Yep. 6x Crack Squadrons is 90 points, so that leaves you with 10 points to conversions to PS 4 EPT TIE/FO's. You could do 3 Omegas for simplicity and the initiative bid, or 2 Omegas and Zeta Ace.

I'd rather have this than 5x Crack Squadron, an Obsidian, and an Academy. And that placed top 16 at Worlds.

You gain all the benefits that the FO brings over the TIE, no drop in PS and only a loss of one ship compared to the Worlds Crack Squadron list.

Do you drop Zeta Ace for Howl with Crackshot?

It placed 27th, but still, it did go 6-2 it just has bad MoV. Anyways, it's been a long time since I've run Howl, but I do recall her getting murdered fast usually. What about 5x Crack Sqd and Howl with PtL (for both evade and focus) and shield upgrade? Should keep her around for at least 1 volley, I imagine 5 crackshots is gonna do some damage with a reroll and a focus on all of them (hopefully)

Howl - Crack and Stealth Device

Omega - Crack

Black Sqdrn w/ Crack x4

My other swarm counterpart locally has been running that to great effect.

Either Howlrunner list is a good idea. There is also a naked Howl, Crack Saber Squadron, 4x Crack Squadron list I tried that was equally brutal.

As far as the list I posted in this thread, I went 3 - 0 with it at the local weekly tournament. Zeta Ace's 2 barrel roll ended up helping a decent amount, getting a crucial block on N'dru before he could drop a TL and blow away a TIE with Cluster Missiles and Glitterstim and Lone Wolf.

I'm thinking you could just substitute Zeta Ace for Howlrunner with Crackshot and hope you don't face Super Dash or some other hyper offense high PS ship that will snipe her before you get 1 - 2 volleys off.

Having half your list be FO's is nice. They can dump target locks when it's safe for them, and the 2 segnor's is great. Like on an Interceptor, the full suite of green speed 2 maneuvers just ignores Loose Stabilizer from the new deck. That extra shield generally means a full extra turn of existence, which is huge for just the 3 extra points it takes to go from Crack Squadron to Crack Omega Squadron.

The best thing about it is that when I play Escalation I won't have to change anything, just fly 4-6-8 Crack Squadrons, lol. So unlike with a lot of lists that work in standard format that get awkward when trying to fit them into Escalation, this list is optimized for the 90 point round.

You can also use 2 FOs, 4 TIEs, one of them Howlrunner and give all of them Crackshot. Pretty evil.