best he can. Once he finally bites it (remember Rieekan keeps him alive as Zombie Luke until the end of the turn!), your opponent will need to kill the Moldy Crow to finally remove the Intel linchpin but that's the turn after (...assuming he can kill the Moldy Crow in just one turn, which isn't unreasonable but not guaranteed either). While this is happening your bombers are going after anything they can get their bombs into and if Luke is alive and decides not to dogfight, he can help. If your opponent decides to go after the bombers (because they're outside of Luke's engagement range or he's killed Luke and can't focus fire on the Moldy Crow alone), they have 6 HP apiece and can use the Moldy Crow's brace tokens. If the Moldy Crow is destroyed that same turn, you can still use Zombie Jan's brace tokens until they're completely erased because Zombie Jan doesn't need them any more does she?

Mean mean mean.

Snipafist, that's kind of brilliant. And by kind of I mean very! I'm going to work on Rieekan as a counter Ackbar.

Snipafist, that's kind of brilliant. And by kind of I mean very! I'm going to work on Rieekan as a counter Ackbar.

Let me/us know how it goes, I'm curious to see how strong the combination is in practice. You can extend the insanity by including Wedge to help Luke run interference (more Escort character zombies with many Brace tokens!) or even just using generic X-Wings (won't hit zombie state, but whatever) that can use the Moldy Crow brace tokens, but it's already a very expensive ball of doom as it is; I'm reluctant to pour more points into it than necessary.

The other good news is Rieekan can keep your carriers alive (temporarily) to ensure it gets enough Squadron commands poured into it. Guaranteed Yavaris is pretty mean. Gallant Haven has some legs with the combination as well early on (either deal me 3+ damage or the GH and if necessary a Brace says I don't care), and you can always throw Flight Controllers in there if you decide the blob needs to dogfight for real instead of just ignoring fighters while Zombie Luke meat-shields for you.

Tycho is worth considering as well - not really to be part of the blob but rather to tie up enemy fighters for an extra turn while the blob goes about its business.

This is entirely theorycraft, but hear me out on this one:

General Rieekan + Luke X-Wing + Moldy Crow + bombers (Y Wings or Scurgg prefered)

This combination is not cheap, but it means you have an extremely durable and evasive (thanks, Intel) bomber wing that is guarded by Luke, an Escort character ace who has 2 of his own Brace tokens and 2 from the Moldy Crow. Luke runs interference for most of the blob as best he can. Once he finally bites it (remember Rieekan keeps him alive as Zombie Luke until the end of the turn!), your opponent will need to kill the Moldy Crow to finally remove the Intel linchpin but that's the turn after (...assuming he can kill the Moldy Crow in just one turn, which isn't unreasonable but not guaranteed either). While this is happening your bombers are going after anything they can get their bombs into and if Luke is alive and decides not to dogfight, he can help. If your opponent decides to go after the bombers (because they're outside of Luke's engagement range or he's killed Luke and can't focus fire on the Moldy Crow alone), they have 6 HP apiece and can use the Moldy Crow's brace tokens. If the Moldy Crow is destroyed that same turn, you can still use Zombie Jan's brace tokens until they're completely erased because Zombie Jan doesn't need them any more does she?

Mean mean mean.

I heard he also likes to ride in a Gallant Haven