so i wanna put this here to help players that do not understand what they face. i will first showacase a wave 1 "token fighter screen" and how it once worked. after that, i will explain how a rhymerball works in two variants, then i will explain how a rebel version works. i will then explain why wave 1 "token fighter screens" dont work, and how to face it and what the goals of a modern fighter screen are.

wave 1 "token fighter screen":

the idea of this fighter screen is the following:

"squadrons are lame, just tie them up for 1-2 turns with idioticaly weak and cheap squadrons, and my ships will beat yours".

2-4 tie interceptors/a-wings.

2 x aces for the braces/scatters.

in general, 20-40 points of squadrons. the goal is to stop the squadron game from being influential by sending 1 squadron per turn to engage enemies and force them to shoot at it instead of ships,hopefuly make them take damage vie Counter, and make any carrier fleet feel like a sucker. because of the wave 1 point limit and no Intel keyword, this worked for the most part.

wave 2:

wave 2 made "balls" relevant with the larger point limit and the "intel" keyword.

examples:

Rhymer

Dengar

Vader

4 x firesprays

rhymer

dengar

2 tie advanceds

7 x tie bombers

let us demonstrate how this bomber wing works:

they shoot at your ships. you try to tie them up. DENGAR moves in, your squadrons are now HEAVY and dont tie ANYTHING up. they still ignore you and keep shooting at your ships. you try to kill dengar, but vader and/or tie advanceds get in the way.

a rebel example

Moldy Crow

3 x x-wings

3 x B-wings

3 x Y-wings

you try to tie them up. then moldy crow moves. she has Intel and your squadrons are now HEAVY. you dont tie ANYTHING up. they keep ignoring your squadrons and shoot at your ships.

as you see, the real problem now is the Intel keyword. the solution is the following:

you have to let go of the idea of "tie up squadrons and avoid playing the squadron game."

the modern fighter screen wants to MURDER SQUADRONS WITH THE INTEL KEYWORD (and grit , a similar but more difficult to abuse keyword). we want max antisquadron damage output. x-wings, tie swarms, imperial aces that autodamage a squadron (specificaly the Intel one! learn to HATE that thing). your fighter screen now needs to be an actual threat. the goal is to be able to kill 2-3 squadrons per turn reliably, by having 20+ antisquadron dice and/or Snipe keyword; so that the bomber player knows you will kill his escorts first turn, and kill his Intel squadrons second turn, at which point his squadrons will be tied up wave 1 style. he will be forced to retaliate, STOP HITTING YOUR SHIPS and start attacking your squadrons. presto! win or lose, now you have done your job.

you dont need "another full squadrons list" you need 70-90 points (sometimes less, but you need to know what you are doing in your antisquadron tactics) of actual agressive fighters.

First of all, really good post. I think the overall concepts here will definitely benefit people approaching the game for the first time or those who want to learn further about squadron balls.

You've captured key points in the evolution fairly well. I started the game in wave-2 where Intel was already a thing, and I remember having discussions with multiple top players that suggested that four squadrons weren't really enough anymore. I'd suggest that makes an excellent starting point for deciding when/how to deal with squads.

Wave 3/4 incentivized bringing more squadrons because it was possible to activate them through flotillas, and because Bomber Command Center increased their possible threat to ships. I do think what you offer is true in general (there are some exceptions I'll get to), and we see that exemplified in lists that focus on multiple activations and either go squadronless or take Tycho as the principle squad.

Now, I did have success with a four squad wave-1 style list across two regionals and 4-5 small tournaments, so I don't think it is absolutely out. I wasn't around for wave-1, but I've never sent the squads in one-at-a-time. Four squads is the point at which you should be able to tie up a bomber ball at enough points that a single Intel ship can only free up about half of the ball. You do give up really focusing down an enemy squads and whether you kill anything in the squadron game is partly a matter of luck, but the goal of your squadron game is to tie up enough. That's the critical question, "When have you done enough?" If you can't do enough, then you need to revise your list or reexamine your squadron game until you do. In fact, my sense is that smaller token forces like this, but also the larger six squadron forces that can absolutely and definitely tie up a squadron ball at multiple points is precisely what occasioned the appearance of two-Intel lists. You make sure that no matter what happens, you can always go bomb ships.

So here are some keys to playing low squads: 1. You need fast ships that can be flexibly positioned. Squadrons can have a hard time chasing down ships that are zooming away at speed 4. Your goal with the squadron game itself is to reduce incoming fire, but you've also got to build for it with your ships. First player helps a lot here, because no matter what, you're taking a ship that is in a threatened position and moving it away. 2. You need ships that can take a bit of a hit from squads and/or other ships. This is where Admonition shines. Rerolling a Rhymer hit/crit at medium range and pitching tokens on hit/crits greatly extends its life. Corvettes and Nebulon-Bs can sometimes fit into a list, but are non-ideal because a light ship shot and a few squadron shots can easily take them out. I ran an Endeavor, which provided a pretty tanky target, with options on just hunkering down with engineering or attempting to engine tech nav away. Successfully taking out flotillas activating those squadrons means you don't have to do too much to get away from them. 3. Your squadrons have to cause as much difficulty to the Intel ship as possible. The ideal positioning is that only two squadrons can be made heavy. That will usually cut their firepower in half, which is enough. Even if you can't tie it up entirely, you're still doing as much damage as you can. 4. Ship-based AS can really support lighter squads. The single black die from a flotilla that is in the middle of the field pushing your own squads is just nasty. Its hard to regret the 18 point Rebel Transport that cannot attack ships when you've got plenty of squadrons to shoot at. I once had a game where I killed around 120 points of enemy squads using 49 of my own (3 A-wings, Tycho) at the expense of 2 A-wings. How? My opponent mostly shot at my ships, and I made a judgment call that I could use AS fire from my ships to eliminate squads. I ended up with Endeavor-BC arcs on several turns, and even had Admonition, a Corvette-A, and the Flotilla pour into them. Of course, at that point, you really have given up the notion of "tie up squadrons and avoid playing the squadron game." You are playing it, just selectively and with the minimal tools possible.

