Now that the Open Series is over and we saw the 3 Scout Master Alpha strike work well. And now with the new Imperial Aces coming out. Which do you think is better for said Alpha Strikes. The Scoutmasters have 9 overall health while the Tie Bombers only have 6. Loaded out the same it seems you can get a ship or two more in the Tie Bomber builds but just wondering what everyone's thoughts are.

Well you can't load them out the same same way, you can't put astromechs on the bombers, so instead they would have room for bombs.

Bombers will produce the same alpha strike at higher PS, for cheaper. They are less durable, and lack a turret, however. Most importantly, they will be able to be fielded alongside anot Imperial ace, which very much changes the dynamic of a squad.

That and bombers have access to missiles and, if they really want them, more then two shots worth of munitions.

Bombers will produce the same alpha strike at higher PS, for cheaper. They are less durable, and lack a turret, however. Most importantly, they will be able to be fielded alongside anot Imperial ace, which very much changes the dynamic of a squad.

Can even do more, you get 4 of them.

Two dead eye, homing missile, extra munitions, and guidance chipped veterans are 27 a pop. Do two of those, a 34 point ace of your flavor (I'm thinking the countess if she ends up at 34 and toss juke+x7 on her), then add a academy pilot for blocking. Looks like a good all around list that should be able to face most things on even footing.

Bombers will produce the same alpha strike at higher PS, for cheaper. They are less durable, and lack a turret, however. Most importantly, they will be able to be fielded alongside anot Imperial ace, which very much changes the dynamic of a squad.

Can even do more, you get 4 of them.

The main thing is the ace pilots.

Their dial is still pretty predictable, and arc dodgers can still have an easy time getting out of arc.

You can manage to get 1 in arc, but again against a ship like fel or whisper teamed up with the emp shuttle, you can very rarely hit.

The other issue is crits. They are still very susceptible to crits.

This we know is bad

With no evade action, two green dice, crits are nasty.

I've had success running 3 bombers as crew carriers. More so than ordnance carriers.

The new pilot death fire isn't going to add much for them.

For friendly games they are fun, but I highly doubt we'll see them as ordnance carriers competitively.

Chances are they'll show up more as a cheap crew carrier.

Problem is ordnance is still costly, and requires a lot of work/upgrades just to make them work, then we come back to getting things in arc.

Again a good fel player will just outfly them.

I do look forward to the new veteran pack more so than wave 8, but I don't think this is the ordnance fix for bombers people were hoping for.

Really let's face it, ffg really messed up ordnance in this game, and their fix for it so for is more point sinks (extra munitions, munitions failsafe etc) and requires to use a slot just to fix (lrs, guidance chips)

What the bomber really needs imo is either a better dial options (which again can now be done but giving up a slot with the tie engine mod) or better action economy with the evade action included. The latter moreso.

Again I found running 3 as crew carriers as support and having am ace like vessery with tractor beam for example very effective. Having 3 bombers all with tactician and one with mara jade/rebel captive and fleet officer gives a ship like fel a run for his money, which I've taken out on more than one occasion with this list.

Having 3 bombers with tactician makes it hard to avoid all those arcs and they cover a lot of ground.

Their job isn't to deal dmg, just tl for vessery and stress anything that gets in that arc/range bubble

With that said, it isn't going to win any tournaments imo.

Even if you go with concussion missle and extra munitions that 6 extra pts for each ship, then multiply that by x amount of bombers, it is becoming more and more expensive, plus with each added bomber, not only is the cost going up, but imo your list is becoming more of a hindrance against arc dodgers.

Even my 3 bomber and vessery list had a hell of a time to catch fel, and usually I ignored him to the last, which is why I won.

You'll not hit so long as the emp shuttle is flying around, so I usually go after the "other ace" them shuttle then fel.

This strategy has worked, but I had to work for it

Also something else I forgot to mention, they melt really bad against tlt lists

Again that comes back to their two evade dice.

Compared to the previous squad, you get re-rolls on your torpedoes and two extra focus tokens, but you only get 3 shots instead of 4.

I always love the, dial is predictable argument. Maybe it isn't the ship, but rather you? A veteran with homing, Em, and deadeye is 27 points. That's 5 points less then a scout. What do you lose? 3 shields and a turret. What do you gain? A small sized base, more points to spend on an ace, and access to more potent ordnance (homing missiles are plain scary to aces). Aces fall to ordnance all the time, even with papl, we have examples like Hoth to prove this. I think people need to chill and just get use to the new stuff before making sweeping accusations.

