I'm a newer player, and lately I've been having a lot of trouble building a list I'm happy with, particularly because of what I've come to think of as the 'Squadron tax'.

Now I've seen on these forums many times about how squads should be incorporated into a list, and are more of an extension of your ships than an entirely separate thing. Squadrons are obviously good, reliable sources of damage, with a lot of good builds. Yes I could run a list without any but come on they seem to be a necessity in this meta.

I want to know your guys tips for building Squadrons into a list without sacrificing capital ships as much. I don't find building a list dedicated to a strong Squadron pretense difficult, it's the minimalistic Squadron lists I'm having trouble with. I find myself usually dedicating almost 100 points to Squadrons in order to have an effective way to defend against an opponents, and then I end up spending over 50 points more on ships to activate them. Is the game meant to just provide like 250 points for my Squadron independent capital ships? Does every squad need to have an activation?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Squadrons basically do one of two things. Intercept or bombing runs. Bomber wings tend to be found in lists that don't bring much battery armament or a big knockout punch. Interceptor wings are taken by the opposite, and are there to combat bomber wings. Some lists bring YT-2400s or Aggressors in numbers to intercept as they're hearty and have the rogue keyword. Think of them as augmentations.

I'm not saying that this is a list meant for competition but it's a cheap costwise build (not sure what your collection entails). I purposefully did not include many upgrades because you need to know what the base ship does before you know what you want it to be. By flying a mix of squadrons, you'll find what you like and then you can adjust.

Garm because the token spam will allow for flexibility (pick Navigate and Squadron tokens) so you can find what you like.

[ REBEL FLEET (389 points)
1 • MC80 Command Cruiser - Garm Bel Iblis (131)
2 • Assault Frigate Mark II B (72)
3 • Nebulon-B Escort Frigate - Yavaris (62)
4 • X-wing Squadron (13)
5 • X-wing Squadron (13)
6 • A-wing Squadron (11)
7 • A-wing Squadron (11)
8 • B-wing Squadron (14)
9 • B-wing Squadron (14)
10 • Y-wing Squadron (10)
11 • Y-wing Squadron (10)
12 • HWK-290 (12)
13 • YT-2400 (16)

My collection is quite large, I have at least one of everything and multiples of many packs. I've tried almost every ship in the game and I have flown a variety of lists and get the use of most ships, I'm just trying to find how to balance Squadrons into the mix better.

Oh, in that case... do Rieekan Aces... as it's forgiving.

[ REBEL FLEET (90 points)
1 • Luke Skywalker X-wing Squadron (20)
2 • Wedge Antilles X-wing Squadron (19)
3 • ''Dutch'' Vander Y-wing Squadron (16)
4 • Jan Ors Moldy Crow (19)
5 • Tycho Celchu A-wing Squadron (16)

Than add 44 points of whatever you like.

My collection is quite large, I have at least one of everything and multiples of many packs. I've tried almost every ship in the game and I have flown a variety of lists and get the use of most ships, I'm just trying to find how to balance Squadrons into the mix better.

Thats always the difficult part. I tend to go with an intercept force with rogue or that two flotillas can activate cheaply.

I find in bomber builds I end up bringing 2 HWKs for Rebels, and Dengar and a Jumpmaster for Imperials. Intel is too good not to have. Being able to move your squads when you need them is required to win the squadron game or to bomb ships.

That said, you do not need to activate every squad in the ship phase. Activated squads are more powerful than non-activated ones because you get to shoot and move, as well as any buffs you may have in your fleet like Flight Controllers or Yavaris. If you build a bomber fleet, you need to commit to it. I'd say as much as 250-300 points invested in activating squads or improving them. This also considers the points of the squadrons. The last amount of points is to create a threat that is independent of your bomber threat. This way your opponent has to deal with 1 of them. Always take at least 1 Bomber Command Center with bombers. Range 5 covers more than you think, and getting a reroll means you have a relaible source of damage. Toryn Farr is great with B-Wings since she stacks with BCC. I know some people may not agree, but if you play Imp bombers, always take Major Rhymer until you feel you can play without him. I've found Firesprays with Rhymer can hit a ship during the squadron phase of round 1 if your opponent decides to fly out to quickly.

In regards to anti-squadron, there is a lot of debate on what is most effective. A-wings are a solid ship. 4 hull means it is hard to 1 shot them, and counter lets them deal more damage. Again, Torn Farr does wonder for A-wings. Running Jan Ors with at least 3 X-wings is super annoying to deal with. Intel lets them move, and the brace makes them hard to kill. And Jan has counter. Imps have a harder time with anti-squadron since their squads are fragile. Most the time the squadrons are there just to pin down bombers long enough to kill the carriers, so 4-6 Ties or Tie Interceptors do the trick. Denger+Howlrunner gives Tie Interceptors 4 blue dice on a counter attack which is really scary to deal with.

This is all going to change when wave 5 hits and CC hits and we got a ton more squads to play with. For right now, any advice we give you will change on specific builds, that is why I am giving broad advice. Follow the threads that discuss the new squads when they appear and ask questions. Everything will be new for us as well.

The fact that you don't know what your opponent will bring make it really hard to always have a good squadron combination.

Also, it will depend the kind of fleet you want to bring to. So don't feel bad because thing's didn't turn the way you tougth.

-If you have alot of carrier, maximise your squadron (no need for "Rogue").

-If you don't have carrier, try to choose those with "Rogue" key word.

