I mostly play 400 points against the same couple of opponent. I Love the versatility of the Rebel fighters but i keep getting beat up by my opponents squadrons.

His Last list was:

2 x VSD (Screed) one of them a carrier with Flight Controllers + some upgrades.

Demolisher (engine tech + some offensive opgrade).

4 Bombers incl. Rhymer

3 Interceptors

Howlrunner

Mauler

I met this with:

(Ackbar) 2 x AF2b (ECM, x-17, Gunnery teams) and two corvettes and

4 A-wings

3 x-wings

But the combination of Interceptors + Flight controllers + Howlrunner gave the interceptors 6 dice + a re-roll (swarm) + 1 extra damage from Mauler..

Some sub-par dice rolling did not help med but... That is a LOT of damage and it quickly destroyed my fighter group with little in return creating an opening for the Rhymerball..

What to do?

Change one AF2 to an a version (more AA)?

Add Flight controllers and Gallant Haven to the other? (at the expense of a Gunnery team and will Gallant Haven even help as defense as Rhymer can attack my ships from long range)

Add Wedge and Dutch? (to get some some more staying power and attack strenght)

Yavaris? (works badly with Ackbar and at the expense of both corvettes? )

Or just wait for Wave II which will change the game ...

Easiest answer is upgrade both to IIA's for the AA. Draw the interceptors out with some bait, and vast away. Once they're dead you can commit the rest of your fighters to tying up the bombers.

Meanwhile kill demolisher and run away from vsd's.

In wave 2:

Gallant Haven + Intel to keep your babies safe.

Soften up his INTs with some AA from the AFa, then pounce. Howl and Mauler won't do so good alone.

He has no advanced..... Get those A-wings into the Bomber ball and at the very least take out Rhymer. His fighter load out is very similar to mine, i run TIE fighters instead of TIE Bombers, its very effective at both ship harassment and dogfighting. Without watching the game its hard to give advice. If his Demo speeds ahead of the rest of his fleet id put everything i can into it, including squadrons and then just try to keep him at long range and win that range war while dealing with Rhymer.

Rhymer has to die first. After that his squadron load out loses some steam. If you drop Howlrunner or the interceptors as well your in a good spot. You have nothing supporting your squadrons upgrade wise. If you are losing the dogfight you need flight controllers. Personally I am not a huge fan of rebel squadrons as I feel their ships need navigate way more than the imperials do.

As for Gallant Haven, if they are smart you'll never get your bubble protection cuz they will stay at medium range and pepper you with Rhymer until you decide to leave the bubble. Then they alpha you and blow up your squadrons. Gallant Haven shows up at local events and its the main reason I take Rhymer.

3 AFKs with gunner. CR90a with Snackbar. 6 A-wings
15 points left over. You could grab a 7th A-wing, or upgrade 1 to Tyco. Or, you could add a hanger bay to an AFK. Or, make the CR90 a token or command machine.(Tantive IV and Raymas or Leia).
Or, you could save the 15 points for bid. I will point out that the current world champ had a 12 point bid on a 300 point list.

When he sends forward his Rhymer ball, surround it, only engaging the edge squadrons.
Have the AFKs boot it. Use the token machine if there are tractors. Command machine if you d'ho your stack.

The A-wings will still die, but hopefully last long enough for the AKFs to scratch the flat tops.

oops, missed the fact he has no Advanced/Soonter Fel gouda. You can try to kill Ryhmer, which I assume you do try. Or just slow down the ball. Also, what missions do you run?

Great answers! keep em coming..

Well there's alot that can go into how his ties are outdoing your squadrons. Iniative and determining who gets the first shot is critical, even just throwing 3 a wings to halt mauler and kill an interceptor or two means you shouldn't have an issue tying down the rest of them. 2 x wings or a wings can also handle rhymers ball, and you can bug them out if you need too. With your list I would find a way to grab iniative, and squadron command turn 2 to negate mauler, then in the squadron phase you can tie up the bombers with an a wing. If he uses his squadron to activate the bombers then he's not using flight controllers and your initial a wings can survive better.

Hit him first. Your A wings are great for that. (And why all my rebel lists include them, same as my Imperials include Interceptors.)

Nail Howlrunner first which takes out a die from all the attacks including counter, then if you can nail Mauler. Your A wings should be able to do the first and lock down Mauler from moving, which saves a lot of damage. A bonus is that those two, unlike the Interceptors don't have counter. Counter will help whittle down the TIEs, if you only use the As. You can try to position to only have 1 v 1s (negating Howlrunner and swarm), but that's hard and unlikely.

The next turn, your X-wings should be able to engage (assuming you launched the A's at max range), and mop up.

As far as modifications to the list

Not sure on your points, but drop the 2nd corvette for more fighters. I'd suggest Xs.

