I like to play rebel bomber lists. It is what I played in the one small tournament I have ever played in, but the last handful of games I have played my bombers and their escorts have been chewed apart. The Imps have some great squadron synergy. What I'm trying to figure out and put together is a quality, cheap (under 100 points) combat space patrol to deal with Imp fighters so that my capital ships can do their work.

I know A-Wings and their aces can do a good job of slowing up and delaying an attacking force, but I'm looking to wipe them out. What has everyone found works well for them or against them? How have the new squadrons factored into this?

I want to try A wings and E wings. 2 E wings and 4 A wings can potentially do some good work, so long as you keep commanding them.

Also fun: Biggs, Wedge, Like, Jan, 2 x wings (be even cheaper and make Luke/Wedge generics). It's a blob that'll stay alive for a long while.

There's the 6 YT2400S plan too. And Ketsu might be worth including too. Any of those sound interesting?

One approach: Gunnery teams on the big ships (AFII is good!)so they can engage both squads and ships from the same arch - Keep your squadrons as close support so that the ship AA fire can protect your squadrons and your squadrons in turn can protect the ship. Flight controllers also helps a lot if you act first.

Double blue AA fire with toryn farr. I can't stress this enough. I think it is the most overlooked aspect of the game. I destroyed something around 25 tie bombers at my regionals and most of that damage came from AA. If you like rebel bombers I'm assuming you use yavaris sometimes. BBC gr75 with toryn around that is series aa. Your virtually guaranteed 2 damage between the two ships each turn and have a high chance of find doing three.

Biggs, Jan, 3 X-Wings. 77 points that will not die to any kind of alpha strike and punches back really hard. They're great as you barely need to Command them.

Double blue AA fire with toryn farr. I can't stress this enough. I think it is the most overlooked aspect of the game. I destroyed something around 25 tie bombers at my regionals and most of that damage came from AA. If you like rebel bombers I'm assuming you use yavaris sometimes. BBC gr75 with toryn around that is series aa. Your virtually guaranteed 2 damage between the two ships each turn and have a high chance of find doing three.

After reading this I think one of my biggest problems is trying to rush my bombers out in front to do damage before my fleet gets there. Might have to slow down and try to thin the ties out more before bring bombers up. Good thoughts.

Double blue AA fire with toryn farr. I can't stress this enough. I think it is the most overlooked aspect of the game. I destroyed something around 25 tie bombers at my regionals and most of that damage came from AA. If you like rebel bombers I'm assuming you use yavaris sometimes. BBC gr75 with toryn around that is series aa. Your virtually guaranteed 2 damage between the two ships each turn and have a high chance of find doing three.

After reading this I think one of my biggest problems is trying to rush my bombers out in front to do damage before my fleet gets there. Might have to slow down and try to thin the ties out more before bring bombers up. Good thoughts.

It took me along time to break that habit.... A long time. I still fall back into it sometimes.

Double blue AA fire with toryn farr. I can't stress this enough. I think it is the most overlooked aspect of the game. I destroyed something around 25 tie bombers at my regionals and most of that damage came from AA. If you like rebel bombers I'm assuming you use yavaris sometimes. BBC gr75 with toryn around that is series aa. Your virtually guaranteed 2 damage between the two ships each turn and have a high chance of find doing three.

I was gonna say that a force of 3 or 4 escort Nebs works great as anti squadron and if they don't have squads, they aren't as garbage as people think. Just have to play them right.

Arqs are hard on them though. You can't really have a neb on a flank any more.

Biggs, Jan, 3 X-Wings. 77 points that will not die to any kind of alpha strike and punches back really hard. They're great as you barely need to Command them.

Biggs, Jan, 3 X-Wings. 77 points that will not die to any kind of alpha strike and punches back really hard. They're great as you barely need to Command them.

Running that with Dash for over a 100 points but I will agree, this combo is a good screening combo for the defensive squadron play. X-Wings are still the most versatile fighter in the Rebel fleet and with Biggs' and Jan's support they become extremely hard to kill. And four blue dice is absolutely brutal still. (Escort and Bomber also makes X-Wings probably the most versatile Squadron in the game. They're just a really good Squadron.)

As Tirion said, it's all about learning patience with defensive squadrons. Once I learned that, this mix became brutally effective.

Biggs, Jan, 3 X-Wings. 77 points that will not die to any kind of alpha strike and punches back really hard. They're great as you barely need to Command them.

Running that with Dash for over a 100 points but I will agree, this combo is a good screening combo for the defensive squadron play. X-Wings are still the most versatile fighter in the Rebel fleet and with Biggs' and Jan's support they become extremely hard to kill. And four blue dice is absolutely brutal still. (Escort and Bomber also makes X-Wings probably the most versatile Squadron in the game. They're just a really good Squadron.)

