I haven't had a chance to play a lot of games yet so I wanted to ask around and see what other people think. I currently have two lists for each faction, one that has 0 fighters, and one that is basically a fighter swarm. With Jan/Dengar, having 2-3 fighters to tie things up doesn't seem very viable to me. My questions are as follows:

1. If you are playing an all ship Ackbar list (3/4 ships, 1 MC80, 1/2 AFs, 1/2 MC30s) vs. a Rhymer ball list. Can you kill the enemy ships before the Rhymer ball kills you? This is my biggest concern because the Rhymer ball has a much larger threat range than a Rebel ball list.

2. On that same token, take that Ackbar list vs. a Rebel bomber swarm. Same question, can it kill the ships before the ball kills them?

3. Reverse the factions. Taking an all ship Imperial list with Screed or Vader (4-5 ships, 1 ISD, 1/2 Glads, 1/2 Raiders) vs the Rhymer ball, same question as before.

4. Imperial ship list vs. Rebel ball, same question.

5. Lastly, if I were to drop a ship from each of the all ship lists for a token anti-fighter squad (probably with rogue, so 3/4 YT-2400s or 3/4 Aggressors), would they actually do anything against a Rhymer or Jan ball?

Thanks.

if they are running a firespray ball they will beat you before you do, they will slow roll at you while a raider flies off to the side away from the battle to prevent wipeout. as for rebels their bombers can hit very very hard, even an ISD will be lucky to survive 2 turns, you need squadrons to delay or at least thin their numbers, 5 ties and howlrunner can be very effective for very cheap, rebels dont really have a cheap option but jan ors and a bunch of xwings are solid

to face a superior squadron foe, you must at least have a few squadrons to Tie (heh) down the enemy and then beat his body of squads into submission with anti-squadron ship fire

Raider-1s (ordnance experts), Neb Escorts, and even ISd-2s (who should have gunnery team as an auto-include) are all pretty skippy for this

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I tend to think that the days of using no squadrons are gone barring some unique lists. There's some ideas in the post I wrote, link below, that might be helpful.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/199019-tips-on-how-to-counter-the-fireball-with-minimum-squadrons/

On bigger ships, 2 blue anti-squadron dice like Fickle Green Dice say can pull work ! Take 1 damage on average, braceable down to 1 and you see how quickly it can add up, especially if you have multiple ships going on.

@the OP : You don't need to kill all the ships. As soon as one carrier is down, the squadrons lose a lot of their effectiveness due to less activating in the ship phase. This allows for evasive maneuvers from the balls.

The days of no squadrons are dead. Massed squadrons are too lethal and have too much range, either from Rogue, Rhymer, or Boost Comms. Intel is also a huge game changer since a few token squadrons aren't going to stop those bombers. You have to bring enough squadron firepower to kill that Intel ship and any escorts. Considering I'm now regularly running 3 X-Wings alongside Jan, that's a tall order. Don't fear Ackbar. He's just a lazy man's double arc shot for a lot of points. Fear the bombers.

perhaps you might have to change the way you fly to adapt and win.

If you think squadrons are going to be a problem for your ackbar list, you might aim to kill just 1 ship and a few squadrons before buggering off

The days of no squadrons are dead. Massed squadrons are too lethal and have too much range, either from Rogue, Rhymer, or Boost Comms. Intel is also a huge game changer since a few token squadrons aren't going to stop those bombers. You have to bring enough squadron firepower to kill that Intel ship and any escorts. Considering I'm now regularly running 3 X-Wings alongside Jan, that's a tall order. Don't fear Ackbar. He's just a lazy man's double arc shot for a lot of points. Fear the bombers.

Agreed, I think that for any 400 points list, there needs to be at least a few fighters going on. If only to delay the enemy Bombers for a turn.

The days of no squadrons are dead. Massed squadrons are too lethal and have too much range, either from Rogue, Rhymer, or Boost Comms. Intel is also a huge game changer since a few token squadrons aren't going to stop those bombers. You have to bring enough squadron firepower to kill that Intel ship and any escorts. Considering I'm now regularly running 3 X-Wings alongside Jan, that's a tall order. Don't fear Ackbar. He's just a lazy man's double arc shot for a lot of points. Fear the bombers.

