IMO, I think FFG dropped the ball on this one. This should be small ship only to prevent the Ghost and other large 4 dice attack ships from using it.

The Ghost already can't use it. Indeed, the only 4-die primary large base ship that can is Kylo (arguably also Rey).

So no, I don't think this is where the ball has been dropped with Swarm Leader...

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other large 4 dice attack ships

So the Upsilon?

I don't think either ship is above the curve with it and putting it on one of the game's three four die ships is probably too obvious to have missed playtesting.

Besides, good luck fitting a restriction on it.

EDIT: And as thespaceinvader pointed out, the Ghost can't use it and nor can the majority of Upsilons.

I think that it is okay. The ghost cannot take it, since it has no ept slot, and the bat is slow and a shuttle.

The phantom is a small ship that does the same thing though. And triple defender with swarm leader is more nasty than Kylo Ren having it.

The only large ship that can actually gain anything from it is Jm5K, YT's, or Decimators. And theyre usually expensive enough where getting the proper evade feeders for it isnt practical (JM5K w/o the title shouldnt even be bothering with swarm leader)

30 minutes ago, eagletsi111 said:

IMO, I think FFG dropped the ball on this one. This should be small ship only to prevent the Ghost and other large 4 dice attack ships from using it.

Swarm leader itself is a shitload of red dice power creep, and shouldn't even exist. Especially if you combo the thing with Juke wingmen.

6 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Swarm leader itself is a shitload of red dice power creep, and shouldn't even exist. Especially if you combo the thing with Juke wingmen.

And this is where I think they dropped the ball. We really didn't need a basically trivial red dice buff in the game.

10 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

And this is where I think they dropped the ball. We really didn't need a basically trivial red dice buff in the game.

Is it trivial? It takes two actions and having 3 ships with the target in arc to get the maximum effect from Swarm Leader.

If there's anything that causes an issue with Swarm Leader, it's the /x7 title and not large base ships.

Pretty trivial, yes. I've seen several good lists with it and only through pilot error have I not seen it used every round that it could be (i.e. whilst the ship and the evade-havers are still alive).

/x7 is a huge issue with it, I'd absolutely agree, but in and of itself, the game did not need a reliable way to add +2 attack dice to any EPT ship The red die creep is real.

Thematically, yes. Large ships should never be considered part of a "swarm".

15 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Is it trivial? It takes two actions and having 3 ships with the target in arc to get the maximum effect from Swarm Leader.

If there's anything that causes an issue with Swarm Leader, it's the /x7 title and not large base ships.

Large ships are not the issue. SL is. Red dice power creep is.

The arc thing is not so difficult, especially if you already play something that needs formation flying. Like Jess Pava and a couple GSP.

And if your swarm leader is ptw, need no arc for it.

Swarm leader generally requires you to take some fairly sub-optimal lists and choices and if you can arc dodge the smaller ships, you'll be fine. It's to me like the crazy Jan ors/opportunist/expose/etc. red dice stack lists in that it requires you to bring silly stuff for it to work.

49 minutes ago, DarthEnderX said:

Thematically, yes. Large ships should never be considered part of a "swarm".

The Falcon from Return of the Jedi would like a word.

Swarm Leader also forces your opponent to bunch up their token feeders. I faced it yesterday for the first time on a Quickdraw. It wasn't fun, but I quickly saw ways to deal with it.

On a large ship, you could argue it's easier to abuse that R1 band, but arguably the only serious abuse could come from Rey, and a fully built Rey isn't going to leave room for much in terms of token feeders anyway. There's not a lot of threat in a token-less A-wing, which somewhat solves the question of early target priority.

Sure, the Ups could use it, but there's simply better options for it, so making it small base only doesn't really solve any issues.

UPS not built for maneuverability would get 1-2 shots off then spend the next 3 turns getting another shot if hes lucky.

No idea why people would ever put that on the UPS

5 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

UPS not built for maneuverability would get 1-2 shots off then spend the next 3 turns getting another shot if hes lucky.

No idea why people would ever put that on the UPS

For 7 red dice.

1 hour ago, DarthEnderX said:

Thematically, yes. Large ships should never be considered part of a "swarm".

The leader isn't necessarily part of the thing...

If you put a ship in the arc of 3 enemy ships you probably should expect something bad to happen, swarm leader or not.

Rather have multiple 4-5 die attacks with Vader using Swarm Leader than a single gamble on a UPS 7die.

Much like majority of the ways to get auto crits (or convert into a crit) its generally not worth it.

5 hours ago, DailyRich said:

The Falcon from Return of the Jedi would like a word.

Why, because it flies next to a bunch of ships at some point?

By that logic, Home One is a swarm leader.

Just being in the same space as a swarm doesn't make one part of that swarm.

Yeah, 52 pt Dengar with 360 degree arc and able to pull Evades off from 4 different Sycks for two 5 dice attacks, yeah, sure, that's not a problem. Not requiring arc on the SL is broken. Any and all PWT with an EPT are going to be an issue. Sooooooo many red dice. Btw, Swarm Leader itself is red die power creep at its worst. You can't separate the two. It's the poster child.

10 minutes ago, charlesanakin said:

Yeah, 52 pt Dengar with 360 degree arc and able to pull Evades off from 4 different Sycks for two 5 dice attacks, yeah, sure, that's not a problem.

It feels like there would be an easy way to answer this list. It's not quite coming to me at the moment -- oh wait, of course!

YOU KILL THE FREAKING SCYKS!

I mean, really. They're little TIE Fighters without defensive mods who contribute 1 dice to your opponent's offence before you drop them like the flies they are and leave your opponent with a 52 point Dengar with no EPT.

So no, that list is most definitely not going to be a problem.

21 minutes ago, charlesanakin said:

Yeah, 52 pt Dengar with 360 degree arc and able to pull Evades off from 4 different Sycks for two 5 dice attacks, yeah, sure, that's not a problem. Not requiring arc on the SL is broken. Any and all PWT with an EPT are going to be an issue. Sooooooo many red dice. Btw, Swarm Leader itself is red die power creep at its worst. You can't separate the two. It's the poster child.

You're in the arcs of five ships. You're gonna get hurt.

I put it on a Decimator with TAP wingmen and it was ridiculous, I was fully trying to troll my opponent and it worked. It should at the very least require arc but it doesn't so learn to fight it!

You can even give one of them 2 focus tokens every turn and still get a TL + Focus'd 5 dice shot every round and clear both stress with a single green (which in turn gives a TL to one of the Barons for double focus, TL, Evade every turn, or a boost if you don't need 2 focus). They're all PS4 so you can Juke before you Swarm (if you make it to PS4 with all those tokens intact).