Hi all!

Id like to know your opinion about this topic. For Me, defender is a bit disappointing, basically its not really a big deal/brings not much New to the table. Compared to 2 regular tie, its faster, needs less activation, but less deployment, less damage Both against ships and squadrons. Sure, ties die quicker, for exple if these are up agains x-Wings, you Come out a tie Fighter squadron less. Also, to shoot shisp, you Better have rhymer for ties...

These are just initial Thoughts. What do you Think?

TIE defenders also more annoying to paint.

Defender is faster, more resistant to Mauler twitch, more resistant to anti-squad ship armament.

2x TIE Fighters have more firepower, make up a deployment by themselves, are more able to kill scatter aces.

Both have upsides. In a vacuum, I would rather face the Fighters. With the proper support and cards like Howlrunner, I would rather face Defenders.

Defender is faster, more resistant to Mauler twitch, more resistant to anti-squad ship armament.

2x TIE Fighters have more firepower, make up a deployment by themselves, are more able to kill scatter aces.

Both have upsides. In a vacuum, I would rather face the Fighters. With the extras like Howlrunner, I would rather face Defenders.

Agreed, and thanks for the nuanced approach. I also think it would not be a bad move to include a Defender or two amongst generic TIE Fighters to function as durable first-strike Swarm nodes, to chase down retreating enemy squadrons that the regular TIEs can't catch, and to function as late-game "eh okay I guess" bombers should they survive.

I think you have the idea I would stick with. Not massing Defenders, but keeping them as 1 or 2 squads in a mixed screen

It used to be if you compare any squadron stats to the equivalent in TIE Fighters, everything looks awful.

Now its the Headhunter. Those Z95 point efficiencies are insane.

There are two reasons you don't just see TIE Fighters- activation efficiency, and resilience.

Each ship in the game has 6 opportunities to give a squadron order. Each ship can only do one a turn. The number of squadrons that can be activated are finite, and have a points cost to make it possible.

TIE Fighter can only take 2 damage before becoming points scored. This means they can probably take one attack before you need to decide to disengage or carry on shooting and likely die. Defenders can take 5, and will carry on throwing all their dice until that 6th damage hits. After 5 total damage, your 2 TIEs are shooting at half power, and have already given up 8 points.

Basically you can take your 4 TIE Fighters, and I'll take my 2 Defenders, and because I'm faster I'll shoot you first, kill one or two, shrug off the return fire. Next turn, I then finish the remains, and start thinking about dealing face up cards to you.

Obviously there are advantagesthe other way, deployments, larger area to engage things, but hopefully I've illustrated why you can't just compare stats and points.

It used to be if you compare any squadron stats to the equivalent in TIE Fighters, everything looks awful.

Now its the Headhunter. Those Z95 point efficiencies are insane.

There are two reasons you don't just see TIE Fighters- activation efficiency, and resilience.

Each ship in the game has 6 opportunities to give a squadron order. Each ship can only do one a turn. The number of squadrons that can be activated are finite, and have a points cost to make it possible.

TIE Fighter can only take 2 damage before becoming points scored. This means they can probably take one attack before you need to decide to disengage or carry on shooting and likely die. Defenders can take 5, and will carry on throwing all their dice until that 6th damage hits. After 5 total damage, your 2 TIEs are shooting at half power, and have already given up 8 points.

Basically you can take your 4 TIE Fighters, and I'll take my 2 Defenders, and because I'm faster I'll shoot you first, kill one or two, shrug off the return fire. Next turn, I then finish the remains, and start thinking about dealing face up cards to you.

Obviously there are advantagesthe other way, deployments, larger area to engage things, but hopefully I've illustrated why you can't just compare stats and points.

Nice analysis. Everything, and I mean everything, looks bad compared to the Z95/TIE if you are looking at it from a pure points efficiency perspective.

TIE defenders also more annoying to paint.

And most important, Defenders take up less space on the mat, and require less surgical manipulation during play!

I'd take Defenders of Ties. Yavaris kills Tie swarms really quick. Defenders will just shrug it off and punch you in the gut and laugh while Maarek Stele drops a volley ball of proton torps in your face.

I often keep in mind how many of the 6 rounds I expect my squads to be brawling when evaluating squads and choosing the correct one for my plans. If you plan on only a turn or 2 of brawling the harder hitting less hull squads are usually better. Opposite is true for multi-turn brawling. I have a similar internal debate when choosing between 2 TIE bombers and 1 Firespray. They are so close (almost identical) in math stats, but have different value in various situations.

I'd throw 2 tie defenders in just to keep up with Centicore. Flotilla can pump brakes round 1 and command them the entire game.

TIE defenders also more annoying to paint.

And most important, Defenders take up less space on the mat, and require less surgical manipulation during play!

A very good point. This wave is incredibly squadron-centric in a game that is already drowning in squadron play.

Our average time to play a game has increased significantly since the introduction of Flotillas and the squadron rush. I'm worried that this wave will make it even worse as people fiddle with all the new aces and squadron abilities.

Only until they're competent with it.

Yes, there is a learning curve to squadrons....

But if you hate them, you'll always hate them.

If you learn to use them, you get quicker with them.

TIE defenders also more annoying to paint.