Agreed, I think that for any 400 points list, there needs to be at least a few fighters going on. If only to delay the enemy Bombers for a turn.

Those anti-squad dice can and will chew down squads. I did a fun game with a buddy who wanted to try out his ISD. I ran a fighter heavy list just to run a bunch of X-wing (Luke-Wedge-6 generic X-wings). He only had Vader,Fel, 1 Inter, 1 Avd. By the end of the game his anti squad had blasted ALL of my fighters. Every turn each squad would take 1-2 hits. So don't discount those blue dice.

The days of no squadrons are dead. Massed squadrons are too lethal and have too much range, either from Rogue, Rhymer, or Boost Comms. Intel is also a huge game changer since a few token squadrons aren't going to stop those bombers. You have to bring enough squadron firepower to kill that Intel ship and any escorts. Considering I'm now regularly running 3 X-Wings alongside Jan, that's a tall order. Don't fear Ackbar. He's just a lazy man's double arc shot for a lot of points. Fear the bombers.

Agreed, I think that for any 400 points list, there needs to be at least a few fighters going on. If only to delay the enemy Bombers for a turn.

Those anti-squad dice can and will chew down squads. I did a fun game with a buddy who wanted to try out his ISD. I ran a fighter heavy list just to run a bunch of X-wing (Luke-Wedge-6 generic X-wings). He only had Vader,Fel, 1 Inter, 1 Avd. By the end of the game his anti squad had blasted ALL of my fighters. Every turn each squad would take 1-2 hits. So don't discount those blue dice.

Oh I definitely don't. Personally, I keep trying to find ways to upgrade my Salvation Neb-B to an Escort Frigate for that very reason. The key is to put the squadrons into the same enemy arc as your ships. It forces a choice between anti-squadron or going for a ship in most cases. Gunnery teams are the exception, but the only time that really scares me is with an ISDII. 99% of the AFIIs out there are the B model.

I always field Neb-Bs as escorts.

I find those 2 blue anti-squadron dice from a side arc to be devastating to squishy and massed imperial squadrons.

Here's my thoughts, for what they're worth, to the questions you raised.

1. It's really hard if the opponent has Boosted Comms, which stretches the already-crazy range of the Rhymer ball to an absurd distance. Ackbar's long-range is far, but if the Rhymer ball is deployed at the end of activation range, you're probably looking at at least one turn of fire from Rhymer before you close to long-range of the carrier(s). Plus, once you do close, you have to have enough left (after weathering the Rhymerball's fire) to take sustained counter-fire from the carrier(s). That can make for a long day.

2. Since Rebel bombers lack Rhymer's range, I feel like this will depend on the speed of the bombers and your own ships, as well as your opponent's activation range. If the enemy has B-wings and your ships are going speed 3+, you may be able to get past them after taking a barrage, at least with small-base ships (medium and large bases are more tricky). Depending on what speed and direction your opponent's fleet is moving, there's a chance the bombers could end up out of activation range, too, which would help your cause. If the opponent has Boosted Comms and is running H-6s or Y's (or even A's with black battery dice), it will be harder to avoid them. And again, once you do close, you have to have enough left to take sustained fire from the carrier(s). If it's a pack of Nebs, you'll need less juice than if it's a pair of MC-80s waiting on the other side.

3. I would never, never, never (knowingly) take an all-Imp ship list with Screed or Vader against a Rhymer ball. Raiders offer a chance to damage squadrons, but at less range than the Rhymer ball can strike (close vs. medium), and can be destroyed by as few as four Bomber shots, even if they're fully healthy with their full complement of defense tokens at the start (hit-crit/Brace/hit-crit/Brace/hit-crit/hit-dead). Glad Is can take a little more punishment (basically as much as a redirect will afford), but offer wimpy return-fire (1 blue die), GSD IIs have better return fire but still aren't going to last long. ISD IIs have the best chance, but at just 11 hull and shields, I don't want them absorbing fire from 6-10 squadrons at medium range for a turn or two, because if I survive that, I still have to face the carriers at the end (which, btw, are probably fully-healthy ISDs...). If I was running ship-only, I'd go with either Motti or Tarkin: Motti for more hull on the front end, Tarkin so I could get an extra shield out of my repairs (which I would be spamming like there was no tomorrow... because if I don't, there won't be ).