-Habitually, try to have a little bit more interceptor than bomber cause bomber dislike being alone without coverage fire from interceptor.

-Each Unique squadron can make a difference and can synergise with the normal squadron and between them. Think about what you want to do with your squadron at the first start.

But as I said at the start, there is no ultimate solution (and I don't like this one, 8 YT-2400). Try your best, remeber your false move, move along and have some fun

In the meta around here, I start my list by taking at least 127 points in squads, then an Admiral, then I look at ships.

This is probably not the answer you were looking for, but I have yet to find a way to be competitive in the squad war and not max out your own squadrons.

Two ways you can go about it build your fighter wing first then build your carriers around it or put all the captial ships you want then add squadrons as needed.

@Kristjan... why 127? Seems like a random number?

@Kristjan... why 127? Seems like a random number?

At 127 you can't take can more squadrons ( an 8 point tie would put you at 135). It's just a cut off I use for when squadrons are basically maxed out, I guess it could be 125 for rebels.

My general rule of thumb is you should spend at least 40-50 points on squadrons just to keep bombers honest and to delay deployments. That's 6 TIE Fighters or 4 conventional Rebel fighters (A-Wings and/or X-Wings). You can keep building up just fighters and such until you get to about the halfway point on squadron points spent (around 70). It's important to note that while fighters can get in the occasional hit on ships, their primary role is to help keep you from losing to bombers. Once bombers are wiped out, they're a bad value for their points so far as actually attacking enemy ships is concerned.

If you spend beyond that halfway point on squadrons, you need to consider how your large investment in squadrons is going to actively help you win because if you're just going to keep spamming fighters you would've been better off investing those points into ships. This means bombers, generally, but you can also benefit from jack-of-all-trades squadrons like YT-2400s and/or X-Wings fielded in sufficient quantity (as both of those squadrons can transition to a ship harassment role without much trouble - the X-Wings really would like a Bomber Command Center to do that, though). There's also other considerations when it comes to large squadron investments, like adequate squadron command ships, but that depends a lot on your fleet build.

TL;DR version:

A light to moderate investment in squadrons is largely points invested in not losing (to bombers).

A heavy to extreme investment in squadrons is largely points invested in winning with squadrons (using bombers).

If you lightly invest in bombers, you're going to be disappointed. If you heavily invest in only fighters, you're going to be disappointed (due to overkill).

If you want to minimize squadron investment your focus has to change. You aren't trying to win the squad game or even kill. You are trying to win the game by focusing on dropping the ships as fast as possible. To that end the points you do spend in squads are meant to buy you time, one turn minimum but 2 reasonably two turns of going through fighter damage to kill the carriers. In the current meta this both harder to pull off due to Intel but more effective due less Rogues running around.

You can counter Intel by clever position with fighters. Intel only covers range 1 which means if you have the speed advantage you can engage priority bomber without becoming heavy. If your opponent moves the Intel to make your fighter heavy, take another fighter and engage another bomber. The intel can't be everywhere at once. In the ideal world you would engage the a bomber blob with two of your own fighters (keep the rest in reserve) keeping as far away from the intel as possible and engaging as many bombers as possible. If they have multiple sources of Intel, the strategy remains the same but far more difficult and really depends on how the movement is unfolding and may require you to commit more fighters.

Personally, so far I have found 4 A-Wings to be the absolute bare minimum (I play mostly Rebels). It works and it can be tough but speed and numbers of bases mean more than actual attacking ability. 6 Ties also come to close to the same cost and is bit easier to use since you have more bodies but a bit more tenuous since they die so quickly and reliably be taken out by AA fire ships/flotillas.

My general rule of thumb is you should spend at least 40-50 points on squadrons just to keep bombers honest and to delay deployments. That's 6 TIE Fighters or 4 conventional Rebel fighters (A-Wings and/or X-Wings). You can keep building up just fighters and such until you get to about the halfway point on squadron points spent (around 70). It's important to note that while fighters can get in the occasional hit on ships, their primary role is to help keep you from losing to bombers. Once bombers are wiped out, they're a bad value for their points so far as actually attacking enemy ships is concerned.

If you spend beyond that halfway point on squadrons, you need to consider how your large investment in squadrons is going to actively help you win because if you're just going to keep spamming fighters you would've been better off investing those points into ships. This means bombers, generally, but you can also benefit from jack-of-all-trades squadrons like YT-2400s and/or X-Wings fielded in sufficient quantity (as both of those squadrons can transition to a ship harassment role without much trouble - the X-Wings really would like a Bomber Command Center to do that, though). There's also other considerations when it comes to large squadron investments, like adequate squadron command ships, but that depends a lot on your fleet build.

TL;DR version:

A light to moderate investment in squadrons is largely points invested in not losing (to bombers).

A heavy to extreme investment in squadrons is largely points invested in winning with squadrons (using bombers).

If you lightly invest in bombers, you're going to be disappointed. If you heavily invest in only fighters, you're going to be disappointed (due to overkill).

You beat me on the 4 A-Wings advice by one minute.

Simple balanced imperial list:

Two firesprays

Boba Fett

Dengar

Darth Vader

Major Rhymer

Mauler

Works out to 134 pts

Thank god the imps didnt get rieekan

Simple balanced imperial list:

Two firesprays

Boba Fett

Dengar

Darth Vader

Major Rhymer

Mauler

Works out to 134 pts