That being said, playing against a squadron-heavy list was always a stressful and challenging game, and as I look forward, I'm tempted to revise in the way of adding more squadrons to lighten the burden considerably.

I like your idea of 20+ AS dice. For example, the powerful 8YT2400 ramps this up to 32 AS dice. I ran a 4 A-wing, 2 Yt2400 all the way back in wave-2 that I think was still solid in wave 3/4, which hit 20+ per turn, plus whatever your counter rolls gave you. In wave 3/4, boosts from Toryn can definitely ramp up a list built primarily around anti-squadron, and shots from well positioned flotillas can provide those shots that push your squadrons over the top.

Looking forward to wave-5, I think we've got a few more solutions for playing a defensive AS game that can still finish ships off if the opponent has few/no squads or if you clean up the squadron game before game end. I'd almost be inclined to think of bagging the Intel ship as the real bonus here, and a much more likely possibility.

Not wanting to hijack your thread but i feel it kind of feeds in (thank you for the post by the way).

Im not sure i understand when people talk about 8 squadrons being the optimal number? Surely the optimal number its the number of squadron commands available and the objective of the squadrons you choose to take? Do you have an opinion/thoughts on this.

Second question, where do you see the squadron meta heading next? Do you feel Rogue didnt make as much of an impact as expected?

Not wanting to hijack your thread but i feel it kind of feeds in (thank you for the post by the way).

Im not sure i understand when people talk about 8 squadrons being the optimal number? Surely the optimal number its the number of squadron commands available and the objective of the squadrons you choose to take? Do you have an opinion/thoughts on this.

Second question, where do you see the squadron meta heading next? Do you feel Rogue didnt make as much of an impact as expected?

the purpose of my post is to explain to people that face all these bomber wing lists, *how* the squadron game works so i can help them. so this is not a hijack

some basic info: each fleet list has 3 basic statistics that cover the tacticaal advantages it gives the player.

-number of activations, to show how much control the player has over when to activate his important ship, how much he can delay etc

-number of initiative bid, to show how much control the player has over starting first

...number of DEPLOYMENTS, to cover how much the player can delay deploying his important ships. the number of squadrons taken greatly influences this statistic.

a list with 4 raiders, 1 gladiator/demolisher and 5 tie interceptors has 7 deployments, to delay deploying the demolisher only after the opponent has shown info.

a list with 1 x ISD, 1 x raider and 2 x flotillas would in theory have less deployments-but if it takes 8 squadrons, it now has 8 deployments. it will deploy the ISD only AFTER the demolisher has deployed, hopefuly safe from the threat!

this means that the optimal number of squadrons is "as much deployments( pairs of squadrons) as you can cram up without sacrificing quality/role". usualy, that number is 8; for bomber wings, it can mean 2 x escorts, 1 x intel, 5 x bombers (example), whereas for fighter screens it can be , like combination of x-wings and z-95s or tie advanceds and tie swarm etc.

regarding rogues:

the purpose of Rogue was to help ship-based lists that couldnt afford to have ALL their ships spamming squadron commands. in that it worked. for example, a list with cr-90s can have 8 x yt-2400s, as well as grant us the Intel keyword to make going squadronless harder (ffg didnt like that, starship battles without squadrons arent exactly star wars, at least *in their opinion*). it was (wave 2 and rogues & villains expansion) very successful.

the purpose was never for rogues to fully take normal squadrons' role.

where do i see the squadron meta going next?

first of all, flechette torpedoes are interesting, and reinforced blast doors offer big ships FOR THE FIRST TIME a defense mode that doesnt protect "specificaly from few strong attacks" like ECM/advanced projectors. the extra Hull healing from reinforced blast doors just works for everything, including being bombed. a Motti ISD with 14 hull and reinforced blast doors isnt easy to take down, even for a good bomber wing. it could take 3 turns. (14 hull, 3 shields, 3 heal effects, plus 2 turns of engineering giving the ISD at least 4 shields, possibly more via moving shields to crucial areas; that is roughly 24 hullpoints to take down, and i am not taking into account a potential brace vs a double damage or a redirect). a cheap-ish ISD2 with RBD, gunnery teams and leading shots costs like 136 points. if THAT THING shoots at flotillaspam bomber armies for 1-2 turns (remember, they will need 3 turns to take it down), thats a win for the ISD player. it is important to note that reinforced blast doors isnt NEARLY as effective against ships as against squadrons: ships will shut down your brace, you will NOT have ECM to save the brace, and the 3 extra hull wont do a thing.

this, along with flechette torpedoes and Tien numb as well as Snipe keyword taking out Intel squadrons from a distance bypassing escort, as well as increased prevalence of cheap interceptors (z95s) will make "large bomber ball-style wings" slightly fall out of meta. NOT to say bomber lists wont exist; i specificaly spoke about "large concentrated ball-style wings".these squadron formations put their hopes in Escort, which now is not as bulletproof strategy as it were,

i believe the future lies in isolated threats with Grit or Grit-like abilities (like Tie Phantoms, who are WAY too fragile to be dedicated dogfighters but statisticaly do 1.0 damage per shot to ships and can disengage after the enemy shoots their escorts skimming the outskirts of dogfights to bomb ships, OR powerful antiship like Ghost and Decimators , rather than concentrated large formations that could expose the bombers and Intel ships to the aforementioned threats.

still, its an educated guess. we'll need 1-2 months more to know imho.

Thank you very much for your reply