I'd actually include Tycho, simply for his staying power (Brace + Scatter is a powerful combination, and if nothing else will help soak fire.)

I don't run AFM2s, and always run Yavaris, which does amazingly well in fighter engagements (you can't move anyway...) It benefits X-Wings the most giving them 8 dice over 2 attacks, which can rapidly mow down TIEs (half exception of Dutch/Wedge especially together, which give 6+12 dice and takes up to 2 of them out of action for a turn if they aren't destroyed.).

Another one might be Tallon, who would give you another attack per round.

AS fire is very effective vs TIE fighters with 3 hull, so a Neb B Escort or extra die of AS might be worth it. Especially if already weakened by counter on the As.

You have a good number of squadrons so you should be losing the attrition war too much. Like I said, gun for Rhymer. You need to double squadron command, set a picket line of A-wings and if he comes in to try and take them out, you counter attack with your x-wings. add Flight controllers and they are getting 5 dice on the attack. Also try to fit Tycho in there. he can dig pretty deep

Hit him first. Your A wings are great for that. (And why all my rebel lists include them, same as my Imperials include Interceptors.)

Nail Howlrunner first which takes out a die from all the attacks including counter, then if you can nail Mauler. Your A wings should be able to do the first and lock down Mauler from moving, which saves a lot of damage. A bonus is that those two, unlike the Interceptors don't have counter. Counter will help whittle down the TIEs, if you only use the As. You can try to position to only have 1 v 1s (negating Howlrunner and swarm), but that's hard and unlikely.

The next turn, your X-wings should be able to engage (assuming you launched the A's at max range), and mop up.

As far as modifications to the list

Not sure on your points, but drop the 2nd corvette for more fighters. I'd suggest Xs.

I'd actually include Tycho, simply for his staying power (Brace + Scatter is a powerful combination, and if nothing else will help soak fire.)

I don't run AFM2s, and always run Yavaris, which does amazingly well in fighter engagements (you can't move anyway...) It benefits X-Wings the most giving them 8 dice over 2 attacks, which can rapidly mow down TIEs (half exception of Dutch/Wedge especially together, which give 6+12 dice and takes up to 2 of them out of action for a turn if they aren't destroyed.).

Another one might be Tallon, who would give you another attack per round.

AS fire is very effective vs TIE fighters with 3 hull, so a Neb B Escort or extra die of AS might be worth it. Especially if already weakened by counter on the As.

With Howlrunner's scatter I kinda like just killing everything but her. Save her for last since she doesn't buff herself. Its easier to come in with a-wings and drop ties than kill howlrunner and even if you get 2 A-Wings its not guaranteed to kill howlrunner and you may lose them. If you kill Rhymer early the Bombers will most likely be out of position to pose a threat until you have dealt with the other squadrons.

With those two fighter forces, in my opinion you don't go for Rhymer off the bat here. You need to win the fighter battle first, or those will just clean you up and have your fighters out of the game by turn 3.

You need to use those A's to get the alpha strike on Howlrunner. When you jump in, do your best to position them in such a way that each A-wing is engaging one and only one fighter in addition to Howlrunner, so you can alpha Howlrunner and then prevent the interceptors from concentrating a counterattack. Engaging only one at a time also denies him swarm, which is almost a whole extra die. This is the best chance you have of your A-wings surviving the attack intact. This should lock the interceptors down long enough for you to get in your heavy hitters, the X-wings. If you can get the first shot on Mauler and the interceptors with your X-wings, it's game over.

The drawback to this game plan is that your ships have been tanking Rhymer and his flying circus this whole time. It'll take you till about Round 3 or so to win space superiority and the subsequent ability to go deal with those bombers. You have a couple of options, that you'll have to judge based on board position.

You can avoid the bombers as long as possible. This is hard to do with a well-flown Rhymer ball, so you can't count on it, but if he gives you the option, this is the best one.

You can tank the bombers. Four black dice unopposed for the whole game can be devastating. Four black dice for one turn, though, is not that bad, and you can probably weather them depending on what you're facing on the ship-vs-ship front. This is what I usually try to do against skilled opponents. Don't forget to use those evades on Rhymer's medium-range shots! Those will help you stretch your precious defense tokens.

Or you can dedicate one of your fighters to go over there and tie them up. This is the easiest solution, but it comes with a major drawback: when you're trying to alpha strike, you really want to bring every single die you have to bear. The fighter game is all about massing of firepower, and losing an X-wing to lock-down duty will probably cost you an alpha strike on an interceptor. Which will in turn probably cost you an A-wing, and consequently a substantial amount of momentum on the fighter side.

Finally: Flight Controllers. They make your A-wings hit like X-wings and your X-wings hit even harder.

Good luck!

Hit him first. Your A wings are great for that. (And why all my rebel lists include them, same as my Imperials include Interceptors.)