Not to mention the deadeye EPT will only be able to go on the new generic. Maybe that is one way to make LRS useful but still if you are not using deadeye on a ship you already have a target lock (or can immediately get a target lock on) then you still do not have a complete build like the contracted scout.

I always love the, dial is predictable argument. Maybe it isn't the ship, but rather you? A veteran with homing, Em, and deadeye is 27 points. That's 5 points less then a scout. What do you lose? 3 shields and a turret. What do you gain? A small sized base, more points to spend on an ace, and access to more potent ordnance (homing missiles are plain scary to aces). Aces fall to ordnance all the time, even with papl, we have examples like Hoth to prove this. I think people need to chill and just get use to the new stuff before making sweeping accusations.

No need to get all defensive.

I didn't say anything that was untrue

Why are you so defensive?

I'm an avid bomber player and do quite well with them, I'm just stating the obvious about them.

Ya, their dial is pretty easy to predict. I do very well against them, as my friend flies them a lot and actually he's very good with them and comes up with some tough lists, so don't try and say he's not if he's predictable. You fly against them enough you have a pretty good idea

Maybe if you can't predict them, maybe that's you?

With only the 3 turn as a white maneuver it's usually not hard to tell where they are going to go when you look at the board state. (asteroids, ships placement, and knowing he wants to get you in range 2-3 if using homing missiles, etc)

You come off as if you think I have never flown them before.

I'm also talking about ordnance on bombers in my above post. Sure it's doing well on a u boat list, but on Bombers, meh.

I've also Proxied in the new upgrades on them so I so have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about, and have flown against them a lot.

Even on vassal I have done very well with them, but bombers as ordnance carriers are not going to win tournaments.

Ya ordnance can kill fel, but good luck having a consistent win ratio flying against fel and others like him with a list with half or two thirds of your points sunk into bombers with ordnance.

They move like trucks. Have a barrel roll, which again doesn't leave them much for action economy. Lrs you'll probably say, well if I'm flying a ship like fel and I can't dodge your arc. Well I'll get in range 1. Where your homing missiles now? You have a primary? Not hard for fel to evade with a pal mobile.

Anyway I never said it was impossible, but it's going to be tough fight.

Maybe you'll win a game at a tournament, but I would be willing to bet that if a lot of players took a palmobile and ace list to the tournament, your probably not going to win, unless they are really bad fliers

Sorry I seem to have offended you, but maybe take a chill pill man

It's a game man, about little plastic ships. I could really care less even if it am wrong, but I know bombers pretty well and with the new upgrades it's not the fix I was hoping for. It helps, but it's not going to push bombers into top spots.

Maybe you'll see the odd place have a bomber squad in top spot (like 4 bombers with Prox mines and Vader shuttle once which was a great list) But they are definitely not going to dominate the meta I'm afraid

The tripple U-boat lists also have their pwt and shields which helps immensely. And better action economy Withv the crew and droid slot.

Many games I've had my bombers fly around with nothing but crits on them

Not because I played bad, because they have no shields which again a tripple U-boat each has 4 shields, not 3 which you stated (12 total) so that makes a huge difference

Having 0 shields and lots of hull equals lots of crits since if one dmg get through and it's a crit, ain't nothing you can do but hope for something that'll not hurt

BTW bigger base means bigger arc. Just because it works well on U-boat doesn't mean it'll work well on bombers.

Ya bombers are small, so they don't have as wide of an arc as tripple u boat.

I wonder have you even flown bombers much? Or against them?

One thing I'm very confident about is if I get matched up against bomber lists, I know how to fly against them

I also don't know why you mentioned the Hoth open. Don't recall people using the new veteran with deadeye there.

So you think because ordnance works well on U-boat lists that'll it'll do the same on bombers?

Sorry man didn't mean to burst your bubble, but that's a completely different list your thinking of.

I wasn't being defensive, I was stating your line of logic is flawed is all . Looks like you took that for more then what it was worth. I bring up Hoth because you saw many an ace fall to ordnance, hence why you saw Uboats take it. A deadeye homing missile has around the same damage potential as a plasma with an R4. Let's not forget the evade denial.

I've see some bombers dance, but only in the right hands

I know they can be tough, but I'm afraid it's not the fix many (myself and friends included) were hoping for

The problem with them is their dial for starters. It's really not all that great.

