3-4 rounds is pretty common for non-regional tournies (i.e. theres at most 20 of us). Only reason we BOTH went undefeated is in the 3rd round he finally lost Dengar, worth ~60 something points, and i had only lost 1 striker for 25pts so somehow the matching system didnt pair us. There were 2 others that were undefeated until the last round and no final cuts, the points dictated everything.

Its difficult for me to travel, so unless Sparta Games in Omaha, NE hosts one i can never get there. And unfortunately local tournies tend to favor this stupid point system instead of the usual final cut style tournaments.

2 hours ago, Vineheart01 said:

For ref, that list was:

Imperial Snappy Specialists

SnapBlack 16x4
Snapshot (2)

Major Rhymer 36
Snapshot (2)
Hull Upgrade (3)
TIE Shuttle (0)
OpSpec (3)
Tactician (2)

Total: 100

This is pretty sweet I'm going to try it next time I play. Thanks for sharing.

What about swapping the Hull upgrade for a lightweight frame? Seems like if you get two evades it will pay for itself.

Edit: Also with that switch it frees a point to change Tactician to Rebel Captive. I know it's less stress per round, but doesn't carry the R2 restriction and may help to prevent a shot or 2.

Because it messes with R3/obstructed bonuses and personally i almost never get anything out of it. I roll it the way you are suppose to (initial agility, then roll extra die from LWF) and it is almost ALWAYS a blank. In fact last night i ran a double SF + a striker list and all 3 had LWF - not a single bonus die was an evade and the few focus i got was when i didnt have a focus to spend.

ive gotten to the point where i hate that upgrade. Initially i thought it was good, but im not joking ive been keeping track of how efficient it is vs Mk2 engines on say my SFs. The amount of times i use a green 3bank after a red move is staggering (at least 2 times a game), while the extra green actually helping me is like once every other game at best.

Personal bias? probably, it is after all strictly and solidly luck based. I have the same issues with SD tbh, though that stacks with R3/Obstructed so its less noticable. The 7th hull guarantees you cant kill him in one round both due to the R2 no-fly zone and unless i draw multiple double damages NOBODY hits that hard, and i find bombers of any sort after the initial joust tend to live for quite awhile.

Do you not rate rebel captive? Is that double stress often? I would think he is the red dice magnet and that Tactician range 2 double stress doesn't happen more than twice a game. Unless you build a TIE wall to self bump and keep him at range.

21 minutes ago, Rolotamasi said:

Do you not rate rebel captive? Is that double stress often? I would think he is the red dice magnet and that Tactician range 2 double stress doesn't happen more than twice a game. Unless you build a TIE wall to self bump and keep him at range.

Eh, point well taken. I love Rebel Captive, people tend to put too much effort in avoiding that thing if they can help it so usually when i put it on something it just runs around totally unscathed.

The TIE wall is actually exactly what i do. I set up in a 2by2 facing left on the right side of the board. If you deploy straight down from me, i do a bunch of turns to end up in a single line of 4 TIEs. If you set up opposite, i just fly forward a turn then do the same idea. Bomber tends to bump when im doing this but im nowhere near combat yet anyway, usually he doesnt bump when i engage since he has a 1fwd, TIEs dont. In about 10 practice games and the 4 rounds in that tournament i took that list to, i never had someone get by Rhymer without getting nailed by 3-4 snapshots instead. Which, by nature of the list, means i either did a ton of damage to you OR you just gave me 3-4 free focus to hit you at Range1 with or stack with my evade on defense. And due to the wall, you cant boost/barrelroll past me because another TIE is in the way.

Usually i reserve Rebel captive for decimators, UPS/Lambda, or Tomax shuttles. To this day i have yet to fine another ship as fun as the Tomax Stressboat...its horribly inefficient and dumb but its hilarious lol (Tomax w/ Lightning Reflexes, Mk2 Engines, Shuttle, Tactician, Rebel Captive = I TURN EVERY ROUND AND STRESS YOU HOW YOU LIKE IT!? lol)

edit: apparently i deleted the amount of times i doublestress revising my response. USUALLY i only get that on the initial joust, getting several R2 shots after i move but not snapshots afterwords. Its more to counter people like Fenn that want to dive into my TIEball and mess with me than it is doublestressing. And so far every time ive tagged a Fenn trying to do that, he died that round.

The TIE swarm is in a very healthy place at the moment. There are a lot of action dependent ships in the meta, and blocking is the most under-appreciated tactic in X Wing. Plus, swarm leader and is HUGE! I will say that Quickdraw is my go-to with Swarm leader at the moment. The ability to double tap and drop 10-12 dice on a target is just brutal. She one-shotted Bossk on turn 2 in a vassal league game this season, and Ketsu was killed the next turn. I have never 100-0'd someone on turn 3 before. It felt dirty, but the ability to block to deny actions and then still use that ship's evade token to feed swarm leader is a beautiful thing. I've also heard of people using Zeta Leader with Swarm Leader to great effect, and Omega Ace would be a decent platform as well. Low agility ships and 2 ship lists are very common at the moment, and they're exactly what a TIE swarm wants to see across the table.

