The Rebels have cornered the market on competitive bombing lists. They have both both excellent bomb droppers (any K-wing with Advanced SLAM) and Sabine, which makes the damage from bombs more reliable. Imperials and Scum, as of recently, have both had a single high quality Bomb delivery platform (Deathrain in a Punisher and Emon Azzamneen in a Firespray), but both of these suffer from lower damage bombs and high cost. A Wave 10 addition may open the door to more Imperial bomb deployment, I think. Enter the Upsilon Command Shuttle.

While even the most disengaged observer will note that the Upsilon has no bomb specific upgrades, it does provide something very significant: The Coordinate action. What does this do? It turns TIE Punishers into SLAMing K-wings. The TIE Punisher has a Boost action. If you have, say, a PS2 Cutlass Squadron Pilot and a PS2 Starkiller Base Pilot supporting with coordinate, you can do a Coordinated Boost, followed by a dial move and bomb drop; a dial move, boost, then Coordinated bomb drop, or a Coordinated Bomb drop, then dial move. This is in many ways more flexible than the K-wing's Advanced Slam. If the Punisher carries Electronic Baffles, you can even perform a K-turn and drop an action bomb out of the rear, boosting before the K-turn or after the K-turn. You can almost drop a bomb on anything in weapons range.

This maneuverability does not make up for a lack of Sabine crew, however. The extra damage provided by that 2 point upgrade is tremendous. Additionally, Upsilon isn't doing any bomb damage at all. Consequently, bombs can only be one leg of this squad's damage output. Fortunately, the lower base price of a TIE Punisher compared to a K-wing, on top of no Advanced SLAM purchase requirement allows for more points dedicated to more conventional damage. Let's look at what this sort of squad might look like, and think if it might be any good.

The Basic Build

Starkiller Base Pilot 30, Fire Control System 2 = 32

Cutlass Squadron Pilot 21, Connor Net 4, Proximity Mine 3, Extra Munitions 2 = 30

Cutlass Squadron Pilot 21, Connor Net 4, Proximity Mine 3, Extra Munitions 2 = 30

This leaves 8 points and a wide variety of options. For free, you could put Collision Detectors and Long Range Scanners on the Punishers. Electronic Baffles are a solid one point System upgrade to allow bomb drops on the 4K and 2-turn. Pattern Analyzer is a good upgrade for the Upsilon to give action options on red moves. Kylo Ren's Shuttle title would let you stress ships that you'd successfully hit with a Connor net to leave them stressed and drifting the following turn. Plasma Torpedoes or Concussion Missiles (combined with those free Long Range Scanners) give the Punishers an alpha strike to soften up enemy ships for eventual destruction by bombs, or vice versa. More points could be freed by dropping Proximity mines to something else, or you could spend points to upgrade them to Cluster Mines. There are really a ton of options here.

Has anyone tried stuff like this? I haven't, this is really just brainstorming something that seems like it could work in my head-sims. I find the idea of hammering something with missiles, disabling stuff with bombs, then blasting it with shuttle lasers to be extremely appealing from a Star Wars aesthetic point of view. Then again, maybe it's all blind optimism. I'm interested in hearing opinions.

Cutlass Squadron Pilot (21)
Advanced Sensors (3)
Extra Munitions (2)
Conner Net (4)
Cluster Mines (4)
Experimental Interface (3)

Total: 37

You can Move -> Boost -> (EI)Bomb, or (AS)Boost -> (EI)Bomb -> Move. EI is unique though so only running one of these, so not really a "list". Doesn't require the points in the UPS for Coordinate, but then again, there are some things you could try with coord that you cannot do with AS and EI.

I fly Deathfire very often, but not what I would call a "bombing list"; just another addition to my list and it is used to put damage on those high evade ships by barrel rolling over and dropping unavoidable damage on top of them at PS3 during the Activation phase. Love, love, love me some Deathfire.

Sabine(crew) is really the elephant in the room when comparing Rebel, Imp and S&V capabilities. The additional damage she adds is ridiculously effective for her cost, let alone allowing any crew carrier to be a bomber (bonus if they have a torp slot for EM).

The K-Wing is also hands down a superior platform with its ability to Adv Slam. Boost just doesn't come anywhere near as flexible on the table. The turret is just a twist of the knife. Removing the unique from EI may help, but probably less disrupting would be to create a non-unique Punisher Only mod that does similar to allow for more than one to allow a "bombing list", preferably one that allows additional modification (like Snugglers) so you can use LWF. Lacking the punch of a Sabine list, I'm not sure if an all bomber list would be feasible.

I totally agree on Deathfire. He's great, but really about adding some quality cheap bombing elements to a list.

Sabine crew is why I think you can't go whole-hog on bombs, and need to diversify a little.

NM, brain fart

I think in your list example, I would use 2 of my 8 points to upgrade to Major Stridan. That way you could coordinate out to range 3. If you wanted to go all out on the shuttle (no ordnance on either Punisher) then I would use Kylo Ren Shuttle (2pts) and Systems Officer (2pts) (free TL out to range 3 with a green move -yes please!) and then maybe a cheap tech slot, most likely Pattern Analyser, to slow you to Coordinate on turns you red maneuver (1 turn or 0stop) That would be all 8 points, but worth it, I think.