What's people's opinions on Youngster with Rage and Shield Upgrade, Epsilon Leader and 4 Black Squadron with Crack Shot vs Howlrunner with Crack Shot and Hull, Omega Leader with Draw their Fire and 4 Black Squadron with Crack Shot? I've been running the Howl Swarm with a 5th Black Squadron with Crack Shot but thought the Omega with Draw could be helpful to keep a TIE alive an extra round?

what does rage do?

You get a focus and 2 stress and can reroll up to 3 dice when attacking.

That's not the Youngster fleet I'm using, though I do have some commentary.

(Mine is Youngster, Rage, Hull Upgrade, flying with Epsilon Leader, Wampa, and Academy Pilots).

I think that, if you're already having them use Rage, then Crackshot is not as necessary as it normally is.

Moreover, I see quite a fair bit of anti-Ace tech coming into play in the near future.

Meanwhile, Draw Their Fire is absolutely astonishing in a TIE Swarm.

If you've managed to deal 2/3 of the total damage to my fleet, but haven't managed to kill anything, I'm still firing at full strength, which is particularly strong with Rage.

DTF helps bring about that happy scenario.

So, your fleet with DTF, my fleet with Academies, and of course the 8 tie Youngster Rage fleet, all have great potential, and I for one look forward to multiple of them clashing against each other.

There enough room for 8 youngster + rage? I dont think so ..? 8 ties is 96 right? youngster is 16, filling up 4 more points, plus rage is 1.

Btw. rofl. why not both? Howl and Youngster. =) And Ep Leader while we're at it.

There enough room for 8 youngster + rage? I dont think so ..? 8 ties is 96 right? youngster is 16, filling up 4 more points, plus rage is 1.

Btw. rofl. why not both? Howl and Youngster. =) And Ep Leader while we're at it.

Youngster's 15, mate.

​Youngster + Rage is 16, +7 Academies is 100 on the nose.

Yep, looks like it's designed, Ragester + 7 Academies = exactly 100

I don't get it.

Why should I want to double-stress my whole swarm?

This means you can't have actions in the following turn.

This means I can't K-Turn for 2 turns, given that you fly 2 greens!

Meanwhile you have all enemy ships in your necks, blasting your swarm to bits.

I might be wrong but I think Rage is even worse then Expose.

Mega alpha strike and Epsilon Leader removes one stress from all friendlies at range 1 at the start of combat phase.

Mega alpha strike and Epsilon Leader removes one stress from all friendlies at range 1 at the start of combat phase.

You could reroll 2 dice instead of one (Howlrunner). This is far away from 'Mega', since we are talking about attack 2 ships.

Epsilon Leader would ease the pain a bit - but he comes with a price.

An I personally don't like to mix Empire and First Order. It just don't feels right.

Name of list: Teenage-Rage?

I'm also not sold on it that's why I asked the question. Apart from mixing ships I'm tending to agree with you at the moment but I'm gonna give it a try out at some point I think.

Pros and cons for the two pilots:

Reasons to prefer Youngster:

• Price - Howlrunner is more expensive, critically meaning she can only appear in a 7-ship swarm, not an 8-ship like Youngster
• Vulnerability - Howlrunner needs to be alive when her wingmen shoot in order for them to benefit. Youngster confers his benefit in the 'Perform Action' step of the activation phase, and it can't be taken away by one-shotting him with Vader or Han (probably the most important 'Pro' for youngster in an academy swarm)
• Maneuverability - Howlrunner limits the formation to a range 1 bubble. Youngster works at range 1-3, so is arguably more forgiving.
• Force Multiplier Effectiveness - At medium-to-long range, the difference between a full reroll and howlrunner's ability is fairly minor. If you can get to range 1, however, Youngster's potential 3-die reroll can really shine.

Reasons to prefer Howlrunner

• Action Economy - Howlrunner is massively more efficient, allowing you to Barrel Roll in the same turn, and for that matter still works during a koiogran turn
• Speed Restrictions - Howlrunner's range bubble is calculated on final position as it applies in the Combat phase. Youngster's range bubble (whilst larger) applies during the Activation phase - it's easier than you think to commit to a straight 5 with a ship in a loose formation and find it out of Youngster's range in its 'Perform Action' step.
• Stress - the most obvious problem; clearing off two stress tokens means you will lose at least one turn of actions (unless investing in Epsilon Leader, Yorr, Wingmen or what have you). There are ways to mitigate this with Black Squadron Pilots by taking Wired or Adrenaline Rush, but regardless you are looking at a painful following turn.
• Standalone Effectiveness - Howlrunner is a PS8 pilot, which is never a bad thing in and of itself, and with her Elite Pilot Talent free can be paired up with Crack Shot or Juke to give her respectable punch.

My personal suggestion is that Youngster is best with an Academy Swarm - to gain the maximum benefit on your super-alpha-strike, be able to avoid being blocked and close to close range, and have the warm bodies to tolerate a turn of return fire without tokens.

Howlrunner is better with Black Squadron Crack Shot pilots - having the pilot skill to fire before most people's generics and therefore probably whilst Howlrunner is still alive.

