I would like to ask, what is the best way to fly 3 Tie Defenders. I haven’t played in about a year, and I have been invited to play in a local tournament. Any assist would be appreciated.

1) Fly them in a close swam, like a mini swam,

2) Fly them in a lose swam, close but not in a formation,

3) Fly with one flanker,

4) or Fly all of them independent of each other.

Thanks! :-)

I fly them in a loose swarm to start, but break off the blocker when we get close to do his thing (i tun vessery ryad delta), and the formation doesnt stick around past combat starting, everyone does their own thing depending whatll be their best move

I fly them in a loose swarm to start, but break off the blocker when we get close to do his thing (i tun vessery ryad delta), and the formation doesnt stick around past combat starting, everyone does their own thing depending whatll be their best move

Thank You. It does make sense. Let the flow of battle determine where each Tie Defender flies. I like that. I have a list with Vessery, Ryad, Delta.

They rely on the k-turn so are predictable. Make sure they are coming in at different angels so are harder to out maneuver.

Defenders are tough enough that they can operate on their own if they need to. The biggest thing is to not get locked in on always using the K-turn. People are going to expect it and you can set up excellent shots if you pull a hard turn. You may have an unmodified shot but it's better sometimes then being where they expect. If you can fly into good positions and know they will have a hard time blocking the K then by all means abuse it. I also don't play super aggressive. They have 3 attack and defense so range 3 may be a bigger advantage to you then the enemy. The 1 banks will help you stay at range of needed.

Stick 'em with the pointy end!

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Though, seriously, I'm probably not one who should be giving advice (having only flown them once - but lots of other tactical game experience), but it seemed so natural for Ryad to fly solo as bait and my tandem Glaives to pick-off and mop-up her pursuers.

I deployed in a tight eschelon on one flank, to give the impression of an intent to joust en-masse, but immediately split her off in different direction on turn 1 - two straight 5's saw her well on her way to the other flank, with the enemy in hot pursuit, thinking they could isolate and eliminate her before the other two came into play.

She took a lot of punishment, but her maneuverability saw a Y-Wing mis-judge and fly off-board trying in vain to get a bead on her - plus the toughness and bonus evade came in mighty handy.

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They rely on the k-turn so are predictable. Make sure they are coming in at different angels so are harder to out maneuver.

I second the notion of flying at oblique angles - not just for defenders in particular, but as a general rule to disrupt your opponent's thinking.

I've flown triple Defenders quite a lot with some success and I tend to start in a loose formation before breaking off, usually into a pair and a single but quite often into 3 single ships.

x7 Defenders are very resilient to individual shots. In many ways they're a bit like Soontir in that they can easily take one shot per round, probably two, but they struggle if they have to take more than that. By splitting up you should be ablet o limit the number of ships that concentrate fire on you.

The real skill is being able to split your ships up in such a way that you can still concentrate fire. Often the best way to do this is to have a slightly different angle of attack for each ship in the initial engagement. I try to make sure I put in at least a couple of different bearings for my ships' dials in the activation phase before the first rounds are fired - so one will take a 3-bank, and the others a straight, for example, or a hard turn. Then you can k-turn with all three but end up in very different places, making them difficult to track.

Finally, as others have said, don't rely on the k-turn too much. It's predictable. Throw in a hard turn or a straight 5 to run and return later. With x7s sometimes a timely 1-bank can catch people off guard as they usually expect you to take 3 speed moves all the time.

The most important thing is to get them all pointed at one target at the same time. Beyond that, fly them however you're most comfortable flying them.

And yeah, don't be afraid to be unpredictable. /x7s are all GOTTAGOFAST to the point where people forget that their 2- and 1-speed manoeuvres exist. You can REALLY fox people sometimes with a 1 bank.

They rely on the k-turn so are predictable. Make sure they are coming in at different angels so are harder to out maneuver.

No they don't >.> I seriously don't get why people keep falling into this trap, a well timed bank can do way more damage than endlessly k turning.

There are zero predictable ships only predictable pilots.