...I think they are actually going to bring a lot more balance to the squadron and wider game.

Be careful what you wish for.

In Star Wars 'bringing balance' can mean 'killing younglings en masse'.

And in doing so, can make you an Absolute Paragon in the eyes of a Fledgling Empire....

Quite so! And in the interest of becoming an Absolute Paragon in the eyes of the Empire, let's discuss that balance in the squadron game:

In the core set, the Rebels had the bombers and the Empire had the space superiority fighters.

...

Except the Empire's "space superiority fighters" lost in a dog fight to the the Rebel bombers, so are they really space superiority fighters? And I am not saying that they lose one on one (they do), but also equal points the Rebel bombers still kill the dedicated anti-fighter squadrons.

Both X-Wings and TIE Fighters are anti-squadron squadrons, it's just the X-Wing can function as a half-competent bomber once it's done doing its job and TIEs are awful at handling ships in return for being better for its cost at handling fighters (given that Imperial squadron doctrine favors more specialized small craft, that's not surprising). If you find that equal points of TIEs vs. X-Wings results in the X-Wings winning, then the Imperial player does not know how to use TIEs well. I find this is a startlingly common problem. It's not surprising when that happens with newer players using the core set, of course, but I see it happen with experienced players more than I'd have guessed.

I certainly haven't figured out how to use Tie fighters well against Rebel fighter/bomber balls.

It's their fragility. Even if I alpha-strike with them they seem to just evaporate during the next turn. If there's any experts on handling Tie fighters here, I'd love to see a thread on tips and tactics!

I certainly haven't figured out how to use Tie fighters well against Rebel fighter/bomber balls.

It's their fragility. Even if I alpha-strike with them they seem to just evaporate during the next turn. If there's any experts on handling Tie fighters here, I'd love to see a thread on tips and tactics!

I can't do it either so I go all in on bombers to overwhelm my opponent, and Intel to jump the damaged ones away. Pretty effective when I have 3 groups of bombers and escorts in range of BCC bringing the pain.

I had a hard time with my tie’s evaporating as you put it. I swapped to Interceptors and I’m much happier. The small amount of points in cost is easily seen in the speed, Anti Squadron armament, and Counter fire they get. They go away as fast, but the contributing factors mean they do far more while they are here. I really value them.

True. I suppose with Tie fighters the object isn't to get rid of the "evaporating" bit. That's what Tie fighters do.

It's just making them earn their points back before they turn to smoke.

Think of it like a rhymer ball, but without rhymer.

And instead of bombers, tie fighters.

Cheaper too, just remember to bring your Tie Advanceds.

I was really hoping to see more Imperial fighters with Escort.

C'est la vie, as we say in the Empire.

It's short too, with 3 hp.

TIE Fighters are not that tough to use. Here's the TIE commandments:

1. Thou shall not rush thy TIE Fighters into battle near enemy ships where flakking them is an easy decision.
2. Thou shall not allow enemy squadrons to get in the first attack against thy TIE Fighters unless there is a good reason. Thou hast been provided with speed 4 to enable this.
3. Thou shall not engage more enemies than necessary with any given TIE Fighter. Some casualties are to be expected, but wastefully leaving several TIEs in range to get counter-punched is pointless. Ideally thy TIEs shall eliminate all hostiles within engagement range, leaving none available for counter-attack unless thy foe also uses squadron commands or Rogues.
4. Thou shall concentrate fire on enemy squadrons to eliminate them before they can fight back. Thou hast been provided with the Swarm keyword and Howlrunner to accomplish this goal.
5. Thou shall use Squadron commands on TIE Fighters to activate several of them in one ship activation and to get the first punch in on enemy squadrons. Thou hast been provided with several ships capable of giving this command, particularly the Gozanti Cruisers.
6. Thou shall disengage if possible with wounded TIEs to keep them from getting easily mopped up. Those TIEs can be either hidden from thy foes or used once again next turn to eliminate their foes.
7. Thou shall make use of obstruction to limit the damage done to TIEs, particularly by flak.
8. Thou shall leave TIEs within range of thy ships for flak assistance. Thou hast been provided with the Raider for great flak support.
9. Thou shall not use TIEs to chase after enemy ships unless there is nothing better for them to do and it accomplishes something meaningful. TIEs are awful against ships.
10. Thou shall deploy TIEs to delay deploying thy real ships for as long as possible.