Nail Howlrunner first which takes out a die from all the attacks including counter, then if you can nail Mauler. Your A wings should be able to do the first and lock down Mauler from moving, which saves a lot of damage. A bonus is that those two, unlike the Interceptors don't have counter. Counter will help whittle down the TIEs, if you only use the As. You can try to position to only have 1 v 1s (negating Howlrunner and swarm), but that's hard and unlikely.

The next turn, your X-wings should be able to engage (assuming you launched the A's at max range), and mop up.

As far as modifications to the list

Not sure on your points, but drop the 2nd corvette for more fighters. I'd suggest Xs.

I'd actually include Tycho, simply for his staying power (Brace + Scatter is a powerful combination, and if nothing else will help soak fire.)

I don't run AFM2s, and always run Yavaris, which does amazingly well in fighter engagements (you can't move anyway...) It benefits X-Wings the most giving them 8 dice over 2 attacks, which can rapidly mow down TIEs (half exception of Dutch/Wedge especially together, which give 6+12 dice and takes up to 2 of them out of action for a turn if they aren't destroyed.).

Another one might be Tallon, who would give you another attack per round.

AS fire is very effective vs TIE fighters with 3 hull, so a Neb B Escort or extra die of AS might be worth it. Especially if already weakened by counter on the As.

With Howlrunner's scatter I kinda like just killing everything but her. Save her for last since she doesn't buff herself. Its easier to come in with a-wings and drop ties than kill howlrunner and even if you get 2 A-Wings its not guaranteed to kill howlrunner and you may lose them. If you kill Rhymer early the Bombers will most likely be out of position to pose a threat until you have dealt with the other squadrons.

It's actually impossible for two A-wings on their own to get the alpha on Howlrunner. Even if both roll hit-hit-acc, she'll brace to one on both, leaving her with 1 hull. You need four A-wings reliably alpha her. But you still should focus her down, because otherwise you're shooting at counter-3 TIE interceptors, which are virtually guaranteed to kill your A-wings right back with five dice and a reroll.

There's a reason I keep putting that Escort Nebulon in my Fleet... And constantly try to find the points for an AFMK-IIA instead of the B...

And that's 3 Hull TIE Interceptors and Fighters...

Gallant Haven + Ace (or Jan Ors) breaks squishy Ties quite easily, six dice or not

use it defensively

Or just wait for Wave II which will change the game ...

Are you not playing Wave 2 now, with Ackbar in there?

Gallant Haven + Ace (or Jan Ors) breaks squishy Ties quite easily, six dice or not

use it defensively

The issue with gallant haven us there's no incentive for him to attack then. He can just use a giant rhymer ball and shoot at gallant haven

Gallant Haven + Ace (or Jan Ors) breaks squishy Ties quite easily, six dice or not

use it defensively

The issue with gallant haven us there's no incentive for him to attack then. He can just use a giant rhymer ball and shoot at gallant haven

without any tech to disengage them, the Rhymer ball is trivially neutralized by an engaging squadron

that all comes down, as it should, to actual gameplay between the players, but nothing counters the raw dice of Howlie 'ceptors like Haven + brace

Rebel fighters can really benefit by staying close to their fleet. Really you want the ties to engage you where your ships can do the damage.. Rhymer is not that hard to counter, and come wave II he has even more problems. Watch out for Dengar though...

Gallant Haven + Ace (or Jan Ors) breaks squishy Ties quite easily, six dice or not

use it defensively

The issue with gallant haven us there's no incentive for him to attack then. He can just use a giant rhymer ball and shoot at gallant haven

without any tech to disengage them, the Rhymer ball is trivially neutralized by an engaging squadron

that all comes down, as it should, to actual gameplay between the players, but nothing counters the raw dice of Howlie 'ceptors like Haven + brace

depends on the rhymer ball All Bombers then sure, a mix of bombers and fighters or interceptors and that 1 squadron gets hosed and you are feeding your opponent points.

If you want to win the dogfight you need flight controllers its really a must, even if you already have howlrunner i am finding. what sucks is that upgrade only comes with the VSD

Or just wait for Wave II which will change the game ...

Are you not playing Wave 2 now, with Ackbar in there?

I am proxying most of the upgrade cards from wave II while waiting for FFG to find the ship (it is obviously lost at sea). I Just print them at 60% on thick paper from the pre-view images. Allows me to try out more options.

From my perspective, trying to dogfight that to death will require a high expenditure in points as it's Imperial squadrons dedicated to dogfighting and their points are spent more strongly towards that specialization due to Imperial squadron design philosophy.

My recommendation is be evasive with your fighters and simply take it on the chin for a turn or two while hosing down the blob with flak. Once the Interceptors/aces are down to 1-2 HP apiece, you can send in your fighters to mop up. Once that's complete, Rhymer has got to go. I'd recommend A Wings for this task.