So here's some food for thought:

Tomax Bren (24)

- Crack Shot (1)

- Hotshot Copilot (4)

- Fleet Officer (3)

Howlrunner (18)

- Juke (2)

Black Squadron Pilot (14)

- Juke (2)

Black Squadron Pilot (14)

- Juke (2)

Black Squadron Pilot (14)

- Juke (2)

For those who haven't seen it (only just saw it myself a few minutes ago), copilot has approximately the following text:

I like this. It works especially nicely on Crack/Bren, because he can force a Focus to be spent, then cancel it with Crack Shot. The other side effect is that if they decide to try and take him down first, they'll be open to Juke because they'll have spent a Focus token on him.

I like this too, very nice!

Consider rebel captive instead of Fleet officer, especially since you don't have TIE Mk II. Less accurate, but discourages shots on Bren.

Nice idea. With Bren forcing the focus to be spent, he actually replaces howlrunner as priority target - especially since she's evading and he isn't.

I like this too but I agree with Phelan Boots that Rebel Captive is probably a better choice for the second crew slot to help keep Bren alive.

See what you mean about Captive - I had actually considered it at first but figured the extra mods were the way to go. Don't have a ton of experience with swarms though so you're probably right. Any other thoughts?

I love this list. This is the type of list-building that drew me into the game. Grats to your for seeing this.

Some thoughts:

- Tomax at 8 is awesome. Is Tomax at 9 or 10 better? I know, I know, you lose the re-usable Crack Shot, but Hot-Shot Co-Pilot is the real star, and if you can remove Dengar's, Soontir's, Vader's, Poe's, or Vessery's focus FIRST, then you'll sit even prettier.

- Rebel Captive is a great option

- What about a Doom variant? Put Vader on him and weaken the target before the Ties go in for their Juke on a focus-less target?

- General thought: You have to plan for the inevitable bump. Juke relies on those evade tokens, so how are you going a) get that evade every turn, and b) not spend it on defense? These questions are usually not answered and the builder just goes with Crack Shot, but you're not going to give up that easily.

There's also the ridiculous notion that you put Gunner on the Bomber but that is way too expensive, unless you drop Howlrunner down to a Black with Juke. Weakens your offensive output because the Ties REALLY want that re-roll.

See what you mean about Captive - I had actually considered it at first but figured the extra mods were the way to go. Don't have a ton of experience with swarms though so you're probably right. Any other thoughts?

Yeah man, I see where you're going with it, and you're not wrong. When I run GSPs with PTL it's stacking tokens that keeps them alive. I just think you're gonna have a hard time managing the stress on Bren without TIE Mk II. If you had the free point for that, I think Fleet Officer would be the right choice.

I would suggest trying it with Fleet officer first, and if Bren doesn't take much fire and you can manage the stress, keep running it. If you run into issues swap him out. The list looks pretty awesome though. Well done.

would taking cool hand over crack shot be potentially better? free focus/evade every turn you use fleet officer.

also doesnt this tether your ships together alot? people tell me thats a bad thing to do if you tether to 2+ ships.

would taking cool hand over crack shot be potentially better? free focus/evade every turn you use fleet officer.

also doesnt this tether your ships together alot? people tell me thats a bad thing to do if you tether to 2+ ships.

Yes, but when you're flying a TIE swarm, formation flying is a - is the - inevitable result. If you can't fly in a tight pack and hit as a group, you cannot make use of a swarm effectively.

I would suggest, when looking at TIE fighters, that you essentially consider each 'wingman pair' to be a 'normal' ship in combat effectiveness terms.

I love this list. This is the type of list-building that drew me into the game. Grats to your for seeing this.

Some thoughts:

- Tomax at 8 is awesome. Is Tomax at 9 or 10 better? I know, I know, you lose the re-usable Crack Shot, but Hot-Shot Co-Pilot is the real star, and if you can remove Dengar's, Soontir's, Vader's, Poe's, or Vessery's focus FIRST, then you'll sit even prettier.

- Rebel Captive is a great option

- What about a Doom variant? Put Vader on him and weaken the target before the Ties go in for their Juke on a focus-less target?

- General thought: You have to plan for the inevitable bump. Juke relies on those evade tokens, so how are you going a) get that evade every turn, and b) not spend it on defense? These questions are usually not answered and the builder just goes with Crack Shot, but you're not going to give up that easily.

There's also the ridiculous notion that you put Gunner on the Bomber but that is way too expensive, unless you drop Howlrunner down to a Black with Juke. Weakens your offensive output because the Ties REALLY want that re-roll.

VI on Tomax is certainly an interesting idea. Won't work on Dengar unfortunately due to overclocked R4 (honestly I see him being the biggest problem for this list), and Soontir is going to have more than one token, but against the others it's certainly an interesting concept. The issue I see is that except for Vessery most of those don't hit all that hard, so I don't know if it's worth losing the extra damage output. Vessery and sometimes Vader do hit hard though, so it might be worth it. I could also try Adaptability rather than VI so that I could fit TIE Mk. II on Tomax.

As far as the other suggestions: Captive is definitely a good alternative. Vader I thought about but the issue is that Tomax is already a priority target so using him basically guaruntees he's not going to last past Round 1. Gunner doesn't work unfortunately since TIE shuttle doesn't allow crew that cost 5+.

Good points.

The only thing I'll offer on the VI versus Crackshot conversation is that the goal of this, as I see it at least, is reducing the enemy's ability to defend against a thousand paper-cuts. VI almost guarantees that you will be stripping available tokens (exceptions are VI Vader and Poe) - Crackshot turns 1,000 into 1,200 paper cuts.

I see them both being strong - make a mental note of what PS levels you're seeing and determine if VI would even be applicable. As a player who runs multiple PS 10 ships, I know I would try to PS kill Tomax with my focus on my terms

That may be the first really good use of Shuttle!Tomax I've seen - and even then, I'm not sure you wouldn't be better off spending the 9 points he costs over a SSP (or the 5 over a GSV) on something else.

That may be the first really good use of Shuttle!Tomax I've seen - and even then, I'm not sure you wouldn't be better off spending the 9 points he costs over a SSP (or the 5 over a GSV) on something else.

You need his PS to make this list work.

Taking him out would either ruin the list or require you grab something else with a crew slot and I'm not sure what you'd fit in there for the price.

ah, true, yeah. The PS5 wouldn't shoot before Howl.

Ace/miniswarm isn't ever going to be an outright bad list, and this is a nice variant on it with a lot of synergy.

I'm not convinced Juke Howl and 5 Juke Blacks doesn't work better though - you only need a single attack to strip the focus from many if not most ships, and weight of fire is good when talking about swarm play.

HSCP/Fleet is a good loadout for shuttle Tomax. Certainly worth trialling.

I'm not convinced Juke Howl and 5 Juke Blacks doesn't work better though - you only need a single attack to strip the focus from many if not most ships, and weight of fire is good when talking about swarm play.

HSCP/Fleet is a good loadout for shuttle Tomax. Certainly worth trialling.

Agreed.

I like the Hot-Shot Co-Pilot bid because it doesn't give the enemy a choice. If Howl gets two hits, let's say, and has an evade for Juke, the opponent may roll a focus and then one evade. He may choose to save his focus token for that time when he rolls two focuses. Hot-Shot is an expensive way to nullify that from happening.

Swarms are sooo fun and so strong. I wish I had more Black Squadron Ties.