Anyone tried just running interceptors and TIEs along with rhymer instead of bombers??

Ya the anti ship power is down, but it gives you something to do with your TIEs after enemy squads are destroyed or your opponent had none on the first place... and rhymer has 1.25 anti squadron, comparable to an TIE at 1.5

You make it sound like your opponents just roll over and let you destroy their squadrons.

You make it sound like your opponents just roll over and let you destroy their squadrons.

Sounds like the idea is to max out your squadron points on TIE/IN and TIE/ln, in which case... yeah, you would be in a position to destroy pretty much any other squadron list you were up against.

@OP: I'm no pro at playing imps, but I've seen it done (with a horde of TIE/ln), and tried it myself with a 50/50 mix. You actually end up sacrificing quite a bit of anti-ship power, particularly if you're taking advantage of Rhymer and hanging at medium range and attacking evaders. Furthermore, you're still going to be in AA range of the majority of ships, and three hull lasts a very, very short time against even minor AA fire.

Not to mention that nowadays Bomber Command Center offers so much to bombers and the cheaper they come the more cost-effective that reroll is. TIE Bombers with a single reroll do on average 1.25 damage per attack. TIE Fighters and Interceptors are not bombers and are stuck at 0.5 damage per attack versus ships. Even without the BCC, the TIE Bomber does double the damage of a TIE Fighter on average to ships and can proc crits.

Yes actually (for real). The question is how many points do you want you want to lose? You will wilt to AA Fire, bugger all damage, they out repair you, commanding enough Ties to do damage requires fat carriers and is inefficient

For Imps the best way to compliment your Bombers anti fighters is I) black battery only (agressor, tie a, bossk, dengar, Vader) ii) flight controllers iii) mauler as your only blue battery squadron or 1 of a couple iv) firesprays

A mixture of this is more than enough.

"Ya the anti ship power is down" is certainly an understatement

Bombers are actually also surprisingly decent at aa with flight controllers. It's not a lot of damage but it is pretty consistent. Maybe turn your strategy on its head and go straight bombers. Yeah they are heavy but most everything is with Intel floating around.

Agree with ImpStarDeuces and others - it seems more effective to use the tools you have to either up the AA capability of bombers and TIE/Ad, namely flight controllers, render enemy squadrons useless (engagement) or to free bombers from enemy engagement with intel then to up TIE/Ints into, still subpar, anti ship squadrons. It is a flimsy 3 HP platform with a blue AS die, chances are that even after winning air (space) supperiority your interceptors die in droves to ships anti-squadron fire while dealing little to no damage in return.

I've done exactly this, taking it successfully to Regionals.

I think it mitigates the normal weakness of the anti squadron ties, pulling them out of black aa range, and gives a bit of the stand-off threat a usual Rhymer ball has.

Imperial anti squadron builds' biggest counter is an opponent with no squadrons, and Rhymer really helps here.

The cost of Rhymer's benefits are easily out weighed by the benefits, on top of a squadron comp that already fights other squadrons well above its point cost.

The Howlerball

Author: Callum

Faction: Galactic Empire

Points: 400/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Most Wanted

Defense Objective: Contested Outpost

Navigation Objective: Dangerous Territory

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)

- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)

- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)

- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)

- Leading Shots ( 4 points)

= 162 total ship cost

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)

- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)

- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)

= 83 total ship cost

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)

- Demolisher ( 10 points)

= 66 total ship cost

1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)

1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)

3 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 33 points)

3 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 24 points)

Just put the interceptor ball in the same arc as one of your ships.

What AA fire?

Just put the interceptor ball in the same arc as one of your ships.

What AA fire?

Gunnery teams battle cruisers... ugh....

I have time and again kill off 4 to 6 token A wings with my ball of death mixed bag of 10 tie bombers and fighters with or without ryhmer and or howlrunner.

It works just fine if you like playing fighters. Howlrunner + Mauler + Dengar + Sootir cripple Rhymerballs by killing their Rhymer in your Alpha strike & their Dengar right after. If their fighters shoot back at your "weak 3 hull squads", they either take 1 auto damage (and your increased counter + re-roll) or take Soontir's 4 counter dice with re-roll (and he double spends the evade to drag it out to at least 3 of these, usually 4-5).

But, here's the thing, then you ARE weak against ships as you say, once fighter battle is over (or if they didn't bring them at all). It happens to be the way I prefer to play squadrons. However, there is no "this works against all things" in Armada. Other's will say "no squadrons are best" or the "AA fire will kill you off" (really? I because I truly hope you waste shots at my fighters instead of my ships) or "you need 5 activations" or etc, etc...

Play it and if your enemy has bombers, then you will crush them if you play it right. If he doesn't then you will have a weak, yet "something" attack with your fighters. Others prefer the "I kill ships" bomber list then try and supplement it with some weak "at least I have something" anti-squadron ability. Others just go hoards of bombers and hope for enough damage before you kill them off.