And that's basically it. People seem to love not giving TIEs squadron commands, letting them get pounced on, running them straight at enemy squadrons near enemy ships (who will then flak them because they have nothing better to do), and having their fragile TIEs engage several fighters. Those are all not good things to do.

Jamming fields is another tool that was just provided to us that helps keep ties alive longer than they have any right to. I used a screen of three ties and three advanced to hold off a much larger squadron force of the duration of the game. And if you have howlrunner in there you are back to throwing 3 blue dice yourself

Snipafists's commandments are good principles for any squadrons!

It's just TIEs that depend on them most to stay alive.

Snipafists's commandments are good principles for any squadrons!

It's just TIEs that depend on them most to stay alive.

Thanks, and that's true. Basically TIEs are weighted strongly towards speed and hitting power so they're very dependent on positioning and attacking first to stay alive. You can apply the same principles to do well with regular squadrons too (and I have when I dabble in Rebels), but it's both more necessary and pays off better when it comes to TIEs. X-Wings and the like can tank some hits (from engaging multiple squadrons, from ship flak). TIEs just can't afford to take optional damage due to player error. Provided they're used with their fragility as well as their merits in mind, they've always done very well for me.

Have we reached the point in the game now where fighter lists are so ubiquitous that it makes sense to bring an anti-fighter complement of TIEs?

I used to, in the early wave 2 days, but I primarily ran into the following list archetypes:

1) The Rhymerball/Fireball

- You all have faced at least one of these. Dengar did tons for the Rhymerball and made it difficult to fling TIEs around. You can dance around their squads all you want, but it's tough to play with them into the Rhymerball, especially if it's the more fighter killy cousin the Fireball.

2) The YT swarm

- It was this list that got me to drop TIEs. 8 YT2400s are so powerful, cost-effective, and anti-fighter that they killed me. Over and over. Disgusting.

3) The no-fighter list.

- While it provided super great deployment advantage to have a bunch of ties available against this type of list, it was then difficult for the ties to make a strong showing. Dancing around AA and avoiding death is fair enough, but I found myself wishing over and over again that I had something else than the points I had sunk into an anti-fighter detachment that ran into a token force of 2 YT2400s or a couple of A-wings.

These 3 fighter list archetypes seemed to account for 75-90% of the lists I ran into in Wave 2, and to be perfectly fair I haven't gotten a lot of Wave 3/4 games in due to a move across state lines.

So, do you find that you are running up against lists often enough to justify running the fragile but powerful if applied properly TIE fighters/Interceptors?

I played 1 game where Ties would have been excellent since my opponent only had Rhymer, Dengar and 4 bombers. Once Dengar is killed by AA, the Ties would have killed all of the bombers. However, I was also playing a Fireball and ran into some problems tying him down with my Tie/A. I also played against a Rhymer ball with Dengar and 3 Tie/I, and that was **** near impossible for me to kill, more so when my AA was only rolling Acc and crits... I narrowly won that game with a repair and going for his ships instead of dealing with the squads. If I had Ties for that, I would have lost that game.

I feel the best way to deal with squads is to devote to one strategy and don't stray from it. My bombers were more effective at killing the carriers than the squads, so I simply ignored squads. Or build a list devoted to killing bombers and once you win the sky, use the squads to "block" lanes of movement. Threaten to get some extra hits in during the squad phase while your ships close in, or place the squads near objectives to deter your opponent from getting close.

Have we reached the point in the game now where fighter lists are so ubiquitous that it makes sense to bring an anti-fighter complement of TIEs?

I used to, in the early wave 2 days, but I primarily ran into the following list archetypes:

1) The Rhymerball/Fireball

- You all have faced at least one of these. Dengar did tons for the Rhymerball and made it difficult to fling TIEs around. You can dance around their squads all you want, but it's tough to play with them into the Rhymerball, especially if it's the more fighter killy cousin the Fireball.

2) The YT swarm

- It was this list that got me to drop TIEs. 8 YT2400s are so powerful, cost-effective, and anti-fighter that they killed me. Over and over. Disgusting.