I was having such a good day, until you said this.

for me I'm not quite sure what to make of tie defenders. I find them to be akin to a yt-2400 it is the same price, gains a hull and a speed, is more consistent on squadron damage, with the black dice and still has the 75% chance of hit on ship plus crit effects with a blue die because bomber, if you roll a bcc your 75% is nearly 100% chance of damage to a ship. it dose lose rouge, but I'm finding rouge is not quite as good as people make it out to be, especially in my local meta when your opponent activates all there squadrons and you wait to respond until the end of the round your losing squadrons before they can even respond. if you continually activate them with squadron commands why did you spend the extra points on the rouge key word? I can see the argument to activate during the first few rounds of the game and use the rouge key word as clean up. so in short I think the tie defender is better than the ty-2400, other then they do make you sacrifice some of your flexibility but I will have to play around with them and see how I fill then.

My eyes!!!

Can I have yv666s instead?

not a huge fan, though i'll resever final say for when i get to play with them... 16 is steep... lets see, howl'd tie fighter 2 avg damage with swarm goes up to 2.46 which is where the defender is ... 2 fighters do 1 avg damage to a ship, defender is .75 but can get the reroll taking it to .9375... i think what im missing is a black bomber die... i think that would have converted me... i think they will work well with strategist however so if that is your thing go for it this may be your ship...

another comparison to make is tie fighter plus tie bomber is 17 points, one more than defender... better anti-squad output, better anti ship damage output... counts as a deployment... yada yada.... i like that the defender is not an auto include... i think if you wanted to swap out some ties for defenders because you were short on squad command value, that that would be good...

I did some dice testing/scenarios with Y-Wings as stand-ins against all kinds of enemy Fighters and what I found is that the Defender's greatest strength seems to be consistency.

With Flight Controllers they average at 3 dmg per attack and therefore can kill Xs and Bs in 2 strikes. They also get the alpha strike against these slower squads and don't rely on Aces like Howl or swarm rerolls.

2 Defenders vs 4 TIEs is pretty even with the Defenders having a slight edge.

So an independent Defender Wing led by Maarek Stele at 101 pts. will probably be my go-to Multi role Fighter Screen/Bomber Wing regardless of what the Enemy brings to the table.

But I always play at 500 pts. so I got a little more to spare

Consistency and reliability ftw!

It used to be if you compare any squadron stats to the equivalent in TIE Fighters, everything looks awful.

Now its the Headhunter. Those Z95 point efficiencies are insane.

There are two reasons you don't just see TIE Fighters- activation efficiency, and resilience.

Each ship in the game has 6 opportunities to give a squadron order. Each ship can only do one a turn. The number of squadrons that can be activated are finite, and have a points cost to make it possible.

TIE Fighter can only take 2 damage before becoming points scored. This means they can probably take one attack before you need to decide to disengage or carry on shooting and likely die. Defenders can take 5, and will carry on throwing all their dice until that 6th damage hits. After 5 total damage, your 2 TIEs are shooting at half power, and have already given up 8 points.

Basically you can take your 4 TIE Fighters, and I'll take my 2 Defenders, and because I'm faster I'll shoot you first, kill one or two, shrug off the return fire. Next turn, I then finish the remains, and start thinking about dealing face up cards to you.

Obviously there are advantagesthe other way, deployments, larger area to engage things, but hopefully I've illustrated why you can't just compare stats and points.

"Points scored" after 2 damage? I thought they were only scored on destruction.....

It used to be if you compare any squadron stats to the equivalent in TIE Fighters, everything looks awful.

Now its the Headhunter. Those Z95 point efficiencies are insane.

There are two reasons you don't just see TIE Fighters- activation efficiency, and resilience.

Each ship in the game has 6 opportunities to give a squadron order. Each ship can only do one a turn. The number of squadrons that can be activated are finite, and have a points cost to make it possible.

TIE Fighter can only take 2 damage before becoming points scored. This means they can probably take one attack before you need to decide to disengage or carry on shooting and likely die. Defenders can take 5, and will carry on throwing all their dice until that 6th damage hits. After 5 total damage, your 2 TIEs are shooting at half power, and have already given up 8 points.

Basically you can take your 4 TIE Fighters, and I'll take my 2 Defenders, and because I'm faster I'll shoot you first, kill one or two, shrug off the return fire. Next turn, I then finish the remains, and start thinking about dealing face up cards to you.

Obviously there are advantagesthe other way, deployments, larger area to engage things, but hopefully I've illustrated why you can't just compare stats and points.

"Points scored" after 2 damage? I thought they were only scored on destruction.....

He means any damage taken after 2 damage kills them, scoring points. It's oddly worded, but the meaning is pretty clear.

The 6 hull is the selling point to me. Being able to tank alpha strikes and being more resilent to ship AA is huge. Also I LOVE 2 blue 2 black anti squadron; although there is less acc chance, I've been a fan after playing with Han and YV-666s, the consistency is just there, which doesn't show up in avaverge damage statistics.

It's the defender... lol for me. Nothing else matters. I'll take 3 to 5 of them.

I'm thinking that 2 groups of a defender, advanced, and phantom buzzing around Rhymer could yield some interesting results.

Rhymer, 2 Decimators, 2 Defenders and Valen. Maybe even Stele and Whisper. Scary against ships, and tears through squads.