I was looking over the tie prototype reveal and had a thought. Since TLT's are so hugely popular these days you are well served to run auto thrusters. The big problem with that is most ships that can take it get too expensive or don't have good options for pilots. The prototype is cheap at 16 points so you can run a small swarm. I thought this could be a fun list to try vs the current TLT spam.

Seinar Test Pilot 16

Tie v1 1

Auto thruster 2

Thread tracers 1

20 points x5

100 squad points

This gives an alpha of TL/Focused/evade + thrusters ships. You are likely to take little damage and since TLTs are mostly one dicers you are likely to hurt at least one very badly. This sounds fun to me!

It'll survive well but it's kinda lacking in firepower, the TL helps but if you run into high agility ships you may struggle.

Against TLT spam you should kill a ship a turn with a little luck.

How much firepower do you need against a 2 Agi ship? V1s are going to be very annoying for TLTs.

It'll survive well but it's kinda lacking in firepower, the TL helps but if you run into high agility ships you may struggle.

Against TLT spam you should kill a ship a turn with a little luck.

2 dice TL and Focus will hit as hard as Howlie swarms used to. 2 hits x 5 is hard for anything to consistently evade.

How much firepower do you need against a 2 Agi ship? V1s are going to be very annoying for TLTs.

Exactly! Take out the TLT's which aren't very evasive and then go for the Ace. With that kind of defense on board you should be able to leave a good chunk of your list alive longer then the other guys. I wouldn't be surprised if severely damaging or taking out a Y-Wing on the alpha is fairly easy with 10 extremely accurate dice.

Seinar Test Pilot 16

Tie v1 1

Auto thruster 2

Thread tracers 1

20 points x5

100 squad points

This gives an alpha of TL/Focused/evade + thrusters ships. You are likely to take little damage and since TLTs are mostly one dicers you are likely to hurt at least one very badly. This sounds fun to me!

Only two dice attacks, though.

I dunno, I think you'll get more mileage out of 5x Autoceptors, honestly.

Contemplating 4x Saber + Juke + AT, as an alternative. Juke lets you always evade instead of focusing and still get an attack boost, and PS4 pilots will get you out of the Predator two-dice-reroll range. Not sure it's good enough to be worth picking up 4x TIE FOs, though...

The whole target lock/focus/evade action economy thing is unfortunately a little bit misleading.

Assuming you focus as your action, you don't get your target lock/evade until one of your ships shoots at PS2 so all the aces will have shot before you get your evade, and you have to have initiative against other PS2 ships to make it useful, notably TLT Y-wings. At 100 points getting initiative is in no way guaranteed.

The only time you are guaranteed to have useful evades is against PS1 so you are only marginally tougher than Alpha Squadron interceptors in edge cases. It's really more of a trade off between 3 red dice all the time or 2 red dice with a target lock (but only when you can hit with the tracers and are flying in formation). You also have to dedicate one ship to firing those tracers every turn which is one less ship shooting that also can't spend it's focus on defense.

in a match up with equal red and green dice, the red dice were designed to win in order to advance the game.

The whole target lock/focus/evade action economy thing is unfortunately a little bit misleading.

Assuming you focus as your action, you don't get your target lock/evade until one of your ships shoots at PS2 so all the aces will have shot before you get your evade, and you have to have initiative against other PS2 ships to make it useful, notably TLT Y-wings. At 100 points getting initiative is in no way guaranteed.

The only time you are guaranteed to have useful evades is against PS1 so you are only marginally tougher than Alpha Squadron interceptors in edge cases. It's really more of a trade off between 3 red dice all the time or 2 red dice with a target lock (but only when you can hit with the tracers and are flying in formation). You also have to dedicate one ship to firing those tracers every turn which is one less ship shooting that also can't spend it's focus on defense.

The idea is against the TLT which is most commonly carried by PS 2 Y-Wings which means you have a good shot to be shooting before them with all your ships with initiative. You could easily drop a couple thread tracers to ensure initiative.

Yeah, a swarm of Inqy TIEs should decimate a TLT swarm. Autothrusters are basially "TLT-bane", really screw with them. I'd say there's a reasonable chance the TIEs could shoot down a Y-Wing in one turn and the Ys would fail to take out a proto.

However, outside that ONE match-up, not sure I'm on board. It'd be fun to fly, but your potential to actually kill anything with three agility is pretty low.

Besides, why use five generics when Valen Rudor will smile every time he sees a TLT across the board from him?

Sure, and I mention that in my post. In a perfect match up this works, unfortunately that perfect match up is rare and the whole list suffers against a huge part of the current meta.

A fun concept but not super competitive that's all.

I played 5 interceptors with Auto for a funzie game. Boy, they are actually a lot more terrifying than you'd first think.

That's a lot of dice to be getting hit by. Esp as the games goes long and Range 1 shots start racking up.

why not take vessery plus three TAP's he benefits from their constantly TLing, with the tie d title and ruthlessness you can punch through high agility targets with him and still tear apart y-wing's.

why not take vessery plus three TAP's he benefits from their constantly TLing, with the tie d title and ruthlessness you can punch through high agility targets with him and still tear apart y-wing's.

Vessery might be really good, he will go toe to toe with any ace once imp vets drops.

why not take vessery plus three TAP's he benefits from their constantly TLing, with the tie d title and ruthlessness you can punch through high agility targets with him and still tear apart y-wing's.

Vessery might be really good, he will go toe to toe with any ace once imp vets drops.

The TAP alone makes Vessery that much better! Once the new titles drop, I see Defenders, TAPs, and TAs flying with one another often.

I'd drop the Tracers as you don't get the Evade if you don't have the TL first. Probably drop the Tracers for a PS bid. We don't know the next tier generic, but it might just be a point. It would be worth it to go first, grab the TL/Evade, and fire first.

The TAP bets the Alpha Interceptor in better defense due to the free Evade. I've flown 5 Alpha Thrusters and if your dice are off....you can get crushed. I think my last game with them had 3 die to Direct Hit and four dead by the end of Turn 3. Not Turn 3 of shooting, but Turn 3. The Interceptors beat the TAP when it comes to firepower, though. I am not sure which would be better vs. TLT's, but it might come down to the dice.