If someone is coming at me with rabge'2-3 ordnance you know they'll likely try slow play

If not they likely won't get a shot off before a bomber is dead

If you want to help ordnance you now have to equip a mod

Lrs but leaves you locked in once close combat happens.

I prefer the guidance chips myself, but even so, you don't get that early tl.

If you want to try get a better dial there is the engine mod, but no lrs, or gc.

And munitions failsafe, that's not as good as gc, or lrs

I do find bombers when kept cheap have a good jousting value and make excellent blockers, and I've had way more success with them as crew carriers rather than ordnance, which I don't like because that's not their main roll

Another example, I found having 3 bombers with tactician on each made fel fly a lot more cautious so to avoid the range 2 bubble ( and having to consider 3 arcs that stress)which means he was more likely to make mistakes, whereas with ordnance he'd either aviod the arc, or just pop into the range restriction on whatever missiles I had and or worst case scenario he turtles up, and seriously, I've seen him do some ungodly things, enough to make Ya very frustrated

When I did get a shot it still wasnt enough to do any dmg.

I still think ffg dropped the ball on their ordnance and have been trying for at least 2 waves to fix it, and we'll likely see more

I do like the new bomber pilot tomax, as he has a sweet ability which gives him lots of options and is much cheaper than rhymer.

Edit

Here is a squad I just put together, I think it looks fun

5 ships which is nice

2x gamma veteran

Dead eye

Plasma torpedo

Guidance chips

Extra munitions

Jonus

Title

Fleet officer

Tie engine mod

2 Academy

100 pts.

I think this could be a good list.

The two Academy make great blockers and will hopefully take the fire away from Jonus and friends, but again it's the flankers like fel that I worry about.

You really don't want to get stuck chasing him while ignoring the rest of his squad.

You'll have to decide early, will it be worth it, because once your in the kill zone its hard to turn your ships around to go for his other ships.

When you have done no dmg and you have started taking hits

One thing to note - a homing missile with TL & Focus (using long ranger scanners) has an expected damage of 3.75, and denies evade tokens for much greater threat to aces, as Hujoe mentions.

Concussions with GC & (Agro'd) TL come in at 3.81.

I think we'll be seeing gamma vets, not only with deadeye & GC - LRS's allow the lovely crackshot to come out to play: denying potentially 2 evades on an expected 3.75 damage attack is pretty mean.

The counter to a Wolfpack is mass ordnance at a higher PS. If you can knock one out of the Scouts before it can fire; you drastically reduce their potency.

I'm thinking the following might be a solid counter as it'll you should be able to survive fire from the resulting 2 scouts:

I really think the tie bomber will evolve alpha strike lists beyond the "spam a similar ship as many times as possible". One ace + bombers, 2 aces + 1 bomber or synergies lists are likely to be common.

Bombers will produce the same alpha strike at higher PS, for cheaper. They are less durable, and lack a turret, however. Most importantly, they will be able to be fielded alongside anot Imperial ace, which very much changes the dynamic of a squad.

That and bombers have access to missiles and, if they really want them, more then two shots worth of munitions.

Problem is trying to find the build that works with missiles or TIE Bombers in general. There is a reason why CS Torpedo boats work so well. The build solves every problem with torpedoes (and missiles).

1. First Deadeye solves the problem of low pilot skill and that target lock restrictions. Since Arc Dodgers became a thing no one will joust with a torpedo carrier. They would either block it so it can't target lock for higher pilot skill or dodge out of arc with the target lock ship so that the lower pilot skill torpedo/missile carrier will have to face other opposing ships with no modifiers.
2. R4-Agromech makes up for the loss of dice modification tokens by giving you one of the best offensive token and that is the target lock. Before if you did the math 3 dice with a target lock did way better than 4 dice without. So using the target lock to fire torpedoes was a waste of an action. Now using a focus to gain a target lock is better. Sure it was design to make the blaster turret better but that mess is for another story.
3. Extra Munitions which fixes the blatantly over-costed missile and torpedo secondary weapons. I mean those secondary weapons were piratically throwing away points to make your ships worse as they would "feed" MOV points to your opponent.
4. Guidance Chips was the icing on the cake. This actually makes use of that extra dice which may have just rolled another blank. Nothing is worst than wiffing on a clutch 4 dice attack and added a discarded upgrade to boot it is no wonder all players left those in the binders at the tournaments before Wave 8.

So now the question is how do Bombers fix those issues? Lets star it order.

