After (nearly) 9 waves and several extra expansions this forum is filled with topics about jousting values, the meta, what ships are OP, what ships are useless, what type of squad is an auto-win.

And then there is the largest X-wing tournament ever:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/6/22/imperial-victory-on-yavin/

And what kind of squad did the winner bring? Yes, a slightly tweaked but still old school TIE Swarm.

So for all of you who think you will only fly the latest addition to the game, that to win you need the latest ships;

Find the ship you like, practice, have fun, and you shall be victorious

Happy days are here again!

Uh, we knew that already. It's almost three weeks ago that the Pattiswarm won. It's the same list that won in the Madrid regional.

The moral of the story:

- Know your squad (yourself)

- Know your enemy

- And if you happen to fly something that your opponent is not used to playing against, then you may just win all the way to the top

Part of the reason you don't see more swarms isn't because they've got less effective with more waves, it's because they are a pain to fly in tournaments. Time limits, multiple games, and the way scoring is done with that many ships can be hard to deal with.

I actually saw a movie about that event and I'm pretty sure the Tie Swarm was beaten by a 3 Xwing list feature Biggs, Luke and Wedge. The swarm did beat a 4 ywing squad, but it had Dutch in it, so it was probably just some new player's first time. I mean, really, who uses Dutch?

Haha! That's not what this result means at all, because the Swarm has existed since Wave I but only occasionally been truly competitive. Now is one such occasion.

I've got a really good anecdote about something like this in Magic: The Gathering, if you'll indulge me.

One of the most powerful cards ever printed is Necropotence, it's a card that has reared it's head repeatedly as an engine in some of the most powerful dominant control or combo decks in the game's history. But what's interesting about Necropotence is that when it was first printed it made no impact right away. There was another card that already existed called Black Vise which made it extremely dangerous and counterproductive to play with Necropotence.

Then about a year after Necropotence was printed, Black Vise got restricted. You were no longer allowed to play 4 copies, just 1. Black Vise was restricted in July 1996 and it began what known as 'Black Summer' as Necropotence instantly took over now that the metagame was favourable to it.

And in among the Black Summer you had players going "everyone has jumped on the Necropotence bandwagon now, but I've been playing it ever since it came out".

They didn't realise that this was shorthand for "I played Necropotence when it was bad. Because I'm bad".

So to those who would take the lesson as ' Find the ship you like, practice, have fun, and you shall be victorious' then... well, there's no victories for playing something when it's bad. The trick is recognising when something new means that something old has become good.

I actually saw a movie about that event and I'm pretty sure the Tie Swarm was beaten by a 3 Xwing list feature Biggs, Luke and Wedge. The swarm did beat a 4 ywing squad, but it had Dutch in it, so it was probably just some new player's first time. I mean, really, who uses Dutch?

But wasn't that swarm also running Vader, Backstabber and Mauler Mithel?

Also wasn't it a 4 ship build at 150 points with Luke, Wedge, Biggs and Han?

Very bold list too, no C3PO or Gunner on Han...

Luke was also using Deadeye, Proton Torps, and r2d2. Bold move

Vader definitely had ATC too, good thing they had Biggs there.

Dat bump by Mithel after Han took out Backstabber though.... Man what was he thinking?

glad to see the news is filtering down slowly

you guys can read my full tournament report here, if you are interested:

http://www.186th.org/news/what-wave-is-this-again-swarming-to-victory-yavin-open-2016

There are lots of anti-swarm ships, upgrades, formations/squads, and tactics now. The best are ones that can go in a f#ck s#it up. A nice big base piece of fodder (like an imperial shuttle) will give an already tightly wound swarm flyer his biggest headache! LOL.

Luke was also using Deadeye, Proton Torps, and r2d2. Bold move

You forgot integrated astromech, Luke activated that after taking a nasty crit from Vader post Biggs death and Wedge was flying out of the engagement.

There are lots of anti-swarm ships, upgrades, formations/squads, and tactics now. The best are ones that can go in a f#ck s#it up. A nice big base piece of fodder (like an imperial shuttle) will give an already tightly wound swarm flyer his biggest headache! LOL.

yes, please, bring a shuttle and park in front of my swarm.