3) The no-fighter list.

- While it provided super great deployment advantage to have a bunch of ties available against this type of list, it was then difficult for the ties to make a strong showing. Dancing around AA and avoiding death is fair enough, but I found myself wishing over and over again that I had something else than the points I had sunk into an anti-fighter detachment that ran into a token force of 2 YT2400s or a couple of A-wings.

I've got some experience with all those and TIEs. Here's what I've found:

1) Rhymer balls

You need to use the TIEs to take out the bombers, basically. Ideally, you're able to have 3 TIEs on one side of the blob and 3 on the other each taking out one Firespray or TIE Bomber per turn. Trying to whittle through the Escort and then pop the Intel ship and then Rhymer just takes too long and the attempt to do so means all your TIEs are clustered up in one place where they're vulnerable to being caught in one Intel bubble and/or flakked to pieces. Once you've dismantled enough bombers, the support apparatus is generally worthless and it's much harder to use Intel effectively against 2 separate wolf packs than one big fighter blob.

2) Lots of YT-2400s

You need to accept that you likely brought around 48-64 points of TIEs and the other guy brought 128 points of YT-2400s. You can't possibly eliminate all of them with just TIEs but you can try to limit their effectiveness. Given they're speed 4 and they're Rogues, you need to keep your TIEs as a group out of easy striking range. Make him make the first move in the squadron phase by using a ship with 1-2 TIEs defending it as bait. Those TIEs are going to eat it no doubt, but once they're dispatched and the ship has taken 2-4 damage from YTs, you can activate your remaining TIEs next turn to start chipping away at them with assistance from ship flak. This is a situation where Raiders are quite excellent at providing fleet support. Your second more serious wave of TIEs is going to get mulched but overall I find they buy me enough time to keep the YTs from running rampant and I can usually take at least half and often more of the YTs down with me by the end of the game. Overall a good trade.

3) No squadron fleets.

Nowadays these are rare due to the ubiquity of Bomber Command Centers and flotillas. No squadrons means bombers just wreck you. But assuming you are up against a fleet like this I'm happy to have TIEs around for deployment delaying alone. The strategic benefit is huge even if the TIEs themselves will be mostly functioning as light ship harassment during the course of the game.

Have we reached the point in the game now where fighter lists are so ubiquitous that it makes sense to bring an anti-fighter complement of TIEs?

I used to, in the early wave 2 days, but I primarily ran into the following list archetypes:

1) The Rhymerball/Fireball

- You all have faced at least one of these. Dengar did tons for the Rhymerball and made it difficult to fling TIEs around. You can dance around their squads all you want, but it's tough to play with them into the Rhymerball, especially if it's the more fighter killy cousin the Fireball.

2) The YT swarm

- It was this list that got me to drop TIEs. 8 YT2400s are so powerful, cost-effective, and anti-fighter that they killed me. Over and over. Disgusting.

3) The no-fighter list.

- While it provided super great deployment advantage to have a bunch of ties available against this type of list, it was then difficult for the ties to make a strong showing. Dancing around AA and avoiding death is fair enough, but I found myself wishing over and over again that I had something else than the points I had sunk into an anti-fighter detachment that ran into a token force of 2 YT2400s or a couple of A-wings.

I've got some experience with all those and TIEs. Here's what I've found:

1) Rhymer balls

You need to use the TIEs to take out the bombers, basically. Ideally, you're able to have 3 TIEs on one side of the blob and 3 on the other each taking out one Firespray or TIE Bomber per turn. Trying to whittle through the Escort and then pop the Intel ship and then Rhymer just takes too long and the attempt to do so means all your TIEs are clustered up in one place where they're vulnerable to being caught in one Intel bubble and/or flakked to pieces. Once you've dismantled enough bombers, the support apparatus is generally worthless and it's much harder to use Intel effectively against 2 separate wolf packs than one big fighter blob.