Always remember that you don't have to use Youngster's ability all the time. If you take Youngster and 7 Academy Pilots, you have an 8-TIE swarm, with little tactical difference against most opponents to a classic 4 Academy Pilot, 4 Obsidian Squadron Pilot swarm, which is a perfectly viable alternative to Howlrunner. If you get a chance to use Rage, great, but feel free to use it on only one or two ships.

You're going all in on the first turn of combat either you deal a major blow or essentially concede the game.

The problem with Howlrunner is flying in formation.

Formation flying isn't a good idea, you're more predictable, easy blocked, easily screwed by asteroids, more prone to having your entire list get arc dodged with a single boost, etc.

You're better off setting up in a formation and doing varied straight manuevers and barrel rolls to break up into a loose cloud of ships. You're more flexible this way and ships (especially large bases) end up bumping into it much easier.

Lining up your ships in neat rows accomplishes nothing except look cool. Occasionally you're better off with one in order to stay in one range band (like 5x Autothruster Alpha vs quad TLT) but if you're setting up in a formation you should have a reason to other than it looking cool and being what 'good' players do. Because a loose cloud is just better unless you're using Howlrunner.

Agreed. A two-by-four made of TIE fighters is no less unwieldy than one made from Scots Pine, and your opponent is just as unlikely to blithely allow you to hit him square in the face with it.

I've been listbuilding using TIE/fo with Zeta instead of the Academy. Granted, you end up with one less ship using Youngster+Rage+Hull, Epsilon Leader, Wampa, and 3 Zetas. However, I'm thinking that the added greens, 1 shield, and the sloop on the FO will counter the loss of one ship.

Thoughts?

Lining up your ships in neat rows accomplishes nothing except look cool. Occasionally you're better off with one in order to stay in one range band (like 5x Autothruster Alpha vs quad TLT) but if you're setting up in a formation you should have a reason to other than it looking cool and being what 'good' players do. Because a loose cloud is just better unless you're using Howlrunner.

Flying your ships in formation decreases the drain on your brain. I like to fly my 8 ties swarm in 2 4 ties blocks. Essentially this means that I only have 2 maneuvers to plan until the engagement. When flying in a loose cloud, you can't know before hand if a set of maneuvers will result in a bump and have to figure it out in the planning phase, this means that:

- you need more brain power in the early game

- you take more time to plan maneuvers (so have less time to analyse your opponent moves)

- it's harder to concentrate fire

Knowing when to break formation is critical, but there is nothing wrong with flying in formation at least in the early game.

List I made that eases the pain of Rage is:

Youngster w/ Rage and TIEmk2

Epsilon Leader w/ Comm Relay and TIEmk2

5 x Academy TIEs

100pts dead on, can remove one or both of the mk2 engines to be 99/98 depending on how much you like initiative.

Pros and cons for the two pilots:

Reasons to prefer Youngster:

• Price - Howlrunner is more expensive, critically meaning she can only appear in a 7-ship swarm, not an 8-ship like Youngster
• Vulnerability - Howlrunner needs to be alive when her wingmen shoot in order for them to benefit. Youngster confers his benefit in the 'Perform Action' step of the activation phase, and it can't be taken away by one-shotting him with Vader or Han (probably the most important 'Pro' for youngster in an academy swarm)
• Maneuverability - Howlrunner limits the formation to a range 1 bubble. Youngster works at range 1-3, so is arguably more forgiving.
• Force Multiplier Effectiveness - At medium-to-long range, the difference between a full reroll and howlrunner's ability is fairly minor. If you can get to range 1, however, Youngster's potential 3-die reroll can really shine.

There's also the Defense side of things:

​The full re-roll with Youngster means you are less likely to need to use your focus offensively, and so are even more free than usual to spend it on keeping your ship alive.

Meanwhile, Howlrunner's ability still works if you Barrel-Roll or Evade.

As an aside: Omega Leader seems like a fairly terrible candidate for Draw Their Fire. He gives you another PS8 attacker, but has no defensive bonus if targeted outside of depriving a ship of dice mods. You could drop him to an Omega Squadron Pilot for almost the same effect. You could then either give him Comm Relay to help when he's attacked, or switch the Crackshots out for Juke on the Black Squadron Pilots.

I meant Omega Squadron Pilot with DTF so first crit just takes a shield.

I think the 6 tie swarm is better now then it's ever been, and so why not just have both howlrunner And youngster. It allows you to split the squad and really make your opponent confused as to who to target first.

TIE Fighter: · "Youngster" (15)

Rage (1)

TIE Fighter: · "Wampa" (14)

TIE Fighter: · "Howlrunner" (18)

Crack Shot (1)

TIE/fo Fighter: · "Epsilon Leader" (19)

TIE Fighter: Black Squadron Pilot (14)

Crack Shot (1)

TIE Fighter: Black Squadron Pilot (14)

Crack Shot (1)

Something like this is what I'm thinking, of course there is room to customers this set up how you want. I like it because it's really hard to say who should you target first. And each ship is effective and deadly in its own way