I haven't faced many alpha-strike lists, but I have a feeling I will. I know it's an open-ended question, but when you are flying one of your favorite non-alpha-strike lists, what do you do? Examples would be great!

Here's a couple of alpha strike lists I want to try eventually:

2 Bandit Squadron Pilot (13) Z-95 Headhunter (12), XX-23 S-thread Tracers (1), Guidance Chips (0)

2 Gold Squadron Pilot (25) Y-Wing (18), Extra Munitions (2), Plasma Torpedoes (3), Autoblaster Turret (2), Guidance Chips (0)

Green Squadron Pilot (24) A-Wing (19), A-Wing Test Pilot (0), Homing Missiles (5), Adaptability (0), Guidance Chips (0), Trick Shot (0)

AND

3 Bandit Squadron Pilot (17) Z-95 Headhunter (12), Homing Missiles (5), Guidance Chips (0)

Chewbacca (Heroes of the Resistance) (49) YT-1300 (42), Trick Shot (0), XX-23 S-thread Tracers (1), Rey (2), Recon Specialist (3), Millennium Falcon (Evade Version) (1), Guidance Chips (0)

The biggest thing is to force them to break up their alpha strike and deny them the ability to focus on a single target.

It depends on a ton of factors but generally if you can control the initial engagement and end up out of arc or at a range they can't fire ordnance that's the most important thing. If you can't control that engagement you need to either destroy ships before they get ordnance off, tank shots by having enough health to not evaporate, or sacrifice a ship to pull out the enemy's teeth.

As an example, if I were playing an old school palp aces list with the inquisitor, Vader, and the palp shuttle I would shove the shuttle in their face and flank hard with my aces. The enemy will likely happily gobble up the shuttle and I will gladly trade 3+ munitions for it because those aces can close the game by themselves easily vs. the left overs without their ordnance.

If I were flying a 3 ace imperial list I'd focus hard on pulling the munitions swarm into rocks and splitting up my forces to make it hard for concentrated fire to happen. If they blast 1 ace with everything and he limps away or even if he dies the others should again be good enough to finish.

Ordnance lists almost always become pathetic after they fire their load so if you can force their hand or make those shots trade badly in value you should be able to clean up the pieces.

I played against a 6 Z95 Swarm lead by a tracers Blount last year during I think it was R4 during regionals when I was 2-1. I was flying Kanan/Miranda at the time. I always bring the large rocks, and I ended up setting up in the opposite corner from him, and he opted to go through the rocks to meet me, which allowed me to utilize EU on Kanan and SLAM on Miranda to range / arc dodge Blount so he wasn't capable of shooting off the tracers, setting up all the Z95s to kill off Kanan. That worked for the opening round, and then I utilized the rock / debris placement to determine where he could/couldn't go with the swarm, and took advantage of that - I believe one Z95 got his missile off that round, but Blount had no way of getting arc, and the others had to choose between arc and a debris cloud (and therefore an action) - most chose the action, so they didn't have any shot.

I guess the generalization of this would be that I pulled them into the rocks so they couldn't maneuver such to all get arc/range on me all at once and really make me suffer from the alpha strike. Meanwhile, I took what shots I could at targets of opportunity, reducing the number of missiles I had to worry about.

Kill em before they fire generally works

16 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Kill em before they fire generally works

That's what I was about to say; alpha strike them first. Make their alpha strike a beta strike.

Depends on who you and what they are.

Are you higher PS and they arent super tanky? Try to snag one with all your ships. Risky, as bad dice or misjudged maneuver will kill you. Generally not recommended, i run alpha strike lists quite a bit and this is generally what people try to do to me and it fails either by their dice turned on them or they didnt quite get enough ships on one of mine.
Are you lower PS? Divide them up, hug rocks and focus more on dodging than doing damage.

Alpha strike lists rarely work unless they get 2+ of their ships able to hit you with their shenanigans at once. If you can limit that to only 1 hitting you you may still get hurt but you wont be dead. LOT of alpha-strike lists are really only viable on the initial joust at range2-3, after that it turns into a furball and deadzones or bad maneuvering abilities comes into play.

2 hours ago, Boba Rick said:

I haven't faced many alpha-strike lists, but I have a feeling I will. I know it's an open-ended question, but when you are flying one of your favorite non-alpha-strike lists, what do you do?

