So I've been seeing lately with the Regionals data that some lift and run very few Fighters and won. In my area super heavy fighter lists are really dominant and the only way I've been able to keep up with the bombers list is to invest a good chunk of points into air superiority Fighters. And I was just wondering how people get by by just running 60s points of Fighters the lowest I've ever been able to run and do was about 90 so if your experience with the small fighter screen I'd love to hear some feedback

I'm not particularly good at this either, but I can tell you what worked against me!

In Wave 1, the primary tactic was speed bumps- have maybe 4 a-wings, send them in one at a time to tie up as many fighters as possible per turn. Even if they died, the game is only 6 turns- you could probably get the enemy squadron force to either 1 or 0 turns of actual anti-ship fire. This was typically of no concern unless you were facing Yavaris b-wings .

Wave 2 introduced intel- that meant token fighters had a harder time locking down a great bigger pile of them. However, intel sources as of now suck as ships: you can't take too much intel or it's really going to eat in to your squadron forces capabilities! I think I've actually never played against 2 intel ships, come to think of it... Anyways, the thing about intel is that the bubble isn't infinite, and furthermore the bubble has to travel serially. That is, as soon as you activate that intel ship, it's not protecting what it left behind. And if you don't send it first, your bombers that activated can be easily "speed bumped" by a screening fighter. This is when the fighter game becomes a lot like American football- each individual stand can only be on one place at a time and the deployment geometry and activation order can be gamed for the defensive player. What do I mean by this gibberish? Well, on a squadron command, rather than sending two tie fighters into a bomber ball to ensure their fiery doom, you could send one in front of your ship, the other into the ball- if the opponent moves the intel first, none of the bombers can move (because that single intel ship is unlikely to smoke your tie with a single shot). If it moves later, enemy bombers will first have to engage the tie fighter first.

I don't think anything in wave 3-5 makes as drastic a change as did Intel- with flotillas and relay, it got a lot easier to activate fighters which makes the premium on Rogue fighters less desirable, but the principles mentioned above still apply: engage using your smaller compliment in a smart way, not to achieve victory, but time. Deploy them in such a way as to restrict the effect of intel as much as possible and don't plan on having them land back on the carrier!

1. Choose your engagement carefully: If you're not taking very many fighters, then you cannot afford to through them stupidly.

2. Pick the type of fighters that you're taking carefully. We had a thread recently about A-wings. They are a good choice.

3. Be aware of exactly what your chosen fighter can and cannot do. I've seen some people take few fighters, but some really powerful hard-hitting ones, which means they were generally looking to kill fighters ASAP. Most fighters have a specific rhythm of how they want to be played.

4. Add AS fire from your ships. I've had Tycho/Shara/2 A-wings kill 120 points worth of opposing squads. How? Very good well placed AS fire from the ships. In fact, I think the game in which it happened, I noticed that AS fire was going to be more concentrated and beneficial than anti-ship fire, given the position, so I had an MC30 on approach take anti-squadron shots, and then got at least two rounds of double black from a MC80 Battlecruiser, and a turn or two worth of fire from a flotilla, and then maybe a off arc from a Corvette. Your squads support your ships, and your ships support your squads.

Beyond that, we need to talk board specifics.

I was gonna say stuff but vergillus nailed all the really important points.

Classic Ben.

The important thing to keep in mind at all times when going light on fighters against someone going heavy on squadrons/bombers is the role you need your fighter squadrons to perform is primarily slowing down the enemy bombers and only secondarily killing them. I often see low-squadron players just throwing everything they have all at once right into the enemy heavy-squadron blob and it (predictably) gets chewed to pieces in a turn or so and/or ignored by Intel. A straight-up fight with your limited investment against a heavy investment is thus to be avoided whenever possible.

You can do this in a few ways. Here are a few different things you can do and things to keep in mind:

