Has anyone tried it? I'm sure they die in droves but can they tie up enemy bomber runs well enough?

I've had a fair amount of success in max Interceptors, and I'm not sure an additional 4 tie squadrons would be worth it.

Has anyone tried it? I'm sure they die in droves but can they tie up enemy bomber runs well enough?

The Strategy of Tying Up bomber runs has been larely irrelevant for Months, since the development of Intel .

it is a Secondary Strategy that takes place once you have isolated and destroyed the opponent's Intel opportunity...

FANTASTIC when that happens.

but TERRIBLE at making that happen.

The biggest problem is that when it comes to AA, they get to shoot at all the squadrons in arc, so even when you swarm kill all their fighters, yours still die easy unless you have all of them retreat to safety.

I have a friend that did it a gladiator and 4 Gozanti cruisers with 134 Pts of TIEs it was epic and lasted forever

Works great vs some lists and is horrible vs others. When facing Mauler (common) and/or double-dice anti-squad ships the TIEs drop in 1-2 turns. This will only get worse when Ten Numb arrives.

A buttload of TIEs could be good for swamping the enemy only after you've assassinated their source of Intel with the biggest alpha strike you can find. Dave Squadron or another source of Snipe, and/or IG-88.

You need something to actually command all those TIE Fighters or they're just not that great at doing their job.

I suppose with Expanded Hangars Gozantis and Tarkin it could be done, but that's a huge amount of points to not lose the squadron minigame. TIEs are terrible against ships so it's not going to go too far towards winning the actual game...

I have never done so, one of the guys in my local group did. They all died in three turns of combat and killed two X-wings, and did nothing else.

What do you even DO with tie fighters? Like, not bombers or interceptors. Tie Fighters.

Honestly, I think in this game, theyre weak and kind of useless role wise.

I've only seen them for padding large ship lists and increasing deployment, but you can do that with gozantis now/

The key is vics gonzos and expanded hangers....the idea is to run the vics down the enemy's throat so they can choose...the tie swarm or the black dice tossing star destroyer.

I ran a max TIE Swarm once in a tournament. They were more of a liability than a benefit with no enemy fighters to kill and too many capital ships swatting them down with a sneeze when I tried attacking those capital ships with them.

Since then I've been convinced TIE Swarms don't have what it takes... it only works when the enemy bomber meta is getting strong, like now perhaps.

Tie fighters? Only when using aces

Mauler howlrunner rudor

Coz this ain't x-wing, there are ships firing at your swarms to worry about.

If you really wanna, flotillas are your friend. Spread ties out among flotillas and don't bunch up so enemy ships can't spray them all in a single firing arc.

With max fighters the rest of your fleet must then be maxed out for ship-hunting.

The key is vics gonzos and expanded hangers....the idea is to run the vics down the enemy's throat so they can choose...the tie swarm or the black dice tossing star destroyer.

Just threw together a list like this two victory 2s 2 Gozanti cruisers all with expanded hangar bay can fit a Rhymer, 3 bombers, 4 advances, and 3 interceptors with enough pointerest left for jerjerrod or Motti and xi7s on both vics.

I have yet to run a swarm IRL but I've thought a lot about it so cal me a swarm philosopher. What I see is they need an ace to help them. Currently, Howlrunner, maybe Mithel but think also of Rhymer. The last one allows your TIEs to stay close and project in order to minimize what they take from capital ships. Which brings me to the other conclusion: TIE fighters must remain close to the ship they are protecting. I.e. screen. Keep them ringed around your ship(s) at distance 1 and make the enemy come to you then pounce once they are committed. But again, just me prognosticating but maybe one night I'll try this.

not in the current edition of the game, but at 300 points, I had run almost one in the early days of wave1 and vics had howl and rhymer, it was basically a matter of staying out of rebel fighter engagement range and throw them into the fight at the last minute after my vic2's had been able to whittle and, pounce at the end, on a ship, or dive into and alpha strike the rebel squadrons... It kinda worked... but I wouldn't want to really try it with the current meta due to intel/bcc I think their are stronger options.... Might have to just to go for the challenge, although I will still tweak from max so I can fit in an ace or 3.

I did try close to max one time (I think I had 10, but this was before wave 2 and therefore max was only 100p worth of fighters). Sure, they're not bombers, and something needs to activate them. Bu they did rather good by dishing out 10 blue dice against ships 4 rounds of the game. Granted, it was a very casual game, and my opponent did not bring any squadrons.

Any squadron with 4 or less hull and no defense tokens will always be a risk when spammed, because you might run into enemy fleets with ships that have 2 Dice in their anti-fighter armament (especially if they have Blue-Blue AND gunnery teams, so can shred fighters and maintain fire on ships).

A ball of eight TIE Squadrons is awesome for their cost, and I've had success running them (at least back in Wave 2). Things fall apart though when a Nebulon-B escort frigate or an ISD-II starts throwing 16 anti-squadron dice a turn into the ball...

I think you guys missed the point:

Tie swarm works well if used correctly:

step 1: paint 16 squadrons of tie fighters

step 2: make an ISD II/Gonzo/Whatever build

step 3: pair said build with 16 squadrons of ties

step 4: when playing....play with the ISD out front and the gonzo's pushing....you shove em all into an arc...choose shooting the ball or the ISD.

step 5: F-U JAN ORS

(this does not work very well if said ball faces someone with gunnery teams....)

Anybody notice you can have Howlrunner, Rhymer and 6 TIE Fighters and 6 Bombers for exactly 134 points? Must be preordained or something.

I think you guys missed the point:

Tie swarm works well if used correctly:

step 1: paint 16 squadrons of tie fighters

step 2: make an ISD II/Gonzo/Whatever build

step 3: pair said build with 16 squadrons of ties

step 4: when playing....play with the ISD out front and the gonzo's pushing....you shove em all into an arc...choose shooting the ball or the ISD.

step 5: F-U JAN ORS

(this does not work very well if said ball faces someone with gunnery teams....)

Never read the small print. Charge!!!!

Anybody notice you can have Howlrunner, Rhymer and 6 TIE Fighters and 6 Bombers for exactly 134 points? Must be preordained or something.

I've run it and it's quite fun. The main issue is canny opponents who sneak in individual fighters to complicate your Rhymer ball's plans after your regular TIEs have already gone about their business elsewhere.

At regionals my last opponent ran a Demo, 4 or 5 naked Gozantis 3 tie bombers, Rhymer, Howl and full points of tie fighters (9). he slow rolled and made sure to have squad tokens on the flots and with some expert positioning he was able to use the tie fighters to good effect. I shredded many squadrons but he was careful to distribute his fighters rather than ball them up and used obstruction where possible. Tie fighters have low health but 1 blue die is still only 1 blue die in AS and its a 50% chance to hit. Mostly it was a couple of Mauler procs and my imperial aces that did all the killing.