Well if you are running Rebels, the quick and easy answer is Biggs with R4-D6 and IA. He can absorb 3 fully modified ordnance shots before dying which should blunt the enemy attack sufficiently for your remaining ships to try and even the score.

Dedicated alpha-strike lists often lack the ability to handle combat well once the enemy gets closer. They rely on that alpha strike to soften up the enemy during the close. If you spoil that with Biggs then they may struggle.

The other option is to practice the rule of 11. If you have fast ships then it is not too hard to jump from outside Range 3 to Range 1 in a single turn, this denying most opponents the chance to fire their ordnance. Higher PS ships help here as they will have to take TLs after they move but before you do. Deadeye levels the PS playing field though so be aware of it. Boost/BR also helps to close the range or dodge torpedo arc.

Lastly there are toys like Countermeasures or the Black One title to strip enemy target locks. A bit risky to spend points on a hard-counter to a specific problem but worth it if it ruins an alpha strike list's day.

Biggs doesn't work against TL-required alpha strikes.

if you want alpha strike try fen rau w/ fearlessness + APT + 'Chips

in all honesty nigaltastic summed it all up pretty well

12 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Biggs doesn't work against TL-required alpha strikes.

True, both of the lists in the OP use Tracers to get off their alpha strike though. They are probably going to be forced to shoot at Biggs if they want to be able to burn something down.

11 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Biggs doesn't work against TL-required alpha strikes.

True but many alpha-strike lists use Deadeye to get around the problem of aquiring TLs with low PS generics. Biggs works just fine there.

In order for you to get that alpha strike off (or anyone for that matter) it would need to be a straight up joust with all your ships within range 3 of a single target. With that in mind, I would avoid that at all cost.

Asteroid placement would block the center and not allow many clear lanes for five ships to pass through in formation. I would at least want to engage at an angle so that the ships are staggered and at various ranges, ideally with ships out of range entirely.

With my two ships, I would have a clear shot at two leading Bandits with the tracers, this is paramount as without it, there is no alpha strike. Considering the damage output I know I have, I would expect to delete the one furthest forward and pray that the second one is either out of range or at least range 3 of only one of my ships.

This leaves the second bandit to either try for a tracer shot, hoping to hit (against large ships, likely, Defenders, not so much) and then praying that the rest of the least is:

1. In range to accept the target lock

2. In arc to fire

If the above doesn't happen that turn then the next is going to be CQC and torps/missiles fall off.

Alpha strike lists only work in optimal engagements, knowing and denying them, or at least reducing their impact is crucial. This was how triple jumps lost, three torps at a single target in a single turn is game changing, one at a token stacked target however, isn't.

Captain Kagi. No TL = no missiles

15 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Kill em before they fire generally works

DAT...

1 hour ago, Duraham said:

Captain Kagi. No TL = no missiles

There are enough loopholes with Kagi that he's not really worth taking. His ability wouldn't come into play with either of the squads in the OP.

Squads that use Deadeye don't care about Kagi and neither do squads that use FCS + T.Sync.

Kagi's ability really needs to be written like "Enemy ships at range 1-3 of you may not acquire Target Locks on other friendly ships" to be useful.

How does Kagi work with Tracers?

Try to bump, or avoid 1-2 enemy's arc. When I played versus an alpha list with brobots, I've moved 1 at first, remain out of range. Then "boosted" at 3 bumping one, and boosted with the other one to avoid multiple missiles. The thing is not just shut down the enemy before he will shoot, but gain an advantage in repositioning in the next turn.

The thing is never take all the shoots together, and playing outflanking the enemy. Even if it means gets 1 missile-shot, or don't shoot for that turn. I be completely misjudged by my opponent, and so I breaked up his alpha strike pretty well.

Be unpredictable.

35 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

How does Kagi work with Tracers?

His ability doesn't interact with Tracers at all. Tracers, like FCS, only permit target locks to be acquired on a specific enemy ship. Kagi's ability only works when he is a legal target on which to acquire a target lock.

So the "on that target" makes them not "able" as per the language on Kagi?

2 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

So the "on that target" makes them not "able" as per the language on Kagi?

Bingo.

The fact that Kagi says "If able" makes his ability kinda pointless. If it didnt say that, then if you were only able to TL another ship in range of him he would flatout deny it as you would only be allowed to TL him, even if hes not a legal ship to TL thus cancelling it entirely.

But, "If able" means FCS/Tracers ignore him. They are not able to TL him, so hes basically not there.