Hey Folks,

I have quietly come to the realisation that I quite like squadrons as an offensive strategy within my game play.

This got me to thinking. What is the "perfect" load out for squadrons. Between being offensive vs ships and defensive vs other squadron builds what is your preference?

If I am running a full load out I generally enjoy the following:

Rhymer

3x Advanced

3x Bomber

3x Firesprays

A more limited selection is often:

Rhymer

3x Firespray

2x Advanced

I personally find I run my fighters close to a capital ship if my opponent has a strong fighter presence and use an ISD or Raider AS attacks to help win the fighter war, leaving me free to engage squadrons in "mop" up duty against ships in the late game.

I have yet to play a rebel game (I have the models just haven't had the opportunity) so I would like to hear what our rebel scum opponents like to use.

Also any discussion how you utilise your squadrons as anti ship damage pieces would be great to hear. Let's make an "Art of Squadron War" thread.

I would do Rhymer, Soontir Fel, Vader, an advanced, and 2-3 bombers.

I like Mithel, 2x TIE Advanced, and Dengar and fit X bombers in as you please

Not very experienced here, but 2 Y-Wings, 4 X's and 1 A is my usual load out. The X's are fantastic all rounders and often will win a brawl in the long run. I run them close to a Neb-B Escort frigate for squadron activation as well as AS support. The Y's act as two extra Black dice for my Neb.

This build is far from overpowering, but gives options. If I'm outmatched with squadrons it lets me hold off and potentially neutralize the enemy squads. If I'm not, it can push through some small but critical extra damage at an opportune time.

With wave 3 out I'll run a GR-75 Medium Transport with Bomber Command and an extra A-Wing or 2. When Correlian Conflict comes out I'll definitely be switching an X-Wing for Rogue Squadron.

If we are going rebels I think I will go with 3x B-Wing, Luke, 2x YT1300's and Jan. I will fill where needed.

Dengar is quite nice. ... Though, actually I think I like no dengar with 3 firesprays in the 6 sq one better.

I have been playing around with a build of 3-4 TIE advanced with Soontir Fel in the middle(Fel's Flying Circus) and running a Gozanti nearby with Jamming Field on it just to drive the opponent crazy trying to take it down.

I tend to think of fighters in terms of Wings of 2-4 squadrons with different general goals.

For Wave 2, my go-to Wing for 4 activations was X-Wing x 3, and Jan Ors for anti-squadron duties. A-Wing x 2-4 (plus Tycho) for intercepting Bombers. B-Wing x 3 or Scurrg x 3 for bomber duty.

I also really like YT-2400 x 2 as an all-rounder rogue. For Rogues, you really want to either go exactly 2 to suplimebt your non-rogue forces, or go hog wild like Q did. But think of them as groups of two activations.

For Wave 4, I am considering X-Wing x 1, HWK x 1, Y-Wing x1 (35 pts) or X-Wing x 2, Y-Wing x 1 (36 pts) for a multirole force attached to a Bomber Command Center / Expanded Hangers Transport.

Never leave home without Jan and 3 X-Wings!

There's a mean imperial anti-fighter group someone posted awhile back that I enjoy: Mauler, Fel, 1-2 TIE Advanced, and a Jumpmaster.

For bombing runs as empire, I bring Rhymer, Dengar, 2 TIE Advanced and either an arbitrary amount of TIE Bombers (if I have high squadron value ships) or 3 Firesprays (low squadron value ships).

For Rebels, I like B-Wings as mobile mines, moved by Independence, or pushed around with Yavaris. I really need to try a list with Yavaris and Liberty with B-Wings to push around.

Once I get more GR75s, I also need to see how well Jan, 1-2 HWK 290s, and a big pile of X-Wings and Y-Wings do with BCC and Torryn.

I don't believe there is any "perfect" squadron load out or tactic. It really all depends what you're trying to do with your squadrons and how they fit into the fleet strategy.

It's not that squadrons are ineffective on their own, but they're a tool like any other in a combined arms approach. It is very important to keep in mind that every unit in this game has both offensive and defensive qualities, with obviously the offensive qualities showing what type of damage they can deal while the defensive qualities showing what type of damage they can absorb safely. It is all a combination of the attack pools, the speed, the defense tokens, the shields and the hull points, paired with the upgrade cards. And this must be done on an individual basis for each unit and their variations.