2) Lots of YT-2400s

You need to accept that you likely brought around 48-64 points of TIEs and the other guy brought 128 points of YT-2400s. You can't possibly eliminate all of them with just TIEs but you can try to limit their effectiveness. Given they're speed 4 and they're Rogues, you need to keep your TIEs as a group out of easy striking range. Make him make the first move in the squadron phase by using a ship with 1-2 TIEs defending it as bait. Those TIEs are going to eat it no doubt, but once they're dispatched and the ship has taken 2-4 damage from YTs, you can activate your remaining TIEs next turn to start chipping away at them with assistance from ship flak. This is a situation where Raiders are quite excellent at providing fleet support. Your second more serious wave of TIEs is going to get mulched but overall I find they buy me enough time to keep the YTs from running rampant and I can usually take at least half and often more of the YTs down with me by the end of the game. Overall a good trade.

3) No squadron fleets.

Nowadays these are rare due to the ubiquity of Bomber Command Centers and flotillas. No squadrons means bombers just wreck you. But assuming you are up against a fleet like this I'm happy to have TIEs around for deployment delaying alone. The strategic benefit is huge even if the TIEs themselves will be mostly functioning as light ship harassment during the course of the game.

That is a better summary than I could have hoped to write, and mirrors my experiences as well.

I LOVE generic ties- they look awesome, they go *pop* like they do in the movies, and they are absolutely the most efficient CAP you can buy for your point- the Emperor's life-wasting bureaucracy approves!

I think FFG really captured that "essence" of the TIE/ln and X-wing in the rules for Armada: you have the "I'll take a dozen" multi-role strike/superiority fighter of the X vs the "I'll take even more" guns-and-some-engines of the TIE fighter.

IMHO, speed 4 is worth SO much... it's really learning how to use that which can make or break your TIE usage. As for YT-2400's? If you're using squadron commands, point for point, the TIE's are still more efficient- it is very much possible to take out 8 of them with many fewer tie's. In all of the Rebel fighter lists I build, the thing I really am scared of are efficiently flown swarms of interceptors and tie fighters: there's just no way for me to come out on top of the numbers game without really dedicating my ships to AS fire, which means they're not attacking other ships themselves AND the positions to which I can fling my bombers is much more restricted.

TIE Fighters are not that tough to use. Here's the TIE commandments:

1. Thou shall not rush thy TIE Fighters into battle near enemy ships where flakking them is an easy decision.
2. Thou shall not allow enemy squadrons to get in the first attack against thy TIE Fighters unless there is a good reason. Thou hast been provided with speed 4 to enable this.
3. Thou shall not engage more enemies than necessary with any given TIE Fighter. Some casualties are to be expected, but wastefully leaving several TIEs in range to get counter-punched is pointless. Ideally thy TIEs shall eliminate all hostiles within engagement range, leaving none available for counter-attack unless thy foe also uses squadron commands or Rogues.
4. Thou shall concentrate fire on enemy squadrons to eliminate them before they can fight back. Thou hast been provided with the Swarm keyword and Howlrunner to accomplish this goal.
5. Thou shall use Squadron commands on TIE Fighters to activate several of them in one ship activation and to get the first punch in on enemy squadrons. Thou hast been provided with several ships capable of giving this command, particularly the Gozanti Cruisers.
6. Thou shall disengage if possible with wounded TIEs to keep them from getting easily mopped up. Those TIEs can be either hidden from thy foes or used once again next turn to eliminate their foes.
7. Thou shall make use of obstruction to limit the damage done to TIEs, particularly by flak.
8. Thou shall leave TIEs within range of thy ships for flak assistance. Thou hast been provided with the Raider for great flak support.
9. Thou shall not use TIEs to chase after enemy ships unless there is nothing better for them to do and it accomplishes something meaningful. TIEs are awful against ships.
10. Thou shall deploy TIEs to delay deploying thy real ships for as long as possible.

And that's basically it. People seem to love not giving TIEs squadron commands, letting them get pounced on, running them straight at enemy squadrons near enemy ships (who will then flak them because they have nothing better to do), and having their fragile TIEs engage several fighters. Those are all not good things to do.

I can not say that these are wrong, but they are much easier to say than do.

1. "Thou shall not rush thy TIE Fighters into battle near enemy ships where flakking them is an easy decision." And when is there a fight that is not near enemy ships?

