I have about ten games under my belt, playing strictly Imperial lists, and found most of my opponents "lock up" when faced with swarms, and I've a list that's intended for casual, noncompetitive 1-on-1 dogfights, and I'd like to get some general advice on strategy.

"Howlrunner" with Swarm Tactics

2x Obsidian Sqdn Pilots

3x Omega Sqdn Pilots, each with Wired

My opponents vary, predominantly Rebel.

Thanks in advance for your insight/input.

There are plenty of articles out there like General Maneuvring and More advanced theory.

Googling will find you tons of stuff about flying these. Your list looks solid enough! I always found the secret to swarms was knowing when to split up and when to stick together.

I have limited experience with swarms, but I'll jump in anyhow.

My experience has been that it's easiest (at least as a beginning swarmer) to fly them in squads - two or three TIEs sort of linked. Keep them separated on deployment and sort of slow roll until you see where your primary target is headed, and then converge. And after that, every TIE still alive goes his or her separate way, full swarm style rather than formation style. Expect to see a TIE downed every round, depending again on the opponent's list. In my experience, Crack Shot is a TIE swarm's best friend; just make sure to USE it before they pop, ha ha. First shot, generally, or they maybe don't get to use it all. And Howlrunner will be everybody's first target, so plan accordingly. Maybe don't put any EPT on her, since you likely won't see it get used very much.

I usually run a four TIE mini-swarm with a couple of cheap and cheerful bombers or an Ace. That gives my opponent someone to focus on, and lets the mini-swarm get to work. But at the end of the dogfight, they are TIEs, and hugely susceptible to their green dice. I have a good time flying them, every time. But yeah, casual for me, for a swarm. Fly casual!

Generics with Crack Shot. If not Crack Shot, then Juke. Unless using Juke, Focus is your best action.

If you're going to fly Generics without EPT's, then fly the cheap stuff. Academies instead of Obsidians so you can block anything and spend the points elsewhere. Knock your Obsidians down to Academies and change Howlrunner's EPT to Crack Shot or another 1-pointer. Then you can put Primed Thrusters on all your Omegas. Primed Thrusters works tandem with Wired.

one really fun one is Youngster w/ rage and a bunch of obsidians w/ wired and mk.ii engines

Pretty oldscool list there. If your opponent does not have a lot of experience either, a Swarm is pretty good. Swarms are not really in the meta anymore because they just fail to deal damage to certain high-agility tokenstacking builds and tend to get get arc-dodged until they are nomore.

If you play against someone more experienced he will know how to beat a swarm reliably.

You could probably optimize your list by giving as many of them Crack shot as possible.

On 3/18/2017 at 4:09 AM, Estarriol said:

There are plenty of articles out there like General Maneuvring and More advanced theory.

Googling will find you tons of stuff about flying these. Your list looks solid enough! I always found the secret to swarms was knowing when to split up and when to stick together.

I appreciate this, however I can't access Advanced Theory without logging in. Got another link? I loathe the idea of yet another screen name/password...

Other than that, the General Maneuvering has been a boon.