Not played properly for nearly a year, and Veterens, heroes and wave ten have hit since then. My old go to list of AWing aces backed up by Jan can't cope with palp aces so is back on the shelf for now. If I dig out my tie swarm, is it going to get torn apart by Vessery and friends?

and the U-wing intrigues me. Anyone made one work?

I think the Upsilon brings back swarms a little bit, or rather the mini-swarm. more likely to see 4 ship builds now or possibly more.

This Blue Squadron-variant works well. Everybody is PS2, Jan can give your U-Wing or a nearby B-Wing an evade token, and advanced sensors allows you to get that needed token right before pulling a red stop.

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Tie swarms are not top tier, but if you're not going to compete in worlds/nationals level enviroment and you're willing to improve, they can to the job indeed, but crack shot upgrade is pretty much a must. So, get howlrunner and some tie/fo generics with talent slot, all with crack shot and you're on the right track. Don't worry about meta too much if you're a returning player, grab your swarm and see the meta for yourself.

Swarm Leader might also give swarms some juice.

No chance against S-tier lists like Paratanni, Dengaroo, Commonwealth/Triple defender and MirandaDash

Apart from that they are still fun to play with and can win against many other lists. It's not easy though.

If the Kylo/Palp combination makes a big impact, I think larger lists, including swarms, will make a comeback. If all your ships are lower PS generics, they don't care as much about one being blinded by Kylo. The Kylo/Palp combination will push people away from the aces a bit. A TIE swarm could burn down a Kylo shuttle quickly, especially with crackshot.

Is the idea that Kylo Ren players bring the original damage deck since the Blinded Pilot from that one is more devestating?

4 hours ago, Crabbok said:

I think the Upsilon brings back swarms a little bit, or rather the mini-swarm. more likely to see 4 ship builds now or possibly more.

As I said I think 4-5 ship builds is the standard. You want at least 4 ships, now you could count 1 large ship as two (because it essentially is with the MOV nerf). But I don't think a two large ship build would be the staple. You would at least one more small ship in the list. So Isee 4-5 small ship or 1 large ship with 2 small ships to be the standard. The mini swarm and swarm 6-8 I don't think will be in. neither would the two ship build.

Oh thank you, so very... very... much; OH GREAT AND GLORIOUS ACE-WING!

Well...thier "Job" used to be...

1.punch through token stacks through pure dice.

2.block to deny offensive and defensive actions.

3.diffuse offense due to overkill.

4.deny repositioning due to board space in aces and wear them down

5.hunt high PS low agility high health ships

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5. They could do this if was still a thing. Dengaroo and Asajj both have higher durability than even fat Han in his prime.

4. Aces can no longer be worn down or can decimate a swarm fast enough that it doesn't dominate space anymore.

3. It used to pretty much take 2 decent shots to take out a single tie and that usually meant 4-8 damage rolled going into 3 AG 3hp, 12pt investment was a really good return. Some double tappers can reliably take out 2 ties in a single round these days. No longer.

2. Remember when the debate was "was blocking an intended tactic of the game"? Ya. I miss those days. Now the debate is "is blocking even a viable strategy anymore".

1. See rebuttals to points 2-5.

I used to pretty much pretend all my imperial lists started at 88pts because a single Academy Pilot was always a good investment. Then Phantoms happened and people legitimately left the AP off the table and went with a 14pt initiative bid. The swarm could still feast on the fat pancakes with turrets and get in a win or two against phantoms even.

there used to be no reason to not take 1. Now there is almost no reason to take any. It no longer has a job it can do.

Purely my one battle experience, but Asajj / Jakku Gunrunner w-Space Tug / 3x Binayre Pirate w/XX23 & Chips tore apart Vader/Quickdraw/Duchess today. Tractor/Stress is brutal and a few big rocks in the middle of the map really screwed the Imperials up.

Saw a Vader/howl 4 academy swarm do very well today. Vader with swarm leader. It's good folks.

I'm more partial to a Vader squad leader