For instance : a VSD 1 and a VSD 2 both have the same defensive qualities (same hull, shields, tokens and no defensive retrofit), but their offensive capabilities differ vastly. In their case, their defensive qualities lie in a decent shield pool paired with 2 redirects and a Brace, meaning that they can tank one to two large shots each turn (for 2 turns if they repair) on their front arc without being scared too much. Their defensive weaknesses lie in a larger amount of attacks.

If yout put a VSD in a situation that matches its defensive qualities, then it will be quite comfortable for quite a while.

The same can be said for squadrons and aces. The humble TIE fighter for example has very low defensive qualities with its higher speed being its advantage, although it can defend safely against low power fighter shots (2 dice). Offensively, they are very good when overwhelming single targets due to the swarm reroll. TIE Bombers alternatively, are much better at tanking larger attack pools, while offensively they are very good against ships, but fail miserably when they are stuck in a dogfight on their own.

With that framework in mind, the more redundant your units are, the more you invest in specific defensive and offensive qualities at the expense of other defensive and offensive qualities. A very redundant list's performance will then depend on the match up, with some match ups being completely powerless while others will offer a very uphill battle. It can work, but it is risky. I saw a Rebel vs Rebel battle, where one guy fielded a squadron heavy force carried by MC80s, while the other fielded an AFMK2 A with 3 Neb Escorts and it wasn't a pretty sight for the fighter heavy force due to a large amount of 2 blue AA crossfire. The Rebel squadrons where a bit concerned to approach early one while the red dice pounded 1 MC80, and once the squadrons decided to jump in, they were completely obliterated by the AA barrages working in tandem over 3 turns.

The arithmetic of Armada is : what you can destroy + what you can avoid being destroyed + what objective score you can achieve, and the perfect squadron strategy must work in tandem with the rest of the fleet and the all important placement and maneuvers to achieve a high score in that airthmetic

Two approaches. Your squads are a spear or a shield. They can be used to kill enemy squadrons, ships, or both if theu are the spear. The shield is a more minimal approach where they are there to buy a turn or two of enemy squads not shoot8ng at your ships.

Super common spears:

Autoball: Fel, 2xAdvanced, Dengar, Mauler, + whatever

Rhymerball: Rhymer with some numbers of bombers. Usually a jumpmaster and some advanceds

Fireball:Rhymerball with firesprays over bombers

Rieekan's Aces: wedge, dutch, keyan, other rebel aces.

Rebel meat shield: Jan, 3-4 Xwing, fill out rest with more bombers.

Common shield:

Jan's Escorts: Jan Ors, 3+Xwings

Edit: I use al.ost all of these. I prefer the squadron heavy side.

I have always used Vader, hes to good not to take when your trying to win the Squadron war. him with Dengar backed up with either mauler or soonter is going to make ppl pay a very high price to kill them and will lock ppl up for a while. Vaders counter is great because hes hitting more often with just his one dice backed up with soonter he could be dealing out 2 damage every time hes shot. Interceptors with Dengar and counter 3 are a pain and howlrunner makes them the best anti squadron squad In the game.

When playing squads I try to use vader dengar rhymer as my center and add in bombers or interceptors/Mauler/Soonter depending on how I feel the event is going to go for the squadron game. earlier in wave 2 when ship only fleets were the rage it was easy to leave home with Vader/Dengar/Rhymer and just bombers and feel confident you were ok. now its shifting where you need a little bit of both.

As a fun exercise I tried to build what I feel is the best 134 points of squads I could think of with carriers that have flight controllers.

Rule the Skys

Faction: Galactic Empire

Points: 398/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Precision Strike

Defense Objective: Contested Outpost

Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)

- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)

- Avenger ( 5 points)

- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)

- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)

- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)

- Leading Shots ( 4 points)

= 158 total ship cost

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)

- Warlord ( 8 points)

- Wulff Yularen ( 7 points)

- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)

- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)

- H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)

= 106 total ship cost

1 Darth Vader ( 21 points)

1 Dengar ( 20 points)

1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)

1 Soontir Fel ( 18 points)

1 TIE Bomber Squadron ( 9 points)

1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)

1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)

1 TIE Interceptor Squadron ( 11 points)

1 TIE Fighter Squadron ( 8 points)

I like a big-hot-nasty Rieekan ball. Wedge, Dutch, Tycho, Jan, Luke, Nym, and Keyan. If I am running this I almost always have Yavaris because a double tap from Luke, Nym, and Keyan is such an insane beating.

