Planning a tourney list for this weekend. Wanna give Omega Leader (AKA Lockdown) a go. Original idea was this:

I think in this case Palp is in fact worth it.

He can enable Wampa's ability. When wampa dies (which will be soon), he can help push more crits though on any of your remaining ships thanks to Juke on OL and crack on the blacks.

For the last point, you could always go with intel agent. Might be useful to get a key block when you need it...

No room for Intel Agent... Emperor needs his space.

My tournament list currently is really similar: a crackshot black squadron swarm with Howlrunner instead of Lockdown making it a normal old school TIE swarm. I was using 4x crack shot, 1x draw their fire, but I think Wampa is a great addition. I'd say try it out with the emperor. Lockdown + crack shots is going to be very good, but not nearly as accurate as Howl with crackshots and it flies quite differently I imagine. (at least it doesn't rely on formations to maximize the list potential) So I would say try palp shuttle especially with wampa and due to the fact that you need some dice modification on those attacks. But you may find that you need the higher ship count because there might not be that much firepower coming from 4 Howlrunner-less TIEs and it may be hard to catch fleeing decimators that can easily damage your shieldless ships (despite emperor).

Hmm. I'm a fan of the 3x Black Squadron, 3x Omega Squadron, 6x Crackshot but either of these squads seem good.

For the second squad I say leave the 1 point initiative bid open for Omega Leader for the end game against a Miranda or Corran or Poe or whatever.

I ran a similar list, but used a VI Vader instead of the BSPs. It worked really well and Palp really helps ensure the Wampa gets a crit to push under shields.

If you're taking Wampa, then I'd definitely consider the Emperor. I wouldn't take the Emperor just to power Wampa's ability, but he does succeed in making a 14 point TIE fighter quite scary.

A shuttle with four TIE fighters in escort might work nicely too.

• Howlrunner - Crack Shot
• Black Squadron Pilot - Crack Shot
• Black Squadron Pilot - Crack Shot
• Wampa
• Captain Yorr - Reinforced Deflectors, Tractor Beam, Emperor Palpatine

The latter is going to be a bugger to kill compared to a normal royal shuttle (admittedly because you're sinking points into it - so it should). Half a crack dealer swarm gives you some decent initial firepower, too.....and most importantly, your opponent has an awkward choice; do you shoot at Howlrunner, accepting Wampa does an automatic through-the-shields hit, or at Wampa, leaving TIE fighters with Howlrunner's reroll?

Also, Yorr instead of an Omicron means you shoot with the Tractor Beam before Wampa And The Black Squadrons (the well-known jazz band), which could theoretically leave a target stuck facing TIE fighters with Crack Shot, Howlrunner and a Tractor Beam Token - 2 dice primary attacks suddenly seem a lot less pathetic....

You could also downgrade the reinforced deflectors to an electronic baffle, which lets Yorr pull stress for people at will, but it seems like a bad trade for a 30 point super-support ship to take damage to spare a 15 point TIE fighter stress....

Faced your first list in a 56 player tournament last weekend, it was awesome. Guy went on to place 2nd overall (list juggler).

He ran the swarm on one flank and OL on the other, it was nasty af.