1. Gamma Squadron pilots can now take EPTs so Dead eye would be great. However, Deadeye actually works better with lower pilot skill as was mentioned in the CS Torpedoboat that higher pilot skill could easily be blocked.
2. Well no astromech slot which would really work well with deadeye so your best bet would be Captian Jonus. Still his ability is only half a target lock on a 4 dice attack so CS Torpedo boats win again.
3. Good News Extra Munitions fit on TIE Bombers, the only thing is what missiles would work. You might want to go with homing missiles (in which you would lose deadeye and take VI instead). You would also not take jonus as the redundant re-rolls is useless. Cluster missiles would be good up close with Jouns but the lower range makes a risk for being blocked.
4. TAKE THE CHIMPS, I don't care how this article tries to advertise LRS, just don't do it! They are both 0 points and Chimps is better (I might even argue it should have been 1 point like ATC on a TIE Advanced). Either way if you use LRS to TL someone outside of range 3 Arc dodgers will just stay out of arc or out of range until you make a new target lock while all other ships will be screaming past that range 3 band and get into 1 and 2 where you cant' do anything. If you decide to take multiple LRS well ROFLOL you will find this scenario where Red J will be in the firing arc of Blue X and Red X will be in the firing arc of Blue J and the Target locks become completely useless.

Honestly I think the TIE Shuttle will be the strongest thing to come form the Bomber. Not much in firepower but crew upgrades are some of the most powerful upgrades. The Stress Bomb (Tactician, Mara Jade, Rebel Captive) would probably be your best bet for a squadron of TIE bombers.

Hujoe, sir, Deadeye is unnecessary with Homing Missiles. Since you keep your target lock, no real need for the EPT. I would agree that hip firing them with focus is far more tactically flexible, but I would have to say that Crackshot would be pretty great.

Give up the chips in favor of LRS and you could get a one turn shot with both target lock and focus, all while denying aces their precious evade tokens and cancelling one of their evades.

Deadeye is really the torpedo EPT is all I'm saying. Better in general for that application.

R4-Agromech makes up for the loss of dice modification tokens by giving you one of the best offensive token and that is the target lock. Before if you did the math 3 dice with a target lock did way better than 4 dice without. So using the target lock to fire torpedoes was a waste of an action. Now using a focus to gain a target lock is better. Sure it was design to make the blaster turret better but that mess is for another story.

Deadeye homing missile covers that. You still have the focus to modify the dice. You then have guidance chips, basically the same effect as firing a plasma torp with an over clocked, and seeing as that is my preferred CS build... This leads to believe a 27 point bomber will see plenty of use, at least in my squads. And if you really wanna be cheeky. Put a PS 2 bomber with fleet officer in there, give focus to the two 27 bombers, have them K-Turn and unload. Add in OL with the fixings to help clean up what ever the missiles left standing.

R4-Agromech makes up for the loss of dice modification tokens by giving you one of the best offensive token and that is the target lock. Before if you did the math 3 dice with a target lock did way better than 4 dice without. So using the target lock to fire torpedoes was a waste of an action. Now using a focus to gain a target lock is better. Sure it was design to make the blaster turret better but that mess is for another story.

Deadeye homing missile covers that. You still have the focus to modify the dice. You then have guidance chips, basically the same effect as firing a plasma torp with an over clocked, and seeing as that is my preferred CS build... This leads to believe a 27 point bomber will see plenty of use, at least in my squads. And if you really wanna be cheeky. Put a PS 2 bomber with fleet officer in there, give focus to the two 27 bombers, have them K-Turn and unload. Add in OL with the fixings to help clean up what ever the missiles left standing.

jonus swarm covers it better

Jonus

Tie shuttle

Fleet officer

systems officer

Gamma vet x 2

deadeye

extra munitions

cluster missiles

guidance chips

Scimitar

Extra munitions

proton rockets

guidance chips

now you have ships not caring about loss of tokens as they have an autohit + 2 dice reroll on both halves of the clusters (without even touching tokens!!)

and double tokens for main guns. systems officer can even allow for a re position + tokens for 1 ship.

jonus is obvious main target but thats where Scimitar becomes the blocker/ meat shield and close range punch for doughnut hole divers.

It's going to be unforgiving if you cant formation fly, and insane crazy if you can.

An important consideration of LRS bombers is that if they take fire, they can use their Focus for defense, if needed, and still fire missiles first turn.

