Best ways for dealing with squadrons

By Monkey_Leader, in Star Wars: Armada

I'm wondering if the forum has any tips and tricks that they've come across on how to deal with squadron swarms?

Are there any particular squadrons you find that are great at dealing with other squadrons?

Any ship builds that are good at dealing with squadrons?

Nerd rage on the table and use the sweeping hand of gaming god to blast them out of existence? If that doesn't work, I like interceptors personally. 9 points with counter 2. I am trying to build more lists with squadrons because I always get hammered by them.

You may wish to step back and define some terms. What do you mean by squadron swarm and what do you mean by "deal with"? If your opponent has 15 TIE fighters 2 or 3 Neb-bs will smash them up. If you need help with a Rhymer ball it's a different story. Are you trying to destroy the squadrons or merely stall them for the duration. What is the composition of the Rhymer ball? Are they playing Intel squadrons? Then simple pinning won't work. What ship style do you like to run? If you want squadronless then look at the MSU builds and defeat the squadrons by eliminating the ships while ignoring squadrons. And so on. A big topic.

Nothing counters squadrons like other squadrons. Raiders can somewhat handle them, depending on how you build them and how you use them, but if you are hoping to singularly handle a big squadron swarm with a Raider(s), you're probably doing it wrong. Rebels really don't have a cost effective-ship based answer to squadrons. Nebs are the closest thing they have, but Nebs are, IMHO, the hardest ship in the game to get the handle of.

Dutch Vander and Wedge are named anti-squadron, otherwise any combination of X Wings, A wings and YT-2400's will serve you well.

Imperial side, Vader, all Tie Fighters, Tie Interceptors, and YV-666 (situational; great vs B Wings and other slow ships) are all great anti-squadron solutions.

Edited by Rocmistro

I'm going to assume you're looking to deal with a good size ball of bombers with some fighter cover. With that in mind, the solutions obviously depend on faction. Imperials have the best answers. Mauler, Dengar, Fel, and an an Advanced combine for a very nasty combination that can hit well above their point value. For Rebels, I prefer the ubiquitous Wedge/Dutch combo. They're a more surgical weapon, but they are possibly the best one-two punch Rebels have to offer. Jan and X-Wings are also a great way to go, especially if you can get Toryn Farr in the mix.

Spreaking from Imp you have lots of options.

* Glad II/Demolisher

* Raider w/ Instigator & Ties or Imeptuous (I prefer Instigator)

* Gunnery Teams (preferablly on ISD II)

* H9 + Warlord

* Mauler/Darth Vader/Ties w/ Howlrunner/Bossk/IG88, most Imp heroes are pretty devestating vs squadrons

* Flight Controllers always with a dedicated squadron force

Edited by Trizzo2

You have two options bring fighters of your own or just kill their capital ships fast

Multiple shots from double-dice AS ships (ISD/Raider/GSD2) usually does the trick.

Imperials can also activate 6 squadrons at once with an ISD I, which can give you a devastating alpha strike capability.

ISD I : Wulff Yularen, Flight Controllers, Boosted Comms, Expanded Hanger Bays.

So that with 6 Tie Interceptors, is a lot of dice, 5 dice with a swarm reroll, and Counter 2 with a swarm reroll.

You can switch out 1 T/I for Howlrunner, giving them 6 dice with a reroll, and Counter 3 with a swarm reroll.

You can switch out 1 T/I for Mauler Mithel, 1 auto damage to everyone he lands in engagement range of, and 5 dice with a reroll.

You can switch out 1 T/I for Dengar, 5 dice with a reroll, gives counter to Howlrunner/Mauler, and increases the T/I to Counter 4 with a reroll.

Or you can go full Ace, Vader/Soontir/Dengar/Mauler/Howlrunner/IG-88

As others have said, a Raider I with Ordnance Experts, 2 black dice with rerolls, very high odds of getting 2 damage per attack.

Also Agent Kallus, adds a dice of any colour to your attack pool, when attacking Aces, great on Impetuous.

Rebels, Luke, Wedge, Han, Dash, A-wings, WT-2400's, even vanilla X-wings, and Jan Ors adds much to the mix.

One of these days when trying new Wave 3/4 lists, I want to get a Raider to the Table with Ordnance Experts and Kallus to fire at a few squadrons.

Otherwise I hear Mauler is pretty good with some Intel (like Dengar). Add Soontir fel and some TIE Advanceds and watch enemy squadrons throw a fit. Especially if you activate your guys with Flight Controllers.

I want to play a game with 15 TIE fighters now. Two ISD xmas trees and 15 TIE fighters. Glorious. Why haven't I done that yet?

When I play rebels, unless I have a carrier fleet, I never leave home without Jan Ors and at least three X-Wings.

Haven't found a suitable cost effective squadron defense for the Empire yet.

As Lord Vader said "We'll have to destroy them ship to ship"

Other squadrons are your best bet....although a lot could be said for double dice AA ships.

The escort frigate Yavaris for Rebels is a special favourite of mine.

Nice little Empire combo is Howlrunner, 4 Interceptors and Dengar activated with flight controllers. Interceptors roll 6 blues and have counter 4.....pretty brutal.....but they don't like AA fire.

For Rebels I like the Wedge/Dutch combo but for pure damage Han and Dash are pretty awesome...especially Dash with his rerolls.

Yavaris makes your squadrons quite potent. Double tapping Wedge and Dash is brutal.

Edited by SmurfWedge

Hide your squads behind your ships, when they make their first attack run, you make your strike, damaging their squads and pinning them down with your ships anti squadron fire.

The rest they say is history

(It may not be as viable to let them alpha strike your ships for a salvo with Bomber Command Centre about)

I want to play a game with 15 TIE fighters now. Two ISD xmas trees and 15 TIE fighters. Glorious. Why haven't I done that yet?

Because TIE Fighters die like flies if the enemy takes any respectable amount of AA. Guess how I know?

Nothing counters squadrons like other squadrons. Raiders can somewhat handle them, depending on how you build them and how you use them, but if you are hoping to singularly handle a big squadron swarm with a Raider(s), you're probably doing it wrong. Rebels really don't have a cost effective-ship based answer to squadrons. Nebs are the closest thing they have, but Nebs are, IMHO, the hardest ship in the game to get the handle of.

Dutch Vander and Wedge are named anti-squadron, otherwise any combination of X Wings, A wings and YT-2400's will serve you well.

Imperial side, Vader, all Tie Fighters, Tie Interceptors, and YV-666 (situational; great vs B Wings and other slow ships) are all great anti-squadron solutions.

This. The best thing against squadrons, are squadrons, and of course dedicated Interceptors like the TIE-Interceptor and A-Wings and to a degree TIE-Fighters will give you the most "anti-squadron" per points. While X-Wings are great they are multirole and you pay for that too.

I never make a list without many fighters, but more because thats Star Wars for me. If I want a captial only engagment I remove the dust from my Star Trek Attack wing models.

I also very like Vander. He is great against squadrons, but I am also a silly Y-Wing lover that tells everybody how I shoot down 52 TIE-Interceptors in a X-Wing mission with a single Y-Wing.