Not sure why it didn't occur to me earlier, but Omega Leader is the budget ace that I was looking for a year ago when experimenting with dual Imperial Bounty Hunter lists.

Thinking of running this at the next tournament:

Omega Leader [Juke, Comm Relay]

Bounty Hunter [Tactician, Seismic Charge]

Bounty Hunter [Tactician, Seismic Charge]

It's a tough choice between Tactician and RecSpec, but the deciding factor for me is the Seismic Charges. They should come in handy against swarms which is the glaring weakness of this list, and if I'm lucky I'll ping a few aces with 'em after I stack some stress!

What do you all think? Competitive level or not quite?

I don't know. They current game meta appears to be TLT / Ace / Authothruster heavy rather than swarms and all of which are not numerous / weak enough for 1 damage to matter. Further, these guys all really seem to like being at Range 3 so while the seismics might help in 1 game in 20, I don't really see them doing much.

I could be crazy though.

Yea I meant more that I like [Tactician & Seismic] more than just RecSpec. The bombs are just a bonus! The core element to this list is still the quad Tactician arc coverage for those aces that you rightly mentioned.

And good point about the TLTs meta - it could be another potential weakness especially for my Omega Ace. But having 0.27 health per 1 point on the Firesprays gives me some confidence. That health-cost ratio is pretty close to the 0.33 health per 1 point you get from Binayre Pirates which are a soft counter to TLTs purely because of their meatiness.

in my experience, TLTs are incredibly easy to doughtnut hole with even tie fighters. With a 'spray, you have large ship movement to roll right the hell up to a TLT, provided you can fly them well

seismic charges I've personally found to be crackswarm counters, with select utility v aces/aggressors (have to really practice, though)