• Post fighters up engaging enemies at far away points of the Intel bubble, making it impossible for the entire wave of bombers to continue moving towards/attacking your ships. The Intel squadron should be able to move, covering 2ish of your engagers, but the remainder will still be holding at least one bomber in place.
• Gang up on Intel squadrons that slip outside of Escort coverage. It's not uncommon for bombers to bring one Escort and one Intel squadron, and a single Escort cannot completely protect every attack angle on the Intel squadron. Get in your hits where you can.
• Similarly, if you see an opportunity to take the enemy Escort squadron off the board with minimal return costs to you, do so. If you can do this, the Intel squadron is about one turn behind his bodyguard.
• Wait for the enemy bombers to commit to attacking your ships. Sending your fighters in to engage them while the enemy is close enough to friendly flak takes a bad situation and makes it nearly unwinnable. This may mean you need to sacrifice a few shields/hull in the initial attack, but your improved odds of inconveniencing/engaging enough bombers later on generally makes the trade off well worth it in my experience. Similarly, if the enemy is being cagey with his bombers early on, let him. Your fighters are points invested into keeping bombers from attacking your ships. If their presence keeps bombers off your ships for one more turn while they try to wait it out, your fighters are doing their job and his bombers are not.
• Use your fighters in support of your ships. Keep them close enough to allow flak to help you when the bombers make their move. By putting up fighters on the front flanks of ships you want to protect, you allow only 1-2 bombers to attack your ship before the remainder would be engaged - this often forces the Intel squadron to commit to free them up. That's good. It puts the Intel squadron in range of your flak and in range of your squadrons and it "wastes" a squadron command point that could've been spent towards bombers. It also can create openings in the remaining unactivated bombers for your other unengaged fighters to jump in and tie bombers down for a while now that the Intel squadron has committed.
• Accept that with a heavy bomber approach, your opponent is still likely to take out one of your ships (especially a small ship). They spent a lot of points on bomber squadrons and the means to command them and support them and so they're going to impact the game. I see players tilt on occasion once bombers destroy a ship of theirs (which seems weird to me, ships are destroyed in Armada all the time, but BOMBERS doing so seems to hit some kind of rage-button for some people) and then make foolish moves with their anti-squadron resources because they're determined to get revenge RIGHT NOW and it's often to their detriment. Keep your cool and spend your fighter resources wisely.
• If/when the Intel squadron is removed, take stock of the situation. In some cases, that is the time to throw all your remaining fighter squadrons in to a massive furball to inflict as much damage as you can on what's left (this is appropriate against, say, a bunch of TIE Bombers or Y-Wings in some cases). In other cases, the surviving bombers are still going to be able to wipe your surviving fighters (say, if they're a bunch of B-Wings near the Yavaris) and so you should think of your fighters as sacrificial pawns that need to be fed into the bombers 1-2 at a time each turn. The goal in the latter case is to simply keep most of the bombers engaged so they're spending their attacks clearing out fighters rather than attacking ships, and then re-applying engagers against whichever bombers venture away from the safety of their group to try to catch up to your ships. This situation tries to contain the bombers as best as you can with the resources available rather than wasting all your remaining assets in one big suicidal charge that gets cleared away in one turn.

I tend to run empire and their synergy is epic. Smallest fighter screen ive used is mauler, 3 ties and 2 bombers. locked up the rebel squads even with jan oors and took them out of the game. when you can tie (oh the pun) up the jan ball, then the glorious triangles can eradicate the competition.

If i dont get round to it, remind me to dig up a fleet article on using just tycho.

The secret is scatter ace wingmen

Tycho and Shara

Ciena and Whisper

Or you know Valen and 3 yv666s..... troll

I am currently experimenting with Biggs, 2 X-wings and Jan and it seems to work quite well. In this list Jan's Intel is secondary to her ability to pass on her brace. (Although still useful for avoiding being tied down by a single squadron.)

Biggs ability to spread damage around helps keep the fighters up and returning the punishment.

20 hours ago, Vergilius said:

We had a thread recently about A-wings. They are a good choice.

Tried to search for this thread but can't find it. Do you have a link for it?

1 hour ago, Englishpete said:

I am currently experimenting with Biggs, 2 X-wings and Jan and it seems to work quite well. In this list Jan's Intel is secondary to her ability to pass on her brace. (Although still useful for avoiding being tied down by a single squadron.)

Biggs ability to spread damage around helps keep the fighters up and returning the punishment.

This is a good screen but it is also only going to stop a small attack contingent, though it can hold off twice it's number of Ties. I would bring a couple more X-Wing but if you're intent is to bring minimal squadrons this might be my best suggestion too.

20 minutes ago, Ghost Dancer said:

Tried to search for this thread but can't find it. Do you have a link for it?

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/240432-basic-a-wing-tactics/

AS promised.

deleted due to my daft mistake

5 hours ago, Beatty said:

This is a good screen but it is also only going to stop a small attack contingent, though it can hold off twice it's number of Ties. I would bring a couple more X-Wing but if you're intent is to bring minimal squadrons this might be my best suggestion too.

I don't know about that: this is a pretty solid fighter screen investment as long as you play it wisely. Sure you're not going to win the squadron battle with just this, but that's not what a fighter screen is for. Jan+3X, especially with Biggs in the mix, is a fantastic investment that's got the legs to last you a long time.

It's going to throw a major wrench into any bomber wing that's bombery enough to actually be a threat to your ships.

It's points-light enough that it's not going to substantially weaken your ship force.

It's versatile enough that it can pivot to anti-ship duty if need be.

It concentrates a solid fighter screen into relatively few activations, giving you several options for activating the whole thing.

As a new player, with only a small amount of stuff purchased so far, I'm loving this thread.

There's such a large number of 'Squadrons are where it's at (for better or for worse)' threads on the board, that it got slightly depressing, (' wait, I need both sets of squadron packs to be competitive..?').

This has me feeling much happier.

23 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

I don't know about that: this is a pretty solid fighter screen investment as long as you play it wisely. Sure you're not going to win the squadron battle with just this, but that's not what a fighter screen is for. Jan+3X, especially with Biggs in the mix, is a fantastic investment that's got the legs to last you a long time.

It's going to throw a major wrench into any bomber wing that's bombery enough to actually be a threat to your ships.

It's points-light enough that it's not going to substantially weaken your ship force.

It's versatile enough that it can pivot to anti-ship duty if need be.

It concentrates a solid fighter screen into relatively few activations, giving you several options for activating the whole thing.

You hit my exact thought process with that post. :-)