Yeah, Bossk has the ability to nuke a TIE in one shot, but he also has a horrible dial and a large base. Block him turn after turn and you will be fine. He should only get modifications from K4, which is going to hurt if he has a homing missile, and guidance chips, but that is his only one, so you should be fine after that. Miranda is a tougher nut to crack, especially if she is the bombing flavor and she starts the game running away from you. I had a really rough match against Mirandash this season, and I don't see that changing any time soon. Honestly though, triple squints or palp soontir carnor were my dreaded lists when I was flying my 8 tie swarm, and now those are extinct, so life is good! Defenders are also tough to deal with, and those are much rarer these days as well.

I was doing some math for the snap-shot swarm, and instead of Rhymer I looked at taking another Black and Mauler Mithel with snap shot.

5x Black squadron with Snapshot

Mauler Mithel with Snapshot

99 points

In the rare event that you get all 6 ships in range one of an enemy, you are rolling 32 dice in one turn. I cannot think of another list that can roll that many dice in one turn, and I imagine that a ghost or decimator would be shaking in their boots if they saw this on the other side of the board.

I have had very good luck with my standard Crack TIE list. I have been using:

Howlrunner w/ Crack Shot

Mauler Mithel w/ Crack Shot

Scourge w/ Crack Shot

3x Black Squadron w/ Crack Shot

100 Points

It has served me well running Scourge and Mauler Mithel outside of the formation and using them as flankers and occasionally popping them close in to Howlrunner at weird angles to try and pull of their potentially four red dice shot.

4 hours ago, Gersun said:

The TIE swarm is in a very healthy place at the moment. There are a lot of action dependent ships in the meta, and blocking is the most under-appreciated tactic in X Wing. Plus, swarm leader and is HUGE! I will say that Quickdraw is my go-to with Swarm leader at the moment. The ability to double tap and drop 10-12 dice on a target is just brutal. She one-shotted Bossk on turn 2 in a vassal league game this season, and Ketsu was killed the next turn. I have never 100-0'd someone on turn 3 before. It felt dirty, but the ability to block to deny actions and then still use that ship's evade token to feed swarm leader is a beautiful thing. I've also heard of people using Zeta Leader with Swarm Leader to great effect, and Omega Ace would be a decent platform as well. Low agility ships and 2 ship lists are very common at the moment, and they're exactly what a TIE swarm wants to see across the table.

Yeah, Bossk has the ability to nuke a TIE in one shot, but he also has a horrible dial and a large base. Block him turn after turn and you will be fine. He should only get modifications from K4, which is going to hurt if he has a homing missile, and guidance chips, but that is his only one, so you should be fine after that. Miranda is a tougher nut to crack, especially if she is the bombing flavor and she starts the game running away from you. I had a really rough match against Mirandash this season, and I don't see that changing any time soon. Honestly though, triple squints or palp soontir carnor were my dreaded lists when I was flying my 8 tie swarm, and now those are extinct, so life is good! Defenders are also tough to deal with, and those are much rarer these days as well.

I was doing some math for the snap-shot swarm, and instead of Rhymer I looked at taking another Black and Mauler Mithel with snap shot.

5x Black squadron with Snapshot

Mauler Mithel with Snapshot

99 points

In the rare event that you get all 6 ships in range one of an enemy, you are rolling 32 dice in one turn. I cannot think of another list that can roll that many dice in one turn, and I imagine that a ghost or decimator would be shaking in their boots if they saw this on the other side of the board.

Most likely any ghost or decimator that sees this list across the board will be flying away from it anyway so snapshot won't bother them

I think swarms which was the premier jouster has been out done by the kill heavy meta. There are just too many things that can knock out a 3 hull or 2 hull & 2 shield ship in a single attack, even one hiding behind 3 green dice.

Just like how we had the Fat Turret evolved into the TLT list and the Arc-Dodger evolved into the Palp Defender, my theory is that Swarm could evolve into an equally powerful jouster list with an alpha strike list.

So we move from fat turret, arc-dodger, swarm into probable damage, survival, alpha strike. That seems like the natural progress for the meta.

what is in which faq that makes swarms better again?

Making the things that murder them horribly, worse. In particular, bringing /x7 and Manaroo down a peg.

ah, ok. I get that. feared I had missed a FAQ.

Been thinking about flying my Swarm again... The only problem for me personally is everyone at my store has seen my fly it before, a lot. So it won't catch anyone off guard. That's why I'm thinking about this.

Omega squadron pilot x5

Crackshot

Weapons guidance.

edited: only 5!