TAKE THE CHIMPS, I don't care how this article tries to advertise LRS, just don't do it! They are both 0 points and Chimps is better (I might even argue it should have been 1 point like ATC on a TIE Advanced). Either way if you use LRS to TL someone outside of range 3 Arc dodgers will just stay out of arc or out of range until you make a new target lock while all other ships will be screaming past that range 3 band and get into 1 and 2 where you cant' do anything. If you decide to take multiple LRS well ROFLOL you will find this scenario where Red J will be in the firing arc of Blue X and Red X will be in the firing arc of Blue J and the Target locks become completely useless.

Thats only true if you don't need the TL. LRS is excellent with Homing Missiles (which also fix the no mod problem and are the only real consideration for TIE Bomber ordnance because of how scary it is to Fel with the build in no downside 4-LOM). 4 dice with TL + Focus are better than 4 dice with GC and the ability to change one focus. If you want 4 Bombers that carry ordnance LRS is the way (Homing Missile EM Gammas are just fantastic).

Gamma Vets however are powerhouses that will dominate an alpha strike meta with Deadeye, Homing Missiles and GCs. Just look at this list and marvel at its greatness:

Gamma Squadron Veteran (27) x 3

TIE Bomber (19), Deadeye (1), Extra Munitions (2), Homing Missiles (5), Guidance Chips (0)

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (19)

TIE Bomber (16), TIE Shuttle (0), Fleet Officer (3)

3 Homing Vets deliver a serious punch that threatens aces by not needing locks and disabeling evades. The Scimitar shuttle carries a Fleet Officer as insurance against being blocked (I don't think so Bumpmaster), a way to stack TL + Focus against lower PS targets (hello and goodbye U-Boat) and is capable of doing the blocking itself.

Their dial is still pretty predictable, and arc dodgers can still have an easy time getting out of arc.

I think though, with the Stresshog, we have seen that the R3 arc is pretty hard to avoid when flown well.

And with an alfa strike being the objective...

One of the best imperial alpha strike right now is:

Howlrunner crackshot

3 black squadron, crackshot

2 omega squadron, crackshot

Hits like a ton of bricks, has the necessary firepower to erase a scout before it fire and some bodies to block aces.

Crackshot is ordnance!

Their dial is still pretty predictable, and arc dodgers can still have an easy time getting out of arc.

I think though, with the Stresshog, we have seen that the R3 arc is pretty hard to avoid when flown well.And with an alfa strike being the objective... Captain Jonus (22)Systems Officer (2)Fleet Officer (3)TIE Shuttle (0) Gamma Squadron Pilot (18)Extra Munitions (2)Proton Torpedoes (4)Long-Range Scanners (0) Gamma Squadron Pilot (18)Extra Munitions (2)Proton Torpedoes (4)Long-Range Scanners (0) Gamma Squadron Pilot (18)Extra Munitions (2)Plasma Torpedoes (3)Long-Range Scanners (0) Total: 98 View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I do love bombers and I've seen that alpha strike wreak havoc, but even so, I find its that dial.

One thing I found with having Jonus is this makes them even more predictable, as they really want to stay in formation, and they want to stick close to Jonus.

Breaking formation is key to this, so I place my asteroids and set up my ships in a way that'll make it hard for my opponent to stay in formation.

Having a semi tight asteroid formation can be tricky for bombers to get around, especially when chasing a ship that can reposition.

Again it's that dial. Only having the white 3 turn can make that tricky, as they turn pretty wide.

Again a player with something like homing missles is going to be more predictable because he wants you in that range 2-3 bubble. Therefore he's not going to come at you full speed, but rather doing 1 banks or straight.

They have one action, so if they use it to reposition such as barrel roll they are now breaking formation which means Jonus isn't going to be as useful, and they don't have that action now to spend on modifiers.

Hey maybe I'll be wrong

I wouldn't be upset if I was,(I'd love see bombers in top position) but bomber lists as ordnance carriers aren't going to make the splash such as tripple u boats did.

Imo shields and their big arc, plus their action economy is everything a bomber needed.

When a crit gets through, you'll lose a shield. On a bomber your just at the mercy of the dmg deck.

Their wider arc definitely makes it a lot harder to avoid, especially when you have 3.

A 3 u boat list also has 27 hp total

A 4 bomber list has 24 hp. So again tripple u boats just have more hp, and 12 of that is shields.

Double dmg and blinded pilot is not good for bombers