I'm also really liking Shara Bey. Impressively deadly.

As was said, Toryn is the answer... She ups the damage from squads and AA so much, she's almost auto include... And I've seen some work getting done from Blount and friends... Also Dutch wedge combo is good as well... last time I had 5b's, wedge, Dutch, Jan... My opponent engaged me in yvaris aa range with Toryn online...I took a turn to focus his squads down and it felt rather trivial...

Minimum: Jan 4Xwings. (5 squadrons, not 4... 4 and you will lose).

Shara Tycho 2Awing

More optimum: Jan 5Xwings. total 6.

In general invest about 70+ points to have a reasonable delay force.

Good stuff guys. I keep forgetting about Jan. She helps everyone on the table. I always seem to put Toryn on the wrong ship. I need to make sure I think about my fleet more and do less of the flying by the seat of my pants.

Good stuff guys. I keep forgetting about Jan. She helps everyone on the table. I always seem to put Toryn on the wrong ship. I need to make sure I think about my fleet more and do less of the flying by the seat of my pants.

Have a solid plant for your deployment and first couple of turns. Then go seat-of-your-pants as you adapt to the flow of the game.

I've done a bunch of proxy games pitting various Empire lists against an identical rebel build. The one kernel of wisdom I can give for you out of all of that is to ensure that when you hit the fighters you want to kill, hit them with as many fighters as you can to crowd the field. Rebels have some good options for them now in the squadron game, and it helps that they are better balanced than the hyper-specialized Empire.

For instance, consider Ten Numb. If he gets into range with his bomber buddies like Nora he has that crit advantage, but his ability can help thin clouds of clustered fighters. With Toryn far that chance of rolling a blue is better than usual, and he's got slightly upgraded firepower out of the black die.

Shara Bey is the scariest thing in the Rebel inventory because she can tie down a lot of enemy vehicles until they get some Intel into the area to run away from her. Trying to take her out means you're facing Counter 3 with a better chance of hurting you than her standard attack. In some of the tests I've run I've used both A-Wing aces to drop into my TIE Fighter clouds to try slowing them up. I've been able to overcome it, but at cost, and I didn't run the X-Wings immediately behind them. Things could have been much worse if they had, I think.

Might try adding fighters into your mix with the rogue keyword so they're effective even if you don't do squadron commands. Maybe Hera, Rogue Squadron, Jan and 2 X-Wing generics. Just thinking out loud here

Theres alwys Gallant Havn as well.

Gallant Haven is good.

Rapid Launch Bays with an MC80 and some B-wings is better

Double blue AA fire with toryn farr. I can't stress this enough. I think it is the most overlooked aspect of the game. I destroyed something around 25 tie bombers at my regionals and most of that damage came from AA. If you like rebel bombers I'm assuming you use yavaris sometimes. BBC gr75 with toryn around that is series aa. Your virtually guaranteed 2 damage between the two ships each turn and have a high chance of find doing three.

After reading this I think one of my biggest problems is trying to rush my bombers out in front to do damage before my fleet gets there. Might have to slow down and try to thin the ties out more before bring bombers up. Good thoughts.

It took me along time to break that habit.... A long time. I still fall back into it sometimes.

The catch here is that sometimes, charging your bombers out there is the right thing. If you're facing a hard-running black-dice brawler list that you might have a chance at downing before it gets in range, you're probably going to be well-served by throwing bombers at it as fast as possible, depending on its fighter screen.

On the other hand, home field advantage in a pitched fighter battle is a real thing. If you're not going to be able to wipe out the other guy's screen reliably with your own, and he doesn't have the ability to immediately threaten your carriers and pressure your bombers into suboptimal early Intel-enabled attacks, then hold them back under the protective umbrella of Gallant Haven or your Escort Frigate AA until the battle is joined.

Double blue AA fire with toryn farr. I can't stress this enough. I think it is the most overlooked aspect of the game. I destroyed something around 25 tie bombers at my regionals and most of that damage came from AA. If you like rebel bombers I'm assuming you use yavaris sometimes. BBC gr75 with toryn around that is series aa. Your virtually guaranteed 2 damage between the two ships each turn and have a high chance of find doing three.

After reading this I think one of my biggest problems is trying to rush my bombers out in front to do damage before my fleet gets there. Might have to slow down and try to thin the ties out more before bring bombers up. Good thoughts.

Timing when to engage with squadrons is still one of the hardest parts for me.. having a squadron dial at the same time even more so...