3 hours ago, Sir Orrin said:

Been thinking about flying my Swarm again... The only problem for me personally is everyone at my store has seen my fly it before, a lot. So it won't catch anyone off guard. That's why I'm thinking about this.

Omega squadron pilot x6

Crackshot

Weapons guidance.

Totally OP, fitting 6 20 pt ships in a standard list. Very sneaky.

On 3/30/2017 at 10:55 AM, Stay On The Leader said:

What drove Swarms out was /x7. However what rose up to beat /x7, like big attacks from Bossk/Miranda or the bombing Ks and Kanan all give swarms a hard time as well. If you hit hard enough to damage Ryad you're also hitting hard enough to one-shot Howlrunner.

Well first, that wasn't particularly uncommon before this meta, I think if you don't need to fit howlrunner, you probably shouldn't. Like the omega leader version of crack swarm is a great example, or maybe one of these 5 ship swarm ideas.

You also have to consider that the meta is shifting right now, those super heavy attack lists lose some necessity now there are not as tough of ships around. With miranda and dash and kylo rac, there are many ways to best those lists. What we are seeing is jumpmaster builds which all don't want to be bumped, and these rebel lists that have one or two green dice. Kanan ghost which is powerful but hates to bump, but as I said I feel the meta has not settled yet,with only having a couple major tournaments since the nerf.

So can the swarm return...I think it's possible, but people need to actually get brave and take it to some major events to really see its potential

3 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

Totally OP, fitting 6 20 pt ships in a standard list. Very sneaky.

hehe, so used to having 6 TIEs. still a decent list with 5 I think, I'm gonna try it out sometime.

Usually i find tie/fo's to be too expensive unless its brought for a specific purpose. I use Omega Ace/Leader and Zeta Leader quite a bit but usually theyre the only FO in the list. I've tried to use Zeta Ace (2speed barrelrolls) but in truth that is a lame ability, i cant recall ever wanting to use it even deliberately TRYING to get an advantageous position with it (2turn into a longroll to end up at your side, i was always close enough to use the 1speed anyway)

I've never used the FO generics. Tried to, made several lists trying to find a way to use them since i got 4 of the buggers, but every time i build a list they feel like im putting too much into their frame than im going to get out unless its JUST OA/OL/ZL in the list, not even multiple choices of those 3 seem to feel like they'd do anything to me.

On 3/30/2017 at 1:55 PM, Stay On The Leader said:

If you hit hard enough to damage Ryad you're also hitting hard enough to one-shot Howlrunner.

A rookie X wing can one shot howlrunner.

4 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Usually i find tie/fo's to be too expensive unless its brought for a specific purpose. I use Omega Ace/Leader and Zeta Leader quite a bit but usually theyre the only FO in the list. I've tried to use Zeta Ace (2speed barrelrolls) but in truth that is a lame ability, i cant recall ever wanting to use it even deliberately TRYING to get an advantageous position with it (2turn into a longroll to end up at your side, i was always close enough to use the 1speed anyway)

I've never used the FO generics. Tried to, made several lists trying to find a way to use them since i got 4 of the buggers, but every time i build a list they feel like im putting too much into their frame than im going to get out unless its JUST OA/OL/ZL in the list, not even multiple choices of those 3 seem to feel like they'd do anything to me.

I'm not sure, I heard an FO weapons guidance swarm won a regional or somthing. I'm thinking with Crackshot, plus a focus that can change a focus or a blank result, would make a good offensive FO.

4 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

A rookie X wing can one shot howlrunner.

A HWK can instakill Howlrunner with a primary weapon. All you need is to roll a crit and have Howlrunner blank out. Then he draws a major explosion, rolls a hit and draws a direct hit. Voila!

What? Not likely? Yeah well, that's kinda the point isn't it? There are quite a few lists right now that can take out TIE/ins quite reliably, without the need for obscene amount of luck. And if they do start going down quickly enough swarm's just not gonna work. In theory TIEs going down to one-shots were always possible, just unlikely. Right now this isn't quite the case, which is why swarms aren't quite as popular as they used to be.

24 minutes ago, Lightrock said:

A HWK can instakill Howlrunner with a primary weapon. All you need is to roll a crit and have Howlrunner blank out. Then he draws a major explosion, rolls a hit and draws a direct hit. Voila!

What? Not likely? Yeah well, that's kinda the point isn't it? There are quite a few lists right now that can take out TIE/ins quite reliably, without the need for obscene amount of luck. And if they do start going down quickly enough swarm's just not gonna work. In theory TIEs going down to one-shots were always possible, just unlikely. Right now this isn't quite the case, which is why swarms aren't quite as popular as they used to be.

That's why I want to try my 5 FO list, they are a little more beefy. A little... Also I've flow First Order lists at all my local tournaments this year, want to keep it going.