This is my go-to rebel fighter cover since my HWK-290 arrived:

1. 3 X-wings and Jan Ors.
2. A guppyB with expanded hangars and flight controllers, gallant haven

• Jan Ors is protected by escort
• Jan Ors protects 2 other ships per turn with brace tokens
• Intel actually allows the ships to stay near gallant haven for the bonus, and escape pinning by useless TIEs
• This allows the ships to head straight for the support characters of the Rhymerball
• 5 blue dice per ship make it enough firepower to kill TIEs
• Decent enough anti-ship to not be a waste of points (don't scoff at X-wings anti-ship. I ruined a VSD with this squad last game)

For Rebels you want Jan Ors and either 3 X-wings as escorts or 3 x YT-1300s. The problem with TY-1300s is their speed so I have run the MC-80 with Independence and completely shut down Fireballs.

Completely shut down as in, moving them speed-4 and then having Dengar give them Heavy, so the Rhymer + Firesprays can still into your ships or..?

Alternatively, a player who was not incompetent would not place all three YT-1300s right next to each other and allow Dengar to make them all heavy at the same time...

Which still doesn't Dengar from moving freely and giving whatever Firesprays that you do tie up after they break away, from shooting your ships... which is the main point.

So basically, the mission is to kill Dengar, but that task becomes difficult because Advanced with Escorts are a real thing, and Dengar himself has 4 HP, Scatter and Brace. All you need is 3 turns and Dengar has made WAY more than his points back.

It's not about incompotency, it's about activation order. If the Imperial player, NOT the Rebel player, is anything worth his salt, he would deliver Firesprays at your ships with Rhymer's bonus.

Example activation order:

Rhymer moves free from A-Wings from Dengar, goes somewhere to hand off range bonus

Firespray moves to join Rhymer, shoots at your ships.

You shoot stuff 2x. (because you're stuck in there)

Firespray2 moves to join Rhymer, shoots at your ships.

Firespray3 moves to join Rhymer, shoots at your ships.

You shoot stuff 2x.

Firespray 4 moves to join Rhymer, shoots at your ships.

Dengar finally moves, joining the Firespray herd to repeat the same process again next round.

Ideally, you have extra fighters on the side, that jumps in at the intervals where I suggested you shoot. Unfortunately, in most cases, the Firesprays would have already tossed their dice and the damage will be done.

I have been fighting Fireballs for a while now, using only 4 squadrons in most cases, knowing full well the difference between "tie up" and "killing". What I'm trying to say is that it's not very easy, at all in any stretch of the imagination. It's difficult to kill Dengar, so it becomes difficult to handle the Fireball. If you engage it, you reach the scenario above. if you space out and attempt to tie up, you're not killing Dengar. If the Fireball travels in a ball, you have no choice but to fight it, and then you're stuck in scenario A.

Sooner or later, you will bleed out in hull on your fighters, while he's still throwing distance-5 shots with blue dice bomber onto your ships.

Edit: Also, I'd like to add that for THIS exact reason, why Tycho has replaced Dash in nearly all my lists. Being able to just say shut up, I'm moving here and potentially tying up 2 Firesprays is worth its weight in gold. It also forces Dengar to move to places he might not want to be, and so lets you flip-a-roo and tie up Rhymer instead.

Also, I'd like to follow up with a developmental squadron list that I've been messing around as a proposed counter to the Fireball.

Also, I'd like to follow up with a developmental squadron list that I've been messing around as a proposed counter to the Fireball.

Wedge

Dutch

Jan

Tycho

1x A-Wing

2x X-Wing

It's 107 points, but the objective of this squadron mix is to just match Firespray speed with better attack fighters via X-Wings, and have the tools to locate and punch through Dengar's defenses.

If Dutch can sneak out a hit on Dengar, the dude can't move. If he can't move, I'm going to throw dice into him until he disappears. No one does that better than Wedge, and with X-Wings with Jan in the mix, that's a LOT of hull for them to chew through as well. Tycho is there to tie up guys who run away and Jan acts a suppression field to make the ball in Fireball, very upset. As long as Wedge and the X-Wings are alive, they won't be able to hit Jan so he can keep providing the brace tokens.