2. "Thou shall not allow enemy squadrons to get in the first attack against thy TIE Fighters unless there is a good reason. Thou hast been provided with speed 4 to enable this." OK, I this is a good point if they attack first you will likely lose one TiE for each of there squadrons that attack, but is that not part of the issue that people have with the TiE's?

3. "Thou shall not engage more enemies than necessary with any given TIE Fighter. Some casualties are to be expected, but wastefully leaving several TIEs in range to get counter-punched is pointless. Ideally thy TIEs shall eliminate all hostiles within engagement range, leaving none available for counter-attack unless thy foe also uses squadron commands or Rogues." As I understand it if, you are using TiE's "correctly" you should outnumber the Rebels, also would this not be linked with #4? And if (I see it as a BIG if) it works this should be a non-issue.

4. "Thou shall concentrate fire on enemy squadrons to eliminate them before they can fight back. Thou hast been provided with the Swarm keyword and Howlrunner to accomplish this goal." Like #3 if it works the way it is written, but I have never seen it work that way. I have seen TiE's fighting three, four, even sometimes five to one against X-wing's and A-Wing's and losing every time. Now, yes it does have some to do with dice rolls but at least in my experience and what I have seen it happens every time so that implies there is more to it than just bad dice rolls.

5. "Thou shall use Squadron commands on TIE Fighters to activate several of them in one ship activation and to get the first punch in on enemy squadrons. Thou hast been provided with several ships capable of giving this command, particularly the Gozanti Cruisers."OK, this again is a good point. Everyone I know does this to some amount, not sure if you are saying that it should be 100% or not. I have tried it where I can control 100% of my squadrons, down to about 40% at one time. I have not noticed it making any difference ether way.

6. "Thou shall disengage if possible with wounded TIEs to keep them from getting easily mopped up. Those TIEs can be either hidden from thy foes or used once again next turn to eliminate their foes." How often do you see TiE's survive? Almost every time I see them get one shot by just about everything, and when not one shot I seen one of two things happening first they are shot a second time and die, or two they are still engaged with a squadron that is much tougher than they are.

7. "Thou shall make use of obstruction to limit the damage done to TIEs, particularly by flak." This is something that I have never thought about, so I have no idea how this will/would affect the survival. So this is something that I need to look at trying.

8. "Thou shall leave TIEs within range of thy ships for flak assistance. Thou hast been provided with the Raider for great flak support." This is one more that is easier said than done. With only three hull, the Rebels can sit at long (OK, medium) and use the anti-squadron attacks to kill off the TiE's. Most of the Rebel ships that I see hit the table have two blue anti-squadron dice. The other issue with trying to take out fighters at long range is that just about every Rebel player in my area uses Gallent Haven that makes there higher hull squadrons last much longer than the wimpy TiE's.

9. "Thou shall not use TIEs to chase after enemy ships unless there is nothing better for them to do and it accomplishes something meaningful. TIEs are awful against ships." This is so true, fortunately not something that happens often either they die fighting the other squadrons or the Rebels did not bring any squadrons so might as well use them.

10. "Thou shall deploy TIEs to delay deploying thy real ships for as long as possible." A good idea to help the overall battle, but how does this help the TiE's?

Yes, you'll get into engagements in range of enemy AA.

The idea though is to make it a difficult decision for them to make.

Play to the limitation of one attack per hull zone. (Exception: gunnery teams on an ISD, for example)

Don't just park 4 ties in a hull zone in range that doesn't have a ship to shoot at.

You want to make them have to decide whether to use the AA on your squadrons, or an attack on one of your threatening ships bearing down on them.

Don't make it easy for them to shoot at the squadrons.

...I think they are actually going to bring a lot more balance to the squadron and wider game.

Be careful what you wish for.

In Star Wars 'bringing balance' can mean 'killing younglings en masse'.

And in doing so, can make you an Absolute Paragon in the eyes of a Fledgling Empire....

Quite so! And in the interest of becoming an Absolute Paragon in the eyes of the Empire, let's discuss that balance in the squadron game:

In the core set, the Rebels had the bombers and the Empire had the space superiority fighters.