4. Same general concerns as above. The threat of B's + Independence, or Scurrg's + anything, is terrifying (5 or 6 hull bombers). And that's without Yavaris in the mix. Again, once I get through the cloud, I have to fight ships on the other end. I know from personal experience that even a Mott-boosted ISD II doesn't want to go toe-to-toe with a fully-healthy Independence after absorbing two rounds of fire from four B-wings...

5. I'm a bit sour at the moment on token fighter squads against dedicated bombing wings (due to Intel's effect), but I think they're better than nothing for what you're concerned about. Obviously a ship is going to have the chance of doing more overall damage on more targets, because of how anti-squadron fire works in the game, but even a generic TIE offers better anti-squadron potential against a single-target than any ship except a Raider I at close range (equal average damage of 1.5, though with Swarm, the TIE has a better chance at exceeding that damage), and squadrons designed for dogfighting have greater potential against single targets.

I think the effectiveness of a token fighter screen will depend, in part, on the expectations you set. If you want to destroy a 6-10 squadron Rhymer/Jan ball before it damages your ships, four YT-2400s are not going to do that (there just aren't enough attack activations from the squadrons). If you want to debilitate the ball (really, the Intel component of the ball), that's unlikely, too, at least in the opening attack, if your opponent has any Escorts and has deployed them at all strategically. If your goal is to tie up the enemy bombers for a turn, that could be unrealistic as well, if the opponent makes good use of his Intel squadron. But if your goal is to chip away at an enemy bomber core, using some dedicated anti-squadron fighters, supported by anti-squadron fire from multiple ships, to gradually weaken the ball over time and claim more points in squadrons than you spent as the war of attrition wages on, that's a realistic goal. TIE fighters are flimsy, and I wouldn't want them trying to plink away at shields on a Raider or MC-80 unsupported, but you can get six of them for 48 points and if you employ them defensively around your ships and activate them early to hit six targets in an enemy Rhymer-ball/Jan-ball with the goal of softening them up for an anti-squadron barrage later in the round, you can claim a lot more points than their worth in enemy squadrons before the game is over. Whether that kind of attrition-based view is enough to actually claim victory against an opponent is, of course, another matter.

The days of no squadrons are dead. Massed squadrons are too lethal and have too much range, either from Rogue, Rhymer, or Boost Comms. Intel is also a huge game changer since a few token squadrons aren't going to stop those bombers. You have to bring enough squadron firepower to kill that Intel ship and any escorts. Considering I'm now regularly running 3 X-Wings alongside Jan, that's a tall order. Don't fear Ackbar. He's just a lazy man's double arc shot for a lot of points. Fear the bombers.

Agreed, I think that for any 400 points list, there needs to be at least a few fighters going on. If only to delay the enemy Bombers for a turn.

Those anti-squad dice can and will chew down squads. I did a fun game with a buddy who wanted to try out his ISD. I ran a fighter heavy list just to run a bunch of X-wing (Luke-Wedge-6 generic X-wings). He only had Vader,Fel, 1 Inter, 1 Avd. By the end of the game his anti squad had blasted ALL of my fighters. Every turn each squad would take 1-2 hits. So don't discount those blue dice.

Oh, I'm not discounting them at all I had a very similar experience in my last Wave 2 battle where my squadrons got damaged over time by AA fire, killing a couple.

One trick to mitigate that is that since squadrons are most susceptible to AA barrage when they're in the same hull zone, you benefit from spreading them on different hull zones. And you get even more benefit when in these hull zones there are ships the enemy would like to shoot at

AA Barrage might kill Wedge or Luke over 5 turns, but that's 3 turns too many. Which is why I was talking about having a token fighter force to at least ensure bringing down the key targets with combined firepower.

I've found raiders very effective to thin out rebel fighter balls, combined with a decent fighter screen and i've wiped out all rebel fighters in 1 or two turns before they have a chance to damage any capital ships