Of course, I've only played this list once, and not against a Fireball, but this is what's circling around in my head right now.

What sort of capital ship setup did you run?

I ran a jacked up MC80 and MKII, so a 2-ship list.

I also ran 3x X-Wings over the A-Wing you see there, and had Luke instead of Tycho. (which I immediately regretted)

If you were going to a tournament tomorrow and you knew you would face one Rhymer list, maybe two, what squadrons would you play to deal with it?

In response to your question, OP, I would run my fighter-heavy Rebel list, which revolves around 4 or 5 A-wings and 6 or 5 B-Wings, supported by Flight Controllers on three of Garm's AF2's. You bid hard for player 1, then focus all your squadron energy on gutting--or at least neutering--the adversary's fighters early on while flying the AF2's very defensively.

Ten squadrons throwing 4 dice each virtually guarantees that you can take down a couple of aces up front if you manage your positioning well.

The crux is getting that first strike... But remember how you bid hard for player 1? That lets you do it. B-Wings have a threat radius almost as large as A-wings if they move last and then first, and with five hull they tank return fire very well. After that, just make sure your ships stay in activation range, and profit.

If you don't get player 1, you can still win it, you just have to play it much more defensively. Set up your B-Wings in a defensive wall close into your ships, and hold the A-wings in reserve just behind your ships, and try to goad them into charging your B-Wings. Either they do and they're engaging in range of your flak and concentrated A-wing return fire, or they don't and their ships are charging through a cloud of B-Wings to engage. Either way, you win.

For Rebels you want Jan Ors and either 3 X-wings as escorts or 3 x YT-1300s. The problem with TY-1300s is their speed so I have run the MC-80 with Independence and completely shut down Fireballs.

Completely shut down as in, moving them speed-4 and then having Dengar give them Heavy, so the Rhymer + Firesprays can still into your ships or..?

I should have been more clear. I rolled in with all my squadrons and killed Dengar and locked down the rest and ended up killing all of them except one Firespray and none of my ships died. I also forgot to mention I had Wedge too.

First, I like now that squadrons are being taken seriously with discussions like this.

Second, IG-88 and Vader seem like good headshot items. vader can cover for IG-88 with Escort while IG tries to kill off Dengar and go down the target list. Something to try?

Above all, if I didn't take a fighter list designed for space supremacy (like every TIE Interceptor in my inventory plus others), I'd be flying fighters to try delaying the Rhymerball as much as possible with entanglements. That means deploying on the fringes to get the squads in but Dengar out, and generally trying to delay turns by keeping them out of the fight. So long as they aren't shooting at my capital ships they aren't in the game.

Which is why some of my lists have 4 spare TIE Interceptor squadrons. At least while they are trying to entangle, they can fight back.

Speaking of Rhymerballs, guess what arrived in the mail yesterday...

IG88 vs dengar is a good bet.

Personally I have run my Fireball against a fairly good squadron setup and with careful maneuvering and choosing when/where to engage it is possible to put serious hurt on anti-rhymer squadrons

I like using the nasty Howlrunner, Dengar, Soontir and a couple of vanilla tie advanced with firesprays and Rhymer

Back them up with a trailing raider

anything other than IG88 has to shoot at Tie advanced first, meaning they take 1 auto damage from Soontir, you would be amazed how quickly A wings disintigrate under a counter and free damage from soontir. Once you get through the Tie Advanced you have the devils choice of going for soontir, dengar or Rhymer (assuming they are still THERE) if you go after soontir you are eating 4 counter dice and 5 attack dice with a reroll. You go after Dengar and you eat 2 counter dice AND the auto damage from soontir. You go after rhymer...oh wait you have heavy and he's gone...It really is very powerful and if enemy has intel and you dont feel you can get away you stick together and fly that raider into the scrum to boost you with a couple of black dice to the lot of them. Main drawback to this is you can only bring 2 firesprays :/

My prediction is that next wave will bring things like dedicated anti-fighter frigates like the tartan and the rebel one that looks like a knob. Possibly with some red range anti-squadron dice.