Luke was also using Deadeye, Proton Torps, and r2d2. Bold move

You forgot integrated astromech, Luke activated that after taking a nasty crit from Vader post Biggs death and Wedge was flying out of the engagement.

That may well have been the turning point of the match. I mean if that was a direct hit that would have been game.

Seriously the h*!

glad to see the news is filtering down slowly

you guys can read my full tournament report here, if you are interested:

http://www.186th.org/news/what-wave-is-this-again-swarming-to-victory-yavin-open-2016

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing!

There are lots of anti-swarm ships, upgrades, formations/squads, and tactics now. The best are ones that can go in a f#ck s#it up. A nice big base piece of fodder (like an imperial shuttle) will give an already tightly wound swarm flyer his biggest headache! LOL.

yes, please, bring a shuttle and park in front of my swarm.

1. Place shuttle in front of swarm

2. Let swarm attack with their INEFFECTIVE 2 DICE ATTACKS!

Some dice-rolls later........ WTF! My goddamn shuttle's melted! >

There are lots of anti-swarm ships, upgrades, formations/squads, and tactics now. The best are ones that can go in a f#ck s#it up. A nice big base piece of fodder (like an imperial shuttle) will give an already tightly wound swarm flyer his biggest headache! LOL.

yes, please, bring a shuttle and park in front of my swarm.

1. Place shuttle in front of swarm

2. Let swarm attack with their INEFFECTIVE 2 DICE ATTACKS!

Some dice-rolls later........ WTF! My goddamn shuttle's melted! >

I see you have played that game before.

Just To say, jousting values use the tke fighter as baseline... the swarm's efficiency caused fear and complains, just as much everything else "good"

Swarms have always still been good, they are just one of the hardest lists in the game to fly. A player who can fly in formation without bumping and then, most importantly, reform his formation after it gets broken up is always going to be insanely hard to beat.

Swarms are when some fun math gets thrown in. A TIE swarm is going to take a while to kill a ship with 3 defense dice in the absence of some insane variance in rolls. However, a TIE swarm will melt anything that has 2 or fewer defense dice super quickly. When Ghost came out, I watched a friend joust a TIE swarm. He seemed shocked that he only slightly damaged 1 TIE while taking 12 damage (10 plus 2 from crits). I was playing at the table next to him and leaned over and said "Um, what exactly did you think was going to happen there?"

Part of the reason you don't see more swarms isn't because they've got less effective with more waves, it's because they are a pain to fly in tournaments. Time limits, multiple games, and the way scoring is done with that many ships can be hard to deal with.

Not true. I was a swarm player until wave 4. Much like Doug Kenny, I found it very difficult to deal with Phantoms (they would get on your side and just chew you up one tie at a time). They nerfed the decloak and then released Crackshot, so it's much less to do with flying 7 ships and more to do with now the problems with swarms in tournaments have been made minor (much better to lose 15 point TIE fighter than half your 50 point ship).

glad to see the news is filtering down slowly

you guys can read my full tournament report here, if you are interested:

http://www.186th.org/news/what-wave-is-this-again-swarming-to-victory-yavin-open-2016

Wonderful write-up.

I watched the Twitch stream of your final game a day or two after the Open. That was a very fun game to watch. You are a talented player, and you and Chris seemed to be really enjoying the game. I was particularly impressed by the precision of your movements and self-blocks—especially the rotational block that Chris and the TO took time to work out. Well done.

Back to your tournament report, Game 5. Another lesson that might be learned: If you are unsure who is the cat and who is the mouse, you are the mouse.

Thanks man! Glad you enjoyed it. Chris and I really did have a very amiable game. To be honest, all my games were like that, but in ours, it certainly felt like all the pressure was gone.

You are likely right about the cat and mouse too :-)

glad to see the news is filtering down slowly

you guys can read my full tournament report here, if you are interested:

http://www.186th.org/news/what-wave-is-this-again-swarming-to-victory-yavin-open-2016