In the meta as it emerged after Wave I, the Empire seemed to become more dominant as it came to bombers, because bombers are cheap and Rhymer is the Absolute Paragon in the eyes of the Imperial Navy. I know there are such things as masses of Y-wings, but I haven't really seen them. R&Vs made the squadron game more interesting, because bombers could escape the engagement lock-down with intel, and Rogue meant that some bombers (Firesprays) could operate without a command vessel. But it didn't upend the basic structure (imbalance) that the Empire bombs, and Rebels try to prevent that. Wave III's introduction of the Bomber Command Center has only made bombers more valuable, which seems to deepen that imbalance.

As a Rhymerballer, I'm not that unhappy with the imbalance, but it does seem counter-intuitive compared to ANH/RotJ, where the big even of both movies is about a big Imperial thing being taken out by a Rebel bombing run, whereas in ESB, Imperial bomber action is limited to the carpet bombing of some asteroids, to the dismay of a space slug.

Y-Wings have to be the most underrated rebel squad. 10 points for 6 hull, 3 speed, and 2 blue antisquad, and bomber. So much good there.

Thou shall throw Tie Advanced into the brawl after the Tie Fighters have taken the first hit.

...I think they are actually going to bring a lot more balance to the squadron and wider game.

Be careful what you wish for.

In Star Wars 'bringing balance' can mean 'killing younglings en masse'.

And in doing so, can make you an Absolute Paragon in the eyes of a Fledgling Empire....

Quite so! And in the interest of becoming an Absolute Paragon in the eyes of the Empire, let's discuss that balance in the squadron game:

In the core set, the Rebels had the bombers and the Empire had the space superiority fighters.

In the meta as it emerged after Wave I, the Empire seemed to become more dominant as it came to bombers, because bombers are cheap and Rhymer is the Absolute Paragon in the eyes of the Imperial Navy. I know there are such things as masses of Y-wings, but I haven't really seen them. R&Vs made the squadron game more interesting, because bombers could escape the engagement lock-down with intel, and Rogue meant that some bombers (Firesprays) could operate without a command vessel. But it didn't upend the basic structure (imbalance) that the Empire bombs, and Rebels try to prevent that. Wave III's introduction of the Bomber Command Center has only made bombers more valuable, which seems to deepen that imbalance.

As a Rhymerballer, I'm not that unhappy with the imbalance, but it does seem counter-intuitive compared to ANH/RotJ, where the big even of both movies is about a big Imperial thing being taken out by a Rebel bombing run, whereas in ESB, Imperial bomber action is limited to the carpet bombing of some asteroids, to the dismay of a space slug.

Y-Wings have to be the most underrated rebel squad. 10 points for 6 hull, 3 speed, and 2 blue antisquad. So much good there.

Only problem with them is heavy, if they weren't I would use them so much more.

Y-Wings have to be the most underrated rebel squad. 10 points for 6 hull, 3 speed, and 2 blue antisquad. So much good there.

Only problem with them is heavy, if they weren't I would use them so much more.

Yeah, but intel does that anyway to your other ships. Y-Wings are the Rebel mirror of TIE Bombers.

Y-Wings have to be the most underrated rebel squad. 10 points for 6 hull, 3 speed, and 2 blue antisquad. So much good there.

Only problem with them is heavy, if they weren't I would use them so much more.

Yeah, but intel does that anyway to your other ships. Y-Wings are the Rebel mirror of TIE Bombers.

And if there was a squadron that tripled the Y-wing's threat range, you'd see them in every Rebel bomber list, as you do with TIE bombers.

As it is, you see Y-wings about as often as you see Rhymer-less TIE bombers.

Jonus and Sato are going to up those numbers considerably I imagine for their respective sides.

Clarification: I know Jonus doesn't necessarily make TIE bombers better in the Rhymer sense, but if you're going to have Jonus at distance 1 of an enemy ship, you might as well have a few bombers with him.

Jonus and Sato are going to up those numbers considerably I imagine for their respective sides.

Clarification: I know Jonus doesn't necessarily make TIE bombers better in the Rhymer sense, but if you're going to have Jonus at distance 1 of an enemy ship, you might as well have a few bombers with him.

I think I'd run an advanced with him for escort just to keep him alive as long as I can, maybe even vader to get use out of his hit/crit on ships