My other often used group is Dash, Han, Tycho, and 2x YT-2400s. I ran this in wave 2 a lot because I liked a swarmier list that couldn't move squadrons, but I still wanted squadrons. It is very disruptive and totally independent. Dash hits like a truck, is super tanky, and zips around really well. Tycho is maybe slightly under-utilized because I am never actually using a squadron command on him, but he can go wherever he wants and tie people down, and he still Counters.

Never leave home without Jan and 3 X-Wings!

There's a mean imperial anti-fighter group someone posted awhile back that I enjoy: Mauler, Fel, 1-2 TIE Advanced, and a Jumpmaster.

Oh yeah, to add to my previous post, I've recently been experimenting with another way to look at squadrons. I used to look at squadrons as an extension of a ship's squadron commands when I started to notice that tying up squadrons and ships was putting many logistical constraints on the ship (basically forcing me to lose effectiveness on the squadrons if I wanted to whip up an Engineering command to avoid something as simple as dying !). Especially with Slicer Tools coming, relying on a purpose built squadron ship doesn't seem veyr interesting anymore.

Now, I look at the selected squadrons as a piece of the fleet on their own. Which I activate or not depending on the circumstances. So far, I've had good results when doing this, with squadrons moving from ship to ship depending on the circumstances ! Squadron centric upgrades are still interesting, for when I feel a ship could boost up the squadrons' effectiveness if really needed

Never leave home without Jan and some YT-1300's!

There's a mean imperial anti-fighter group someone posted awhile back that I enjoy: Mauler, Fel, 1-2 TIE Advanced, and a Jumpmaster.

For bombing runs as empire, I bring Rhymer, Dengar, 2 TIE Advanced and either an arbitrary amount of TIE Bombers (if I have high squadron value ships) or 3 Firesprays (low squadron value ships).

For Rebels, I like B-Wings as mobile mines, moved by Independence, or pushed around with Yavaris. I really need to try a list with Yavaris and Liberty with B-Wings to push around.

Once I get more GR75s, I also need to see how well Jan, 1-2 HWK 290s, and a big pile of X-Wings and Y-Wings do with BCC and Torryn.

Fixed that for you

Other than that these look like good concepts but I wonder how they will all change when wave 5 comes out. . .

My Regionals list had:

Rhymer

Dengar

IG-88

Mauler Mithel

2 x TIE Advanceds

4 x TIE Bombers

Backed by VSDs, two with Flight Controllers for the bonus AS die. I've been trying to rework this list with BCC, but replacing VSDs with Gozantis has me. . .nervous. At least the VSDs could take a pounding while the bombers did their work.

Now that BCC exists I'm pretty content being unimaginative and running Jan and a pile of X Wings

Now that BCC exists I'm pretty content being unimaginative and running Jan and a pile of X Wings

Not going to lie, I am a tad concerned about a huge swarm of X-wings with 1/2/3 rerolls for that finicky red dice.

BCC Jan and FIVE to 7 xwings is nice with BCC.

Jan + 3 is ... meh. Its a paltry force, meant for holding off mass squadrons. I'd pick toryn farr or flight controller instead.

Seriously though, Jan 5x sometimes it feels like you wish you had BCC and sometimes you get wiped out my mass squadrons. sigh.

BCC Jan and FIVE to 7 xwings is nice with BCC.

Jan + 3 is ... meh. Its a paltry force, meant for holding off mass squadrons. I'd pick toryn farr or flight controller instead.

Seriously though, Jan 5x sometimes it feels like you wish you had BCC and sometimes you get wiped out my mass squadrons. sigh.

Jan + 3 is intended as a bare minimum. Of course more helps, but if your list is completely focused on ships/upgrades, then it's effective enough, as you say, to hold off mass squadrons for a turn or two.

I stopped playing for nearly a year; just restarted one month or so ago.

When I took my "Armada-pause" they had just changed to Squadrons cap to 100 rather than 1/3 of the fleet cost; did they revert to the old rule (i.e. max 133 points on squadrons in a 400-point list) or can one still invest 100 points max in squadrons.

Thanks in advance.

One third the total fleet points.

And IIRC it's been rounded up at 134 points.